Contra Marivadum Arianum Diaconum Libri Tres

THE THREE BOOKS OF VIGILIUS OF THAPSUS AGAINST MARIVADUS THE ARIAN DEACON, UNDER THE NAME OF IDACH THE FAMOUS AGAINST VARIMADUS.

PREFACE.

Some time ago, dearest brothers, while I was staying in Naples, a city of Campania, I responded in plain speech to the propositions of a certain Varimadus, a deacon of the Arian sect, which had been brought to me by a certain studious and most religious man, and I gathered together in one body the little books concerning the unity of the Trinity. But because we have now learned that they do not wish their words to be opposed privately, but rather desire their propositions to be assailed by the power of testimonies, having regard for those of modest and slower intellect, with the Holy Spirit helping us, we have so fitted our response to all their objections by way of testimonies, that the one who reads may be able to refute them not with bare words, as they are accustomed to object, but with legal documents; so that, convicted on every side, they may be confounded and brought to nothing, who attempt to build such figments upon the foundation of the prophets and the doctrines of the apostles. And this building, because it is compared not to gold and silver, nor to precious stones, but to wood, hay, and stubble, when according to the Apostle's saying (1 Cor. 3:13) it has been consumed by fire on the last day, it is necessary that they suffer loss in their own work; because such men can with difficulty be turned away from the course of a depraved doctrine and pursue better things, since they have increased for themselves so great a boldness of presumption from the spirit that they never at all arrive at the truth of the faith.

For they can attain the love of brotherhood and hold the perfect faith with Catholics, if they would glory in the power of God alone, and not in the pride of unbelieving kings. Therefore when they begin to be rightly constrained by the defenders of the Catholic faith, and see that no place of escape affords them support, they do not cease, with their usual rashness, to weave certain subtleties of empty words with cunning cleverness; saying that those things which our Lord and Savior spoke in the Gospels concerning his divinity—having abandoned the path of the divine letters—they refer entirely, by certain interpretations, to the substance of the flesh; while they themselves rather, in that very thing which he said: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28), and, He sent me, and, I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38), and, Let this cup pass from me; not as I will, but as you will (Luke 22:42)—assert that he cannot be equal to the Father in the form of a servant in which he is man, but in the nature in which he is God; they judge him to be of an inferior substance than the Father. Which they would certainly not say, if they had believed catholically that the same Son is true God, begotten of true God. Therefore the nature of God is neither increased, remaining singular in unity, nor diminished by generating the Son from itself; and the perfect divinity remaining continually in itself, it will also be forever the same, which it was from the beginning, before heaven and earth and all the elements we read received their beginning.

Now therefore, setting aside the superfluous and disordered words which they bring forth for the subversion of the faithful, let us proceed now to refute those things which we recognize to have been set down, by the industry of their unbelief, for the destruction of innocent souls. Therefore their already-mentioned sayings must be set forth, which they themselves have boldly and rashly put forward against the unity of the Trinity, so that, with testimonies applied in sequence to testimonies, the pride of the faithless may at last be crushed. The ineffable Trinity is able, moreover, to provide for its worshippers the testimonies that pertain to the worship of its veneration, not only from the Old but also from the New Testament, by which the truth of the catholic faith may be proved and the falsehood of the Arians destroyed. I warn you also, reader, that you should search out with a keen mind all the documents which have been gathered from the divine Scriptures against this heresy; and especially those which concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are set down in a threefold conjunction at the end of this work, you should examine soberly and vigilantly: and from them you will undoubtedly be taught that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one and the same inseparable and everlasting substance.

BOOK ONE.

THAT THE SON IS ONE GOD WITH THE FATHER.

CHAPTER ONE.

On the Trinity.

If they have said: what unity of the Trinity can be taught from the divine readings, since neither can the three be properly approved as one, nor one in three?

Answer. Hear therefore, and from these testimonies acknowledge the unity of the Trinity, and cease to follow the depravity of the Arians, so that you may be able to merit from it the forgiveness of sins, with the prophet Isaiah saying: I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the Seraphim stood round about him: six wings to the one and six wings to the other: with two they veiled his face, with two they veiled his feet, and with two they flew, and they cried one to another saying: Holy, holy, holy Lord God Sabaoth (Isa. VI). If here the Trinity is one, why did they say holy three times? Or if there is not a unity, why under the threefold repetition did they intimate one God and Lord? If there is not a Trinity, why is it said in Genesis: God said, God made, God blessed (Gen. I)? If there is not a unity, why did God say it three times, and not commend it by the plural number of gods? If there is not a Trinity, why was it said three times in Exodus, Lord, Lord God merciful and compassionate (Exod. XXXIV)? If there is not a unity, why, when he said Lord three times, does he afterwards say merciful in the singular and not merciful ones, so as to intimate that there are many?

If the Trinity is not, why did Abraham, meeting three at the oak of Mamre where one was openly sitting, say to one "Lord," and not render the homage of greeting to three as he had seen (Gen. 18)? If the unity is not, why, when "God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob" was said to Moses a third time, showing unity, did he say "this is my name" (Exod. 3:15), and not designate "these are the names"? If the Trinity is not, why did David say three times: "May God bless us, our God, may God bless us" (Ps. 66:8)? If the unity is not, why, when he had named God three times, did he say "may he bless," and not add "may they bless"? If the Trinity is not, why did Isaiah again say: "Lord God of hosts, God of Israel, who sits above the cherubim" (Isa. 37:16)? If the unity is not, why did he say "who sits," and not "who sit"? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in Kings: "Lord God omnipotent, God of Israel, your words are faithful"? If the unity is not, why is it said "your," and not rather expressed "your" in the plural? If the Trinity is not, why is it sung in the fifty-eighth psalm (v. 6): "Lord God of hosts, God of Israel, attend to visiting all nations"? If the unity is not, why did he put "attend," and not "attend" in the plural, as he expressed in prayer? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in the Apocalypse a third time: "Holy, Lord God omnipotent, who is, and who was" (Rev. 4:8)? If it is not of one, why are "who are" and "who were" designated in the plural?

If the Trinity is not, why is it said in Deuteronomy: "The Lord your God is merciful, he will hear your voice" (Deut. 4:31)? If the unity is not, why did he put "he will hear," and not indicate "they will hear"? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in the book of Joshua son of Nun: "The Lord God of gods" (Josh. 2:11)? If the unity is not, why did he say "is," and not rather indicate "are" by manner of speaking? If the Trinity is not, why did Elijah say in prayer: "O Lord, Lord God of Israel, show that you are mine" (3 Kings 18:36)? If the unity is not, why did he put "show," and not "show ye"? If the Trinity is not, why did Mordecai say in prayer: "O Lord, Lord God almighty, all things are in your power" (Esther 13:9)? If the unity is not, why did he put "in your," and not designate "in your" (plural)? If the Trinity is not, why also did Judith say in prayer: "O Lord, Lord God of all powers, look upon my prayer" (Judith 9:17)? If the unity is not, why did he put "look," and not signify "look ye"? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in Jeremiah: "The Lord your God, God is truthful" (Jer. 1:10)? If the unity is not, why does he say "is truthful," and not rather indicate "are truthful"? If the Trinity is not, why is it written in the Apocalypse: "The Lord God and the Spirit of the prophets sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place" (Apoc. 22:6)?

If the unity is not, why, when he had named the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, did he say "he sent" and not "they sent," and why did he indicate one in the text and number of three persons? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in Deuteronomy: "The Lord your God, this is God" (Deut. 10:17)? If the unity is not, why did he say "this is" and not designate "these are" in the plural number? If the Trinity is not, why is it said in the same book: "The Lord your God, God is great and mighty" (Ibid.)? If the unity is not, why is he said to be "great and mighty" and not named "great and mighty" in the plural? Why is Tobias, when he was sending his son to the city of Rages with Raphael the archangel, taught to have said thus in blessing him: "God of Abraham, and God of Jacob, and God of Isaac, may he himself fulfill his blessing in you" (Tob. 7:15)? If the unity is not, why did he say "may he himself fulfill" and not "may they fulfill"? Lastly, if the Trinity is not, why did the Lord teach his disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19)? If the unity is not, why did he say "in the name" and not teach that it must be received "in the names"? If the Trinity is not, why does the apostle Paul say: "From him, and through him, and in him are all things" (Rom. 11:36)? If the unity is not, why did he set down "from him" and not assert "from them"?

For if you wish to recognize the unity of the Trinity more certainly than daylight, you can learn all things from the often-mentioned teacher of the Gentiles, the apostle, and follow the catholic faith and reject the depravity of the Arians: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," he says, "and the love of God, and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Cor. 13:13). For if the grace, love, and communication of the Holy Spirit are themselves also of the Father and of the Son, how are they not one in the Trinity, who by nature and substance cannot be separated from one another?

CHAPTER II.

On the unity of the Father and the Son.

If they have said to you: how is the Father and the Son one God, when besides the Father there is no other God who is called invisible and unbegotten?

Answer. But whereas you are unwilling to profess the Father and the Son to be one God, we also show that one and true God was preached by the prophets and apostles, by whom we also believe the Holy Spirit is not separate, the prophet Isaiah saying: "I am God, and there is no other besides me; I swear by myself, that truth has gone forth from my mouth, and my word shall not be taken away, because every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall swear by the Lord, saying: Justice and glory shall come to him" (Isa. 45:22).

And so that you may recognize in this testimony that the Father and the Son were together, hear the apostle Paul saying: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father almighty (Phil. 2:10). But if, according to you, the Son is less than his Father, then the glory of the Father is also diminished in the Son. And where is what the Scripture says in Solomon: For as, it says, he was made manifest in their sight, so will you be made manifest in our sight to them, that they may know you as we have known you, because there is no other God besides you, O Lord (Sir. 36:4). Attend diligently and recognize that it is the Son who will be made manifest in judgment, when he comes to judge the living and the dead. Likewise Isaiah: Hear, house of Jacob, and the remnant of Israel, who are carried from the womb and instructed from childhood even to old age: from the beginning I am, and until you grow old I am; I have made, I sustain, I will forgive, I will receive, says the Lord (Isa. 46:3). And again: I am the Lord God, and besides me there is no other God, announcing the last things before they come to pass, and immediately they are accomplished (ibid., 9). Likewise there: Hear me, Jacob, and Israel, whom I have made: I am the Lord your God, and there is no other besides me. Likewise there: I am the Lord God, the first, and I am the last, and in those things which are to come in the last time, I am (Isa.

XLVIII, 12). Likewise there: I am God, who created you, and helped you, and strengthened you with my right hand.

And Isaiah, assigning the unity of the Father and the Son, speaks, saying: I am your witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe that I am he; before me there was no other, and after me there will be none (Isa. XLIII, 10).

Choose for yourself, O heretic, one of two things: either confess that the Father and the Son are one God, or, if you contend that the Father alone is God, then the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will not be God for you, because it is written: Before me there was no other, and after me there will be none. If it is so according to you, why does the Apostle preach such things (Rom. IX, 5), and declare that the same Son is God blessed above all things? Of whom are the fathers, he says, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God blessed above all things forever. Likewise Isaiah says thus: The Lord God of Israel, who delivered them from Egypt, I am the first, and I am after these things, and besides me there is no God like me, who stands and calls and prepares for me from the time I made man in the world (Isa. XLIV, 6). Likewise there: This is God, and we did not know, and there is no other God besides you: for you are God, and we did not know, God the Savior of Israel (Isa. XLV, 15). If the Father and the Son are not one God, who is this God in whom God is said to be, since the prophet protests in number that there is no other God besides him?

And Jeremiah: This is our God, he says, and no other shall be joined to him, who found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his chosen. After these things he was seen upon earth, and conversed among men. And in Solomon: Have mercy upon us, O God of all, and show us the light of your mercy, and send your fear upon the nations which have not sought you, that they may know that there is no other God besides you. Likewise there: O Lord God of Israel, there is none like you in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath. And in the seventeenth psalm: For who is God besides the Lord? or who is God besides our God? And in Genesis: And the Lord rained from the Lord fire and sulphur upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and overthrew those cities. If the Father alone is God, who rained fire and sulphur from the Lord, so as to overthrow the aforesaid cities? Answer, I ask you. And in Deuteronomy: The Lord alone was leading them, and there was no strange god with them. And the apostle Paul: One God, he says, who justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. And to the Corinthians: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. And again: There is no God but one. And to the Galatians: Now a mediator of one is not, but God is one.

