Against Praxeas

And so the Father is preached as having been born in time, and the Father as having suffered: he himself God, the Lord omnipotent, Jesus Christ.

But we, both always and now more fully, as better instructed through the Paraclete, the guide of course into all truth, believe indeed in one God: yet under this dispensation, which we call the economy, so that of the one God there is also a Son, his own Word, who proceeded from him, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made: this one sent by the Father into a virgin, and born from her as man and God, Son of man and Son of God, and surnamed Jesus Christ: this one who suffered, this one who died and was buried according to the Scriptures, and was raised by the Father, and taken up again into the heavens, sitting at the right hand of the Father, about to come to judge the living and the dead, who from thence sent, according to his promise, from the Father the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

That this rule has run from the beginning of the Gospel, even before any earlier heretics, let alone before Praxeas of yesterday, will be proved both by the very lateness of all heretics, and by the very novelty of Praxeas of yesterday. Whereby equally against all heresies let it be prejudged from this point, that what is first is true; that what is later is adulterated.

But with that prescription preserved, yet certainly for the instruction and fortification of certain persons, room must also be given to re-examination: lest any particular perversity seem to be condemned not after examination but by prejudgment, especially this one, which thinks it possesses the pure truth, since it supposes that the one God cannot be believed in otherwise than if one says that he himself, the same one, is both Father and Son and Holy Spirit: as though in this way too he is not all things as one, since all things are from one, through unity of substance of course; and the sacrament of the economy is nonetheless preserved, which disposes the unity into a trinity, directing three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Three however not in condition but in degree; not in substance but in form; not in power but in aspect: yet of one substance, and one condition, and one power; because there is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How moreover they admit of number without division, the ensuing re-examinations will demonstrate.

For the simple, not to say the imprudent and unlearned, who are always the greater part of believers, since the rule of faith itself transfers them from the many gods of the world to the one and true God; not understanding that he is to be believed as one, but with his own economy, are alarmed at the economy. They presume that the number and arrangement of the Trinity is a division of the unity; when the unity, deriving the Trinity from itself, is not destroyed by it but administered through it. And so they now keep crying out that two and three are preached by us, while they presume themselves to be worshippers of the one God, as though the unity also, irrationally gathered together, does not make heresy; and the trinity, rationally expounded, does not establish truth. We hold the monarchy, they say. And so even Latins express this sound vocally, even the Opici, so that you would think they understand the monarchy as well as they pronounce it.

But while Latins are eager to sound out the monarchy, even Greeks are unwilling to understand the economy. But I, having learned both languages, know that monarchy signifies nothing other than singular and sole rule: yet that the monarchy does not thereby prescribe, because it belongs to one, that he to whom it belongs either has no son, or has made himself his own son, or does not administer his monarchy through whomever he wishes. Indeed I say that no dominion is so exclusively its own, so singular, so much a monarchy, that it is not also administered through other nearby persons whom it has itself provided as its officers.

But if there shall also be a son to him whose the monarchy is, it is not straightway divided thereby, and does not cease to be a monarchy, if the son is taken as a sharer in it; but it remains principally his from whom it is communicated to the son; and while it is his, it is accordingly a monarchy, which is held by two who are so uniquely one.

Therefore if even the divine monarchy is administered through so many legions and armies of angels, as it is written: Thousands of thousands stood before him, and ten thousands of ten thousands appeared before him: and it does not on that account cease to be one, so as to cease to be a monarchy, because it is managed through so many thousands of powers: how is it that God seems to suffer division and dispersion in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, who have obtained the second and third place, as sharers so fully in the substance of the Father, which he does not suffer in so great a number of angels, and those indeed so alien from his substance? The members, and pledges, and instruments, and the very power, and the whole wealth of the monarchy, you reckon as its overthrow: not rightly. I would rather have you exercise yourself on the meaning of the thing than on the sound of the word.

For that overthrow of the monarchy is what you must understand, when another dominion of its own condition and proper status, and thereby a rival, is brought in over it: when another God is introduced against the Creator. Then it is evil, when there are many, after the manner of the Valentinians and Prodicus: then it is an overthrow of the monarchy, when it is for the destruction of the Creator.

But as for me, who derive the Son from nowhere else than from the substance of the Father, doing nothing without the Father's will, having received all power from the Father, how can I be destroying the monarchy of the faith, which, having been handed over by the Father to the Son, I preserve in the Son? Let this also be said by me in reference to the third degree, because I hold that the Spirit is from nowhere else than from the Father through the Son. See therefore whether it is not rather you who destroy the monarchy, you who overturn its arrangement and dispensation established in so many names as God has willed. So fully indeed does it remain in its own state, even though the Trinity is introduced, that it must even be restored to the Father by the Son. For the Apostle writes concerning the last end: when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father.

For he must reign until God hath put all his enemies under his feet: that is, according to the Psalm: Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. But when all things shall have been subjected to him, plainly excepting him who subjected all things to him, then he himself also shall be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all. We see therefore that the Son does not harm the monarchy, even though today it is with the Son; because it is also in its own state with the Son, and shall be restored with its own state to the Father by the Son. Thus no one destroys it on this account, if he admits the Son, to whom it is established both to have been handed over by the Father, and to be at some point restored to the Father by him.

By this one passage of the apostolic Epistle we have been able already to show that the Father and the Son are two, not only from the names of Father and Son, but also from the fact that he who handed over the kingdom and he to whom he handed it over, likewise he who subjected and he to whom he subjected, must necessarily be two.

But because they want the two to be one, so that the Father and the Son may be held to be the same, it is necessary that the whole matter concerning the Son be examined: whether he exists, and who he is, and how he is; and so the matter itself will vindicate its own form with the Scriptures and their interpretations as advocates. They say indeed that Genesis in Hebrew begins thus: In the beginning God made for himself a son. Even if this be not established, other arguments lead me from the very disposition of God, which existed before the constitution of the world, up to the generation of the Son. For before all things God was alone, himself his own world and place and all things. Alone, however, because nothing else was outside him. Yet even then not alone; for he had with him what he had within himself, namely his own Reason. For God is rational too, and Reason was in him first; and so from him are all things. This Reason is his own sense.

The Greeks call this the Logos, by which word we also designate Speech. And therefore it is already customary among our people, through simplicity of interpretation, to say that Speech was in the beginning with God; when it is more fitting that Reason be held to be the more ancient; because God was not speech-endowed from the beginning, but rational even before the beginning; and because speech itself, consisting of reason, shows reason to be prior to it as its own substance. Yet even so, it makes no difference. For even if God had not yet sent forth his Speech, he had it with him in and along with reason itself within himself, silently thinking and arranging with himself what he was shortly to say through Speech. For thinking and arranging with his own Reason, he was making it into Speech, which he was handling through Speech.

And that you may understand this more easily, first recognize it from yourself, as from the image and likeness of God, that you also have within yourself reason, you who are a rational animal, made not only by a rational craftsman but also animated from his very substance. See how when you silently commune with yourself, this very thing is carried on within you by reason, as it meets you together with speech at every movement of your thought and at every impulse of your sense. Whatever you think, is speech; whatever you perceive, is reason. You must needs speak it within your mind; and while you speak, you experience speech as your interlocutor, in which this very reason resides, by which thinking together with it you speak, through which speaking you think. Thus speech is in a certain manner a second thing in you, through which you speak while thinking, and through which you think while speaking. Speech itself is another thing.

How much more fully then is this carried on in God, of whom you too are reckoned the image and likeness, in that he has within himself even in silence his Reason, and in his Reason his Speech? I can therefore not rashly have laid it down beforehand, that even then God was not alone before the constitution of the universe, having within himself his Reason, and in his Reason his Speech, which he was making a second thing from himself by setting it in motion within himself.

This force and this disposition of the divine mind is shown also in the Scriptures under the name of Wisdom. For what is wiser than the reason of God, or the Word? Therefore hear also Wisdom, as a second person established. First, the Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works, before he made the earth, before the mountains were set in place: but before all the hills he begat me; namely, conceiving and begetting her in his own mind. Then recognize her as present at the very act of separation itself; When he prepared, it says, the heaven, I was present with him together; and when he made the strong things above the winds, and the clouds that are above the sky; and when he set secure the fountains of those things that are under heaven, I was with him fitting together; I was she in whom he rejoiced: and daily I was delighted in his person.

For as soon as God willed to bring forth into their own substances and forms the things which he had disposed within himself with the plan of wisdom and word, he first put forth the Word himself, having within him his own inseparable companions, Reason and Wisdom; so that through him all things might be made, through whom they had been thought out and disposed; indeed even already made, so far as in the mind of God. For this alone was lacking to them, that they should also be recognized and held before him in their own forms and substances.

Then therefore the Word himself also takes on his own form and adornment, sound and voice, when God says: Let there be light. This is the perfect nativity of the Word, as he proceeds from God: first established by him for thought in the name of Wisdom: The Lord established me the beginning of his ways. Then begotten for effect: When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him together. Thenceforth making him equal to himself, from whom by proceeding he was made the Son, the firstborn, as begotten before all things; and the only-begotten, as the only one begotten of God: properly from the womb of his own heart, according to what the Father himself also testifies: My heart has uttered a good Word. To whom thereafter rejoicing, and likewise rejoicing in his person: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And: Before the morning star I begat thee.

So also the Son from his own person professes the Father in the name of Wisdom: The Lord established me the beginning of his ways for his works. But before all the hills he begat me. For if here indeed Wisdom seems to say that she was established by the Lord for his works and ways; but elsewhere it is shown through the Word that all things were made, and without him nothing was made; as also again: By his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their power; by that Spirit, namely, which was in the Word: it is apparent that one and the same power exists, now under the name of Wisdom, now under the designation of the Word; which received the beginning of the ways in the works of God; and which established the heaven; through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.

