On the Orthodox Faith

Led by love of the catholic Faith, I had already some time ago published a little book against the Arians, which, when I had given it to a friend to read, because it pleased him, he thought it should be transcribed. From him I earnestly requested this, that meanwhile, concealing the author, he should have it read by learned and prudent men; so that if he found anyone who thought something there seemed to be stated more or less correctly, it could be emended by the counsel of many. For there is no one who so arrogantly assumes to himself the sum of heavenly doctrine as to think that he holds all mysteries clearly comprehended, since the apostle Paul says: He who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know; and: Now we see through a glass darkly; then face to face. But if to all it seemed that everything written there stood in accordance with the true faith, then he himself would not refuse those who asked for it.

That he did so is manifest. And because the matter was judged by the assessment of all worthy both of a catholic confession and of a reply to heretics, many wished either to read it or to have it copied. But there was no lack of one who, either out of zeal for doctrine or out of the duty of charity, examined more scrupulously the things we had said; and he said that certain things were either superfluous or ambiguous, which could be taken by some otherwise than as I had said them. Accordingly I have again set forth those same things in plainer speech in this little book, so that I might both show the simplicity of my meaning and cut away scruple for the readers. For this is what they say can be censured, that where we set down the Word of God in the person of the Son, we might be thought to understand this Word to be such as the grammarians teach—air struck by the breath of the mouth, perceptible to hearing.

But we know not the wisdom of this world, which is destroyed, but that which is from God, which shows that the Word of God is God, when it says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. Whence I confess I marvel that this could be so understood, as though we denied the proper person of the Word, which is the Son. No one names in mere word him whom he more often professes truly to exist in his own person: for how have we confessed either a true Son or a true Father, if we have not truly preserved the property of the persons both of the Father and of the Son? But because we spoke of the term "one God," we are thought to have denied the persons. And hence what we have stated has seemed plausible. We name Father and Son in such a way that we assign one God in these persons and names.

Furthermore again, Father and Son, although called by two names, are nevertheless one by reason and substance: and when I set forth Father and Son, I assign the unity of kind. All these things have been judged capable of being understood as though these terms were so placed between Father and Son as is a name and a surname, yet of one person; whereas from what has been said above or below this suspicion could not be admitted. For I who had said that the Son of God was born from nowhere else than properly from the Father, whole from whole, entire from entire, perfect from perfect, and consummate power; how could I make the Father himself his own Son, and in this way call one person by two names; seeing that I have also condemned this very sect, that is, the Sabellian, in the same book, and have written of the distinction of persons according to the term?

For no one can say "they are one" of a single person, or unity of kind, unless he assigns it to persons.

Who among the catholics is ignorant that the Father is truly the Father, the Son truly the Son, and the Holy Spirit truly the Holy Spirit? Just as the Lord himself says to his apostles: Going, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This is the perfect Trinity consisting in unity, which indeed we profess to be of one substance. For we do not make a division in God according to the condition of bodies: but according to the power of the divine nature, which is not in matter, and we believe that the persons of the names truly subsist, and we testify that there is a unity of divinity.

Nor do we call the Son of God an extension of some part from the Father (as some indeed have thought), nor a word without substance, as if we took it merely as the sound of a voice: but we believe that the three names, and the three persons, are of one essence, of one majesty and power. And therefore we confess one God, because the unity of majesty forbids that they be called gods by a plural term.

Finally, we name Father and Son in catholic fashion; but we neither can nor ought to say two gods; not because the Son of God is not God—indeed true God of true God—but because we know the Son of God from nowhere else than from the one Father, and accordingly we say one God. For this the prophets, this the apostles handed down, this the Lord himself taught, when he says: I and the Father are one. "One" refers, as I said, to the unity of divinity: but "are" he assigns to the persons. But the apostle also says: There is, he says, one God the Father, from whom are all things; and we in him: and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and we through him. But not in all is there knowledge.

Wherefore, these words having been explained, which brought scruple, not to me who know what I said, but to others, I think the occasion for false interpretation has been removed. For both the profession of faith is manifest, and the persons are established by the terms, and one divinity has been assigned.

Or if still something in the words seems ambiguous to readers, the words ought to be compared with the meanings; because it is not the simplicity of words but the obstinacy of a bad understanding that carries blame. But since our meaning agrees with the truth, the words too ought to agree with the most sincere reason. Therefore let the academic disputant withdraw from Christian simplicity.

We know indeed that many grievous heresies boil up from many sources, and pour, in the manner of poison, the venom of their cancer into the innermost breast: but these can either be easily overcome, or easily avoided, whose whole design of heart is betrayed in their very first proposition. But as for those with whom many things agree with us, they can easily strike innocent minds devoted to God alone with fraudulent fellowship, while they defend the venom of their own evils by means of what is good in us. For nothing can be more dangerous than these heretics, who, though they run through everything entire, yet with one word, as if with a drop of poison, infect that pure and simple faith of the Lord's, and thence of the apostolic tradition.

