Contra Sabellianos

Of our holy father Athanasius, On the eternal existence of the Son and the Spirit with God, and against the Sabellians. Judaism is opposed to Hellenism, and neither is pious, but both are outside the truth. For Babylonians have warred against Egyptians, and many other impious men have been set against the impious. It is not sufficient, therefore, to resist impiety, unless the resistance to impiety occurs for the sake of piety. The Jews have many great things to say against the idolaters, and they speak justly in accusing them of worshipping the creation instead of the creator. But because they refute impiety, they will not for that reason be confessed to be pious, denying the Son of God, through whom all things have come to be, and accusing those who through him worship the Father of polytheism. For this reason we have come out from the Greeks, and have been separated, so as not to be mingled with the unclean idolatries; and we have come out also from the blasphemy of the Jews, confessing the Son of God, and fleeing the destructive denial of our Lord, who says: "Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father in heaven." And we confess the Son from the Father, and always with the Father, believing him who says and promises:

Anyone who would confess me before men, I also will confess before my Father in heaven. Seeing this example, we have now been alienated from those who Hellenize under the name of Christianity, who dare to theologize and worship the work of God. We separate also from those who Judaize and corrupt Christianity into Judaism; who, denying the God from God, say there is one God similarly to the Jews—not because he alone is unbegotten and alone the source of divinity, and for this reason they claim he is the only God, but as one barren of a Son and fruitless of a living Word and true wisdom. For they consider the Word of God to be like the word from a man's heart, and wisdom like that in the soul; and therefore they say that God together with the Word is one person, just as a man together with his own word is one man, glorifying nothing more than the Jews, who did not accept the evangelist who cries out from the beginning: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." For if God has a Word in his heart not truly begotten from him as God from God, how could the Word be with God? And how could it be God? For the word of a man is not a man with respect to man, since it is neither living nor subsistent, but only a movement of a living and subsistent heart; and it is spoken immediately, and it is not, and often spoken it never endures. But the psalmist cried out from above concerning the Word of God, saying:

Your Word, O Lord, abides in heaven forever.” And in agreement with him is the evangelist who confesses the Word to be God, proclaims that he was manifested, indicates that he arrived, and preaches that he became flesh, not including the Father in the Word’s incarnation: “The Word,” he says, “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an Only-begotten from a Father, full of grace and truth.” You see the Word, being Only-begotten, manifested in the world, dwelling among men, glory proclaimed for him as of an Only-begotten from a Father, not as though he were his own Father, nor as though the Father appeared together with the Word, as a man appears together with his own word, and it is not possible for the word to appear unless the speaker who utters it is also present and speaks. Whom then do we believe? Those who proclaim to us a Son who has come from a Father, or those who assert that the Father is one person together with the Word? For if they are one person, how is it that one sends and the other is sent, and he is seen through flesh? “For no one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he explained,” and having arrived, he himself speaks with his holy voice, providing his own contemplation, and through this setting forth the knowledge of the Father: “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” not claiming that he himself is the Father—for how could he, the invisible one?—but such as the Father; for he had said earlier, “If you had known me, you would also know my Father,” explaining to us directly the duality of persons, recognized by an unalterable divinity.

Therefore, the one who is deemed worthy of the contemplation of the Son is not deprived of the Father. For the begetter did not beget something different, but such as he himself is. If, then, you think that there is only one thing, while in truth there are two, you are ignorant of the Father and the Son. What communion, then, do you have with the ecclesiastical teaching? And how will you receive the words of the Lord, who says, "I and the Father are one"? And again, speaking about the Father, he says, "I am from him, and he sent me"; and he adds a third: "I," he says, "will call upon my Father, and he will give you another Paraclete." When, therefore, he says concerning himself, "I," and concerning the Father, "He," and concerning the Spirit, "another," how is it not a clear apostasy to deny the three and to say that only one exists, when he who says, "I am not alone, because the Father who sent me is with me"? He also uses a legal expression, and through this he presents both himself and the Father as two: "For in your law," he says, "it is written that the testimony of two men is true; I," he says, "am the one testifying about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me." For behold, there are two persons, and if you do not say that they are two in truth, by saying this you do not allow the testimony, which is true, to stand. For this confirms the testimony, that it is not made by one alone, but by two. For the Father has testified from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son"; and the Son of God, the only-begotten Son, testifies, and he has clearly conversed with the Father in the hearing of men, saying:

