Liber Contra Arianos

I. THE BOOK AGAINST THE ARIANS. CHAPTER I. Occasion and Argument of the Disputation. Unless I saw that deceit of diabolical subtlety which, having seized the minds of almost all, both persuades heresy as if it were right faith and condemns right faith as if it were heresy, I would have no discourse at all concerning those things which have recently come to us in writing, most dear brothers. For it was enough for a small conscience to hold what it believes: thinking it more right to guard one’s own than to examine extraneous and alien matters. But because, as we have said, either heresy must be embraced so that we may be called Catholics, or we shall not truly be Catholics if we do not reject heresy: we descend by necessity to this condition of treatise, which it befits us to bring into the open—that diabolical poison hidden under the modesty of religious veneration—so that both the evil which lies hidden under the appearance of simple words may be detected, and, with falsehood exposed, the truth which has been blocked may breathe again. For alien things must be destroyed so that our own may be believed; but unless those alien things have been destroyed, I see that it must be believed that only our own should be believed. Therefore, before I can bring forth the heresy blinded by diabolical fraud into public awareness, yet while I am speaking about it, giving a pledge of my faith, I will prove myself a Catholic; proven indeed, as I hope, first to God, then to my own conscience: but also to be proven to those whom either fear or the ambition of the age has not overcome.

CHAPTER II. The Deceptions of the Arians. Therefore, beginning from the very head of the treachery—not of the faith—and then running through the whole body, we will prove that many things are done through the fraud of a common profession, which indeed we cannot accept; some things, however, are heaped up without any semblance of shame. For even "one God" is not proposed without fraud, nor are "two" simply denied; but the name of substance is entirely sworn to, so that the Son may be severed from the Father; finally, his birth is reported as unknown, which, if it is believed to be from the Father as it is, is sufficiently known by its own confession. The Father is said to be greater than the Son, yet not by that difference by which the Father is greater than the Son, but greater in all the goods of divine glory; by which if the Son is lesser, it will not be granted that he himself is in the Father, because his eternal blessedness will receive nothing into itself unless it is proper. But not the proper of God, unless it is full and perfect; nor, again, will the Father deign to be in him in whom he cannot be wholly. The Father is denied to have a beginning, this so that the Son may be believed to have a beginning not from an author, but from time. Moreover, I think that he to whom a beginning is thus ascribed is not denied to be subject to an end. Then the Son is said to be subject to the Father; yet not as a Son to a Father, but as a servant to a master, although we read that a servant cannot be an heir. Finally, he is referred to as subject to God along with every creature; the Father is proclaimed invisible, immortal, so that, of course, the Son lies in the opposites of these.

If, therefore, we refute that these individual points are spoken not by human presumption but by divine authority, it will follow that the Catholic faith stands in that part which accepts such a God as He ought to be who is God. CHAPTER III. Honeyed Poison. “One God,” he says, “is agreed to exist.” Indeed, those who slander cannot be seen to argue by conjectures and to twist the sanctity of simple faith with malicious interpretation. But we must look to Ursacius and Valens and Potamius, because they have very often confessed the one God with the same words through deceitful fraud. I have undertaken nothing simple in this profession of faith, which at first glance flatters the inexperienced, the credulous, the incautious with heretical subtlety, in the same way that honey commends a cup of poison. “One God,” he says, “the omnipotent Father, is agreed to exist.” None of us denies this, because no one is ignorant of it; but (as can be proven from their own treatises) we say that in this place they have professed not so much one God as one omnipotent Father. For with the same constancy they refuse the Son, and yet they confess the Son as God. I think they will not deny that they have undertaken the other; and therefore it is entirely open to them in this their perfidy, not faith, to say “one God the Father” rather than “one God.” Although in the whole body of their profession they do not deny our Lord Himself in such a way that they destroy God, that is, they speak only with the name “Lord,” by which name we too are accustomed to be called. “I,” he says, “said: ‘You are gods’” (Psalm 81:6).

By what name also Moses was previously granted: "I make you," it says, "a god to Pharaoh" (Exod. 7:1). Therefore, let no one think that the Catholic profession is completed by these words, if we both confess one God the Father and do not deny God the Son. For God the Father can be called one God in such a way that He is one Father, not one God. And the Son can be called God in such a way that He is not God. CHAPTER IV. God is one, or none. The blind heretics. "We know," they say, "that two gods can neither be nor ought to be preached." We never utter two gods from our mouth. For God, if He is not one and true, is not God. But it must be observed with what definition this is set forth, to what perfidy this whole thing is prepared, into what sin the words common with us break forth. For immediately after they deny two gods, they set down: "Because God Himself says: 'I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God' (John 20:17)." By this definition of evil interpretation, the Son is so separated from the Father and placed below the omnipotent God, that the condition of birth and the infirmity of humanity are associated with us. Finally, they add: "The God of all is one God." By this statement, the Lord is not absolutely denied to be God; for He is subjected to God the Father not by the name of Son, but by the condition of a creature. And I believe that at this point Apostolic authority will be vindicated, so that Christ is said to be God rather than is God, because it said: "And God gave him a name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9).