Wherefore we must be vehemently on guard, lest anything of this kind insinuate itself secretly into our senses or ears; because nothing so compels toward death as to violate faith under the pretext of faith. For as gypsum mixed with water counterfeits milk by its color, so here, through a plausible confession, an inimical tradition is suggested. Wherefore it is not the similarity of the confession but the sense of the mind that must be weighed, by which the confession itself is confirmed.

Finally, if you attend more diligently and carefully, why they wished the term "substance" to be taken away from the evangelical and apostolic faith and from the tradition of the fathers, you will doubtless find that the Arian heresy, abridged by a subtle compendium, has been introduced by the removal of this term. Nor indeed do I affirm this as gathered from suspicion or opinion, nor, as they themselves think, do I stand by as an academic disputant, twisting simple senses of words by subtlety: but so that I may expose to the light of knowledge things twisted and depraved, composed by a slight argument, whereby the iniquity, once known and ascertained, may more easily be avoided by men.

For what cause or what reason has there been, that what had been handed down to all the churches to be taught and to be believed, and what our fathers, apostolic men, purified by the Holy Spirit, set forth by catholic reasoning against all heresies, and especially the Arian, as a kind of barrier of truth, whereby they might block all approaches of the pestiferous doctrine, should now be labored to be taken away, not without great effort, by those who are devoted to the reproach of the Arian taint; unless it be so that they may feign the Son of God to be mutable and changeable, as not having subsisted from the Father's own substance; to whom also they may attribute a beginning from time, and an origin from nothing, a name from another—as they have always taught, for which they have also often been condemned—so that now at last they may freely and securely and without hesitation hand it down and insinuate it to the churches?

Thus they set forth God the Son from God, as being made out of God, not begotten out of God. They take away the term ὁμοούσιον, and substitute for it ὁμοιούσιον. That wisdom which is the Son of God, they understand to be a creature. You see, then, that they have set forth everything in their treatise not by evangelical faith, but by cunning malice, for the seducing of any simple folk. It ought no longer to be so much suspected as manifest to all, that they have set forth God of God in such a way as Arius used to teach, that he was made out of God, not born of God.

But if he is born, he is of one substance: if he is made, he is not a true Son: and if he is not a true Son, neither is he true God: or if he is true God, and is not from the Father, then there are two having each their own wills and diverse commands: or if they are one only by concord and fellowship, yet not by substance, then, as I have already said, he is not true God.

Thus he will be God as Moses was to Pharaoh, by power, not by kind: the Son too will have to be believed as it was said to the people through Isaiah: I have begotten and exalted sons; and elsewhere: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But he will also be held as firstborn in the way that Israel was called God's firstborn son. Nor is he otherwise the firstborn of all creation, than as held to be firstborn in the order of things made; so that from him they may assign a certain sequence for the things of the world to be created.

Finally, having removed ὁμοούσιον, that is, the term "of one substance," they set up ὁμοιούσιον, that is, similar to his maker; whereas similarity is one thing, truth another. For man too was made to the image and likeness of God, and yet is not God: nor is it to be believed that, because he is God, man came to exist. Thus they also wish the Son of God to be similar, saying that he is similar from elsewhere, not from that one holy and blessed substance of the Father. But if he is not of the Father's substance, he is ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, that is, from things not existing, as the same Arius taught: for once it is removed that he is of the Father, wherever the Son may be from, it is necessary that he have both a beginning from nothing and an origin from time: for nothing is without a beginning, except God alone.

Whence also the Son, as the Lord himself says: I and the Father are one. He said this in order to show the terms of two persons within the majesty of one Godhead, just as the prophet also says from the voice of God: My heart has brought forth a good Word: I speak my works to the king. You see, then, that this good Word is the Son of God, whom we believe born from nowhere else than from the Father's own breast, and, so to speak, from the womb of the heart of God. And accordingly he calls him king, because he himself is King of kings: God the Lord, to whom all divine works submit, who said: All things that the Father has are mine.

Concerning this the Evangelist also says: In the beginning, he says, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. Therefore what was in the beginning must be believed to have always been: nor from any other source than from him who has no beginning, that is, from the heart of the Father; because, he says, my heart has brought forth a good Word. For he did not say: In the beginning the Word was made; but, in the beginning, he says, was the Word. Whatever beginning you should wish to assign to the Word, you will have already been forestalled by the fact that, he says, in the beginning it was.

