De incarnatione et contra Arianos

OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS ATHANASIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, CONCERNING THE INCARNATE APPEARING OF GOD THE WORD, AND AGAINST THE ARIANS. Those who wish to understand the divine Scriptures with evil craftiness desire to bring forward the human words of the poverty of the Son of God in order to establish their own blasphemy. But all the exactness of Christianity is found in lowly words and deeds. If, then, they were able to hear the blessed Paul writing to the Corinthians: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for our sakes he became poor, though he was rich, so that we might become rich by his poverty — they would never have dared to say that the Son is unlike the Father, if indeed they had known what is the manner of his poverty and what is the power of his cross. Hence the same Paul also says elsewhere: That you may be strong to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of the knowledge of Christ that surpasses all, so that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. For this reason he speaks boldly in writing concerning his poverty and his sufferings, saying: But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world; and again: I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and, If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And now these men, if they had known the divine Scriptures, would not have dared to blaspheme the Creator of all things as a creature or a work of making. For they bring forward these things, saying:

How can he be like, or be from the substance of, the Father, when it is written: "As the Father has life in himself, so he gave also to the Son to have life in himself"? This, they say, is a superiority of the giver over the receiver. And, "Why do you call me good?" he says; "no one is good except one, God." And again: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And again: "Concerning the last day no one knows, not even the Son, except the Father." And again: "Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world." And again: "Whom the Father raised from the dead." How then, they say, can he who is raised from the dead be like or of the same substance as the one who raised him? These few things we have cited out of many, so that, once these are resolved, the rest may also be easily understood. We ought, then, as far as possible, to expound their force. When, therefore, the blessed Paul says, "The Father raised his Son from the dead," John relates to us that Jesus said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And he spoke, it says, concerning the temple of his body. It is clear, then, to those who attend, that, when the body is raised, the Son is said by Paul to have been raised from the dead; for the things of his body are spoken in reference to his own person. So then also, when he says, "The Father gave life to the Son," the life given must be understood as given to the flesh. For if he himself is the life, how does the life receive life? And if he himself promises, saying: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish forever" —

And if he himself is the wisdom of God, and if he himself made every age, how is it said: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age"? And if the Father made all things through his own Word and Son, it is clear that he also made the raising of his flesh through him. Through him, therefore, he raised him, and through him he gives him life. He is raised according to the flesh as a man, and receives life as a man, having been found in form as a man. And he himself is the one who raises his own temple, as God, and gives life to his own flesh. When, then, he again says, "Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world," elsewhere he says: "For their sake I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth"; and when he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he speaks in our person; because, having taken the form of a slave, and having been made in the likeness of men, and having been found in form as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross, and so on. And as Isaiah says: "He himself bears our weaknesses, and is in pain concerning us"; so that he is not in pain for himself, but for us; and he himself was not forsaken by God, but we were, and for our sake, who were forsaken, he came into the world. And when he says, "Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave him a name that is above every name," he speaks concerning the temple, which is his body. For the Most High is not exalted, but the flesh of the Most High is exalted; and to the flesh of the Most High he gave the name that is above every name.

And it is not the Word of God who received by grace the title of God, but his flesh was deified together with him. For he did not say that the Word became God, but "God was the Word." He was always, it says, God the Word, and this same God became flesh, so that his flesh might become God the Word; just as Thomas also, having touched his flesh, cried out: "My Lord and my God," theologizing the two together. And likewise John also wrote: "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." It is evident, therefore, that the Son and Word of the Father was touched in the flesh, and the divine Scripture has handed down that the two together, the Word of life, was touched. And when it says: "The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified," it means his flesh, not yet glorified. For it is not the Lord of glory who is glorified, but the flesh of the Lord of glory; this receives glory as it ascends together with him into heaven. Hence also the Spirit of adoption was not yet among men, because the firstfruits taken from us had not yet ascended into heaven. Therefore whatever the Scripture says—that the Son received, and that the Son was glorified—it says because of his humanity, not because of his divinity. And when it says, "My Father, who sent me, is greater than I," since he became man, it says the Father is greater than he. But being the Word of the Father, he is equal to him. For, it says, "I and the Father are one"; and "He who has seen me has seen the Father." And he does not have being equal to the Father by robbery, but by nature he is equal and consubstantial with the Father.