And demonstrating the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, writing to the Ephesians, he confirms it thus: Bearing with one another in love, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. For if, heretic, you wish to receive the unity of the faith with a simple heart, from this testimony you will be able to learn together in one Spirit the unity of the Father and of the Son. Therefore the Father, as you set down above, is properly called unbegotten in the divine Scriptures, and you can neither read this fully nor prove it. But because the Christian faith demands this very thing, he is believed to be unbegotten without any doubt: yet according to the sequence of the Scriptures he is shown to have been seen in the Son begotten from himself.

CHAPTER III.

Concerning what is said: I did not come from myself, but he sent me.

If they have said to you that the Son said: I did not come of myself, but he sent me (John 8:42).

Answer. The apostle Paul also, foreseeing long beforehand the sending of the Son of God in the Holy Spirit, writing to the church of Rome, testified these things, saying: For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weakened through the flesh, God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin condemned sin in the flesh, so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled (Rom 8:3-4). Do you see that the Son was not sent by the Father according to his divinity, but according to the flesh, which he did not disdain mercifully and piously to assume for us? For in that he emptied himself a little of the power of his majesty, the same Son sent the apostle, who testifies and says: He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:7). And Isaiah: Not an envoy, nor an angel, but the Lord himself came and saved them (Isa 35:4). Likewise there: I appeared openly to those not seeking me (Isa 65:5). And Jeremiah: I have left my house, I have forsaken my inheritance, and I came, and I became to them a reproach (Jer 12:7). And in Micah: Behold, the Lord will come, and the mountains will be moved beneath him (Mic 1:5). And in Zechariah: Rejoice and exult, daughter of Zion, for behold, I come, and I will dwell in your midst, says the Lord (Zech 2:10).

And the Apostle to Timothy: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15). And Malachi: Behold, the Lord whom you seek shall come suddenly into his temple, and the angel of the testament whom you desire (Mal 3:1). And in the Gospel: I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). Likewise there: What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come before the time to destroy us (Luke 4:34)? The Son of Man came to save and to seek what had perished (Luke 19:10). Likewise there: I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Likewise there: I came in the name of my Father (John 5:45). Likewise there: No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven (John 3:13). Surely in these so many and such great testimonies, by which the Son testified that he is God from himself, can you say that he came from another and not from himself? When it is manifest that he who deigned to assume our flesh came by his own will, and not sent by another. For he who, abiding in the Father, stands firm in the power of his own virtue had no place at all where he might be sent by the Father; since no part of the ages or of the earth is excluded from the sight of the Father, where, according to you, the Son might be sent by the Father.

CHAPTER IV.

Where it is said, The Lord created me

If they have brought against you that testimony of Solomon: The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways (Prov 8:22).

Answer. The apostle Paul, indeed, does not suggest that Christ was created according to the nature of the Godhead, but affirms that the same Christ was created according to the substance of human nature, as he himself writes to the Ephesians: Be renewed, he says, in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth (Eph 4:23). And to the Hebrews: For in that in which he himself suffered, he was tempted, for he is able to help those who are tempted (Heb 2:18). Whence, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, being faithful to him who created him (Heb 3:1-2). And to the Colossians: Now put away anger and you all: wrath, indignation, malice, blasphemy: let foul speech not proceed from your mouth: Do not lie to one another, stripping off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him (Col 3:8-10). Surely he who by the power of his own authority created and made all things from nothing, things visible and invisible—could he have created or made himself beforehand, or afterwards, which it is impious to say?

CHAPTER V.

How "The Father is greater than I" is to be understood.

If they have brought forward that saying which the Son spoke in the Gospel: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28).

Answer. The Son is less than the Father in the form of the man he assumed, but he is equal to the Father in the substance of the divine nature, as he himself testifies: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And again: He who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9). And likewise: That all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (John 5:23). And again: May they be one in us, as we also are one; you in me, and I in them (John 17:22). And again: All things that are mine are yours, and all things that are yours are mine (John 17:10). And again: All things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15). And again: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me (John 14:10). And again: The Father who remains in me does these works (ibid.). And John the evangelist says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Likewise he says to the Parthians: There are three who bear witness on earth—the water, the blood, and the flesh—and the three are in us (1 John 5:8). And there are three who bear witness in heaven—the Father, the Word, and the Spirit—and these three are one (1 John 5:7-8). Therefore we believe the Father and the Son to be in the nature of the Godhead, in which they are one; nor did the Father precede at any time so as to be greater than the Son, nor was the Son born afterward so that the Godhead of the Father might be diminished in the Son.

CHAPTER VI.

Where they say that the Son is not equal to the Father.

If they have said to you, the Son is not equal to the Father.

Answer. If the Son is not equal to the Father, why did John the evangelist testify thus concerning him: For this reason, he says, the Jews were persecuting Jesus, and were seeking to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God (John 5:18). And the apostle Paul says: Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, when he was established in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5). And in Solomon: He who begot me rested in my tabernacle (Sirach 24:12). And in Isaiah: As it is from the beginning, so it is even to the age. Neither has anything been added to him, nor shall anything be diminished from him. For he himself is the Lord of his own creation, who needed nothing from anyone. And in the seventy-second psalm (verse 25): For what is there for me in heaven, and what have I desired from you upon the earth? All these things in the Son demonstrate not a lower nature, but proclaim the equality of the Godhead: since he who spoke both things spoke the truth, because the truth could not lie.

CHAPTER VII.

Those who deny that the Son is the will of the Father.

If they have said to you: The Son is not the will of the Father.

Answer. If you search the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures with the intent of a pure mind, you will find without doubt that the Son is coeternal with the Father in nature, everlasting in substance, and not separated from the will, which is one in both: as the prophet Isaiah says: But my salvation shall burn like a torch, and all nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings of the earth thy honor, and thou shalt be called by a new name which the Lord shall name (Isa. LXII, 1). And below: For thou shalt be called my will (Ibid., 4). And the Apostle: This, he says, is the will of God in Christ Jesus (1 Thess. v, 18). And again: In whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. II, 9). And again: For in him it pleased that all the fullness of the Godhead should dwell (Col. I, 19). And the voice of the Father from the cloud to the disciples: This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. III, 17). If the Son were not the will of God the Father, how could the Father be well pleased in him? Or how could the fullness of his Godhead dwell in him, in whom, according to you, the will of God the Father is not shown to be present?

CHAPTER VIII.

I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

If they have said to you that which the Lord said in the Gospel: I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 5:30).

Answer. To this proposition it is not with human words that one must respond, but rather with divine testimonies one must establish the Son's own will: the prophet singing in the thirty-ninth psalm (verse 8): Then I said, Behold, I come to do your will, my God, I have desired it. And in the twenty-seventh (verse 7): In him my heart has hoped, and I was helped, and my flesh flourished again, and from my will I will confess to him. And again: I will sacrifice to you willingly (Psalm 54:8). And in Deuteronomy: Loving you, I have done your will. And in the Apocalypse: Worthy are you, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, because you created all things, and for your will they were made (Revelation 4:11). And in the Canonical Epistles: Willingly he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creation (James 1:18). From these things at least which have been said above, one ought to recognize that he who says he willingly did the Father's will cannot be inferior to him.

CHAPTER IX.

When they say that the Lord and Christ made himself God.

If they have set before you that which is written in the Acts of the apostles: That God has made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).

Answer. The Son is not said to have been made according to the nature of deity, but according to the form of the man he assumed. The divine utterances testify this concerning him, the apostle Paul confirming it: that which he had promised before, he says, through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son: who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:2). Likewise he himself to the Galatians: But after the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, made under the law (Gal 4:4). And to the Philippians: Made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man (Phil 2:7). And in the thirtieth psalm (v. 11): My strength has been weakened in poverty, and my bones have been troubled, and I have been made a reproach over my enemies. Likewise there (v. 13): I have been given over to forgetfulness as a dead man from the heart, and I have been made like a lost vessel. And in the psalm (70:7): I have been made as a prodigy to many, and you are a strong helper. And in the seventy-second psalm (v. 23): I have been made as a beast of burden before you, and I am always with you. And in the eighty-sixth psalm (v. 5): Mother Zion will say, a man, and a man was made in her, and the Most High himself founded her. And in the eighty-seventh (v. 7): I have been made like a man without help, free among the dead.

And in the one hundred eighth psalm: And I became a reproach to them; they saw me and shook their heads. And in the one hundred first psalm: I watched, and I became like a solitary sparrow on a rooftop. And in the Gospel: The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Son, therefore, is said to be made according to the flesh; for according to his divinity he is never read to have been made by the Father, but begotten.

CHAPTER X.

What I speak, as the Father says to me, so I speak.

If they have said to you that the Son said: What I speak, as the Father said to me, so I speak.

Answer. For when the Father speaks, the Son speaks, and when the Son speaks, the Father speaks. That the Father speaks in him is proved by heavenly testimonies, with the apostle Paul attesting: In many parts and in many ways God, having spoken of old to the fathers in the prophets, last of all has spoken to us in the Son. And that we may teach that the same Son spoke apart from the Father's command, do we bring forward a testimony from the volume of the prophet Isaiah? Thus says the Lord: In that day my people shall know that I am he who spoke in my servants the prophets, and the gospels, you shall hear with hearing, behold, I am. Likewise there: I am the Lord, who speak righteousness and proclaim the truth. Likewise there: I thought and I spoke, and I led, and I created, and I made. And the Apostle: Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?

And in the one hundred eighteenth psalm: I spoke of your testimonies in the sight of kings, and I was not confounded. And the Lord himself in the Gospel says to the blind man enlightened by him: And you have seen him, and he who speaks with you, he it is. And to the Samaritan woman he says: I am he who speaks with you. And to the disciples: The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and life. And to the Father: I come to you; these things I speak in this world. And he says to the Jews who were to go away: I speak to you and you did not hear; but if another comes, you will hear him. And again: These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, teaching in the temple, and no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come. Behold, in all these things which have been said above, you do not show that the Son spoke by the command of the Father, but rather that he exercised authority in speaking.

CHAPTER XI.

How the Son made the things that were made at the Father's command.

If they have said to you: because the Son made the things that were made at the Father's command.

Answer. It is not as you yourself assert, that the Son made the things that were made at the Father's command; but by his own authority and will he created all things, which he foresaw by his providence were to be created; as the prophet Isaiah says: Thus says the Lord: I made the earth by my word, and man upon it, I solidified the heaven with my hand, I commanded all the stars, that they may shine in heaven (Isa. XLV, 12). Likewise there: All my counsel shall stand, and all things whatsoever I have thought, I have done (Isa. XLVI, 10). Likewise there: Thus says the Lord, who established heaven and earth, and made it, he himself defined it (Isa. XLV, 18). Likewise there: I am the first, and I am for ever, my hand founded the earth, and my right hand solidified the heaven (Isa. XLVIII, 13). Likewise there: I made the earth in my great strength and in my exalted arm. And in Jeremiah: The Lord who made the earth in his great power, and raised up the world in wisdom, and by his prudence stretched out the heaven, and set the sound of water in heaven (Jer. LI, 15). Likewise there: Lord, who made heaven and earth in your great power and your exalted arm, who will repay the sins of the fathers in the bosom of their children after them (Jer. XXXII, 17). And in Solomon: For your hand was not unable, which created the world of the earth from invisible matter (Wis. XI, 18).

And in the hundred and thirty-fourth psalm: Whatever the Lord willed, he did in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths. And in the hundred and thirteenth: But our God is in heaven. And again: In heaven and on earth, whatever he willed he did. And in the sixty-fourth: Preparing the mountains in his strength, girded with power. For he who is described as having made all these things not at the Father's command but by his own power—how is he judged by you to be inferior to the Father?

CHAPTER XII.

That the Son is the Beginning.

But if they have said: There was a time before the Son was born from the Father, because he said to the Jews: The Beginning, which I speak to you.

Answer. Know that the Son was not born from time, nor after times, but was ineffably begotten from the Father's womb before all times, as God the Father himself says through the prophet in the hundred and ninth psalm: In the splendors of the saints, from the womb before the morning star I begot you. And the prophet Isaiah clearly expressed this same sentence to the doubtful and unbelieving, while he showed nothing other of the Son than that he was ineffably born of the Father: In his humility, he says, his judgment was taken away; but who shall declare his nativity? And in the book of Job: The wisdom of God the Father—where will you find it? For it is hidden from the eyes of men and concealed from the birds.