Not that we speak of two beginnings from a diversity of things, but because the Word, the Son, is always with the Father, and was born of the Father. And accordingly, he whose origin has no beginning must be believed to be co-eternal with the Father; because neither can the Father ever be named without the Son, nor can the Son be called without the Father: and for this reason the Son is always, because the Father is always.

And God, he says, was the Word. That he is God, he always is; lest, if he had not always been, he could not be true God, just as also in the name of Wisdom, since according to the Apostle he himself is the Wisdom of the Father. I, he says, came forth from the mouth of the Most High. Therefore not from elsewhere than from the Father, because he is always with the Father. And therefore he is called the Wisdom of God, so that the Father may never be believed to have been without Wisdom, that is, without his Son. This is that ineffable Wisdom which, in the person of Solomon, is described as the beginning of the ways of God, whether founded, or begotten, or created; yet he speaks of it as so founded as to show that it was always with God. For what beginning will you give to God, so that you can assign a beginning to his Wisdom?

For God did not found his Wisdom in such a way as though he had at some time been without Wisdom: but when he speaks of the beginning of his ways, he shows the beginning of the motion of some work; so that the Wisdom of God may have this beginning, namely, that it proceeded from God for the creating of all things both heavenly and earthly, not that it began to exist in God. Wisdom, then, is said to be created, or rather begotten, not for itself, which always was, but for those things which needed to be made by it; so that, since it could not be known how great and of what sort it was, its virtue and power might be known from the effect of its works: so that what we conjecture concerning created things, we might fear the more when we marvel at what has been made.

But if you should say that Wisdom is created, so as to understand the Son of God to be a creature; the Apostle meets you, condemning those who worship a creature, saying: Wherefore God gave them up to the desire of their heart unto uncleanness: to dishonor their own bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is God blessed forever.

This, I say, is that Wisdom of God, which says: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, the founder and maker of the universe, that is, the Son of God through whom are all things, and in whom are all things; because, as the Apostle said: In him were all things established in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Virtues, or Principalities, or Powers: all things were created through him, and in him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Hence also Solomon says: Since she is one, she can do all things; and remaining in herself, she renews all things, and passing through nations she conveys herself into holy souls. Confirming this, the Apostle says that Christ dwells in the inner man; so that he through whom all things were made from the beginning, through him also all things may be saved in the end.

But you say to me that they worship the name ὁμοούσιον, that is, of one substance, rather than the Creator, on this account, keeping indeed the very things which the Apostle said: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and of things under the earth; and every tongue should confess. And Moses says: Let all the angels of God adore him. And David: All kings shall adore him. This indeed would not be said in the Scriptures, were it not that he himself is the Word, the Son, the maker of all things.

But you say that ὁμοούσιον ought not to be named, because it is not contained in the divine Scriptures. I too, a mere man, ask you, who forbid this; if it ought not to be named for this reason, because it is not written, is it also because it is not lawful to believe it so?

But if it must be believed so, why should it not be professed so? For with the heart, says the Apostle, man believes unto righteousness: but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Or if it must not be named for this reason, because it must not even be believed so; then the assertion of the Arian corruption has prevailed, which denied that the Father and the Son are of one substance for this reason, because it represents the Son of God as made now out of nothing, now out of the Father, but from another substance, when he willed, and however he willed, and from whatever source he willed; provided only that it may pretend that he came into being from elsewhere, and not from that which the Father is. And though it calls him born, it does so in word only; because again it understands everything that is born to be made; since we too are called begotten of God, though it is agreed we are creatures.

Or if you are not an Arian, and acknowledge the true Son born, not made, of the true Father; why do you not say that he is of one substance with the Father? In vain, man, do you fear to profess what you believe; and in vain do you believe, if you do not believe so, and you are rightly marked as a heretic. And although you have altered the saying by which you think it was forbidden that the Son of God be called a creature; yet when it adds: as one of these things that have been made; you show plainly that it was not for this reason unwilling to call him a creature, as though he ought not to be understood as made; but you do not wish him to be made in the way that any of these other things that have been made are made, yet nonetheless made.

For you speak of him as made in another sense, namely as a perfect creature, through whom all things were made; provided that you also understand him himself to be made, though not in the same way as the rest.

But to return to what I was saying, that you claim the word ὁμοούσιον, that is, of one substance, is not found in the divine Scriptures; let us suppose for the moment that this is so, on the ground that wherever "substance" is read, it is to be understood as a thing belonging to God, not God himself; although you likewise profess another thing which is not written, namely, God from God, light from light: what do you say to this? Either hold the whole thing with me, or omit the whole. For if you fear to say the word "of one substance" for this reason, that it is not written, you ought equally to fear to profess God from God, and light from light.

