Selections of St. Athanasius’ writings on the Jews

Against the Heathen

45. Conclusion . Doctrine of Scripture on the subject of Part I.

For just as by looking up to the heaven and seeing its order and the light of the stars, it is possible to infer the Word Who ordered these things, so by beholding the Word of God, one needs must behold also God His Father, proceeding from Whom He is rightly called His Father’s Interpreter and Messenger. 2. And this one may see from our own experience; for if when a word proceeds from men we infer that the mind is its source, and, by thinking about the word, see with our reason the mind which it reveals, by far greater evidence and incomparably more, seeing the power of the Word, we receive a knowledge also of His good Father, as the Saviour Himself says, He that has seen Me has seen the Father John 14:9 . But this all inspired Scripture also teaches more plainly and with more authority, so that we in our turn write boldly to you as we do, and you, if you refer to them, will be able to verify what we say. 3. For an argument when confirmed by higher authority is irresistibly proved. From the first then the divine Word firmly taught the Jewish people about the abolition of idols when it said Exodus 20:4: You shall not make to yourself a graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or in the earth beneath. But the cause of their abolition another writer declares , saying: The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the works of men’s hands: a mouth have they and will not speak, eyes have they and will not see, ears have they and will not hear, noses have they and will not smell, hands have they and will not handle, feet have they and will not walk. Nor has it passed over in silence the doctrine of creation; but, knowing well its beauty, lest any attending solely to this beauty should worship things as if they were gods, instead of God’s works, it teaches men firmly beforehand when it says Deuteronomy 4:19: And do not when you look up with your eyes and see the sun and moon and all the host of heaven, go astray and worship them, which the Lord your God has given to all nations under heaven. But He gave them, not to be their gods, but that by their agency the Gentiles should know, as we have said, God the Maker of them all. 4. For the people of the Jews of old had abundant teaching, in that they had the knowledge of God not only from the works of Creation, but also from the divine Scriptures. And in general to draw men away from the error and irrational imagination of idols, He says Exodus 20:3: You shall have none other gods but Me. Not as if there were other gods does He forbid them to have them, but lest any, turning from the true God, should begin to make himself gods of what were not, such as those who in the poets and writers are called gods, though they are none. And the language itself shows that they are no Gods, when it says, You shall have none other gods, which refers only to the future. But what is referred to the future does not exist at the time of speaking.

46. Doctrine of Scripture on the subject of Part 3.

Has then the divine teaching, which abolished the godlessness of the heathen or the idols, passed over in silence, and left the race of mankind to go entirely unprovided with the knowledge of God? Not so: rather it anticipates their understanding when it says : Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God; and again, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength; and again, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve, and shall cleave to Him. 2. But that the providence and ordering power of the Word also, over all and toward all, is attested by all inspired Scripture, this passage suffices to confirm our argument, where men who speak of God say : You have laid the foundation of the earth and it abides. The day continues according to Your ordinance. And again : Sing to our God upon the harp, that covers the heaven with clouds, that prepares rain for the earth, that brings forth grass upon the mountains, and green herb for the service of man, and gives food to the cattle. 3. But by whom does He give it, save by Him through Whom all things were made? For the providence over all things belongs naturally to Him by Whom they were made; and who is this save the Word of God, concerning Whom in another psalm he says: By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Breath of His mouth. For He tells us that all things were made in Him and through Him. 4. Wherefore He also persuades us and says , He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created; as the illustrious Moses also at the beginning of his account of Creation confirms what we say by his narrative Genesis 1:20, saying: and God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness: for also when He was carrying out the creation of the heaven and earth and all things, the Father said to Him Genesis 1:6-11, Let the heaven be made, and let the waters be gathered together and let the dry land appear, and let the earth bring forth herb and every green thing: so that one must convict Jews also of not genuinely attending to the Scriptures. 5. For one might ask them to whom was God speaking, to use the imperative mood? If He were commanding and addressing the things He was creating, the utterance would be redundant, for they were not yet in being, but were about to be made; but no one speaks to what does not exist, nor addresses to what is not yet made a command to be made. For if God were giving a command to the things that were to be, He must have said, Be made, heaven, and be made, earth, and come forth, green herb, and be created, O man. But in fact He did not do so; but He gives the command thus: Let us make man, and let the green herb come forth. By which God is proved to be speaking about them to some one at hand: it follows then that some one was with Him to Whom He spoke when He made all things. 6. Who then could it be, save His Word? For to whom could God be said to speak, except His Word? Or who was with Him when He made all created Existence, except His Wisdom, which says Proverbs 8:27: When He was making the heaven and the earth I was present with Him? But in the mention of heaven and earth, all created things in heaven and earth are included as well. 7. But being present with Him as His Wisdom and His Word, looking at the Father He fashioned the Universe, and organised it and gave it order; and, as He is the power of the Father, He gave all things strength to be, as the Saviour says : Whatever things I see the Father doing, I also do in like manner. And His holy disciples teach that all things were made through Him and unto Him; 8. and, being the good Offspring of Him that is good, and true Son, He is the Father’s Power and Wisdom and Word, not being so by participation , nor as if these qualifies were imparted to Him from without, as they are to those who partake of Him and are made wise by Him, and receive power and reason in Him; but He is the very Wisdom, very Word, and very own Power of the Father, very Light, very Truth, very Righteousness, very Virtue, and in truth His express Image, and Brightness, and Resemblance. And to sum all up, He is the wholly perfect Fruit of the Father, and is alone the Son, and unchanging Image of the Father.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2801.htm>.

On the Incarnation of the Word

1. Introductory.— The subject of this treatise: the humiliation and incarnation of the Word. Presupposes the doctrine of Creation, and that by the Word. The Father has saved the world by Him through Whom he first made it.

Whereas in what precedes we have drawn out — choosing a few points from among many — a sufficient account of the error of the heathen concerning idols, and of the worship of idols, and how they originally came to be invented; how, namely, out of wickedness men devised for themselves the worshipping of idols: and whereas we have by God’s grace noted somewhat also of the divinity of the Word of the Father, and of His universal Providence and power, and that the Good Father through Him orders all things, and all things are moved by Him, and in Him are quickened: come now, Macarius (worthy of that name), and true lover of Christ, let us follow up the faith of our religion , and set forth also what relates to the Word’s becoming Man, and to His divine Appearing among us, which Jews traduce and Greeks laugh to scorn, but we worship; in order that, all the more for the seeming low estate of the Word, your piety toward Him may be increased and multiplied. 2. For the more He is mocked among the unbelieving, the more witness does He give of His own Godhead; inasmuch as He not only Himself demonstrates as possible what men mistake, thinking impossible, but what men deride as unseemly, this by His own goodness He clothes with seemliness, and what men, in their conceit of wisdom, laugh at as merely human, He by His own power demonstrates to be divine, subduing the pretensions of idols by His supposed humiliation — by the Cross — and those who mock and disbelieve invisibly winning over to recognise His divinity and power. 3. But to treat this subject it is necessary to recall what has been previously said; in order that you may neither fail to know the cause of the bodily appearing of the Word of the Father, so high and so great, nor think it a consequence of His own nature that the Saviour has worn a body; but that being incorporeal by nature, and Word from the beginning, He has yet of the loving-kindness and goodness of His own Father been manifested to us in a human body for our salvation. 4. It is, then, proper for us to begin the treatment of this subject by speaking of the creation of the universe, and of God its Artificer, that so it may be duly perceived that the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it.

2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected. (1) Epicurean (fortuitous generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating intellect. (2.) Platonists (pre-existent matter.) But this subjects God to human limitations, making Him not a creator but a mechanic. (3) Gnostics (an alien Demiurge). Rejected from Scripture.

6. For whereas the Lord says to the Jews : Have you not read that from the beginning He which created them made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall become one flesh? and then, referring to the Creator, says, What, therefore, God has joined together let not man put asunder: how come these men to assert that the creation is independent of the Father? Or if, in the words of John, who says, making no exception, All things John 1:3 were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made, how could the artificer be another, distinct from the Father of Christ?

12. For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of him. Yet further, He ordained a Law and Prophets, whose ministry was meant for all the world. Yet men heeded only their own lusts.

For whereas the grace of the Divine Image was in itself sufficient to make known God the Word, and through Him the Father; still God, knowing the weakness of men, made provision even for their carelessness: so that if they cared not to know God of themselves, they might be enabled through the works of creation to avoid ignorance of the Maker. 2. But since men’s carelessness, little by little, descends to lower things, God made provision, once more, even for this weakness of theirs, by sending a law, and prophets, men such as they knew, so that even if they were not ready to look up to heaven and know their Creator, they might have their instruction from those near at hand. For men are able to learn from men more directly about higher things. 3. So it was open to them, by looking into the height of heaven, and perceiving the harmony of creation, to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Who, by His own providence over all things makes known the Father to all, and to this end moves all things, that through Him all may know God. 4. Or, if this were too much for them, it was possible for them to meet at least the holy men, and through them to learn of God, the Maker of all things, the Father of Christ; and that the worship of idols is godlessness, and full of all impiety. 5. Or it was open to them, by knowing the law even, to cease from all lawlessness and live a virtuous life. For neither was the law for the Jews alone, nor were the Prophets sent for them only, but, though sent to the Jews and persecuted by the Jews, they were for all the world a holy school of the knowledge of God and the conduct of the soul. 6. God’s goodness then and loving-kindness being so great — men nevertheless, overcome by the pleasures of the moment and by the illusions and deceits sent by demons, did not raise their heads toward the truth, but loaded themselves the more with evils and sins, so as no longer to seem rational, but from their ways to be reckoned void of reason.

14. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possible. Blinded himself, man could not see to heal. The witness of creation had failed to preserve him, and could not bring him back. The Word alone could do so. But how? Only by revealing Himself as Man.

For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood: for, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it; 2. in the same way also the most holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in His likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the remission of sins; as He says Himself in the Gospels: I came to find and to save the lost. Whence He said to the Jews also: Except a man be born again, not meaning, as they thought, birth from woman, but speaking of the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God’s image. 3. But since wild idolatry and godlessness occupied the world, and the knowledge of God was hid, whose part was it to teach the world concerning the Father? Man’s, might one say? But it was not in man’s power to penetrate everywhere beneath the sun; for neither had they the physical strength to run so far, nor would they be able to claim credence in this matter, nor were they sufficient by themselves to withstand the deceit and impositions of evil spirits. 4. For where all were smitten and confused in soul from demoniacal deceit, and the vanity of idols, how was it possible for them to win over man’s soul and man’s mind — whereas they cannot even see them? Or how can a man convert what he does not see? 5. But perhaps one might say creation was enough; but if creation were enough, these great evils would never have come to pass. For creation was there already, and all the same, men were grovelling in the same error concerning God. 6. Who, then, was needed, save the Word of God, that sees both soul and mind, and that gives movement to all things in creation, and by them makes known the Father? For He who by His own Providence and ordering of all things was teaching men concerning the Father, He it was that could renew this same teaching as well. 7. How, then, could this have been done? Perhaps one might say, that the same means were open as before, for Him to show forth the truth about the Father once more by means of the work of creation. But this was no longer a sure means. Quite the contrary; for men missed seeing this before, and have turned their eyes no longer upward but downward. 8. Whence, naturally, willing to profit men, He sojourns here as man, taking to Himself a body like the others, and from things of earth, that is by the works of His body [He teaches them], so that they who would not know Him from His Providence and rule over all things, may even from the works done by His actual body know the Word of God which is in the body, and through Him the Father.

18. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by casting out devils, by Miracles, by His Birth of the Virgin.

Accordingly, when inspired writers on this matter speak of Him as eating and being born, understand that the body, as body, was born, and sustained with food corresponding to its nature, while God, the Word Himself, Who was united with the body, while ordering all things, also by the works He did in the body showed Himself to be not man, but God the Word. But these things are said of Him, because the actual body which ate, was born, and suffered, belonged to none other but to the Lord: and because, having become man, it was proper for these things to be predicated of Him as man, to show Him to have a body in truth, and not in seeming. 2. But just as from these things He was known to be bodily present, so from the works He did in the body He made Himself known to be Son of God. Whence also He cried to the unbelieving Jews; If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though you believe not Me, believe My works; that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. 3. For just as, though invisible, He is known through the works of creation; so, having become man, and being in the body unseen, it may be known from His works that He Who can do these is not man, but the Power and Word of God. 4. For His charging evil spirits, and their being driven forth, this deed is not of man, but of God. Or who that saw Him healing the diseases to which the human race is subject, can still think Him man and not God? For He cleansed lepers, made lame men to walk, opened the hearing of deaf men, made blind men to see again, and in a word drove away from men all diseases and infirmities: from which acts it was possible even for the most ordinary observer to see His Godhead. For who that saw Him give back what was deficient to men born lacking, and open the eyes of the man blind from his birth, would have failed to perceive that the nature of men was subject to Him, and that He was its Artificer and Maker? For He that gave back that which the man from his birth had not, must be, it is surely evident, the Lord also of men’s natural birth. 5. Therefore, even to begin with, when He was descending to us, He fashioned His body for Himself from a Virgin, thus to afford to all no small proof of His Godhead, in that He Who formed this is also Maker of everything else as well. For who, seeing a body proceeding forth from a Virgin alone without man, can fail to infer that He Who appears in it is Maker and Lord of other bodies also? 6. Or who, seeing the substance of water changed and transformed into wine, fails to perceive that He Who did this is Lord and Creator of the substance of all waters? For to this end He went upon the sea also as its Master, and walked as on dry land, to afford evidence to them that saw it of His lordship over all things. And in feeding so vast a multitude on little, and of His own self yielding abundance where none was, so that from five loaves five thousand had enough, and left so much again over, did He show Himself to be any other than the very Lord Whose Providence is over all things?

22. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so guard its immortality? (1) It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet not to shun it. (2) He came to receive death as the due of others, therefore it should come to Him from without. (3) His death must be certain, to guarantee the truth of His Resurrection. Also, He could not die from infirmity, lest He should be mocked in His healing of others.

But it were better, one might say, to have hidden from the designs of the Jews, that He might guard His body altogether from death. Now let such an one be told that this too was unbefitting the Lord. For as it was not fitting for the Word of God, being the Life, to inflict death Himself on His own body, so neither was it suitable to fly from death offered by others, but rather to follow it up unto destruction, for which reason He naturally neither laid aside His body of His own accord, nor, again, fled from the Jews when they took counsel against Him. 2. But this did not show weakness on the Word’s part, but, on the contrary, showed Him to be Saviour and Life; in that He both awaited death to destroy it, and hasted to accomplish the death offered Him for the salvation of all. 3. And besides, the Saviour came to accomplish not His own death, but the death of men; whence He did not lay aside His body by a death of His own John 10:17-18 — for He was Life and had none — but received that death which came from men, in order perfectly to do away with this when it met Him in His own body. 4. Again, from the following also one might see the reasonableness of the Lord’s body meeting this end. The Lord was especially concerned for the resurrection of the body which He was set to accomplish. For what He was to do was to manifest it as a monument of victory over death, and to assure all of His having effected the blotting out of corruption, and of the incorruption of their bodies from thenceforward; as a gage of which and a proof of the resurrection in store for all, He has preserved His own body incorrupt. 5. If, then, once more, His body had fallen sick, and the word had been sundered from it in the sight of all, it would have been unbecoming that He who healed the diseases of others should suffer His own instrument to waste in sickness. For how could His driving out the diseases of others have been believed Matthew 27:42 in if His own temple fell sick in Him ? For either He had been mocked as unable to drive away diseases, or if He could, but did not, He would be thought insensible toward others also.

25. Why the Cross, of all deaths? (1) He had to bear the curse for us. (2) On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. (3) He defeated the Prince of the powers of the air in His own region, clearing the way to heaven and opening for us the everlasting doors.