Awake a little, and if you have any measure of the light of knowledge within yourself, pay attention and you will find that he whose birth the prophet could not declare in time, as you yourself try to assert, could not have been begotten. In the beginning, says John the evangelist, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. And again: He was the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world. In that word, therefore, which is said to was, if you wish to seek a time, you will not find one, since from the moment there is the Father, from that same moment there is also the Son; and what the Father is, the Son also is, as Solomon says: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before every creature: I made the unfailing light to rise in heaven, and I covered all the earth with cloud: I dwelt in the heights, and my throne in a pillar of cloud. I alone encircled the circuit of heaven, and I penetrated into the depth of the abyss, and I stood in all the earth, and I held principality over every people and nation. Likewise there: When he prepared the heavens, I was present with him: and when he set apart his throne, when he made the strong winds at the summit, the clouds: and when he set sure fountains beneath the heaven: when he made firm the foundations of the earth, I was with him arranging all things: and I was she whom he rejoiced with when he delighted in the world made perfect. And in the hundred and first psalm ( True.

28) You, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the works of your hands are the heavens. They will perish, but you remain, and all things will grow old like a garment, and like a covering you will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same. For there was not, as you say, any time before the Son was born from the Father. Since he established all times by his own power, he could not be born from time or after times.

CHAPTER XIII.

That the Father gave judgment to the Son.

But if they have said that the Father gave the Son power to execute judgment.

Answer. Therefore let the prudent recognize from these testimonies that the Son of God will execute judgment by his own power, and let them, bringing forth a just judgment in this matter, show both whose sentence is more in accord with reason and whose faith and truth they are attacking, since the prophet Isaiah says: Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has consulted and instructed him, who has shown him judgment (Isa. 40:13). Likewise there: Thus says the Lord: Woe to the mighty in Israel, for my anger has not ceased against them; I will execute judgment on my enemies, and I will burn them with fire to purity (Isa. 1:24). Likewise there: The Lord will set his people in judgment, and the Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and with his princes (Isa. 3:13).

Likewise there: He put on righteousness and glory; he placed a helmet of salvation on his head, and covered himself with a garment of vengeance, to repay retribution to his adversaries (Isa. 59:17). Likewise there: For behold, the Lord will come like fire, and like a tempest his course, to render vengeance in anger, and retribution in the flame of fire (Isa. 66:15). And in the ninth psalm (v. 9): He has prepared his seat in judgment, and he himself will judge the world in equity. And in the hundred and second (v. 19): The Lord has prepared his throne in heaven, and his kingdom shall rule over all. And in the ninety-third (v. 1): God, the Lord of vengeance, the Lord of vengeance has acted freely. And in the epistle of the apostle Jude: Behold, the Lord will come with thousands to execute judgment, and to destroy all the ungodly, and to convict all flesh concerning all the works of their ungodliness (Jude 14). And in the Gospel: When the Son of man comes in his majesty, and all his angels with him, then all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates the lambs from the goats, and he will set the lambs at his right hand, but the goats at the left (Matt. 25:31). Therefore, according to what he is as God, we read that the Son received nothing from the Father, whom we believe, remaining inseparably in the heart of the Father, possessed all things. But he received power to execute judgment, who, emptying himself, deigned to assume the form of a servant.

CHAPTER XIV.

When they say that the Son did not have the power to give a seat at the right hand or at the left, the seating of the two disciples.

But if they have said to you that the Son said to the two disciples: You shall indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give to you (Matt. 20:23).

Answer. That the Son is of his own proper power, we have already taught in the preceding disputation, and now, with him as our helper, we shall teach it, with the Gospel bearing witness: Having called his twelve disciples, he gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to cure every disease and every infirmity among the people (Matt. 10:1). And again: Amen I say to you that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit with him upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28). And again: Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy, and if you drink any poison, it shall not harm you (Luke 10:19). And again: But as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name (John 1:12). And in the Apocalypse: He who overcomes, I will give him to sit with me on my seat, as I also overcame and sat with the Father on his seat (Rev. 3:21). Likewise there: He who overcomes, I will give him to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God (Rev. 2:7).

He who gave to all the disciples power to judge the twelve tribes, and permitted them to sit with him, did he not have the power to grant to only two disciples that they might sit at his right or at his left?

CHAPTER XV.

On what is said: The Son cannot do anything of himself.

But if they have objected to you that the Son said: The Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19).

Answer. If you held the right faith, and did not attack the catholic faith by the depravity of a false doctrine, you would recognize that the Son did by his own power the things which we do not read that the Father did, except that he accomplished them through the Son. Did the Father turn the element of water into wine? Did the Father board a ship, or command the winds and the waves to be still? Did the Father feed five thousand men in the wilderness from five loaves and two fishes? Did the Father walk with his feet upon the sea? Did the Father open the eyes of one born blind? Did the Father restore the paralytic to his former health before the rulers of the Jews? Did the Father heal the man with the withered hand in the temple, with all standing by? Did the Father heal the woman suffering from the flow of blood, with the crowds unaware, by the power of his divinity? And there are more and greater wonders than these, which we believe our Lord Jesus did; and by believing we know, and we confess, that he who performs the Father's work is not believed to be a stranger to the Father's works.

CHAPTER XVI.

Where they say that the Father and the Son are not one God.

If they have said: "You are not one God, who by saying 'we are one' show two, not one" (John 10:30).

Answer. Apart from the incarnation of the Son, which was assumed by him for our redemption, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are called one God, and not divided among three, as you strive to affirm with sacrilegious mind, but in three persons and names one substance of deity is proved, as the prophet Zechariah says: "The Lord shall be king over all the earth, and in that day the Lord shall be one, and his name one" (Zech. 14:9). That this day which the prophet designates is the day of the future judgment, no one is ignorant. I ask you, therefore, to expound this sentence of the prophet yourself, what it means. Who, then, will be the king, who the one Lord, or who of the three obtains the name of deity? If it is the Father, he alone is called one God. From that very title of deity, therefore, the Son and the Holy Spirit are proved to be alien—which be far from us—by us, because it is written: "In that day the Lord shall be one, and his name one"? But if, as is the case, the name of the Trinity is one: why do you persuade me to believe what I do not see the prophets and apostles preach? For Malachi also declared the Son alone, whom he designated as the one God, creator of the human race, by prophetic announcement, saying: "Is not one God he who created you? Is not one Father of you all?" (Mal. 2:10).

And in Deuteronomy: "Hear, Israel: the Lord your God is one God" (Deut. 6:4). And the Apostle: "No one is God except one" (1 Cor. 8:4). And again: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God" (Eph. 4:5). Or now observe that the one God is not divided. In three persons and names one God is spoken of, as the Apostle attests: "There are divisions of gifts of graces," he says, "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" (1 Cor. 12:4). What, then, is it that you have not hesitated in the least to detract from the Son? So that in what he said—"I and the Father are one" (John 10:30)—you nevertheless attempt to introduce two gods, distinct from each other in nature and in deity, and you do not fear to affirm it, not knowing that when he says "we are," he distinguished the persons, not separated the substance of the deity, so that he might both destroy Sabellius, who follows union, and refute you Arians in every way, who deny that God is one in the Trinity.

CHAPTER XVII.

The statement is explained: Father, glorify your Son.

But if they say that the Son is therefore lesser because the Father glorified him, on the ground that it is written: "Father, glorify your Son" (John 17:1).

Answer. Just as the Father is taught to have glorified his Son, so also the Son is set forth as having glorified the Father, the evangelist saying: "Jesus answered and said: I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me" (John 8:49). And the Son himself says to the Father: "Glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you" (John 17:1). And again: "I have glorified you on earth" (ibid., 4). And to the disciples: "If you ask anything in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). And again: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13:31). And Isaiah: "The Lord Sabaoth shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy Lord shall be glorified in him" (Isa. 5:16). Recognize at last, faithless one, that where there is one glorification of power, there is no distinction of authority.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Where they say that the Son has not properly seen the Father.

But if they have said that the Son cannot properly see the Father, because it is written: No one has ever seen God (John 1:18).

Answer. Now therefore let us return to the very origin of the fountain, and let us teach by clearer testimonies from the writings of the Old and New Testament that the Son has always been able to see the Father, and can see him, Solomon saying: And with you is wisdom, which knows your works, which was present with you when you made the world, and she herself knows what is pleasing in your eyes (Wisdom 9:9). And the Lord in the Gospel: No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wishes to reveal him (Luke 10:22). And likewise: No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father; he himself has declared him (John 1:18). And again he says to the Jews: You do not know him, but I know him; for if I say that I do not know him, I shall be like you, a liar (John 8:55). Likewise there: He who is from God, this one knows him (ibid. 47). And again: I know him, because I am from him. Behold, we have taught that the Son has always seen the Father. How do you prove that he cannot see the Father?

CHAPTER XIX.

What it means that the Father bears testimony to the Son.

For if they have said that the Son is therefore less than the Father, because the Father bears testimony.

Answer. If you examine the divine Scriptures with a calm mind, you will find that it is not only the Father who bears testimony to the Son, but the whole inseparable Trinity at once, as the Lord himself declares: I am the one who bears testimony about myself, and the Father who sent me bears testimony about me (John 8:18). And again: If I bear testimony about myself, my testimony is true, because I know where I come from and where I am going (John 8:14). And concerning the Holy Spirit: When that holy Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will bear testimony about me (John 15:26). Attend, I ask, attend, because in those in whom the one power of testimony is shown, no one is judged either more powerful or inferior to another.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XX. What it means that the Father is invisible and the Son visible.

If they have said to you concerning this, that the Father is greater because He is called invisible, while the Son is proclaimed visible.

Answer. We have often said this already, that according to the form of a man the Son is called visible, but according to the substance of the Godhead He is proclaimed invisible. As the apostle Paul proclaims: O the depth, he says, of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out (Rom. 11:33)! And in Isaiah: To whom have you likened the Lord, or to whom have you likened Him, when He Himself is invisible (Isa. 40:18)? The Apostle says: But to me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all men as to what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from ages in Christ, who created all things (Eph. 3:8). Likewise he himself says: Who is the image of the invisible God. And to the Colossians: I Paul, a minister, because now I rejoice in my sufferings, and I fill up those things that are lacking of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh for His body, which is the Church, of which I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God, the mystery of Christ, which was hidden from ages and generations (Col. 1:15).

Likewise there: That their hearts may be comforted in love, unto all the riches of the full understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden (Col. 2:2-3). And in the seventy-sixth psalm (v. 20): In the sea is thy way, and thy paths in many waters, and thy footsteps shall not be known. And in Solomon: Who hath searched out the wisdom of God that goeth before all things (Ecclus. 1:5)? Likewise there: The root of wisdom, to whom hath it been revealed, and who hath known its subtleties (ibid., 6)? Likewise there: To whom hath the discipline of wisdom been manifested, and who hath understood the multitude of its entrance (ibid., 7)? Likewise there: For the works of the Lord alone are wonderful, and glorious and hidden, and his works are unseen by all (Ecclus. 11:4). Behold, just as the Father is invisible, so also the Son is found to be. How is he judged by you to be inferior to the Father, in that he deigned to be seen carnally for our sake?

CHAPTER XXI.

"I do always those things that please him," how it is explained.

If they object to you that the Son said concerning the Father: "I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29).

Answer. If you wish to reduce the Son's obedience to the point of saying that he is subject to the Father, you nonetheless bring a similar judgment also concerning the Father, who is shown in the Holy Scriptures to have rendered obedience even to the Son in this manner, when the prophet Isaiah says: "Thus says the Lord to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have held, that I may make the nations obedient before him" (Isaiah 45:1). Likewise there: "I will go before him, and I will make the mountains plain, and I will open before him gates, and cities shall not be shut" (Ibid., 2). Likewise there: "I have called him and brought him, and I have made his way prosperous" (Isaiah 48:15, 17). And in the one hundred thirty-first psalm: "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ, I will clothe his enemies with confusion." And in the Gospel: "Behold, I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee" (Mark 1:2). And in Habakkuk: "The Lord went forth for the salvation of his people with his Christ" (Habakkuk 3:13). In all these, then, does it not seem to you that the Father rendered obedience to the Son? For which reason it is also impious to say that the Father can be subject to the Son: because the paternal divinity, neither by giving to the Son what are his own, ever diminishes itself, nor does the Son, by receiving what are the Father's, either change into something better than he was, or alter the nature of his birth.

The Son, therefore, does the things that please the Father because he cannot do the contrary.

CHAPTER XXII.

That the Apostle affirms only the Father to be immortal.

If they have said to you: In this the Son cannot be coequal with the Father, because the Apostle asserts that only the Father is immortal.