I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for such was the good pleasure before you. All things were delivered to me by my Father. But what do the servants of the Jewish denial say in defense of this, so as not to be clearly refuted as acting contrary to the Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so that two hypostases appear, one the Father God, and the other the Son a man? Shame on such impiety! And how does this differ from the argument of Samosatenus? Let them say how a man dares to utter these things about himself: "He who has seen me has seen the Father"? And how does the evangelist testify, when he speaks these things, that he called God his own Father, making himself equal to God? Not a man is equal to God, but the God from God will be equal to the begetter according to nature, as Paul also testifies, not concerning the incarnation, but explaining the things before the incarnation: "Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God." We know that the Savior often speaks in a human manner; but not when he says: "I am the one who bears witness concerning myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness concerning me." For it is not a man who was sent into the world, who says:

I came forth from the Father and I am here," he says. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life," he says. "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me." But if you wish to hear him in a human way, fittingly to the visible form in the flesh and to the mere humanity supposed by those who hear, listen to him saying, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true," according to the fact that a man testifying about himself is not credible nor considered trustworthy. But when he says, "Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, because I know whence I come and whither I go." Then, numbering the Father and himself, he says there are two witnesses concerning his glory; he does not speak in human terms, but beyond all human worth—and what am I saying, human?—beyond angelic, beyond principalities, beyond powers, beyond lordships. For what is the enumeration together of a man and God? What closeness or what communion? But saying, "I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth," he seems to you to be a man, rightly; for the divinity that has come into the world has the human element mixed in. But do not, because of the veil of the flesh, be ignorant of God, who immediately adds concerning himself and declares, "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and to whomever the Son wishes to reveal. Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take up my yoke upon yourselves, and learn from me that I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is kind and my burden is light." The Lord has shut off your slander for you, presenting himself as God and, even in human form, known only by the Father and knowing the Father, and revealing his own knowledge and that of the Father to those deemed worthy; he calls us to himself, promising rest with himself, and urging us to bear his yoke. In saying these things, he lays aside the divinity, interprets the hidden transcendent greatness through the small form, and displays the supercelestial authority veiled by an earthly body. And why need I enumerate the countless divine utterances of our Lord Jesus Christ? Through them the innovation of the Samosatene concerning the Savior, as if he were a mere man, is rightly cast out, and the irrational nonsense of those who imitate him is also cast out. For come, let us recall a few testimonies: who is it that says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven?" It is not a human utterance, but that of God, showing his genuine generation from the Father, and therefore not denying the lordship concerning himself. For the Lord is the one born of the only Lord, as it is also said by Moses: "The Lord rained down sulfur and fire from the Lord." And at another time the Savior says to the apostles: "Call me the Teacher and the Lord, and you speak rightly.

I am. And again, making himself master of the paternal household, as a only-begotten Son: "If they called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more his household servants." Therefore, that the Lord of all, Jesus Christ, is God, as being born from God, is clear to everyone. And having said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven," he adds, clearly interpreting the Father for us: "But the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven." So you have the Son, you have the Father; do not fear the duality. For they are not separated in nature, nor does the one who speaks of the two alienate the offspring from the begetter. Nor, because of the other madness of those who denied that the divinity of the two is one, must one avoid speaking of two for that reason. There is one God, because there is one Father. And the Son is God, having identity as Son in relation to Father; not being himself the Father, but united with the Father in nature. Two in number, but being one perfect substance; two, not from two parts. The Son is perfect, having come from a perfect Father, being from being, a character of the paternal hypostasis, not a word without substance, but a living power, and the cause of life for all, not like the power of a man, through which a man is powerful; for he is not a product of a man, or a son, or his power. But the Son of God is power, so that the Father is perfectly powerful, because he is Father of power, and the Son is perfect power, because he is his offspring. And the Son is wisdom of the Father, but not as that of a man, through which a man is wise, but wisdom from a wise one; concerning which it is said:

To the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory forever, amen." But the Father did not beget. How then is He Father, and of whom? But if He did beget, the one who is is the one who was begotten. And I, he says, confess a begetting; for the Word is begotten when it is spoken and known. And how many times, tell me, will the same one be begotten? Or will you say that there are many Words of God begotten each time? And will you sometimes imagine God silent, sometimes speaking, and changing from silence to speech, with lips opening or heart stirring? God is not a man. You supposed, lawless one, that God would be like you? O man, even if you hear of God's eyes, or of other bodily members, do not think carnally; but through the likeness of bodily things conceive of the incorporeal. For it has been said to you: God is Spirit. So also the Word is not human, nor like yours; for He is God, even if it does not seem so to you, and there are not two Gods, because there are not two Fathers, nor is the begotten one of a different essence from the one who begot. For he who introduces two principles proclaims two Gods. This is the impiety of Marcion, who says that the just God is the Father of his own Christ, and that another good God is the Father of his own Christ. Again, he who says that God is unbegotten, and that another God is begotten, also speaks of two Gods, because of the difference of essence which he blasphemously introduces. But where the principle is one, and the offspring from it is one, a most exact and natural image—because it is also begotten from it—there is one God, the divinity being understood as complete in the Father, and the Father's divinity also existing complete in the Son.