And thus much in reply to those without who pile up arguments for themselves. But if any of our own people also inquire, not from love of debate, but from love of learning, why He suffered death in none other way save on the Cross, let him also be told that no other way than this was good for us, and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our sakes. 2. For if He came Himself to bear the curse laid upon us, how else could He have become Galatians 3:13 a curse, unless He received the death set for a curse? And that is the Cross. For this is exactly what is written: Cursed Deuteronomy 21:23 is he that hangs on a tree. 3. Again, if the Lord’s death is the ransom of all, and by His death the middle Ephesians 2:14 wall of partition is broken down, and the calling of the nations is brought about, how would He have called us to Him, had He not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out. Whence it was fitting for the Lord to bear this also and to spread out His hands, that with the one He might draw the ancient people, and with the other those from the Gentiles, and unite both in Himself. 4. For this is what He Himself has said, signifying by what manner of death He was to ransom all: I, when John 12:32 I am lifted up, He says, shall draw all men unto Me. 5. And once more, if the devil, the enemy of our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about our lower atmosphere, and there bearing rule over his fellow-spirits, as his peers in disobedience, not only works illusions by their means in them that are deceived, but tries to hinder them that are going up (and about this the Apostle says: According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience); while the Lord came to cast down the devil, and clear the air and prepare the way for us up into heaven, as said the Apostle: Through Hebrews 10:20 the veil, that is to say, His flesh — and this must needs be by death — well, by what other kind of death could this have come to pass, than by one which took place in the air, I mean the cross? For only he that is perfected on the cross dies in the air. Whence it was quite fitting that the Lord suffered this death. 6. For thus being lifted up He cleared the air of the malignity both of the devil and of demons of all kinds, as He says: I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven; and made a new opening of the way up into heaven as He says once more: Lift up your gates, O you princes, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors. For it was not the Word Himself that needed an opening of the gates, being Lord of all; nor were any of His works closed to their Maker; but we it was that needed it whom He carried up by His own body. For as He offered it to death on behalf of all, so by it He once more made ready the way up into the heavens.

33. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man.

These things being so, and the Resurrection of His body and the victory gained over death by the Saviour being clearly proved, come now let us put to rebuke both the disbelief of the Jews and the scoffing of the Gentiles. 2. For these, perhaps, are the points where Jews express incredulity, while Gentiles laugh, finding fault with the unseemliness of the Cross, and of the Word of God becoming man. But our argument shall not delay to grapple with both especially as the proofs at our command against them are clear as day. 3. For Jews in their incredulity may be refuted from the Scriptures, which even themselves read; for this text and that, and, in a word, the whole inspired Scripture, cries aloud concerning these things, as even its express words abundantly show. For prophets proclaimed beforehand concerning the wonder of the Virgin and the birth from her, saying: Lo, the Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14 Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us. 4. But Moses, the truly great, and whom they believe to speak truth, with reference to the Saviour’s becoming man, having estimated what was said as important, and assured of its truth, set it down in these words: There Numbers 24:5-17 shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a man out of Israel, and he shall break in pieces the captains of Moab. And again: How lovely are your habitations O Jacob, your tabernacles O Israel, as shadowing gardens, and as parks by the rivers, and as tabernacles which the Lord has fixed, as cedars by the waters. A man shall come forth out of his seed, and shall be Lord over many peoples. And again, Esaias: Before Isaiah 8:4 the Child know how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria. 5. That a man, then, shall appear is foretold in those words. But that He that is to come is Lord of all, they predict once more as follows: Behold Isaiah 19:1 the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and shall come into Egypt, and the graven images of Egypt shall be shaken. For from thence also it is that the Father calls Him back, saying: I called Hosea 11:1 My Son out of Egypt.

34. Prophecies of His passionand death in all its circumstances.

Nor is even His death passed over in silence: on the contrary, it is referred to in the divine Scriptures, even exceeding clearly. For to the end that none should err for want of instruction in the actual events, they feared not to mention even the cause of His death — that He suffers it not for His own sake, but for the immortality and salvation of all, and the counsels of the Jews against Him and the indignities offered Him at their hands. 2. They say then: A man in stripes, and knowing how to bear weakness, for his face is turned away: he was dishonoured and held in no account. He bears our sins, and is in pain on our account; and we reckoned him to be in labour, and in stripes, and in ill-usage; but he was wounded for our sins, and made weak for our wickedness. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we were healed. O marvel at the loving-kindness of the Word, that for our sakes He is dishonoured, that we may be brought to honour. For all we, it says, like sheep had gone astray; man had erred in his way; and the Lord delivered him for our sins; and he opens not his mouth, because he has been evilly entreated. As a sheep was he brought to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opens he not his mouth: in his abasement his judgment was taken away.  3. Then lest any should from His suffering conceive Him to be a common man, Holy Writ anticipates the surmises of man, and declares the power (which worked) for Him , and the difference of His nature compared with ourselves, saying: But who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. From the wickedness of the people was he brought to death. And I will give the wicked instead of his burial, and the rich instead of his death; for he did no wickedness, neither was guile found in his mouth. And the Lord will cleanse him from his stripes.

35. Prophecies of the Cross. How these prophecies are satisfied in Christ alone.

But, perhaps, having heard the prophecy of His death, you ask to learn also what is set forth concerning the Cross. For not even this is passed over: it is displayed by the holy men with great plainness. 2. For first Moses predicts it, and that with a loud voice, when he says: You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes, and shall not believe. 3. And next, the prophets after him witness of this, saying: But Jeremiah 11:19 I as an innocent lamb brought to be slain, knew it not; they counselled an evil counsel against me, saying, Hither and let us cast a tree upon his bread, and efface him from the land of the living. 4. And again: They pierced my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones, they parted my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots. 5. Now a death raised aloft and that takes place on a tree, could be none other than the Cross: and again, in no other death are the hands and feet pierced, save on the Cross only. 6. But since by the sojourn of the Saviour among men all nations also on every side began to know God; they did not leave this point, either, without a reference: but mention is made of this matter as well in the Holy Scriptures. For there Isaiah 11:10 shall be, he says, the root of Jesse, and he that rises to rule the nations, on him shall the nations hope. This then is a little in proof of what has happened. 7. But all Scripture teems with refutations of the disbelief of the Jews. For which of the righteous men and holy prophets, and patriarchs, recorded in the divine Scriptures, ever had his corporal birth of a virgin only? Or what woman has sufficed without man for the conception of human kind? Was not Abel born of Adam, Enoch of Jared, Noe of Lamech, and Abraham of Tharra, Isaac of Abraham, Jacob of Isaac? Was not Judas born of Jacob, and Moses and Aaron of Ameram? Was not Samuel born of Elkana, was not David of Jesse, was not Solomon of David, was not Ezechias of Achaz, was not Josias of Amos, was not Esaias of Amos, was not Jeremy of Chelchias, was not Ezechiel of Buzi? Had not each a father as author of his existence? Who then is he that is born of a virgin only? For the prophet made exceeding much of this sign. 8. Or whose birth did a star in the skies forerun, to announce to the world him that was born? For when Moses was born, he was hid by his parents: David was not heard of, even by those of his neighbourhood, inasmuch as even the great Samuel knew him not, but asked, had Jesse yet another son? Abraham again became known to his neighbours as a great man only subsequently to his birth. But of Christ’s birth the witness was not man, but a star in that heaven whence He was descending.

36. Prophecies of Christ’s sovereignty, flight into Egypt, etc.

But what king that ever was, before he had strength to call father or mother, reigned and gained triumphs over his enemies ? Did not David come to the throne at thirty years of age, and Solomon, when he had grown to be a young man? Did not Joas enter on the kingdom when seven years old, and Josias, a still later king, receive the government about the seventh year of his age? And yet they at that age had strength to call father or mother. 2. Who, then, is there that was reigning and spoiling his enemies almost before his birth? Or what king of this sort has ever been in Israel and in Juda — let the Jews, who have searched out the matter, tell us — in whom all the nations have placed their hopes and had peace, instead of being at enmity with them on every side? 3. For as long as Jerusalem stood there was war without respite between them, and they all fought with Israel; the Assyrians oppressed them, the Egyptians persecuted them, the Babylonians fell upon them; and, strange to say, they had even the Syrians their neighbours at war against them. Or did not David war against them of Moab, and smite the Syrians, Josias guard against his neighbours, and Ezechias quail at the boasting of Senacherim, and Amalek make war against Moses, and the Amorites oppose him, and the inhabitants of Jericho array themselves against Jesus son of Naue? And, in a word, treaties of friendship had no place between the nations and Israel. Who, then, it is on whom the nations are to set their hope, it is worth while to see. For there must be such an one, as it is impossible for the prophet to have spoken falsely. 4. But which of the holy prophets or of the early patriarchs has died on the Cross for the salvation of all? Or who was wounded and destroyed for the healing of all? Or which of the righteous men, or kings, went down to Egypt, so that at his coming the idols of Egypt fell ? For Abraham went there, but idolatry prevailed universally all the same. Moses was born there, and the deluded worship of the people was there none the less.

37. Psalm 22:16, etc. Majesty of His birth and death. Confusion of oracles and demonsin Egypt.

Or who among those recorded in Scripture was pierced in the hands and feet, or hung at all upon a tree, and was sacrificed on a cross for the salvation of all? For Abraham died, ending his life on a bed; Isaac and Jacob also died with their feet raised on a bed; Moses and Aaron died on the mountain; David in his house, without being the object of any conspiracy at the hands of the people; true, he was pursued by Saul, but he was preserved unhurt. Esaias was sawn asunder, but not hung on a tree. Jeremy was shamefully treated, but did not die under condemnation; Ezechie suffered, not however for the people, but to indicate what was to come upon the people. 2. Again, these, even where they suffered, were men resembling all in their common nature; but he that is declared in Scripture to suffer on behalf of all is called not merely man, but the Life of all, albeit He was in fact like men in nature. For you shall see, it says, your Life hanging before your eyes; and who shall declare his generation? For one can ascertain the genealogy of all the saints, and declare it from the beginning, and of whom each was born; but the generation of Him that is the Life the Scriptures refer to as not to be declared. 3. Who then is he of whom the Divine Scriptures say this? Or who is so great that even the prophets predict of him such great things? None else, now, is found in the Scriptures but the common Saviour of all, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. For He it is that proceeded from a virgin and appeared as man on the earth, and whose generation after the flesh cannot be declared. For there is none that can tell His father after the flesh, His body not being of a man, but of a virgin alone; 4. so that no one can declare the corporal generation of the Saviour from a man, in the same way as one can draw up a genealogy of David and of Moses and of all the patriarchs. For He it is that caused the star also to mark the birth of His body; since it was fit that the Word, coming down from heaven, should have His constellation also from heaven, and it was fitting that the King of Creation when He came forth should be openly recognized by all creation. 5. Why, He was born in Judæa, and men from Persia came to worship Him. He it is that even before His appearing in the body won the victory over His demon adversaries and a triumph over idolatry. All heathen at any rate from every region, abjuring their hereditary tradition and the impiety of idols, are now placing their hope in Christ, and enrolling themselves under Him, the like of which you may see with your own eyes. 6. For at no other time has the impiety of the Egyptians ceased, save when the Lord of all, riding as it were upon a cloud, came down there in the body and brought to nought the delusion of idols, and brought over all to Himself, and through Himself to the Father. 7. He it is that was crucified before the sun and all creation as witnesses, and before those who put Him to death: and by His death has salvation come to all, and all creation been ransomed. He is the Life of all, and He it is that as a sheep yielded His body to death as a substitute, for the salvation of all, even though the Jews believe it not.

38. Other clear prophecies of the coming of Godin the flesh. Christ’s miraclesunprecedented.

For if they do not think these proofs sufficient, let them be persuaded at any rate by other reasons, drawn from the oracles they themselves possess. For of whom do the prophets say: I was made manifest to them that sought me not, I was found of them that asked not for me: I said Behold, here am I, to the nation that had not called upon my name; I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people. 2. Who, then, one might say to the Jews, is he that was made manifest? For if it is the prophet, let them say when he was hid, afterward to appear again. And what manner of prophet is this, that was not only made manifest from obscurity, but also stretched out his hands on the Cross? None surely of the righteous, save the Word of God only, Who, incorporeal by nature, appeared for our sakes in the body and suffered for all. 3. Or if not even this is sufficient for them, let them at least be silenced by another proof, seeing how clear its demonstrative force is. For the Scripture says: Be strong you hands that hang down, and feeble knees; comfort ye, you of faint mind; be strong, fear not. Behold, our God recompenses judgment; He shall come and save us. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be plain. 4. Now what can they say to this, or how can they dare to face this at all? For the prophecy not only indicates that God is to sojourn here, but it announces the signs and the time of His coming. For they connect the blind recovering their sight, and the lame walking, and the deaf hearing, and the tongue of the stammerers being made plain, with the Divine Coming which is to take place. Let them say, then, when such signs have come to pass in Israel, or where in Jewry anything of the sort has occurred. 5. Naaman, a leper, was cleansed, but no deaf man heard nor lame walked. Elias raised a dead man; so did Eliseus; but none blind from birth regained his sight. For in good truth, to raise a dead man is a great thing, but it is not like the wonder wrought by the Saviour. Only, if Scripture has not passed over the case of the leper, and of the dead son of the widow, certainly, had it come to pass that a lame man also had walked and a blind man recovered his sight, the narrative would not have omitted to mention this also. Since then nothing is said in the Scriptures, it is evident that these things had never taken place before. 6. When, then, have they taken place, save when the Word of God Himself came in the body? Or when did He come, if not when lame men walked, and stammerers were made to speak plain, and deaf men heard, and men blind from birth regained their sight? For this was the very thing the Jews said who then witnessed it, because they had not heard of these things having taken place at any other time: Since the world began it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.

40. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of prophecyand destruction of Jerusalem, (2) from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God of Moses. What more remains for the Messiah to do, that Christ has not done?

So the Jews are trifling, and the time in question, which they refer to the future, is actually come. For when did prophet and vision cease from Israel, save when Christ came, the Holy of Holies? For it is a sign, and an important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no longer stands, nor is any prophet raised up nor vision revealed to them — and that very naturally. 2. For when He that was signified had come, what need was there any longer of any to signify Him? When the truth was there, what need any more of the shadow? For this was the reason of their prophesying at all — namely, till the true Righteousness should come, and He that was to ransom the sins of all. And this was why Jerusalem stood till then — namely, that there they might be exercised in the types as a preparation for the reality. 3. So when the Holy of Holies had come, naturally vision and prophecy were sealed and the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased. For kings were to be anointed among them only until the Holy of Holies should have been anointed; and Jacob prophesies that the kingdom of the Jews should be established until Him, as follows:— The ruler Genesis 49:10 shall not fail from Juda, nor the Prince from his loins, until that which is laid up for him shall come; and he is the expectation of the nations. 4. Whence the Saviour also Himself cried aloud and said: The law and the prophets prophesied until John. If then there is now among the Jews king or prophet or vision, they do well to deny the Christ that has come. But if there is neither king nor vision, but from that time forth all prophecy is sealed and the city and temple taken, why are they so irreligious and so perverse as to see what has happened, and yet to deny Christ, Who has brought it all to pass? Or why, when they see even heathens deserting their idols, and placing their hope, through Christ, on the God of Israel, do they deny Christ, Who was born of the root of Jesse after the flesh and henceforth is King? For if the nations were worshipping some other God, and not confessing the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses, then, once more, they would be doing well in alleging that God had not come. 5. But if the Gentiles are honouring the same God that gave the law to Moses and made the promise to Abraham, and Whose word the Jews dishonoured — why are they ignorant, or rather why do they choose to ignore, that the Lord foretold by the Scriptures has shone forth upon the world, and appeared to it in bodily form, as the Scripture said: The Lord God has shined upon us; and again: He sent His Word and healed them; and again: Not a messenger, not an angel, but the Lord Himself saved them? 6. Their state may be compared to that of one out of his right mind, who sees the earth illumined by the sun, but denies the sun that illumines it. For what more is there for him whom they expect to do, when he has come? To call the heathen? But they are called already. To make prophecy, and king, and vision to cease? This too has already come to pass. To expose the godlessness of idolatry? It is already exposed and condemned. Or to destroy death? He is already destroyed. 7. What then has not come to pass, that the Christ must do? What is left unfulfilled, that the Jews should now disbelieve with impunity? For if, I say — which is just what we actually see — there is no longer king nor prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them, but even the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God, and Gentiles, leaving their godlessness, are now taking refuge with the God of Abraham, through the Word, even our Lord Jesus Christ, then it must be plain, even to those who are exceedingly obstinate, that the Christ has come, and that He has illumined absolutely all with His light, and given them the true and divine teaching concerning His Father. 8. So one can fairly refute the Jews by these and by other arguments from the Divine Scriptures.