Nor need we dwell longer on this, as though the discourse were not about him, both under the name of wisdom, and of reason, and of every divine mind and spirit, who was made the Son of God, and was begotten by proceeding from him. Therefore, you say, you grant that the Word has some substance, constructed from spirit and the tradition of Wisdom? Plainly. For you do not wish him to have substantive existence in reality through the property of substance, so that he might be seen as a certain thing and person, and so that a second one constituted alongside God might make two, Father and Son, God and Word. For what, you will say, is the Word, but voice and sound of the mouth, and (as the Grammarians teach) air struck upon, intelligible to hearing; otherwise something empty I know not what, and void, and incorporeal?

But I say that nothing empty and void could have proceeded from God, as though brought forth from what is empty and void; nor can that lack substance which proceeded from so great a substance, and made so great substances—for he himself also made the things that were made through him. How is it that he himself is nothing, without whom nothing was made? That he who is void should have wrought solid things, and he who is empty should have wrought full things, and he who is incorporeal should have wrought corporeal things? For even if sometimes something can be made different from that through which it is made, yet nothing can be made through that which is empty and void. Is the Word of God an empty and void thing—he who is called the Son, who is himself named God, And the Word was with God, and the Word was God? It is written: Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.

There certainly is he who, being constituted in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. In what form of God? In another form, certainly, yet not in no form. For who will deny that God is a body, even if God is a Spirit? For Spirit is a body of its own kind in its own form. But also those invisible things, whatever they are, have with God both their own body and their own form, by which they are visible to God alone; how much more shall that which is sent forth from his own substance not be without substance! Whatever therefore the substance of the Word was, that I call his person, and to him I claim the name of Son; and while I acknowledge the Son, I maintain him as second from the Father.

If anyone shall think that I am here introducing some probole, that is, a putting-forth of one thing from another, which Valentinus does, producing one Aeon after another from an Aeon; first indeed I will say to you, that truth does not therefore fail to use both that word and its substance and meaning, because heresy rather borrowed from truth what it might build into its own lie. The Word of God was put forth, was he not? Stand firm with me on this point. If he was put forth, acknowledge the putting-forth of truth, and let heresy see what it has imitated from truth. Now the question is, who uses a thing, and its name, and in what manner. Valentinus separates and parts his put-forth things from their author: and so places them far from him, that the Aeon does not know the father. In the end, he desires to know him, and cannot; nay, he is even nearly swallowed up and dissolved into the remaining substance.

But with us the Son alone knows the Father, and he himself has declared the bosom of the Father, and has heard and seen all things with the Father, and what he was commanded by the Father, those things also he speaks. Nor did he accomplish his own will, but the Father's, which he had known from close at hand, nay from the beginning. For who knows the things that are in God, save the Spirit which is in him? Now the Word is constituted of Spirit, and, if I may so say, Spirit is the body of the Word. The Word therefore is always in the Father also, as he says: I am in the Father. And always with God, as it is written: And the Word was with God. And never separated from the Father, nor other than the Father, because, I and the Father are one. This will be the putting-forth of truth, the guardian of unity, whereby we say the Son was put forth from the Father, but not separated.

For God put forth the Word, even as the Paraclete also teaches, as the root puts forth the shoot, and the spring the river, and the sun the ray. For these too are put-forth forms of those substances from which they proceed. Nor would I hesitate to call the Son both the shoot of the root, and the river of the spring, and the ray of the sun; because every origin is a parent, and everything that is brought forth from an origin is offspring, and much more so the Word of God, who has also properly received the name of Son: yet the shoot is not separated from the root, nor the river from the spring, nor the ray from the sun, just as the Word is not from God. Therefore according to the pattern of these examples, I profess that I call two, God and his Word, the Father and his Son. For both root and shoot are two things, but conjoined. And spring and river are two forms, but undivided.

And sun and ray are two shapes, but cohering. Everything that proceeds from something must necessarily be second to that from which it proceeds, yet is not therefore separated from it. But where there is a second, there are two. And where there is a third, there are three. For the Spirit is third from God and the Son, as the fruit from the shoot is third from the root. And the stream from the river is third from the spring. And the apex from the ray is third from the sun. Yet nothing is estranged from the source from which it draws its own properties. Thus the Trinity, running down through connected and linked degrees from the Father, neither disturbs the monarchy, nor protects the arrangement of the economy.

Hold fast everywhere to this rule which I have professed, whereby I testify that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from one another; and so you will recognize what is said and how. For behold, I say that the Father is one, and the Son another, and the Spirit another. Any simple or perverse person takes this saying badly, as though it sounded diversity, and from diversity extended to separation, of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. But I say this of necessity, since they contend that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are the same, flattering the economy of the monarchy, yet not other in diversity—the Son from the Father—but in distribution; nor other by division, but by distinction; because the Father and the Son are not the same, being different from one another in degree. For the Father is the whole substance: but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as he himself professes, Because the Father is greater than I.

By whom also he is sung as lessened in the Psalm, A little lower than the angels. So also the Father is other than the Son, inasmuch as he is greater than the Son; inasmuch as one is he who begets, another he who is begotten; one he who sends, another he who is sent; one he who makes, another he through whom the making is done. It is well that the Lord also used this word in the person of the Paraclete, signifying not division but disposition: For I will ask, he says, the Father, and he will send you another advocate, the Spirit of truth. Thus another Paraclete from himself, just as we also say another Son from the Father, so as to show a third degree in the Paraclete, just as we show a second in the Son, on account of the observance of the economy. The very fact that they are called Father and Son—is not the one other than the other?

Certainly all things will be what they are called, and what they are, that they will be called; and the diversity of names cannot at all intermingle, because neither can the things of which they will be the names. Yes is yes, no is no: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Thus either he is the Father or the Son, and neither is day the same as night, nor is the Father the same as the Son, so that both may be one and each may be the other: which is what those most vain Monarchians wish. He made himself his own Son, they say. But in fact the Father makes the Son, and the Son makes the Father. And those who come to be from one another cannot in any way be made by themselves for themselves, so that the Father should make himself his own Son, and the Son should furnish himself as his own Father. What God has established, he himself also keeps. The Father must necessarily have a Son, in order to be Father; and the Son must have a Father, in order to be Son; but to have is one thing, to be is another. For example: in order for me to be a husband, I must have a wife—I shall not myself be my own wife.

So also, in order for me to be a father, I have a son; I shall not myself be my own son. And in order for me to be a son, I have a father—I shall not myself be my own father. For those things that make me what I am: if I have had them, then I shall be a father if I have a son; I shall be a son if I have a father. But if I myself shall be one of these things, then I no longer have what I myself shall be: neither a father, because I myself shall be the father; nor a son, because I myself shall be the son. But inasmuch as I must have one of these in order to be the other, to that same degree, if I shall be both, I shall not be the one, since I do not have the other.

For if I myself shall be the son who is also the father, then I no longer have a son, but I myself am the son. But by not having a son, while I myself am the son, how shall I be a father? For I must have a son in order to be a father. I am therefore not the son, because I do not have a father, who makes the son. Likewise, if I myself am the father who is also the son, then I no longer have a father, but I myself am the father; but by not having a father, while I myself am the father, how shall I be a son? For I must have a father in order to be a son. I shall therefore not be the father, because I do not have a son, who makes the father. This will be the whole device of the devil: to exclude one from the other, while enclosing both in one under the favour of monarchy, he causes neither to be had.

So that the Father is not, who of course has no son; and the Son is not, who likewise has no father. For while he is the Father, he will not be the Son. Thus they hold the monarchy who contain neither father nor son. But nothing is difficult for God. Who does not know this? And who is ignorant that things impossible with the world are possible with God? And God chose the foolish things of the world to confound wisdom: we read all of this. Therefore, they say, it was not difficult for God to make himself both Father and Son, contrary to the form handed down for human affairs—for even to make a barren woman bear, contrary to nature, was not difficult for God, nor was a virgin. Plainly nothing is difficult for God. But if we use this maxim so rashly in our presumptions, we shall be able to fabricate anything about God, as though he had done it because he could have done it.

But it is not the case that because he can do all things, we must therefore believe that he has done even what he has not done; rather, we must inquire whether he has done it. God could have—so may I be saved—equipped man with wings for flying, which he also granted to kites; yet not because he could, did he straightway also do it. He could also have straightway destroyed Praxeas and all heretics alike; yet not because he could, did he destroy them. For it was necessary that kites should exist, and heretics; it was necessary also that the Father should be crucified. By this reasoning something will also be difficult for God—namely, whatever he has not done for any reason, not because he could not, but because he was unwilling. For God's being able is his willing; and his not being able is his not willing; but what he willed, he both could do and showed.

Therefore, because if he willed to make himself his own Son he could; and because if he could, he did: then you will prove that he both could and willed, if you prove that he did it.

But you will have to prove it as plainly from the Scriptures as we prove that he made his Word his Son for himself. For if he names a Son, and the Son will be none other than he who proceeded from him; and the Word proceeded from him, then this one will be the Son, not he from whom he proceeded. For he himself did not proceed from himself. Furthermore, you who say that the Father and the Son are the same, make the same one both to have brought forth from himself and to have proceeded as what God is. If he could have done it, he nevertheless did not do it. Either produce a proof such as I demand, similar to mine—that is, show that the Scriptures present the Son and the Father as the same, in the same way as among us the Father and the Son are shown to be distinct; distinct, I say, not divided—as I bring forward the saying spoken by God: My heart has uttered a good Word.

