De trinitate

Therefore, the lawful Paul, wise in the divine spirit, guarantees that those who believe in the Son escape the charge concerning the opinion of the created gods. And he even calls "atheists" those who before this knew only God the Father apart from the Son, since he does not end in creations, writing in one place that "remember that you, the nations in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision in the flesh of a hand-made thing, were at that time without Christ, alienated from the hope of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and being atheists in the world." And in another place, "but then, not knowing God, you served gods that are not gods by nature—now, having known God, or rather having been known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and poor elements, to which you wish to serve again from the beginning?" Indeed, he considers the always new and never declining into old age saving proclamation of the elder law concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit and the ecclesiastical ordinance more excellent because of its perfection and because it has neither lawlessness troubling it nor anything better or greater that must be set before it in word or manner. For in this matter he writes that "I became" "persecuting the church out of zeal, becoming blameless according to the righteousness in the law; but what were gains to me, I have considered loss because of Christ. Indeed, I consider everything loss because of the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord, for whose sake I was deprived of everything and consider it rubbish, so that I might gain Christ." And to the Romans:

For if the one who is coming proclaims another Jesus, whom we did not proclaim, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive." But then, with what aim and with what thoughts of pure knowledge of God did he again write his own things: to the Corinthians, the second letter, that if someone is reconciled to the Son, he is reconciled to God, and that in Christ is the reconciliation of the world with God. And it says: "that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding their transgressions against them, and placing in us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we intercede on behalf of Christ as God exhorting through us. We pray on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God." And again, as if setting aside all other things, he proclaimed great things, boasting that even what seems shameful to Christ because of his philanthropic economy abounds in all glory and strength, I think doing this from the work, so that even the one who does not perceive the unbegotten, pure, and unchangeable divinity from the glorious passion might incur the charge of arrogance. And he said such things: "I judged that I knew nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and this one crucified." And to the Romans: "But the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." Through faith in the Son, he says, each person is justified by God. And to the Galatians: "Knowing that a person is not justified by works of the law unless through faith in Jesus Christ, and we believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no flesh will be justified.

He explains also elsewhere that "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new faith energized through love." Since the discourse deepens the meaning, it must be unfolded. He intends to teach, then, that the manifestation of Christ discovered a new and the only faith for all people, according to which it has left no room either for Judaism or for Hellenism. This could be understood also according to the saying: "Behold, the old things have passed away, all things have become new." And in order to sum up: he who knows God says that the law ceases, as if circumcision were not perfect. But the Son, the true and free light, has dawned for salvation and teaching for all; and he presents this, which is unknown to some of them, mystically, because of the lingering memory of polytheism from Egypt within them. Therefore, the venerable Son of God, attesting to his own nature the freedom from above and that creation is not, as it were, a sister—for everything brought forth and coming into being is a slave to its producer, and the created thing to its creator—says to Peter: "The kings of the earth, from whom do they take taxes or tribute? From their own sons or from strangers?" And when he answered, "From strangers," Jesus said to him: "Then the sons are free. But so that we may not scandalize them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; open its mouth, and you will find a stater. Take that and give it to them on behalf of me and you." So much concerning these matters. But they do not yet cease. Concerning those who mythologize that the Father made the Son for the service of creation.

Blasphemously counter-arguing and spinning tales, they say that the Father has made the Son, a most necessary being, to serve him in the creation of the remaining creatures, no longer understanding that this follows from their conjectural reasoning: envy, hesitation, and other material qualities. For it is necessary, presumably, to see these things as well. For if creating is good—as indeed it is good, and the sole proper and sole distinctive attribute of the divine, ungrudging nature, so that it might have someone by whom it is glorified—why did it not create everything through itself, but rather, as it were, hesitated? And if it is also a great thing for the creatures to be brought forth by the greater, since according to them the Father is greater than his own Son, the Word, did he begrudge those who glorify him the creation through himself? And if acting through an intermediary for what is produced is not entirely free from arrogance and powerlessness, the one who produces it through himself reveals greater glory than the one who does so through another. For what is not yet, obeying the commands of the one who always is, is brought to completion, receives appropriate measures, and lacks nothing in any respect—not only is the one who surpasses arrogant, but he would already be shown to be all that authority and unhindered power entail. And if Jesus says to the dead Lazarus, "Come forth," and to another, "Your sins are forgiven," and to another, "I command you, come out of him," but for God to do these things through another, according to their understanding, shows that God the Father, whose thoughts are of created gods, is such that the lawful Paul, wise in the divine spirit, guarantees to those who believe in the Son.

Furthermore, he calls "godless" those who before this recognized only God the Father apart from the Son, since he does not end with creations, writing in one place: "Remember that you, the nations, were once in the flesh, those called the uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision in the flesh of a hand-made thing, that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the hope of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and godless in the world." And in another place: "But then, not knowing God, you served things that are not gods by nature—now, having come to know God, or rather having been known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and poor elements, to which you wish to serve again from the beginning?" Yet indeed, he considers the ever-new saving proclamation of the elder law, which does not incline to old age, concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the ecclesiastical institution, to be more advanced because of its perfection and because it has neither lawlessness troubling it nor anything more beautiful or greater that must be set before it in word or manner. For indeed, in this matter he writes: "I became," "pursuing the church out of zeal, becoming blameless according to the righteousness in the law. But whatever gains I had, I considered these a loss because of Christ. Indeed, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom

I was deprived of everything and consider it all to be rubbish, so that I might gain Christ." And to the Romans: "For if the one who comes proclaims another Jesus, whom we did not proclaim, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive." Moreover, with regard to what he looked to and what thoughts he had, he wrote his own things again from pure knowledge of God: to the Corinthians, the second letter, that if someone is reconciled to the Son, he is reconciled to God, and that in Christ is the reconciliation of the world with God. And it says: "That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them, and placing in us the word of reconciliation. Therefore we intercede on behalf of Christ, as God exhorts through us. We pray on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God." And again, as if setting aside all other things, he proclaimed, boasting greatly that even what seemed to be shameful for Christ because of his philanthropic economy abounds in all glory and strength, I think doing this from experience, so that one who does not contemplate the unbegotten, pure, and immutable divinity from the glorious passion incurs a charge of arrogance. And he said such things: "I judged that I knew nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And to the Romans: "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." Through faith in the Son, he says, each person is justified by God. And to the Galatians:

Knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law unless through faith in Jesus Christ, we also believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no flesh will be justified." He also explains elsewhere that "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new faith activated through love." Since the discourse deepens the meaning, it must be unfolded. He intends to teach that the appearance of Christ discovered a new and the only faith for all men, according to which it has left no place for either Judaism or Hellenism. This could be understood also according to the saying: "Behold, the old things have passed away, all things have become new." And to sum up: he says that the one who knows God through the law ceases, as if circumcision were not perfect. But the true and free light, the Son, has shone forth for the salvation and teaching of all; and he demonstrates this, which is unknown to some of them mystically because of the ingrained memory of polytheism from Egypt in them. Therefore, the venerable Son of God, attesting to his own nature the freedom from above and that he does not have creation as a sister, as it were—for everything that has been brought forth and come into being is a slave to its producer, and the created thing is a creature of its creator—says to Peter: "From whom do the kings of the earth receive taxes or tribute? From their own sons or from strangers?" When he answered, "From strangers," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.

Lest we scandalize them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; open its mouth, and you will find a stater. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself." So much for these matters. But they do not yet cease. Concerning those who mythologize that the Father made the Son for the service of creation. Blasphemously arguing and mythologizing, they say that the Father made the Son as most necessary to serve him in the rest of the creatures, no longer understanding that this follows from their conjectural reasoning: envy and hesitation and other material things. For it is necessary, presumably, to see these things as well. For if creating is good—as indeed it is good and alone proper and alone exceptional to the divine, ungrudging nature, that it might have someone by whom it is glorified—why did it not create everything through itself, but rather, as it were, hesitated? And if it is also great for the creatures to be brought forth by the greater, if according to them the Father is greater than his own Son, the Logos, did he begrudge those who glorify him the creation through himself? And if

and it is not entirely free from pride and powerlessness to do through a mediator what is produced, since the one who produces it through himself reveals greater glory than the one who does so through another. For that which is not yet of the eternally existing obeys its nods, and as long as it is not yet completed, it receives appropriate measures, and it has no deficiency in anything; not only is the one who is superior proud, but already everything that would be shown to have authority and powerlessness would be shown. But if Jesus says to the dead Lazarus, "Come out," and to another, "Your sins are forgiven," and to another, "I command you, come out of him," then for them to have God do these things through another shows, according to their understanding, that God the Father, whose thoughts are actions, cannot accomplish everything through himself without the assistance of that one through whom or in whom he acts; and that the Son is like a lifeless instrument. How is it not a great thing to spit and, with hands outstretched, to oppose such wild blasphemies, and to withdraw, fearing lest one become liable before the divine tribunal for the sake of involuntary hearing? Concerning what the heretics say: "When was the Son begotten and the Spirit sent forth?" and the rest.

With so many and such clear proofs existing, and with Scripture admonishing "not to be carried away by various and strange teachings" but to flee "empty talk," the heterodox, being at a loss to establish the tenets of their religion from the Scriptures, and as if drunk, having their argument tossed about here and there on each point, put forward various sophisms composed for them with bad craft and much practiced, among which are these: "Therefore, are all things, he says, not from God?" To which it must be answered: but not generatively as the Son, nor processively as the Spirit of God, nor are they of such energies or deemed worthy of such conspicuous constitutions. Then: "When then was the Son begotten and the Spirit proceeded?" Then, when the Father was not begotten. For even if from him, yet not after him. And just as it is improper to seek in place, since neither the begetter nor the begotten is circumscribed, so also not in time. For the Son and Word, being God, is of the Father, but not of doing. Likewise also the Spirit. But how, he says, was he begotten? This—even if it is written concerning the Son: "From the womb before the morning star I begot you," and concerning the Holy Spirit: "A spirit proceeds from me," and if David sings: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were strengthened and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers," and if Job says:

Divine Spirit is what made me, and the breath of the Almighty is what teaches me," and if the Lord teaches: "the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father," and if Paul writes that it is the Spirit of God, as for men their own spirit—yet it so surpasses every mind that the same apostle writes to the Corinthians: "But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ and has revealed the fragrance of knowledge through us," as if not all knowledge is given to us because of its incomprehensibility, but we partake of it as of some image or breeze. And again: "We see through a mirror and in an enigma" the things concerning him. And this is quite reasonable. "For the glory of the Lord conceals the word," according to the divine saying, surpassing by an ineffable and infinite reason every created perception. Not only because of its unbearable nature, but because that which is pre-eternal and before all creation, if it had not been revealed by the Scriptures, would be unknown to creation; and again, to the same people, the second [letter] excellently says: "But we will not boast about the immeasurable, but according to the measure of the canon, which God has apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even to you." And in the first epistle he says: "If anyone thinks he has known something, he has not yet known as one ought to know." What is the difference between generation and procession? Just as the manner is unknown, so too the difference, if indeed it is permissible to

to hear or speak this, for it is rash to assign causes to that which is beyond all cause and conception; but to marvel at the divine and to consider fear to be the conception of it is safe. "Therefore," he says, "did God beget willing or unwilling?" But we must first state their aim and then answer. Their aim is to make an antithesis from each expression against the simple-minded. For if they seize upon "he begot unwilling"—but no one answers them this—they say, "Therefore God endures what he does not will, having begotten the Son, with necessity of nature leading him to this." Or if "he begot willing" is granted them, they add, "Therefore the generation of the Son depends on the paternal will, providing him existence in a demiurgic manner." But this answer is most absurd. For the begetting God and Father, and the "radiance of his glory," the Son, precede both will and unwillingness and every conception; and nothing can be conceived between this and that, from which it is. Likewise also the "image of God." Again, the Son is not a beginning or ceasing first existence of will or unwillingness. Therefore he begot in the nature beyond counsel and intellect. But this proposition of theirs is also full of absurdity. For it considers willing as a passion of desire, and unwilling as doing, but the compulsion from necessity, with the will being preconceived and before that the intellection of the Father's hypostasis, which altogether and in every way has the radiance co-subsisting.

In addition to this, if they believe that all things have come to be from the will of the Father through the Son, the will does not pre-exist. For it is impossible and inconceivable that the creator should not subsist and only afterwards decide to create through himself. But this too is full of foolishness. For if he himself says, "I am and I have not changed," how could the unchangeable nature undergo change according to the hypostases, not standing in the identity of the persons, but being moved and changing? And further this: if it is true, as indeed it is true, that "whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does," then the Son will also make another Son, so that he may do everything like the Father. But if he has not made nor does he make one, he is not a creature, nor does a paternal will govern him. I would say also another thing: if the Savior says, "The will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life," the Son is not from will, but the one who sees him is. For the will is found after the Son even here. One might more quickly dismiss altogether this argument of theirs, not only from what has been said before, but also from what will be added by us; that is, if one were to ask them a similar question: "Does the Father ever exist willing or not?" For the same consequences that they have studied will meet them: in response to "not willing," that it happened contrary to his purpose that he subsists, the necessity of nature turning him who has come to this point around; in response to the second, that before the willing he did not exist; for his existence will be traced back to his own will, driving him, according to their babbling, in a demiurgic manner into subsistence.