But also the Lord Himself denies that He is the true God, when He says: "This is eternal life, that they may know you alone and the true God" (John 17:3); and: "Why," He says, "do you call me good? No one is good except the one God" (Luke 18:19). You will still hear: "Why do you not seek honor from the one and only God? But concerning the day and the hour, no one knows except the Father alone" (Matt. 24:36). O blind leaders! O men deceived by worldly ambition! You do not distinguish the twofold state of the Lord's power, each standing apart in its own property; and whatever is said about His human nature, you apply to God, so that God Himself is joined to human weakness. CHAPTER V. Blasphemies of the Arians. The Letter of Potamius. And therefore you wish this twofold state to appear not conjoined but confused, so that even one of you, that is, the Letter of Potamius which was sent from the East and the West, asserts that by the flesh and spirit of Christ coagulated through the blood of Mary and reduced into one body, a passible God was made. This is so that no one might believe from that that He is the one who is sufficiently known to be impassible. Therefore you have made from the Spirit of God and the flesh of man some third thing: because He is not truly God either, if He ceases to be the Word (for He was made flesh); nor is He truly man, because He was not properly flesh, for He was the Word, as if from both He is now neither. He, I say, He who against this poison distinguished each of His substances by the property of their affection.

For the Spirit in Him governs its own affairs, that is, its powers, works, and signs; and the flesh underwent its own passions. It desired food when tempted by the devil; it thirsted at the well of Samaria, while the prophet's voice says: "The eternal God neither thirsts nor hungers." What more of human feeling—did it weep for Lazarus and Jerusalem? Finally, it was anxious unto death. But what it expressed through feeling, did it not also testify in words? For He says to Nicodemus: "What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit" (John 3:6); and, He says, "the flesh is weak, the spirit is willing" (Matthew 21:46). Therefore, spirit does not become flesh, nor flesh spirit—which these distinguished teachers wish, namely that our Lord and God was made passible from this mixture of substances. But they wish Him to be called passible precisely so that He may not be believed impassible. CHAPTER VI. The Synod of Nicaea. The Incorrupt Truth.

But why is it necessary to probe deeper matters and to expose the internal poison, which emerges through arguments, to common and public judgment, when the light-fleeing serpent, uncoiling its length through winding paths and proceeding tortuously, has at some point revealed what and how great it is, and has poured out its venom, more freely than usual, all at once through its victories? An edict proceeds from the bishops: Let no one say "one substance"; that is: Let no one in the Church preach that the Father and the Son are of one power. What have you done, O men of blessed memory, who gathered at Nicaea from all parts of the world, and, having examined the sacred volumes, established the perfect rule of the Catholic faith with circumspect language, giving the right hand of common faith to the right-believing, and a form of belief to the erring? To what has your labor, your anxious concern, fallen back? Where have the seeds of the eastern evil, which you then, as far as in you lay, killed by the Catholic profession, gone? It is forbidden in the Church to preach what you alone decreed ought to be preached in the Church for the detection of heresies. What you approved is removed, and what you condemned is introduced: because falsehood could not be built up unless truth were destroyed. Truth indeed is not subject to destruction, and, as it is always incorrupt, it will endure; but those who lay sacrilegious hands upon it have punished it as if it were violated.

CHAPTER VII. The Meaning of the Word "Substance" Explained. Let no one say "one substance." What impiety, what crime is in this word, in what way does it assail the catholic faith? Is it by the sound of the word, or by the interpretation of the thing itself? I am not mistaken: the interpretation is free from fault. For "substance" is said of that which always exists from itself: that is, which subsists by its own intrinsic power; which property belongs to the one and only God. But this name is customary and familiar in the divine volumes, nor do I think even those who deny it are ignorant of it. For David, from the person of Christ: "I am fixed in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance" (Psalm 68:3). And again: "My substance is in the lower parts of the earth" (Psalm 138:15). And: "My substance is always before you" (Psalm 38:8). And: "My substance is as nothing before you" (Ibid., 6). "Let the usurer examine his substance" (Psalm 108:11). But also the saying of Solomon: "Your substance and your sweetness" (Wisdom 16:2). And Jeremiah: "If they had stood in my substance" (Jeremiah 23:22, according to the Septuagint). And in Proverbs: "The substance of a rich man is a fortified city" (Proverbs 10:15). And in the same: "Fathers divide house and substance among their sons" (Proverbs 13:22). But also Tobias: "If you have abundant substance," he says (Tobit 4:9). And the same: "Son, from your substance give alms" (Ibid., 7). But also John: "He who has the substance of the world" (1 John 2:17). And in the Gospel: "from my substance" (Luke 19:8).

Therefore we have gathered these examples together, lest that word should ensnare the unlearned, as they have testified; and for that reason substance was not preached, because it was nowhere found in the divine Scriptures. Therefore, if neither the word substance itself is new to the sacred writings, nor does its interpretation bear any guilt, it remains for us to examine for what cause this name is rejected. But upon examining, we find that they reject not the name, but the force of the name. And if this becomes clear, the status of the name will be evident to us; and their understanding will be at fault, who, while seeking new paths of profane understanding, have departed from the straight path of the Gospels. CHAPTER VIII. The Objections of the Heretics Are Resolved. But before I establish what I have promised, I must meet those things which are set forth to the contrary. For they say that the name substance is indeed found in the divine volumes, but that it does not immediately pertain to the same species which is introduced by us. For there, by the word substance, either power or divinity is signified. And we, therefore, who claim one substance of the Father and the Son, what else do we proclaim than equal riches in both, that is, of one divinity? Concerning which riches the Apostle says: "God," he says, "made known the riches of his glory" (Colossians 1:27), which is Christ. And we say that the power of each is one, concerning which the same Apostle says: "Christ is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24).