Answer. The divine oracles everywhere testify that the Son, according to his divinity, always was and is immortal. Solomon affirms this same thing more clearly: Immortality is in the thought of wisdom, and the good delight of her friendship (Wisdom 8:17). Likewise there: In the works of the hands of wisdom there is honor without failings, and in the contest of her words immortality, and eternal life, in the communication of her words perpetual brightness (Ibid., 18). And the Apostle: The word of God is living and effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12). And in the Acts of the Apostles: We announce to you, that you turn from these vain things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them (Acts 14:14). And in Deuteronomy: I live, says the Lord, for I lift up my hand to heaven, I will swear by my right hand, and I will say: I live forever, for I sharpen my sword like lightning; and my hand will hold judgment, and I will repay those who hate me (Deut 32:40). But he who is shown by the divine Scriptures to be eternal and immortal is judged to be of a lesser substance than the Father only by the perfidy of the Arians.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The psalmist's passage is explained: The Lord rules me, and nothing will be lacking to me.

If they have said to you that the prophet spoke in the person of Christ: The Lord will rule me, and therefore he is less than the Father (Ps. 22:1).

Answer. That the Son is ruled by himself and not by another, hear Micah the prophet, through whom God the Father deigned to proclaim the power of his only-begotten by such a sentence: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, he says, are by no means least among the thousands of Judah: for from you will come forth the King who will rule my people Israel (Mic. 5:2). And in the Apocalypse: The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will rule them, and will lead them to the fountains of the waters of life (Apoc. 7:17). And in the book of Maccabees: He is our Father, he is our King, he will rule us forever. For he scourged us because of our iniquities, but he will again have mercy on us (2 Macc. 7:32). And in the forty-seventh psalm (v. 15): This is our God forever, and for ever and ever, and he will rule us forever. And in the twenty-seventh (v. 9): Rule them, and exalt them forever. For if the Son, as you yourselves suspect, is not ruled by himself, in vain is he called King, or named the Son of a King: since the name of King and of dignity is confirmed by nothing other than by ruling others.

CHAPTER XXIV.

How the Arians say the Father is less than the Son, from the fact that Christ alone was tempted by the devil in the desert.

If they have said to you: For this reason the Son is not equal to the Father, because he alone was tempted by the devil in the desert.

Answer. For the divinity of the Son did not submit to diabolical temptation, but he was tempted in the flesh alone, which he deigned to assume from the Virgin's womb, as the Apostle testifies: In that he suffered, he was made obedient, he was tempted; for he is able to help those who are tempted (Heb. 2:18). For when the tempter the devil said to him: Cast yourself down, he restrained him once and again with the scourge of his response, saying: You shall not tempt the Lord your God; and, You shall adore the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve (Matt. 4:7). Hence I do not doubt that James the Apostle also said: But God is not a tempter of evils (Jas. 1:13). And in the Gospel: Then the Pharisees with the Herodians coming to Jesus said: Master, we know that you are truthful, and you teach the way of God in truth: you do not accept a person, nor is there care for you about anyone: is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not? But they said this, tempting him so that they might be able to accuse him (Mark 12:14), etc. Do you see, unbeliever, that he submitted to temptation, because he did not refuse to be scourged by the Jews?

CHAPTER XXV.

The Arians deny that the Son properly called Himself God.

But if they have said: Where did the Son of God properly call Himself God?

Answer. How foolish this proposition of yours is, and how far it wanders from the reasoning of truth, even men of slower wit understand and refute—namely, those who confess the Son of God to be true God and true man. For He did not cease to be God because He put on flesh, but in the true man the true God appeared, as the apostle John attests: This is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). But if you desire to know where the Son properly called Himself God, learn from the Gospel's word: And the man, it says, from whom the demons had gone out begged Him to be with Him; but Jesus sent him away, saying: Go to your house, and tell how much God has done for you. But he went away through the whole city proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him (Luke 8:39). And again: The devil led Him out, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth in a moment of time, and said to Him: I will give you all this power and their glory, because they have been handed over to me, and I give them to whomever I wish; therefore if you will worship before me, all things will be yours. Jesus answered and said to him: It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve (Matthew 4:10).

And again he says of the cleansed lepers: But one of them, when he saw that he was cleansed, turned back, magnifying God with a loud voice, and fell at his feet, giving thanks, and this man was a Samaritan. But Jesus answered and said: Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was there none found among them who returned and gave glory to God, except this foreigner (Luke 17:15)? Behold where He named Himself God, the Son of God, to whom the one who was cleansed gave thanks as to God when he returned. And again: There was a certain man in a certain city, who did not fear God, nor respect man... There was a certain widow in that city, who came daily to him, saying: Avenge me of my adversary. And for a long time he would not; but afterward, returning to himself, he said: Even if I do not fear God, nor respect man, yet because this woman is very troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest by coming at the last she wear me out. But Jesus answering said: Have you heard what the unjust judge says? And will not God avenge his servants who cry to him day and night, and will he have patience with them? Amen I say to you, that he will avenge them quickly (Luke 18:2).

Therefore we have set out the entire text of this parable, so that we may show where the Son expressly named himself God; for this statement cannot apply to the Father, since it is the Son who will come to judgment to avenge the wrongs done to his servants. Again the Evangelist says: And when he had reclined again, he said to his disciples: Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am (John 13:12). And in Mark, Jesus answered and said: For the hardness of your heart Moses wrote you that commandment; but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female (Mark 10:5). And again the Jews answered and said: We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God (John 10:33). Since, therefore, he calls himself God and Lord, why do you set him forth as less, and deny his deity in a sacrilegious manner?

CHAPTER XXVI.

Where they say that the Father revealed the Son.

If they have said to you: Therefore the Son is lesser, because the Father revealed him to men.

Answer. In the mystery of this revelation the Father and the Son are one: for just as the Father revealed the Son, so the Son revealed the Father, by the equal divinity of their nature mutually teaching themselves to the world and to men, as the Lord himself testifies in the Gospel: No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal him (Luke 10:22). And again: I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known (John 17:26). And to teach that he revealed himself to men, he testified through Isaiah, saying: I appeared openly to those who did not seek me; I was found by those who did not question me (Isaiah 65:1). And in the Apocalypse: If anyone opens the door for me, I will enter to him, and I will dine with him, and I will manifest myself to him (Revelation 3:20). And again: Now for the third time Jesus manifested himself to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, when he had risen from the dead (John 21:14). For he who revealed the Father, and testified that he manifested himself in many ways, cannot be called lesser.

CHAPTER XXVII.

How it is to be understood that the Father delivered the Son.

If they have said to you that the Father delivered the Son.

Answer. The Son, voluntarily fulfilling the dispensation of the flesh he assumed, deigned to teach his faithful people by the clear voice of testimony through the Apostle that he delivered himself for us, the Apostle himself declaring: Grace to you, he says, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins (Gal. 1:3). And again: But that I live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself for me (Gal. 2:20). And to the Ephesians: Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, as Christ loved us and delivered himself for us (Eph. 5:1). Likewise in the same place: Love your wives as Christ loved his Church and delivered himself for it (Ibid. 25). And to Timothy: There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for many (1 Tim. 2:5). And to the Hebrews: For if the blood of goats and the ashes of a calf sprinkled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself unblemished to God (Heb. 9:?)? Likewise in the same place: Having therefore, brothers, confidence in the entrance into the holy places in the blood of Jesus, who dedicated for us a new way and a way through the veil, that is, his flesh, offering himself for us (Heb. 10:19).

And in the Epistle of John: In this we have known his love, that he laid down his soul for us (1 John 3). And in Isaiah: Sanctify him who delivered his soul for us (Isaiah 53:12). Likewise there: He was offered, because he himself willed it (ibid.). And in Jeremiah: I have given my beloved soul into the hands of his enemies (Jeremiah 12:7). Likewise the Apostle: For this he did once, offering himself (Hebrews 7:27). And again: We know that the Son of God came, and put on flesh, and suffered. And the apostle Peter: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps (1 Peter 2:21). And in Solomon: I will penetrate the lower parts of the earth, and I will look upon those who sleep, and I will enlighten those who hope in him (Sirach 24:25). And the Lord himself in the Gospel: I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again: no one has taken it from me, but I lay it down of myself (John 10:18). He therefore who delivered himself, and laid down his soul and took it up by his own power, cannot be called lesser.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Concerning what the Son says to the Father: Let this cup pass from me: but not as I will, but as you will.

If they have set before you that the Son said to the Father: Let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.

Answer. But that the Son may be shown to have drunk the cup of his passion willingly, learn these testimonies, if it does not weary you, from him singing in the Psalms: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord (Ps. 115:12, 16). For this sentence cannot be fitted to the prophet, or to anyone else, since he himself in the following verse both called himself a servant and named himself the son of your handmaid: Lord, he says, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid. And in the Gospel he says to his disciples: With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you (Luke 22:15). Likewise he said to the two sons of Zebedee, John and James: Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized (Mark 10:38)? Attend carefully, because he said, I am about to drink, lest it be said that he did this by another's command and not by his own will. And to the apostle Peter he said: You do not savor the things that are of God, but the things that are of men. The cup that the Father has given me, do you not wish me to drink it (John 18:11)?

Therefore, if the Lord had not drunk this cup willingly, he would certainly not have desired it to come at all; but because he drank it willingly, for that reason he neither trembled nor refused.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Where the Son is said to have asked the Father.

If they have said to you: For this reason the Son is lesser, because he is said to have asked the Father.

Answer. If he who asks is lesser than him whom he asks, then God, who is recorded through the prophet to have asked his people, is proved inferior to the people. As the prophet Micah says: My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I been troublesome to you? Answer me. Because I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and freed you from the house of slavery, and sent before your face Moses, Aaron, and Miriam on the journey: My people, remember, I ask, what Balak king of the Moabites devised against you, and what Balaam the prophet, son of Beor, answered him from Shittim (Mic. 6:3). But so that the Lord might make manifest those for whom he had so often pleaded with the Father, he affirms it in the Gospel, saying: Holy Father, I do not ask for these only, that is, for the disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word (John 17:20). And again: Holy Father, keep them in your name (Ibid., 11). For when that leper had said to him: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean, the Son did not wait to ask the Father that the sick man be healed, but freely imparting his own healing, he cured him by his touch alone, in whom he found only the faith that he might be cured, saying to him: I will: be made clean (Matt.

VIII, 3). Likewise, when the blind men had pleaded with him because of the darkness of their own light, that they might receive their sight, he did not defer the cure to the authority of a superior Father, but according to the merit of their faith he led the darkened eyes, and those once covered by pernicious darkness, to the light of his own knowledge by his own spontaneous will, saying to them: According to your faith be it done to you (Matt. 9:29). He also cast out the demon whose name, because of the fellowship of the multitude, was Legion, without asking the Father, but commanding by his own power he put him to flight, and when asked by them, he permitted him to go into the swine (Mark 5). Likewise, declaring to the mute and deaf spirit with an imperial voice, it departed immediately upon hearing him, and he does not say: I ask the Father that you go out, but, I command you to depart: Deaf, he says, and mute spirit, I command you to go out of him, and enter into him no more (Mark 9:24). Hear still him who said I ask: how he speaks as one commanding the Father, as it were, in that place of the Gospel: Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me (John 17:24). Then the Son, who for those who believe in him, established in man, as has already been said, asked the Father. Would he ask the Father for himself? He had no such need at all, since there was in him no weak or infirm person who might merit to receive healing through entreaty: for if the Son, as you assert, had been less than the Father, he would certainly not say such things, since he who says I will to a superior cannot be inferior.

CHAPTER XXX.

The Father is said to have exalted the Son, and to have given him the name that is above every name.

But if they have said that the Father exalted his Son, and gave him the name that is above every name.

Answer. For he who, according to the sequence of Holy Scripture, is shown to have exalted himself, is judged inferior to the Father in no respect, as we have already said rather often. The prophet sings in the hundred and ninth psalm (v. 7): He drank, he says, from the torrent in the way, therefore he shall lift up his head. And in the ninth psalm (v. 33), the Church says concerning the same one: Arise, O Lord, let your hand be exalted. And in the forty-fifth psalm (v. 11), the same Lord proclaims through the prophet and says: I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted on the earth. Isaiah also, testifying to the same things, speaks, saying: And the lofty eyes shall be humbled, and they shall fall, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day (Isa. 2:11). The Son, therefore, in the nature of his deity is not read to have been exalted by the Father, but he was exalted, and received the name that is above every name, who, having assumed flesh from the Virgin's womb, appeared as God and man born.

CHAPTER XXXI.

When they say that the Son was raised from the dead by the Father.