So do you on the contrary set against this, that God has somewhere said, "My heart has uttered a good Word," such that he himself is both the one who uttered and what was uttered; and himself both the one who brought forth and the one who was brought forth, if he himself is both the Word and God. Behold, I set forth the Father saying to the Son: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. If you wish me to believe that he himself is both Father and Son, show that it has been pronounced elsewhere thus: "The Lord said to himself, I am my own Son, this day have I begotten myself"; and likewise: "Before the morning star I begat myself "; and "The Lord founded me as the beginning of his ways for his works; but before all the hills he begat me "; and whatever other passages are of this kind. But what was God the Lord of the universe afraid of, that he should pronounce it thus, if such was the case?

Was he afraid that he would not be believed, if he had simply pronounced himself to be both Father and Son? One thing, however, he feared: to lie. But he feared himself and his own truth. And therefore, believing God to be truthful, I know that he pronounced it in no other way than he disposed, nor disposed it in any other way than he pronounced it. But you on your part would make him a liar and a deceiver and a defrauder of this faith, if, while he himself was his own Son, he was giving the role of Son to another—since all the Scriptures show both the demonstration and the distinction of the Trinity.

From which our prescription is also derived: that the one who speaks, and the one of whom he speaks, and the one to whom he speaks cannot be seen as one and the same; because neither perversity nor deceit befits God—so that while he himself was the one to whom he was speaking, he should speak rather to another and not to himself. Receive therefore also other words of the Father concerning the Son through Isaiah: Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I am well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall declare judgment to the nations. Receive also what is said to him: It is a great thing for thee to be called my Son, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to convert the dispersion of Israel. I have set thee as a light to the nations, that thou mayest be salvation to the ends of the earth.

Receive now also the words of the Son concerning the Father: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore he has anointed me to preach the gospel to men. Likewise to the Father in the Psalm, concerning the same: Forsake me not, until I declare thine arm to the generation to come. Likewise in another: Lord, how are they multiplied that afflict me? But also nearly all the Psalms sustain the person of Christ; they represent the Son speaking words to the Father, that is, Christ speaking to God. Observe also the Spirit speaking in the third person of the Father and the Son: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Likewise through Isaiah: Thus saith the Lord to my Lord Christ. Likewise through the same prophet to the Father concerning the Son: Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

We have declared concerning him, as a little child, as a root in a thirsty land, and there was no form in him, nor glory. These are a few out of many. For we do not aim to unroll all the Scriptures, since even in individual passages, bearing full witness to the majesty and authority, we have a greater engagement in the discussions. By these few, then, yet manifestly, the distinction of the Trinity is set forth. For there is the one who pronounces—the Spirit—and the Father to whom he pronounces, and the Son of whom he pronounces. So also all the other passages which are now pronounced to the Father concerning the Son, or to the Son, now to the Son concerning the Father, or to the Father, now to the Spirit—each establishes each person in its own property.

If the number of the Trinity still scandalizes you, as though it were not connected in simple unity, I ask how it is that he who is unique and singular speaks in the plural: Let us make man in our image and likeness; when he ought to have said, "I will make man in my image and likeness," as being unique and singular? But also in what follows: Behold, Adam is become as one of us—he deceives or plays; so that while he was one, and alone, and singular, he spoke in the plural number: or was he perhaps speaking to angels, as the Jews interpret, because they too do not acknowledge the Son? Or was it because he himself was Father, Son, and Spirit, that presenting himself as plural he spoke to himself in the plural? No—rather, because the Son, the second person, his own Word, was already joined to him, and the third, the Spirit in the Word, therefore he pronounced in the plural: let us make, and our, and us.

For with whom was he making man, and to whose likeness was he making him? With the Son indeed, who was going to put on man; and with the Spirit, who was going to sanctify man—as with ministers and witnesses, he spoke out of the unity of the Trinity. Finally, the following Scripture distinguishes between the persons: And God made man, in the image of God he made him. Why not "his own image," if he who was making was one, and there was no one to whose image he was making? But there was one to whose image he was making: namely, to the image of the Son, who was going to be man more certainly and truly, and had caused the man who was then to be formed from clay to be called his image—the image and likeness of the true one. But also in the preceding works of the world, how is it written?

First indeed, the Son not yet having appeared: And God said, Let there be light, and there was light—he himself straightway the true Word, the true Light which enlightens every man coming into this world, and through him the light of the world as well. But thereafter, with the Word Christ present and ministering, God willed things to come to be, and God made them. And God said, Let there be a firmament, and God made the firmament; and God said, Let there be lights, and God made the greater and the lesser light; but also all the rest were made by the same one who made the former things, that is, the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Who himself is God, according to John: the Word was God. You have two: one saying that it should come to be, another making it. But how you ought to understand "another," I have already declared: by the name of person, not of substance; for distinction, not for division.

Otherwise, even though I everywhere hold one substance in three cohering together, I must nevertheless say "another" by the necessity of meaning, for the one who commands and the one who makes. For he would not command if he himself were making, while commanding it to be made through him. Yet he was commanding—he would not have been about to command himself if he were one; or he would have made without a command, because he would not have waited for himself to command him.

Therefore, he says, if God spoke and God made; if one God spoke and another made, two gods are proclaimed. If you are so stubborn, suppose it for the moment: and that you may suppose it yet more fully, receive in the Psalm two gods named: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the sceptre of thy kingdom: thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee. If he speaks to God, and affirms a God anointed by God, clearly he here sets forth two gods. Hence also Isaiah to the person of Christ: And the Sabaeans, he says, men of stature shall pass over to thee, and shall follow after thee bound in chains, and they shall worship thee, because God is in thee; for thou art our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel. For here also, by saying God is in thee, and thou art God, he sets forth two: he who was, and he in whom he was; Christ, and the Spirit.

This itself is the more, in that you will find the same in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. One who was, and another with whom he was. But also the name of Lord I read in two: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand. And Isaiah says these words: Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he would have said thine arm, not the arm of the Lord, if he did not wish the Lord the Father and the Lord the Son to be understood. Even more ancient still is Genesis: And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven from the Lord. Either deny that these things are written, or who are you, that you should not think them to be received as they are written, especially those which have their meaning not in allegories and parables, but in definite and certain and plain terms?

But if you are of those who at that time could not endure the Lord showing himself to be the Son of God, nor would believe him to be Lord, remember that it is written against you together with them: I said, Ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High. And: God stood in the congregation of gods; so that if Scripture did not fear to pronounce men, made sons of God through faith, to be gods, you may know that it has much more rightly conferred the name of God upon the true and only Son of God. "Therefore," you say, "I will challenge you, so that even today you may steadfastly proclaim, on the authority of those Scriptures, two gods and two lords." Far be it.

For we, who by the grace of God, especially of the Paraclete, and not as disciples of men, discern both the times and the reasons of the Scriptures, do indeed define two, Father and Son, and already three with the Holy Spirit, according to the principle of the economy, which makes the number: lest, as your perversity infers, the Father himself be believed to have been born and to have suffered; which it is not lawful to believe, since it has not been so handed down. Yet two Gods and two Lords we never utter from our mouth: not as though the Father were not God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and each one God; but because in former times both two gods and two lords were proclaimed; so that, when Christ came and was acknowledged as God and called Lord, because he is the Son of God and of the Lord.

For if one and the same person of both God and Lord were found in the Scriptures, Christ would rightly not have been admitted to the name of God and Lord. For no other besides one God and one Lord was proclaimed, and it would have come about that the Father himself would seem to have descended, because one God and one Lord was read; and his whole economy, which was foreseen and dispensed as the matter of faith, would have been obscured. But when Christ came and was recognized by us as the one who had formerly made the number, having become second from the Father, and with the Spirit third, and the Father now more fully manifested through him, the name of God and Lord has now been reduced to unity; so that, since the nations were passing over from a multitude of idols to the one God, a distinction might be established between the worshippers of one and of manifold divinity.

For Christians also ought to shine in the world as sons of light, worshipping and naming one God and Lord, the light of the world. Otherwise, if out of the awareness by which we know that the name of God and Lord belongs to the Father and to the Son and to the Spirit, we were to name gods and lords, we would have extinguished our torches, made even more timid at martyrdoms, for whom there would be open also an occasion of escape by swearing at once by gods and lords, as certain heretics do, whose gods are many. Therefore I will by no means say gods, nor lords; but I will follow the Apostle, so that if the Father and the Son are to be named together, I call the Father God, and name Jesus Christ Lord. But Christ alone I shall be able to call God, as the same Apostle says: Of whom is Christ, who is, he says, God over all, blessed for ever.

For I will also call the ray of the sun, taken separately, the sun; but when naming the sun of which the ray is a part, I will not straightway call the ray also the sun. For even if I do not make two suns, yet I will count both the sun and its ray as two things and two forms of one undivided substance, just as God and his Word, just as Father and Son.

There also stands by us still that rule which determines God to be invisible, as we vindicate the two, Father and Son. For when Moses in Egypt had desired the sight of the Lord, saying: If therefore I have found grace before thee, manifest thyself to me, that I may see thee knowingly: Thou canst not see my face, he said; for no man shall see my face and live; that is, he who sees it shall die. For we find that God was seen by many, and yet none of those who had seen him died. God was seen indeed according to the capacity of men, not according to the fullness of divinity: for the patriarchs are reported to have seen God, as Abraham and Jacob, and the prophets, as Isaiah, as Ezekiel; and yet they did not die.

Therefore either they ought to have died, if they had seen him; for no man shall see God and live; or if they saw God and did not die, Scripture lies in saying that God said, If a man shall see my face, he shall not live; or Scripture lies when it presents God as unseen, or when it presents him as seen. There will therefore be another who was seen, because the same one who was seen cannot be defined as invisible; and it will follow that we understand the Father to be invisible, in respect of the fullness of his majesty; but that we acknowledge the Son to be visible, in respect of the measure of his derivation: just as we are not permitted to gaze upon the sun itself, as regards the very summit of its substance which is in the heavens; but we endure its ray with our eyes, in proportion to the tempered portion of it which is extended thence to the earth.