because he has been begotten from the Father's essence. And when the Apostle says, "In Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily," it must be understood that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in his flesh. And when he says, "He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all," he says elsewhere: "Just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her." For the immortal God did not come to save himself, but those who had been put to death; and he did not suffer for himself, but for us; so that for this reason he accepted our lowliness and poverty, in order to bestow his riches upon us. For his suffering is our impassibility; and his death is our immortality; and his tear is our joy; and his burial is our resurrection; and his baptism is our sanctification. For "for their sake," he says, "I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." And his wound is our healing; for "by his wound we were healed." And his chastisement is our peace; for "the chastisement of our peace was upon him"—that is, for the sake of our peace he himself is chastised; and his dishonor is our glory. Hence he asks for glory on our behalf, saying: "Glorify me, Father, with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was." For we are those who are glorified in him; and his descent is our ascent, according to what is written: "And he raised us up and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus"; and that, "so that

that he might show in the ages to come the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. And by his saying on the cross, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," he commits all men to the Father through himself—those who are given life in him. For they are his members, and the many members are one body, which is the Church; just as the blessed Paul also writes to the Galatians: "For you are all one in Christ Jesus." All, then, he commits in himself. So then also, when he says, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways," he speaks concerning the Church, which is being created in him. For the Maker of all things is not a creature and a work, but the work is renewed in the Maker, according to what is said by Paul: "We are his work, created in Christ Jesus." And as he again says: "that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and authorities in the heavenly places through the Church, according to the purpose of the ages, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord; in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him." And again he says: "just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself." And again he also says concerning the two peoples: "that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the enmity in himself." And when he says, "Why do you call me good?

No one is good except one, God. God, counting himself among men, said this according to his flesh, and with regard to the mind of the one who approached him. For that man supposed him to be only a man and not God, and the answer has this in view: For if, he says, you suppose me to be a man and not God, do not call me good; for no one is good. For goodness does not belong to human nature, but to God. And he adds: You know the commandments? And when that man said, Which ones? he said: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, and the rest. He answered, saying: All these I have kept from my youth; what do I still lack? He said to him: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and taking up your cross, follow me. Through these things, then, he showed that goodness is distinct from him as well; for how can the one who does not follow the good inherit eternal life? And when he says concerning the last day, that No one knows, not even the Son, but the Father, he speaks in a human way. For if he knows the Father, how does he not know the last day? For no one knows the Father, he says, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. And if the Holy Spirit knows all the things of God, how does the Son not know the day which he created? And if the ages came into being through him, and the times, it is evident that the last day also is found among the ages and times, and it is impossible for him to be ignorant of it.

Whatever humble words were spoken by the Lord belong to his poverty, so that we might become rich in him, not so that we might blaspheme against the Son of God by means of them. And for this reason the Son of God became a son of man, so that the sons of man—that is, of Adam—might become sons of God. For the Word who was begotten from above, from the Father, ineffably, inexpressibly, incomprehensibly, and eternally, the same is born in time below, from the Virgin Mary, the God-bearer; so that those who were formerly born from below might be born again from above—that is, from God. He, then, has a mother only on earth, and we have a Father only in heaven. And for this reason he calls himself Son of man, so that men might call God Father in the heavens: Our Father, he says, who is in the heavens. Just as we, the servants of God, have become sons of God, so the Master of servants has become a mortal son of his own servant—that is, of Adam—so that the sons of Adam, being mortal, might become sons of God, according to what is said: He gave them authority to become children of God. Whence