But if they have added that the Father raised his Son from the dead.

Answer. Just as in the preceding discussion we showed that the Son was exalted by himself, so now we shall also show that he was raised from the dead by himself, with David in the third psalm confirming it: I slept, and took sleep, because the Lord received me. Attend carefully, because he said, I rose, and he did not say, I slept and appeared raised by another. And in Jeremiah: I will inebriate the hungry soul, and I will fill the hungry soul: for this reason I rose, and my sleep became sweet to me. And in the Acts of the Apostles: On the day when the apostle chose by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel, to whom he also showed himself alive after his passion in many proofs, appearing to them and teaching about the kingdom of God. And the prophet Amos says: Who established his ascension above the heavens, and confirmed his promise on earth. And the Apostle: Christ rising from the dead dies no more, death shall no longer have dominion over him. Likewise he himself: For I delivered to you first of all that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And to Timothy: Remember that Christ Jesus rose from the dead from the seed of David; and in the 138th psalm: I rose and am still with you.

And in the Gospel: The Lord has truly risen, and has appeared to them (Luke 24:34). And the angels to the women: He is not here, for he has risen as he said (Matthew 28:6). And the Lord himself: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be handed over into the hands of sinful men; and they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and crucified, and on the third day he will rise (Matthew 20:18-19). And again: I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). He who raised man from the dead, and taught that he himself is the resurrection of life, does not lack the power of deity.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Where they say that the Son came forth not from God, but out of God.

If they say to you: that the Son is lesser for this reason, that he proved himself to be not from God, but out of God. Answer. For whether the Son is said to have come forth out of God or from God, no detriment to his ineffable deity can arise, since he himself testifies in the Gospel: I came forth from God the Father, and have come (John 16:27). And in the Epistle of the apostle John: Whoever is born of God, he says, does not sin (1 John 3:9). And in the Gospel the Pharisees, questioning, said: Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; no one can do these signs that you do, unless God were with him (John 3:2). Recognize that he who confesses that he himself came forth from God—and not out of God, as you falsely allege—is judged neither inferior nor separated from the equity of the Father's power.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

That no one is good except God alone.

If they have raised against you the objection that the Son himself said: Why do you call me good? No one is good except one God.

Answer. Who would judge him to be evil, who declares himself the good shepherd? Or who would affirm him to be unequal to the Father, who demonstrates that he is one with the Father? I am, he says, the good shepherd. And David, in the person of the Father declaring the Son, says in the forty-fourth psalm: My heart has uttered a good word. And Jeremiah: The Lord is good to those who wait for him, and in the day of tribulation he will acknowledge those who fear him (Lam. 3:25). And the Lord himself: Is your eye evil because I am good (Matt. 20:15)? Also in the hundred and eighteenth psalm (v. 68): You are good, O Lord, and in your goodness teach me your justifications. And the Apostle: For we are a good odor of Christ, in those who are saved and in those who perish (2 Cor. 2:15). You see that he does not lack goodness, who contains in himself the whole fullness of divinity.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

That this is declared which is said in the Apostle: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

If they have said that which the same Son said: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Answer. We prove that the Son is true, as the Father is, by prophetic and evangelical utterances, with Isaiah saying: But to those who serve me a new name shall be called, which shall be blessed upon the earth, and they shall bless the true God, and those who swear upon the earth shall swear by the true God (Isa. LXV, 15). And in Solomon: They shall be troubled, seeing him whom they once denied, they have acknowledged the true God, those whom they thought to be gods, by whom they shall be destroyed (Wis. XII, 27). And in the psalm: Truth has sprung from the earth, and justice has looked down from heaven (Ps. LXXXIV, 12). And the Lord in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John XIV, 6). And there to the Father: Your word is truth (John XVII, 17). And in the Epistle of John the apostle: We know, he says, that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know what is true, and be in his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life (I John V, 20). From this, therefore, you ought to recognize the unity of the Father and the Son, since divine Scripture does not cease to proclaim the Son, just as the Father, as the true God.

CHAPTER XXXV.

As it is said: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

If they have set against you what is said in the psalm: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and your possession the ends of the earth (Ps. II, 8).

Answer. Since all things visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, came forth from the Son before they existed, show us what inheritance you say the Son received by asking of the Father, since he himself says in the Gospel: All things that are mine are yours, and all things that are yours are mine (John XVII, 10). In the book also which contains the history of Esther, we find it written thus: I have heard, she says, in my books, Lord, that you took Israel for yourself out of all the nations for an eternal inheritance (Esth. XIV, 5). Is it not said in the eighty-eighth psalm (verse 12): The heavens are yours and the earth is yours; the world and its fullness you founded? Is it not said of him in the thirty-second psalm (verse 12): The people whom the Lord chose for his inheritance? Did he not himself say in the forty-ninth psalm (verse 10): All the beasts of the forest are mine, the cattle on the mountains and the oxen, I know all the birds of the sky, the beauty of the field is with me: if I am hungry I will not tell you: for the world is mine and its fullness. Is it not said of him in the seventy-first psalm (verse 8): He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Since the Son has marked all these things as his own by prophetic announcement, now you show what other inheritance the Son could receive from the Father by asking.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Where it is said that the Father sanctified the Son.

If they have objected to you that in the Gospel the Son said of himself: Whom the Father sanctified, and sent into this world (John x, 36).

Answer. In the sanctification of deity the Father and the Son are one, which is also confirmed by the testimony of the Apostle: He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified, he says, are all from one (Heb. II, 11). That we may teach that the Son was sanctified by himself, let us bring forward his own testimony from the Gospel; he says: I sent them into this world, and for them I sanctified myself (John XVII, 18). And again in the forty-fifth psalm (verse 5), concerning the sanctification of the temple of his body, he sings and says: The Most High shall sanctify his tabernacle; God in the midst of it shall not be moved. And that I may teach that this sanctification is the common work of the Trinity, I bring forward the Apostle's sentence in defense of this: But these things indeed you were, he says, but you were washed, and you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (I Cor. VI, 11). Answer at last to these things, you who assert this, since he who sanctified himself had no need of another's sanctification.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Where it is said: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.

But if they have raised against you that passage where it is said: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand (Ps. 109:1); or that of the Apostle: Setting him at his right hand (Eph. 1:20).

Answer. That the Son sat at the right hand of the Father not by another's command but by his own power, recognize the truth from these testimonies founded on divine authority, with the apostle Paul preaching: Who also bears all things by the word of his power, having made purification of sins by himself, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:3). And again: For Jesus did not enter into the holy place made with hands, which is an allegory of words, but appeared in heaven itself at the right hand of God (Heb. 9:24). And again: Let us run to the prize of the contest set before us, looking to the prince of faith and its perfecter, the Lord, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame of the cross, and sat at the right hand of the throne (Heb. 12:1). And in the Apocalypse: To him who overcomes I will give to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my Father on his throne (Apoc. 3:21). And in the ninth psalm (v. 5): Since you have made my judgment and my cause, you sat upon the throne who judges equity. Consider carefully what was said above by the Apostle: Having made purification by himself, he sat at the right hand of God (Heb. 1:3) — he makes an end. Again.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Where they say that the Son was mocked by the Jews and hanged on the cross.

If you have said to me: Therefore he is less, because the Son himself was mocked by the Jews and hanged.

Answer. ** He would be inseparable from the Son, nor did he suffer injury, nor was he subject to passion, but only the flesh that was assumed was hanged on the cross, which could be both held and bound by the Jews. Accordingly, the Son of God as man was hanged, as man was mocked; but as God, sitting in heaven, he will mock the impious, as the Psalmist says: He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them (Ps. 2:4). As man he feared death, but as God he will raise the dead, as he himself says: As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills (John 5:21). As man he was spat upon, but as God he deigned to illuminate the blind man with his spittle, as the Evangelist says: He spat on the ground, and made clay from the spittle, and smeared it on his eyes (John 9:6), etc. As man he was crowned with thorns, but as God he was called the crown of glory, as the prophet Isaiah says: The Lord will be a crown of glory, which has encompassed the remnant of his people (Isa. 28:5). As man he was scourged, but as God he suffered none of these things, as the prophet says: Evils will not come near you, and the scourge will not approach your tabernacle (Ps. 91:10).

As a man he was struck, a stone; but as God he holds the waters in his fist and comprehends the whole circuit of heaven in a span, as Isaiah says: Who has measured the waters in his fist, and weighed the heavens in a span (Isa. 40:12)? As a man he endured sorrow; but as God he will bestow consolation on those worn down by grief and every tribulation, as the apostle Paul says: As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also through Christ our consolation abounds (2 Cor. 1:5). As a man he was given gall and vinegar to drink; but as God he deigned to give to his people a land flowing with milk and honey, as the book of Deuteronomy declares: But when the Lord your God has brought you into a land flowing with milk and honey, take care lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, you forget the name of the Lord your God (Deut. 6). As a man he came to John to be baptized in the Jordan; but as God he baptized his disciples in the Holy Spirit, as he himself says: But you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit, whom you are also to receive (Acts 1:5). And John the Baptist: One stronger than I is coming, who will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16). As a man he was tempted by the devil in the desert; but as God he rebuked that same devil, as he himself says: Get behind me, Satan; you shall not tempt the Lord your God (Matt. 4:10). As a man he hungered; but as God he satisfied five thousand men from five loaves.

As a man, being thirsty, he asked a Samaritan woman for a little water to drink; but as God, he gave believers to drink of the fountain of living water, that is, of eternal life, he himself saying: Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will not thirst forever (John 4:13). As a man, he wept for his friend Lazarus; but as God, he wipes away with the brush of mercy the tears of those who suffer for him, as the Apocalypse declares: And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Apoc. 21:4). As a man, his garments were divided by lot; but as God, he deigned to give the land of promise to his people as a lot, as the Psalmist says: And he cast out the nations from before them, and distributed the land to them by lot with the line of inheritance (Ps. 77:54). As a man, he slept; but as God, he never submitted to bodily sleep, as the prophet says: Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep (Ps. 120:4). Finally, to pass over very many things, as a man he died and rested, placed in the tomb; but as God, rising from the dead on the third day, he ascended to heaven on the fortieth day, and after a space of ten days sent the promise of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Recognize at last, heretic, who it is that endured the injury of the cross, and who, being placed in the man he assumed, could not feel it.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Where they say that the Father was turned into flesh, and was born of the Virgin together with the Son.

If they have said to you: If the Father and the Son are one, therefore the Father also was turned into flesh, came to the virgin, and appeared born together with the Son.

Answer. We say that the Word of the Father was made flesh, not that the Father was turned into flesh, or, according to you, changed into different things, since the evangelist says: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Father sent this same Word, and healed us. This same Word he brought forth from his heart. By this same Word the heavens were established, whose strength remains forever founded by the spirit of his mouth. He himself put on the form of a servant, in which he was obedient to the Father and endured the reproaches of the Jews; for God is impassible, because he is not corporeal, but the flesh alone that was assumed endured the passion, which flesh, conceived by the angelic announcement, grew in the Virgin, with the angel Gabriel saying: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one that will be born of you will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). For he who is the Son is certainly not the Father, since no one can be called both Father and Son of himself. And if the prophet speaks in the person of the Father: He will call upon me, and I will hear him; I am with him in tribulation, and I will deliver him (Psalm 91:15), he shows the dispensation of unity; for the divinity of the Father and of the Son, which is one, could not be subject to the defect of passion.

CHAPTER XL.

Where they say that the Son does not have foreknowledge of future things.

If they have said: The Son of God did not have foreknowledge of future things, because he said to the unclean spirit: What is your name? and what time is it since this happened to you?

Answer. Acknowledge that the Son of God cannot be ignorant of the presence of future things, from divine authority, since the prophet Jeremiah says: I am the Lord who searches the heart and tests the reins, that I may give to each one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his endeavors (Jer. 16:10). And Isaiah: The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain (Isa. 55:8; Ps. 93:11). But the apostle Paul says the same things to the Hebrews: For the word of God is living and effective, and sharper than every sharp sword, and piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of thoughts and of all marrow, and a judge of the thoughts of the heart, and there is no craft in the world hidden from his sight (Heb. 4:4, 5). He also says: When the Lord comes and illuminates the hidden things of darkness, and manifests the thoughts of the heart, then praise will be for each one from God (1 Cor. 4:5). And in Solomon: But if you say, I do not know this one, know that the Lord knows the hearts of all (Sir. 23:27). And there: The eyes of the Lord are much brighter than the sun: they look around upon all the ways of men, and they behold the depth of the abyss, and the hearts of men, and the hidden parts (Ibid., 28).