Similarly, another argument, differing only in wording from the one before it: "Is God immortal and good by will or without will?" For the same objections will be raised. But one will do better to answer them concisely, that nothing befalls the perfect God nor does anything leave him; and just as no will precedes the Father's existence, immortality, and goodness, so also no will precedes the generation; and that all such things are discordant with the conception of God; but concerning created things, David sings in Psalm 113: "Our God is in heaven; and on earth, he did all that he willed," and "You made all things in wisdom," that is, in the Son, not in will, and in Psalm 72: "You took hold of my right hand, you led me by your counsel and took me up with glory," and in Psalm 30: "For anger is in his wrath and life in his will," and in: "Lord, in your will grant strength to my beauty," and in Psalm 17: "He will deliver me, because he willed me." For just as the Father, being immortal and good, wills to be these things and is these things by willing, having, so to speak, the will not as a cause, nor yet being without will, so also the will to generate is not a cause. But concerning us, it is that some things we have from the energy of God, some from the will that is in our power; for it is not by our own will, but by that of God, that we acquire our constitution from soul and body and our being rational; for how could those who never existed have willed or not willed?

by our own choice we are good or evil, and knowledgeable by aptitude or ignorant by negligence. They have come to this point not accepting with accurate reasoning the phrase "This is my beloved son, in whom I was well pleased," since they would have had a firm anchor of right faith from the start. But now they claim that the phrase "in whom I was well pleased" shows the Son to be a creature. Yet the whole meaning inclines toward his incarnation. For when he said, "I am the Son of God," they objected, "You are blaspheming," and the Father confirmed that "this alone is my genuine son." For the words "this" and "beloved" and the naming of "Son" with the article indicate this: in this one, he says, I was well pleased that through his incarnation salvation should be procured for you. And even if one takes the phrase "I was well pleased" concerning the divinity, their sophism is invalidated, since not every expression spoken by God, especially concerning the divine Logos, produces a meaning of cosmic custom. Moreover, if he said "in whom I was well pleased" concerning the Son already existing, the well-pleasing is not found to be the cause of his existence. And to make clearer what is indicated by such an expression, let us use as witness the psalmist in Psalm 149: "Because the Lord is well pleased in his people." The well-pleasing did not occur before the people, but after them. For then he was well pleased in them and sent peace and grace, when they served him rightly; but when they did not serve rightly, the opposite, as he now prophesies: "When he killed them, then they sought him." And in Psalm 43:

His arm did not save them, but your right hand and your arm and the light of your face, because you were well pleased in them," designating the Son as "the right hand and arm of God" and "the light of his face"; and in Psalm 105: "Remember us, Lord, in the good will of your people." Concerning the statement: "If the unbegotten God is entirely generative, he did not generate substantially," and that "If his substance was changed into offspring, the substance of God is not immutable." This also is their vain and erroneous assertion set forth in such words: "If the unbegotten God is entirely generative, the begotten was not generated substantially, since his entire substance has the property of generating, but not of being generated." But let them hear that "if light is entirely generative, it does not generate the radiance substantially, but acquires it from without, since its entire substance has the property of generating, but not of being generated." If, however, light does not acquire the radiance from without, but generates it from its entire substance without separation, then neither did God acquire the Son from without, but generated him from his entire hypostasis without separation, since he is incorporeal. Hence he is truly Father. They again adduce, everywhere pursuing the contrary order of Scripture: "If the substance of God, having been transformed, is called offspring, his substance is not immutable, since the change has effected the particularization of the Son." But no one grants them even this to say. For the aforementioned Scripture proves these things to be alien to Christians, to everyone.

heretical opinion, opposing a very grievous passion. For if the light, having been transformed, becomes a radiance, the light is not immutable, since the change produces the particularity of the radiance. But if the light, not having been changed, has generated a radiance, remaining itself light and having the radiance as connaturally perfect from itself, then God also remains unchangeably God, being the father of his own radiance, no longer having received it from outside, but having generated it perfect from his own substance.

Concerning those who babble that "from the name 'father' the substance of the Son himself is different." They keep going over the same things about the same subjects and, distorting the beauty of the truth in every way, they also assert this without love of God: "Since the names are different, it is necessary that their substances also differ." For they say: "The word 'father' does not signify 'son,' nor does the name 'son' indicate the hypostasis of the father." Let them hear, first, that if the divine hypostases were not manifested by a corresponding appellation, by what symbol, not using the appellation 'father,' could one indicate the father himself and that he has a son? Or, not naming the appellations 'son' and 'spirit,' could one address the son himself or the spirit, and that the son has a father, and the spirit is the spirit of God? Second, that in the case of the holy Trinity—except that the one who truly is this is called father, and the one naturally begotten is called only-begotten, and the spirit of God is addressed as precisely that which it is called, being of the father—all other names are the same, such as God, Lord, holy, just, good, light, life.

Therefore, on the contrary, in the case of the blessed Trinity alone, where the names are the same, their essence is also one, so that it follows that like is characterized by like. For the true and eternal light, in relation to the true and eternal light, and the truly "I am God, and there is no other besides me. Righteous and savior, there is none except me. Turn to me and you will be saved, you from the ends of the earth. I am God, and there is no other. I swear by myself; verily, righteousness will come forth from my mouth and my words will not be turned away, for every knee will bend to me and every tongue will speak of God," which is to recognize God or "confess to God." Therefore, God and Father is not before the Son, not in terms of beginninglessness, not in essence, not in glory, but equally, except perhaps in the sense of fatherhood. For that these are the words of the only-begotten Son, the divine Paul, writing to the Romans, made clear by saying: "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, as it is written: 'I live, says the Lord, that every knee will bend to me and every tongue will confess to God.'" Similarly, the theologian John said in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be that has come to be. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." And in the Apocalypse: "The one who is and who was and who is coming, the Lord our God the Almighty.

The phrase "the one who is" signifies the eternal being of the divine hypostasis, as we have also said elsewhere. For the expression is indefinite, whence God called himself "the one who is." The phrase "was in the beginning" makes evident and very clear the absurdity and avoidability of "there was when he was not." For the word "was" is an infinitive. In Latin, the infinitive is composed of two words: plusquamperfectus, which is interpreted as "more than perfect." So now it requires being understood as supertemporal or without beginning. For if one were to say that which is not in the beginning, there was never a beginning without cause. And again, how can time, which does not yet exist, be a measure of that which made it? The phrase "was with God" represents the natural affinity that the Son has toward God the Father, and that the Son from him—if it is permissible to speak thus, from whom the self-generated Father is—coexists with him. The phrase "was with God" might be understood firmly, that he was with God without beginning, ungenerated, uncontained, good, immortal, universal king. For if it is not so with this welling wisdom, it will not be so with the source that wells forth wisdom. But it is so with both. For the aim and the God-given word of John are manifest, firm, uncurious, and looking only toward the divine. The phrase "the Word was God" establishes that the Word is substantial and is God such as that God is whose Word he is; and again, the causelessness. The phrase "everything came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be" declares him, as was already said, virtually a creator, but also that he was not created.

For if not a single created thing received its being without him, it is evident to all that he himself did not come into being, but was divinely begotten. For it is impossible that the one who has given existence to all things and essence and immortality to rational beings should come into being from non-existence. For no created thing can give essence or immortality or make rational beings; but from the substance already brought forth by God from non-existence—such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, or stone—it can fashion a lifeless and irrational thing, such as a statue or something else; but to produce a substance that does not exist or to reveal it as animate and rational is the proper and exceptional attribute of the one all-powerful and self-sufficient divine nature alone. And the Father made through him, as light through its own radiance and as mind through reason. The phrase "in him life was" further teaches that he is without beginning, being the life of the one and highest nature, and that he is the cause of all beings when none existed. Hence he himself says: "I am the life, I am the light." And he is zealous to attribute the testimonies to the beginningless by so often saying "was," so that by the continuity of such a sound he might either open the deaf ears of heretics or leave no pretext for the phrase "there was when he was not" in the future catholic and unerring judgment. The phrase "and the life was the light of men" again teaches the same things. For it says: this unbegotten life is the constitution of the begotten nature of men. The phrase "and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" does not tolerate the opinions of the heretics.

For it does not secretly or too sharply reveal that if one were to suppose a pre-temporal time or an untimely moment or a pre-eternal eternity, it shines eternally as an inseparable radiance of God, and never did the darkness of non-existence overtake it. The term "the Almighty" requires no interpretation. For it shows that he has an undivided kingship with God the Father and his Holy Spirit, and that he is "God over all." The term "the one who is coming" indicates the Son, who is to come a second time to "judge the living and the dead." Therefore John the Baptist also confirms that "the one who is" is said concerning the Son, and declares to the Lord: "You are" instead of "that one who is," whom, when you were in the womb of the virgin, I myself, recognizing you as God while I was in the womb of a barren woman, worshipped through my leaping, "or do we expect another?" And in the first epistle, John, the friend and apostle of the Lord, writes: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life—and life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and announce to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—what we have seen and heard, we announce also to you, so that you too may have communion with us. And our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." Pay attention again to the abundance of "was," and how those who do not confess that he is by nature the Son, co-eternal with God, have no communion of salvation with the Father or the Only-begotten. For to this faith of ours

The tradition handed down in the mystagogy of illumination from the master of all is the communion which Peter wrote: "that you may become partakers of divine nature." For that which is created and under time is not divine nature. Remember also in addition to these things that he said "our communion with the Father and his Son," on equal terms, and not "through his Son." And Amos likewise, prophesying, names the Son "Pantocrator" somewhere speaking thus: "He who builds his ascent into heaven and establishes his promise upon earth, who summons the water of the sea and pours it upon the face of all the earth, Lord, God, Pantocrator is his name." Concerning which ascent David also sings: "God ascended with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." Both of these are about the Son. For the Father neither descended nor ascended, as the apostle interprets writing thus: "But what is 'he ascended' if not that he also first descended? He who descended is the same as he who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things," as he says, having risen above and surpassing together with the Father who begot him, since he is ungenerated. For it is clear that he understood this, from which even the intellectual powers, since they are measured creatures existing in heaven, are not above the heavens, nor do they fill all things. And Zephaniah likewise proclaims him "Pantocrator" saying: "This is for them instead of their insolence, because they insulted and magnified themselves against the Lord the Pantocrator.

The Lord will appear against them, and the Lord will destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and each will worship from his own place." And Malachi accordingly speaks in the person of the master: "For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure sacrifice. For my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty. But you profane it." For the mention of both the manifestation and being glorified among the nations shows that the Son is signified, whose name the Jews together with the creature-worshippers profane. And this very sequence intends him to be Almighty, inasmuch as he is image and only-begotten of the Almighty, being obligated to be conceived also in this as image of the Almighty. And Paul writes to the Hebrews: "who is the radiance of the glory of the Father," that is, co-beginningless and consubstantial. For in order that the incomparable might be somehow set forth by way of comparison, if even thus to some degree the thing beyond mind might be received into mind, I will say—comparing the great and only great with something small—that just as the sun, at the same time from the nature of the sun and from the whole disk, undividedly and without interval and with equal measure, the whole light is co-manifested and co-energizes and co-supplies warmth to things capable of sensation. And the light of the essence of the one that has been emitted, poured forth immediately and not later, and co-proceeding and co-subsisting, manifests in itself the whole quality. But if, contrary to those things, "there was a time when the radiance was not," where is the hypostasis of the light that radiates it? For this will necessarily slip away together with that.

And indeed Daniel, prophesying, said: "And light was with him" instead of "the Son with the Father." For this especially demonstrates the incomparable and great nature of the divinity, that the Father begot him coeternal and co-originate, yet also perfect and unalterable, impassibly. For it is characteristic of a creature and not of the creator, of the mutable and not of the immutable, of that under judgment and not of the judge, of that given life and not of the giver of life, of that under sin and not of God, to beget and be born not in this way. For if he himself, when no other energy had yet occurred, "made the ages," which are completed from times, and set a beginning for all things, and nothing before times and ages can be conceived except the incomprehensible and truly sole primary and primordial nature, which alone is unoriginate and eternal and admits of no descent to another, how is it not believed that he was begotten unoriginately from the hypostasis of the Father and not from his energy? For time does not define, and there is no earlier and later, but that which is not under time is unoriginate, and the unoriginate is uncreated. For just as there is no unbegotten time, so also there is no creation without time, but it has time as its measure; for time came into being together with it. And fittingly, all things are measured from the creator as secondary, but he himself is measured by nothing, since he is unoriginate and God by nature. The same things are observed also concerning the Holy Spirit. For it is never written "he went forth," but "he goes forth." And how is this life itself given life, or the true light illuminated? Therefore the divine light and "eternal life" always were, and the truthful and great God himself says so.