And the Son of God tastes death because of his fleshly father, so that the sons of men might partake of the life of God, through their Father God according to the Spirit. He, then, is Son of God by nature, but we by grace. And again, he became son of Adam by dispensation and for our sake, by grace, while we are sons of Adam by nature. Therefore he says, I go to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. For God is his Father, as I said before, by nature, but ours by grace; and he became his God by dispensation, because he is man, while he is by nature our Master and God. And for this reason the Word and Son of the Father, united to flesh, became flesh, a perfect man, so that men, united to the Spirit, might become one Spirit. He, then, is God bearing flesh, and we are men bearing the Spirit. For having taken the firstfruits from the substance of men, that is, from the seed of Adam (which is the form of a servant), and having become in the likeness of man, he gave us from the substance of the Father, the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, so that we all might become sons of God, in the likeness of the Son of God. He, then, the true and by nature Son of God, bears us all, so that we all might bear the one God. It is impious, then, to say that the Spirit of God is created or made, since all Scripture, both Old and New, counts it together with the Father and the Son and glorifies it, because it is of the same divinity and of the same authority, just as the Lord himself says: He who believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.

He said this concerning the Spirit, whom those who believe in him were about to receive; as also in Joel he says in the person of the Father: I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. And for this reason he breathes it into the face of the apostles, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit; so that we may learn that the Spirit given to the disciples is from the fullness of the Godhead. For in Christ, he says, dwells—that is, in his flesh—all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; just as also John the Baptist says: We all received from his fullness. For in bodily form, that is, as a dove, the Holy Spirit was seen descending and remaining upon him. For in us dwells the firstfruits and pledge of the Godhead, but in Christ the whole fullness of the Godhead. And let no one suppose that he received it as one who did not have it; for he himself sent it from above, as God; and he himself received it below, as man. From himself, therefore, it descended into himself, from his Godhead into his manhood. And Isaiah cries out in the person of the Father, saying: Thus says the Lord your God, who made you and formed you from the womb: Do not fear, my servant Jacob, and my beloved Israel, whom I have chosen; for I will give water in thirst to those who walk in a dry land; I will place my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children. But in the Gospel the Son promises to give water to those who walk in thirst, saying to the Samaritan woman concerning the Holy Spirit:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. And after a little he says to her: Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water leaping up into eternal life. And for this reason David, singing to God, says: For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light. For he knows that the Son, the fountain of the Holy Spirit, is with God the Father. And through Jeremiah the Son says: My people have done two evil things: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water. And when the seraphim glorify God, saying for the third time: Holy, holy, holy Lord Sabaoth, they glorify Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And for this reason, just as we are baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son, so also into the name of the Holy Spirit, and we become sons of God, not of gods. For Father and Son and Holy Spirit is Lord Sabaoth. For the Godhead is one and God is one in three hypostases. And for this reason, what the Father said in Isaiah, John says; because the Son said it; and in the Acts Paul says that the Holy Spirit said it. For Isaiah says thus: I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the house was filled with his glory, and the seraphim stood round about him; each one had six wings, and each one had six wings.

And with two wings they covered their faces, and with two their feet, and with two they flew. And one cried to another, saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Sabaoth; the whole heaven and all the earth are full of his glory. And after a little, the same one says: I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send? And who will go to this people? And I said: Behold, I am here; send me. And he said to me: Go to this people, and say to them: You shall hear with hearing, and you shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and you shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull. And with their ears they heard heavily; and they closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I heal them. And the evangelist John says: For this reason the Jews could not believe in Jesus, because Isaiah said: He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I heal them. And Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, that is, the glory of the Son; so that the Son is also the Lord Sabaoth. For Lord Sabaoth is interpreted as Lord of hosts; and the Lord of hosts is himself the King of glory, as David said. And the Lord of glory is the crucified Christ, according to Paul. And as David said: The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing; and elsewhere: O Shepherd of Israel, give heed, you who lead Joseph like a sheep, you who sit upon the cherubim, appear.