And in Kings: Let the old things depart from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge. And in Maccabees: God, the creator of the world, the fashioner of man, who searches out every deed and origin, will himself restore to you spirit and life again with mercy. And the Evangelist: But Jesus himself did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all things, and because there was no need for anyone to bear witness concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man. And Jeremiah says thus: The Lord, who made heaven and earth, can hide nothing from me, because I show mercy to thousands, and I repay the sins of the fathers upon their children after them. And there: And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: I am the Lord God of all flesh; is anything hidden from me? And in Daniel: Eternal God, who are the knower of hidden things, who know all things before they are born, you know that these men speak false testimony against me. And the Apostle to the Romans: On the day when God will judge the hidden things of men according to my Gospel through Jesus Christ. He who searches out the hearts and deeds of men, and will bring them into the light, cannot be ignorant of the presence of future things.

CHAPTER XLI.

Where they say that the Son is subject to the Father.

If perhaps they have objected that the Son is subject to the Father, because it is written: Then he himself also will be subject to him who subjected all things to him (1 Cor. 15:28).

Answer. But so that you may recognize that the Son of God subjected all things to himself by his own power, hear the apostle Peter preaching more fully concerning this very matter. At one time, he says, in the days of Noah, when the patience of God was still waiting, while the ark was being built, into which few entered, that is, only eight souls were saved through water. Which also now saves you in a similar form of baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the questioning of a good conscience toward God, having gone forth into heaven he subjected to himself angels and powers and virtues (1 Pet. 3:20-22). And the apostle Paul: When he has emptied every principality and every power and virtue and dominion, he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet (1 Cor. 15:24). And to the Philippians: For our conversation is in heaven, from where we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowliness, conforming it to the body of his brightness, according to his will, so that he may subject all things to himself (Phil. 3:20). Concerning this very thing also hear David speaking in the sixty-seventh psalm (Vulg. 19): He ascended into heaven, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men.

And in the Epistle of Jude the apostle: The angels also, he says, who abandoned their own principality, binding them with fiery chains and thrusting them into dark prisons, he has reserved to be punished in the future judgment (Jude 1:6). From these things, therefore, recognize the Lord, that the subjection of the Son is not of the Godhead but of the flesh; for when at the end of the age all the vices of the human race have been subjected to it, and death has been swallowed up in victory, then he himself, the Son of Man, is said to be made subject to the Father, not in the nature of the Godhead but in the substance of the man he assumed.

CHAPTER XLII.

Where they say that the Son could not know the day of judgment.

But if they have objected that the Son said in the Gospel: But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone (Matthew 24:36). Answer. The Son, therefore, cannot be ignorant of the day of judgment, concerning which he is seen beforehand to have instructed his disciples with fatherly admonition: When you see, he says, wars and rumors of wars, see that you are not troubled; for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet (Matthew 24:6). Likewise there: For as the lightning comes forth from the east and appears even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Ibid., 27). And Zechariah: Behold, my Lord will come, and all the saints with him, and in that day there will be no light, but cold and frost; and this day, which is known to the Lord (Zechariah 14:5). And in Solomon: What is richer than wisdom, which works all things? And if the understanding works, who among these seems to be the craftsman?

But if anyone loves righteousness, her labors are great virtues: for she teaches self-control and prudence, and gives righteousness and virtue to those who believe in her, than which nothing is more useful to men in life. But if anyone desires a multitude of knowledge, she will make it known: she knows the past, and is prescient of the future; she knows the subtleties of words and the solutions of arguments; she knows signs and wonders before they come to be, and she does not fail to know the end of times and ages (Wis. 8:5-8). And Luke the evangelist: The Pharisees questioned him and said to him: When will the kingdom of God come? He answered them and said: The kingdom of God will not come with observation, nor will they say: Behold, here, or behold, there: for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. And he said to his disciples: Days will come when you will desire to see one day of the Son of man, and you will not see it: they will say to you, Behold, here, or behold, there. Do not go, nor follow: for just as lightning flashing from heaven shines upon the things that are under heaven, so will the coming of the Son of man be in his day (Luke 17:20-24). If this day is his own, how do you say that he could not know, or cannot know, what is his own?

CHAPTER XLIII.

Where they say that the Son, the Word, is called shortened, or was made so.

If they have said "the sun," because the Son is less in it, since the prophet said of him: The Lord will make a shortened word in the whole world (Rom. 9:28).

Answer. The shortened word that the Lord will make upon the earth does not signify a diminution of the Godhead in the Son of God, but you see it announces the dispensation of the assumed [nature], in which dispensation we read that he was made lower not only than the Father, but also than the angels—the son of man—as the apostle Paul testifies: But we see Jesus, who was made a little and less than the angels lower, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death (Heb. 2:9). And below: For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying: I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the Church I will praise you (Ibid., 2). And in the eighth psalm (Ver. 6): You have made him a little less than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor. And so that we may teach that the Word of God the Father was not shortened in the Son, we confirm the judgment from the volume of the prophet Isaiah: Was my word made shortened, or small, so that I cannot redeem? Or is there not in me power to deliver, says the Lord almighty (Isa. 50:2)? And again: These things says the Lord God almighty: Was my hand shortened, so that it cannot save (Isa. 59:1)? Or can it not give life to the heart of the humble and the spirit of the contrite?

And to teach that the arm of the Father, which is the hand, is the Son, I brought forward, saying: The Lord has prepared his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of his (Isa. 52:10). For even in the last time this meaning can be fittingly applied, not in vain, in which time the Lord came for our redemption by taking up flesh, so that he might both destroy by his own death him who held the empire of death, and by the power of his might set free, in that small and brief span of time, those whom he had subdued as captives in darkness and the shadow of death. Concerning this brief time also he instructed his disciples, while he proposed that they walk in the light while they still had time. Children, he says, it is the last hour; while you have the light, walk in the light, lest the darkness overtake you (John 12:35). And in the Canonical epistle: Little children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18). And how do we know that it is the last hour? Because many false prophets have gone out into this world. And the apostle Paul: For the time is short (1 Cor. 7:29). And again: For the fashion of this world passes away (ibid., 31). And again: All these things were done for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Cor. 10:11). For the Lord also in the Lord's Prayer itself shortened all speech, while forbidding us from much speaking, he taught all things that pertain to salvation: When you pray, he says, do not speak much (Matt. 6:7).

And below: But when you pray, say: Our Father, who art in heaven, etc. For the prophet did not designate the Son of God as made lesser in this chapter in the word, since he was thus speaking in the prophets in time past—he who even now in the last time speaks through the apostles and apostolic men: I am, he says, who spoke to my servants the prophets: behold, I am present. And another prophet: As he is from the beginning, so is he even unto the age, neither is anything added to him nor diminished from him, for he himself is Lord of his creation. Behold what kind of shortened word the Lord has made in the world, not one that, as you suppose, would declare to men the Son as inferior to the Father, but one that would announce his final coming.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Where they say that the Son was not born of the substance of the Father.

But if they have said: The Son was not born of the Father's substance, but was begotten of another substance.

Response. We also, who confess the Father and the Son to be of one substance, have taught by divine authority that the Son is of the substance of God the Father, since the prophet Jeremiah says: Take up lamentation upon the minds, and wailing upon the paths of the desert, because they have failed, forasmuch as there are no men, because they would not hear the voice of my substance; from the birds of the heaven even to the beasts they have fallen away in mind (Jer. ix, 10). Likewise in that place: Who hath stood in the substance of the Lord, and shall see the word of God? who hath inclined his ear and heard (Jer. xxiii, 18)? And there: If they had stood in my substance, and if they had heard my words, and if they had taught my people, I would have turned them from their most wicked pursuits (Jer. xxiii, 22). And the Apostle: Since he is the splendor of his glory and the figure of his substance (Heb. i, 3). Likewise he himself: For we have been made partakers of God; let us hold fast the beginning of his substance firm (Heb. iii, 14). And in Solomon: My substance is my sweetness (Wis. xvi, 21). From this at last acknowledge that he who is called the substance of God the Father is not believed to be alien from it.

CHAPTER XLV.

Where they say that the Son is lesser, because through him thanks are given to the Father.

If they have said to you: Therefore the Son is lesser, because through him thanks are given to God the Father.

Response. For from this same apostolic [passage], from which you seem to draw this testimony, we prove from it that he himself, without the name of son, often gave thanks to God the Father, when he himself wrote to the Roman church: But thanks be to God, he says, that you were servants of sin (Rom. 6:17). And below: But being freed from sin, you were made servants of justice. And to the Corinthians: But thanks be to God, who gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:57). Likewise in the same place: But thanks be to God, who always makes us triumph in Christ (2 Cor. 2:14). And to the Ephesians: For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:14). And to the Colossians: Strengthened according to the power of his glory in all patience and long-suffering: with joy giving thanks to God and the Father (Col. 1:11). And to Timothy: I give thanks to my God, whom I serve from my forebears in faith (2 Tim. 1:3). Recognize that, just as in the Father and in the Son there is one belief and confession, by which we are called and are Christians; so in them there is one giving of thanks, when we ask that we may be moved to something, or when we render thanks for things bestowed.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Where the Son says: The Father has appointed a kingdom for me.

But if they have said that the Son himself said to his disciples: I appoint a kingdom for you, as my Father appointed a kingdom for me (Luke 22:29).

Answer. Just as the Father is said to have appointed a kingdom for his Son, so the Son is taught to have handed over the kingdom to the Father, the Apostle confirming it: But each one in his own order, he says: Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's, who will rise at his coming. Then comes the end, when he will have handed over the kingdom to God the Father, when he will have abolished every principality and every power and virtue (1 Cor 15:23). And in the Apocalypse: You redeemed us for God in your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people, and you made us a kingdom for God (Rev 5:9). But that the Father and the Son have one and a common kingdom, the Apostle proves, writing to the Ephesians, saying: For know this, understanding that every fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph 5:5). Since, therefore, you see that the kingdom of the Father and of the Son is one, why do you attempt to assert such things concerning him by an impious doctrine?

CHAPTER XLVII.

Where they say that the Son, not the Father, appeared to the prophets.

If they have said to you: In this the Son is acknowledged by the Father to be of lesser power, because he alone is read to have appeared to the prophets.

Answer. Just as it is proved by divine authority that the Son appeared to the apostles and prophets, so it is also taught by the same Scriptures that the Father appeared to them, the prophet Ezekiel saying: And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he said to me: Arise, go out into the plain, and there I will speak to you. And he arose and went out: and behold, the majesty of the Lord stood there, like his majesty whom I saw by the river Chobar (Ezek. 3:22). And in Daniel: I was watching, and behold, as it were, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated, and his garments were white as snow, and the hairs of his head like pure wool (Dan. 7:9). And so that he might teach that the one he had seen was the Father, he continued, saying: I was watching in the vision of the night, and behold, one like a son of man was coming in the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the Ancient of Days (Ibid., 13). And in the Acts of the Apostles, it is thus reported concerning the first martyr Stephen: But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). And the Lord in the Gospel bore witness concerning the prophet Isaiah, that he had beheld the glory of God the Father with his own eyes, saying: These things Isaiah said, when he saw his glory, and spoke of him (John 12:41).

And in Genesis the same Lord said to Jacob: I am God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a stone for me and vowed a vow to me. And in the book of Judges: When Gideon was still in the threshing floor of his father Joash, the Lord spoke that night, saying: Go, and overturn the altar of Baal which your father built, and cut down the grove that is upon it; and you shall build an altar to your God who appeared to you on the top of mount Macheth in order. Likewise in Genesis to Jacob: But God said to Jacob: Go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar to God who appeared to you on the way, when you were fleeing from the face of Esau your brother. Choose for yourself one of the two, whichever you wish: either say that the Father appeared to him who was going, and the Son to him who was returning; or the Son to him who was fleeing, and nonetheless the Father to him who was returning; for wherever you turn yourself, you will have no power to escape.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Where they raise a dispute about the syllable "and," because it was said to the disciples: Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

But if they have said that the syllable "and," because he said to the disciples, "Baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," divides between the two parties (Matt. 28:19).