This power, indeed, because it needs no external assistance, is called substance, as we said above, whatever it is that owes itself to itself. Therefore we say nothing new in this word, nothing foreign, nothing incongruous to the divinity, even if it is transferred to any part of its signification. But (as I had begun to say) this whole question of the name is of another pain: it is not the word, but the force of the word that displeases them. For with what ears can they bear that one substance of the Father and the Son is preached, that is, honor, dignity, glory, power, majesty common in both with equal truth, who separate the Son from the Father, and with divided substances propose each one dwelling in its own property, rejecting the communion of divinity? Here, therefore, is the blasphemy, here the said sacrilegious pain, by which one God is received in the Father and the Son. For with the dead authors of this poison, their crimes and teaching do not die. Those authors, I say, separate the Son from the Father to such an extent that they uttered with sacrilegious mouth that the Son of God was indeed created and established before the ages, but that he received life and being from the Father, and that he existed before he was born, and that he is God indeed, but not true God. Therefore to the successors of this perfidy, not of faith, through whom the inheritance of evils creeps, one substance rightly displeases, whom they, like a scandal and a divorce of unity, demand, not knowing that only those are to be called catholics.

CHAPTER IX The Unknown Nativity of Christ. Christ from God, in God, with God. But who could bear with equanimity that those who assert that he has a beginning as certain should hold his nativity as uncertain? Either both must be kept hidden, because they are contemporaneous, or both must be known. For one can neither be known nor unknown without the other. "The Son has a beginning," they say, "but his nativity is hidden." Is it not unjust? Who disclosed the nativity? Why did he remain silent? Indeed, from where is the nativity known, which is asserted to be unknown? But at this point, men empty of all good hope appeal to the authority of the prophet saying: "Who has recounted his nativity?" (Isa. 58:8), not understanding that even then those who would give a beginning to the Word of God, that is, to the Son of God, were foreseen by the prophetic spirit. "Who has recounted his nativity?" he says; that is to say: No man will be able. For no one was able except he himself, who, expounding the bosom of the Father, principally revealed to us the secrets of his own nativity. For we also read that it was said to the same effect: "Who knows the mind of the Lord?" (Rom. 11:34; 1 Cor. 1:16). But again we are taught: "Unless the spirit which is in him." "Who has recounted his nativity?" (1 Cor. 1:11); that is to say: Let no one dare to recount what he cannot. But why will no one be able? Because, of course, he who lacks nativity is not only from him and with him, but also in him.

For he was born from the unbegotten, and was born with those goods of divine glory which were with the unbegotten; and did the Father, with that same unbegotten, cease to have what he begot, by having the same begotten within himself? Therefore his nativity is proclaimed as unspeakable because through it he is unconceived, but the Son is perfect God from God the Father, because according to the Scriptures we have said concerning the Son: from him, and with him, and in him (Rom. 11:36). CHAPTER X This kind of doctrine is set forth. Heretics agree with us in words, not in sense. Lest anyone be troubled by the variety of meanings, an account of what has been said must be given; and lest the propositions be confused, it must be given in summary. "From him" refers to the author; "with him" refers to the only-begotten; "in him" refers to the nativity of the substance. This is heard in all. Grasp the mysteries of the divine dispensation. You know the salt. "His nativity," he says, "who has recounted it?" For who can recount according to nature a nativity which is against nature? For he alone is born, conscious of his own nativity. For he, for whom goods were being prepared, understanding by nature the origin, was in the Father, by that very condition by which he was born. "His nativity," he says, "who has recounted it?" And they add that this has been revealed to no one, because it is known only to the Son and the Father. This is to say, without the fraud of subtle words: The Father indeed begot the Son, but no one knows whence. For the Jews similarly said: We know that God spoke to Moses; but this one we do not know whence he is (John 9:29).

Although they sometimes join with us in the communion of words, and certain things seem to be said simply, bespattering heretical depravity, yet because their darts come against the true faith, it is necessary that the fewer be understood by the more; especially since if anything received comes against the faith, it is a loss to the whole faith. "No one knows," he says, "how the Son was begotten, except the Father alone" (John 1:18). What then does that sentence mean, since the Lord, not willing us to be ignorant of this, says: "I came out from the Father, and from the bosom of the Father" (John 16:27, 28)? Alas! Why did the followers of the darkness of ignorance not wish us to be ignorant? And certainly he did not wish it, so that, with the author known to us, the question of his state might be removed. For it is not to be sought who, how, or of what sort he is, when we would know whence he is. But if it is proposed that in this place the Lord's own sentence is confirmed, namely saying: "No one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except the Father" (Matthew 11:27); we must listen, lest they commit fraud against the divine definition. For it follows: "And to whom the Son wills to reveal." For it is not utterly hidden which cannot be revealed. For it is revealed, if someone is worthy of revelation.