But I maintain that God from God, light from light, and the word "of one substance" are contained in the divine Scriptures. For since the Son of God himself, who is God, says in his own Gospel: I came forth from the Father, rightly and deservedly do we profess God from God, because we know that the Son of God, true God, was born from God the Father, true God. But not in the sense in which we are called gods, or as Moses is said to be a god to Pharaoh: but because he is the true Son, born of the true Father; truly and confidently is he to be called God from God, and thus light from light.

What is not written you indeed say with me, but you by no means agree with me in sense. And because it is written of the Father: God is light; and of the Son: He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world; and: The light shines in the darkness; that is, Christ in the world; and the darkness has not overtaken it; namely, those men whose heart is blinded by the darkness of ignorance did not recognize Christ, the true God, and the true Son of God. But the Lord himself says: I am the light of the world: he who has followed me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Therefore, since the Father is light, and the Son is light, rightly is it said light from light.

But you assert light from light as though from the Father, who is true light, another light were made, which is not of the very substance of the Father: but as any other light whatsoever, though made by God, is nevertheless far different from him who made it; and therefore you say light from light, not light out of the light itself. Since, then, I have said these things beforehand, although you do not understand them with me, yet however you pronounce these very words, they are not written.

Do you not likewise profess with me the word "of one substance," which you think is not contained in the Scriptures: unless it is that there you had a way of covering your malicious meanings with hidden fraud in both instances; so that you might express this very thing with me in the sound of the voice, yet keep the understanding of the saying far separated?

Just as those heretics also who deny the resurrection of the flesh, in order to deceive the souls of the simple, pronounce woe upon those who do not rise again in the flesh. But if you should examine them as to why they said this, knowing that they altogether deny the resurrection of the flesh, they will tell you: Woe indeed shall be to him who has not been baptized in the flesh, so that his soul, while it is in the body, may rise, through baptism, from the death of its sins as from the tomb of its crimes. For they defend only the resurrection of the soul in the flesh, through the grace of the life-giving washing; but they exclude the salvation of the flesh itself. And these men, by a plausible confession, seduce the minds of the innocent with hidden fraud.

And as a deadly draught, tempered with the sweetness of honey, is wont to kill by its deceiving pleasantness; so also this evil, by flattering the ears, infecting the senses of the hearers with a certain corruption, poisons them with the contagion of a clinging vice.

In short, even now they might name ὁμοούσιον merely in word, as they do other things, if they had a way of twisting it with a perverse meaning to another understanding: but when they saw that they were bound fast by this word, they wished no mention whatever of it to be made; lest either by professing it they should believe it, or by believing it they should appear to have professed it: excusing themselves with subtle cleverness, on the ground either that it was not written, or that God ought not to be said to exist "in substance," lest he be believed to be corporeal.

For God, they say, brings it about that there is substance, yet not so that God himself should be reckoned "in substance"; since, they say, every substance admits of contraries. But God, who can admit nothing diverse, ought not to be called substance.

I would pardon you if you said this simply, if you were coming to this question as an untrained beginner, if you were not the very one who always asserted that the Son of God was of another substance, or from things not existing: but since you are the very same one who has often been convicted on this point, has often confessed, has often denied, and by changing your position again and again has been condemned; who even now, stirring up all things by force, ambition, and power, throws everything into confusion; how do you think I can pardon you for so frequently retracting the same things? But lest this perversity seem to be condemned as a foregone conclusion rather than as examined, let me briefly answer you concerning this objection.

You forbid, then, that "substance" be named in God, as though everything that is called substance were held to be a thing of one kind. Or are you ignorant that heavenly things exist in one way, earthly things in another; but that even among the heavenly and worldly things themselves there is a great difference? For angels have received the substance of their constitution in one way, and the several Virtues in another, just as the Apostle says: One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars. So also in this world, just as there are diverse kinds of things, so also diverse bodies of living creatures; and to each according to its own kind belongs its substance, as the Apostle says: All flesh is not the same flesh.

If, then, the things that have been made by God have diverse qualities of their substances; do you think that in God there is such a substance as that which any of these made things has, so that it could admit of contraries? Far be it. For what is the substance of God? That very thing which God is: simple, singular, pure, mixed with no concretion, limpid, good, perfect, blessed, whole, wholly holy. Or do you think that which is God to be something empty and void? For it is blasphemy to say this, that he should be thought empty, through whom all things have their being, who brought forth all things by his Word, ordered them by reason, perfected them by power, by whose nod and command all things are ruled, all things are subservient.

And well is it written of God in the Law: I am who am; and: He who is, sent me. And the Savior Lord himself says: This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Therefore God exists in his own substance and essence, the knowledge of whom is eternal life, who is so great that he cannot be spoken of. He is then rightly estimated when he is called inestimable, whether one wills it or not.