There never was a time when the Father did not possess that "radiance of glory and character of hypostasis and image of goodness and power and wisdom and righteousness of God," which Paul testifies the same only-begotten Son to be; but, which it would be improper to say, he later acquired something. But if he possessed it, the only-begotten Son, who is these things, always was. For neither can that which is these things be conceived outside of God, nor can God ever be conceived without that which is these things of his. The only-begotten Son is these things, not as a habit or disposition, but substantially, as has been said before. And if, at the beginning of the creation of the world, the first trees were co-substantiated with the fruits from them—and it is nothing strange if the fruit sprouted together with the root—how is it impossible that at the beginning the resourceful Father was not fruitful with his own Son, and that the radiance immediately shone forth from the glory of his hypostasis? Just as his lower birth from incarnation is not comparable to another birth—for it was from a virgin, without flux, without injury, which our nature does not have—so also the higher birth is incomprehensible beyond measure and surpasses every birth. And one must neither disbelieve nor indeed seek or explain the manner, for it is not safe for us, who are unable to say how a virgin gave birth while remaining a virgin, nor who understand our own birth. For even if we knew our own birth, we would not at all know that of God, which happens to be incomprehensible even to the heavenly powers. Therefore, the prophet says with astonishment concerning the lower birth: "And he is a man, and who will know him?" meaning no one. And concerning the higher:

Who will recount his generation, that his life is lifted from the earth?" He most mystically called birth "generation," existence "life," and the being immeasurably raised above the earth and transcending every mind "lifted from the earth." For that he is infinitely superior to any time one might conceive by ranging far in thought, incomparably better than any quantity, incomprehensible in essence, and from every side utterly invisible to all—having enveloped himself and having nothing of himself outside—and that even the multitude of angels and every host of heavenly orders yield to his so great incomprehensibility, crying out thus: David in Psalm 17, "He set darkness his hiding place, and his tent is around him"; and the Ode of Habakkuk, "His virtue covered the heavens"; and Matthew says, "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son." For what is born from creation has been generated through the communion of one with another and is not connatural with its begetter, nor does it come forth immediately perfect and impassibly; but in the case of the divinity, the opposite holds. For since creation is thus, the creator is opposite and not similar to his own products, but as only the blessed Trinity knows these things. For it would not be incomprehensible if it were comprehended, nor a mystery if it were known, nor divine if it were contained, nor creator of all if it were from time, nor uncompounded and indivisible if it were like bodies. For just as

Hearing concerning the Father, "From eternity and to eternity you are" and "His truth is up to the clouds," we do not set boundaries for him, but we believe in his everlastingness; for eternity is not coeval with him. Likewise, concerning the Son and the Holy Spirit we must think, for regarding the one nature prevailing over all, into which these most honored hypostases [subsist]. It sings the same things also concerning the Son: "You are the same, and your years will not fail." And if it is not insignificant that it is written concerning the Father, "the one existing before the ages," it is not insignificant either that it was oracularly declared concerning his Son, that he is "pre-eternal God." It is clear that he is incomprehensible, as will be shown not much later. And just as the Father "has immortality," or rather he himself is immortality, so the Son is "eternal life," and it is the same. And just as the Father is called "one God," so the Son is called only-begotten, God, Word, and "one Lord Jesus Christ." And as James writes concerning him, "He is one lawgiver and judge, the only one able to save," so the Spirit, Paul writing to the Corinthians and Ephesians, is hymned as "one" and "the same" and only, and only, so that even by this, as it were, number, if one may speak thus, these blessed hypostases are shown to bear the henadic, that is, monadic, character of the paternal divinity. And if concerning the Father the statement "God and Lord" is true, it is also true concerning his Son and the Spirit. For as we have recalled in many places, the older covenant, preserving the equality of honor, proclaimed it.

The Lord said to my lord," and "The Lord rained from the Lord," and "God made man according to the image of God," and "Who is God apart from the Lord, and who is God except our God?" And in the New Testament, John said what has already been stated. And Thomas said, "My lord and my God," and Paul said, "The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," and again, "As from the Spirit of the Lord," and "May the Lord grant that mercy be found from the Lord for the house of Onesiphorus." And Job said, "A divine spirit made me," and "A divine spirit is present in my nostrils." It is the same in Scripture to say "divine" or "God," as Paul teaches writing to the Romans: "His eternal power and divinity," and the Acts say, "We ought not to think that the divine is like gold or silver or stone, the product of human art or thought," and Peter in the second epistle says, "So that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature." And just as the Father is incomprehensible, so also the wealth of Christ is unsearchable, according to Paul. For he says, "To me, the least of all men, was given the grace to proclaim among the nations the unsearchable wealth of Christ." But also "there is no limit to his greatness" nor "number to his understanding" according to David, nor "boundary to his peace" according to Isaiah, and "your imperishable spirit," it says, "is in all things," and "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world.

For no one could be found so thick-witted and sluggish as not to perceive, from these guileless and pure testimonies, the infinity of the Only-begotten and of the All-holy Spirit. And I declare that the things written by the apostle concerning both hypostases are of equal weight and similar wording, both those spoken about the Father: "the God who is over all and through all and in all," and "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, who is blessed unto the ages, that I do not lie"; and those written about the Son in Romans: "the God who is over all, blessed unto the ages, amen." In addition to this, "the fullness of him who fills all things in all." Further, similar oracles concerning the Father: "that God may be all things in all," and concerning his Son: "where there is no Greek and Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all things in all." And elsewhere: "that in the name of Jesus every knee of heavenly and earthly beings may bend, and every tongue confess that one Lord is Jesus Christ." And concerning the Spirit, both according to what has recently been said about it and insofar as it is owed to it that all things be conceived, whatever the Father is, as his Spirit, except, however, that it is not the Father. For it images God in this and in all things, as it declares: "in this we know that he is in us, from his Spirit, which he gave us." And equivalent to the hymn sung about God the Father: "You alone are the highest over all the earth," is the oracle about the Son in Psalm 85: "Mother Zion will say:

Man and man was born in him, and the Most High himself founded her," and concerning the Holy Spirit in the Gospel: "You will receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit comes upon you." And just as the Father is great, among other things, because he knows the Son, so also the Son is great because he knows the Father; likewise the Holy Spirit. For it says: "Thus no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." And it is identical to what was written by Paul to the Hebrews concerning the Father: "For it was fitting for him, through whom are all things and by whom are all things," and the oracle concerning the Son: "All things came to be through him," and concerning the Spirit: "The heavens were established by the word of the Lord, and all their powers by the spirit of his mouth." Therefore, the glorious hypostases honored equally with God the Father, having received his divine, unmixed, and incomparable nature over all, how could they be numbered among all things under God, as if they were counted as creatures? For just as it is impossible for the Father not to be Father without beginning and truly—for he did not have this name in time or as an addition—so it is impossible for the Son Logos and his Spirit not to be without beginning and by nature from his hypostasis. For at the same time as the Father—if it may be said thus—without interval, one was begotten, the other proceeded. And so he is not deprived of being Father of the Only-begotten and of having his Spirit proceeding from him. And because he is Father, he differs neither in time nor in substance from his Son and his Spirit.

For if he were begetting later, he would have changed or been altered, which is alien to divinity, along with the fact that God would at some time be found not being called or not being Father, as not having yet begotten. And the apostle, in writing to the Hebrews, presenting the beginningless and incomprehensible nature of the generation of the Son of God, says concerning Melchizedek: "Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having no beginning of days, nor end of life, made like the Son of God." And he was made like—in that he was not genealogized, as was the custom for the tribes of Israel concerning their honored members—because he was a type and a pattern of the Lord, who above is without mother and timeless, and below is without father and from time. Yet Melchizedek, having become a prominent priest, so that Abraham was blessed by him and gave him tithes of the spoils, as the same apostle says: "You see how great this man is, to whom Abraham gave a tithe from all." And again: "And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who receives tithes, has been tithed," that is, through the forefather Abraham. "For still," he says, "he was in the loins of his father"—Levi, the descendant of Abraham, through whom the tithing to the Lord was generally conceived—"when he met him"—that is, Abraham—"Melchizedek." What then is the purpose of their empty talk and where is the absurdity? Understand: all who wish to posit a beginning also acknowledge an end, and those who claim a generation also accept the death that comes from it.

and to suppose that he was generated either from non-existent things or from a substance dissimilar to the divine essence, they declare him both mortal and alien to the co-divinity of the Father, which, even if only spoken, not also believed, is full of every atheism. But as for the "In the beginning was the Word," what are their supposedly strong arguments? It was also written concerning creation, they say, the "was." For it says, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and the earth was invisible and unformed," and "There was a man from Armathaim Sipha." But there is nothing in common between "In the beginning was" and "In the beginning made," nor between the creator and the creation. For the "was" concerning creation is said and believed only about flowing time, which is also finite. For creation was after it came into being from non-existence. For he said beforehand that he made it, and then he added the "was," so that it might not be thought spontaneous. But concerning the Word of God, it signifies the pre-beginning. For "In the beginning," he says, "was" and "was God," and the "In the beginning was" excludes the notion of coming from non-existence. And they bear witness concerning the Son being pre-eternal and maker of the ages as follows: Paul, writing to the Hebrews, says: "In many ways and in many forms, God long ago spoke to the fathers through the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us through the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages." Therefore he inherits his own things, both as their maker and as true Son; but he was appointed heir as having become incarnate. And to the Corinthians in the first epistle:

For no one can lay a foundation besides the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," that is, it is impossible to conceive of a beginning of the Son. "For in him and through him" is every beginning. And David, in the 70th Psalm, singing of the one without beginning: "But God, our king before the ages, wrought salvation in the midst of the earth." He refers to Golgotha, naming it the most central place and, as it were, the center of the region under heaven; in which, by his divine foreknowledge, the Son wrought salvation for us before the ages in his incarnation, but in actual fact, when through goodness he suffered as the impassible one knew and willed for our sake, and, so to speak, came to be "unto the heart of the earth," just as Ezekiel prophesies thus: "Jerusalem itself, I have placed it in the midst of the nations." And in the 118th Psalm: "For eternity, O Lord, your word abides in heaven." And the Lord himself, speaking about himself, somewhere surely excluding heretics, said: "Amen, amen, I say to you, before the ages came to be, I am." And concerning his being established as the creator of all things, both incorporeal and corporeal, and not as a servant or mediator, while also being without beginning, in addition to the testimonies already cited, David also sings in the 113th Psalm: "Our God in heaven and on earth did all that he willed." He did not say: "all that he was permitted." Who then would deny that the one who willingly works and, by his mere nod, has all things concur without delay, exists as the substance of the self-determined and all-determined monad? And in the 101st Psalm: "In the beginning, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the works of your hands are the heavens.

They themselves will perish, but you will endure. And all will grow old like a garment, and you will roll them up like a cloak, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail," that is, "you are without beginning and endless." And Paul writes the same things: to the Ephesians, "in the God who created all things," and to the Colossians, "that in him were created all things, those in the heavens and those on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and into him, and he is before all things, and all things have been established in him." For of the one who substantially images God and who is before all things in divinity, no one is superior or older, just as of the one who is after all things no one is inferior or younger. And otherwise: if he is before all things, alone from the alone and uniquely, he was generated before all activity in an ineffable manner and is substantially the Son of the Father. For the one who is before all things and supernaturally governs every nature must be none of all things, nor be conceived as a creation in comparison with the things brought forth by him.

and every alteration toward him. And otherwise: if someone were to declare the maker of every creation and the one who bears all creation, and were to name him image of God and son, attending to the truth and being fully assured by the divine scriptures, how could one, unless mad, agree that this one is a creation or lesser than the God who bears all things, or that he has a prior existence? Concerning his being called God and angel, Malachi prophesies, speaking thus: "The Lord whom you seek will come into his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire. Behold, the Lord comes, and who will endure the day of his entrance? Or who will withstand his appearance?" The beginning of the saying reveals the economy, and what follows reveals his terrible and philanthropic second coming. And Isaiah, crying out in the manner of those who rejoice and announce to those not yet aware of what has happened: "A child has been born to us, a son has been given, and his name is called angel of great counsel, wonderful counselor, mighty God, ruler, prince of peace." This God Word Jacob also calls an angel, when, going to Mesopotamia, he slept and saw a dream. For he says: "And behold, a ladder set upon the earth, whose head reached into heaven. And the angels of God ascended and descended upon it, and the Lord was fixed upon it and said: I am the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. Do not fear; the land on which you sleep, I will give it to you and to your seed. And I will be with you and will guard you on the whole way.

wherever you go, and I will return you safely to the house of your father. And your seed will be spread over the south, the sea, the north, and the east." The ladder prefigured the cross, through which the faithful ascend to the heavenly dwellings, and the God who was set upon the ladder is the one who willingly was nailed to the cross for us. And after other things: "Jacob prayed," it says, "if the Lord God is with me and protects me on the road on which I travel, and gives me bread to eat and a garment to put on, and returns me safely to the house of my father, then the Lord will be my God; and this stone, which I set up as a pillar, will be my house of God. And from all that you give me, I will tithe a tenth to you." Then, having grown prosperous with Laban, he saw in the increase of the flocks again in a vision the God who had appeared to him above, and he related it thus: "The angel of God said to me in a dream: 'Jacob, lift up your eyes and see the rams and the goats mounting the sheep and the goats; for I know all that Laban will do to you. I am the God who appeared to you on the road on which you were coming, where you set up a pillar for me and made a vow to me there.'" And in Egypt, the same Jacob, for the sons of Joseph, asks for the blessing of this angel and "great God," saying: "The God with whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac were well pleased, the God who has nourished me from my youth until this day, the angel who has delivered me from all my evils.