CHAPTER XI. We Come to Know Secrets Through the Spirit of God. Now, therefore, this knowledge of the secret is not concealed, because it is revealed from its cause: and it follows that we are unworthy of knowledge, not that God is to be considered unjust, who punishes ignorance; but He would not punish it, if He had not given knowledge. For He gave it through the Holy Spirit. Finally, He says, "The Spirit of truth will tell you the whole truth" (John 16:15). When He says the whole truth, He certainly excepts nothing. This is the Spirit of knowledge and truth, through whom Solomon, concerning the Lord's nativity, says: "What it is, and wisdom, and how it was made, I will relate, and I will investigate it from the beginning of its birth" (Wisdom 6:24). Therefore, through the same Spirit we can find what we seek. For the Apostle also says: "God has revealed to us through His Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10). No one knows what is in God, except the Spirit of God: which Spirit, if the same Apostle proves dwells in us, we can therefore, through the same Spirit, insert ourselves into the secrets of God. And indeed: "Seek, and you will find; ask, and it will be given to you; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:24). And again: "Father, what you have hidden from the wise, you have revealed to the little ones" (Matthew).

CHAPTER XI. We Come to Know Secrets Through the Spirit of God. Now, therefore, this knowledge of the secret is not concealed, because it is revealed from its cause: and it follows that we are unworthy of knowledge, not the secret itself. For to us, to whom the Lord says: "To you," He says, "it is given to know the mystery of God" (Matthew 13:11); that mystery, indeed, of which the Apostle says: "That which before," he says, "was not known to the sons of men, is now revealed to his saints" (Ephesians 3:5). It is plainly revealed. For He shows forth the eminent riches of His glory, in goodness over us from Christ, who is Himself the glory of God the Father. He Himself is the true offspring of the Unbegotten. This means: No one knows how the Son was begotten. No one, indeed, but from those things in which, as the Lord says, His word does not take hold (John 8:37); just as with the Jews, to whom the same Lord says: "You," He says, "do not know whence I come and whither I go; because you judge according to the flesh" (John 8:14, 15). For how can it be that no one knows, if the Father says: "My heart has belched forth a good word" (Psalm 44:2)? How can it be that no one knows, if the Son says: "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High" (Sirach 24:5)? Seek no further, and you have nothing to inquire about; for you know the whole: because what is said is the whole. "I came forth," He says, "from the mouth of the Most High." For this is the perfect birth of the Word, this is the beginning without beginning. This is the origin having a beginning in birth, but not in state. For from the unbegotten God, a begotten God came forth, one from one, true from true, full from full; and thus, by being born in those things which were always, it did not begin to be what was born from that which was not conceived, nor does it have time, which is co-born with the timeless Father by nature.

For it is written: God is spirit (John 4:4): and from God the eternal was born. Therefore, as of His nature, by which eternity consists. The Son is not, therefore, imperfect, although He is born, because He is born from the perfect one: nor is the one who begot diminished, because He begot from Himself. For the whole gave the whole, so that according to the power of the Spirit, the whole would be in the whole. CHAPTER XII. What the Evil Teachers Think, How They Fight. But now the evil teachers do not contain themselves within the secrets of their own art, and they stand against the truth, and against truth itself, having horns like lambs, and speaking like dragons. Therefore, wishing to sever the Son from the Father and place Him below God, they prescribe from the Gospel: The Father, He says, is greater than I (John 14:18). And how greater? Immediately they define with heretical presumption: In honor, glory, dignity, majesty. But if this is so, why is it commanded that all should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father? But if this is so, then we blaspheme daily in the thanksgivings and offerings of sacrifices, confessing these things as common to the Father and the Son; because, of course, the Son cannot fail to have everything that is the Father's, since He Himself is wholly in the Father. Finally, John says: No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). And therefore He says: All my things are yours, and your things are mine (John 17:10); and: The Son can do nothing by Himself (John

(John 5:19), and: I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38). This is certainly not a confession of weakness, but an assertion of unity. For he had said, both against weakness and for unity: He who sent me is with me (John 6:20); and, The Father, abiding in me, does his own works (John 14:10); and, The words I speak are not my own, but the Father's (Ibid. and [perhaps] 2:6). Therefore, whatever is taken away from the Son will also be detracted from the Father. For neither does one do anything without the other, because one cannot exist without the other. Nor is the Son the Son unless he has a Father, nor is the Father the Father unless he has a Son. The Father, he says, is greater than I. But the fullness of that same divinity is in the Son. Finally, the Apostle says: All the promises of God whatsoever are in him (2 Corinthians 1:20). Does the Son's obedience, then, dissolve the status of his divinity? For everything that God is in Christ is dissolved if majesty is understood as belonging to another; and it will belong to another if the Father is greater in majesty. This majesty, because it is one, namely of the one God, cannot but be perfect: imperfect is unequal; and unequal, if it is lesser than the other.