Here on the other side someone will wish to contend that the Son also is invisible, as being the Word, as being the Spirit; and while he vindicates the single condition of Father and Son, to confirm rather that the Father and the Son are one and the same. But we have said that Scripture takes the part of the distinction, through the differentiation of visible and invisible. For they also add this to their argument: that if the Son was then speaking to Moses, he himself would declare his face visible to no one, because, namely, the invisible Father himself was present under the name of the Son.

And thereby they wish him to be understood as at once visible and invisible in the same way as they wish him to be at once Father and Son: because also a little above, before he had denied his face to Moses, it is written that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as when a man speaks to his friend, no less than also Jacob: I have seen, he says, the Lord face to face, and my soul is preserved. Therefore the visible and invisible are the same. And because he is the same in both respects, therefore he himself, as Father, is invisible; and as Son, visible. As though the exposition of Scripture which is made by us did not suit the Son, with the Father set apart in his own invisibility.

For we say that the Son also is in his own name invisible to that extent, in that as Word and Spirit of God he is so by the condition of his substance even now, both as God, and as Word, and as Spirit: but that he was visible before the flesh in that manner of which he speaks to Aaron and Miriam: And if there shall be a prophet among you, I will be known to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream, not so with Moses. Mouth to mouth will I speak with him in form, that is, in truth; and not in a dark saying, that is, not in an image. As also the Apostle says: Now we see as through a glass in a dark saying, but then face to face.

Therefore since he reserves for Moses his sight and his colloquy face to face for the future (for this was afterwards fulfilled in the retirement of the mountain, as we read in the Gospel that Moses was seen conversing with him); it appears that God, that is, the Son of God, was always formerly seen in a mirror and in a dark saying and in a vision and in a dream by the Prophets and Patriarchs, as also by Moses himself still at that time. And the Lord himself, if perchance he spoke face to face openly, yet a man could not see his face as it is, unless perchance in a mirror and in a dark saying. Finally, if the Lord so spoke with Moses that Moses also gazed upon his face, how likewise does the Lord also deny that his face can be seen, which he had shown, if indeed he had shown it? Or what is the face of God, the sight of which is denied, if there was one that was seen?

I saw, says Jacob, God face to face, and my soul was preserved. There must be another face, which if it be seen, kills. Or is it that the Son indeed was seen, and thus a face, but this very thing in a vision and in a dream and in a mirror and in a dark saying, because as Word and Spirit he cannot be seen except in an imaginary form. But the Father calls his face invisible. For who is the Father? Will he not be the face of the Son, by the name of the authority which the Son begotten of the Father obtains? For it is fitting to say even of some greater person: that man is my face; and he presents my face. The Father, he says, is greater than I. Therefore the Father will be the face of the Son. For what also does Scripture say? The Spirit of his countenance, Christ the Lord.

Therefore if Christ is the spirit of the paternal countenance, rightly did he whose spirit the countenance was, that is the Father's, declare him his face, out of unity, namely. I should indeed wonder whether the Father, who is his head, can be taken as the face of the Son: for the head of Christ is God.

If I do not resolve this point of inquiry from the texts of the Old Testament, I shall take confirmation of our interpretation from the New Testament; lest whatever I attribute to the Son you defend as equally applicable to the Father. For behold, in the Gospels and in the Apostles alike I find God visible and invisible, under a manifest and personal distinction of each condition. John cries out, as it were: No one has ever seen God. Certainly not in former times either. For he has removed the question of time by saying that God has never been seen. The Apostle also confirms this concerning God: Whom no man has seen, nor can see; namely, because he who sees him shall die. Those same Apostles testify both that they have seen Christ and that they have handled him. Now if Christ himself is both Father and Son, how was he seen and yet unseen?

To reconcile this diversity of the seen and the unseen into one, who would not argue from the opposite side that both statements are rightly made: visible indeed in the flesh, but invisible before the flesh; so that the same one who is the invisible Father before the flesh is also the Son visible in the flesh? But if the same one was invisible before the flesh, how is he found to have been seen even in former times before the flesh? Likewise, if the same one who was seen in former times in a riddle was made more fully visible by the flesh; then the Word, who was also made flesh, is another, whom no one has ever seen except the Father, namely the Father whose Word he is. Let us then examine whom the Apostles saw. What we have seen, says John, what we have heard, we have seen with our own eyes, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.

For the Word of life was made and heard and handled, because he became flesh, who before the flesh was the Word only, in the beginning with God the Father, not the Father with the Word. For although God is the Word, yet he is with God, because he is God from God, because he is with the Father, at the Father's side. And we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten from the Father; the glory, that is, of the Son, who is visible, glorified by the invisible Father. And therefore, since he had called the Word of God God, lest he should aid the presumption of our adversaries, as though the Father himself had been seen, in order to distinguish between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he adds by way of abundance: No one has ever seen God. Which God? The Word? But it was said above: We have seen, and heard, and handled, concerning the Word of life. Which God then?

The Father, of course, with whom as God the Word was, namely the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has himself declared him. He himself was both heard and seen, and lest he be thought a phantom, was also handled. Paul too beheld him, yet did not see the Father. Have I not, he says, seen Jesus? And Paul himself also named Christ God: of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. He too shows the visible Son of God, that is, the Word of God, because he was made flesh and was called Christ. But concerning the Father, he writes to Timothy: Whom no man has seen, nor can see. Amplifying further: Who alone has immortality, and dwells in unapproachable light.

Concerning whom he had also said above: Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God: so that we might ascribe to the Son the contraries, mortality and accessibility; whom he attests to have died according to the Scriptures; and to have been seen by himself last of all, through light that was accessible: although even that light neither he himself experienced without peril to his sight, nor Peter and John and James without loss of reason and bewilderment; who, had they seen not the glory of the Son who was to suffer but the Father, would, I believe, have died on the spot. For no one shall see God and live. If these things are so, it is established that he who shall have been seen at the end was always seen from the beginning; and that he who was not seen even at the end was not seen from the beginning either; and thus there are two, one seen and one unseen.

The Son therefore was always seen, and the Son always conversed with men, and the Son always worked, by the authority and will of the Father; because the Son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the Father doing it; meaning doing it in thought. For the Father acts in thought. But the Son, seeing what is in the Father's thought, brings it to completion. Thus all things were made through the Son, and without him nothing was made.

Do not suppose that only the works of the world were made through the Son, but also those things which God has done from that time onward. For the Father who loves the Son and has delivered all things into his hand; he loves him from the beginning, of course, and from the beginning has delivered. From which point, from the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God, to whom all power was given by the Father in heaven and on earth. The Father judges no one; but has committed all judgment to the Son; yet from the beginning. For in saying all power, and all judgment, and all things made through him, and all things delivered into his hand, he allows no exception of time: because all things will not be all things if they have not been of all time.

The Son therefore is he who from the beginning judged, overthrowing the most arrogant tower and dividing the tongues, punishing the whole world with the violence of waters, raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah; the Lord from the Lord. For it is he who always descended to human conversations, from Adam down to the Patriarchs and Prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in riddle, laying out from the beginning the order which he was to pursue to the end. Thus he was ever learning, and no other than the Word, who was to become flesh, could converse with men as God on earth. He was learning, moreover, in order to lay the foundation of faith for us, so that we might more readily believe that the Son of God descended into the world, if we knew that such a thing had been done in former times as well. For our sake, as things were written, so also were they done, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

So also he already knew human affections at that time, being about to take upon himself even the very substances of man, flesh and soul; asking Adam as though ignorant, Where are you, Adam? Repenting that he had made man, as though not foreknowing; testing Abraham, as though ignorant of what is in man; offended, reconciled with the same. And if there are things which heretics seize upon as unworthy of God, for the destruction of the Creator, not knowing that these things befitted the Son, who was also to undergo human passions, and thirst, and hunger, and tears, and birth itself, and death itself: For this reason made a little lower than the angels by the Father. But heretics indeed will not even grant that what you yourself attribute to the Father befits the Son of God, as though he had named himself on our account; whereas Scripture says that one was made lower by another, not that he was made lower by himself.

What if also another was crowned with glory and honour, and another crowned him, namely the Father crowning the Son? Otherwise, what manner of thing is it, that God almighty, that invisible one whom no man has seen nor can see: he who dwells in unapproachable light: he who does not dwell in things made with hands; at whose sight the earth trembles, the mountains melt like wax; who grasps the whole world in his hand like a nest; for whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool; in whom is every place, not he himself in a place; who is the outermost boundary of the universe; that Most High one, should have walked in paradise in the evening, seeking Adam; and shut the ark after Noah entered; and refreshed himself under the oak with Abraham; and called Moses from the burning bush; and appeared as a fourth in the furnace of the Babylonian king (though he is called the Son of man), unless these things had been in image, and mirror, and riddle?

Surely even these things would not have been believed concerning the Son of God, had they not been written; perhaps they would not be believed concerning the Father, though written, he whom these men bring down into the womb of Mary, and place before the tribunal of Pilate, and shut up in the tomb of Joseph. Hence therefore their error is apparent. For not knowing that from the beginning the entire order of the divine dispensation ran its course through the Son, they believe that the Father himself was both seen and conversed with men and worked and suffered thirst and hunger, contrary to the Prophet who says: The eternal God shall not thirst, nor hunger at all (how much less shall he die, or be buried!); and so they hold that one God always did, that is the Father, what was done through the Son.

They have found it easier to suppose that the Father acted in the name of the Son, than the Son in the name of the Father; though the Lord himself says: I have come in the name of my Father. Likewise to the Father himself: I have manifested your name to men. Scripture also agreeing: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, meaning the Son in the name of the Father. But also the names of the Father are: God Almighty, Most High, Lord of hosts, King of Israel, He Who Is. Insofar as the Scriptures so teach, we say that these also befitted the Son, and that in these the Son came, and in these he always acted, and thus manifested them among men. All things, he says, that the Father has are mine. Why not the names also?

