On the Divine Generation

I. Every generation, O my dear aged VICTORINUS, is a certain change. But everything divine is immutable, namely God. God moreover, who is the Father in all things, is also the first cause of all things. If therefore God is irreversible and immutable: but what is irreversible and immutable is neither begotten nor begets anything. If therefore this is so, God is unbegotten. For indeed generation is generation through conversion and through change. For neither substance nor substantiality, neither being nor beingness, neither existence nor existentiality, neither power, could have existed before God. For who is more powerful than God? Is power, or existence, or substance, or ὤν? For all these things are either what God himself is, or they come after him. For he himself furnishes all things. But suppose these things existed prior. And how could they, when they willed, have generated God? For they were neither perfect nor self-subsistent. Imperfect, therefore. How then by their own power did they either generate or make God, being imperfect, who is perfect?

But if God is imperfect, there is no cause for generating what already existed. The same reasoning applies if perfect things generated a perfect thing. Whether therefore they were perfect or imperfect: to generate God is either without cause, or superfluous, or impossible. In the first place, power is said to be more ancient than everything that exists: but power itself through itself does not arrive at the actual being of something, without act and operation; since it is power, not action; power not directed toward the generation of anything, much less toward God. For power remains in that which is to be potentially, without action. Whence therefore was God born? II. Let us see therefore whether perhaps substance, whether substantiality, existed before God existed? Whether existence, whether existentiality? But indeed substance, since it is a subject, is subject to another, to that which is in it: and it is other, from that which is in it. But otherness and otherness is not admitted concerning God. For God is not in another as something other.

For God is not one thing, and to be God another. For God is something simple: not therefore from a pre-existing substance. God therefore is unbegotten. For God furnishes substance rather than substance pre-existing before God: which indeed is a subject, and of another as something other, and made as a receptacle: inferior, that is, to that of which it is the receptacle, and therefore arising subsequently. The same must be understood from existence and existentiality. But existence differs from existentiality, because existence is already in the state of already being for it: but existentiality is a power, so that what does not yet exist may be able to exist. Existence differs much more from substance: because existence is being itself, and is alone; and not to be in another, or to be the subject of another, but to be itself one and alone: but substance not only has being, but also has a quality, and to be something: for it underlies qualities placed within itself; and therefore it is called a subject.

How therefore was God born, with existence, or existentiality, or existential power or existence itself pre-existing, subsisting in being alone, and not having action or the virtue and force of acting?

III. These things therefore being so, neither was ὄν before God, nor ὀντότης; for it is manifold and composed of substance and quality. If therefore neither power existed, nor existence, nor existentiality, which bear the image of simplicity: much less ὄν and ὀντότης, and substantiality and substance. For these are post-generated from existentiality and from existence. If all these things are post-generated, they are therefore generated: if these things are generated, there was something else from which they were generated. That therefore from which all these things were generated is unbegotten. What is that, if not that from which all things come, God? God therefore is unbegotten: since God is the cause of all these things. But what is it to be God? Of what kind? Or for what cause is God himself? For he is the first cause: and cause to himself; not one that is one thing and another of another: but this very thing which he himself is, is the cause of his being: he himself is his own place, he himself the inhabitant.

Not so that an imagination of two things arises, he is one and alone. For he is being alone. Indeed being itself is the same, living itself and understanding itself. For according as he is, he also lives and understands: and according as he lives, he both is and understands: and according as he also understands, he both lives and is: and according to one, three, and according to three, one, a simple quality and a simple one. But the simple is the principle of composite things: but a principle is without principle: for it precedes, having no principle before itself, on account of which it is a principle. This is God. Without origin therefore, and unbegotten is God. But what is unbegotten is without origin: what is without origin is without end. For end belongs to what has a beginning. But if it has these two, it is infinite: if infinite, incomprehensible, unknowable, invisible, irreversible, immutable. For reversal and change are beginning and end: for some a beginning, for others an end. But none of these is God.

God therefore is irreversible and immutable. But if God is these things, he neither generates nor is generated. For to be generated and to generate is a certain reversal and change. To this is added, that to generate is to give something to the one who is born, either the whole or a part of the one who generates. If he gives the whole, the one who generates perishes, or is diminished, if a part. For if God always remains the same, he does not therefore generate.