But in the Gospels the Son says: I am the good shepherd; he, then, is the one who sits upon the cherubim, who shepherds Israel. And Paul in the Acts says that the Holy Spirit spoke these things through Isaiah, which Isaiah said, that the Lord Sabaoth spoke to me. The Father, then, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the Lord Sabaoth. And when the Scripture says concerning the Father, that he himself created all things, the visible and the invisible, elsewhere the Scripture teaches us that through the Son they were created. The Father did not create some things separately and the Son other things; but whatever the Father does, he does through his own power, which is the Son; for all things came to be through him. So then also, when the Son says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up—and he was speaking, it says, concerning his own body—another Scripture says that the Father raised his Son from the dead; and it says well, for he raised through his own Word and Son the flesh of his Son. And we do not say that the body is a Son by nature of God, but the body of the Son of God. When the body, then, is raised, the Son is understood to have been raised from the dead. For this reason we say according to the flesh that he both died and was buried and was raised from the dead; but according to the spirit he was both in heaven and on earth and everywhere. Since, then, he who was formerly rich, that is, God, afterward became poor, that is, man, and was made like us in all things without sin; and for this reason as man he receives life, he who has life, for he himself is the life—

He receives this for our sake, and as a man the eternal power and wisdom of God advanced in wisdom and stature, and as a man the Holy One is sanctified, though he has no need of sanctification; for he says, For their sake I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And as a man he is exalted, having received the name that is above every name, which he always has by nature. For, he says, the Word was God. Whatever, then, the Scripture says that the Son received, it says because of his body, which body is the firstfruits of the Church; for, he says, Christ is the firstfruits. When the firstfruits, then, received the name that is above every name, the lump was also raised with him in power and seated with him, according to what is said: And he raised and seated us together. And for this reason men received the grace of being called gods and sons of God. First, then, the Lord raised his own body from the dead and exalted it in himself; after this he will also raise the members of his body, in order to grant them all things, as God, whatever he himself received as a man. He, then, grants life to himself, and he sanctifies himself, and he exalts himself. When, therefore, he says that the Father sanctified him, and raised him, and granted him the name that is above every name, and gave him life, it is clear that the Father does all things through him. Through him, then, he raises him, and through him he sanctifies him, and through him he exalts him, and through him he gives him life. And when he commends his spirit into the hands of the Father, as a man he commends himself to God, in order that he may commend all men to God. For he himself is the hand, and the hands of the Father. And when he says:

Before all the hills he begets me, he says, speaking in the person of the Church, which, having been created first, afterward is begotten of God. For this reason, in Proverbs the statement "The Lord created me" is placed first, and "he begot" later. And when the Scripture says concerning the Father: "Did not one God create us?" it likewise says concerning the Son that all things were created through him; and the same things are said also concerning the Holy Spirit: "You will take away their spirit," it says, "and they will fail, and they will return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." And when the Son says concerning the Father to Peter: "Blessed are you, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in the heavens," he says the same things concerning himself: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit Paul says: "But God has revealed it to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God." Just as, therefore, the spirit of a man is not separated from his humanity and his essence, so also the Spirit of God is not alien to his divinity and his essence. And when the Lord says in Isaiah: "I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me," he says in the Gospel: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." And again:

The Spirit blows where it wills, and you hear its voice; but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who has been born of the Spirit. And at the beginning of the Gospel John says: But to all who received him, he gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in his name; who were born not of blood, nor of the will of a man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. Therefore, all who have been born of the Holy Spirit, these have been born of God. And all who were baptized into Christ, these were baptized into the Father and the Holy Spirit. And again, when Peter says to Ananias: Why has Satan filled your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back from the price of the field? You have not lied to men but to God. So that the one who lied to the Holy Spirit lied to God, who dwells in men through his Spirit. For where the Spirit of God is, there is God; for in this, he says, we know that God remains in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. And when the Scripture says that the Holy Spirit was speaking in the prophets, elsewhere the blessed Paul says that the Father was speaking in the prophets; for God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in many portions and in many ways, in the

by the prophets, in these last days he spoke to us in the Son. And elsewhere he says that the Son speaks: If, he says, you seek a proof of the Christ who speaks in me. But the Son said that the Spirit speaks in the apostles: When, he says, they deliver you up to councils, do not be anxious how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given to you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. And sometimes the Apostle says that the bodies of the faithful are a temple of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes that their members are members of Christ, and sometimes that they are a temple of the Father: For you, he says, 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 shall be my people; and, If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. And again: Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you? For if anyone is a temple of the Spirit, he is a temple of the Son and of the Father; for where the Spirit of God dwells, there God dwells. And, As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills. Likewise also concerning the Spirit he says that It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing. And Paul writes to the Corinthians: But the Spirit gives life. Do you see that the works which are the Father's, Scripture says are the Son's and the Holy Spirit's; as the Apostle also taught, saying: There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit;