Since even through this small example, which divine Scripture has set forth, naming Christ the image of the invisible God, you can understand what is being said. Let us again flee here the dissimilarity in the example—that the image of God is a craftsman and of a different substance—but let us confess it to be begotten and consubstantial. Nevertheless, then, he who sees the image of the king sees the king, and says, "Behold, this is the king," and he does not make two kings, nor does he make the image a part of the king, or the king a part of the image. Thus, then, one God is the Father, and one divinity of Father and Son. But as you say, there will be one composite from two incomplete parts. Against this impiety it is good to close the ears and wash the soul; for he who imagines this confesses neither Son nor Father, since it is not possible to conceive of either Father or Son as incomplete. But it is said, he says, "That I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." Yet the Father is not a Word in the heart of the Son; therefore neither is the Son a Word in the heart of the Father, but a living Word from a living Father God, manifested by eternal generation, co-existing without beginning with the Father, so that the Father is never conceived alone. For the Trinity is always the Trinity, and it receives no addition of divinity. Nor is the Son, who was not previously with the Father, added later, nor does the Spirit come upon the Son subsequently. For things generated from some beginning are also works and slaves, and are in no way numbered with the Trinity.

For," he says, "go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." He did not count together either one beginning, or authority, or power; for it is impossible for things that are not eternal to be numbered with the eternal, and things that do not partake of divinity are not ranked with the divinity. How then is the begotten in the one who begot? and again, the begetter in the offspring? How is this one in that one, and that one in this one? Because this one is such as that one is, and that one is such as this one is. Thus the two are one, in that the Son does not differ, is not separated, nor is conceived according to a different form and foreign character, but is God, just as the Father is. Since even when he said, "I and the Father are one," the Jews were indignant, saying, "That you, being a man, make yourself God." And the Savior answered, confirming what they had said, as having indicated nothing other than this in declaring, "I and the Father are one," that he himself is also God, being Son of God: "If he called those gods to whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be undone; whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you say, 'That you blaspheme; because I said that I am the Son of God; if I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do, even if you do not wish to believe me, believe the works.'

so that you may know and understand that "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." Therefore, for the Son to be in the Father and the Father in the Son is nothing other than this: the Son is of God, born from God, being God by nature, which the Father is, and displaying the paternal form in himself, and being displayed upon the paternal hypostasis. Thus, one and one, and the dyad is not divided in nature, being without need in perfection: the Father is the whole fullness of divinity as Father, and the Son is the whole fullness of divinity as Son. Since through both one form is conceived, shown completely in both. Let no one deny the life manifested in the world: "Which was," he says, "with the Father, and was manifested to us." And before the manifestation, it was deemed to be this, when it has been manifested. For it was born eternally, and exists with its own Father. Let no one, by denying the three, think to find the monad; but in the Trinity let him conceive the one, holding the summary of the faith in baptism, and in the three holy seals, through which he has been reborn to salvation, remembering the Apostle saying: "One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things;" remembering the Father saying: "From the womb before the morning star I begot you," and the Son testifying that he was before the world with the Father, having the glory of divinity: "Glorify me," he says, "Father, with yourself in the glory which I had, before the world existed, with you;" asking for glory according to man, while testifying that he had it according to God before the world.

He had glory, being and existing; for that which does not exist has not been glorified. But if He was, He was also begotten; for there is no Son who is not begotten. But if He is begotten, they say, He is outside the one who begot Him, and is separated; but the Word, being in God, must be indivisible, and not appear outside God. For where could He appear outside, when all things are filled by God, according to the Scripture: "I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord?" With such fancies they attempt to do away with the generation of the Son, and the eternal procession from the Father, and His existence with the Father, and the fact that the Father subsists perfectly in Himself, and the Son also subsists perfectly in Himself. Let them learn, then, that they understand "neither what they say, nor what they affirm," circumscribing God by place, and again imagining the Son in another place, and thinking them divided, one there and the other here, if the Son is confessed to be begotten and to have appeared in Himself from the Father. "What is the place of my rest?" says God through the prophet. "The heaven and the heaven of heaven will not suffice for you," Solomon says to God, with the greatest proof persuading men that no place is receptive of Him. "For my hand," He says, "made all these things." Therefore the things made do not contain the maker, who is also before