Therefore that very thing which he is, this is the substance of the thing which is asserted to exist; which nevertheless, as has already been said, how great and of what quality it is, can neither be grasped by the mind, nor estimated by sense, nor defined by the soul; provided only it be established that he is what he is believed to be; so that from that very fact that he is God, the Son may proceed from him, so that the Son be true, and the Father be true in the Son, and the Son in the Father. This will be ὁμοούσιος, that is, of one substance with the Father, just as the Lord himself says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and: I and the Father are one; and: I went forth from the Father; and: He who sees me, sees my Father also.

Not without reason, because the Son of God was born of God the Father; and therefore they are one from the unity of substance and the majesty of the deity, just as Jeremiah prophesied: Who has stood in the substance of the Lord, and seen the Word of the Lord? And again: If they had stood in my substance, and had heard my words, I would have turned them from their most wicked pursuits. And in Solomon: My substance is my sweetness.

Since, then, you know this unity of substance in the Father and the Son not only by prophetic but also by evangelical authority; how do you say that ὁμοούσιον is not found in the divine Scriptures, as though ὁμοούσιον were something other than what is said: I went forth from God the Father, and: I and the Father are one; or that the prophets openly declared the substance of God?

But this is the meaning of the term, that you believe the unity of substance in the Father and the Son, although you cannot define the thing itself, which is beyond utterance: so that whether you say light from light, or word from word, or spirit from spirit, or Lord from Lord, whatever you say of him, still you believe the Father and the Son to be of one essence, and understand the Son from that very reality which the Father is. For if you make some comparison of this to things which are seen, by the very unlikeness of the things you will not show reason, but will provoke the strife of disputations. Since it is written by his own voice, To whom will you compare me? and since nothing can be likened to God, let it be enough to believe what he himself is understood to be: the one whom he wished to be believed, not pointed out.

Finally, if concerning this very thing which you profess with me, you wish to bring some likeness to bear in God, I do not know whether you can define more precisely what you have compared: as for example, when you say light from light, if you are forced to explain it by scrupulous narration, I ask how you believe light from light? Whether as a lamp from a lamp, or as a sun from a sun; so that you introduce either two lamps, or two suns, as it were two gods under this example?

Or do you signify light from light as the splendor of light of the same lamp, or the brightness of the sun shining from the same sun, so that you liken the Father to the source of light in figure, but show the Son as the splendor of brightness; as the prophet said of him: With thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we shall see light; or as Solomon, when he says: She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness; or as the Apostle here preached that our Savior is the image of the invisible God, because the image of the sun is its own light, which proceeds from the same sun.

But how much could be answered to these things which generate strifes, which the Apostle forbids, it would be long to say: since indeed it is agreed that that light which God is cannot be estimated, comprehended, or defined; nor can anything truly of those things which are in this world be compared to the divine majesty; because nothing of all those things which are seen or spoken can be estimated by a fitting likeness according to what God is, since he is greater than the very understandings and senses.

Therefore it was forewarned that you should believe the divinity of the substance, and know the true Son from the true Father: but you ought not to inquire concerning the quality of the thing; because you cannot know of what quality or how great it is. For this the prophets, this the apostles preached.

Finally, according to our capacity, according to our powers, according to our faith, let us behold what God is, and let us see whether anything can be compared to him. Surely he is such that even when he is spoken of, he cannot be fully expressed; when he is measured, he cannot be measured; when he is compared, he cannot be compared; when he is defined, he exceeds the very definition. He who opens heaven with his hand, closes the whole compass of the world with his fist. All things do not know him in his fullness, yet they know him by fearing him. To whose name and power this world is subject, and the very momentary succession of the elements one after another bears witness.

See, then, whether there can be anything to which the Father and the Son can be compared; for such is the Son as is the Father: for he would not have said that he was one with the Father, unless he knew himself to be such as the Father is. There is a certain Reason, which among the Greeks is called λόγος, which distinguishes the persons or names between the Father and the Son; for the Son himself is also called Reason. This Reason, however, is called by many names: now Word, now Power, now Wisdom, now right hand, now arm, now pearl, now treasure, now net, now plow, now fountain, now rock, now cornerstone, now lamb, now man, now calf, now eagle, now lion, now way. And thus, since God is all in all, these names serve so that the mysteries of the divine dispensations may be known, not that the very majesty of the Son of God be shown properly defined.