CHAPTER XIII. Christ, the mirror of God’s majesty, renders the full image of the Father. The heresy of Sabellius. But at this point that which Matthew reports will win your approval: “the Son of man,” as if, of course, he were deprived and lesser. Read in the same Matthew (Matt. 25:31) that the Son is to come in the majesty of the Father, concerning which coming also Luke says: “When the Son of man comes with his own glory and that of the Father” (Luke 21:27). Therefore, when this is said, the Son is not so much called lesser in majesty by you as God is denied. He, I say, he of whom Solomon says: “He is the splendor of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of God’s majesty” (Wis. 7:26). Clearly a spotless mirror. For he preserves the face of God; and, faithfully expressing the form, he has rendered the full image of the Father. And what more concerning his state, in which the Lord Christ acknowledged himself? “The Father,” he says, “is greater than I.” Rightly greater, because he alone is the author without an author. Finally, the Apostle concerning the Son: “In him,” he says, “dwells the whole fullness of divinity bodily” (Col. 2:9). Therefore, as the Son is in the Father, so also the Father is perfect in the Son. Finally, when our Lord says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, he added: “He will receive from me” (John 21:14). Just as John, when he had said: “We announce to you the eternal life which was with the Father” (1 John 1:2), added: “This life is in his Son” (Ibid., 11). As if, although both are perfect and each in the other, yet one perfect God exists in two.

The Father,” he says, “is greater than I” (John 14:28). Rightly greater, because He did not Himself descend into the Virgin; which Sabellius refused to accept, for whom Father and Son are not both, that is, one person under two names; although he heard the Father’s voice through Isaiah: “Behold my Son whom I have chosen, I will set my Spirit upon him” (Isa. 42:1); and then through the same prophet he should recognize the Son speaking: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me” (Isa. 61:1). Foreseeing this heresy, the Lord says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” (John 14:10-11). Certainly He did not say: I am the Father, and I am in myself; but, I am in the Father and the Father in me: by which saying He crushed two heresies, namely the Sabellian and the Arian. He taught that the Father and the Son are not one person, as Sabellius held; nor two substances, as Arius held; but (as the Catholic faith confesses) one substance and two persons.

CHAPTER XIV. The Catholic Doctrine Confirmed from the Sacred Scriptures. But what need is there for arguments, when the Lord Himself has pronounced a definitive sentence? "Whatever the Father does, the Son also does" (John 5:19). How could He do the same, if He cannot aspire to the height of that paternal glory? Indeed, because He can, John rightly says: "Without Him, nothing was made" (John 1:3). And the Lord Himself says: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). One, certainly, by nature: because what was in the Son of man also remained in the bosom of the Father. Finally: "You know me," He says, "and you know whence I am: and I did not come of myself, but there is the true one who sent me, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am with Him, and He sent me" (John 7:28-29); and: "I am not alone," He says, "but I and the one who sent me, the Father" (John 8:16); and: "As the Father knows me, so I know the Father" (John 10:15). But I do not know whether the Son could have known the Father, if the Son had a beginning. For the begotten could not know the unbegotten before he was begotten. Therefore, He does not know the Father in the same way as He is known by the Father: and a lie would be imputed to Him (which ought not to fall upon the Lord), and rightly imputed, if His assertion does not stand by reason. But it will not stand unless He is, and not only came forth from the Father, but is and always was in the Father. "The Father," He says, "has given everything into His hand" (John 3:35). How could He give everything, unless it is of all time?

But how is He of all time, if He is not without a beginning? For however much you say He was born before all time, yet because you want Him to have begun at some point—He who was born, and not to have been what was made—I do not see how you can defend that He obtained everything from the Father and of all time. CHAPTER XV. Heretics Speak Ambiguously. One God. In the Father God, the Son God. "The Son," he says, "is subject to the Father along with all those things which the Father Himself subjected to Him." You cover this poisonous venom with a veil of carefully chosen words. We steadfastly proclaim what we have heard from our fathers; and so you, do not abandon the teaching of your own fathers. They, I say, openly declared that the God of heavenly glory is not the true God, but a perfect creature of God. Yet you, holding the same opinion with unbridled blasphemy, avoid words and pursue ambiguities in order to deceive the simple and unwary. For you profess the Son to be subject to the Father, not by the name of Father or Son, as the holy and Catholic Church says, but (as we said above) by the condition of a creature. For when you say: "Along with all those things which the Father subjected to Him, the Son is subject to the Father," do you not count Him among the order of creatures that were instituted in time? For according to you, our God and Lord has nothing more than any creature, except that He is first in number, except that even those things serve Him along with which He serves.

For He Himself is a servant, if He serves; and although He is Lord of some, yet He is Lord by will—if He was made Lord by the will of the Lord, by that very fact He serves, because He was commanded to rule. This is what you secretly, and your fathers openly, have said: that the Son of God was brought forth from the Father without time, and established not before He was born. What is this, I ask, this dullness of heart? What forgetfulness of hope? Or rather, what mad and blasphemous confession is this, calling Him God whom you have compared to all these things made from nothing? This is to mock the Son with the false name of divinity, if He is said to be in word what is denied in heart; and to brand God the Father a liar, who says: "I am who I am" (Exod. 3:14); and: "I am the Lord alone" (Isa. 63:11); and: "I will not give my glory to another" (Isa. 42:8; 48:11); and: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God"; and: "Do not seek my name; God is my name" (Deut. 6:4). If therefore there is one God, this name belongs to one alone. But He will no longer be one, unless the Son is God in the Father God? And rightly the Lord, according to the prophet who had said: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (Ps. 117:26), says: "I have come in the name of my Father" (John 5:43). What name of the Father, if not the name of God and Lord? which John, recognizing in the Son, says: "Who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8).