of these, and provides them with being, and is supported by the very power of the one who made it. Therefore Paul says: "From whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and into whom are all things;" and again: "For in him we live, and move, and have our being." Remove for me, then, the one fixed in place when you think about God, and the Word, and the Spirit; remove local separations, and do not suspect that the Father is elsewhere, but that the Son is sent forth elsewhere from begetting. For these false, or rather even godless, reasonings cause you to stumble concerning the existence of the Son. And with the Son, the Holy Spirit is also denied by you, because all things are held beforehand by the one Father. Do not seek such a magnitude of place as will be able to contain the magnitude of God; for the immeasurable is not in the measured, but with his span he measures the heaven, as the prophet interprets figuratively; and he has measured the water with his hand, and the whole earth with his fist. For one to whom all things are so small, as the prophetic figure moderately indicates, how would he seem to be co-extended with the small and least creation? God has filled all things not by being co-extended with them; for that is corporeal, as if one were to say that the air between earth and heaven has been filled; but as a power he holds all things together; for power is incorporeal, invisible, not encircling, not encircled. The same is true also concerning the Son, and concerning the Holy Spirit; for through the Son and in the Spirit, God has both constituted all things, and, holding them together, preserves them.

It is impious, therefore, both to ask and to conceive where God is, or what place the Word has obtained, or what dwelling the Spirit has been allotted. But if someone should say that the Son does not exist and has not been generated because the place of his essence is inconceivable and undiscoverable, such a person would also deny that the Father exists at all, or that God subsists, since no place of God is found either. "The fool said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Truly foolish are such people, deceiving themselves with empty fantasies; their words are those of infants and utterly senseless persons who wish to grasp the incorporeal with the eye and to encompass it with place. Let us grant them some brief images from among possible incorporeal things, recalling certain matters which exist among us and are evident in creation, so that perhaps through these they might ascend and somehow conceive the incorporeality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and no longer imagine places for them, nor devise local divisions of the Trinity. The law, being incorporeal and spiritual, exists in the mind of the one learned in the law; and in the same mind also are the prophets, Gospels, and apostles; and it is said concerning the legal and prophetic words, "They have Moses and the prophets." And the Savior says that the one who has both old and new words in his own mind is like a householder who brings forth new and old from his treasury. The mind of Moses received all Egyptian wisdom as well as that given to him by God.

And Daniel, having received all the wisdom of the Chaldeans, also contained the varied conceptions of divine wisdom, which God signifies through Ezekiel: "Are you not wiser than Daniel? Was not every hidden thing revealed to you?" The wisdom of Solomon is also countless, and the outpouring of his heart like the sand by the sea. Seeing such a multitude of wisdoms around a single mind, let them consider that these are not in a place. For how great a man in size would suffice to receive so many, if he held each of his thoughts in separate places? Therefore, since these spiritual things here do not require many places, being many, but revolve around one and the same mind, let us conceive also of things above us, and being in themselves incorporeal—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—as not needing places, nor being divided by places; and let no one dare to suppose, because of this, that either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit is non-existent; for it is not possible to assign a place and

to assign to each. But the Father exists, having his being perfect and without deficiency, root and source of the Son and the Spirit; and the Son exists in full divinity, living Word, and offspring of the Father, lacking nothing; and the Spirit too is full from the Son, not a part of another, but complete in itself. And thus the Trinity, truly existing, is conjoined without separation. For nothing divides it, and it coexists eternally; for no age intervenes between. And it displays one and the same form, the Father being seen in the Son, and the Son being both understood and participated in through the Spirit by man. "For we," he says, "all reflecting the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed from glory to glory into the same image, just as from the Lord's spirit." Let us not, therefore, imagine three as if they were indivisible parts of a body. For that thought is impious, alien to perfect incorporeal beings. Let us accept an indivisible communion of those that coexist without separation, and, with three truly subsisting, let us conceive one form, beginning from the Father, shining in the Son, and manifested through the Spirit. For this reason, those who bear the Spirit also bear Christ: "For if anyone," he says, "does not have the Spirit of Christ, that one is not his. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin," and so on. And John says: "From this we know that he is in us, from the Spirit which he gave us." And Paul calls our bodies a temple of the Holy Spirit, and says that Christ is in us. And with Christ dwelling in our inner man, according to what is written, God dwells in us.