For what is the Son in relation to that which the Father is? Another, yet the same. For he is called Word for this reason, because he proceeded from the very divine mouth, and the Father commanded or did nothing without him. He is called Power, because he is truly of God and always with God, and all the power of the Father consists in him. He is called Wisdom, because coming forth from the heart of the Father, he unveiled the heavenly secrets to believers. He is called the right hand, because through him all the divine works were accomplished. He is called arm, because by him all things are held together. He is called pearl, so that nothing may be held more precious than he. He is called treasure, so that in him all the wealth and riches of the heavenly kingdoms may be known to be hidden.

He is called net, because through him and in him the diverse multitude of the nations, out of the sea of this age, like fish through the water of baptism, are gathered together in the Church, where the distinction between the good and the wicked is recognized. He is called plow, because by the sign of his cross hard hearts are subdued, so that they may be duly prepared for the necessary seed. He is called fountain of living water, because from him thirsting hearts are watered by the grace of heavenly water. He is called rock, because he gives strength to believers, hardness to unbelievers. He is called cornerstone, because, being one and a mediator, he joined together in himself both walls, of the New and the Old Testament. He is called lamb, that the innocence and passion of Christ may be shown. He is called man, because according to the flesh he deigned to be born for us men. He is called calf, because for our salvation he endured suffering.

He is called eagle, because after his venerable resurrection, like the manner of birds, he flew up to the seat of the Father. He is called lion, because he is the king of kings, who by the power of his might crushed death and the devil. He is the way, because through him is the ascent. Truth, because he knows no lie. Life, because he himself gives life to all things.

Do you see, then, that through these names the meanings both of the divine dispensations and works are set forth beforehand; yet God himself is not properly defined? Therefore the Father is God, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, inestimable. And the Son too is God and our Lord, as great as the Father also is: but from no other source than from the Father: for he says, I went forth from the Father, that is, light from light.

But lest the heretic take some occasion from this, when I set forth two names, or two persons, that is, of Father and Son, as though I said two gods, as they falsely construct two out of diversity: we, however, name Father and Son in such a way that we signify one God in these persons and names. Let the philosophers see to it, let the heretics see to it, their disciples, who vary by diversity of powers: to us, however, there is one God the Father, as the Apostle said, from whom are all things, and we from him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son of God, through whom are all things, and we through him.

For by "two" what else is understood, than the substance of two divided into parts, and, with the names themselves, both the will and the commands divided by a nature disjoined in acting and commanding? Moreover, although the Father and Son are believed to be two persons, yet in reason and substance they are one. For the fellowship of unequal things is an affront to the better one; and to the injury of him who is the true God, another that is not true is compared. But when I set forth Father and Son, I assign unity of kind: and if I divide that unity into persons, still the distinctions of persons, by the same names, again seal them into unity by the natural bond of law.

Whence the Son is as great as the Father will be seen to be, whole from whole, entire from entire, perfect from perfect and consummate power, as the Apostle says: In whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. For Jeremiah too, the most highly received of the prophets, knowing this unity of divinity in the Father and the Son, says: This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned besides him: who found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterward he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men. And Isaiah proclaims this very thing, saying: Thus says the Lord God: Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians; and the Sabaeans, men of stature, shall come over to you: they shall be your servants, and shall walk after you bound in chains, and they shall entreat you; because God is in you, and there is no other God besides you: for you are God.

Lest you think I have said this with the same presumption with which Sabellius is reported to have professed the Father himself to be the Son himself; we do not so compress the whole into one meaning that we are caught by the fraud of other heretics. But because in the very name the authority of the persons is recognized as undivided, and the Son is named from the Father not by kind but personally; accordingly we ascribe to the Father wholly what the Son is; and to the Son wholly what the Father is. Nothing will be seen not to belong to the Father, which is judged to belong to the Son; nor to the Son, what is defended as the Father's; because the unity of majesty does not allow gods to be called by a plural term: since indeed it is agreed that the Father and the Son are of one substance, whence each is called one God.

Fearing this above all things, that unless the Father and the Son be one, the interpolated birth might recur to the disgrace of its author; for this has pleased the heretics, that that God, omnipotent, invisible, immense, might degenerate in the Son, his condition being changed, not merely his power, as though the Father could not have from himself one such as he himself is. Accordingly we defend a true Son from a true Father, who always was, and is of one substance with the Father. And this is what the Greeks call ὁμοούσιον, that is, another who is the same with the one; so that the persons may be heard by name, without the names separating the substance.

But that I may set forth the whole mystery of the Arian heresy, I shall briefly explain why they refuse to believe that the Son is of the Father's substance. For they say: Since the Father is God omnipotent, invisible, unconvertible, immutable, perfect, always the same, eternal; but the Son visible, because he was often seen by the fathers; and convertible and mutable, because he showed himself in various forms: if he were, they say, of the substance of the Father, it could never come to pass that before the assumption of flesh he should be seen either as visible or as mutable; but rather he would have remained in that equality in which the Father is, from whose substance he was; because what is of the Father must be believed to be neither visible, nor mutable, nor convertible.