IV. The same will appear, if anyone should say that generation from God is according to these modes: namely, according to effulgence, according to the emission of a ray, according to the flowing of a point, according to emission, according to image, according to character, according to procession, according to what is overfull, according to motion, according to action, according to will, according to a named type: or if there should be any other mode for this. For without reversal, none of these such things exists. First indeed effulgence is also motion, and assigns time, and a certain recession withdrawing into its own substance. Which effulgence, even if it always remains, is a discernible part from the whole. But if generation is not vain, it is from what always is, into what is not always. What then? Is effulgence not a reversal? For from a luminous substance, as a splendor fleeing and belched forth. For effulgence is substantial, not substance. And if substance, not the same substance. Already therefore a reversal of the prior into what is second.

V. Let us therefore see generation according to the emission of a ray. A ray therefore is connected, and is connected to that from which the ray has proceeded. Nevertheless it is reversed, if it is begotten: or there is no generation, if the ray always remains in it. If generation there is according to the flowing of a point, how? For a point is immobile and the terminus of a line, which has neither part nor is part of another. If therefore that is so, it will not proceed from itself: for if it proceeds, it is no longer a point, but already a line. It is therefore changed. But indeed God is invisible. Therefore what is a point is not God. But if the point remains, the line is not from it. For a point is immobile: but a line is in motion or from motion: and according to this mode there is no generation in God, nor from God. What then according to emission? How is generation in God according to it?

For if something is emitted from himself, something is first diminished: either therefore in substance, or in divinity, or in action. Then, what is emitted is either of his own power, or not of his own. If of his own, how are there two gods and equals? And why two, if equals? For what one can do, the other also can do the same: and there is no need to multiply perfect fullness in one. But if what proceeds is not of the same power; then God is changed, and the whole has suffered from a part: which is incongruous to God. No generation therefore in God according to this either.

VI. Similarly also according to image. For image differs greatly from what is imaginable: the latter as substance, the former a shadowed phantom according to quality alone. For an image has its substance in something else, and does not subsist of itself: nor is it according to anything in which it exists. Therefore what is begotten from God is not an image. For an image is a certain consequence of that of which it is the image. The same reasoning applies if according to character. For character is the seal of substance: and it is itself nothing through itself: and it is in another, who is figured. Therefore nothing such is in God. For what is generated from God ought to be consubstantial. But character is not consubstantial. Therefore generation in God is not according to character. But is generation from God according to procession and motion? Procession differs from motion. For since every procession is from motion and in motion: yet not every motion is procession: for motion within is not procession, but motion only.

For procession is motion going outward. What therefore do we say, that generation from God is according to procession? Once, or often, or always? If once, what is the use? And if what proceeds is good, why is God poor in procession? If often or always, what new thing did he beget? And the first procession was necessarily imperfect, if another was in need of it for its own perfection.

VII. From which it appears that neither is what is generated consubstantial, nor is generation from God without conversion. But if this is incongruous to God, there is therefore no generation from God. But it appears more incongruous to us, if generation is according to motion. For motion is either within or proceeding outward: if within, no generation: if proceeding outward, the same. A change therefore. And if motion is proceeding outward, it is not consubstantial. Then if proceeding outward, it proceeded into its own substance, or into the making of something else. First if God suffered, motion into motion; and this is reversal. Then if it proceeded into its own substance, it did not have substance: if into the substance of another, there was something other than God which was worked by God: and it is more an effect than a generation from God. Not consubstantial therefore, and a conversion of the prior into what is second. No generation therefore from God. But some say that generation from God is according to superfluity, that generation from God is overfull.

By overfull they mean, as a spring overflowing has what overabounds, pouring forth and always full. So also from God, as what from a spring is what remains over, what is poured forth. And this is generation from God. But the same reasoning recurs again. For if overfull, and always full: therefore always generation from God: for the spring does not fail. But what grows is poured forth. Or does what is augmented remain? Nor therefore is what is overfull not poured forth: since it is inconvenient that what remains over should not be poured forth. But it pours forth, and always pours forth: for it always overflows. Therefore also new angels, and new worlds. For it is inconvenient that what always flows out should not be poured forth. But if once overfull, then a change of God and a reversal of God, twofold: and so this too is incongruous: no generation therefore in God according to this.

But if according to overfull, moreover what is poured forth is not consubstantial with God himself: for God is superabundant: but what is poured forth is only what has been poured forth, and not always abounding. Therefore what superabounds after that is something else: therefore one thing after another, and another.