Answer. For if this syllable, which is placed more as a conjunction of words than even of names, separates the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Father, as you say, it must be that the name of God the Father, which we read was set down in Genesis by a third repetition under the name of three patriarchs, that is, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, is seen to be divided in itself; or that in the name of the one God, which it is impious to say, he is divided. Far be it, since that is not divided which is proved to be one in the substance of the Godhead, the Lord himself saying: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod. 3:6). He again to Moses: If, he says, they shall ask you, saying, What is his name? you shall say to them: The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you; this is my name forever (Ibid., 15). You see that by the syllable "and" that which is known to be one is not divided; and therefore the Son and the Holy Spirit are not divided from the Father on account of this syllable, since they are taught to be joined to him in nature, deity, and power.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Where they say: The Father is named first and the Son afterward.

If they have said to you: For this reason the Son is not coequal with the Father, because in the divine Scriptures the Father is named first, and the Son afterward.

Answer. The apostle Paul, teacher and doctor of the Gentiles, did not disparage the Son, nor show him inferior to the Father, because he named the Father first; since when he had first named the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then again the Father, he certainly did no injury to the Father, nor did he teach that the Son and the Holy Spirit were inferior, as the Roman Church itself confirms: I have therefore glory in Christ Jesus toward God (Rom. 15:17). And to the Thessalonians: Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our Epistle: and may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, and our Father, who loved us (2 Thess. 2:14). And in the Apocalypse: And I saw, and behold the Lamb stood upon mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having his name and the name of his Father (Rev. 14:1). And in the Epistle of John: Whoever denies the Son neither has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father (1 John 2:23). Likewise there: But if you abide in the word, you will abide in the Son and the Father (ibid., 24). Likewise the Apostle: But know this, understanding that every fornicator, or the unclean, or the covetous, which is idolatry, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph. 5:5).

Behold, we have shown that the Son is named by the Father in the first place. Hear also that the Holy Spirit is named by the Father and the Son in the first place. The same writer says to the Ephesians: One body, and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Is it therefore the case that, because the apostles said: We are witnesses, and the Holy Spirit whom God gave to those who believe in him, the apostles are for that reason to be said to be prior to the Holy Spirit? Or because the Lord in the Gospel named water before the Holy Spirit, when he disclosed to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, the mystery of the sacrament of baptism, is he on that account known to have preferred water to the Holy Spirit? He says: Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And indeed there is no one among human things who can set water above the Holy Spirit, or judge it equal to the Spirit, since we know most certainly that it is not the Holy Spirit that is purified by water, but water by the Holy Spirit.

CHAPTER 50

Where they say: No one comes to the Father except through me.

If they have said that the Lord said in the Gospel: No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

Answer. In the grace of faith there is one calling of the Father and the Son, since just as through the Son we are drawn to the Father, so through the Father we are drawn to the knowledge of the Son, as the Lord himself testifies in the Gospel: Do not murmur among yourselves: no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me has drawn him to me (John 6:44). And Paul to the Thessalonians: But we, he says, ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers chosen by God, because he called us from the beginning of the world to salvation, in the sanctification of the spirit and of the faith of the truth, in which he called us through our Gospel to the adoption of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:12). Likewise in the same place: We always pray for you, that God may direct you by his calling, and fill every will of goodness, and the work of faith in power, and that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be made glorious in you, and you in him (2 Thessalonians 1:11). And again: That you may walk worthily of God, who has called you into his kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:12). And to Timothy: For this is good and acceptable before our Savior God, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3). Likewise in the same place: But God is faithful, who has called us into this grace in which we stand, and we glory in the hope of the glory of the children of God (Romans 5:2).

Likewise there: Strengthened according to the power of his glory, in all patience and long-suffering, with joy giving thanks to God and the Father, who has called us into the fellowship of the lot of the saints (Col. 1:11). If through the Father we are called in the grace of his Son and in the adoption of sons, so that we can truly be sons, and we come to the Father through the Son, what distinction between them can be approved? Since those whom the Father calls, the Son receives, and those whom the Son calls, no one but an unbeliever denies or refutes that the Father can receive in like manner.

CHAPTER 51

Where they say that sacrifice is offered to the Father alone.

But if they have said that in this the Father is deemed greater than the Son, because sacrifice is offered to him alone.

Answer. So that a fitting and suitable answer may be rendered by us to your vain proposition without any subtlety or composition of words: just as to the Father, so also to the Son, we prove that sacrifice was offered not only in Christian times, but also by priests of ancient times in many and various ways, the prophet Daniel saying: There is no place, say the three youths, to sacrifice to your name, and to find mercy, but in a soul and spirit of humility let us be received as in a burnt offering of rams and bulls, and in the multitude of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be made in your sight today, that it may please you (Dan. 3:38).

And so that you may recognize as the Son the one to whom these three young men confessed they had offered sacrifice, learn it from the confession of the king and tyrant himself, who had ordered them cast into the furnace of fire, and who declared that he had seen a fourth associated with the three in the very blazing heat of the furnace: "Did we not," he says, "cast three men bound into the furnace?" And they said to him: "Truly." And he said: "Behold, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no corruption in them, and the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of God" (Dan. 3:91-92). Likewise the Son of God speaks through the prophet, saying: "From the rising of the sun even to its setting, sacrifice is offered to my name, and a pure offering, because great is my name among the nations, says the Lord" (Mal. 1:11). And David says in the psalms: "In your temple, Jerusalem, kings offer gifts to you" (Ps. 67:50). And to show that he had said these things of the Son of God, he speaks in another psalm, saying: "The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall offer gifts; the kings of the Arabians and Saba shall bring presents, and all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him" (Ps. 71:10).

And that we may teach that all these things designated above were offered by the Father to the Son of God, we prove that they were fulfilled in his nativity, which took place according to the flesh, as the Gospel confirms: that when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi came from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he who is born king of the Jews? And below: And entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him, and opening their treasures they offered him gifts. And so the sacrifice that is brought by Christians to the sacred altars is offered with common devotion not only to God the Father but also to the Son, since it is neither offered to the Father without the Son, nor ratified by the Son without the Father.

CHAPTER LIII.

Where they say that the Son had no work in common with the Father.

If they say that the Son had no work of communion with the Father.

Reply. But that the Father and the Son have a common operation, we are taught in this way: it is related that God made the first man's formation in the image of God by the common power of operation, with Scripture saying: Let us make man in our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). Likewise there: Let us make for him a helper like himself (Gen. 2:18). Likewise there: Let us go down and confound their languages (Gen. 11:7). And, The Lord rained fire and sulfur from heaven upon Sodom (Gen. 19:24). And in the Gospel: My Father works until now, and I work (John 5:17). Likewise there: The Father abiding in me does these works. And, Whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does the same (ibid., 19), etc. The things that I do are not mine, but the Father's who sent me (John 8:28). And, I and the Father will come to him, and we will make our dwelling with him (John 14:23). All these things do not set forth a separate power of the Father and the Son, but proclaim one operation of the Godhead: and he who carries out the Father's work is not believed to be a stranger to the Father's works.

CHAPTER LIII.

Where they claim that the Father alone is called the Most High.

For if they have set against us that prophetic testimony concerning the Father alone, where it is said: Let the nations know that thy name is Lord; thou alone art the Most High over all the earth (Ps. LXXXII, 19).

Reply. But if you recognized from the Gospel that the Son of God is called the Most High, you would never, to the disparagement of the Son, set forth this testimony as spoken of the Father alone, since it is written: Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High (Luke I, 76). But that the Son is believed to have dwelt with the Father inseparably in the highest places is confirmed by the testimony of Solomon: I, Wisdom, saith he, dwelt in the highest, and my throne in the pillar of the cloud (Eccli. XXIV, 7). And in the ninety-first psalm (ver. 9): But thou, Lord, art the Most High for ever, for behold thy enemies shall perish. For when the devil wished to set up his throne against the throne of his Creator in the highest places, lifted up with pride, he was seen to utter these things with his accursed mouth: I will set my seat to the north, saith he, I will ascend above the stars of heaven, I will sit upon the high mountains, and I will be like the Most High (Isa. XIV, 13). Likewise there in Solomon: Say not, I have sinned, and what sad thing hath befallen me? For the Most High is a patient rewarder (Eccli. V, 4). If you will not apply the hearing of your heart to the divine Scriptures, which teach that the Son is called the Most High, then at least believe the devil, who wished to set up a seat for himself against the throne of his Maker.

CHAPTER LIV.

Where they say that the Son called himself a beginning.

But if they say that the Son had a beginning from the Father, on the ground that, when the Jews asked him, Who art thou? he answered, The beginning, which also I speak unto you (John VIII, 25).

Answer. The apostle Paul, writing in the Epistle entitled to the Hebrews that the Son of God can have neither beginning of days nor end of life, sets this forth as follows, saying: For this Melchisedech, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom Abraham divided the tithes of all things: first indeed by interpretation king of righteousness, then king of Salem, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life: but likened unto the Son of God (Hebr. VII, 1). And in Isaiah: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, because his life shall be taken from the earth, but who shall declare his generation (Isai. LIII, 8)? And in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word (John I, 1). In that word therefore which is said, was, he shows the Son ever abiding in the Father, whose beginning no mortal can search out, nor his end.

CHAPTER LV.

Where it is said: God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

If they have said to you, Therefore the Son is less, because he himself, hanging on the cross, said: God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Matt. XXVII, 46)?

Answer. So that you may recognize that the Son was not utterly forsaken by the Father, as you vainly suspect, he placed this testimony concerning himself in the Gospel. My Father, he says, is with me; he will not leave me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to him (John VIII, 29). And again: I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me (Ibid., 16). And again: Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me (John XIV, 10)? And the Apostle: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (II Cor. V, 19). And in the Acts of the Apostles: He went about doing good and saving all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was in him (Acts X, 38). And Habakkuk: Thou wentest forth, O Lord God, for the salvation of thy people, with thy Christ (Hab. III, 13). And the prophet: He who begot me rested in my tabernacle (Ecclus. XXIV, 12). From this, unhappy men, recognize that he who, still dwelling in our mortal flesh, never departed from the Father, surely cannot be called less than the Father.

CHAPTER LVI.

Where they claim that the Apostle testifies that Christ knew himself not according to the flesh.

If they have objected to you what the Apostle says of Christ: If we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no more (II Cor. 5:16).

Answer. Do you not see, wretched men, that in proposing such things you are following outright the error of the Manichaeans, since like them you also strive to empty out the mystery of the flesh he assumed, so that after the resurrection from the dead you believe no trace of humanity remained in him: not considering that after his life-giving passion he reproved his disciples with this voice: Why are you troubled, and thoughts arise in your heart? Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have (Luke 24:39). And again: When it was therefore evening on that one day of the sabbaths, and the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst of them, and said to them: Peace be to you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and side: the disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord (John 20:19). And again: After eight days the disciples were within, and Thomas with them; Jesus came with the doors shut and stood in the midst of them, and said to them: Peace be to you. Then he says to Thomas: Bring your finger here, and see my hands, and put your hand into my side, and be not unbelieving, but faithful (Ibid., 26).

And again: But when it was morning, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: Children, have you any food? But they offered him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remnants he gave to them (John 21:4). And in the Apocalypse: And all the nations shall see him, even those who pierced him, and they shall mourn over him (Rev. 1:7). And in the Acts of the Apostles: Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven (Acts 1:11). Likewise there: He gave him to be made manifest to us, the witnesses who were predestined by God, who ate together and conversed for forty days with him after he rose from the dead (Acts 10:40). Consider that he who for forty days, going in and out, conversed with his disciples, ate, and taking the remnants, gave them to the same with a blessing, and showing the scars and wounds in his true body, freed his disciple from the fault of unbelief: that he truly rose in the flesh, none do not accept except the sect of the Manichaeans and your own.

CHAPTER LVII.

Where they say that the Son will descend from heaven at the command and voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

If they have raised against you that which the Apostle said: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a command, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God (1 Thess. 4:15).

Answer. Does it seem fair to you that he to whom, before his passion while he was still in the flesh, angels rendered service, should, when he comes from the heavens to judgment, be compelled by the authority of angels? Far be it; for he will come in his own power, to bestow on the just a reward, and on the unjust, together with the devil whom they have followed, eternal punishment, as he himself declares in the Gospel: When the Son of man shall come in his majesty, then he shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and those who work iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:41). And again: Then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with great power and glory; then he shall send his angels with a great trumpet, and shall gather his elect from the four winds, from the height of the earth even to the height of heaven (Matt. 24:30). And again: When the Son of man shall come, and all the angels with him, then he shall sit upon the throne of his majesty, and all nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the lambs from the goats, and he shall set the lambs at his right hand, but the goats at the left (Matt. 25:31).

And the Apostle says: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52). And Isaiah says: Behold, the Lord himself shall come to judgment with the elders and his princes, to render vengeance in wrath, in a flame of fire (Isa 3:14). From these you must at last recognize that he who sends angels against the nations to be gathered for judgment cannot possibly come at the command of archangels.