48. Further facts. Christiancontinence of virgins and ascetics. Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demonsand magic. Christ by His Power shows Himself more than a man, more than a magician, more than a spirit. For all these are totally subject to Him. Therefore He is the Word of God.

Now these arguments of ours do not amount merely to words, but have in actual experience a witness to their truth. 2. For let him that will, go up and behold the proof of virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young men that practise holy chastity , and the assurance of immortality in so great a band of His martyrs. 3. And let him come who would test by experience what we have now said, and in the very presence of the deceit of demons and the imposture of oracles and the marvels of magic, let him use the Sign of that Cross which is laughed at among them, and he shall see how by its means demons fly, oracles cease, all magic and witchcraft is brought to nought. 4. Who, then, and how great is this Christ, Who by His own Name and Presence casts into the shade and brings to nought all things on every side, and is alone strong against all, and has filled the whole world with His teaching? Let the Greeks tell us, who are pleased to laugh, and blush not. 5. For if He is a man, how then has one man exceeded the power of all whom even themselves bold to be gods, and convicted them by His own power of being nothing? But if they call Him a magician, how can it be that by a magician all magic is destroyed, instead of being confirmed? For if He conquered particular magicians, or prevailed over one only, it would be proper for them to hold that He excelled the rest by superior skill; 6. but if His Cross has won the victory over absolutely all magic, and over the very name of it, it must be plain that the Saviour is not a magician, seeing that even those demons who are invoked by the other magicians fly from Him as their Master. 7. Who He is, then, let the Greeks tell us, whose only serious pursuit is jesting. Perhaps they might say that He, too, was a demon, and hence His strength. But say this as they will, they will have the laugh against them, for they can once more be put to shame by our former proofs. For how is it possible that He should be a demon who drives the demons out? 8. For if He simply drove out particular demons, it might properly be held that by the chief of demons He prevailed against the lesser, just as the Jews said to Him when they wished to insult Him. But if, by His Name being named, all madness of the demons is uprooted and chased away, it must be evident that here, too, they are wrong, and that our Lord and Saviour Christ is not, as they think, some demoniacal power. 9. Then, if the Saviour is neither a man simply, nor a magician, nor some demon, but has by His own Godhead brought to nought and cast into the shade both the doctrine found in the poets and the delusion of the demons and the wisdom of the Gentiles, it must be plain and will be owned by all, that this is the true Son of God, even the Word and Wisdom and Power of the Father from the beginning. For this is why His works also are no works of man, but are recognised to be above man, and truly God’s works, both from the facts in themselves, and from comparison with [the rest of] mankind.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm>.

On Luke 10:22 and Matthew 11:27

§5. The same text further explained.

For His Only-begotten Son might, you Arians, be called ‘Father’ by His Father, yet not in the sense in which you in your error might perhaps understand it, but (while Son of the Father that begot Him) ‘Father of the coming age’ Isaiah 9:6, Septuagint. For it is necessary not to leave any of your surmises open to you. Well then, He says by the prophet, ‘A Son is born and given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Angel of Great Counsel, mighty God, Ruler, Father of the coming age’ Isaiah 9:6. The Only-begotten Son of God, then, is at once Father of the coming age, and mighty God, and Ruler. And it is shown clearly that all things whatsoever the Father has are His, and that as the Father gives life, the Son likewise is able to quicken whom He will. For ‘the dead,’ He says, ‘shall hear the voice of the Son, and shall live’ cf.John 5:25, and the will and desire of Father and Son is one, since their nature also is one and indivisible. And the Arians torture themselves to no purpose, from not understanding the saying of our Saviour, ‘All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine.’ For from this passage at once the delusion of Sabellius can be upset, and it will expose the folly of our modern Jews. For this is why the Only begotten, having life in Himself as the Father has, also knows alone Who the Father is, namely, because He is in the Father and the Father in Him. For He is His Image, and consequently, because He is His Image, all that belongs to the Father is in Him. He is an exact seal, showing in Himself the Father; living Word and true, Power, Wisdom, our Sanctification and Redemption 1 Corinthians 1:30. For ‘in Him we both live and move and have our being’ Acts 17:28, and ‘no man knows Who is the Father, save the Son, and Who is the Son, save the Father?’ Luke 10:22.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2805.htm>.

Encyclical letter

§3. Outrages which took place at the time of Gregory’s arrival

Thus was this notable appointment of Gregory brought about by the Arians, and such was the beginning of it. And what outrages he committed on his entry into Alexandria, and of what great evils that event has been the cause, you may learn both from our letters, and by enquiry of those who are sojourning among you. While the people were offended at such an unusual proceeding, and in consequence assembled in the churches, in order to prevent the impiety of the Arians from mingling itself with the faith of the Church, Philagrius, who has long been a persecutor of the Church and her virgins, and is now Prefect of Egypt, an apostate already, and a fellow-countryman of Gregory, a man too of no respectable character, and moreover supported by Eusebius and his fellows, and therefore full of zeal against the Church; this person, by means of promises which he afterwards fulfilled, succeeded in gaining over the heathen multitude, with the Jews and disorderly persons, and having excited their passions, sent them in a body with swords and clubs into the churches to attack the people.

What followed upon this it is by no means easy to describe: indeed it is not possible to set before you a just representation of the circumstances, nor even could one recount a small part of them without tears and lamentations. Have such deeds as these ever been made the subjects of tragedy among the ancients? Or has the like ever happened before in time of persecution or of war? The church and the holy Baptistery were set on fire, and straightway groans, shrieks, and lamentations, were heard through the city; while the citizens in their indignation at these enormities, cried shame upon the governor, and protested against the violence used to them. For holy and undefiled virgins were being stripped naked, and suffering treatment which is not to be named and if they resisted, they were in danger of their lives. Monks were being trampled under foot and perishing; some were being hurled headlong; others were being destroyed with swords and clubs; others were being wounded and beaten. And oh! What deeds of impiety and iniquity have been committed upon the Holy Table! They were offering birds and pine cones in sacrifice, singing the praises of their idols, and blaspheming even in the very churches our Lord and Saviour Jesus-Christ, the Son of the living God. They were burning the books of Holy Scripture which they found in the church; and the Jews, the murderers of our Lord, and the godless heathen entering irreverently (O strange boldness!) the holy Baptistery, were stripping themselves naked, and acting such a disgraceful part, both by word and deed, as one is ashamed even to relate. Certain impious men also, following the examples set them in the bitterest persecutions, were seizing upon the virgins and ascetics by the hands and dragging them along, and as they were haling them, endeavoured to make them blaspheme and deny the Lord; and when they refused to do so, were beating them violently and trampling them under foot.

§4. Outrages on Good Friday and Easter Day, 339

In addition to all this, after such a notable and illustrious entry into the city, the Arian Gregory, taking pleasure in these calamities, and as if desirous to secure to the heathens and Jews, and those who had wrought these evils upon us, a prize and price of their iniquitous success, gave up the church to be plundered by them. Upon this license of iniquity and disorder, their deeds were worse than in time of war, and more cruel than those of robbers. Some of them were plundering whatever fell in their way; others dividing among themselves the sums which some had laid up there ; the wine, of which there was a large quantity, they either drank or emptied out or carried away; they plundered the store of oil, and every one took as his spoil the doors and chancel rails; the candlesticks they immediately laid aside in the wall , and lighted the candles of the Church before their idols: in a word, rapine and death pervaded the Church. And the impious Arians, so far from feeling shame that such things should be done, added yet further outrages and cruelty. Presbyters and laymen had their flesh torn, virgins were stript of their veils , and led away to the tribunal of the governor, and then cast into prison; others had their goods confiscated, and were scourged; the bread of the ministers and virgins was intercepted. And these things were done even during the holy season of Lent , about the time of Easter; a time when the brethren were keeping fast, while this notable Gregory exhibited the disposition of a Caiaphas, and, together with Pilate the Governor, furiously raged against the pious worshippers of Christ. Going into one of the churches on the Preparation , in company with the Governor and the heathen multitude, when he saw that the people regarded with abhorrence his forcible entry among them, he caused that most cruel person, the Governor, publicly to scourge in one hour, four and thirty virgins and married women, and men of rank, and to cast them into prison. Among them there was one virgin, who, being fond of study, had the Psalter in her hands, at the time when he caused her to be publicly scourged: the book was torn in pieces by the officers, and the virgin herself shut up in prison.

§7. Appeal to the bishops of the whole Church to unite against Gregory

I beseech you, overlook not such proceedings, nor suffer the famous Church of the Alexandrians to be trodden down by heretics. In consequence of these things the people and their ministers are separated from one another, as one might expect, silenced by the violence of the Prefect, yet abhorring the impiety of the Arian madmen. If therefore Gregory shall write unto you, or any other in his behalf, receive not his letters, brethren, but tear them in pieces and put the bearers of them to shame, as the ministers of impiety and wickedness. And even if he presume to write to you after a friendly fashion, nevertheless receive them not. Those who bring his letters convey them only from fear of the Governor, and on account of his frequent acts of violence. And since it is probable that Eusebius and his fellows will write to you concerning him, I was anxious to admonish you beforehand, so that you may herein imitate God, Who is no respecter of persons, and may drive out from before you those that come from them; because for the sake of the Arian madmen they caused persecutions, rape of virgins, murders, plunder of the Church’s property, burnings, and blasphemies in the Churches, to be committed by the heathens and Jews at such a season. The impious and mad Gregory cannot deny that he is an Arian, being proved to be so by the person who writes his letters. This is his secretary Ammon, who was cast out of the Church long ago by my predecessor the blessed Alexander for many misdeeds and for impiety.

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2807.htm>.

Apologia Contra Arianos (Part I)

Chapter 1. Introduction

Indeed this led to their degradation in the Council of Sardica, as mentioned before; and with good reason; for, as the Pharisees of old, when they undertook the defense of Paul Acts 23:9, fully exposed the conspiracy which they and the Jews had formed against him; and as the blessed David was proved to be persecuted unjustly when the persecutor confessed, ‘I have sinned, my son David 1 Samuel 26:21;’ so it was with these men; being overcome by the truth they made a request, and delivered it in writing to Julius, Bishop of Rome. They wrote also to me requesting to be on terms of peace with me, though they have spread such reports concerning me; and probably even now they are covered with shame, on seeing that those whom they sought to destroy by the grace of the Lord are still alive. Consistently also with this conduct they anathematized Arius and his heresy; for knowing that Eusebius and his fellows had conspired against me in behalf of their own misbelief, and of nothing else, as soon as they had determined to confess their calumnies against me, they immediately renounced also that antichristian heresy for the sake of which they had falsely asserted them.

Chapter 2. Letter of Julius to the Eusebians at Antioch.

31. I have also thought it necessary to point out to you this circumstance, viz. that Athanasius positively asserted that Macarius was kept at Tyre under a guard of soldiers, while only his accuser accompanied those who went to the Mareotis; and that the Presbyters who desired to attend the inquiry were not permitted to do so, while the said inquiry respecting the cup and the Table was carried on before the Prefect and his band, and in the presence of Heathens and Jews. This at first seemed incredible, but it was proved to have been so from the Reports; which caused great astonishment to us, as I suppose, dearly beloved, it does to you also. Presbyters, who are the ministers of the Mysteries, are not permitted to attend, but an enquiry concerning Christ’s Blood and Christ’s Body is carried on before an external judge, in the presence of Catechumens, nay, worse than that, before Heathens and Jews, who are in ill repute in regard to Christianity. Even supposing that an offense had been committed, it should have been investigated legally in the Church and by the Clergy, not by heathens who abhor the Word and know not the Truth. I am persuaded that both you and all men must perceive the nature and magnitude of this sin. Thus much concerning Athanasius.

Apologia Contra Arianos (Part II)

Chapter 6. Documents connected with the Council of Tyre.

82. While matters were proceeding thus we withdrew from them, as from an assembly of treacherous men Jeremiah 9:2, for whatsoever they pleased they did, whereas there is no man in the world but knows that ex parte proceedings cannot stand good. This the divine law determines; for when the blessed Apostle was suffering under a similar conspiracy and was brought to trial, he demanded, saying, ‘The Jews from Asia ought to have been here before you, and object, if they had anything against me Acts 24:18-19.’ On which occasion Festus also, when the Jews wished to lay such a plot against him, as these men have now laid against me, said, ‘It is not the manner of Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accuser face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him Acts 25:16.’ But Eusebius and his fellows both had the boldness to pervert the law, and have proved more unjust even than those wrong-doers. For they did not proceed privately at the first, but when in consequence of our being present they found themselves weak, then they straightway went out, like the Jews, and took counsel together alone, how they might destroy us and bring in their heresy, as those others demanded Barabbas. For this purpose it was, as they have themselves confessed, that they did all these things.

83. Although these circumstances were amply sufficient for our vindication, yet in order that the wickedness of these men and the freedom of the truth might be more fully exhibited, I have not felt averse to repeat them again, in order to show that they have acted in a manner inconsistently with themselves, and as men scheming in the dark have fallen foul of their own friends, and while they desired to destroy us have like insane persons wounded themselves. For in their investigation of the subject of the Mysteries, they questioned Jews, they examined Catechumens ; ‘Where were you,’ they said, ‘when Macarius came and overturned the Table?’ They answered, ‘We were within;’ whereas there could be no oblation if Catechumens were present. Again, although they had written word everywhere, that Macarius came and overthrew everything, while the Presbyter was standing and celebrating the Mysteries, yet when they questioned whomsoever they pleased, and asked them, ‘Where was Ischyras when Macarius rushed in?’ those persons answered that he was lying sick in a cell. Well, then, he that was lying was not standing, nor was he that lay sick in his cell offering the oblation. Besides whereas Ischyras said that certain books had been burnt by Macarius, they who were suborned to give evidence, declared that nothing of the kind had been done, but that Ischyras spoke falsely. And what is most remarkable, although they had again written word everywhere, that those who were able to give evidence had been concealed by us, yet these persons made their appearance, and they questioned them, and were not ashamed when they saw it proved on all sides that they were slanderers, and were acting in this matter clandestinely, and according to their pleasure. For they prompted the witnesses by signs, while the Prefect threatened them, and the soldiers pricked them with their swords; but the Lord revealed the truth, and showed them to be slanderers. Therefore also they concealed the minutes of their proceedings, which they retained themselves, and charged those who wrote them to put out of sight, and to commit to no one whomsoever. But in this also they were disappointed; for the person who wrote them was Rufus, who is now public executioner in the Augustalian prefecture, and is able to testify to the truth of this; and Eusebius and his fellows sent them to Rome by the hands of their own friends, and Julius the Bishop transmitted them to me. And now they are mad, because we obtained and read what they wished to conceal.

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2808.htm>.

De Decretis

Chapter 1. Introduction. The complaint of the Arians against the Nicene Council; their fickleness; they are like Jews; their employment of force instead of reason.