VIII. Some say that generation is according to will, and according to action. Now, it is possible to take these two things, will and action, as the same, especially in God. For to act and to will are simultaneous in God. Yet there is also a difference, even if in Him what willing is and act are one in God: for willing, in that it is willing, is the cause of action. For action is the carrying out of will. Will is therefore other than action: and in terms of word, there is a prior and a posterior. It is impossible for both to be the same. In God, therefore, will is first, action posterior. I do not say this according to time, but according to the fact that one is the cause of the other's being. Will, then, is agreed upon, since it is neither substance nor action. Then there is something else besides action and will, namely the work itself.

For a work is the work of the one working: yet the worker himself is not the work. The work, therefore, is not consubstantial with the worker: therefore it is not a generation: nor is what has been effected the same as what is begotten: and a work is not generation, nor sonship, nor a son, nor the only-begotten, nor consubstantial; especially since substance itself does not yet exist before God wills to generate anything. For every substance is an effect of God. God, therefore, is not substance. For substance exists through God. How then, since substance is posterior, do we call God substance? For if we call God substance, reason compels us to confess that substance is prior to God. For truly substance is a kind of subject. But what is a subject is not simple. For the intellect simultaneously grasps that something else is in the subject, when it hears the word subject spoken. But God is something simple: God therefore is without substance.

If then God is without substance, nothing is consubstantial with God; even if it appears to be born from God or has been born from Him.

IX. But some say that generation from God is according to a named type. For God is spirit. A spirit, however, when it turns its attention upon its own nature, rests within itself. A motion of this kind they call a type. What then follows? From a motion of this kind, a certain sonship suddenly bursts forth: and this is generation from God. How then? As an effluence, or as an emission, or as a radiance, or as something else of this sort? What then? Is it as a part from a whole, or as a whole from a whole? But whichever of these it is, either it is imperfect, if it pours forth a part, and a certain diminution of the father occurs, since the son is a part, or the generation is vain. But if a whole appeared from a whole, there is no reason why the same thing should be generated from that same thing.

And if there was a necessity for a twofold generation, then both are imperfect: both that which is prior and that which is posterior in the turning. But when it rises up into itself, something else merely appeared without any effulgence. This is clear, that what is second is among those things that at some time did not exist. It was therefore made, not begotten, and therefore not consubstantial. From God, therefore, there is no generation.

X. What then is gathered from all these things, my dear Victorinus? That the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the λόγος with God, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made: not by generation from God, but by operation from God, is the first and principal work of God: to whom He gave the name which is above every name, calling Him son and only-begotten, because He alone made Him His own work. He made Him moreover from those things which are not: since the power of God brings that which is not into being. And this also is Jesus, through whom all things were made: that is, He made from those things which are not the things which are. But in this respect what God does differs, in that He makes it perfectly complete in every way: whereas Jesus made other things, not in the same manner, even if He made them perfect. In what respect then is Jesus the maker of the things that are, from those things which are not, according to operation?

He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him: and both are one. But in that wherein He cannot do the same, He is taken as another. For nothing else can work what is perfectly complete in every way. But neither does He work by His own operation, nor by His own will; but He wills the same things as the Father. And He Himself also has will; yet He says: Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. And many things in the will of the Father He does not know: such as the day of judgment. And He is passible, while the Father is impassible: and the Father is He who sent, while He is the one who was sent: and other things of this kind, such as that He put on flesh, in that He died, in that He rose from the dead: all of which things befell the Son.

To the Father, however, these are incongruous, but to His work they are not incongruous: because the work, being in substance, is indeed receptive of diverse qualities and especially of contraries.

XI. That God made Jesus Christ, the sacred reading says in the Acts of the Apostles: Let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God made for us the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you crucified. Likewise in Solomon: Thou hast made me a ruler over all ways. This is also signified in the Gospel according to John, when it says: And what was made, in Him was life. If therefore something was made in Him, He Himself also was made; especially if He Himself is life. Let no one therefore receive it as something unpleasant, that Jesus Christ is the work of God, perfectly complete in every way by the power of God: but God is unbegotten, an unbegotten Spirit, above all spirits: the only-begotten, however, made by operation, by power, a son made substance, not from substance.

For Jesus is every and the first substance: every action, every λόγος, beginning and end of all things that are, whether corporeal or incorporeal, intelligible and intellectual, understanding and understood, sensible and of the senses: pre-principle, pre-cause, pre-provision, maker, capacity, fullness: through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing: our Saviour, the corrector of all things: as a servant for our salvation, but Lord for the punishment of sinners and the impious: and the glory and crown of the just and the holy. Amen.