CHAPTER LVIII.

Where they say that the Father alone is adored by the faithful.

But if they say: In this the Son is not equal to the Father, because the Father alone is adored by the faithful.

Answer. If, with wickedness raging, you did not lose the eyes of your mind, you would undoubtedly recognize that just as the Son is adored in the Father, so the Father is adored in the Son, as the prophet Isaiah says: Thus says the Lord God of hosts: Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians; the Sabeans, tall men, shall pass over to you, and shall be your servants, and shall follow after you bound in chains, and they shall adore, and shall entreat you (Isa 45:14). And in the Apocalypse: And the twenty-four elders fell down before the throne and adored him who lives for ever and ever (Apoc 4:10). Likewise there: And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the eternal Gospel, to evangelize those who dwell upon the earth, saying with a loud voice: Fear God, and give him honor, for the hour of his judgment has come; adore him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of waters (Apoc 14:6-7).

And in the seventy-first psalm (v. 11): And all the ends of the earth shall adore him; all nations shall serve him. And in the sixty-fifth (v. 4): Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee. And in the Gospel: They found the child and Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him (Matt 2:11). And Esdras: Thou, Lord God, art alone, who hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all their hosts, the earth, and the things that are in it, and the sea, and the things that are in it, and thou hast given life to all things, and the hosts of heaven adore thee (2 Esdras 2:6). For he who is adored as the Father, and is heaped with divine honor—who can say that he cannot be equal to the Father?

CHAPTER 59

Where they say that the Son gave thanks to the Father.

But if they say to you: Therefore the Son is lesser, because he himself is reported to have given thanks to the Father, through whom the disciples gave thanks.

Answer. Just as the Son, in the form of the man he assumed, gave thanks for us, so the Father made the odor of his Son and of his knowledge known in every place through the apostles, Paul saying: We give thanks to God, who makes us triumph in Christ, and manifests the odor of his knowledge through us in every place, because we are the good odor of Christ both in those who are saved and in those who perish (2 Cor 2:14).

For the same Apostle teaches that there is one and the same grace of the Father and of the Son, through which we have been set free, and he sets this forth in this way, saying: For all have sinned, and need the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:23). And again: For if by the offense of one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many (Rom. 5:15). And again: The wages of sin is death, but the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:23). And again: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:24-25). For the disciples also often gave thanks to the Father, apart from the name of the Son. If you wish to consider our argument set out above by us on this matter, you will recognize it without any ambiguity.

CHAPTER LX.

Where they say that the Son was appointed king by the Father on Mount Zion.

If they have set before you that the Son said through the prophet: But I have been appointed king by him upon his holy mount Zion (Ps. II).

Answer. The Son, in that he is the Word of the Father and, remaining God in God, is naturally with the Father, possesses the dominion of the kingdom; but in that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, we read that he was appointed king, and made a little lower than the angels, as the Psalmist says: What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you visit him? You have made him a little lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, and you have set him over the works of your hands (Ps. VIII). For if you search the Gospel Scriptures with the right sense of understanding, you will find that the Son was not appointed king by the Father, but born, as the Evangelist says: Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the city of David, behold, wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he that is born king of the Jews (Matt. II)? And when Pilate said to him: Are you the king of the Jews? He answered him: For this I was born. And, If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight for me, that I should not be delivered to the Jews (John XVIII). For, as you yourselves concede, it was then at his death that the Son obtained the power of the kingdom; therefore, before the Son had been appointed king by the Father, he had no dignity of communion in the kingdom in the bosom of the Father.

If this is so, how does the prophet signify that he was king before the ages, whom he at least foretells in prophetic utterance would work in the flesh in the midst of the earth? But God, he says, is our king, who has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth (Psalm 73:12). For he was appointed king by God the Father, who, though he was God, deigned to be born as man for our sake from the Virgin. For how could he who stood with the Father everywhere be appointed king over certain parts of the earth—he who is naturally known to rule over heaven, earth, and the abysses?

CHAPTER LXI.

Where they say that the Son is inferior to the Father both in power and in nature.

But if they have said of the Son that, just as he is inferior in nature, so he is also inferior in power.

Answer. The Son is not inferior in nature to the Father, because he is God from God, and perfect from perfect, and the whole Son is born from the whole; he did not come forth as one begotten unequal to the begetter, but came forth born from the paternal womb as altogether coequal, so that he might possess the fullness of paternal equality, and nonetheless obtain omnipotence from the Omnipotent, as the apostle Paul declares: Who, being established in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6).

For we establish that he is omnipotent just as the Father is, not by the words of human wisdom but by divine proofs, with the prophet Zechariah saying: "Thus says the Lord omnipotent: After honor he has sent me to the nations that plundered you, since he who touches you is like one who touches the pupil of his eye; for behold, I will cast my hand upon those who plundered you, and those who plundered you shall become a prey; and they shall know that the Lord God omnipotent has sent me" (Zech. 2:8). Behold, the omnipotent is sent by the omnipotent. What inequality is thereby proved between the sender and the one sent? But if these things still seem small to your foolishness, learn the omnipotence of the one who was sent from what follows, which you now appear to me to be ignorant of, with the Apocalypse saying: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord, who was, and who is, and who is to come, the omnipotent" (Rev. 1:8). And David in the Psalms: "I have placed help upon the mighty one" (Ps. 88:20). And again: "You are mighty, O Lord, and your truth is round about you" (Ibid., 9). And so now it is fitting that you, like a depraved teacher, show what difference there can be in the omnipotence of the Father and the Son.

CHAPTER LXI.

Where they say: The power of the one who commands and the one who does cannot be one.

But if in their usual vanity they have said that the Father and the Son cannot be one, because the power of the one who commands and the one who does cannot be one.

Answer. We have plainly never read in any passage of divine Scripture that the Father said to the Son: Do what I command or enjoin upon you, so as to display the authority of one who commands; or that the Son answered: I do it, so as nonetheless to approve the person of one who obeys or does. But since by repeatedly setting forth these things we recognize less shame, things which we remember we have already said not a few times above concerning the common work of the Father and the Son, we are now compelled once again to impress upon your untaught minds what we had believed, as though to a wise man, would suffice once said. Listen therefore, and you will recognize that the work of the Father is the Son's, because we read that neither the Father without the Son nor the Son without the Father did anything; with the Gospel itself testifying: My Father works even until now, and I work (John 5:17). And, The Father who abides in me does the works (John 14:10). And, If you do not wish to believe me, believe the works, that you may recognize that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me (John 1:58). And, I and the Father will come to him, and we will make our dwelling with him (John 14:23). And, Let us make man in our image and likeness (Gen 1:26). And, Let us go down, and let us confound their tongues (Gen 11:7).

Since from this you know that the work of the Father and the Son is one, why do you yourself assert that the Father commands the Son, and show the Son as doing or obeying?

CHAPTER LXIII.

Where they say that the Son is not coeternal with the Father.

If they have said to you: Because the Son is not called eternal, as the Father is called eternal.

Answer. But that the Son may be approved eternal, as the Father is, is declared more manifestly in the one hundred and eighth psalm: In eternity, Lord, he says, your word endures in heaven. And in Isaiah: All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man like the flower of grass: the grass has withered, and we, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Likewise there: I am the first and I am in eternity, my hand founded the earth, and my right hand established the heaven. And so the Son is found neither unlike the Father in eternity, nor is he approved inferior in power: since those who are one in deity and in power cannot be distinguished in eternity, nor indeed is the Son lacking the eternity of nature, who is taught to possess in himself the full plenitude of deity.

CHAPTER LXIV.

Where they say that the Father made the Son, but the Son made all things.

If they say, The Father made the Son, but the Son made all things.

Answer. In the nature of deity, in which the Father and the Son are one, we never conceal that the Son was made by the Father, but begotten. For if in this respect, namely that he is the Word of the Father, you assert that the Son was made, then God the Father will by no means have the perfection of his substance in himself, since he could not have in himself the perfect Word, who continually remains, before the birth of his Son. But we who believe that the Son was born of the Father ineffably and without beginning, neither yield to your faithlessness by resisting while we vindicate the unity of the faith, nor are we overcome by cunning so as to deny the truth of the paternal birth in the Son, whose birth neither the Father himself who begot him kept silent, nor did the Son himself who was born of the Father conceal it in his own preaching, since he himself says: For God so loved this world that he gave his only-begotten Son for it (John 3:16). And again: The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared it (John 1:18). And the Lord himself says to the Jews: Are you indignant at me because I said to you, I am the Son of God (John 7:23)? And again: I came forth from the Father, and have come into this world (John 16:28). And David sings in the Psalms in the person of God the Father, and says: My heart has uttered a good word (Psalm 44:2). Likewise he says: In the splendors of the saints, from the womb before the morning star I begot you (Psalm 109:3).

Likewise he says concerning the Son: The Lord said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you (Ps. 2:7). And in the Gospel, when the same Son was baptized in the Jordan, the voice of the Father thundered, saying: This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Luke 3:22). And on the mountain to the three disciples: This is my most beloved Son, listen to him (Matt. 17:5). Hear the Father testifying by his own voice that he begot him from himself; hear the Son declaring the origin of his nativity, whence or from what ineffable birth he exists. Cease to call him a creature, the maker of the heavens and the world and of all created things.

CHAPTER LXV.

Where they say: As the Father has life in himself, so he has also given to the Son to have life in himself.

If they have set against you that the Son said: As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself (John 5:26).

Answer. If the Son, remaining in the Father before the beginning of the world, did not have life, how is he called the author of life and proved to be eternal life? You demanded, says the apostle Peter, that a murderous man be granted to you, but you killed the author of life, hanging him on a tree (Acts 3:14). And the apostle John: This is the true God, and eternal life (1 John 5:20). And the Lord himself to Martha: I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). Likewise there: I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven (John 6:51). And to the Father: As you have loved me, I also have loved them (John 15:9). And I give them eternal life (John

(1 Tim. 6:28). And again: I came that they may have life. For just as in the naming of this name life cannot be divided from life, so the Son cannot be separated from the Father in the substance of divinity; for the Father also did not give to the Son a life other than the one which he has abiding in himself, but what he has, that very thing he gave; and as great as it is in him, so great he gave, and in this very act, in that he gave life to the Son, he did not lose it.

CHAPTER LXVI.

Where they say that the Father alone dwells in inaccessible light.

If they have set against you that it was said of the Father alone, who alone has immortality, and dwells in inaccessible light (1 Tim. 6:16).

Answer. Not the Father alone without the Son dwells in inaccessible light, because where the Father is, there the Son also is to be believed to be, by undoubted faith. For if the Father alone without the Son—which it is impious to say—dwells in inaccessible light, it must be that the Father has a dwelling separated from the Son; but if this is so, how could the Son himself, standing at the right hand of the Father, be seen by the blessed martyr Stephen (Acts 7:56), if the Father, according to you, is said to be contained in other seats? Far be this from the sense of the faithful, who cling to Christ in the unity of faith! For just as it is not [true] of the Son when the Father alone is said to dwell in inaccessible light, so it does not suffice for the Father when Wisdom, which is the Son, is said alone to encircle the circuit of heaven (Sir. 24:8).

Therefore, since He is invisible and unbegotten, He is shown by the apostles' testimony to have been seen in the Son, and to have remained and rested in the Son, whom He begot from Himself ineffably—the Son Himself saying in the prophet: He who begot me rested in my tabernacle (Sir. 24:12). And in the Gospel: The Father who remains in me does these works (John 14:10). And: No one has ever seen God except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). The Son was in the bosom of the Father from the beginning, and from the heart of the Father the good word was brought forth; how then should He not be believed to have dwelt in inapproachable light, standing together with Him in the Father's heart? Could the Father have remained in the Son without any light, or have rested in the Son's tabernacle without that same light, when the same Son is the radiance of eternal light and the spotless mirror of the Godhead (Wis. 7:26), which Solomon said he loved above his own welfare, and longed always to delight in its beauty? Above welfare and beauty, he says, I loved her, and I purposed to have her for my light, because her light is inextinguishable (Ibid., 7:10)? Therefore David the prophet, desiring this light, cries out in anxiety, saying: Send forth your light and your truth (Ps. 42:3). And again: In your light we shall see light (Ps. 36:9). In the brightness, then, of this light the Son showed Himself beforehand on the mountain to three disciples, and they, terrified by fear of death and fallen on their faces, perceived that the light of life was present with them.