Sententia Ad Ephesios

To the Ephesians. I. In whom you were sealed on the day of your redemption. II. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. III. He who descended is the same as he who ascended above all the heavens. IV. Because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. V. And they will be two in one flesh, etc. (From the books Against the Arians.) There is one name of the Trinity. For there is no other name, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, in which we must be saved (Acts 4:42). If, with the Son separated, it is believed only in the name of the Father, the savior must be said not to save; and again, if, with the Father excluded, we are acquired only by the name of the Redeemer, the Father has ceased from this redemption, of whom it is written that he sent redemption to his people (Psalm 111:9); since also concerning the Holy Spirit the Apostle says: In whom you were sealed on the day of your redemption (Ephesians 4:30). II. (From the books Against the Arians.)

Where something plural resounds in the divinity, it is not to be understood as duality, but as Trinity, as is reported in the very destruction of the Sodomite city. "The Lord appeared," it says, "to Abraham sitting at the entrance of his tent, in the very heat of the day; and when he had lifted his eyes, three men appeared to him; whom when he had seen, he ran to meet them, and worshipped on the ground, and said: 'Lord, if I have found grace in your eyes, do not pass by your servant'" (Gen. 18:1, 3). Certainly, in none of these three was there either a more refined bearing or a more eminent form. And yet Abraham, understanding the mystery of the undivided Trinity, addresses three with one name, because the person is threefold in unity, and the substance is one in Trinity; concerning which the Apostle also says: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4:5). Who would presume, against the vessel of election, to confuse this unity with plurality? For he knew that the Holy Spirit rules together with the Father or the Son, to whom, as it were, he consecrated our bodies as a dwelling, saying: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you" (1 Cor. 3:16)? By what testimony will the Holy Spirit ever be proven God more than that we are his dwelling, and God dwells in us? But already for a long time Paul owed this kind of belief to the divine calling.

If indeed it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, "While they were serving and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13:2), this calling is not by a superior's command but spontaneous, as I think. He orders them to be set apart for himself, he says they are taken for himself. It is God without doubt who inspires, chooses, or sends the apostles. And yet the same Saint Paul, when he distinctly teaches at times that the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit is Lord, completes the summit of faith with that definition I mentioned above: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5). Thus we cannot speak of two Gods, just as we cannot speak of two faiths or two baptisms. The pagans seek to name gods; the Jew believes he is cleansed from sins by frequent washing; truth forbids faith to be spoken of in the plural number as if there were many, nor does Latinity allow it. There is one Lord, we do not divide; one faith, we do not tear apart; one baptism, we do not repeat. Preserving its honor even in the reception of the Bonosiaci and others, if they answer that they have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we receive them, preserving what they have well confessed; what they had wrongly believed, we heal by blessing; and what was lacking in the previously uttered naming is supplied by confirmed belief.

III. (From the books Against the Arians.) The Psalm says: "From the highest heaven is his going forth, and his return is to its highest point" (Ps. 18:7). Moreover, no one returns except to where he was; but when Christ ascends, the Son of Man returns into heaven, who was previously in heaven. Thus also the holy Paul, expounding, says: "Ascending into the height, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men" (Eph. 4:8, 9). And a little later: "He who descended," he says, "is the same who ascended above all the heavens, to fill all things." And while throughout every part of his discourse he proclaims that God came, concluding that the man returned, here nevertheless he says that the one who descended ascends; because in Christ there is God and man; not another, but the same; not two from different natures, but the same mediator from both. The substance is indeed twofold, but the form is one. IV. (From a sermon on the passion of the Lord.) The Apostle (Eph. 5:31, 32), fitting the death of the Lord to the sleep of Adam, says that at the very beginning of the world the building of the woman from the rib of the sleeping man signified the structure of the nascent Church. For when, if we recall the reading, a wife was lacking to the man formed from earth, and although inexperienced, yet the rude soul sought the companionship of solace, Adam is bound in sense, loosed in sleep, and with the sacrament of this likeness celebrated, the weight of a new slumber pressed upon him, so that it seems rightly to have signified death by that very immobile and insensible quiet.

Thus, while he lies there, one of his ribs is removed, and from it a woman is formed; and as the man revives, the loss of a limb is compensated by the gains of marriage. Behold, here today a new Adam, about to heal old faults, receives rest, overcome by the sleep of the imposed cross. Now it must be seen why the Church is said to be formed from his side alone, when the whole man himself dies for the salvation of the Church. The evangelist John relates (John 19:31-32) how, when the Lord was crucified with two thieves, on the sixth day of the week toward evening, so that the solemnity of the holiday would not find the bodies of those hanging, after breaking the legs of the thieves to hasten their death, when they realized that the Lord had already expired, they noted that the likeness of punishment should be moderated; because even if the truth is suppressed by the conspiracy of enemies, it is not broken: especially since it was predicted about the sacrifice of the Lamb, "You will not break any bone of it" (Exod. 12:46). And yet here, concerning the Lord, even what was not necessary to be done for destruction was accomplished for the sake of the sacrament. For one of the soldiers, seizing a spear, to use the very words, "opened his side" (John 19:34). Therefore, he did not break, did not pierce, did not cut his throat in the end, but, it says, opened; so that through the open wound, the vital gate, we might understand not so much the mark of a wound as the entrance of salvation. For that ark (Gen.

The door of his ark, safe within which Noah alone swam unharmed through the swelling floods of the age and the raging death, while all others perished, we read that he had in his side, the entrance by which he either entered for safety or returned to the light. Therefore I recognize today in the Lord, who rises through the cross (Psalm 131:8) into his rest, both the ark, that is, the flesh of his sanctification: I recognize, I say, in the side of that ark our entrance. Let us first see what proceeds from it, and then consider how the Christian entered there. So, with the Lord's side laid open, streams of water or blood flowed forth abundantly. What is more admirable than such a deed? What is clearer as a sign? What is fuller of mystery? It is certain that Christ suffered, it is certain that he died; but even the truth of death preserves its dignity in him. What condition of the human body ever had a flow of water or blood? Granted, though it is scarcely permitted by the custom of reason, that dead flesh might have contained its own blood; where did the little spring of living water lie hidden in the dying body? Whence does the double stream proceed, to fertilize the parched world, pure liquid, precious blood? Whence does the wave of the holy river burst forth, alone sufficient to quench the vapors of Gehenna? Behold, you see from the side of our Adam his wife being built. Behold, a bride is being prepared for the one who will live, while he dies. Behold, a command is given to the sleeping one that will gladden the waking one; but the whole Church consists of two kinds of people.

One thing is saved by faithful death, another by sublime passion; one thing fell for Christ, another lived for Christ. Let us, therefore, receive water from the side of the Lord, and the martyrs blood. Let the precious purple of blood clothe them, let the snowy wave of baptism sprinkle us. (From the books Against the Arians.) When the Lord was consulted in the Gospel as to what he would decree concerning the solidity of the marriage bond, he said, "They are not now two, but one flesh. For this reason I say to you, What God has joined, man shall not separate" (Matthew 19:6). Behold what the Apostle says about marriage: "This is a great sacrament"; but I say to you, "in Christ and in the Church" (Ephesians 5:32). For the height of the mystery is born from the humility of the example. If from two, bodily union is said to make one, why would one substance not solidify the whole Trinity? Or when we say that in earthly matters it is not permitted to separate what God has joined through harmony, with how much danger do we wish to separate in heavenly matters what God is joined by nature? Not to mention that which is written, that the multitude of believers had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32): whose individual hearts unanimity rendered one heart, just as equality solidifies and unites the proper persons in the Trinity.