And there are varieties of ministries, and the Lord himself; and there are varieties of workings, but the same God who works all things in all. Having said, then, that the Father is the one who works all things in all, a little later he says that the Holy Spirit is the one working all things in all. But all these things, he says, the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills. And when the blessed Paul teaches concerning the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is the earnest of the inheritance, David says that the Lord is the inheritance; for the Lord, he says, is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup. And elsewhere he says: I cried to you, O Lord; I said, you are my hope, my portion in the land of the living. And Jeremiah says that he who formed all things, he himself is the inheritance of Jacob, the Lord is his name. Since, then, the prophets say that the Lord is the inheritance of the saints, Paul said that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance: In whom, he says, also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance; just as Moses also had his face sealed with the Holy Spirit, when he received the law from God, and none of the sons of Israel could look intently at him; for the light of the face of the Lord was marked upon him; as also it is written in the Gospel: Then the righteous will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. For God is light; and likewise the Son also is light, because he is of the same substance of the true light, as Isaiah also says: And the light of Israel will be as fire, and he will sanctify him in a burning flame.

But in the Gospel John the Baptist says concerning the Lord: He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And elsewhere he calls the Lord the one who sanctifies: I am the Lord who sanctifies them. And when the Scripture calls God a fire: Our God is a consuming fire, in the same way it also says concerning the Holy Spirit: that there appeared to the apostles tongues as of fire, distributed, and it sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. For all who bear the Spirit of God bear light; and those who bear light have put on Christ; and those who have put on Christ have put on the Father. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. For those who bear the Spirit of God bear incorruption; and incorruption is God. And when David says: Many say, Who will show us good things? — concerning the Holy Spirit

He says: and elsewhere he has said: The Lord will not withhold good things from those who walk in innocence. And Matthew says concerning the Father thus: If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those who ask him? But Luke, recording in the same way, explains what the good things are, saying: If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in the heavens give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? For if the Holy Spirit were not of the substance of the only good one, he would not have been called good, since the Lord declines to be called good, insofar as he became man, saying: Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God. But Scripture does not decline to call the Holy Spirit good, according to David who says: Your good Spirit will guide me in the right land. And again, when the Lord says concerning himself: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Elsewhere he calls the Holy Spirit heavenly bread, saying: Give us today our supersubstantial bread. For he taught us in the prayer to ask in the present age for the supersubstantial bread, that is, the one to come, of which we have the firstfruits in the present life, partaking of the flesh of the Lord, just as he himself said: And the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. For the flesh of the Lord is a life-giving Spirit, because it was conceived from the life-giving Spirit. For what is born of the Spirit is Spirit.

And when Jeremiah says concerning God that he himself led Israel in the wilderness: And you did not say, he says, Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who guided us in the wilderness? Isaiah said that the Holy Spirit led Israel in the wilderness; at any rate one may hear him saying: He brought them through the abyss as a horse through the wilderness, and they did not grow weary, and as cattle through the plain. And the Spirit came down from the Lord, and guided them. And the Apostle writes to the Corinthians that it was Christ who was leading them: For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ. And when Paul says that he was called by God: God, he says, who set me apart from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles. And he says that the Romans were called by Christ, writing to them: Among whom you also are called of Jesus Christ. And he has said that the Holy Spirit called Paul and Barnabas to preach Christ to the Gentiles. And this is the wonderful thing, that Jesus said to Paul in the temple: Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles; and that Paul writes to the Galatians: Paul, an apostle not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead; and shortly after: I make known to you, brothers, that this Gospel is not according to man; for neither did I receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is shown to have sent both Paul and Barnabas to proclaim Christ to the Gentiles. And sometimes the prophets speak in the person of the Father, as when God says in the Psalms: Once I swore in my holiness, shall I lie to David? His seed shall remain forever, and his throne as the sun before me; and again: From the fruit of your loins I will set upon your throne; and as Peter has said: Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that from the fruit of his loins the Christ would sit according to the flesh upon his throne. And sometimes in the person of the Son, as when Isaiah says: Thus says the Lord: Because of you my name is blasphemed continually among the Gentiles. Therefore my people shall know my name in that day, that I am he, I myself who speak am present. And sometimes in the person of the Holy Spirit, as when the prophet Agabus says: Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose belt this is. And again Paul writes to Timothy: The Spirit says expressly that in later times some will depart from the faith; and again: The Spirit said to Philip: Approach and join yourself to this chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch. And the prophet Ezekiel, accusing the old people, said: And they grieved me in all these things, says the Lord. But Paul writes to the new people: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And David says concerning the Jews: And they provoked God in the wilderness; but Isaiah concerning them:

But they were disobedient and provoked the Holy Spirit, and he turned against them in hostility. And Stephen says in the Acts: You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. And when Paul says concerning the Father: God who justifies, who is the one who condemns? he says the same things likewise concerning the Son and concerning the Holy Spirit: But you washed yourselves, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. And the Lord says to Satan concerning himself: You shall not tempt the Lord your God; and Peter said to Sapphira: Why is it that you agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? And God is the one who contains and fills all things, as he also says through Isaiah: I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord; and Paul writes likewise concerning the Son: He who descended is himself also the one who ascended above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things. And David says the same things also concerning the Holy Spirit: Where shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face where shall I flee? And by saying, Where shall I go from your Spirit? he showed us that the Holy Spirit is also the one who fills all things; and, From your face where shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into Hades, you are present. And who has come into Hades if not the Son who rose from the dead? And when Stephen says in the Acts: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, Paul says the same things also concerning the Son.

For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; and likewise David also says: The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. For there is one glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. My glory, says the Scripture, I will give to another; for the Son is not a second God, but the Word of the one and only God, being theologized in the Father, just as the Father is theologized in the Son; as also Isaiah says, theologizing the Son together with the Father: And they shall worship you and shall pray in you, because God is in you, and besides you there is no God. For you are God, and we did not know, the God of Israel, the Savior. All who oppose him shall be ashamed and confounded. And they oppose him who do not confess him and his Spirit to be of the same essence as the Father, and that besides him there is no God, and those who are ashamed of his passion and his poverty. For no one can know God unless he confesses the one who was crucified and raised from the dead, together with the apostle Thomas, as Lord and God, the one who says to his apostles: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also, and from now on you know him and have seen him. Philip says to him: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus says to him: Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me? Philip, the one who has seen me has seen my Father. And how do you say: Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I speak, I do not speak from myself. But my Father who remains in me, he does the works.

Believe me, that I am in my Father, and the Father is in me. But if not, believe me for the works themselves. Now it was the work of God the Father to cast out demons; but he said that he casts out demons by the Holy Spirit: But if I, he says, by the Spirit of God cast out demons; concerning which Luke says: But if I by the finger of God cast out demons. For when the Scripture calls Christ the arm of the Father, it calls the Holy Spirit the finger of God; and when it calls the Son of God the Word, it says the Holy Spirit is the breath of God. And again the Apostle says: When he delivers the kingdom to God and the Father, when he abolishes every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death; for he subjected all things under his feet. But when he says that all things have been subjected, it is clear that this is except for the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. He speaks concerning the subjection of the world, which was subjected in his flesh. For concerning his divine kingdom Daniel declared, saying: And of his kingdom there will be no end. Just as Luke also says that the angel Gabriel had spoken to the Virgin concerning the Lord: And he will reign, he says, forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. But the Apostle says that his kingdom has an end.