Do you not know," he says, "that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" Thus learn from the divine words the pious understanding of the indivisibility of the Godhead, perceiving one form in three, not composing one thing from three. And these are inseparable also in the things observed in activity, hearing the Apostle initiating and declaring: "There are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God who works all things in all." And after listing the gifts he adds: "All these things the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as it wills." But when all things are worked by God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, I see an inseparable activity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But I do not, by intertwining the from which, and through which, and in which, force the Trinity to become a monad; nor do I, suspecting a composite human being from three—spirit, soul, body—likewise think of God, as those men dare, nor do I put forward the inseparable on such an impious suspicion. Nor if one were to speak of the internal word, or the word in voice of the one thinking and speaking as inseparable, do I so speak of the Son and the Spirit in relation to the Father. For the parts of a composite, and the movements of a moved thing, have no communion with the uncompounded and unchangeable nature. For how then does the Father send the part or the movement of himself, when sending the Son? Or the Son send out the Holy Spirit into the world? Or was the Son not sent by the Father?

He protests everywhere, and promises to send the Paraclete Spirit, and indeed sends it according to the promise. But those who make the Trinity a unity attempt to adulterate the sending, just as they do the generation. For they say that the Son, being within the Father, works the sanctification of man, that is, that the one and only God himself was sent as man, not God from God. For how, they say, was the Word sent, being neither divided nor separated from that whose Word he is? That the incarnation of the Word has been proclaimed, who would deny? For the Evangelist cries out, "The Word became flesh," and that he came down from heaven, the Savior himself has cried out, not once but many times. And indeed, that our Lord Jesus Christ is not a man, the Apostle Paul insists to the Galatians. But even if he is a man homonymous with us, a second man, and not like the first earth-born, and the one is a living soul, the other a life-giving Spirit.

These are divine and apostolic words and doctrines, and the deeds performed with heavenly authority bear witness to the divinity, when he commands the elements, rebukes spirits, restores impairments by his power, heals diseases by his will, declares his authority, and does not conceal it; through him death is abolished, life and incorruption are illuminated, the ruined nature of humanity is created anew, the world is renewed through his presence, and a new creation appears through the resurrection of Christ, as the body of our humiliation is transformed into conformity with the body of his glory, and the whole creation is freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. That the incarnate Lord and our God Jesus Christ is not the Father, nor, as they would say, the only God, all the divine Scriptures bear witness, proclaiming that the one who has come is the Son of God, and showing him always speaking about the Father, claiming to have come from the Father, and to return to the Father. And there is no need to lengthen the discourse by citing testimonies; for all the Gospels, so to speak, and the writings of the apostles tend toward this. They also raise other Greek objections against us and bring forward blasphemies from the Jews, mocking the mystery of the sending of the Word and the incarnation. For if he is sent and descends, they say, he will not be with the one who sends him, nor will he be present with the one remaining above.

Let them learn, then, not to hear "above" and "in the height" only in a bodily sense, but to conceive something more profound. For the phrases, "The Lord is high above all nations," and "I will exalt You, Lord," and "Praiseworthy and supremely exalted for ever," do not represent the Lord as being in some place or in the air, nor do they depict God as being lifted up by men, nor by others who hymn Him, but they call the majesty of the invisible divinity "height." And the one who says, "The heaven of heaven belongs to the Lord, but the earth He gave to the sons of men," does not assign heaven as a dwelling place to the Lord and earth to men, but displays the superiority and majesty of God. Therefore, when the august and majestic is said to be heavenly, and in contrast the lowly is said to be earthly and upon the earth, the descent of the Word is found to be the giving over of Himself from incorporeal majesty to the cheapness of the body, He having given Himself over to bodily form out of love for humanity and for the providential salvation of the whole. And He will be understood as having been sent in this sense, that by the ineffable will of the incorporeal Father He gave Himself to a body. Let not, then, the bodily terms—that is, the descent and the sending—be brought forward to deny His incarnation, on the ground that God does not descend locally nor is He sent; but let them hear the Apostle expressing the matter, and at the same time such analogies, when he says:

Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men." This was the descent, this the being sent into a garment more humble than his dignity, a descent the putting on of human form, accomplished according to the will of the Father. But if the Word is not circumscribed by place and body, he will not be separated from the bodiless Father because of his mixture with a body; for the body received him when he willed, as the fleshly nature is capable of receiving God. He remains no less in his own nature, even as before the incarnation. Thus the descent from heaven was not a change of place from heaven, nor was the sending a separation from the Father who sent him.