CHAPTER XVI. The Son, the image of the unbegotten God, cannot have begun after God. The Father is not without the Son. "The Father," he says, "has no beginning." This is to say that He has a Son. For what need is there to assert this about the Father, which is well known, except as a prejudice of that opinion which has taken up the same claims about the Son? "The Father," he says, "has no beginning." Who denies this? But I think that the image of the invisible and unbegotten God cannot have begun after God. Finally, when Moses asked who He was, He replied: "I am who I am always" (Exod. 3:14). For He always was, who is and will always be. Concerning whom John says: "What was from the beginning, we have seen with our eyes" (1 John 1:1). And again: "We announce to you the eternal life which was with the Father" (1 John 1:2), certainly also in the Father: for what was from Him could not be outside Him. And indeed when it is said: "He was in time," it is not announced that He Himself existed in time. For the power of the eternal substance was not made by God, but came forth from God; therefore He says: "And I came forth from the Father" (John 16:28); and "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30); and "He who sees me sees the Father" (John 14:9); and "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (John 14:10); and "He who sent me is with me" (John 8:29). Therefore David also says: "With you is the beginning in the day of your power" (Psalm 109:3). For the Word of God, that is, the Son of God, is before every beginning with Him who is from Him, and in Him to whom no beginning can exist.

We indeed find that Solomon spoke from the person of Wisdom (whom we maintain to be Christ): "The Lord created me, and before the age He established me, and I was born before the abyss" (Prov. 8:22-24). But it is not for this reason to be believed that God was made. For if He was made, He did not exist; if He did not exist, He will not be. And how is He God, to whom, that He might be God, both conditions are prescribed? However, the Wisdom of God is announced as born and created, lest anything beyond God the Father Himself, who is also the origin of His own powers, be believed to exist in nature. For from that it would rightly be said: Wisdom was created from Him and in Him, from whom the only-begotten and blessed nativity shone forth from Him. Therefore, whoever proves that the Father was at some time without the Word, without wisdom, without reason, without power, without Spirit, has proved that the Son was not with the Father and in the Father before every beginning. Yet I do not know if the Father lacking these powers can be called God. For not only God, who is perfect in His eternity, but indeed no creature whatsoever in its own kind will stand if not completed. For something cannot be what it is not; it will not be, however, if that which it ought to be is lacking to it. Therefore, everything was lacking to the Father, if anything was lacking from the whole. But it was lacking, if His Son, that is, the fullness of His powers, does not lack a beginning: and it is necessary that this opinion pass into one or the other part of blasphemy through a profane and sacrilegious definition.

For either the Father must be believed to have had a beginning together with His Son, because He could not exist without the Son—that is, without His own powers—and then some third God will be the author of this beginning for them; or, if He alone is said to be without beginning up to the generation of the Son, He must be said to have been imperfect. For He would be imperfect if He began to have what He previously did not wish to have. But He who must always have been perfect ought always to have possessed everything, because whatever occupies the whole admits no increase. CHAPTER XVII. The heretics deny of the Father what they confess of the Son. How the Son is a visible God. The Father, they say, has no beginning, is invisible, is immortal, is impassible. They propose these things so that they may ascribe the opposites to the Son. For whatever they deny of the Father, they confess of the Son; who, if he is proved to have a beginning, is deservedly mortal, deservedly passible. It ought indeed to be prejudged that the other kinds of passions do not befit the Son, once the first species of proposition is destroyed, which gave a beginning to the Word of God. Nevertheless, lest diffidence prevail, let us reconsider the other things that have been impiously proposed. For just as the other things subject to this definition cannot be ascribed to one who has no beginning, so if he is found to be akin to any one of them, it is fitting that even those things which had been defended be dissolved. The Father, he says, is invisible.

As if we could ever find that the Son was visible without transformation, before He became corporeal from eternity in obedience to the Father. For although He was seen by Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and Isaiah, and Ezekiel, yet the nature of that vision is explained. For He is reported to have been seen in sleep, and in a mirror, and in a riddle. Finally, when Moses asked to see Him with full knowledge, He said: "No one can see my face, because no one who sees it will live" (Exod. 33:20). Therefore, in this passage, either they must contend that it was the Father who spoke, who declares Himself invisible; or, if they do not deny the Son, let them know that it was He who spoke, and that He was invisible in His own name, as Word, as Spirit. How an invisible God was seen, the same Scripture testifies. For it reports that He spoke with Moses, as with a friend, face to face. And then it adds that Moses asked to see His face—which, if he had already seen it, he would not have immediately asked to see. Jacob indeed says: "I saw the Lord face to face, and my soul was saved" (Gen. 32:30). But how was he saved by seeing that face which, if seen, kills? And how had the Lord shown His face, which He later said could not be seen, except under that condition which we mentioned above, namely, in a mirror and in a riddle, in sleep and in a vision?