Concerning those who say that "the Father is incomparable and greater than the Son" and that "the image is one thing and God is another" and that "man was also written as an image of God and glory." And concerning the fact that the Father is attested to differ in no respect from the Son. And they assign the incomparable and greater to the Father because of his being unbegotten, and the dissimilar to the Son because of his having the begotten, dragging down again the matters concerning the most ineffable divinity to the products of our own nature and thinking that intelligible things are made like the flux of matter. For all the supracelestial things surpass every mind and every intellection, while the earthly and lowly things come to be and pass away in time. But especially he was born without beginning, coexisting and cooperating with his own true Father, as light with the solar disc. And he has his being and is attested from the Scriptures as God, Lord, holy, creator, incorruptible, life, light, and everything that the Father is. And he ought to have the similar and equal from the majority rather than the dissimilar from the one. How is it that Adam and Eve, not being born nor having a father, have become equal in nature to us who are from them? Or what comparison have they simply made of the so-called dissimilar, or how have they measured and settled on the "better and greater"? Does Scripture neither define the holy, beginningless, one and undivided Trinity by nature, nor again delimit for it the first and the later? And these two things are clear: that the greater is not altogether of a different substance, and that comparatives are said of things of the same substance, not of things of a different substance.

They would not even from a starting point speak appropriately, that not even concerning the "incomparable and greater." Not according to magnitude or any bulk; for the God Logos is without magnitude and without extension, and has withdrawn from every size and composition and shape, just as also the Father and his Holy Spirit, and is himself contained by nothing, but contains everything. Because he is also the origin of all magnitudes as their maker. For where among the most ultimate and super-corporeal and superior hypostases is magnitude? Not even according to the beginningless. For he coexists with the Father as "the radiance of his glory" and has no God before him. And indeed it says: "In the beginning was the Logos." And God and maker is not measured by time with a creation. Since it would be necessary for them to demand—which is even dangerous to conceive—to posit time prior to the beginningless and inconceivable God and Father, and thus to compare. But men are accustomed to call "greater" those who have preceded in time of generation, according to Isaac's ruling: "The greater will serve the lesser." Not even as cause. For he is not his cause. For the only-begotten Son was shown to be beginningless; since he would be greater than both him and us alike, which may it never be to say or hear. Not even according to essence and likeness. For from him "as only-begotten from a father, full of grace and truth," and as "character of the hypostasis" being character in all respects, and as "image of God," which "he who has seen has seen the Father." "For in him resides the whole fullness of the divinity." And this is supported by the testimony: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness.

Nor according to intensification of quality, since the divine and ineffable hypostases are not qualities; for quality exists in bodies, but they are incorporeal and intelligible. But it is not even possible to conceive concerning them that there could be something more beautiful than the beautiful and better than the better, similarly to the saying of Paul concerning another matter: "But now these three remain: faith, hope, love; and love is greater than these." For on account of intensification toward virtue he assigned "greater" to love. For having loved, he says, we believe, and having believed, we hope to reign together with Christ. For if the statements "God is one" and "that you may become partakers of divine nature" are true, and not of natures, it has been demonstrated that the once-for-all good is one, I mean the divinity. Nor according to the equal, because it is written that the Son is great and "God over all," "making himself equal to the Father" and "swearing by himself, since he has no one greater." Nor according to power. For it is written: "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God," and "everything that the Father does, the Son does likewise." Nor according to glory or any dignity. "For if they had known," he says, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." And it is the will of the Father according to John "that all honor the Son, just as they honor the Father." According to what then is the greater and dissimilar? As has been shown, according to nothing. And indeed the apostle, restraining the impious conceptions of heretics concerning the only-begotten Son and God, and the identity of nature with his Father, and further

and proclaiming the co-eternal, having written, as was said above, "who is the radiance of the glory of the Father," he added, "and the character of his hypostasis." And again, to the Colossians and to the Hebrews he wrote, "who is the image of the invisible God." And in the Gospel according to John, the Son, representing that his own essence is sealed with the Father's character, said, "for this one the Father, God, sealed." The seal obviously coexisting with the archetype and being of equal type, and in itself showing perfectly and truly the unity of nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For the seal, like the character, signifies likeness and genuineness. Since it is time to say that the Father does not have [his being] without generation and incomparably, if indeed he is depicted and characterized by something generated and dissimilar. These divine sayings, which need no interpretation, not understanding correctly, but distorting and contending with human thoughts against the words of God, they say, "God is one thing and the image of God another, as man is one thing and the image of man another." And in a certain way they liken the living and active God Logos to a motionless image. But in essence and in all respects the image is most unerring and without beginning of the Father, and not according to form and shape, as a sculpted or carved breathless and not self-moving statue, nor according to species and color, as a crafted and imitative speechless image. For these things are not according to nature, nor do they reveal the prototype in all other respects. For the son of a man is an image of the essence of his own father.

but it happens that age, or form, or opinion, or power, or rank, or several of these together, or even something else, may differ. The Word of God, however, exactly and precisely images the simple, uncompounded, and unvariegated paternal divinity in all respects, naturally and without beginning. For it is not permissible to think that, as an image of God, it differs in any respect; nor is it an image of the "incomparable"; nor can the true, archetypal, greater, self-determined, and incomparable be manifested through the dissimilar, the lesser, or the subordinate; nor, again, can the natural form of the creator be understood through the creature. For no nature exhibits another nature within itself. But the Father is also found to have become without hypostasis, when heretics do not grant that he possesses the character of his hypostasis. Nor does the invisible, uncompounded, and unshaped God have an image of the sort that they represent as mimetic. The addition, which says, "he did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God," clearly refutes their position. Concerning the natural image, Moses also instructs as follows: "Adam begot Seth according to his own form." Seth was not necessarily of a different essence from Adam, and yet he called the form the image and likeness of the essence. But also concerning man, it is written, it is said, that he is "the image and glory of God." But nowhere, O sirs, is man or any other creation written to be "the radiance of the glory of God and the character of his hypostasis." For it is one thing for man to be an image of God, that is, the artifact of the artisan, as a chair of the carpenter; for Solomon says:

In proportion to the creatures, the creator is contemplated," and it is one thing to be, according to likeness of form, identity of essence, and coeternity, the radiance of glory and the character of a hypostasis that is enhypostatic and most true. For it says: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." But he who has seen a man has not seen God, just as he who has seen the chariot has not seen the craftsman. And it is necessary that of the only invisible God, that image alone is invisible, and not the visible man made in the image. Therefore, the Son is neither like another: for it is written, "Who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?" nor unlike his own Father: "For I," he says, "and the Father are one." But those who take the concept of a created image concerning him are likened to Nebuchadnezzar, who fashioned a soulless image to be worshipped. And God justly cast out Adam from paradise because of his disobedience; but the Son brought in the thief, and with him Adam and the whole common race, as being entirely equal in divinity, goodness, and lordship to the one who cast out. Where is it written that "the Father is incomparable" to his own only-begotten, or that his Son, the creator and judge of all things, according to his divine and supremely infinite nature, is a "creature"? Or that he ever "was not"? Or where did the Father specifically say, "I have created a son for myself," or the Son, "I was created by the Father"? To hear such things, let alone to say them, is dreadful and to be avoided. Nowhere at all, then, are these things found in divine and spiritual scripture.

On the contrary, when comparing himself to the Father, all the statements of the Only-Begotten concerning his own divinity are those of one who unites himself and declares himself of equal honor. But never has he been called child or infant or offspring in relation to that infinite generation above, which nothing at all can characterize, lest anyone imagine something small or providing a suspicion to their previously mentioned sophisticated blasphemies, but rather son because of perfection, being born without beginning, and the unalterable likeness of nature to the Father. All things that some consider to be small in relation to divinity, and the saying "the Father who sent me is greater than I," have been oracularly uttered in the sacred books because of his philanthropic and ineffable incarnation, which occurred for us and on our behalf. On account of this it is also written that he was inferior to angels, according to the apostle who wrote: "We see Jesus, who is a little less than angels, because of the sufferings of death." I therefore think, and I am not entirely mistaken, that concerning the Father and himself he spoke, showing the goodness and consubstantiality of both: "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; for from the fruit," he says, "the tree is known.

Since those who fight against God, some together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, dare to say that the first creation is, while Macedonius says it is the Spirit alone, may the holy and consubstantial Trinity turn the weight of recalling such reckless and condemned utterances upon them, but we will demonstrate by setting forth the divine scriptures that the first creation of God came about in this way: the first creation, raised up from the heavens, was cast down like lightning, as the Creator himself, who made it well and later justly cast it out, observed in the Gospel. And he speaks thus in Job: "But behold, a beast with you eats grass like oxen; behold, its strength is in its loins, and its power is at the navel of its belly. It set its tail like a cypress, and its sinews are interwoven, its ribs are bronze, and its back is of molten iron. This is the beginning of the Lord's creation, made to be mocked by the angels." So that the devil is the first creation, having made himself to be mocked by the holy angels because of his impious and evil-minded purpose. But after him, neither the Son, who also created this being, nor the Spirit of God was created. Concerning the Holy Trinity, and that because of the identity of essence the same names are applied to both hypostases, except for fatherhood, sonship, and the procession of the Spirit. For this is proper to each hypostasis individually. And that sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Spirit is placed first. And that both the triadic and the monadic are shown in scripture.

From all that has been said, then, it is established that their arguments are in every way alien to the truth. For sophistry is the work of inventing arguments, while wisdom is the work of investigating the Scriptures with reverence and fitting acceptance. It is necessary, therefore, to pass over their implausible rubbish and contentious disputes and, having washed the ears, as the saying goes, with the intelligible, drinkable water of the Holy Spirit from the salty, to demonstrate that the Scriptures, because of the identity of the divinity, sometimes name one of the divine hypostases, sometimes the three, and assign the good to each of them alike, as when Moses says: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord," indicating by the word "one" the single divinity, and by "Lord," then "God," and again "Lord" signifying the Trinity, from which every worldly and supraworldly good has existed and will exist for men; and again: "God said, 'Let there be a firmament,' and God made the firmament, and God saw that it was good"; it should be noted that it names both three hypostases and each one God, and shows the harmony and cooperation of the one who spoke, the one who made, and the one who praised. And again: "God commands," it says, "Moses, saying: 'Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus you shall bless Israel: May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and have mercy on you, may the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace,'" in order to indicate three persons, it did not say once;

May the Lord bless you and appear to you and give you peace," but he named "Lord" a third time. And as when Haggai prophesies, bearing a divinely inspired utterance from the person of the Father, which runs thus: "Be strong, Zerubbabel, because I am with you; and my good word and my spirit are in your midst"; and Isaiah, speaking of the mission as having been made of equal honor from the co-equal, self-complete hypostases, and indicating their entire communion in a brief phrase, cries out: "And now the Lord, the Lord has sent me and his spirit." For he did not simply name "Lord, Lord" a second time and then "his spirit," but in order to manifest both the hypostases and the one divinity and will. David also, for he too supports this heading, fills everything with song and reveals where he stood in faith according to these words: in Psalm 17, "Who is a god besides the Lord, and who is a god except our God? The God who girds me with strength"; in Psalm 58, "You are my supporter God. My God, his mercy will anticipate me. My God will show me among my enemies"; in Psalm 96, "Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name." For having named either Lord or God three times, he intimated the Trinity. But also Hannah, in the books of Kings, praying, invoked the Trinity, saying, "Adonai, Lord, Elohe Sabaoth." For in the Hebrew tongue "Adonai" is interpreted as "Lord"; and again in the Greek tongue she said "Lord"; and thirdly she spoke in Hebrew, "Elohe Sabaoth," which is "God of hosts" or "of powers.

Now also Elijah the Thesbite, in the third book of the history of the Kings, having prayed that the son of the widow of Sarepta, who was dead, might revive, breathed into him a third time and thus raised him up, thereby almost indicating that in his prayer he invoked the life-giving Trinity, and also teaching us to believe and glorify in no other way. And in commanding the water-carriers, "pour twice" and "pour thrice," he intimated that the three all-hymned hypostases act equally and with equal honor everywhere in all things. But if you wish, I will make the matter known to you again from a divine voice. For in the book of Genesis, at the building of the tower, God the Father revealed the blessed hypostases to his own Son and his Holy Spirit, saying: "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongues there, so that each may not hear the voice of his neighbor." And Moses, as I think, indicating the equality of the Trinity, set forth one vine with three trunks, nowhere saying that one trunk is deeper than the other, so that no one might think that this hypostasis takes precedence over that one, but that we all believe the three converge in one divinity. For this reason also the inspired scripture forbade making steps in the altar, in which the Trinity is glorified, so that the divine hypostases might not be distinguished by men as being in some degree of descent, as on steps. And in short, the Old Testament, bearing the type of the New, speaks mystically and most providently, hinting at many things rather than expressing them directly.

and speaking more plainly than enigmatically of the mystery later revealed, so that it might neither strike the uninitiated and those not yet stable and receptive of the vision of God with a sudden assault, nor cause them complete loss—for the former would be inexperience, the latter inhumanity. Often, too, what it might have expressed here in a way difficult for us to grasp, it provided the solution through another scripture. But the New Testament no longer speaks as in shadow and veil, but clearly and explicitly, as these bear witness: Paul writing to the Romans: "if indeed God is one," and to the Galatians and Corinthians: "God is one." And again to the Corinthians in the second letter: "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit with all of you." Here, because of the identity of the Godhead, he mentioned the Son first, and then the Father, and then the Holy Spirit. He spoke of the communion of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son as of the one Godhead and glory and kingdom. For what other communion could there be in the case of God? And to the Ephesians: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Then to the same: "for this reason I bend my knees to God and Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the wealth of his glory, to be strengthened in power through his Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith in the inner man." Here again, similarly, because of the equal honor of the hypostases, he mentioned the Spirit first after the Father, and then the Son.