When therefore you read of God Almighty, and Most High, and God of hosts, and King of Israel, and He Who Is; see whether the Son also is not demonstrated by these, being in his own right God Almighty, as the Word of God Almighty, and as having received all power; Most High, as exalted at the right hand of God, as Peter proclaims in the Acts; Lord of hosts, because all things are subjected to him by the Father; King of Israel, because that lot of that nation properly fell to him; likewise, He Who Is, because many sons are so called, and are not. But if they wish the name of Christ also to be the Father's name, they shall hear that in its proper place.

Meanwhile, let this answer be put forward here against what they also bring from the Apocalypse of John: I am the Lord who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty; and wherever else they think the appellation of God Almighty does not apply to the Son as well: as though he who is to come were not almighty, when the Son of the Almighty is as almighty as the Son of God is God.

But lest they readily perceive this fellowship of the Father's names in the Son, Scripture confuses them whenever it establishes God as unique; as though the same Scripture had not also set forth two gods and two lords, as we showed above. Therefore, because we also find two, they say, both are one and the same, both Son and Father. But Scripture is not in danger, that you should come to its aid from your argumentation, lest it appear to contradict itself. It has its reason both when it establishes God as unique and when it shows two, Father and Son; and it is sufficient unto itself. It is established that the Son is named by it.

For with the Son preserved, it can rightly have determined God to be unique, whose Son he is. For he who has a Son does not cease to be himself the unique one, in his own name, of course, whenever he is named without the Son; but he is named without the Son when he is principally defined as the first person, who was to be set forth before the name of the Son; because the Father is known first, and after the Father the Son is named. Therefore God the Father is one, and there is no other apart from him. In saying this himself, he denies not the Son but another God: otherwise the Son is not another apart from the Father.

Look then at the contexts of such pronouncements, and you will find that they pertain for the most part to a definition directed against makers and worshippers of idols; so that the unity of divinity may expel the multitude of false gods, while yet having the Son as so inseparable and undivided from the Father as to be reckoned in the Father, even if not named. But if he had named him, he would have separated him, saying thus: "There is no other besides me, except my Son." For he would have made the Son also another, by excepting him from the others. Suppose the sun were to say: "I am the sun, and there is no other besides me, except my ray," would you not have noted the absurdity, as though the ray were not also reckoned in the sun?

And so his saying that there is no other God besides himself is on account of the idolatry both of the nations and of Israel, and also on account of heretics, who, just as the nations make idols with their hands, so these also fabricate idols with their words, that is, another God and another Christ. Therefore also when he proclaimed himself to be one, the Father was providing for the Son, lest Christ be believed to have come from another God, but from him who had foretold: I am God, and there is no other besides me; who showed himself to be unique, yet with the Son, with whom alone he stretched out the heavens.

Nay, they will also seize upon this saying of his as an argument for singularity: I stretched out the heaven alone, he says. As far as the other powers are concerned, alone—laying a foundation against the conjectures of the heretics, who wish the world to have been constructed by angels and various powers; who also make the Creator himself either an angel, or one who was even set up in ignorance of other things which are external, as the works of the world. Or if he thus stretched out heaven alone, how do those heretics presume perversely, as though that Wisdom were not admitted as singular, which says: When he prepared the heavens I was present with him together? And if the Apostle said: Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counsellor? He says this surely apart from Wisdom, who was present with him. Yet in him and with him she was joining all things together, he not being ignorant of what he was doing.

But apart from Wisdom, he says apart from the Son, who is Christ, the Wisdom and Power of God according to the Apostle, alone knowing the mind of the Father: For who knows the things that are in God, except the spirit which is in him? Not one who is outside him. There was therefore one who made God not alone, except alone from the rest. But let the Gospel also be rejected, which says that all things were made by God through the Word, and without him nothing was made. For unless I am mistaken, it is also written elsewhere: By his Word the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their powers. And the Word, moreover, being Power and Wisdom, will himself be the Son of God. Thus if all things are through the Son, stretching out heaven also through the Son, he did not stretch it out alone, except in that sense by which he is alone from the rest.

And so he speaks immediately of the Son: Who else cast down the signs of ventriloquists, and divinations from the heart, turning the wise backward, and making their counsel foolish? Confirming the words of his Son, by declaring, that is: This is my beloved Son; hear him. Thus by subjoining the Son, he himself is the interpreter of how he stretched out heaven alone, namely alone with the Son, just as he is one with the Son. Accordingly the voice of the Son also will be: I stretched out heaven alone; because by the Word the heavens were established. Because with Wisdom, that is, with the Word standing by, heaven was prepared, and all things were made through the Word, it is fitting also that the Son alone stretched out heaven, because he alone ministered to the operation of the Father. The same one will be saying: I am the first, and moreover I am he who is to come.

The first of all things, that is, is the Word: In the beginning was the Word; in which beginning he was brought forth by the Father. But the Father, having no beginning, as brought forth by no one, as unborn, cannot be seen. He who alone always existed could not have an order. Therefore if for this reason they thought that the same one must be believed to be both Father and Son, in order to vindicate one God, his unity is preserved, since he who is one also has a Son, who is likewise himself comprehended by the same Scriptures.

If they are unwilling for the Son to be reckoned second to the Father, lest a second one make two gods to be spoken of, we have shown that even two gods are recorded in Scripture, and two lords; and yet, lest they be scandalized at this, we have given the reason by which they are not called two Gods, nor two Lords, but by which the Father and Son are two; and this not from a separation of substance, but from a disposition, since we declare the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father; and other not in state but in degree; who, even if he is called God, when named as singular, does not thereby make two gods, but one, by this very fact that he also has to be called God from the unity of the Father.

But labor must still be given to blunting their arguments, if they excerpt anything from the Scriptures for their opinion, being unwilling to look at the rest, which themselves also maintain the rule, and indeed with the unity of divinity preserved, and the sound of monarchy. For just as in the old writings they hold to nothing other than, I am God, and there is no other besides me; so in the Gospel they defend the Lord's answer to Philip, I and the Father are one; and, He who has seen me has seen the Father also; and, I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. By these three passages they wish the entire instrument of both Testaments to yield, when the fewer ought to be understood according to the more numerous, but this is the peculiar habit of all heretics. For because there are few things which can be found in the forest, they defend the few against the many, and take up the later against the earlier.

But the rule for every matter, always established from the beginning, prescribes from the earlier and from the more numerous against the later, and certainly also against the fewer.

Look therefore at how much is prescribed for you even in the Gospel, before the consultation of Philip, and before all your argumentation. And first of all, the very preface of John the Evangelist demonstrates who it was that had to become flesh: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. For if these things may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, another is undoubtedly shown, who existed from the beginning, and another with whom he existed: that the Word is one, and God another (although God also is the Word, but as the Son of God, not as the Father): another through whom all things exist, another from whom all things exist.

But how we say another, we have already set forth many times; why we must say another, is so that he not be the same; another, however, not as if separated, but other in disposition, not in division. This one therefore was made flesh, not he whose Word he was. The glory of this one was seen as of the only-begotten from the Father, not as of the Father. This one disclosed the bosom of the Father, not the Father his own bosom. For it precedes: No one has ever seen God. The same one is also designated as the Lamb of God by John, not he whose beloved he is. Certainly always the Son of God, but not he whose Son he is. This is what Nathanael immediately perceived, as also Peter elsewhere: Thou art the Son of God.

This also he himself confirms that they had rightly perceived, answering Nathanael indeed: Because I said, I saw thee under the fig tree, therefore thou believest; and declaring Peter blessed, to whom neither flesh nor blood had revealed it (for he had also perceived the Father), but the Father who is in the heavens. By which saying he established the distinction of both persons, both of the Son on earth, whom Peter had acknowledged as the Son of God, and of the Father who is in the heavens, who had revealed to Peter what Peter had acknowledged, that Christ is the Son of God. When he entered the temple, he calls it the house of the Father, as the Son. When he says to Nicodemus: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And again: For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

He who believes in him is not judged; he who does not believe in him is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. But John, when asked what would befall Jesus: The Father, he says, loves the Son, and has delivered all things into his hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe in the Son of God will not see God, but the wrath of God abides upon him. But whom did he reveal to the Samaritan woman? If the Messiah who is called Christ, he showed himself to be the Son, not the Father, who is also elsewhere called Christ the Son of God, not the Father. Thereupon to the disciples: It is mine, he says, to do the will of him who sent me, to complete his work. And to the Jews, concerning the healing of the paralytic: My Father works until now, and I work. The Father and I, says the Son.

Finally, for this reason the Jews wished all the more to kill him, not only because he broke the sabbath, but because he called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. Then therefore he said to them: The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it. For what things he does, the same the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son, and has shown him all things that he has done, and will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as he raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent the Son.

Amen, amen I say to you, that he who hears my words, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; and does not come into judgment, but passes from death into life. Amen I say to you, that the hour is coming, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and when they have heard, they will live. For as the Father has eternal life in himself, so also he has given to the Son to have eternal life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the son of man; through the flesh, that is, just as also the Son of God through his spirit. He adds further: But I have a testimony greater than that of John. For the works which the Father has given me to complete, those very works bear testimony concerning me, that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me, he himself has borne testimony concerning me.

And subjoining: Neither have you ever heard his voice, nor seen his form; he confirms that it was not the Father but the Son who was seen and heard in former times. Finally he says: I have come in the name of my Father, and you have not received me. So the Son was always in the name of God and King and Lord and Almighty and Most High. But to those asking what they ought to do, he answered: That you believe in him whom God has sent. He also affirms himself to be the bread which the Father would provide from heaven.