1. Thou hast done well, in signifying to me the discussion you have had with the advocates of Arianism, among whom were certain of the friends of Eusebius, as well as very many of the brethren who hold the doctrine of the Church. I hailed your vigilance for the love of Christ, which excellently exposed the irreligion of their heresy; while I marvelled at the effrontery which led the Arians, after all the past detection of unsoundness and futility in their arguments, nay, after the general conviction of their extreme perverseness, still to complain like the Jews, Why did the Fathers at Nicæa use terms not in Scripture , ‘Of the essence‘ and ‘One in essence?’ Thou then, as a man of learning, in spite of their subterfuges, convicted them of talking to no purpose; and they in devising them were but acting suitably to their own evil disposition. For they are as variable and fickle in their sentiments, as chameleons in their colors ; and when exposed they look confused, and when questioned they hesitate, and then they lose shame, and betake themselves to evasions. And then, when detected in these, they do not rest till they invent fresh matters which are not, and, according to the Scripture, ‘imagine a vain thing ‘; and all that they may be constant to their irreligion.

Now such endeavours are nothing else than an obvious token of their defect of reason , and a copying, as I have said, of Jewish malignity. For the Jews too, when convicted by the Truth, and unable to confront it, used evasions, such as, ‘What sign do You do, that we may see and believe You? What do You work? John 6:30 Though so many signs were given, that they said themselves, ‘What do we? For this man does many miracles.’ In truth, dead men were raised, lame walked, blind saw afresh, lepers were cleansed, and the water became wine, and five loaves satisfied five thousand, and all wondered and worshipped the Lord, confessing that in Him were fulfilled the prophecies, and that He was God the Son of God; all but the Pharisees, who, though the signs shone brighter than the sun, yet complained still, as ignorant men, ‘Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God ?’ Insensate, and verily blind in understanding! They ought contrariwise to have said, Why have You, being God, become man? for His works proved Him God, that they might both worship the goodness of the Father, and admire the Son’s Economy for our sakes. However, this they did not say; no, nor liked to witness what He was doing; or they witnessed indeed, for this they could not help, but they changed their ground of complaint again, Why do You heal the paralytic, why do You make born-blind to see, on the sabbath day? But this too was an excuse, and mere murmuring; for on other days as well did the Lord heal ‘all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease Matthew 4:23,’ but they complained still according to their wont, and by calling Him Beelzebub, preferred the suspicion of Atheism , to a recantation of their own wickedness. And though in such sundry times and various manners the Saviour showed His Godhead and preached the Father to all men, nevertheless, as kicking against the pricks, they contradicted in the language of folly, and this they did, according to the divine proverb, that by finding occasions, they might separate themselves from the truth.

2. As then the Jews of that day, for acting thus wickedly and denying the Lord, were with justice deprived of their laws and of the promise made to their fathers, so the Arians, Judaizing now, are, in my judgment, in circumstances like those of Caiaphas and the contemporary Pharisees. For, perceiving that their heresy is utterly unreasonable, they invent excuses, Why was this defined, and not that? Yet wonder not if now they practise thus; for in no long time they will turn to outrage, and next will threaten ‘the band and the captain.’ Forsooth in these their heterodoxy has its support, as we see; for denying the Word of God, reason have they none at all, as is equitable. Aware then of this, I would have made no reply to their interrogations: but, since your friendliness has asked to know the transactions of the Council, I have without any delay related at once what then took place, showing in few words, how destitute Arianism is of a religious spirit, and how their one business is to frame evasions.

Chapter 5.— Defence of the Council’s Phrases, from the essence, And one in essence. Objection that the phrases are not scriptural; we ought to look at the sense more than the wording; evasion of the Ariansas to the phrase of God which is in Scripture; their evasion of all explanations but those which the Council selected, which were intended to negative the Arianformulæ; protest against their conveying any material sense.

21. Therefore if they, as the others, make an excuse that the terms are strange, let them consider the sense in which the Council so wrote, and anathematize what the Council anathematized; and then if they can, let them find fault with the expressions. But I well know that, if they hold the sense of the Council, they will fully accept the terms in which it is conveyed; whereas if it be the sense which they wish to complain of, all must see that it is idle in them to discuss the wording, when they are but seeking handles for irreligion. This then was the reason of these expressions; but if they still complain that such are not scriptural, that very complaint is a reason why they should be cast out, as talking idly and disordered in mind. And let them blame themselves in this matter, for they set the example, beginning their war against God with words not in Scripture. However, if a person is interested in the question, let him know, that, even if the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine. Now this circumstance it is for you to consider, and for those ill-instructed men to give ear to. It has been shown above, and must be believed as true, that the Word is from the Father, and the only Offspring proper to Him and natural. For whence may one conceive the Son to be, who is the Wisdom and the Word, in whom all things came to be, but from God Himself? However, the Scriptures also teach us this, since the Father says by David, ‘My heart uttered a good Word ,’ and, ‘From the womb before the morning star I begot You ;’ and the Son signifies to the Jews about Himself, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth from the Father John 8:42.’ And again; ‘Not that anyone has seen the Father, save He which is from God, He has seen the Father.’ And moreover, ‘I and My Father are one,’ and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me ,’ is equivalent to saying, ‘I am from the Father, and inseparable from Him.’ And John in saying, ‘The Only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him, ‘ spoke of what He had learned from the Saviour. Besides, what else does ‘in the bosom’ intimate, but the Son’s genuine generation from the Father?

Chapter 6.— Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen.

See, we are proving that this view has been transmitted from father to father; but you, O modern Jews and disciples of Caiaphas, how many fathers can you assign to your phrases? Not one of the understanding and wise; for all abhor you, but the devil alone ; none but he is your father in this apostasy, who both in the beginning sowed you with the seed of this irreligion, and now persuades you to slander the Ecumenical Council , for committing to writing, not your doctrines, but that which from the beginning those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word have handed down to us. For the faith which the Council has confessed in writing, that is the faith of the Catholic Church; to assert this, the blessed Fathers so expressed themselves while condemning the Arian heresy; and this is a chief reason why these apply themselves to calumniate the Council. For it is not the terms which trouble them , but that those terms prove them to be heretics, and presumptuous beyond other heresies.

Source. New Advent – Translated by John Henry Newman. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2809.htm>.

De Sententia Dionysii

3. The Arians appeal to Dionysius as the Jews did to Abraham: but with equally little reason.

Seeing this themselves, accordingly, and having no confidence in their own position, they utter falsehoods against religious men. But it would be better for them, when isolated, and perceiving that under examination they were at a loss and put to silence on all sides, rather to have turned back from the way of error and not to claim men whom they do not know, lest being confuted by them also they should carry off all the more disgrace. But perhaps they do not wish ever to depart from this wickedness of theirs; for they emulate this characteristic of Caiaphas and his party, just as they have learned from them to deny Christ. For they too, when the Lord had done so so many works, by which He showed Himself to be the Christ the Son of the Living God, and being convicted by him, from thenceforth in all things thinking and speaking against the Scripture, and unable for a moment to face the proofs against themselves, betook themselves to the patriarch with the words, ‘We have Abraham to our father’ Matthew 3:9, thus thinking to cloke their own unreasonableness. But neither did they gain anything by these words, nor will these men, by speaking of Dionysius, be able to escape the guilt of the others. For the Lord convicted the latter of their wicked deeds by the words, ‘This did not Abraham‘ John 8:40, while the same truth again shall convict these men of their impiety and falsehood. For the Bishop Dionysius did not hold with Arius, nor was he ignorant of the truth. On the contrary, both the Jews of that day, and the new Jews of the present day inherited their mad enmity against Christ from their father the devil. Well then, a strong proof that here once more these men are saying what is not true, but are maligning the man, is the fact that neither was he condemned and expelled from the church for impiety by other bishops, as these men have been from the clergy, nor did he of his own accord leave the church as the partisan of a heresy, but died honourably within it, and his memory is retained and registered along with the fathers to the present day. For if he had held with these men, or not vindicated what he had written, without doubt he too would have been treated as these men have been.

4. The Arian appeal to Dionysius based upon an isolated fragment of his teaching to the neglect of the rest.

And indeed this would suffice for the entire refutation of the new Jews, who both deny the Lord and slander the fathers and attempt to deceive all Christians. But since they think they have, in certain parts of the bishop’s letter, pretexts for their slander of him, come let us look at these also, so that even from them the futility of the reasoning may be exposed, and they may at length cease from their blasphemy against the Lord, and at any rate with the soldiers Matthew 27:54, when they see creation witnessing, confess that truly He is the Son of God, and not one of created things. They say then that in a letter the blessed Dionysius has said, ‘that the Son of God is a creature and made, and not His own by nature, but in essence alien from the Father, just as the husbandman is from the vine, or the ship-builder from the boat, for that being a creature He was not before He came to be.’ Yes, he wrote it, and we too admit that his letter runs thus. But just as he wrote this, he also wrote very many other letters, and they ought to consult those also; in order that the faith of the man may be made clear from them all, and not from this alone. For the art of a ship-builder who has constructed many triremes is judged of not from one, but from all. If therefore he simply wrote this letter of which they speak as an exposition of his faith, or if this was his only letter, let them accuse him to their hearts’ content — for this suggestion really amounts to an accusation — but if he was led to write as he did by the occasion and the person concerned, while he also wrote other letters, defending himself where he had been suspected, in that case they ought not to have neglected the reasons, and hastily cast a slur upon the man, lest they should appear to be hunting merely stray expressions, while passing over the truth to be found in his other letters. For a husbandman also treats trees of the same sort now in one way now in another, according to the character of the soil he has to do with: nor would any one blame him because he cuts one, grafts another, plants another, and another again takes up. On the contrary, upon learning the reason, he all the more admires the versatility of his skill. Well then, unless they have consulted the writing superficially let them state the main subject of the letter; for so the malignity and unscrupulous character of their design will come out. But since they do not know, or are ashamed to state it, we must state it ourselves.

8. The Apostles spoke of Christ as man, but also as God.

Well then, such being the imaginations of these men, did the Apostles, since they used the above language, regard Christ as only a man and nothing more? God forbid. The very idea is out of the question. But here too they have acted as wise master-builders and stewards of the mysteries of God. And they have good reason for it. For inasmuch as the Jews of that day, in error themselves and misleading the Gentiles, thought that the Christ was coming as a mere man of the seed of David, after the likeness of the rest of the children of David’s descent, and would neither believe that He was God nor that the Word was made flesh; for this reason it was with much wisdom that the blessed Apostles began by proclaiming to the Jews the human characteristics of the Saviour, in order that by fully persuading them from visible facts, and from miracles which were done, that the Christ had come, they might go on to lead them up to faith in His Godhead, by showing that the works He had done were not those of a man but of God. Why, Peter, who calls Christ a man capable of suffering, at once went on Acts 3:15 to add, ‘He is Prince of Life,’ while in the Gospel he confesses, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ But in his Epistle he calls Him Bishop of souls and Lord both of himself and of angels and Powers. Paul, again, who calls Christ a man of the seed of David, wrote thus to the Hebrews Hebrews 1:3, ‘Who being the brightness of His glory and the very image of His subsistence,’ and to the Philippians Philippians 2:6, ‘Who being in the form of God counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.’ But what can it mean to call him Prince of Life, Son of God, brightness, express image, on an equality with God, Lord, and Bishop of souls, if not that in the body He was Word of God, by whom all things were made and is as indivisible from the Father as is the brightness from the light?

11. The same is true of the analogous language of the Apostles.

This then being the sense of the expression, it follows that it is of the vine, so understood, that it is written: ‘Who was faithful to Him that had created Him’ Hebrews 3:2, and ‘made so much better than the angels’ ib. Hebrews 1:4, and ‘He created me’ Proverbs 8:22. For when He had taken that which He had to offer on our behalf, namely His body of the Virgin Mary, then it is written of Him that He had been created, and formed, and made: for such phrases are applicable to men. Moreover not after (His taking) the body has He been made better than the angels, lest He should appear to have been previously less than or equal to them. But writing to Jews, and comparing the human ministry of the Lord to Moses, he said, ‘having been made so much better than the angels,’ for by means of angels the law was spoken, because ‘the law was given by Moses, but grace came by Jesus Christ‘ John 1:17, and the gift of the Spirit. And whereas in those days the law was preached from Dan to Beersheba, now ‘their sound is gone out into all lands’ Romans 10:18; Psalm 19:3, and the Gentiles worship Christ, and through Him know the Father. The above things then are written of the Saviour as man, and not otherwise.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2810.htm>.

Ad Episcopus Aegypti et Libyae

4. It profits not to receive part of Scripture, and reject part.

For whence do Marcion and Manichæus receive the Gospel while they reject the Law? For the New Testament arose out of the Old, and bears witness to the Old; if then they reject this, how can they receive what proceeds from it? Thus Paul was an Apostle of the Gospel, ‘which God promised afore by His prophets in the holy Scriptures Romans 1:2:’ and our Lord Himself said, ‘ye search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me John 5:39.’ How then shall they confess the Lord unless they first search the Scriptures which are written concerning Him? And the disciples say that they have found Him, ‘of whom Moses and the Prophets did write John 1:45.’ And what is the Law to the Sadducees if they receive not the Prophets ? For God who gave the Law, Himself promised in the Law that He would raise up Prophets also, so that the same is Lord both of the Law and of the Prophets, and he that denies the one must of necessity deny the other also. And again, what is the Old Testament to the Jews, unless they acknowledge the Lord whose coming was expected according to it? For had they believed the writings of Moses, they would have believed the words of the Lord; for He said, ‘He wrote of Me John 5:46.’ Moreover, what are the Scriptures to him of Samosata, who denies the Word of God and His incarnate Presence , which is signified and declared both in the Old and New Testament? And of what use are the Scriptures to the Arians also, and why do they bring them forward, men who say that the Word of God is a creature, and like the Gentiles ‘serve the creature more than’ God ‘the Creator Romans 1:25?’ Thus each of these heresies, in respect of the peculiar impiety of its invention, has nothing in common with the Scriptures. And their advocates are aware of this, that the Scriptures are very much, or rather altogether, opposed to the doctrines of every one of them; but for the sake of deceiving the more simple sort (such as are those of whom it is written in the Proverbs, ‘The simple believes every word Proverbs 14:15),’ they pretend like their ‘father the devil John 8:44 ‘ to study and to quote the language of Scripture, in order that they may appear by their words to have a right belief, and so may persuade their wretched followers to believe what is contrary to the Scriptures. Assuredly in every one of these heresies the devil has thus disguised himself, and has suggested to them words full of craftiness. The Lord spoke concerning them, that ‘there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, so that they shall deceive many Matthew 24:24.’ Accordingly the devil has come, speaking by each and saying, ‘I am Christ, and the truth is with me;’ and he has made them, one and all, to be liars like himself. And strange it is, that while all heresies are at variance with one another concerning the mischievous inventions which each has framed, they are united together only by the common purpose of lying. For they have one and the same father that has sown in them all the seeds, of falsehood. Wherefore the faithful Christian and true disciple of the Gospel, having grace to discern spiritual things, and having built the house of his faith upon a rock, stands continually firm and secure from their deceits. But the simple person, as I said before, that is not thoroughly grounded in knowledge, such an one, considering only the words that are spoken and not perceiving their meaning, is immediately drawn away by their wiles. Wherefore it is good and needful for us to pray that we may receive the gift of discerning spirits, so that every one may know, according to the precept of John, whom he ought to reject, and whom to receive as friends and of the same faith. Now one might write at great length concerning these things, if one desired to go into details respecting them; for the impiety and perverseness of heresies will appear to be manifold and various, and the craft of the deceivers to be very terrible. But since holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us, therefore recommending to those who desire to know more of these matters, to read the Divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most claims attention, and for the sake of which principally I have written these things.