And again to the Corinthians: "But I exhort you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in prayers for me to God." And to the Hebrews: "For if the word spoken through angels became sure, and every transgression and disobedience received just recompense, how shall we escape having neglected such great salvation? Which, having begun to be spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard, with God also bearing witness through signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will." So through "the Lord" the Son is indicated, through "God" the Father, and then also the self-determined and all-powerful nature of the Holy Spirit. And the Son also showed the one divinity by saying: "Why do you call me good? No one is good except the one God," and the three hypostases of equal honor and equal power through the teaching about baptism. But not saying, as if to a lawyer examining him testily, "Do not call me good," but "Why do you call me good?" he showed that he himself is good equally with the Father, and that his goodness is manifested from the paternal goodness, and he is shown to have been born good from good. "For," he says, "if you know me to be good, and you do not confuse the word with the teacher," as in: "Well, good slave," and as "the good man brings forth the good from the good treasure of the heart," and as "Samuel was good with God and men," and "Saul, son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, was good, taller than all Israel above the shoulder and above," and

A good dog is the one that lives better than a dead lion." "Do not subtract anything from the first good, but recognize me as God, not another in divinity from the father, but in hypostasis." For the divinity of both is one; since otherwise the first good is no longer found to be one. "For you have read somewhere," he says, "that 'it is good for you to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in a man.' 'For clinging to God is good.' And I have always urged you to follow me as a good and to walk behind me." Therefore he did not say, "No one is good except the one father," but "No one is good except the one God," as he also says elsewhere, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do my words?" For creation, he says, has goodness by participation, imitating to the best of its ability, if it is proper to say, the innate and perfect goodness of God and being preserved through it. And the existence of the good in it is to partake of the goodness of God, clinging to him through obedience and love for him. For it was written that "those who distance themselves from you will perish," and "God is far from the impious," and "far from sinners is salvation." And it is clear that this is by relation and disposition due to opposition to the good and slowness toward virtue, but not by place. That he himself is also good, since he exists by nature as one with the good father, he himself says in Matthew, "Or is your eye evil, because I am good?" and again, "Mary chose the good portion, which will not be taken from her." And he called himself "the good portion." And they proclaim together in spirit.

invisible men, but also those who have conversed intensely with the divine spirit. And these are among the others who accompany them: the psalmist in the 117th psalm: "Confess to the Lord, that he is good." And in the same: "Let all who fear the Lord say that he is good." And Jeremiah lamented: "The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him." And Isaiah: "The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel." And that the holy spirit of God is also good, the aforementioned David sings in the 24th psalm: "Your good spirit will lead me in a straight land." Moreover, if eternal life is good, so are the words of the son. For he said: "I am the life," and again: "The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." And if "the sanctification of the holy spirit" is good, and the energy in the illumination—for it is mentioned as a co-worker—and also the distribution of heavenly gifts, then certainly the son and the holy spirit are good. We were not taught only by hearing, but we also beheld, as far as possible, the specific character of the hypostases of the venerable and consubstantial triad: the father saying from the heavens, "This is my beloved son," his only-begotten being baptized on earth, and his one and only holy spirit descending in the form of a dove and remaining upon the only-begotten God and son. And a Davidic treasury in the 84th psalm confirms this, that the one incarnate from our earthly nature was testified to be the son by God the father. And the passage, known to all, runs thus:

Truth has arisen from the earth, righteousness has looked down from the heavens." Similarly, because there is no difference of divinity in the fearful and undefiled Trinity, the Scriptures sometimes reveal the Father together with the Son, as when David says: "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand,'" and Paul says: "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And sometimes they join the Father together with the Holy Spirit, as when Haggai prophesies: "Because I am with you, says the Lord Almighty, and my Spirit stands in your midst," and again: "Not in great power nor in strength, but in my Spirit, said the Lord Almighty." One must dwell on this saying. For since sometimes the heterodox, when the Spirit is mentioned together with the Father, claim that some unsubstantial power is indicated, the saying at hand is securely established. And Isaiah: "And now the Lord has sent me and his Spirit"; and again: "There the deer met and gave each other their faces. They passed by in number and not one of them was lost. They did not seek one another, because the Lord commanded them and his Spirit gathered them together." And Paul to the Corinthians: "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" and again: "The love of God is poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit," and again: "But God revealed to us through his Spirit." At other times they name only the Son, as when Isaiah prophesies: "And now, Lord, you are our Father, and we are clay, works of your hands all," and Paul to the Galatians:

For as many as were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ." At other times, they proclaim the Only-Begotten together with the Holy Spirit, as when Paul writes to the Corinthians: "But you have washed yourselves, but you have been sanctified, but you have been justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God," and to the Romans: "I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit," and again: "For if the one who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive." And at other times, the Holy Spirit is mentioned alone, as when Isaiah prophesies: "They disobeyed and provoked the Holy Spirit," and again: "A spirit came down from the Lord and led them"; and Paul writes to the Corinthians: "But a fleshly man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God." And as Stephen says in the Acts: "You resist the Holy Spirit," and again: "We are witnesses of these words and the Holy Spirit," just as we are accustomed to say in general: "We are here alone and God." And the Savior in John mentions only the divine Spirit, saying: "But when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will lead you into all truth." And the Acts likewise testify concerning this: "While Peter was pondering the word, the Holy Spirit said to him: 'Arise, go down, and go with them, without any hesitation, because I have sent them,'" and again: "Thus says the Holy Spirit:

Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them." And again, the Holy Spirit said to Peter: "Rise and go" to the house of Cornelius. And further, the Acts of the Apostles, in their elegant style, provide material for this argument; for they contain: "Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him," and also: "For Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to the people." The equal balance and equivalence of the venerable hypostases is similarly indicated in that the Lord God the Word, through his aforementioned most-hymned utterance concerning baptism, preserved the equality of honor between himself and the Holy Spirit with respect to the Father. Because of this, the sacred scriptures sometimes mention the Father first and then the Son or the Holy Spirit, and sometimes mention the Son first, due to the indivisibility of nature and the indifference of theology, as when Job clearly indicates the Trinity: "The Lord lives, who has thus judged me, and the Almighty who has embittered my soul; and indeed, while my breath still remains, the divine spirit that is present in my nostrils." He speaks of the life-giving Holy Spirit that also causes me to breathe still. And as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians in his second epistle: "Our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God the Father will comfort your hearts," and to the Galatians: "Paul, an apostle not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father," and to the Corinthians, as previously stated: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit." And the Savior says:

We shall come, I and the Father, and we will make a dwelling with him." Sometimes they name the Holy Spirit first, and afterwards the Father or the Son, as when David sings: "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face where shall I flee?" And Job, showing his good sense, declares: "A divine Spirit made me, and the breath of the Almighty teaches me." And as Paul writes in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "There are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God who works all things in all." Sometimes they speak of two hypostases homonymously, as when Zechariah says: "The Lord said to the devil: The Lord will rebuke you, devil." And this was shown above at greater length.

Concerning the fact that what is now said about the Father is at other times said about the Son or the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity exists in one divinity. Therefore, in one divinity, the hierophants, knowing the glorious Trinity and its theology being common, what they have now said about the Father, at other times others declare about the Son or the Holy Spirit, not contradicting themselves, but so that we also may know this very point of the right faith: and that, whichever hypostasis we may mention from any context, we also take up the other in faith, since it is inseparable. It is necessary that the truthful interpreters of God be truthful, and that those who teach the simple and true truth, that is, the goodness of God, be pure from a glory that denies the truth.

For it is not lawful, they say, for the impure to touch pure things; and they were pure and alien to all false opinion. We shall find this immediately in the theophany which Isaiah beheld. But why not first recall that whole passage as it stands? He says therefore: "I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting on a high and lofty throne, and the house was full of his glory. And seraphim stood around him; six wings to one and six wings to another; and with two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew; and they cried one to another: Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth, the heaven and the whole earth are full of his glory." And after other things he says: "He said to me: Say to the people, You will hear with hearing and not understand, and you will see with seeing and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears and have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I will heal them." And among other things he adds: "And I saw the king Lord Sabaoth with my eyes. And one of the seraphim was sent to me," and so forth. Now Isaiah knows that the Lord Sabaoth and king who appeared is himself God the Father. But Paul, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, declared that it is the Holy Spirit, speaking thus: "Well did the Holy Spirit speak to your fathers through the prophet Isaiah, saying: Go to this people and say to them:

You will hear with your hearing and you will not understand," and the rest, as it stands. John in the Gospel defined that the Son of God exists. For he said: "Though Jesus had done so many signs, they were not able to believe, because Isaiah said: 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and turn back, and I will heal them.'" And immediately he adds: "Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory," that is, the glory of the Son of God. So much, then, concerning these matters in this place. But hear also other things of the same force, from David in Psalm 94, singing from the person of God the Father to the lyre as follows: "Your fathers tested me and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation and said: 'They are always wandering in heart.' But they did not know my ways. As I swore in my anger: 'If they will enter into my rest.'" Paul, writing to the Hebrews, from the same psalm, defines from the Holy Spirit in this manner: "Just as," he says, "the Holy Spirit said: 'Today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation on the day of the test, when your fathers tested me and saw my works for forty years.'" And Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, reproaching the Jews from the same scripture, said: "Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit, as your fathers and you do." Similarly, concerning leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, Moses says "Lord" in Deuteronomy.

For the Lord," he says, "alone led them, and there was no alien god with them." And Jeremiah likewise: "And you did not say," he says, "where is the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, who guided you in the desert?" And Isaiah says that the Holy Spirit led them: "For he led them," he says, "through the abyss as a horse through the desert and they did not tire, and as cattle through a plain the Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them." And Paul teaches that Christ became their guide: "For they drank," he says, "from a spiritual rock that followed, and the rock was Christ." In harmony with this, Jude writes in his Catholic epistle: "For once the Lord Jesus saved a people from Egypt, and a second time he destroyed those who did not believe in him." Here, then, the argument of those who say the venerable Son and the divine Spirit are creatures is refuted in two ways: both from the fact that concerning each hypostasis things have been prophesied that signify the one infinite nature, and from the fact that it is stated that "there was no alien god with them," that is, of a different essence. In the same manner, Moses says: "There shall be no portion nor lot for the Levites on the earth; the Lord himself is their portion." And Jeremiah: "The one who formed all things," he says, "is himself the inheritance of Jacob. Lord is his name." And David in the fifteenth Psalm: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." And Paul writes to the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance: "In whom," he says, "having believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of our inheritance." Similarly, Paul writes to the Corinthians:

There are divisions of gifts, but the Spirit is the same; and there are divisions of ministries, and the Lord is the same; and there are divisions of operations, but the God who works all things in all is the same. And showing the identity of the divinity, not only does he here first mention the Spirit, then the Son, and thus the Father, but also the one who has now said that God works all things, after a little adds: "All these things the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as it wills," clearly and explicitly presenting it as God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and at the same time self-determined. It is possible to hear both God and Father speaking through Isaiah: "And I will not give my glory to another," and John saying: "That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father." For he already knew clearly that glory is not sent up to the only-begotten and the Holy Spirit as to one of a different substance. Again, Mark says from Christ: "For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Matthew, setting forth the same passage, did not say "in that of the Father," but "in that of the Son," writing thus: "When the Son of Man comes in his own glory

and all the holy angels with him, when he sits upon his throne of glory." And in John he says: "Glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world existed." Concerning the fact that because of the consubstantiality and co-equality of power, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwell in the faithful; and against the objection of the heterodox. We shall further find the consubstantiality of the Trinity and that all things are unalterably possible for it, if we consider that it alone, being beyond the immaterial and invisible in essence, can be participated in and can fill the temple which it created. And not only this matter, but also the term itself is fitting for it. For the participable is followed by the immutable, and this by the uncreated, which is also without beginning. But nothing created, as far as the custom of the Scriptures goes, can be participated in by way of participation or substantially fill a human being, but only by way of the disposition of good or evil. For we speak metaphorically of some being filled with virtue and knowledge and being able to produce theoretically the fruits of virtue and knowledge, as those who have genuinely partaken of the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is therefore testified that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit dwell in us; as when Paul writes to the Corinthians a second time from Jeremiah: "For we are a temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people." And again: "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" And: "Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, which you have from God?" And to the Ephesians:

so that he may give to you according to the wealth of his glory, to be strengthened in power through his spirit in the inner man, to have Christ dwell through faith in your hearts." And as when the Lord says in John: "the spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, because it does not see it nor know it. But you know it, because it remains with you and will be in you." And again: "if anyone loves me, he will keep my word; and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him." This will be more evident to the one who attends, that the all-powerful God Word, having willed, remained unchanged and was conceived by the virgin. But they again insist, objecting: "it is written, forsooth, concerning Ananias: 'why did Satan fill your heart?' and concerning Judas, that 'Satan entered into him.'" To whom it must be said, that he is not partaken of nor does he ride upon the soul as it were, but he deceives and works a way of evil counsel and fickleness, and making a bywork of his own wickedness, he fills the one who does not heed the: "do not give your foot to the swell, and your guardian will not slumber." In the same way he filled Elymas his son with the suggestion of satanic action. For Paul says to him, who is foul in mind and deeds and full of diabolical depravity and who craftily deceives the saints, so that it seems that the chief evil one, his father, dwells in him: "O son of the devil, full of all deceit and all villainy.