To this cause is added, that when he descended into Mary, when he filled the Virgin's womb, something else assuredly was born of her than what had come. Whence now, they say, the substance being corrupted, he turns from his state, loses his order, being forthwith by that very change formed from God into man, from spirit into flesh. And indeed every translation is the destruction of the former state. And on this account they say: If the Son were of the Father's substance, then the Father too would be seen as lesser in respect of his own substance, either by handing it over or by its ending: and therefore they have preferred to believe the Son to be of another substance, since it is possible for it to be converted, and changed, and seen; because this may not be believed of the Father's substance.

This is the cause of the error, this the origin of the Arian heresy: while they do not understand the power of God, nor recognize the disposition of so great a mystery, so as to compare God with human conditions. To whom it must first be answered in this place that the Son of God was not seen as God is, but as man was able to receive of God; then, that he himself is not mutable and convertible in his various forms, but that this is of the power of God, that when he deigns to reveal himself to each, as he wills, he changes his aspect, not his substance; nor does he lose the property of his quality, but according to the merit of the one seeing applies a tempering of his majesty: yet he himself, the same, as he always is, remains in the property of his own substance, as it is written: Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

For although there are many things among those seen in this world, which are converted from one thing into another, so that they cease to be what they were, and become what they had not been before; as clay, when it is formed into man, ceases now to be clay: or fishes, or birds, when they come forth from the water, are from that point no longer water, because they are something else: as the potter's clay, when it hardens into an earthen vessel: as stone, when it is dissolved by burning into lime: as sand, when it is changed into glass, and other such things which it would take long to enumerate. But there is a great difference, foolish heretic, between those things which have been made, and him who made all things as he willed. Things that have been made serve the condition assigned to them: but he who made them is of his own will and his own right.

Nor can he be changed into anything other than what he is, by any compulsion; but he shows himself as he wills, and to whom he wills. For if angels have often been seen in the form of men, and yet are nothing other than what they know themselves to be, nor do they change substance when they take on the form of a human body; how much more he himself, our Lord, who made all things, who granted to the angels themselves, by his own institution, that they could do this?

To this is added that thus we affirm the Son of God, as has already been said, to have been seen by the fathers, that not the whole of what he is as God was seen in him: but the dispositions of future things, which were to be fulfilled each in their own times, were discerned in him through an image. For who could see the Son of God before he assumed, as it pleased him, some visible material substance, or deigned to put on man himself?

Though he was seen by Abraham, yet he was seen in the form of a human body, that it might thereby be shown that in the last times he would come in man.

Jacob too is seen in one place in an angel, in another equally in a man. He showed himself in an angel, that he might indicate himself as the messenger of a great counsel: but in a man, with whom he is also described as having wrestled, that he might especially indicate the image of the future wrestling which he was to have with Israel, when he had come according to man. But that Israel might believe him to be the Lord, with whom he wrestled in such a great struggle under the form of a man, Israel, that is, a man seeing God, received his name. I have seen God, he says, face to face, and my soul has been saved. And indeed he had seen the form of a man, which God the Son of God had put on.

To Moses he appeared in the bush in a flame of fire, that he might show light to believers, judgment to unbelievers; because Christ is salvation to believers, punishment to unbelievers, as the Apostle says: To some the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death.

He went before the people of Israel as a leader of the way, in a pillar of cloud by day, and by night in a pillar of fire; that he might show the grace of baptism through the cloud, and the gift of the Holy Spirit through the fire; because the apostle Paul writes that the fathers were baptized in the cloud, and the Acts of the Apostles declare that the Spirit is as fire.

You see, therefore, in all these things, heretic, the marks of the divine Scriptures shown beforehand to the fathers in honor of God; yet not God himself, as he is properly revealed. Finally, when Moses prayed that he might see the face of God purely, what did God immediately say to him? Thou shalt not be able, he says, to see my face; for man shall not see my face, and live. By this very fact, that the sight is denied, his brightness is indicated, which indeed is as great as must be believed, being shown to be invisible. Since therefore Moses, who set forth, indicated, and expressed the arrangement of heaven, the orders of the world, the changes of the elements, and finally the adornments of the whole earth; to whom the Lord himself bore witness, saying: There shall be no one among the prophets like my servant Moses, to whom I have spoken face to face, mouth to mouth; yet could not purely see God.

Worthy indeed of all prophecy, but not so far as to be able to gaze upon God, insofar as he was only man.