9. For such words do but serve as their cloak.

But when they proceed from those who are hired to advocate the cause of heresy, and since, according to the divine proverb, ‘The words of the wicked are to lie in wait,’ and ‘The mouth of the wicked pours out evil things,’ and ‘The counsels of the wicked are deceit :’ it becomes us to watch and be sober, brethren, as the Lord has said, lest any deception arise from subtlety of speech and craftiness; lest any one come and pretend to say, ‘I preach Christ,’ and after a little while he be found to be Antichrist. These indeed are Antichrists, whosoever come to you in the cause of the Arian madness. For what defect is there among you, that any one need to come to you from without? Or, of what do the Churches of Egypt and Libya and Alexandria stand so much in need, that these men should make a purchase of the Episcopate instead of wood and goods, and intrude into Churches which do not belong to them? Who is not aware, who does not perceive clearly, that they do all this in order to support their impiety? Wherefore although they should make themselves dumb, or although they should bind on their garments larger borders than the Pharisees, and pour themselves forth in long speeches, and practise the tones of their voice , they ought not to be believed; for it is not the mode of speaking, but the intentions of the heart and a godly conversation that recommend the faithful Christian. And thus the Sadducees and Herodians, although they have the law in their mouths, were put to rebuke by our Saviour, who said to them, ‘You do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God Matthew 22:29:’ and all men witnessed the exposure of those who pretended to quote the words of the Law, as being in their minds heretics and enemies of God. Others indeed they deceived by these professions, but when our Lord became man they were not able to deceive Him; ‘for the Word was made Flesh,’ who ‘knows the thoughts of men that they are vain.’ Thus He exposed the carping of the Jews, saying, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth from the Father, and have come to you.’ In like manner these men seem now to act; for they disguise their real sentiments, and then make use of the language of Scripture for their writings, which they hold forth as a bait for the ignorant, that they may inveigle them into their own wickedness.

17. Arguments from Scripture against Arian statements.

But it is written , say they, ‘The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways for His works.’ O untaught and insensate that you are! He is called also in the Scriptures, ‘servant ,’ and ‘son of a handmaid,’ and ‘lamb,’ and ‘sheep,’ and it is said that He suffered toil, and thirst, and was beaten, and has suffered pain. But there is plainly a reasonable ground and cause , why such representations as these are given of Him in the Scriptures; and it is because He became man and the Son of man, and took upon Him the form of a servant, which is the human flesh: for ‘the Word,’ says John, ‘was made flesh John 1:14.’ And since He became man, no one ought to be offended at such expressions; for it is proper to man to be created, and born, and formed, to suffer toil and pain, to die and to rise again from the dead. And as, being Word and Wisdom of the Father, He has all the attributes of the Father, His eternity, and His unchangeableness, and the being like Him in all respects and in all things , and is neither before nor after, but co-existent with the Father, and is the very form of the Godhead, and is the Creator, and is not created: (for since He is in essence like the Father, He cannot be a creature, but must be the Creator, as Himself has said, ‘My Father works hitherto, and I work John 5:17:’) so being made man, and bearing our flesh, He is necessarily said to be created and made, and that is proper to all flesh; however, these men, like Jewish vintners, who mix their wine with water , debase the Word, and subject His Godhead to their notions of created things. Wherefore the Fathers were with reason and justice indignant, and anathematized this most impious heresy; which these persons are now cautious of and keep back, as being easy to be disproved and unsound in every part of it. These that I have set down are but a few of the arguments which go to condemn their doctrines; but if any one desires to enter more at large into the proof against them, he will find that this heresy is not far removed from heathenism, and that it is the lowest and the very dregs of all the other heresies. These last are in error either concerning the body or the incarnation of the Lord, falsifying the truth, some in one way and some in another, or else they deny that the Lord has sojourned here at all, as the Jews erroneously suppose. But this one alone more madly than the rest has dared to assail the very Godhead, and to assert that the Word is not at all, and that the Father was not always a father; so that one might reasonably say that that Psalm was written against them; ‘The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Corrupt are they, and become abominable in their doings.’

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2812.htm>.

Apologia ad Constantium

33. Conduct of the Arians towards the consecrated Virgins.

The Son of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, having become man for our sakes, and having destroyed death, and delivered our race from the bondage of corruption , in addition to all His other benefits bestowed this also upon us, that we should possess upon earth, in the state of virginity , a picture of the holiness of Angels. Accordingly such as have attained this virtue, the Catholic Church has been accustomed to call the brides of Christ. And the heathen who see them express their admiration of them as the temples of the Word. For indeed this holy and heavenly profession is nowhere established, but only among us Christians, and it is a very strong argument that with us is to be found the genuine and true religion. Your most religious father Constantine Augustus, of blessed memory, honoured the Virgins above all the rest, and your Piety in several letters has given them the titles of the honourable and holy women. But now these worthy Arians who have slandered me, and by whom conspiracies have been formed against most of the Bishops, having obtained the consent and cooperation of the magistrates, first stripped them, and then caused them to be suspended upon what are called the Hermetaries , and scourged them on the ribs so severely three several times, that not even real malefactors have ever suffered the like. Pilate, to gratify the Jews of old, pierced one of our Saviour’s sides with a spear. These men have exceeded the madness of Pilate, for they have scourged not one but both His sides; for the limbs of the Virgins are in a special manner the Saviour’s own. All men shudder at hearing the bare recital of deeds like these. These men alone not only did not fear to strip and to scourge those undefiled limbs, which the Virgins had dedicated solely to our Saviour Christ; but, what is worse than all, when they were reproached by every one for such extreme cruelty, instead of manifesting any shame, they pretended that it was commanded by your Piety. So utterly presumptuous are they and full of wicked thoughts and purposes. Such a deed as this was never heard of in past persecutions : or supposing that it ever occurred before, yet surely it was not befitting either that Virginity should suffer such outrage and dishonour, in the time of your Majesty, a Christian, or that these men should impute to your Piety their own cruelty. Such wickedness belongs only to heretics, to blaspheme the Son of God, and to do violence to His holy Virgins.

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2813.htm>.

Apologia de Fuga

2. Insincerity of this charge.

But forasmuch as they pretend to charge me with cowardice, it is necessary that I should write somewhat concerning this, whereby it shall be proved that they are men of wicked minds, who have not read the sacred Scriptures: or if they have read them, that they do not believe the divine inspiration of the oracles they contain. For had they believed this, they would not dare to act contrary to them, nor imitate the malice of the Jews who slew the Lord. For God having given them a commandment, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He that curses father or mother, let him die the death Matthew 15:4;’ that people established a contrary law, changing the honour into dishonour, and alienating to other uses the money which was due from the children to their parents. And though they had read what David did, they acted in contradiction to his example, and accused the guiltless for plucking the ears of grain, and rubbing them in their hands on the Sabbath day. Not that they cared either for the laws, or for the Sabbath, for they were guilty of greater transgressions of the law on that day: but being wicked-minded, they grudged the disciples the way of salvation, and desired that their own private notions should have the sole pre-eminence. They however have received the reward of their iniquity, having ceased to be an holy nation, and being counted henceforth as the rulers of Sodom, and as the people of Gomorrha. Isaiah 1:10-11 And these men likewise, not less than they, seem to me to have received their punishment already in their ignorance of their own folly. For they understand not what they say, but think that they know things of which they are ignorant; while the only knowledge that is in them is to do evil, and to frame devices more and more wicked day by day. Thus they reproach us with our present flight, not for the sake of virtue, as wishing us to show manliness by coming forward (how is it possible that such a wish can be entertained by enemies in behalf of those who run not with them in the same career of madness?); but being full of malice, they pretend this, and buzz all around that such is the case, thinking, foolish as indeed they are, that through fear of their revilings, we shall yet be induced to give ourselves up to them. For this is what they desire: to accomplish this they have recourse to all kinds of schemes: they pretend themselves to be friends, while they search as enemies, to the end that they may glut themselves with our blood, and put us also out of the way, because we have always opposed and do still oppose their impiety, and confute and brand their heresy.

11. Examples of Scripture Saints in defense of flight.

Perhaps they have not read these histories; as being out of date; yet have they no recollection of what is written in the Gospel? For the disciples also withdrew and hid themselves for fear of the Jews; and Paul, when he was sought after by the governor at Damascus, was let down from the wall in a basket, and so escaped his hands. As the Scripture then relates these things of the Saints, what excuse will they be able to invent for their wickedness? To reproach them with cowardice would be an act of madness, and to accuse them of acting contrary to the will of God, would be to show themselves entirely ignorant of the Scriptures. For there was a command under the law Exodus 21:13 that cities of refuge should be appointed, in order that they who were sought after to be put to death, might at least have some means of saving themselves. And when He Who spoke unto Moses, the Word of the Father, appeared in the end of the world, He also gave this commandment, saying, ‘But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another:’ and shortly after He says, ‘When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand); then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.’ Knowing these things, the Saints regulated their conduct accordingly. For what our Lord has now commanded, the same also He spoke by His Saints before His coming in the flesh: and this is the rule which is given unto men to lead them to perfection — what God commands, that to do.

12. The Lord an example of timely flight.

Wherefore also the Word Himself, being made man for our sakes, condescended to hide Himself when He was sought after, as we do: and also when He was persecuted, to flee and avoid the designs of His enemies. For it became Him, as by hunger and thirst and suffering, so also by hiding Himself and fleeing, to show that He had taken our flesh, and was made man. Thus at the very first, as soon as He became man, when He was a little child, He Himself by His Angel commanded Joseph, ‘Arise, and take the young Child and His Mother, and flee into Egypt; for Herod will seek the young Child’s life Matthew 2:13.’ And when Herod was dead, we find Him withdrawing to Nazareth by reason of Archelaus his son. And when afterwards He was showing Himself to be God, and made whole the withered hand, the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, how they might destroy Him; but when Jesus knew it, He withdrew Himself from thence. Matthew 12:15 So also when He raised Lazarus from the dead, ‘from that day forth,’ says the Scripture, ‘they took counsel for to put Him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence into the country near to the wilderness John 11:53-54.’ Again, when our Saviour said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am,’ ‘the Jews took up stones to cast at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple John 8:58-59.’ And ‘going through the midst of them, He went His way,’ and ‘so passed by Luke 4:30.’

18. The Saints who fled were no cowards.

Of a truth no one can possibly doubt that they were well furnished with the virtue of fortitude. For the Patriarch Jacob who had before fled from Esau, feared not death when it came, but at that very time blessed the Patriarchs, each according to his deserts. And the great Moses, who previously had hid himself from Pharaoh, and had withdrawn into Midian for fear of him, when he received the commandment, ‘Return into Egypt ,’ feared not to do so. And again, when he was bidden to go up into the mountain Abarim Deuteronomy 32:49 and die, he delayed not through cowardice, but even joyfully proceeded there. And David, who had before fled from Saul, feared not to risk his life in war in defense of his people; but having the choice of death or of flight set before him, when he might have fled and lived, he wisely preferred death. And the great Elijah, who had at a former time hid himself from Jezebel, showed no cowardice when he was commanded by the Spirit to meet Ahab, and to reprove Ahaziah. And Peter, who had hid himself for fear of the Jews, and the Apostle Paul who was let down in a basket, and fled, when they were told, ‘You must bear witness at Rome ,’ deferred not the journey; yea, rather, they departed rejoicing ; the one as hastening to meet his friends, received his death with exultation; and the other shrunk not from the time when it came, but gloried in it, saying, ‘For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand 2 Timothy 4:6.’

21. The Saints fled for our sakes.

The flight of the saints therefore was neither blameable nor unprofitable. If they had not avoided their persecutors, how would it have come to pass that the Lord should spring from the seed of David? Or who would have preached the glad tidings of the word of truth? It was for this that the persecutors sought after the saints, that there might be no one to teach, as the Jews charged the Apostles; but for this cause they endured all things, that the Gospel might be preached. Behold, therefore, in that they were thus engaged in conflict with their enemies, they passed not the time of their flight unprofitably, nor while they were persecuted, did they forget the welfare of others: but as being ministers of the good word, they grudged not to communicate it to all men; so that even while they fled, they preached the Gospel, and gave warning of the wickedness of those who conspired against them, and confirmed the faithful by their exhortations. Thus the blessed Paul, having found it so by experience, declared beforehand, ‘As many as will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution 2 Timothy 3:12.’ And so he straightway prepared them that fled for the trial, saying, ‘Let us run with patience the race that is set before us Hebrews 12:1;’ for although there be continual tribulations, ‘yet tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope makes not ashamed Romans 5:4.’ And the Prophet Isaiah when such-like affliction was expected, exhorted and cried aloud, ‘Come, my people, enter thou into your chambers, and shut your doors; hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast Isaiah 26:20.’ And so also the Preacher, who knew the conspiracies against the righteous, and said, ‘If you see the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for He that is higher than the highest regards, and there be higher than they: moreover there is the profit of the earth.’ He had his own father David for an example, who had himself experienced the sufferings of persecution, and who supports them that suffer by the words, ‘Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you that put your trust in the Lord ;’ for them that so endure, not man, but the Lord Himself (he says), ‘shall help them, and deliver them, because they put their trust in Him:’ for I also ‘waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling; He brought me up also out of the lowest pit, and out of the mire and clay.’ Thus is shown how profitable to the people and productive of good is the flight of the Saints, howsoever the Arians may think otherwise.

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2814.htm>.

History of the Arians, Part III

19. Tyrannical measures against the Alexandrians

And as to Lucius , Bishop of Adrianople, when they saw that he used great boldness of speech against them, and exposed their impiety, they again, as they had done before, caused him to be bound with iron chains on the neck and hands, and so drove him into banishment, where he died, as they know. And Diodorus a Bishop they remove; but against Olympius of Æni, and Theodulus of Trajanople , both Bishops of Thrace, good and orthodox men, when they perceived their hatred of the heresy, they brought false charges. This Eusebius and his fellows had done first of all, and the Emperor Constantius wrote letters on the subject; and next these men revived the accusation. The purport of the letter was, that they should not only be expelled from their cities and churches, but should also suffer capital punishment, wherever they were discovered. However surprising this conduct may be, it is only in accordance with their principles; for as being instructed by Eusebius and his fellows in such proceedings, and as heirs of their impiety and evil principles, they wished to show themselves formidable at Alexandria, as their fathers had done in Thrace. They caused an order to be written, that the ports and gates of the cities should be watched, lest availing themselves of the permission granted by the Council, the banished persons should return to their churches. They also cause orders to be sent to the magistrates at Alexandria, respecting Athanasius and certain Presbyters, named therein, that if either the Bishop , or any of the others, should be found coming to the city or its borders, the magistrate should have power to behead those who were so discovered. Thus this new Jewish heresy does not only deny the Lord, but has also learned to commit murder.

History of the Arians, Part VI

45. Lapse of Hosius, due to cruel persecution

Such were the sentiments, and such the letter, of the Abraham-like old man, Hosius, truly so called. But the Emperor desisted not from his designs, nor ceased to seek an occasion against him; but continued to threaten him severely, with a view either to bring him over by force, or to banish him if he refused to comply. And as the Officers and Satraps of Babylon Daniel 6:5, seeking an occasion against Daniel, found none except in the law of his God; so likewise these present Satraps of impiety were unable to invent any charge against the old man (for this true Hosius, and his blameless life were known to all), except the charge of hatred to their heresy. They therefore proceeded to accuse him; though not under the same circumstances as those others accused Daniel to Darius, for Darius was grieved to hear the charge, but as Jezebel accused Naboth, and as the Jews applied themselves to Herod. And they said, ‘He not only will not subscribe against Athanasius, but also on his account condemns us; and his hatred to the heresy is so great, that he also writes to others, that they should rather suffer death, than become traitors to the truth. For, he says, our beloved Athanasius also is persecuted for the Truth’s sake, and Liberius, Bishop of Rome, and all the rest, are treacherously assailed.’ When this patron of impiety, and Emperor of heresy , Constantius, heard this, and especially that there were others also in the Spains of the same mind as Hosius, after he had tempted them also to subscribe, and was unable to compel them to do so, he sent for Hosius, and instead of banishing him, detained him a whole year in Sirmium. Godless, unholy, without natural affection, he feared not God, he regarded not his father’s affection for Hosius, he reverenced not his great age, for he was now a hundred years old ; but all these things this modern Ahab, this second Belshazzar of our times, disregarded for the sake of impiety. He used such violence towards the old man, and confined him so tightly, that at last, broken by suffering, he was brought, though hardly, to hold communion with Valens, Ursacius, and their fellows, though he would not subscribe against Athanasius. Yet even thus he forgot not his duty, for at the approach of death, as it were by his last testament, he bore witness to the force which had been used towards him, and anathematized the Arian heresy, and gave strict charge that no one should receive it.