This, then, is the point: that He assumed that visible matter when He willed, but immediately remains invisible; because if He is taught to be visible, it is necessary that He is not from that which we confess to be invisible. CHAPTER XVIII. The Son of God, preserving the bond of unity with the Father, bore a man on earth, yet was not absent from the heavens. But they take up this assertion, in order to resolve questions from the Old Testament, and confirm it from the New Testament. For the Lord and God says, when speaking of the Father (John 1:18), that no image of the Father was seen: that if the Son Himself is the image of the Father, as the Apostle proves (Hebrews 1:3), He denies that He was visible, by saying that no image of the Father was seen. And therefore, "Neither do you know Me," He says, "nor My Father" (John 8:19). And here He certainly confirms that two are unknown, but both two and inseparable. For if they had known Him, they would have known the Father: because by reason of indivisibility, neither could be known or unknown without the other. A similar reasoning, therefore, follows concerning the mortal and passible. For if the Son has no beginning, as one who always was and is in Him to whom no beginning is given; nor is He visible, who remains invisible in the bosom of the invisible: then He is to be held as neither mortal nor passible, from that part of His substance by which He is God. For we know that nothing of the Spirit of God suffered, at least in His own name: because God is impassible, because God is spirit (John 4:24).

We know that all that passion belongs properly to the flesh and the soul, that is, to the man: in which man, indeed, while he was suffering, the Son of God was present, cohering with him by nature to the Father (from whom he had come); and, preserving the bond of unity, he bore the man on earth, nor was he absent from the heavens. Thus he is called the mediator, thus the go-between of each substance. Therefore the Spirit of God is not passible, although he suffered in his man: whom he did not abandon even in the passion, so that he might grant him the ability to suffer: which, unless it is received in this way, the rationale of our faith will not stand, namely, that which grants the infirmity of the man to him whom they do not deny to be God. For if he is said to have a beginning, and is taught to be visible, and is introduced as mortal, I do not see how he differs from a man, in whom passions of this kind hold sway. CHAPTER XIX. The Ariomanites think one thing with their mouth, another in their heart. We confess, they say, the Son of God, God from God, light from light. It may not seem sacrilegious to vex the perfect profession of the catholic faith with malicious disputation; but it must not be granted that that which they do not hold in common with us be taken away from us through that which they do hold in common with us. Therefore we acknowledge and receive with veneration the words of the common faith, but what shall we do? The mad teaching of the Ariomanites so hands down. For it itself, saying God from God, light from light, makes from God another God, from light another light: so that the Son is from the Father and not in the Father, that is, so that, made God from God, he is not the only-begotten in God.

But what more is there here, when some of those who recently sent us this excellent faith have their writings (??)exposed(??), in which, while saying God from God, light from light, they have taught by heretical disputation that he is (??)separated(??) from the Father and utterly cut off? They say that the Son of God himself took on a man from Mary through whom he suffered. Therefore, closing everything with a fitting end, they confessed in writing what they had conceived in their minds, with their own sense (??)answering(??) and revealing their hidden poisons: namely, saying that the Son of God took on a man from Mary through whom he suffered. First, I do not see why they preferred to say "compassible" rather than freely confess "passible." As if indeed suffering with were something other than suffering. Moreover, if God is impassible, certainly he is also incompassible. Therefore, he neither suffered with nor suffered, from that condition insofar as he is God. Finally, the Apostle says: "He suffered" (2 Cor. 13:4) from weakness, certainly of the flesh (for flesh is weak; the spirit is willing); but he lives from the power of God, certainly from himself. For he himself is the power of God, having life in himself: we believe that our Lord consisted of two substances, namely human and divine; and that he was immortal by the divine one, just as he was mortal by the human one; from one he was born, from the other he was tested; from one immortal, from the other mortal. Finally, the same Apostle says: "Christ" (1 Cor.

CHAPTER 20 The Son is other than the Father by distinction, not by division of persons. The Word of God, not a sound of the voice, but a substantive reality. But if anyone wishes to extort one of two alternatives from us—that we either determine God singularly, if we confess one, or freely speak of two, if we call both the Father God and the Son God—let this above all be known: that we say neither one with prejudice nor two; for we say one in two, with the Lord Himself suggesting: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), so that two might be believed in one power. For He did not speak as if from a single person of Father and Son, as though the Son were confirming Himself to be the Father: "I am my Son," and "Today I begot myself," and "Before the morning star I begot myself," and "The Lord established me as the beginning of my ways," and "Before the ages He founded me," and "I and the Father are one." But He rendered knowledge of the mystery by distinction, not by division of persons: "I," He says, "am in the Father, and the Father in me"; "I and the Father are one"; and "He who sees me sees also the Father." For the Son is visible as the true image and expressed figure of the Father's substance, that is, the Word of God—not a sound of the voice, but a substantive reality and, through substance, corporeal. For what He made from such great substance did not stand without substance.