Further, just as he filled the false elders in the case of the most venerable Susanna with licentious purpose, it runs thus: "And the two elders came, full of lawless intent." And that we may not cause a great crowd in the hearing, omitting many things we had to say on this, we will speak concisely: if this argument of theirs prevails, then it is time no longer to think it a great thing that the divine serenity dwells in the faithful, but that this has glory only in appearance.

Concerning speaking of the Trinity in the faithful because of the identity of nature and substance. And speaking equally of the divine hypostases in the saints proclaims the identity of nature and authority. For Zechariah—not the prophet, but the father of John—said that the Lord God of Israel had spoken through the prophets. And Paul similarly wrote to the Hebrews: "God, having spoken in many ways and in many forms long ago to the fathers through the prophets, in these last days has spoken to us through the Son." And to the Corinthians he wrote concerning the Son: "Since you seek a proof of the Christ speaking in me." And the Savior teaches in Matthew: "For you are not the ones speaking, but the spirit of your father is what speaks in you.

Concerning the fact that for the same reason, they affirmed the consubstantiality of the Trinity, that we live for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This most clearly teaches us to observe also that it is written that we live for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; as when Paul discourses in the letter to the Romans: "You consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but living for God in Christ Jesus our Lord." And again: "so that the living no longer live for themselves, but for Christ who died and rose for them"; and to the Galatians: "if we live by the Spirit, we also walk by the Spirit." Concerning the fact that for this reason, the above-mentioned law is written to be of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the reason we stated, the above-mentioned law is also written to be of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the psalmist says in Psalm 36: "the law of his God is in his heart," and in Psalm 39: "to do, O God, your will I desired, and your law in the midst of my belly." And as Paul writes to the Galatians: "bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ"; and to the Corinthians in the first epistle: "I became to the lawless as lawless, not being lawless of God, but lawful of Christ, in order to win the lawless." And to the Romans: "for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and death." And again, alluding to the New and the Old Testament, he says:

But now we have been set free from the law, having died in that by which we were held, so that we might serve in the newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” And again: “For we know that the law is spiritual.” Concerning the fact that for the same reason of consubstantiality in the Trinity, we are called either men of God or Christians or spiritual ones. We are called, therefore, for this reason either men of God or Christians or spiritual ones. Through which the widow in Sarepta says to the Thesbite Elijah: “What have I to do with you, man of God?” And again: “Now I know that you are a holy man of God.” And the Shunammite woman says to her husband about the prophet Elisha: “Behold, a great man of God is coming to us.” And the books of Kings: “And a man of God came from Judah and prophesied at the altar in Bethel.” And the Psalmist in the inscription of Psalm 89: “Prayer of Moses, a man of God.” And Paul writing to Timothy the second time: “That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” And the Acts: “And it happened that they were gathered together for a whole year in the church, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” And Paul speaking in an epistle to the Corinthians: “Concerning spiritual matters, I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers. You know that when you were Gentiles, you were led away to the mute idols as if being carried off. Therefore I inform you that no one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit.

And again: “But the psychic man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he cannot know that they are examined spiritually. But the spiritual man examines all, yet is himself examined by none. For who has known the mind of the Lord, who will interpret him? But we have the mind of Christ.” And again: “Brethren, if a man among you is even overtaken in some transgression, you who are spiritual correct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” Concerning the fact that for the same reason of the consubstantiality of the Trinity, Scripture says of the Father what it now says, at another time it says of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. Indicating one divinity and lordship, Scripture says of the Father what it now says, at another time it declares to be of the Son or of the Holy Spirit; as when the Savior says to the Jews in Matthew: “Render to Caesar the things of Caesar and to God the things of God”; and as when the renowned Paul writes to the Philippians: “For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ,” and to the Galatians: “But those of Christ Jesus crucified the flesh together with the passions and desires,” and to the Corinthians: “For the love of Christ holds us together, this having been judged; and he died for all, so that the living might no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died and rose for them.” And again: “But the psychic man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him”; and again: “But be zealous for the spiritual things.

Furthermore, the church, which is understood together with the glory sent up in it and the bloodless worship offered in it, he declared to be of God when writing to the Corinthians first, as follows: “Be blameless both to Jews and Greeks and to the church of God,” and again: “We have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.” But when writing to the Ephesians, he taught that it is of Christ, saying thus: “that he might present to himself the church blameless, having no spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort, but that it might be holy and blameless.” For if it did not seem so to him, one might interpret what the prophet Haggai means by saying, “The last glory of this house will be great beyond the first,” that is, of the church of Christ and the doxology in it compared to the synagogue of the Jews, in which only God the Father was theologically proclaimed and glorified. Consequently, then, the Gospel also he now says is of God the Father, writing to the Romans: “Paul, slave of Jesus Christ, called apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,” and again: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for it is the power of God for salvation to every believer, first to the Jew and then to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in it; and the righteous one will live by faith,” and to the Corinthians a second time: “that I preached the gospel of God to you freely,” but now he writes that it is of God the Only-Begotten, to the Corinthians first: “But we did not use this authority, but we endure everything, so that we might give no hindrance to the gospel of Christ,” and second:

And when he came to Troas to the gospel of Christ” and again: “glorifying God for the submission of your confession to the gospel of Christ”; and to the Romans: “For God, whom I serve in the gospel of his Son, is my witness.” But also he said that the sacred liturgy is performed sometimes to God the Father, sometimes to God his only-begotten Son, writing to the Corinthians first: “Thus let a person be regarded as a servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God; what further is sought in stewards is that one be found faithful”; and second: “in everything commending yourselves as servants of God”; and again: “Are they servants of Christ? I speak as one out of my mind.”

And

“...Who trusted in the Lord and was put to shame? Or who persisted in his fear and was abandoned? Or who called upon him and was overlooked?” For he who, as even the pagans say, trusts God, rather hears him. Therefore, having nothing acquired or activated by another in itself, but bringing all goods from within, he presents the one divine peace, of which “there is no limit,” concerning which Isaiah cried out: “Lord our God, give us peace; for you have given us everything. Lord, we know no other besides you,” as it belongs to him on account of the commonality of nature and lordship, he gives according to authority. For he said: “I leave you peace, I give you my peace.” Hence not least Paul also said that this God-given gift is supplied without distinction by both unoriginate hypostases, writing somewhere to the Romans as follows:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And this very thing, that it is so, was provided for our discernment also by: "All that the Father has is mine." For these things are not ignorantly taken as referring to creation, but to the divine dignity, if it is proper to speak of dignity in the case of God. For God, he says, is the Father. I also am; for I am his only-begotten and true and beloved Son. The Father is Lord. I also am Lord of all and heir, being master of the inheritance of a living Father. And I inherit his own things, both as their maker and as a genuine son. I was appointed heir as having become incarnate. The Father is Creator and King. I am. For I told you that "there was a king who went to make a marriage for his son, the king." The Father is immutable. I also am. For it has been prophesied concerning me: "You are the same, and your years will not fail." The Father is impassible. I am, so that even my partakers partake of impassibility. The Father is without beginning. I am. For there was no time when he did not have the name of Father and the hypostatic radiance of his glory and the "character of the hypostasis" and the "image of the divinity," that is, me. The Father is life and light and goodness and power and wisdom and truth and all that is worthy of God. I am, as you have already heard. And indeed I am also savior, "causing the sun to rise upon the righteous and sinners" and not bringing "evil in return for evil." The Father is philanthropic.

I am, for your sake, "I emptied myself, taking the form of a slave," and I endured you striking, spitting, mocking, and crucifying me. So he said that all the Father's things belong to him, so as to give nothing more to God the Father than only that he is father of a son who is without beginning and co-subsistent. This belief is also urged by: "All that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine, and I am glorified in them." For if it were not said thus because of the natural relationship, and the Son is not substantially glorified in all the Father's things, if there is not one kingdom and one lordship, then, according to heretical reasoning, there are things that fall not under the Father's authority but under the Son's. And again: "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me." To me, he says, when I speak about my own divine glory, that "I and the Father are one," you disbelieve; but there is my Father who bears witness to me, that I am glorified according to nature, being his beloved and true son, but your God and master. Then he says: "Father, glorify your son, so that your son may glorify you." Equal honor and glory are preserved here for the divine hypostases. For in whatever way we suppose the Father glorifies his Son, in that way he himself is glorified by him. And again he adds: "And now glorify me, Father, before yourself with the glory that I had before the world existed, with you." It is dreadful to hear, that he who has glory without beginning with his own Father—for this is what "the glory I had before the world existed" means—is not glorified by heretics. And what was this? Which, as I think,

Mark said: "When the Son comes in the glory of his Father," meaning that he possesses the Father's glory and will come in it a second time. Since their glory is one, there is not one divinity and another, one kingdom and another, one worship and another. Hence he forewarns: "Believe in God and believe in me. In the house of my Father there are many dwellings." "For divinity," he says, "having no difference, you ought to have one knowledge of faith concerning the Trinity, so that you may thus dwell in those thrice-blessed courts that are suitable and sufficient for all." Indeed, not only providing what is of a teacher, but also what is of God, he says: "Your sins are forgiven." Observe here too his self-determination, that as if to a greater he does not intercede, but as an absolute ruler he grants it. Matthew, also contributing to the theological statements concerning the only-begotten Son, said: "No one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone recognize the Son except the Father." How then do these people contend, as if knowing the Father to be incomparable, but his Son unlike him, and the essence to be unbegottenness, leaving nothing exceptional in the knowledge of God the Father and the only-begotten God, nor considering that nothing of a different nature possesses knowledge equal to that of a different substance? Paul similarly writes to Timothy in the first epistle:

I command you before the God who gives life to all things and Jesus Christ who bore witness under Pontius Pilate to the good confession, to keep the commandment spotless, blameless until the epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own times the blessed and only powerful one and king of those who reign and lord of those who rule will show, the only one having immortality and dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no one of men has seen nor is able to see, to whom honor and eternal glory for ever and ever. Amen. For heretics have decided to give to the Father alone the: "the only powerful one and king of those who reign" and the rest. But just as he said concerning both of the ever-memorable hypostases: "I command you before God and Christ Jesus," so he hymned concerning both of them as concerning one in divinity and the rest. For he himself did not ignore, as these do, the: "all that the Father has is mine," and the: "that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father," and the: "this is the true God and eternal life," and: "this is our God. No other will be reckoned beside him," and: "this is my beloved Son." But rather the cited passages refer to the Son. For it says: "to guard the commandment until the epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ, which in its own times the blessed and only powerful one will show." And it is clear that the Son will show his own epiphany when he comes the second time. Observe therefore that he also assigns the first glory to him. To the Romans:

For his invisible aspects, from the creation of the world, are perceived by his works and beheld, both his eternal power and divinity." And these things, on account of the equal honor of Father and Son, do not incline toward a creation. For it is not in being thought of as begotten that the creator's eternity and divinity are recognized, that is, the divinity which always exists and is the same. And to the Philippians: "Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." What inequality is found in this equality? For he did not usurp, it says, he did not take the equality of being by nature with God the Father. And indeed, the one who was not emptied by another, but emptied himself, showed himself to be both master and lord and eternal. For if he came to be in the form of a servant, it is indisputable that he did not previously exist among creations, but was in the free paternal nature. Since it was not possible to be seen, he descended without change and without illusion as far as the form of a servant. And he cast off the burdens of the servant and gave a beginning of a brighter life; whence

and whoever existed without beginning was recognized. And the other things that were sent to the same Philippians, that somehow he already reveals the Son as excelling and surpassing together with his own Father, as far as the unintelligent are concerned, I have already said before in chapter 7. But nothing prevents establishing this also from the ancient scripture; for one must not use theology carelessly. So God says in Isaiah: "Your new moons and your sabbaths and your feasts my soul hates. You have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins. Even if you fulfill the prayer, I will not hear you; for your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, become clean, remove your sins from your souls." You see, then, that philanthropy precedes the threat, inasmuch as he is not yet reconciled and does not know how to be angry for long, or rather does not know how to be angry at all. And he hates their feasts, that is, their religion, as falling short of the most perfect knowledge of God; and he commands them to be baptized so as to receive the faith according to the Lord's definition concerning baptism. And Paul has also confirmed us elsewhere, crying out verbatim, that the Son is not greater than himself. For when God said in Genesis to Abraham, "Offer your son to me as a sacrifice," and when he did this readily and was about to lay his hand on him armed with a sword, an angel of the Lord called him, saying: "Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy nor do any harm to him. For now I know that you fear God and did not spare your beloved son for my sake.

Then, concerning the ram found for the sacrifice instead of Isaac and the sacrifice completed by Abraham—in intention through his son, but in slaughter through the ram—"he called," it says, "him a second time, an angel of the Lord from heaven, saying: 'I have sworn by myself, says the Lord, for whose sake you did this and did not spare your beloved son for me; truly, blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea; and all nations will be blessed in you, because you obeyed my voice.'" But it was neither the Father nor a ministering angel. For a ministering angel does not swear by himself, nor bless, nor say, "You did not spare your beloved son for me"; nor does he dare to set aside the sacrifice offered to God, nor does he have authority to accept it. Rather, it was the only-begotten God Logos, who had sought the sacrifice, bestowing the only-begotten upon Abraham, as Paul interprets, writing to the Hebrews thus: "For to Abraham, God having promised"—which he both promised and performed—"since he had no one greater by whom to swear, swore by himself, saying: 'Truly, blessing I will bless you.'" And in Romans, he again explains the Son swearing by himself: "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, as it is written: 'I live, says the Lord, that every knee will bend to me and every tongue will confess to God.'