Therefore all that the Father would give him would come to him, and he would not reject it, because he had come down from heaven not to do his own will but the Father's: and the will of the Father is that whoever sees the Son and believes in him should obtain life and resurrection: that moreover no one can come to him unless the Father draws him: that everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to him. Not as though anyone has seen the Father, adding this also here, to show that it is the Father's Word through whom they are taught. But when many depart from him, and he offers the Apostles, if they too wish to depart, what did Simon Peter answer? Whither shall we depart? Thou hast the words of life, and we believe that thou art the Christ. That he is the Father, or the Father's Christ?

But whose teaching does he say it was, at which they marveled? His own, or the Father's? Likewise, when they were disputing among themselves whether he himself were the Christ—certainly not the Father, but the Son—he says: Neither do ye know me, whence I am, and I came not of myself; but there is one true who sent me, whom ye know not. I know him, who am from him, and he sent me: He did not say, because I myself am he, and I myself sent me; but: he sent me. Likewise, when the Pharisees had sent to seize him: Yet a little while, he says, I am with you; and I go to him who sent me. But where does he deny that he is alone? But I, he says, and the Father who sent me—does he not demonstrate two, as much two as inseparable? Indeed, this was the whole of what he was teaching, that the two are inseparable.

For indeed, citing also the law which confirms the testimony of two men, he adds: I bear testimony of myself, and testimony is borne of me by the Father who sent me. But if he were one, since he is both Son and Father at once, he would not make use of the protection of a law imposing credibility not on the testimony of one, but of two. Likewise, when asked where the Father was, answering that neither he himself nor the Father was known to them, he said two were unknown; and if they had known him, they would have known the Father—not indeed as though he himself were both Father and Son, but because by reason of their indivisibility neither can be recognized nor ignored, one without the other. He who sent me, he says, is truthful; and what I have heard from him, that also I speak into the world.

Scripture interpreting from without, that they had not understood what he had said about the Father—since they ought of course to have recognized that the words of the Father are in the Son, by reading in Jeremiah: And the Lord said to me, "Behold, I have given my words into thy mouth;" and in Isaiah: The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, to know when it is fitting to speak a word. As he himself again says: Then, he says, ye shall know that I am he, and that I speak nothing of myself; but as he taught me, so also I speak; because he who sent me is with me. And this too for the testimony of two who are inseparable.

Likewise, in the dispute with the Jews, reproaching them for wishing to kill him: I, he says, speak what I have seen with my Father; and ye do what ye have seen with your father: and now ye wish to kill a man who has spoken to you the truth, which he heard from God; and: If God were your Father, ye would love me. For I went forth from God and came (and yet they are not separated, although he said he went forth, as some seize upon the occasion of this saying; but he went forth from the Father as a ray from the sun, as a stream from a fountain, as a shoot from a seed). I have not a devil, but I honor my Father; and: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is the Father who glorifies me, whom ye say is your God, and ye know him not, but I know him.

And if I say, "I know him not," I shall be like you, a liar; but I know him, and I keep his word. And when he adds: Abraham saw my day, and was glad; he demonstrates that it was the Son who was seen by Abraham of old, not the Father. Likewise, concerning that blind man, he says he must do the works of the Father. To whom, after the restoration of his sight: Dost thou, he says, believe in the Son of God? And to him who asked who this was, pointing himself out, he pointed out the Son, whom he had said must be believed in. Thereafter, he professes himself to be known by the Father, and the Father by himself. And that he is therefore loved by the Father, because he lays down his soul; because he had received this commandment from the Father.

And when asked by the Jews whether he himself were the Christ (certainly of God, for even to this day the Jews hope for a Christ of God, not the Father himself, because Christ the Father is never written as coming): I speak, he says, to you, and ye believe not. The works which I do in the name of the Father, these bear testimony of me. What testimony? That he himself was, namely, the one about whom they were asking, that is, the Christ of God. Concerning his sheep also, that no one would snatch them from his hand: For what my Father has given me is greater than all; and: I and the Father are one.

Here therefore the foolish—nay, the blind—wish to plant their foot, who do not see, first, that I and the Father is the expression of two; then in the last word, are, it is not from the person of one, since it is said in the plural; then also that one are, not "one is." For if he had said "one is," it could have aided their opinion. "One" also seems to be the signification of a singular number. Moreover, when there are two, of masculine gender. He says one, with a neuter verb, which pertains not to singularity but to unity, to likeness, to conjunction, to the love of the Father who loves the Son, and to the obedience of the Son who obeys the will of the Father. By saying, we are one, I and the Father, he shows that there are two, whom he makes equal and joins together. So much so that he adds also that he had shown many works from the Father, for none of which does he deserve to be stoned.

And lest they should think they ought therefore to stone him, as though he had wished to be understood as God himself, that is, the Father—because he had said, I and the Father are one—showing thereby the Son of God to be God, not showing himself to be God himself. If, he says, it is written in the law, "I said, ye are gods," and the Scripture cannot be broken; him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, do ye say he blasphemes, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, and ye will not believe me, believe at least for the works' sake. And know that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. Through the works, therefore, the Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and so through the works we understand that the Father and the Son are one.

So much so did he persist in bringing all this forward, that yet two might be believed in one power; because otherwise the Son could not be believed, unless two were believed.

After these things, Martha, having confessed him to be the Son of God, erred no more than Peter and Nathanael; although even if she had erred, she would have learned straightway. For behold, when about to raise her brother from the dead, the Lord looking up to heaven and to the Father: Father, he says the Son, certainly, I give thee thanks, that thou always hearest me. For the sake of these crowds standing around I have spoken, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. But also in the trouble of his soul: And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. Yet for this cause I came into this hour. But, Father, glorify thy name. In which also was the Son. I, he says, came in the name of the Father. From that, of course, the voice of the Son to the Father had been sufficient. Behold, out of abundance the Father answers from heaven, bears witness to the Son: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have been well pleased, hear him.

So also in this instance, I have glorified, and will glorify again, how many persons seem to thee, most perverse Praxeas, unless as many as there are voices? Thou hast the Son on earth, thou hast the Father in heaven. This is not a separation, but a divine dispensation. Otherwise, we know that God is even within the depths, and subsists everywhere, but by power and might. The Son also, as inseparable, is with him everywhere. Yet in the economy itself, the Father willed the Son to be held on earth, but himself in heaven; wherefore the Son himself also, looking up, both prayed and made petition to the Father, whereby he also taught us, raised up, to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, and although he is also everywhere, this the Father willed to be his seat; he diminished the Son a little below the angels, by sending him down to earth; yet about to crown him with glory and honor, by taking him up again into the heavens.

This he was already bestowing upon him, saying, Both I have glorified, and I will glorify. The Son makes petition from earth, the Father promises from heaven. How dost thou make both Father and Son liars, if either the Father was speaking from heaven to the Son, when he himself was the Son upon earth; or the Son was praying to the Father, when he himself was the Father in heaven? What manner of thing is it that the Son likewise should petition from himself, by petitioning from the Father, if the Son was the Father; or again that the Father should promise to himself, by promising to the Son, if the Father was he?—so that if we were to say the two were divided, as ye loudly proclaim, it was more tolerable to say two divided, than to preach one God who changes his shape.

And so to those people the Lord then declared: That voice came not for my sake, but for yours; that these may believe both the Father and the Son, each in his own names, and persons, and places. But Jesus still cries out and says: He who believes in me, believes not in me; but believes in him who sent me (because through the Son belief is placed in the Father, and the authority for believing in the Son is the Father); and he who beholds me, beholds him who sent me. How so? Because, namely, I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he himself gave me commandment what I should say, and what I should speak, for the Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, to know when it is fitting to speak the word which I speak. As my Father said to me, so also I speak.

How these things were said, the Evangelist and certainly so illustrious a disciple, John, knew better than Praxeas; and therefore he himself, from his own understanding: But before the feast of the Passover, he says, Jesus knowing that all things had been delivered to him by the Father, and that he had gone forth from God, was going to God. But Praxeas wishes the Father himself to have gone forth from himself, and to have gone away to himself, so that the devil put into the heart of Judas not the betrayal of the Son, but of the Father himself. It goes ill for neither the devil nor the heretic; because neither did the devil work the betrayal in his good Son. For it was the Son of God who was betrayed, who was in the son of man, as Scripture adds: Now is the son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. What God?

Certainly not the Father, but the Word of the Father, who was in the son of man, that is, in the flesh, in which also he was already glorified; but by power and word, even before Jesus: And God, he says, glorified him in himself, that is, the Father having the Son in himself, though extended to earth, glorified him soon after through the resurrection, death being conquered.

There were indeed some who even then did not understand. For Thomas also was for a time unbelieving: Lord, he says, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? And Jesus: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also: but henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. And we come now to Philip, who, stirred by the hope of seeing the Father, and not understanding how he had heard that the Father had been seen: Show us, he says, the Father, and it sufficeth us. And the Lord: Philip, so long a time have I been with you, and have ye not known me? He whom he says they ought to have known (for this alone needs to be examined)—was it as the Father, or as the Son?

If as the Father, let Praxeas teach that Christ, having conversed with them so long a time, could at any point—I say not be understood, but even be supposed—to be the Father. For us, all the Scriptures, both old and new, define Christ as of God, and the Son of God. This was proclaimed of old, this was also declared by Christ himself; nay, already even by the Father himself openly from heaven, professing the Son, and glorifying the Son: This is my Son, and: I have glorified and will glorify. This was believed by the disciples, this was not believed by the Jews; and wishing this to be believed by them, he named the Father every hour, and set the Father before them, and honored the Father. If this is so, then it was not the Father whom they had failed to know during so long a time of his conversing with them, but the Son.