Nothing, therefore, is empty from the full, nothing void from the solid: because the Word of God, the Spirit of God, Christ, is constituted; and, to speak more clearly, He is the body of the Word: for He is a body of spirit, but a body of its own kind. For the Spirit is both invisible and incomprehensible. Yet is God a void and empty thing? For God is Spirit. Finally: "No one knows," it says, "what is in God, except the Spirit who is in Him" (1 Cor. 2:11). We read indeed: "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?" (Rom. 11:34). No one, certainly, but no one outside His Spirit: since the prophet calls the Spirit wise, the architect, and the wonderful counselor: and not undeservedly. For the same Spirit is the Word and Wisdom of God: from whose person Solomon says: "When He was preparing the heaven, I was present with Him" (Prov. 8:27); and: "I was with Him, and He rejoiced in me" (Ibid. 30). Therefore, no one is a counselor, because through Him all things that were made were made. Finally, since the same Wisdom is both the Word of God and the Spirit of God, the functions of each name are announced. Wisdom was present with the Father who established all things: by His Word the heavens were solidified, and by His Spirit all their power is born (Ps. 32:6). It appears, therefore, that the same one has come now under the name of Spirit, now under the appellation of Wisdom.

CHAPTER XXI. A Passage from Romans 11 Explained. Therefore this Word, since He was in the form of God (Philippians 2:6-8), constructed with wisdom and reason and the power of the spirit—that is, possessing the whole power of God—did not make Himself equal to God the Father, but, taking the form of a servant, humbled Himself even unto death. For He had put on that which could serve, which could die: namely, the man whom, when raised up, He displayed to heaven, and as the second Adam, through obedience, would restore what the first had lost through transgression. If, therefore, anyone still inquires of the Apostle concerning the Lord’s state, that is, the quality of a singular substance which is joined to its author by nature, let him hear in brief what the same Apostle thought when he spoke of the inscrutable ways and hidden mysteries of God the Father. “From Him,” he says, “and through Him, and in Him are all things” (Romans 11:36). When it is said “through Him,” I recognize that the Son is signified; for I have read, “Through Him all things” (John 1:3). When “in Him” is announced, there is nothing new; for in Him the beginnings of all seeds were established. But when “from Him” is referred, it certainly looks to the Father as the author of all things. And if this is so, as it is, how will the reasoning of those who join distinct things, that is, who refer all things to one, stand, when one is He from whom all things are, and another is He through whom all things are?

because one is unbegotten, the other only-begotten, unless it is rightly said under a different condition: that all things are from the Son, while He is in His heart by nature, from whom all things; and all things are through the Father, while He is always in Him, through whom all things. For the Father acts by sense; the Son, however, who is the sense in the Father, sees and perfects. Therefore it must not be believed that the Apostle spoke rashly; but rather that he did not believe that the Son of God became according to the flesh what He was not, and according to the spirit what He was; because what was always, cannot have not been. CHAPTER XXII. What of the Patripassians? What of the Arians? What is the rule of faith? Therefore the reasoning must be maintained which creeps along the steep and narrow path, with precipices on either side, which, blinded by diabolical deceit, offer smooth and easy ways, so that excesses plunge into ruin. For if we name one God in the singular, excluding the term of the second person, we approve the madness of that heresy which asserts that the Father Himself suffered. If we admit number with division, we join with the Arians, who assert that God was made from God, and that a new substance came into being from nothing. Therefore, as we have said, the rule must be maintained which confesses the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son (John 14:20); which, preserving one substance in two persons, acknowledges the economy of the divinity. Therefore the Father is God, and the Son is God: because the Son is God in the Father who is God.

If this causes scandal to anyone, let them hear from us that the Spirit is from God; because for him in whom the Son is the second person, there is also a third person in the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Lord says: "I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Advocate" (John 14:16). Thus the Spirit is other than the Son, just as the Son is other than the Father. Thus the Spirit is the third person, as the Son is the second person: yet one God is all things, and the three are one. This we believe, this we hold, because this we have received from the prophets: this the Gospels have spoken to us: this the apostles handed down: this the martyrs confessed by their passion: in this we also cleave with minds of faith, against which, even if an angel from heaven should announce it, let it be anathema (Gal. 1:8). CHAPTER XXIII. On Hosius, Bishop of Corduba: The Author's Judgment. But I am not unaware that, after all these matters have been examined and set forth in the light of public understanding, the name of Hosius, a most ancient priest and of always ready faith, is being wielded against us like a kind of battering ram, by which the rashness of contradiction might be repelled. But to those erecting this engine against us, I reply in a very brief speech. His authority cannot be used to prescribe, because either he now errs, or he has always erred. For the world knows what he held up to this age, with what constancy he agreed at Sardica and at Nicaea in the proceedings, and condemned the Arians. What if he now thinks differently, and whatever was condemned by him in the past is now defended, and what was defended is now condemned?

I say again, his authority does not bind me. For if he believed wrongly for nearly ninety years, I will not believe that after ninety years he now thinks rightly. Or if he now thinks rightly, what is to be thought of those who passed from this world sealed with the same faith in which he himself was? What would be pronounced concerning him himself, if he had fallen asleep before this synod? Therefore, as we said above, the authority of a prejudiced opinion will have no force, because it stands against itself. And indeed we read: "The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him on whatever day he errs" (Ezekiel 33:12). Amen.