History of the Arians, Part VII

53. Despotic interference of Constantius

Who indeed has not been injured by their calumnies? Whom have not these enemies of Christ conspired to destroy? Whom has Constantius failed to banish upon charges which they have brought against them? When did he refuse to hear them willingly? And what is most strange, when did he permit any one to speak against them, and did not more readily receive their testimony, of whatever kind it might be? Where is there a Church which now enjoys the privilege of worshipping Christ freely? If a Church be a maintainer of true piety, it is in danger; if it dissemble, it abides in fear. Every place is full of hypocrisy and impiety, so far as he is concerned; and wherever there is a pious person and a lover of Christ (and there are many such everywhere, as were the prophets and the great Elijah) they hide themselves, if so be that they can find a faithful friend like Obadiah, and either they withdraw into caves and dens of the earth, or pass their lives in wandering about in the deserts. These men in their madness prefer such calumnies against them as Jezebel invented against Naboth, and the Jews against the Saviour; while the Emperor, who is the patron of the heresy, and wishes to pervert the truth, as Ahab wished to change the vineyard into a garden of herbs, does whatever they desire him to do, for the suggestions he receives from them are agreeable to his own wishes.

58. General Persecution at Alexandria

The Gentiles, when they beheld these things, were seized with fear, and ventured on no further outrage; but the Arians were not even yet touched with shame, but, like the Jews when they saw the miracles, were faithless and would not believe, nay, like Pharaoh, they were hardened; they too having placed their hopes below, on the Emperor and his eunuchs. They permitted the Gentiles, or rather the more abandoned of the Gentiles, to act in the manner before described; for they found that Faustinus, who is the Receiver-General by style, but is a vulgar person in habits, and profligate in heart, was ready to play his part with them in these proceedings, and to stir up the heathen. Nay, they undertook to do the like themselves, that as they had modelled their heresy upon all other heresies together , so they might share their wickedness with the more depraved of mankind. What they did through the instrumentality of others I described above; the enormities they committed themselves surpass the bounds of all wickedness; and they exceed the malice of any hangman. Where is there a house which they did not ravage? Where is there a family they did not plunder on pretence of searching for their opponents? Where is there a garden they did not trample under foot? What tomb did they not open, pretending they were seeking for Athanasius, though their sole object was to plunder and spoil all that came in their way? How many men’s houses were sealed up! The contents of how many persons’ lodgings did they give away to the soldiers who assisted them! Who had not experience of their wickedness? Who that met them but was obliged to hide himself in the market-place? Did not many an one leave his house from fear of them, and pass the night in the desert? Did not many an one, while anxious to preserve his property from them, lose the greater part of it? And who, however inexperienced of the sea, did not choose rather to commit himself to it, and to risk all its dangers, than to witness their threatenings? Many also changed their residences, and removed from street to street, and from the city to the suburbs. And many submitted to severe fines, and when they were unable to pay, borrowed of others, merely that they might escape their machinations.

61. Ill-treatment of the poor

But the Arians, as being grieved at this, again devised another yet more cruel and unholy deed; cruel in the eyes of all men, but well suited to their antichristian heresy. The Lord commanded that we should remember the poor; He said, ‘Sell that you have, and give alms’ and again ‘I was a hungred, and you gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; for inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these little ones, you have done it unto Me.’ But these men, as being in truth opposed to Christ, have presumed to act contrary to His will in this respect also. For when the Duke gave up the Churches to the Arians, and the destitute persons and widows were unable to continue any longer in them, the widows sat down in places which the Clergy entrusted with the care of them appointed. And when the Arians saw that the brethren readily ministered unto them and supported them, they persecuted the widows also, beating them on the feet, and accused those who gave to them before the Duke. This was done by means of a certain soldier named Dynamius. And it was well-pleasing to Sebastian , for there is no mercy in the Manichæans; nay, it is considered a hateful thing among them to show mercy to a poor man. Here then was a novel subject of complaint; and a new kind of court now first invented by the Arians. Persons were brought to trial for acts of kindness which they had performed; he who showed mercy was accused, and he who had received a benefit was beaten; and they wished rather that a poor man should suffer hunger, than that he who was willing to show mercy should give to him. Such sentiments these modern Jews, for such they are, have learned from the Jews of old, who when they saw him who had been blind from his birth recover his sight, and him who had been a long time sick of the palsy made whole, accused the Lord who had bestowed these benefits upon them, and judged them to be transgressors who had experienced His goodness.

History of the Arians, Part VIII

66. Persecution the weapon of Arianism

O new heresy, that hast put on the whole devil in impiety and wicked deeds! For in truth it is but a lately invented evil; and although certain heretofore appear to have adopted its doctrines, yet they concealed them, and were not known to hold them. But Eusebius and Arius, like serpents coming out of their holes, have vomited forth the poison of this impiety; Arius daring to blasphemy openly, and Eusebius defending his blasphemy. He was not however able to support the heresy, until, as I said before, he found a patron for it in the Emperor. Our fathers called an Ecumenical Council, when three hundred of them, more or less , met together and condemned the Arian heresy, and all declared that it was alien and strange to the faith of the Church. Upon this its supporters, perceiving that they were dishonoured, and had now no good ground of argument to insist upon, devised a different method, and attempted to vindicate it by means of external power. And herein one may especially admire the novelty as well as wickedness of their device, and how they go beyond all other heresies. For these support their madness by persuasive arguments calculated to deceive the simple; the Greeks, as the Apostle has said, make their attack with excellency and persuasiveness of speech, and with plausible fallacies; the Jews, leaving the divine Scriptures, now, as the Apostle again has said, contend about ‘fables and endless genealogies 1 Timothy 1:4;’ and the Manichees and Valentinians with them, and others, corrupting the divine Scriptures, put forth fables in terms of their own inventions. But the Arians are bolder than them all, and have shown that the other heresies are but their younger sisters , whom, as I have said, they surpass in impiety, emulating them all, and especially the Jews in their iniquity. For as the Jews, when they were unable to prove the charges which they pretended to allege against Paul, straightway led him to the chief captain and the governor; so likewise these men, who surpass the Jews in their devices, make use only of the power of the judges; and if any one so much as speaks against them, he is dragged before the Governor or the General.

68. Constantius worse than Saul, Ahab, and Pilate. His past conduct to his own relations

Ahab himself did not act so cruelly towards the priests of God, as this man has acted towards the Bishops. For he was at least pricked in his conscience, when Naboth had been murdered, and was afraid at the sight 1 Kings 21:20 of Elijah, but this man neither reverenced the great Hosius, nor was wearied or pricked in conscience, after banishing so many Bishops; but like another Pharaoh, the more he is afflicted, the more he is hardened, and imagines greater wickedness day by day. And the most extraordinary instance of his iniquity was the following. It happened that when the Bishops were condemned to banishment, certain other persons also received their sentence on charges of murder or sedition or theft, each according to the quality of his offense. These men after a few months he released, on being requested to do so, as Pilate did Barabbas; but the servants of Christ he not only refused to set at liberty, but even sentenced them to more unmerciful punishment in the place of their exile, proving himself ‘an undying evil ‘ to them. To the others through congeniality of disposition he became a friend; but to the orthodox he was an enemy on account of their true faith in Christ. Is it not clear to all men from hence, that the Jews of old when they demanded Barabbas, and crucified the Lord, acted but the part which these present enemies of Christ are acting together with Constantius? Nay, that he is even more bitter than Pilate. For Pilate, when he perceived Matthew 27:24 the injustice of the deed, washed his hands; but this man, while he banishes the saints, gnashes his teeth against them more and more.

71. This wickednessunprecedented

When was ever such iniquity heard of? When was such an evil deed ever perpetrated, even in times of persecution? They were heathens who persecuted formerly; but they did not bring their idols into the Churches. Zenobia , was a Jewess, and a supporter of Paul of Samosata; but she did not give up the Churches to the Jews for Synagogues. This is a new piece of iniquity. It is not simply persecution, but more than persecution, it is a prelude and preparation for the coming of Antichrist. Even if it be admitted that they invented false charges against Athanasius and the rest of the Bishops whom they banished, yet what is this to their later practices? What charges have they to allege against the whole of Egypt and Libya and Pentapolis ? For they have begun no longer to lay their plots against individuals, in which case they might be able to frame a lie against them; but they have set upon all in a body, so that if they merely choose to invent accusations against them, they must be condemned. Thus their wickedness has blinded their understanding Wisdom 2:21; and they have required, without any reason assigned, that the whole body of the Bishops shall be expelled, and thereby they show that the charges they framed against Athanasius and the rest of the Bishops whom they banished were false, and invented for no other purpose than to support the accursed heresy of the Arian enemies of Christ. This is now no longer concealed, but has become most manifest to all men. He commanded Athanasius to be expelled out of the city, and gave up the Churches to them. And the Presbyters and Deacons that were with him, who had been appointed by Peter and Alexander, were also expelled and driven into banishment; and the real Arians, who not through any suspicions arising from circumstances, but on account of the heresy had been expelled at first together with Arius himself by the Bishop Alexander — Secundus in Libya, in Alexandria Euzoius the Chananæan, Julius, Ammon, Marcus, Irenæus, Zosimus, and Sarapion surnamed Pelycon, and in Libya Sisinnius, and the younger men with him, associates in his impiety; these have obtained possession of the Churches.

Source. New Advent – Translated by M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2815.htm>.

Discourse 1 Against the Arians

Chapter 3. The Importance of the Subject. The Ariansaffect Scripture language, but their doctrine new, as well as unscriptural. Statement of the Catholic doctrine, that the Son is proper to the Father’s substance, and eternal. Restatement of Arianismin contrast, that He is a creature with a beginning: the controversy comes to this issue, whether one whom we are to believein as God, can be so in name only, and is merely a creature. What pretence then for being indifferent in the controversy? The Ariansrely on state patronage, and dare not avow their tenets

8. If then the use of certain phrases of divine Scripture changes, in their opinion, the blasphemy of the Thalia into reverent language, of course they ought also to deny Christ with the present Jews, when they see how they study the Law and the Prophets; perhaps too they will deny the Law and the Prophets like Manichees , because the latter read some portions of the Gospels. If such bewilderment and empty speaking be from ignorance, Scripture will teach them, that the devil, the author of heresies, because of the ill savour which attaches to evil, borrows Scripture language, as a cloak wherewith to sow the ground with his own poison also, and to seduce the simple. Thus he deceived Eve; thus he framed former heresies; thus he persuaded Arius at this time to make a show of speaking against those former ones, that he might introduce his own without observation. And yet, after all, the man of craft did not escape. For being irreligious towards the Word of God, he lost his all at once , and betrayed to all men his ignorance of other heresies too ; and having not a particle of truth in his belief, does but pretend to it. For how can he speak truth concerning the Father, who denies the Son, that reveals concerning Him? Or how can he be orthodox concerning the Spirit, while he speaks profanely of the Word that supplies the Spirit? And who will trust him concerning the Resurrection, denying, as he does, Christ for us the first-begotten from the dead? And how shall he not err in respect to His incarnate presence, who is simply ignorant of the Son’s genuine and true generation from the Father? For thus, the former Jews also, denying the Word, and saying, ‘We have no king but Cæsar John 19:15,’ were immediately stripped of all they had, and forfeited the light of the Lamp, the odour of ointment, knowledge of prophecy, and the Truth itself; till now they understand nothing, but are walking as in darkness. For who was ever yet a hearer of such a doctrine ? Or whence or from whom did the abettors and hirelings of the heresy gain it? Who thus expounded to them when they were at school ? Who told them, ‘Abandon the worship of the creation, and then draw near and worship a creature and a work ?’ But if they themselves own that they have heard it now for the first time, how can they deny that this heresy is foreign, and not from our fathers ? But what is not from our fathers, but has come to light in this day, how can it be but that of which the blessed Paul has foretold, that ‘in the latter times some shall depart from the sound faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, in the hypocrisy of liars; cauterized in their own conscience, and turning from the truth ?’

10. Which of the two theologies sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father, this which you vomited forth, or that which we have spoken and maintain from the Scriptures? If the Saviour be not God, nor Word, nor Son, you shall have leave to say what you will, and so shall the Gentiles, and the present Jews. But if He be Word of the Father and true Son, and God from God, and ‘over all blessed for ever Romans 9:5,’ is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out those other phrases and that Arian Thalia, as but a pattern of evil, a store of all irreligion, into which, whoever falls, ‘knows not that giants perish with her, and reaches the depths of Hades ?’ This they know themselves, and in their craft they conceal it, not having the courage to speak out, but uttering something else. For if they speak, a condemnation will follow; and if they be suspected, proofs from Scripture will be cast at them from every side. Wherefore, in their craft, as children of this world, after feeding their so-called lamp from the wild olive, and fearing lest it should soon be quenched (for it is said, ‘the light of the wicked shall be put out Job 18:5,’) they hide it under the bushel of their hypocrisy, and make a different profession, and boast of patronage of friends and authority of Constantius, that what with their hypocrisy and their professions, those who come to them may be kept from seeing how foul their heresy is. Is it not detestable even in this, that it dares not speak out, but is kept hidden by its own friends, and fostered as serpents are? For from what sources have they got together these words? Or from whom have they received what they venture to say ? Not any one man can they specify who has supplied it. For who is there in all mankind, Greek or Barbarian, who ventures to rank among creatures One whom he confesses the while to be God and says, that He was not till He was made? Or who is there, who to the God in whom he has put faith, refuses to give credit, when He says, ‘This is My beloved Son Matthew 3:17,’ on the pretence that He is not a Son, but a creature? Rather, such madness would rouse an universal indignation. Nor does Scripture afford them any pretext; for it has been often shown, and it shall be shown now, that their doctrine is alien to the divine oracles. Therefore, since all that remains is to say that from the devil came their mania (for of such opinions he alone is sower ), proceed we to resist him — for with him is our real conflict, and they are but instruments — that, the Lord aiding us, and the enemy, as he is wont, being overcome with arguments, they may be put to shame, when they see him without resource who sowed this heresy in them, and may learn, though late, that, as being Arians, they are not Christians.

Chapter 4. That the Son is Eternal and Increate. These attributes, being the points in dispute, are first proved by direct texts of Scripture. Concerning the ‘eternal power’ of God in Romans 1:20, which is shown to mean the Son. Remarks on the Arian formula, ‘Once the Son was not,’ its supporters not daring to speak of ‘a time when the Son was not.’

11. At his suggestion then you have maintained and you think, that ‘there was once when the Son was not;’ this is the first cloke of your views of doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men ? If you say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is impious to say that He was ‘once,’ or to signify Him by the word ‘once.’ For He is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if you say that the Son was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty, you can but answer, that there was a time when the Word was not; for your very adverb ‘once’ naturally signifies this. And your other, ‘The Son was not before His generation,’ is equivalent to saying, ‘There was once when He was not,’ for both the one and the other signify that there is a time before the Word. Whence then this your discovery? Why do you, as ‘the heathen, rage, and imagine vain phrases against the Lord and against His Christ.’ for no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but rather ‘always’ and ‘eternal‘ and ‘coexistent always with the Father.’ For, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1.’ And in the Apocalypse he thus speaks ; ‘Who is and who was and who is to come.’ Now who can rob ‘who is’ and ‘who was’ of eternity? This too in confutation of the Jews has Paul written in his Epistle to the Romans, ‘Of whom as concerning the flesh is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever Romans 9:5;’ while silencing the Greeks, he has said, ‘The visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead ;’ and what the Power of God is, he teaches us elsewhere himself, ‘Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.’ Surely in these words he does not designate the Father, as you often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father is ‘His eternal power.’ This is not so; for he says not, ‘God Himself is the power,’ but ‘His is the power.’ Very plain is it to all that ‘His’ is not ‘He;’ yet not something alien but rather proper to Him. Study too the context and ‘turn to the Lord.’ now ‘the Lord is that Spirit ;’and you will see that it is the Son who is signified.