And the Lord, reproaching him who did not know him, was plainly wishing to be recognized as the one whom he had reproached them for not recognizing so long a time, that is, the Son. And it now appears how it was said, He that seeth me seeth the Father also. Namely in the same sense as above, I and the Father are one. Why? Because, I came forth from God and came; and, I am the way: no man cometh to the Father but by me; and, No man cometh to me except the Father draw him; and, All things the Father hath delivered to me; and, As the Father quickeneth, so also the Son: and, If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also.

For according to these things he had shown himself to be the vicar of the Father, through whom the Father was both seen in deeds, and heard in words, and known in the Son, who administered the deeds and words of the Father; because the Father is invisible—which Philip also had learned in the law, and ought to have remembered: No man shall see God and live. And therefore he is rebuked for desiring to see the Father as though he were visible, and is instructed that he becomes visible in the Son through his mighty works, not through the presentation of his person. Finally, if he had wished the Father to be understood as the same as the Son, by saying, He that seeth me seeth the Father: how does he add, Believe ye not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? For he ought to have added, Believe ye not that I am the Father?

Or to what end did he press the point, if he had not made plain what he wished to be understood, namely that he himself is the Son? Moreover, by saying, Believe ye not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: he pressed the point for this reason rather, lest because he had said, He that seeth me seeth the Father also, he should be supposed to be the Father—which he never wished to be supposed, he who always professed himself to be the Son and to have come from the Father. Therefore he also made manifest the conjunction of the two persons, lest the Father should be sought apart as though visible to the sight, and that the Son might be held as the representative of the Father. And he likewise interpreted this also, how the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father: The words, he says, which I speak unto you, are not mine; assuredly because they are the Father's.

But the Father abiding in me doeth the works. Through the works of mighty deeds therefore, and the words of teaching, the Father abiding in the Son is seen through those things through which he abides, and through him in whom he abides: from this very fact the property of each person appearing, while he says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me. And accordingly: Believe, he says. What? That I am the Father? I think that is not what is written; but: That I am in the Father, and the Father in me. If not so, at least believe for the works' sake. Those works assuredly through which the Father in the Son was seen, not by sight, but by understanding.

After Philip, and through the whole substance of this question, to what end of the Gospel they persist in the same kind of discourse, in which the Father and the Son are distinguished in their own property, he also promises that he will ask the Paraclete from the Father when he has ascended to the Father, and will send him—and indeed another, but we have already said above in what sense another. Moreover: He shall take of mine, he says: as he himself took of the Father's. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, makes three who cohere, one from another, who three are one thing, not one person. In the same sense as it was said: I and the Father are one; referring to unity of substance, not to singularity of number. Run through further, and you will find that he whom you believe to be the Father is spoken of in the place of the Father.

And the Father as husbandman—you suppose he was on earth, of course. This one is again acknowledged in the heavens by the Son, when looking thither he commits his disciples to the Father. But even if it had not been revealed in this Gospel: My God, why hast thou forsaken me? And, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; yet after the resurrection and the glory of death overcome, with the necessity of all humiliation now set aside, when he could already show himself as the Father to so faithful a woman who approached to touch him out of love, not out of curiosity, nor out of the unbelief of Thomas: Touch me not, he says, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren (and in this too he shows himself to be the Son; for he would have called them sons, if he had been the Father), and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.

Father to Father and God to God; or Son to Father, and Word to God? The very closing clause of the Gospel also—for what purpose does it seal these things as written, except: that ye may believe, he says, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Therefore, whatever of these things you may have supposed could avail you for demonstrating that the Father and the Son are the same, you are striving against the definitive sentence of the Gospel. For they were not written that you might believe Jesus Christ to be the Father, but that he is the Son.

On account of one saying of Philip and the Lord's answer to him, we see that we have run through the Gospel of John, lest so many things plainly declared, both before and after, should be overturned by a single saying—a saying which is to be interpreted according to all things rather than against all things, even against its own meanings. Moreover, not to bring in the other Gospels, which confirm the same concerning the Lord's nativity, it suffices that he who was to be born of a virgin was declared by the angel himself to be determined as the Son of God: The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. They will indeed wish to argue here also, but the truth will prevail.

The Son of God, they say, is God, and the power of the Highest is the Highest. Nor are they ashamed to interject that, if it were so, it would have been written. For whom did he fear, that he should not openly declare, "God shall come upon thee, and the Highest shall overshadow thee"? But by saying the Spirit of God, even if the Spirit of God is God, yet not naming God directly, he wished a portion of the whole to be understood, which was to pass into the name of the Son. This Spirit of God will be the same as the Word. For just as when John says, The Word was made flesh, we also understand the Spirit in the mention of the Word; so here too we recognize the Word in the name of Spirit. For Spirit also is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the two are one.

Otherwise, John will profess one thing made flesh, and the angel another thing to become flesh, if the Spirit is not also the Word, and the Word the Spirit. As therefore the Word of God is not the same as he whose Word it is, so neither is the Spirit; and if it has been called God, it is not however the same as he of whom it has been so called. No thing belonging to someone is itself that someone.

Plainly when something is from him, and is thus his while it is from him, it can be such a thing as he himself from whom it is and whose it is. And therefore the Spirit of God is God, and the Word of God is God, because it is from God—yet not the same as he from whom it is. But if God of God, as a substantial thing, will not be the same God, but God only to this extent, because it is from the very substance of God, by which it is also a substantial thing, and as a portion of the whole. Much more the power of the Highest will not be the Highest himself, because neither is what the Spirit is a substantial thing, as neither is wisdom, nor providence; for these also are not substances, but accidents of each individual substance. Power is an accident of the Spirit, and will not itself be the Spirit.

By these things therefore, whatever they are—the Spirit of God and the Word and the power—brought together into the virgin, that which is born of her is the Son of God. This he himself testifies even in these Gospels, from his boyhood: Know ye not, he says, that I must be in my Father's house? This also Satan knew in the temptations: If thou be the Son of God. This also the demons confess from that time: We know who thou art, the Son of God. He himself worships the Father. He does not deny that he is acknowledged by Peter as the Christ of God. Exulting in the Spirit to the Father: I confess to thee, Father, he says, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise. Here also he affirms that the Father is known to none but the Son.

And those who confess the Son of the Father he will confess before the Father, and those who deny him he will deny; introducing the parable of the son, not the father, sent into the vineyard after several servants, and slain by the wicked husbandmen, and defended by the Father; himself also not knowing the last day and hour, known to the Father alone; appointing a kingdom to the disciples, as he says it has been appointed to himself by the Father; having power to ask legions of angels for help from the Father if he wished; crying out that God had forsaken him, laying his spirit in the Father's hands; and after the resurrection promising to send to the disciples the promise of the Father; and lastly commanding that they should baptize in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not in one. For we are baptized not once but three times, at each name into the several persons.

And why do I linger over matters so manifest, when I ought to press on to those things by which they seek to obscure what is manifest? For being hemmed in on every side by the distinction of Father and Son, which we set forth while maintaining their union—as of the sun and its ray, and of the fountain and the river—yet through the indivisible number of two and three, they attempt to interpret it otherwise, so as nonetheless to bring it to their own opinion, distinguishing both in one person, Father and Son, saying that the Son is the flesh, that is, the man, that is, Jesus; but the Father is the spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And those who contend that the Father and the Son are one and the same, now begin to divide them rather than to unite them. For if Jesus is one and Christ is another, then the Son will be one and the Father another; because the Son is Jesus, and the Father is Christ.

Such a monarchy they perhaps learned from Valentinus—to make two, Jesus and Christ. But this their thrust has already been blunted by what was treated before, namely that the Word of God, or the Spirit of God and the power of the Most High, is said to be that which they make the Father. For these are not the Father himself, of whom they are said to be, but are from him and of him. And yet they shall be refuted in another way on this point. "Behold," they say, "it was proclaimed by the angel: Therefore that which shall be born shall be called holy, the Son of God; the flesh therefore is born, the flesh at any rate will be the Son of God." Nay, it was said of the Spirit of God.

For certainly the virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit; and what she conceived, that she brought forth; that therefore was to be born which had been conceived and was to be brought forth—that is, the Spirit, whose name also shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us. But flesh is not God, so that it should be said of it, that which shall be born holy shall be called the Son of God; but he who was born in it is God, of whom also the psalm says: Because God, a man, was born in her, and he built her by the will of the Father. What God was born in her? The Word and the Spirit, who together with the Word was born by the will of the Father. Therefore the Word in the flesh—while also on this point it must be asked how the Word was made flesh; whether as if transformed into flesh, or clothed with flesh? Nay, clothed with it.

For otherwise, God must be believed to be immutable and incapable of being formed, as being eternal. But transformation is the destruction of the former state. For everything whatsoever that is transformed into something else ceases to be what it was, and begins to be what it was not. But God neither ceases to be, nor can he be anything else. But the Word is God; and the word of the Lord abides for ever, persevering, that is, in its own form. If then it cannot be conceived that he was transformed, it follows that he is to be understood as made flesh in this way—while he comes to be in the flesh, and is manifested, and is seen, and is handled through the flesh: because the other things also require to be taken in this sense.

For if the Word was made flesh by transformation and change of substance, he will henceforth be one substance, Jesus, out of two—a kind of mixture of flesh and spirit, as electrum is of gold and silver; and he begins to be neither gold, that is, spirit, nor silver, that is, flesh, since the one is changed by the other and a third something is produced. Jesus therefore will not be God. For the Word has ceased to be, having been made flesh; nor will he be flesh, that is, man, for flesh is not properly that which was the Word. Thus out of both he is neither; he is something far other and third than both.