And the fact that he sits at the right hand of the Father, and further that the evangelist declares with a divinely inspired tongue that the seat befitting the Son is the Father’s bosom—if this does not signify the sameness of essence and equal honor, and that the only-begotten God and Son must be worshipped together with the Father and his Spirit, yet (since it is not proper to interpret what is written about God in a human manner) according to them, the one on the right is greater and more glorious, having the ineffable divine bosom as a many-eyed cherubic throne. May it never be said of the most ineffable and most tranquil Trinity. For David sings concerning the Father in Psalm 109: “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand’”; and Paul instructs the Hebrews: “He who is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the imprint of his substance, bearing all things by the word of his power, having made purification of sins, sat at the right hand of the majesty in the heights”; and the evangelist: “The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, himself expounded this.” Similarly, theology concerning the Son: that “in him dwells the whole fullness of the divinity” and that he is “great God” and “over all,” “to whom no other will be compared,” and “true God,” and “eternal life,” and “only master,” and “only wonder-worker,” and “highest,” and “king,” and “ruler,” and “Christ is all in all,” and the rest. So much on these matters would suffice; but the initiates of the divine and those zealous for the most provident Trinity of all do not rest, but still seek higher things.

and they theologize about the Son in the same terms as about the Father, that “in him dwells the whole fullness of divinity” and that he is “great God” and “over all,” “to whom no other will be compared,” and “true God,” and “eternal life,” and “true light,” and “sole master,” and “sole highest,” and “sole wonder-worker,” and “great king,” and “lord of all,” and “creator,” and “ruler,” and “of his peace there is no limit,” and “savior,” and “Christ is all in all,” and “blessed for the ages,” and that “great is the mystery of piety”—clearly that of Christians, among whom Christ is hymned as unbegotten God, and that by his own divinity “he provides for the people,” because he is consubstantial with the Father. In such a manner, then, do the saints whom we will now mention speak about these things, to whom God, according to the fifteenth psalm, “made known the ways of life.” David, in the seventh psalm, praying: “Arise, O Lord my God, at the command which you gave, and a gathering of peoples will surround you, and for this reason turn back to the height.” You perceive that the prophet knows him as Lord and God and beseeches him, saying “Arise” for your ineffable incarnation, in the manner which you predetermined, as in “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it.” For he says “for this reason” concerning the salvation that accrues to us from this: “The nations will surround you with faith; but you, from where you came, return inseparably.” And in the forty-sixth: “Great God, Lord, and great king over the whole earth.” And in the forty-ninth: “From the rising of the sun to its setting, from Zion is the beauty of his splendor.

God will come manifestly." And in 67: "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered," and "Make way for him who has mounted the west; Lord is his name." And in 81: "Arise, God, judge the earth." Observe how each phrase kindles the glory concerning him and suffices to persuade that he is of the Father's single substance. And that the great writer calls the one placed in the tomb not without life, in order that together with the living he might save those who have departed from human affairs, God, and prophesies that he will rise from the tomb to judge those who, after such and so great a benefaction, have thought in an earthly manner. Know that "west" means the last times. For in them he manifestly came to this visible world. And in 75: "In the holy one is your way. What great God is like our God? You are the God who alone works wonders." Here too he praises the incarnate God Logos, who dwelt in the Jewish temple and taught and worked wonders. And in 117: "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; great God is the Lord, and he has appeared to us." If with good reason the prophet calls him "great God" and "blessed," that is, glorified, and "great king" and "sole wonder-worker," the Lord who has appeared to us, and he is the Son, then among heretics he is unreasonably thought to be lesser than his own Father. For it is not possible that the same one should, in truth, be first according to prophecy, but second according to them. If we inquire of the same psalmist, we shall learn that he knows that both the Father and the Son exist as God of the forefathers. For in Psalm 146 he cries out:

God reigned over the nations. God sits upon his holy throne; the rulers of the peoples were gathered with the God of Abraham." And they were assembled together with the God who became incarnate, concerning whom it is sung in the second psalm: "Why did the nations rage and the peoples plot vain things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." And Isaiah proclaims him incomparable, as God the Father: "From eternity we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a god except you." For we have seen no other god than the one born from the virgin Mary according to the salvific incarnation, nor have we heard of any except the one witnessed by God the Father: "This is my beloved son," and again, as was said before: "A child was born to us, a son was given, whose beginning is upon his shoulder; and his name is called mighty God, ruler, prince of peace, father of the coming age." And after other things he adds: "And of his peace there is no limit." The Son, it says, having become incarnate, was born a child and was given to us, bearing upon his shoulder the beginning of this his lower birth, that is: being himself his own beginning, in that he was ineffably incarnated and born from a virgin without flux, not providing a beginning from the union with a man. And his name is "mighty God, ruler." He did not say "subject," but revealed his nature, his power, his authority. Knowing this name, David sings: "Let them know that your name is Lord.

You alone are the highest over all the earth," saying "alone" because of the one divinity. And he called him Father, who was about to be of the age, being also the creator of the past ages, because from the time of the economy he became well known to men. Therefore he called him father of a created and not uncreated nature; for the father of an uncreated and consubstantial son is one. And showing the immeasurableness of his divinity, he said: "There is no limit to his peace." And Jeremiah, or rather Baruch—for the book is one of both—speaks reverently about him: "This is our God; no other shall be compared to him. He discovered every path of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; after this he appeared on earth and lived among men." If, then, it is not understood in a manner befitting God, that because of the identity of the divinity both of the ineffable hypostases the present scripture was thus spoken, it remains to say, being godless, that the begetter himself, God and Father, is not our God nor is he compared to his son. Therefore the argument of those who slander the God Logos as lesser and a servant has fallen and been utterly destroyed. For how could another be incomparable to God, "to whom no other is compared"? And again: "Gods who did not make the heaven and the earth, let them perish from the earth; the Lord who made the heavens with understanding, he is the living and true God," as there is no other true divinity except that of the genuine son of God, through whom and from whom and from whom together with the whole world the heavens also were brought forth.

And the exceptional among men, Paul, preserving the same sequence as the prophets, renders the fitting words concerning him, writing to Titus: "awaiting the blessed hope and epiphany of the glory of the great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a chosen people, zealous of good works." For by uttering "the great God and our savior Jesus Christ," he indicates that he does not hold a secondary position in essence and that he is without beginning in relation to the great God the Father. For even from what is apparent, one can see that if the Son is small, how will the Father be great? If there was a time when the Word of God was not, there was a time when the name of Father did not exist. But may it be propitious to us who dare to say such things because of the ignorance of others. "For reverence is a good custom," they say, "for those who practice it." And by phrasing "who gave himself for us, that he might purify for himself a chosen people," and not "for another that he might purify a people," he adds consequences consistent with what has been mentioned. For it signifies that he has been allotted the one self-determining and good divinity, the cause of all things. For it is proper to a creator, and not to a creation, to die for the sake of, if one must speak thus, his own creation; and to a beloved Son, who holds divinity and kingship not different from the Father's, to acquire the people for himself.

This great and true exegete, leading the argument to demonstrate that he is at once a philanthropic and saving God, and at the same time how he abased himself and yielded to no superior divinity, becoming with us as one of us, without change and without sin, says: "When indeed the kindness and philanthropy of our savior God appeared, he saved us not by works which we performed, but according to his great mercy through the bath of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." And to the Colossians he both reproaches and makes a foundation of the primary theology concerning him, writing, as has already been said in the chapter "On the Homoousion": "Why according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ Jesus? Because in him dwells the whole fullness of the divinity bodily," that is, substantially. For that one is by nature the fullness itself, being the paternal divinity in substance. "For he did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God"; but we from the fullness, through his goodness, received grace. Which by nature we did not have as slaves, according to John saying: "And from his fullness we all received, and grace in return for grace," that is, the grace of regeneration in place of the grace we cast off, having perverted the first ordinance concerning the one plant. "For you are no longer," he says, "under law, but under grace"; and again: "Because in him the whole fullness was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile all things to him." These things also follow the preceding.

For the father is in the Son and the Son in the father by nature, just as everything kindred is in some way inseparable from its own kin, even if separated in hypostasis, the saying about the moving ground is also good, even if not very profound, yet not easily seen by all: "through him and into him to reconcile all things," so that the saying uttered about the father, "from whom all things," also suits the Son, if what has now been said and the saying "in him dwells the whole fullness of the divinity" are sound. And writing to Timothy, he theologized about him to the utmost and taught from both expressions that he is not contrary to the paternal nature in divinity. For he spoke thus: "Admittedly great is the mystery of piety: God was manifested in flesh, was justified in spirit, was seen by angels, was preached to nations, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory." For this one, the originator and benefactor of all, not yet clearly manifest to all, was found evident when for the salvation of all he became willing and as one of all. Hence "he was justified in spirit," that is, he was declared or confirmed to be true God even by those who had been ignorant of him in former time; and this, he says, not without examination, but by our very psychic motion, as common usage has it to say: "so-and-so was justified to be the true son of so-and-so," providing proof of lineage; and at another time: "so-and-so was justified to govern well.

And in order that the account might appear more credible, he deems it fitting that he was seen even by angels, to whom, on account of his divine infinity and formlessness, he was invisible before that time, just as the "only invisible God," and that he was hymned by them: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men"; and that it was proclaimed in this universe and believed, that he who shone forth timelessly from the ineffable light, was ineffably born from the ever-virgin in later times through philanthropy, manifesting all the paternal attributes in himself; and that he ascended to the one who encompasses all things in glory, in which he always was with God. And he himself, about whom the account is, is also trustworthy, bearing witness to his own divinity and lordship, and saying in Matthew to the devil: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God," and in John to the apostles: "You call me: the Lord and the teacher; and you speak well, for I am." And Thomas, having touched the marks of the nails which the Savior, as a philanthropist, received for our sake from us, was not disturbed nor did he diminish the highest opinion concerning him; for he knew that it belonged only to the autocratic, infinitely powerful, and most good nature, and not to a created one, not only to suffer for its own creatures, but also to bestow the universal, as we say, and general salvation, and this eternally. Therefore, having taken courage all the more from this, he brings forward to him the firm faith and acclaims: "My Lord and my God." And in the catholic epistles, equally and with like wording, theologizing the Son with the Father, they wrote, as was said before, John, the great among theologians;

And we know," he says, "that the Word of God has come and given us understanding, so that we may know the true God; and we are in the true one, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." Do not seek, he says, another God by essence or Son of God. For I have said to you twice concerning him the word "true," that he is "true Son" and "true God," having given understanding to those worthy to receive it; so that they may know that he has truly been begotten and truly is consubstantial with the God who begot him. But Judas, one of the twelve, defined him as sole proprietor, as having distributed the paternal divinity over all and through all and in all, writing somewhere thus: "For certain men, long ago proscribed for this impious judgment, have insinuated themselves, transferring the grace of our God into licentiousness and denying the only master and Lord Jesus Christ." But also Peter, the foremost among the apostles, appears in the Acts saying: "The word which he sent to the sons of Israel, proclaiming peace through Jesus Christ; this one is Lord of all." How then or when could he, honored with so many clear, uniform, and unvarying oracles of the Father, be introduced as dissimilar? Concerning the Son, that every good thing arises and that he is "sun of righteousness and healing" and "treasury of wisdom and knowledge" and "light," and that those who believe and "are not scandalized by him" become "sons of light.

Those who have sung hymns about him teach us in various ways, demonstrating his divinity and that he presides perfectly over his own works, showing that he is the provider of every good, a good-like and good-making light, and a noetic sun, brightening the eyes of unerring and receptive souls with his inexhaustible light, leading them within the noetic height and making them see what previously, due to sin, they were not naturally able to see by themselves, or even making the whole complete man luminous, as the sun makes sun-like the bodies in which it appears; further, that he is also a healing and an inexhaustible and all-sufficient "treasury of wisdom and knowledge." And those who are sincerely disposed toward him, as toward his father, become sons of light, just as sons of God the Father, as when Malachi proclaims: "The sun of righteousness will rise for you who fear my name, and healing is in its wings"; and Peter in the second epistle: "until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts"—he meant, I think, the illumination about to rise for souls from his second coming, brightening everything held by darkness; and elsewhere: "and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Zachariah prophesied: "If anything is good, it is from him, and if anything is beautiful, it will be from him." And Paul said about him to the Colossians: "In whom are all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge," and to the Romans: "For the scripture says," he states, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord of all enriches all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." But what name of the Son do they invoke, those who say that he is neither uncreated God nor a Son consubstantial with the Father—him, the glorious victor, the savior of heaven, earth, and sea? And John likewise says about him: "Since you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light." For after death, he says, there is no repentance, as David also sings: "And in Hades, who will make confession to you?" And again from the Savior: "Go and report to John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead are raised, and the poor are evangelized; and blessed is whoever does not take offense at me." For what will he say about those who err and those who lead astray? Isaiah foretold: "My people, those who bless you lead you astray and disturb the path of your feet. But now the Lord will sit in judgment and will set the people for judgment. The Lord himself will come to judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers. But why did you set fire to my vineyard?