Chapter 5. Subject Continued. Objection, that the Son’s eternity makes Him coordinate with the Father, introduces the subject of His Divine Sonship, as a second proof of His eternity. The word Son is introduced in a secondary, but is to be understood in real sense. Since all things partake of the Father in partaking of the Son, He is the whole participation of the Father, that is, He is the Son by nature; for to be wholly participated is to beget.

14. When these points are thus proved, their profaneness goes further. ‘If there never was, when the Son was not,’ say they, ‘but He is eternal, and coexists with the Father, you call Him no more the Father’s Son, but brother.’ O insensate and contentious! For if we said only that He was eternally with the Father, and not His Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility; but if, while we say that He is eternal, we also confess Him to be Son from the Father, how can He that is begotten be considered brother of Him who begets? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? And how can the Word be called brother of Him whose Word He is? This is not an objection of men really ignorant, for they comprehend how the truth lies; but it is a Jewish pretence, and that from those who, in Solomon’s words, ‘through desire separate themselves Proverbs 18:1 ‘ from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin , that we may account Them brothers, but the Father is the Origin of the Son and begot Him; and the Father is Father, and not born the Son of any; and the Son is Son, and not brother. Further, if He is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the essence of the Father imperfect, that what is proper to it should be added afterwards ; nor, as man from man, has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than His Father’s existence, but He is God’s offspring, and as being proper Son of God, who is ever, He exists eternally. For, whereas it is proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature , God’s offspring is eternal, for His nature is ever perfect. If then He is not a Son, but a work made out of nothing, they have but to prove it; and then they are at liberty, as if imagining about a creature, to cry out, ‘There was once when He was not;’ for things which are originated were not, and have come to be. But if He is Son, as the Father says, and the Scriptures proclaim, and ‘Son’ is nothing else than what is generated from the Father; and what is generated from the Father is His Word, and Wisdom, and Radiance; what is to be said but that, in maintaining ‘Once the Son was not,’ they rob God of His Word, like plunderers, and openly predicate of Him that He was once without His proper Word and Wisdom, and that the Light was once without radiance, and the Fountain was once barren and dry ? For though they pretend alarm at the name of time, because of those who reproach them with it, and say, that He was before times, yet whereas they assign certain intervals, in which they imagine He was not, they are most irreligious still, as equally suggesting times, and imputing to God an absence of Reason.

Chapter 11. Texts Explained; And First, Philippians 2:9, 10. Whether the words ‘Wherefore God has highly exalted’ prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word ‘Son;’ which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of ‘highly exalted,’ and ‘gave,’ and ‘wherefore;’ viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord’s manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word’s ‘exaltation’ through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word.

38. But if they say this of the Saviour also, it follows that He is neither very God nor very Son, nor like the Father, nor in any wise has God for a Father of His being according to essence, but of the mere grace given to Him, and for a Creator of His being according to essence, after the similitude of all others. And being such, as they maintain, it will be manifest further that He had not the name ‘Son’ from the first, if so be it was the prize of works done and of that very same advance which He made when He became man, and took the form of the servant; but then, when, after becoming ‘obedient unto death,’ He was, as the text says, ‘highly exalted,’ and received that ‘Name’ as a grace, ‘that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow Philippians 2:8.’ What then was before this, if then He was exalted, and then began to be worshipped, and then was called Son, when He became man? For He seems Himself not to have promoted the flesh at all, but rather to have been Himself promoted through it, if, according to their perverseness, He was then exalted and called Son, when He became man. What then was before this? One must urge the question on them again, to make it understood what their irreligious doctrine results in. For if the Lord be God, Son, Word, yet was not all these before He became man, either He was something else beside these, and afterwards became partaker of them for His virtue’s sake, as we have said; or they must adopt the alternative (may it return upon their heads!) that He was not before that time, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is no sentiment of the Church. but of the Samosatene and of the present Jews. Why then, if they think as Jews, are they not circumcised with them too, instead of pretending Christianity, while they are its foes? For if He was not, or was indeed, but afterwards was promoted, how were all things made by Him, or how in Him, were He not perfect, did the Father delight Proverbs 8:30? And He, on the other hand, if now promoted, how did He before rejoice in the presence of the Father? And, if He received His worship after dying, how is Abraham seen to worship Him in the tent , and Moses in the bush? And, as Daniel saw, myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands were ministering unto Him? And if, as they say, He had His promotion now, how did the Son Himself make mention of that His glory before and above the world, when He said, ‘Glorify Thou Me, O Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was John 17:5.’ If, as they say, He was then exalted, how did He before that ‘bow the heavens and come down;’ and again, ‘The Highest gave His thunder ?’ Therefore, if, even before the world was made, the Son had that glory, and was Lord of glory and the Highest, and descended from heaven, and is ever to be worshipped, it follows that He had not promotion from His descent, but rather Himself promoted the things which needed promotion; and if He descended to effect their promotion, therefore He did not receive in reward the name of the Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.

39. Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, ‘God stands in the congregation of Gods ‘), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He ‘first-born of the whole creation ,’ if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For adoption there could not be apart from the real Son, who says, ‘No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him Matthew 11:27.’ And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? Yet, says He to their brethren the Jews, ‘If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came John 10:35.’ And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He Himself only is very Son , and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is Offspring of the Father’s essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.

Chapter 12. Texts Explained; Secondly, Psalm 45:7, 8.}}–> Whether the words ‘therefore,’ ‘anointed,’ etc., imply that the Word has been rewarded. Argued against first from the word ‘fellows’ or ‘partakers.’ He is anointed with the Spirit in His manhood to sanctify human nature. Therefore the Spirit descended on Him in Jordan, when in the flesh. And He is said to sanctify Himself for us, and give us the gloryHe has received. The word ‘wherefore’ implies His divinity. ‘You have loved righteousness,’ etc., do not imply trial or choice.

50. What is there to wonder at, what to disbelieve, if the Lord who gives the Spirit, is here said Himself to be anointed with the Spirit, at a time when, necessity requiring it, He did not refuse in respect of His manhood to call Himself inferior to the Spirit? For the Jews saying that He cast out devils in Beelzebub, He answered and said to them, for the exposure of their blasphemy, ‘But if I through the Spirit of God cast out demons Matthew 12:28.’ Behold, the Giver of the Spirit here says that He cast out demons in the Spirit; but this is not said, except because of His flesh. For since man’s nature is not equal of itself to casting out demons, but only in power of the Spirit, therefore as man He said, ‘But if I through the Spirit of God cast out demons.’ Of course too He signified that the blasphemy offered to the Holy Ghost is greater than that against His humanity, when He said, ‘Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him;’ such as were those who said, ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son ?’ but they who blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, and ascribe the deeds of the Word to the devil, shall have inevitable punishment. This is what the Lord spoke to the Jews, as man; but to the disciples showing His Godhead and His majesty, and intimating that He was not inferior but equal to the Spirit, He gave the Spirit and said, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost,’ and ‘I send Him,’ and ‘He shall glorify Me,’ and ‘Whatsoever He hears, that He shall speak.’ As then in this place the Lord Himself, the Giver of the Spirit, does not refuse to say that through the Spirit He casts out demons, as man; in like manner He the same, the Giver of the Spirit, refused not to say, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me Isaiah 61:1,’ in respect of His having become flesh, as John has said; that it might be shown in both these particulars, that we are they who need the Spirit’s grace in our sanctification, and again who are unable to cast out demons without the Spirit’s power. Through whom then and from whom behooved it that the Spirit should be given but through the Son, whose also the Spirit is? And when were we enabled to receive It, except when the Word became man? And, as the passage of the Apostle shows, that we had not been redeemed and highly exalted, had not He who exists in form of God taken a servant’s form, so David also shows, that no otherwise should we have partaken the Spirit and been sanctified, but that the Giver of the Spirit, the Word Himself, hast spoken of Himself as anointed with the Spirit for us. And therefore have we securely received it, He being said to be anointed in the flesh; for the flesh being first sanctified in Him , and He being said, as man, to have received for its sake, we have the sequel of the Spirit grace, receiving ‘out of His fullness John 1:16.’

Chapter 13. Texts Explained; Thirdly, Hebrews i. 4. Additional texts brought as objections; e.g. Hebrews 1:4; 7:22. Whether the word ‘better’ implies likeness to the Angels; and ‘made’ or ‘become’ implies creation. Necessary to consider the circumstances under which Scripture speaks. Difference between ‘better’ and ‘greater;’ texts in proof. ‘Made’ or ‘become’ a general word. Contrast in Hebrews 1:4, between the Son and the Works in point of nature. The difference of the punishments under the two Covenants shows the difference of the natures of the Son and the Angels. ‘Become’ relates not to the nature of the Word, but to His manhood and office and relation towards us. Parallel passages in which the term is applied to the Eternal Father.

53. But it is written, say they, in the Proverbs, ‘The Lord created me the beginning of His ways, for His Works ;’ and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle says, ‘Being made so much better than the Angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they.’ And soon after, ‘Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him that made Him.’ And in the Acts, ‘Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ.’ These passages they brought forward at every turn, mistaking their sense, under the idea that they proved that the Word of God was a creature and work and one of things originate; and thus they deceive the thoughtless, making the language of Scripture their pretence, but instead of the true sense sowing upon it the poison of their own heresy. For had they known, they would not have been irreligious against ‘the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2:8,’ nor have wrested the good words of Scripture. If then henceforward openly adopting Caiaphas’s way, they have determined on Judaizing, and are ignorant of the text, that verily God shall dwell upon the earth , let them not inquire into the Apostolical sayings; for this is not the manner of Jews. But if, mixing themselves up with the godless Manichees , they deny that ‘the Word was made flesh,’ and His Incarnate presence, then let them not bring forward the Proverbs, for this is out of place with the Manichees. But if for preferment-sake, and the lucre of avarice which follows , and the desire for good repute, they venture not on denying the text, ‘The Word was made flesh,’ since so it is written, either let them rightly interpret the words of Scripture, of the embodied presence of the Saviour, or, if they deny their sense, let them deny that the Lord became man at all. For it is unseemly, while confessing that ‘the Word became flesh,’ yet to be ashamed at what is written of Him, and on that account to corrupt the sense.

54. For it is written, ‘So much better than the Angels.’ let us then first examine this. Now it is right and necessary, as in all divine Scripture, so here, faithfully to expound the time of which the Apostle wrote, and the person , and the point; lest the reader, from ignorance missing either these or any similar particular, may be wide of the true sense. This understood that inquiring eunuch, when he thus besought Philip, ‘I pray you, of whom does the Prophet speak this? Of himself, or of some other man Acts 8:34?’ for he feared lest, expounding the lesson unsuitably to the person, he should wander from the right sense. And the disciples, wishing to learn the time of what was foretold, besought the Lord, ‘Tell us,’ said they, ‘when shall these things be? And what is the sign of Your coming Matthew 24:3?’ And again, hearing from the Saviour the events of the end, they desired to learn the time of it, that they might be kept from error themselves, and might be able to teach others; as, for instance, when they had learned, they set right the Thessalonians , who were going wrong. When then one knows properly these points, his understanding of the faith is right and healthy; but if he mistakes any such points, immediately he falls into heresy. Thus Hymenæus and Alexander and their fellows were beside the time, when they said that the resurrection had already been; and the Galatians were after the time, in making much of circumcision now. And to miss the person was the lot of the Jews, and is still, who think that of one of themselves is said, ‘Behold, the Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and they shall call his Name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23;’ and that, ‘A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you Deuteronomy 18:15,’ is spoken of one of the Prophets; and who, as to the words, ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter Isaiah 53:7,’ instead of learning from Philip, conjecture them spoken of Isaiah or some other of the former Prophets.

55. (3.) Such has been the state of mind under which Christ’s enemies have fallen into their execrable heresy. For had they known the person, and the subject, and the season of the Apostle’s words, they would not have expounded of Christ’s divinity what belongs to His manhood, nor in their folly have committed so great an act of irreligion. Now this will be readily seen, if one expounds properly the beginning of this lection. For the Apostle says, ‘God who at sundry times and various manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son Hebrews 1:1-2;’ then again shortly after he says, ‘when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the Angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they.’ It appears then that the Apostle’s words make mention of that time, when God spoke unto us by His Son, and when a purging of sins took place. Now when did He speak unto us by His Son, and when did purging of sins take place? And when did He become man? When, but subsequently to the Prophets in the last days? Next, proceeding with his account of the economy in which we were concerned, and speaking of the last times, he is naturally led to observe that not even in the former times was God silent with men, but spoke to them by the Prophets. And, whereas the prophets ministered, and the Law was spoken by Angels, while the Son too came on earth, and that in order to minister, he was forced to add, ‘Become so much better than the Angels,’ wishing to show that, as much as the son excels a servant, so much also the ministry of the Son is better than the ministry of servants. Contrasting then the old ministry and the new, the Apostle deals freely with the Jews, writing and saying, ‘Become so much better than the Angels.’ This is why throughout he uses no comparison, such as ‘become greater,’ or ‘more honourable,’ lest we should think of Him and them as one in kind, but ‘better’ is his word, by way of marking the difference of the Son’s nature from things originated. And of this we have proof from divine Scripture; David, for instance, saying in the Psalm, ‘One day in Your courts is better than a thousand :’ and Solomon crying out, ‘Receive my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it Proverbs 8:10-11.’ Are not wisdom and stones of the earth different in essence and separate in nature? Are heavenly courts at all akin to earthly houses? Or is there any similarity between things eternal and spiritual, and things temporal and mortal? And this is what Isaiah says, ‘Thus says the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My Covenant; even unto them will I give in Mine house, and within My walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off Isaiah 56:4-5.’ In like manner there is nought akin between the Son and the Angels; so that the word ‘better’ is not used to compare but to contrast, because of the difference of His nature from them. And therefore the Apostle also himself, when he interprets the word ‘better,’ places its force in nothing short of the Son’s excellence over things originated, calling the one Son, the other servants; the one, as a Son with the Father, sitting on the right; and the others, as servants, standing before Him, and being sent, and fulfilling offices.

57. Though surely amid such speculations, they will be moved by the sacred poet, saying, ‘Who is he among the gods that shall be like the Lord ,’ and, ‘Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord.’ However, they must be answered, with the chance of their profiting by it, that comparison confessedly does belong to subjects one in kind, not to those which differ. No one, for instance, would compare God with man, or again man with brutes, nor wood with stone, because their natures are unlike; but God is beyond comparison, and man is compared to man, and wood to wood, and stone to stone. Now in such cases we should not speak of ‘better,’ but of ‘rather’ and ‘more;’ thus Joseph was comely rather than his brethren, and Rachel than Leah; star is not better than star, but is the rather excellent in glory; whereas in bringing together things which differ in kind, then ‘better’ is used to mark the difference, as has been said in the case of wisdom and Jewels. Had then the Apostle said, ‘by so much has the Son precedence of the Angels,’ or ‘by so much greater,’ you would have had a plea, as if the Son were compared with the Angels; but, as it is, in saying that He is ‘better,’ and differs as far as Son from servants, the Apostle shows that He is other than the Angels in nature.