For he must reign, he says, until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And David likewise says: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. So the saying, Sit, signifies a beginning; and the saying, until your enemies are placed under, shows the end. But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. And this is, he says, when we all are subjected to the Son, we are found to be his members, and become sons of God to him. For you, he says, are one in Christ Jesus; then he himself will be subjected on our behalf to the Father, as the head on behalf of his own members. For since his members have not yet all been subjected, he himself, their head, is not yet subjected to the Father, awaiting his own members. But if he were one of those subjected, he would have been subjected to the Father from the beginning, and would not be doing this at the end. For we are those who are subjected to the Father in him, and we are those who reign in him, until our enemies are placed under our feet; for because of our enemies the Lord of the heavens has become in our likeness, and has taken the human throne of David, his father according to the flesh, in order to rebuild and restore it. So that, when it is restored, we all may reign in him, and he may hand over the human kingdom, set aright, to the Father, so that God may be all in all, reigning through him, as through the Word of God, after he has reigned through him, as through a human savior. And when Peter says:

Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ, this one whom you crucified. He is not speaking about his divinity when he says that God made him both Lord and Christ, but about his humanity, which is the whole Church, which reigns and rules in him after he was crucified, and is anointed for the kingdom of heaven, so that it may reign together with him who for its sake emptied himself and took it up through the form of a servant. For the Word and the Son of God was always Lord and God, and it was not after being crucified that he was made Lord and Christ; but, as I said before, his divinity made his humanity Lord and Christ. And when he says, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but yours be done; and, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak — here he shows two wills, the one human, which belongs to the flesh, and the one divine, which belongs to God. For the human will, because of the weakness of the flesh, shrinks from the passion, but his divine will is willing. And just as Peter, when he heard about the passion, was afraid and said, Mercy to you, Lord, and the Lord, rebuking him, says, Get behind

Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me, for you do not think the things of God but the things of men. So it is understood here also: for having become in the likeness of men, he shrinks from suffering as a man; but being God, and being impassible according to the divine essence, he willingly received the suffering and death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death; for he was God, having become in the likeness of men, dying willingly, and rising by his own authority as God, as David also said: Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; and again: Arise, O Lord my God, in the command which you commanded, and the assembly of peoples will surround you. And for this, turn back on high; the Lord will judge the peoples. And the Apostle also says elsewhere: He suffered from weakness, but he lives by the power of God. And the power of God is the Son, who suffered from weakness, that is, from the fleshly entanglement, and who shrank from suffering as a man, but lives through his own power. And when the Lord says in the Gospel according to John: And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent—elsewhere the same John calls the Son true God: For we know, he says, that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. So that the Son is true God, both before he became man, and after he became mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ.

For this is also the one whom he sent, Jesus Christ, united to the Father according to the Spirit, but to us according to the flesh, and thus mediating between God and men; the same who is not only man but also God, just as Jeremiah also says: This is our God, no other shall be reckoned beside him. He found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his child, and to Israel his beloved. After these things he appeared on earth and conversed with men. But when did he converse with men, if not when he was born with them from a woman, and grew up as a child with them, and increased with them, and ate with them? And elsewhere he says: Deep is his heart beyond all; and he is a man, and who shall know him? Likewise Isaiah also says that a child was born to us, and a son was given to us, whose beginning was made upon his shoulder. And his name is called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counselor, mighty God, ruler, prince of peace, father of the age to come. And elsewhere he says: Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Therefore God is the one born of the Virgin, and who became man from Mary the Theotokos. And again elsewhere he says: And we saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty. For he had seen him before this in his divine and glorious form, sitting upon a high and lifted-up throne, when the seraphim also glorified him, saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

And after these things he sees him taking the form of a slave, and becoming in the likeness of man. For this reason he says: We saw him, and he had no form, nor beauty; but his form was dishonored, and failing more than all the sons of men. A man being in a plague, and knowing how to bear weakness. Because his face is turned away; he was dishonored and not accounted; this one bears our weaknesses, and is in pain concerning us. And we accounted him to be in toil, and plague, and affliction. But he was wounded for our sins; and he was made weak for our lawless deeds. And elsewhere he says concerning him: Behold our God renders judgment in return, and will render it in return. He himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers will be clear. And again elsewhere he says: Not an angel, nor an ambassador, but the Lord himself saved us. And David says: Mother Zion will say: A man and a man was born in her, and the Most High himself founded her. For this man who was born in her, he himself is the Most High, just as in another psalm he says: And let them know that your name is Lord; you alone are Most High over all the earth. And we have written these things in part, so that, just as the Apostle said, we may no longer be infants tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of teaching in the dice-playing of men, in cunning for the scheming of error.