He himself will come to judgment with the teachers and rulers, not as one who will be judged by another, but as one who will refute them, just as he declares in another passage: "Come, let us be judged, says the Lord, what things from me have been for you and what things from you have been done against me and my servants." For he calls the world or the people a "vineyard," which the exegetes of the heretics and Jews, through their blasphemous teaching, have made liable to the fire of Gehenna, and the rulers, not having appropriated it for themselves but having abused their authority, have wronged it in various and diverse ways. For something of this kind has also been said by the same prophet from the Lord's person: "Who is the one being judged with me? Let him stand against me. And who is the one being judged with me? Let him approach me." That is to say: if anyone has just things to say, as one fortified by deeds, let him be brought against me, who wishes this, and let him draw near to the words. But some read it thus: "Who is the one being judged with me? Let him stand opposite," that is, opposite and somewhere far off, "to me," as one not having good provisions and therefore unworthy to be compared with me and to touch the most pure tribunal. For to those who are worthy, if they should obtain good things, there is no envy; for them it is prepared.

Concerning that the Son of God is "judge of the living and the dead," granting remission of sins, and that "in no other is salvation." For he himself is "the judge of the living and the dead," that is, of the righteous and the sinful, who grants remission of sins to those who believe in his name and saves us by his own glory and gift. And "in no other is salvation," since he is by nature merciful and savior, in no way inferior to the merciful and saving God and Father, as both the other scriptures and indeed Micah declare, saying: "What god is like you, removing lawlessness and surpassing injustices?" And Peter in the Acts speaks thus: "And he commanded us to proclaim to the people and to testify that he himself is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets bear witness to this, that remission of sins is obtained through his name by everyone who believes in him." We have him, then, celebrated, appointed by God on account of his salvific incarnation, in which he came "to seek and save the lost." On account of which also it is written: "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son"; as judge, however, as one exalted above the creatures. For the creature does not judge, but is subject to law and judgment. And again: "This is the stone despised by you builders, which became the head of the corner. And in no other is salvation." But also the Catholic Epistles send a second letter, which among other things concerning him contains also this:

as all things of his divine power have been given to us for life and piety through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and virtue, through which the greatest and most precious good tidings have been granted to us, so that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature. Therefore James also said in general terms: "There is one lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy." What need is there of a multitude of scriptures for this? And the Samaritans in John, the accurate divine speaker, men of good will, utter voices: "For we ourselves," he says, "have heard and know that this one is truly the savior of the world, the Christ," who says, he says, gently: "Take courage, child, your sins are forgiven." Concerning the fact that because of the equality of honor of the Trinity, the Father reveals the Son to us and draws us to him, and again the Son and the Holy Spirit lead us to the Father. At the same time also concerning the confession of Peter, and that repentance exists. For in order that the equality of honor of the blessed Trinity in all things might be demonstrated, the Father reveals his own Son to us and draws us through himself to him and transfers us into his kingdom; and again the Son and the Holy Spirit lead us to God the Father. For God would not have transferred us to something of a different substance or greater, nor to something subordinate like a scepter of his own. The New Testament has indeed perfected the Old through faith in the Son and the divine Spirit. And here God the Father says in Isaiah to the Son: "Behold, proselytes will come to you through me and will dwell with you and will take refuge in you.

And the Son in John: "No one is able to come to me, unless the heavenly Father draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day." And again, to Peter who said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," he said: "Blessed are you, Peter bar Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I tell you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the heavens, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in the heavens." Oh, how much faith can do, and confessing that the Son is truly of God and not a creature, the only-begotten God Logos. Peter did not hesitate, seeing God dwelling on earth in flesh and blood; for this is what "flesh and blood did not reveal it to you" means; but he recognized the connatural and coeternal branch of God; he honored in this the self-generated and unoriginate root that revealed itself to him; he believed in his unity of divinity with the Father; he was blessed by the only blessed Master. The churches were built upon this rock, whose "gates of Hades," that is, the syllogisms of heretics, do not overcome; he was entrusted with the keys of the heavens, so that to those who believe—as Peter himself appears to have just answered and as he heard from Christ together with the other apostles: "baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"—he might open in the kingdom of God.

To those who do not glorify in this way, he will close the thrice-blessed and most desirable entrance. For by this very thing by which he was blessed, he himself was received in this glory, as those who speak contrariwise were condemned and cast out. Having spoken truly, then, and having confessed him to be Son of God, that is, genuine and consubstantial, he heard something similar: Bar Jonah, which is interpreted, Son of Jonah. But Peter was certainly not of a different substance from the one who begot him. In addition to this, he received authority—or rather, all through him—not to forbid those who err, but to receive those who repent. For no one is without sin, except the one who granted this authority to Peter, for this is: "Whatever you loose on earth, will be loosed in the heavens." From then on, he cast out the inhumanity of Novatus and Sabbatius. To the foregoing, Paul also follows, writing to the Galatians: "But when God, who separated me from my mother's womb, was pleased to reveal his Son in me," and to the Colossians: "thanking the Father who made us worthy of the portion of the lot of the saints in the light; who delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the remission of sins," and to the Corinthians: "God is faithful, through whom you were called into communion with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord," and to the Ephesians: "and coming, he proclaimed peace to you who are far and peace to those near, that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." Concerning the fact that there is no end of the kingdom of the Only-begotten.

And so that heretics who say that after the general resurrection the Son is going to hand over the kingdom to the Father may be put to shame, they proclaim the power of the Son to be unending in this way: Gabriel, in Luke, when announcing to the Theotokos, says, "And the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Israel forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom." And indeed truly; for if he restores, in what kingdom of his and when shall we reign with him? And Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says, "Every fornicator or unclean person or covetous person, who is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." He certainly means the kingdom after the resurrection. When then, according to them, does he hand over the kingdom? And in the second epistle to Timothy: "I testify before God and Christ Jesus who is about to judge the living and the dead, and his appearing and his kingdom; proclaim the word." It is clear that he means the kingdom which he holds undivided and without succession with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and in the future age. And to the Hebrews: "And to the angels he says: He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire; and to the Son: Your throne, O God, is for the age of ages." And David in the forty-fourth psalm: "Your throne, O God, is for the age of ages; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of righteousness. You have loved justice and hated injustice.

For this reason, "He anointed you, O God, with the oil of gladness beyond your fellows." Observe again that his kingdom is boundless and his divinity without beginning. But on account of his ineffable incarnation, he added "your God." And in Psalm 144: "Your kingdom is the kingdom of all ages, and your dominion is in every generation and generation." And in Psalm 10: "The Lord will reign for the age of the age." And to Peter the Son gave the keys as Lord of the kingdom—not of the present age, for we do not yet attain it, but of the future age, in which the heretics suppose he will hand it over—so that those who believe his kingdom to be without beginning and boundless may be admitted, while those who do not cry out, as was said a little earlier, in the manner of Nathanael, "You are the Son of God, you are the King of the Christians," may be rejected. And also the prophecy of Isaiah which says, "I saw the king, Lord Sabaoth, with my eyes." Paul attributed this to the Spirit of God, but John to the Only-Begotten, as was said before, because of the commonality of the divinity and the one successionless kingdom. For how is it possible that one should rule while the other is idle, as among men, when the Father abides in the Son and the Son in the Father, and whenever the Spirit proceeds from the Father and abides with the Son in a divine manner?

Concerning the Doxology of the Son of God himself. Therefore, also regarding the vision of his glory, such as the saints again testify, "of whom," it says, "the world was not worthy," teaching us who were called sons by grace upon the earth, to glorify the only-begotten Son from the hypostasis of the Father with equal glory as him, and to look upon the glory which he had before the world existed with the Father, who does not begrudge the beloved. For the divine is free from envy and every passion. David in the 71st Psalm, which he admittedly prophesied concerning Christ, says, "His name shall be blessed for ever; his name shall endure before the sun and before the moon for generations of generations. And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone works wonders, and blessed is the name of his glory for ever and ever. And the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. Amen." "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel" he said instead of "glorified" or "praised." For God is blessed by his works, that is, glorified; and he himself blesses his own creatures, that is, sanctifies. And it must be noted that he is also the God of Israel, that is, the God of the fathers, just as his Father is called. And in the 85th Psalm, representing the all-powerful and all-mighty nature of the only-begotten and how he ought to be glorified, he sings: "All the nations which you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name, because you are great and work wonders.

You are the only God." And in Psalm 18: "The heavens declare the glory of God." How? By showing, from the majesty and beauty granted to them, the unsurpassable and glorified creator, who is the God Logos. For "the heavens were established by the word of the Lord and their powers by the spirit of his mouth." Therefore they are not ashamed of the testimony of the inanimate things concerning the glory of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in Psalm 23: "Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be raised up, O eternal gates, and the king of glory will enter." He commands the lower creation to lift up its gates at his incarnation, and the higher creation at his ascension. And in Psalm 116: "Praise the Lord, all nations, and let all peoples acclaim him." And Isaiah: "You will see a king with glory." And Ezekiel: "Blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place" and "This is the vision, the likeness of the glory of the Lord." Then Paul: "Claiming to be wise, they became foolish and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of a corruptible image of man." And again in Romans: "Therefore he delivered them up to the desires of their hearts, to the impurity of dishonoring their bodies among themselves. They exchanged the glory of God for falsehood, and worshipped and served the creation rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." Who is the creator of all, whom he says is blessed unto

the ages, if not the Only-Begotten? And who are those who have altered his glory? Those who say, "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit," who also glorify him as a creature and not even as an eternal king. Then to the same he says, "so that they are without excuse, because having known God they did not glorify or thank him as God, but were vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." And what is the God who was known but not recognized by heretics, Jews, and Greeks, if not the God Logos who appeared in flesh? And in the first letter to the Corinthians, showing him to be by nature the Lord of glory, he writes thus: "For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," and elsewhere: "so that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee may bend and every tongue confess that Lord Jesus Christ is for the glory of God the Father," that is, that he exists in that same paternal glory. And further: "For we see Jesus, who is diminished in the eyes of some because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." This is said in a proleptic manner. For he says: we see Jesus, who seems to some to be diminished because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. But he also calls him glory, since he is naturally the radiance of the paternal glory, through what he writes: "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory." He said "God" of the ineffable incarnation, and "Father" of the beginningless generation. And again John: "We have beheld his glory, glory as of an Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." And again in Mark, from the Savior:

When the Son comes in the glory of his Father," showing that his own glory is of equal honor with the glory of the Father; and in Matthew: "When the Son of Man comes in his own glory and all his angels with him." And again John, establishing that he is in glory and that glory is owed to him from all, said: "Though Jesus had performed so many signs, the Jews did not believe in him, so that the saying through Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'You will hear with your ears and not understand.'" And in between he adds: "He said these things when he saw his glory, and he spoke about him." And Peter, in the first epistle: "Rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may rejoice exulting in the revelation of his glory"; and in the second: "Since all things of his divine power have been given to us for life and piety through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and virtue," instead of: "The glory of the Only-Begotten—that of nature, that of miracles, that of the kingdom, and that of doxology itself—is similar and equal to the glory of the Father, from whom he was naturally and without separation begotten, and he has all things in himself as Only-Begotten, so that even when he became flesh, he underwent no change or diminution.

Thus also the three youths, not by the Babylonian flame, but kindled with desire for the creator and benefactor, and paying more heed to the furnace surrounding them than to the Gehenna prepared for the worshippers of creation, they subordinated to creation the act of glorifying the one who appeared with them in the furnace, concerning whom it is written, "And the appearance of the fourth was like a son of God": "Bless, all the works of the Lord, the Lord; praise and exalt him forever." And when, it says, the Lord-slayers were distressed at the children and the crowds because, glorifying Jesus as God, they said, "Hosanna in the highest; blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord," he reminded them of the scripture which says, "From the mouth of infants and sucklings you have fashioned praise," applying this saying to himself and showing that glory is not unsuitably brought to him. And angels, it says, said at his birth, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace."

On the summary of worship.

We have seen him glorified, we have seen him also worshipped. Both are fitting and owed to God, not to a creature, as the holy writers who are subject record: David in Psalm 94: "Come, let us worship and fall down before him and weep before the Lord who made us, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand"; and in Psalm 21: "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will worship before him, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he himself rules over the nations." What then will those say who assign the name "God" separately to the Father and "Lord" to the Son, when they hear here that the Lord is worshipped and rules and that the kingdom is his? And again in Psalm 9: "And I will worship you, Lord, my strength"; and in Psalm 131: "Let us worship at the place where his feet stood"; Paul, writing from the Song of Deuteronomy: "When he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says: And let all the angels of God worship him"; and the evangelist says, "The magi said: We saw his star in the east and came to worship him"; and again, "Behold," he says, "a leper came and worshipped him"; and again in Matthew he says: "The wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God," and not as we, he says, who are called sons by a generous gift. And: "A certain ruler worshipped him." And after his resurrection on the mountain he says:

The apostles, having seen him, worshipped him. Concerning faith in God the Father. Just as Scripture, speaking more greatly than concerning the Father in appearance, says many things concerning the Son and reveals him as almighty, and maker of the ages, and creator of all things, and true God, and having no God before him, and above all, and great and God over all, to whom no other will be compared, and sitting at the right hand with the Father, and being in his bosom, and being himself the eternal life, and the true light, and Lord of all, and sole master, and ruler, whose peace has no limit, but surpasses every mind, and whose kingdom is unending, and that salvation is in no other, and that the Father draws the worthy to the Son—in no way is the Father considered inferior—far from it—to his Spirit. In the same way, when it speaks theologically of the Father in lofty terms, the only-begotten or the Holy Spirit ought not to be considered lesser or dissimilar.