And indeed we assert all these things to be the words of the Son, whom we know spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai, who had come from the Father to do and explain things; because it was fitting that all things from the beginning should both be ordered and explained and maintained through him, so that this chief reason for having a Son might be established. And yet he is understood to have been seen in such a way that, as I have said, some visible material form was assumed, his invisibility being of course preserved, which his majesty, diffused throughout, set apart from the sight of all. For he was not so revealed to human sight that the whole deity appeared in him: but as in the manner of a mirror, when it encloses within its own light the faces conceived, as it were, into the full likeness of a man; so, with the splendor of his majesty going before, he was seen within that which showed the image of the truth, not God himself properly.

So too, when he deigned to put on man, he brought no blemish upon eternity; not that he changed spirit into flesh, but that, by taking up man, he might grant immortality and the eternity of heavenly life. For although the Apostle says that he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant; we do not, however, take this emptying to mean that the same Spirit became something other than what he had been: but that, having for a time set aside the honor of his majesty, he put on a human body, by taking up which the salvation of the nations was accomplished. For as the sun, when covered by a cloud, has its brightness compressed, not blinded; and that light which, diffused over the whole world, fills all things with its bright splendor, is enclosed for us by quite a small obstacle, not taken away: so too that man whom the Lord Jesus our Savior, that is, God and the Son of God, put on; did not thereby cut off God in himself, but concealed him.

Finally, when on the mountain he had lifted himself up a little beyond the man himself, the apostles, well nigh blinded by the brightness of his light, fell to the ground as men indeed, their lives endangered, unless the Lord, in mercy, had again come to their aid by suppressing the honor of his majesty, according to that sentence: No one has seen God, and lived. Just as therefore the brightness of the sun, when it does not flash forth as far as our sight, remains safe in itself; because what is not seen is due to our weakness, whose eyes the darkness of clouds has covered: so he shows that he was not hidden to the detriment of his own proper splendor, but by the benefit, as I have said, of the flesh, for whose sake the Son of God endured to be the son of man.

For indeed the Virgin conceived of the Spirit of God, and what she conceived, this she bore, that is, God joined to his own man, as I have already said, just as he himself said: What is born of the flesh is flesh; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit: because God is spirit, and he was born of God. As also the angel said to the Virgin Mary: The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: therefore that which shall be born of thee, holy, shall be called the Son of God.

You see, then, that the Spirit himself, that is, the Son of God, came to the virgin; and thence proceeded the Son of God and of man: and yet the Son of God was not changed by this very garment of flesh; but he remained the same one in man, who had been before the world with the Father; through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made, as the Evangelist says: The world was made through him, and the world knew him not.

Moreover it is madness to believe that we can be freed by one who, in order to free us, was lost; who, that he might be born, was overwhelmed; who, that he might receive immortality, passed over to death. But far be it, heretic, that the sense of your iniquity be admitted by Catholics: for we believe the Word and the Spirit, that is, the Son of God, to be immutable and unconvertible; who, when he put on man, did not turn from his state, did not lose his order, did not change his substance: but illuminated the mire of that same body with the eternal light of his brightness; that through the path of his body the light of the Holy Spirit and the grace of eternal life might overflow to us.

And although we believe that he suffered and was buried; yet it was that man who suffered, whom the Son of God took up, whom he put on, whom he bore. But because whatever that man suffered was referred wholly to the author, therefore the death and passion are attributed to the Lord; for it is agreed that what is of God is immortal: what is of man, perishable.

On the third day too he rose again, not God into man, but rather man into God.

He ascended into the heavens, offered to his Father that man as a most acceptable gift, sat down at the right hand of the Father, according to what is written: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand. He sent us the Holy Spirit from his own, and from that same one substance of his, as protector, sanctifier, and guide unto eternal life, as it is written from the voice of God: I will pour out of my Spirit upon my servants, and my handmaids. And again: The Spirit shall go forth from me. And the Lord himself, our Savior, says: He shall receive of mine; of that indeed which is the Son, because the Son too is of that which is the Father. Thence, at a time appointed beforehand, he is to come, to judge the living and the dead; that he may render to believers their rewards, but to unbelievers their punishments. Whose kingdom is eternal, immortal; having neither beginning nor end: to whom is honor and glory forever and ever.

You who read these things, I beseech you by God, do not twist the simplicity of the sense into ambiguity, nor draw it otherwise than has been said; because we confess the Father a true Father, and the Son of God a true Son of God, and we believe the Holy Spirit truly to be the Holy Spirit: confessing three persons of one substance, and of one divinity. But the sect of Sabellius and of Photinus, and also of Arius, and whatever other things there are which come against the rule of truth, we condemn. But the treatise of the Nicene synod, preserving it with the whole effort of our mind and with our whole faith, we embrace: for we know this treatise to have been set in opposition against all heresies with invincible truth.