But indeed we find him set forth directly as both God and man, the very psalm suggesting this, since God, a man, was born in her, he built her by the will of the Father; certainly throughout as the Son of God and the son of man, since he is without doubt God and man according to each substance in its own proper character at a distance from the other: because neither is the Word anything other than God, nor is the flesh anything other than man. So also the Apostle teaches concerning both his substances: Who was made, he says, of the seed of David. This will be the man and the son of man, who is defined as the Son of God according to the Spirit. This will be God, and the Son of God the Word. We see a twofold state, not confused but conjoined in one person, Jesus, God and man. But concerning Christ I defer.

And so fully is the proper character of each substance preserved, that the Spirit carried out its own acts in him—that is, the powers and works and signs—and the flesh fulfilled its own sufferings, hungering under the devil, thirsting under the Samaritan woman, weeping for Lazarus, troubled even unto death; and finally also died. But if he were a third something out of both confounded together like electrum, such distinct evidences of each substance would not be apparent. But the Spirit would have done fleshly things, and the flesh spiritual things, by interchange; or neither fleshly nor spiritual things, but things of some third form, out of the confusion: nay, either the Word would have died, or the flesh would not have died, if the Word had been converted into flesh; for either the flesh would have been immortal, or the Word mortal. But because both substances each distinctly acted in their own state, therefore their own works and outcomes befell them.

Learn therefore with Nicodemus: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is of the Spirit is spirit. Neither does flesh become spirit, nor spirit flesh. In one person plainly they can exist. Of these Jesus was constituted—of flesh, man; of spirit, God—whom the angel then, from that part by which he was Spirit, pronounced the Son of God, preserving for the flesh the title of son of man. So also the Apostle, calling him even the mediator of God and men, confirmed both substances. Finally, you who interpret the Son of God as flesh, show who is the son of man. Or will he be spirit? But you wish the spirit to be the Father himself; because God is spirit—as though the Spirit of God were not also: just as the Word also is God, and the Word of God.

And so you make Christ the Father, most foolish one, who does not even consider the very force of this name, if indeed Christ is a name and not rather a title; for it signifies anointed. But anointed is no more a name than clothed, or shod—a thing accidental to the name. Or if you, on some ground, were also to call Jesus clothed—in the same way as he is called Christ from the sacrament of anointing—would you likewise say that Jesus is the Son of God, but believe that the clothed one is the Father? Now concerning Christ. If the Father is Christ, the Father is anointed, and assuredly by another. Or if by himself, prove it.

But the Acts of the Apostles do not so teach, in that exclamation of the Church to God: For there were gathered together in this city against thy holy Son Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, Herod and Pilate with the nations; thus they also testified both that Jesus is the Son of God, and that the Son was anointed by the Father. Therefore Jesus will be the same Christ, who was anointed by the Father—not the Father, who anointed the Son. So also Peter: Let all the house of Israel therefore know most assuredly, that God has made him both Lord and Christ—that is, anointed—this Jesus whom you crucified. But John also marks as a liar him who denies that Jesus is the Christ; and on the other hand, as born of God, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ. For which reason he also exhorts us to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, so that we may have fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

So also Paul everywhere sets down God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. When he writes to the Romans, he gives thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When to the Galatians, he declares himself an apostle not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father. And you have all his writings which pronounce in this manner, and set forth two—God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, and that Jesus himself is the Christ, in the other name also the Son of God. For thenceforth, by the right by which both names belong to one, that is, to the Son of God, either one without the other also belongs to the same. And whether Jesus only is named, Christ also is understood; because Jesus is anointed. Or if Christ only is named, the same is Jesus, because Jesus is anointed.

Of which names the one is proper, which was given by the angel; the other accidental, which belongs to him from the anointing; provided nonetheless that Christ is the Son, not the Father. Finally, how blind is he who does not understand even in the name of Christ that another God is signified, if he ascribes the name of the Father to Christ? For if Christ is God the Father, who says: I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God; he assuredly points to another Father above himself and a God. If likewise the Father is Christ, he is another who establishes the thunder, and creates the spirit, and announces to men his Christ; and if the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against his Christ; there will be another Lord, against whose Christ the kings and rulers were gathered. And if: Thus says the Lord to my Lord Christ; there will be another Lord who speaks to the Father of Christ.

And when the Apostle writes: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you the spirit of wisdom and of knowledge; there will be another God of Christ Jesus, the bestower of spiritual gifts. Certainly, lest we wander through everything; he who raised Christ will also raise our mortal bodies; and already there will be another raiser than the Father who died, and the Father who was raised, if Christ who died is the Father.

Let that blasphemy be silent, let it be silent; let it suffice that Christ the Son of God is said to have died—and this because it is so written. For even the Apostle, when pronouncing that Christ died not without a certain weight, added, according to the Scriptures; so that he might soften the harshness of the pronouncement by the authority of the Scriptures, and overturn the scandal for the hearer. Although, since two substances are reckoned in Christ Jesus, the divine and the human, and since it is established that the divine is immortal, just as that which is human is mortal, it is apparent in what sense he says that he died—that is, in respect of flesh and man and son of man, not in respect of spirit and Word and Son of God. When he says, finally, Christ died—that is, the Anointed—he shows that what was anointed died, that is, the flesh.

Therefore, you say, we also, by the same reasoning by which you call the Son dead, call the Father dead without blaspheming against the Lord God; for we say he died not from the divine but from the human substance. But indeed you blaspheme not only because you call the Father dead, but also because you call him crucified. For by the curse of the crucified, which from the law applies to the Son (because Christ was made a curse for us, not the Father), you convert Christ into the Father, and so blaspheme against the Father. But we, in saying that Christ was crucified, do not curse him, but report the curse of the law; because neither did the Apostle blaspheme in saying this. Now just as what a thing is capable of having said of it is said without blasphemy, so what it is not capable of is blasphemy if it be said.

Therefore neither did the Father suffer with the Son; for thus those who fear direct blasphemy against the Father hope to diminish it in this way, now conceding that the Father and the Son are two; if indeed the Son suffers, but the Father suffers-with. Foolish in this also. For what is it to suffer-with, but to suffer together with another? Moreover, if the Father is impassible, he is certainly also incapable of suffering-with. Or if he is capable of suffering-with, he is certainly capable of suffering. You gain nothing for him even by this fear of yours. You fear to call him passible, yet you call him capable of suffering-with. But the Father is as incapable of suffering-with as the Son also is impassible in that condition by which he is God. But how did the Son suffer, if the Father did not suffer-with him? He was separated from the Son, not from God.

For even if a river is contaminated by some turbulence, although it flows as one substance from the source and is not separated from the source, yet the injury of the river will not pertain to the source. And although it is the water of the source that suffers in the river, since it does not suffer in the source but in the river, it is not the source that suffers but the river which is from the source. So also, even if the Spirit of God could suffer anything in the Son, yet since he would not suffer in the Father but in the Son, the Father would not be seen to have suffered. But it suffices that the Spirit of God suffered nothing under his own name; because if he suffered anything, he suffered indeed in the Son, in whom the Father also was, when the Son suffered in the flesh; because this has been treated above.

Nor will anyone deny it, since even we cannot suffer for God unless the Spirit of God be in us, who also speaks through us those things that belong to confession; yet he himself does not suffer, but grants the ability to suffer.

Otherwise, if you press further, I shall be able to answer you more sharply, and to confront you with the very pronouncement of the Lord himself, so as to say: Why do you inquire about this? You have him crying out in his passion: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Therefore either the Son was suffering, forsaken by the Father, and the Father who forsook the Son did not suffer; or if it was the Father who was suffering, to what God was he crying out? But this voice was uttered by the flesh and soul, that is, by the man, not by the Word nor by the Spirit, that is, not by God, for this reason: to show that God is impassible, who so forsook the Son as to deliver his humanity to death. This also the Apostle understood, writing: If the Father spared not the Son. This also Isaiah declared beforehand: And the Lord delivered him for our sins. Thus he forsook him in not sparing; thus he forsook him in delivering.

Yet for all that, the Father did not forsake the Son, in whose hands the Son placed his spirit. He placed it, and immediately died; for while the spirit remains in the flesh, the flesh cannot die at all. Thus, to be forsaken by the Father was for the Son to die. The Son therefore both dies and is raised by the Father, according to the Scriptures. The Son ascends into the higher parts of the heavens, who also descended into the lower parts of the earth; he sits at the right hand of the Father, not the Father at his own. Stephen sees him when he is stoned, still standing at the right hand of God, as one who from that point would sit, until the Father places all his enemies under his feet. He also is to come again upon the clouds of heaven, such as he also ascended.

He in the meantime poured out the gift received from the Father, the Holy Spirit, the third name of the divinity and the third degree of the majesty, the proclaimer of the one monarchy, and also the interpreter of the economy—if anyone shall have admitted the utterances of his new prophecy—and the guide into all truth, which is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the Christian mystery.

Otherwise this matter belongs to the Jewish faith, to believe in one God in such a way that you are unwilling to number the Son alongside him, and after the Son, the Spirit. For what will be the difference between us and them, if not this distinction? What is the work of the Gospel, what is the substance of the New Testament, which establishes the Law and the Prophets up to John, if from that point the Father and the Son and the Spirit, believed as three, do not constitute one God? Thus God willed to renew the mystery, so that he might be believed as one in a new way through the Son and the Spirit, so that God might now be known openly in his own proper names and persons—he who also aforetime was proclaimed through the Son and the Spirit yet was not understood. Let the antichrists therefore take heed, who deny the Father and the Son.

For they deny the Father in calling him the same as the Son; and they deny the Son in believing him to be the same as the Father, giving to them what does not belong to them and taking away what does. But whoever shall have confessed that Christ is the Son of God and not the Father, God abides in him and he in God. We believe the testimony of God, by which he bore witness concerning his Son: He who has not the Son has not life. But he does not have the Son who believes him to be other than the Son.