Discourse 2 Against the Arians

1. I did indeed think that enough had been said already against the hollow professors of Arius’s madness, whether for their refutation or in the truth’s behalf, to insure a cessation and repentance of their evil thoughts and words about the Saviour. They, however, for whatever reason, still do not succumb; but, as swine and dogs wallow in their own vomit and their own mire, rather invent new expedients for their irreligion. Thus they misunderstand the passage in the Proverbs, ‘The Lord has created me a beginning of His ways for His works ,’ and the words of the Apostle, ‘Who was faithful to Him that made Him Hebrews 3:2,’ and straightway argue, that the Son of God is a work and a creature. But although they might have learned from what is said above, had they not utterly lost their power of apprehension, that the Son is not from nothing nor in the number of things originate at all, the Truth witnessing it (for, being God, He cannot be a work, and it is impious to call Him a creature, and it is of creatures and works that we say, ‘out of nothing,’ and ‘it was not before its generation’), yet since, as if dreading to desert their own fiction, they are accustomed to allege the aforesaid passages of divine Scripture, which have a good meaning, but are by them practised on, let us proceed afresh to take up the question of the sense of these, to remind the faithful, and to show from each of these passages that they have no knowledge at all of Christianity. Were it otherwise, they would not have shut themselves up in the unbelief of the present Jews , but would have inquired and learned that, whereas ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ in consequence, it was when at the good pleasure of the Father the Word became man, that it was said of Him, as by John, ‘The Word became flesh John 1:14;’ so by Peter, ‘He has made Him Lord and Christ Acts 2:36 ‘ — as by means of Solomon in the Person of the Lord Himself, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways for His works Proverbs 8:22;’ so by Paul, ‘Become so much better than the Angels Hebrews 1:4;’ and again, ‘He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant Philippians 2:7;’ and again, ‘Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Jesus, who was faithful to Him that made Him.’ For all these texts have the same force and meaning, a religious one, declarative of the divinity of the Word, even those of them which speak humanly concerning Him, as having become the Son of man. But, though this distinction is sufficient for their refutation, still, since from a misconception of the Apostle’s words (to mention them first), they consider the Word of God to be one of the works, because of its being written, ‘Who was faithful to Him that made Him,’ I have thought it needful to silence this further argument of theirs, taking in hand , as before, their statement.

Chapter 15. Texts explained; Fifthly, Acts 2:36. The Regula Fidei must be observed; madeapplies to our Lord’s manhood; and to His manifestation; and to His office relative to us; and is relative to the Jews. Parallel instance in Genesis 27:29, 37. The context contradicts the Arianinterpretation.

11 (continued). The same is the meaning of the passage in the Acts which they also allege, that in which Peter says, that ‘He has made both Lord and Christ that same Jesus whom you have crucified.’ For here too it is not written, ‘He made for Himself a Son,’ or ‘He made Himself a Word,’ that they should have such notions. If then it has not escaped their memory, that they speak concerning the Son of God, let them make search whether it is anywhere written, ‘God made Himself a Son,’ or ‘He created for Himself a Word.’ or again, whether it is anywhere written in plain terms, ‘The Word is a work or creation.’ and then let them proceed to make their case, the insensate men, that here too they may receive their answer. But if they can produce nothing of the kind, and only catch at such stray expressions as ‘He made’ and ‘He has been made,’ I fear lest, from hearing, ‘In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,’ and ‘He made the sun and the moon,’ and ‘He made the sea,’ they should come in time to call the Word the heaven, and the Light which took place on the first day, and the earth, and each particular thing that has been made, so as to end in resembling the Stoics, as they are called, the one drawing out their God into all things , the other ranking God’s Word with each work in particular; which they have well near done already, saying that He is one of His works.

12. But here they must have the same answer as before, and first be told that the Word is a Son, as has been said above , and not a work, and that such terms are not to be understood of His Godhead, but the reason and manner of them investigated. To persons who so inquire, the human Economy will plainly present itself, which He undertook for our sake. For Peter, after saying, ‘He has made Lord and Christ,’ straightway added, ‘this Jesus whom you crucified;’ which makes it plain to any one, even, if so be, to them, provided they attend to the context, that not the Essence of the Word, but He according to His manhood is said to have been made. For what was crucified but the body? And how could be signified what was bodily in the Word, except by saying ‘He made?’ Especially has that phrase, ‘He made,’ a meaning consistent with orthodoxy; in that he has not said, as I observed before, ‘He made Him Word,’ but ‘He made Him Lord,’ nor that in general terms , but ‘towards’ us, and ‘in the midst of’ us, as much as to say, ‘He manifested Him.’ And this Peter himself, when he began this primary teaching, carefully expressed, when he said to them, ‘You men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man manifested of God towards you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as you yourselves know Acts 2:22.’ Consequently the term which he uses in the end, ‘made’, this He has explained in the beginning by ‘manifested,’ for by the signs and wonders which the Lord did, He was manifested to be not merely man, but God in a body and Lord also, the Christ. Such also is the passage in the Gospel according to John, ‘Therefore the more did the Jews persecute Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but said also that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God.’ For the Lord did not then fashion Himself to be God, nor indeed is a made God conceivable, but He manifested it by the works, saying, ‘Though you believe not Me, believe My works, that you may know that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.’ Thus then the Father has ‘made’ Him Lord and King in the midst of us, and towards us who were once disobedient; and it is plain that He who is now displayed as Lord and King, does not then begin to be King and Lord, but begins to show His Lordship, and to extend it even over the disobedient.

13. If then they suppose that the Saviour was not Lord and King, even before He became man and endured the Cross, but then began to be Lord, let them know that they are openly reviving the statements of the Samosatene. But if, as we have quoted and declared above, He is Lord and King everlasting, seeing that Abraham worships Him as Lord, and Moses says, ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven Genesis 19:24;’ and David in the Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on My right hand ;’ and, ‘Your Throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your Kingdom ;’ and, ‘Your Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom ;’ it is plain that even before He became man, He was King and Lord everlasting, being Image and Word of the Father. And the Word being everlasting Lord and King, it is very plain again that Peter said not that the Essence of the Son was made, but spoke of His Lordship over us, which ‘became’ when He became man, and, redeeming all by the Cross, became Lord of all and King. But if they continue the argument on the ground of its being written, ‘He made,’ not willing that ‘He made’ should be taken in the sense of ‘He manifested,’ either from want of apprehension, or from their Christ-opposing purpose, let them attend to another sound exposition of Peter’s words. For he who becomes Lord of others, comes into the possession of beings already in existence; but if the Lord is Framer of all and everlasting King, and when He became man, then gained possession of us, here too is a way in which Peter’s language evidently does not signify that the Essence of the Word is a work, but the after-subjection of all things, and the Saviour’s Lordship which came to be over all. And this coincides with what we said before ; for as we then introduced the words, ‘Become my God and defense,’ and ‘the Lord became a refuge for the oppressed ,’ and it stood to reason that these expressions do not show that God is originate, but that His beneficence ‘becomes’ towards each individual, the same sense has the expression of Peter also.

14. For the Son of God indeed, being Himself the Word, is Lord of all; but we once were subject from the first to the slavery of corruption and the curse of the Law, then by degrees fashioning for ourselves things that were not, we served, as says the blessed Apostle, ‘them which by nature are no Gods Galatians 4:8,’ and, ignorant of the true God, we preferred things that were not to the truth; but afterwards, as the ancient people when oppressed in Egypt groaned, so, when we too had the Law ‘engrafted James 1:21 ‘ in us, and according to the unutterable sighings Romans 8:26 of the Spirit made our intercession, ‘O Lord our God, take possession of us ,’ then, as ‘He became for a house of refuge’ and a ‘God and defense,’ so also He became our Lord. Nor did He then begin to be, but we began to have Him for our Lord. For upon this, God being good and Father of the Lord, in pity, and desiring to be known by all, makes His own Son put on Him a human body and become man, and be called Jesus, that in this body offering Himself for all, He might deliver all from false worship and corruption, and might Himself become of all Lord and King. His becoming therefore in this way Lord and King, this it is that Peter means by, ‘He has made Him Lord,’ and ‘has sent Christ.’ as much as to say, that the Father in making Him man (for to be made belongs to man), did not simply make Him man, but has made Him in order to His being Lord of all men, and to His hallowing all through the Anointing. For though the Word existing in the form of God took a servant’s form, yet the assumption of the flesh did not make a servant of the Word, who was by nature Lord; but rather, not only was it that emancipation of all humanity which takes place by the Word, but that very Word who was by nature Lord, and was then made man, has by means of a servant’s form been made Lord of all and Christ, that is, in order to hallow all by the Spirit. And as God, when ‘becoming a God and defense,’ and saying, ‘I will be a God to them,’ does not then become God more than before, nor then begins to become God, but, what He ever is, that He then becomes to those who need Him, when it pleases Him, so Christ also being by nature Lord and King everlasting, does not become Lord more than He was at the time He is sent forth, nor then begins to be Lord and King, but what He is ever, that He then is made according to the flesh; and, having redeemed all, He becomes thereby again Lord of quick and dead. For Him henceforth do all things serve, and this is David’s meaning in the Psalm, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ For it was fitting that the redemption should take place through none other than Him who is the Lord by nature, lest, though created by the Son, we should name another Lord, and fall into the Arian and Greek folly, serving the creature beyond the all-creating God.

15. This, at least according to my nothingness, is the meaning of this passage; moreover, a true and a good meaning have these words of Peter as regards the Jews. For Jews, astray from the truth, expect indeed the Christ as coming, but do not reckon that He undergoes a passion, saying what they understand not; ‘We know that, when the Christ comes, He abides for ever, and how do You say, that He must be lifted up ?’ Next they suppose Him, not the Word coming in flesh, but a mere man, as were all the kings. The Lord then, admonishing Cleopas and the other, taught them that the Christ must first suffer; and the rest of the Jews that God had come among them, saying, ‘If He called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God John 10:36?’

16. Peter then, having learned this from the Saviour, in both points set the Jews right, saying, O Jews, the divine Scriptures announce that Christ comes, and you consider Him a mere man as one of David’s descendants, whereas what is written of Him shows Him to be not such as you say, but rather announces Him as Lord and God, and immortal, and dispenser of life. For Moses has said, ‘You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes.’ And David in the hundred and ninth Psalm, ‘The Lord said to My Lord, Sit on My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool ;’ and in the fifteenth, ‘You shall not leave my soul in hades, neither shall Thou suffer Your Holy One to see corruption.’ Now that these passages have not David for their scope he himself witnesses, avowing that He who was coming was His own Lord. Nay you yourselves know that He is dead, and His remains are with you. That the Christ then must be such as the Scriptures say, you will plainly confess yourselves. For those announcements come from God, and in them falsehood cannot be. If then ye can state that such a one has come before, and can prove him God from the signs and wonders which he did, you have reason for maintaining the contest, but if you are not able to prove His coming, but are expecting such an one still, recognise the true season from Daniel, for his words relate to the present time. But if this present season be that which was of old, afore-announced, and you have seen what has taken place among us, be sure that this Jesus, whom you crucified, this is the expected Christ. For David and all the Prophets died, and the sepulchres of all are with you, but that Resurrection which has now taken place, has shown that the scope of these passages is Jesus. For the crucifixion is denoted by ‘You shall see your Life hanging,’ and the wound in the side by the spear answers to ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter Isaiah 53:7,’ and the resurrection, nay more, the rising of the ancient dead from out their sepulchres (for these most of you have seen), this is, ‘You shall not leave My soul in hades,’ and ‘He swallowed up death in strength Isaiah 25:8,’ and again, ‘God will wipe away.’ For the signs which actually took place show that He who was in a body was God, and also the Life and Lord of death. For it became the Christ, when giving life to others, Himself not to be detained by death; but this could not have happened, had He, as you suppose, been a mere man. But in truth He is the Son of God, for men are all subject to death. Let no one therefore doubt, but the whole house of Israel know assuredly that this Jesus, whom you saw in shape a man, doing signs and such works, as no one ever yet had done, is Himself the Christ and Lord of all. For though made man, and called Jesus, as we said before, He received no loss by that human passion, but rather, in being made man, He is manifested as Lord of quick and dead. For since, as the Apostle said, ‘in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Corinthians 1:21.’ And so, since we men would not acknowledge God through His Word, nor serve the Word of God our natural Master, it pleased God to show in man His own Lordship, and so to draw all men to Himself. But to do this by a mere man beseemed not ; lest, having man for our Lord, we should become worshippers of man. Therefore the Word Himself became flesh, and the Father called His Name Jesus, and so ‘made’ Him Lord and Christ, as much as to say, ‘He made Him to rule and to reign;’ that while in the Name of Jesus, whom you crucified, every knee bows, we may acknowledge as Lord and King both the Son and through Him the Father.

17. The Jews then, most of them , hearing this, came to themselves and immediately acknowledged the Christ, as it is written in the Acts. But, the Ario-maniacs on the contrary choose to remain Jews, and to contend with Peter; so let us proceed to place before them some parallel phrases; perhaps it may have some effect upon them, to find what the usage is of divine Scripture. Now that Christ is everlasting Lord and King, has become plain by what has gone before, nor is there a man to doubt about it; for being Son of God, He must be like Him , and being like, He is certainly both Lord and King, for He says Himself, ‘He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.’ On the other hand, that Peter’s mere words, ‘He has made Him both Lord and Christ,’ do not imply the Son to be a creature, may be seen from Isaac’s blessing, though this illustration is but a faint one for our subject. Now he said to Jacob, ‘Become thou lord over your brother;’ and to Esau, ‘Behold, I have made him your lord.’ Now though the word ‘made’ had implied Jacob’s essence and the coming into being, even then it would not be right in them as much as to imagine the same of the Word of God, for the Son of God is no creature as Jacob was; besides, they might inquire and so rid themselves of that extravagance. But if they do not understand it of his essence nor of his coming into being, though Jacob was by nature creature and work, is not their madness worse than the Devil’s , if what they dare not ascribe in consequence of a like phrase even to things by nature originate, that they attach to the Son of God, saying that He is a creature? For Isaac said ‘Become’ and ‘I have made,’ signifying neither the coming into being nor the essence of Jacob (for after thirty years and more from his birth he said this); but his authority over his brother, which came to pass subsequently.

18. Much more then did Peter say this without meaning that the Essence of the Word was a work; for he knew Him to be God’s Son, confessing, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God Matthew 16:16;’ but he meant His Kingdom and Lordship which was formed and came to be according to grace, and was relatively to us. For while saying this, he was not silent about the Son of God’s everlasting Godhead which is the Father’s; but He had said already, that He had poured the Spirit on us; now to give the Spirit with authority, is not in the power of creature or work, but the Spirit is God’s Gift. For the creatures are hallowed by the Holy Spirit; but the Son, in that He is not hallowed by the Spirit, but on the contrary Himself the Giver of it to all , is therefore no creature, but true Son of the Father. And yet He who gives the Spirit, the same is said also to be made; that is, to be made among us Lord because of His manhood, while giving the Spirit because He is God’s Word. For He ever was and is, as Son, so also Lord and Sovereign of all, being like in all things to the Father, and having all that is the Father’s as He Himself has said.

Chapter 18. Introduction to Proverbs 8:22 continued. Contrast between the Father’s operations immediately and naturally in the Son, instrumentally by the creatures; Scripture terms illustrative of this. Explanation of these illustrations; which should be interpreted by the doctrine of the Church; perverse sense put on them by the Arians, refuted. Mystery of Divine Generation. Contrast between God’s Word and man’s word drawn out at length. Asterius betrayed into holding two Unoriginates; his inconsistency. Baptism how by the Son as well as by the Father. On the Baptism of heretics. Why Arianworse than other heresies.

42. Therefore, when He made His promise to the saints, He thus spoke; ‘I and the Father will come, and make Our abode in him;’ and again, ‘that, as I and Thou are One, so they may be one in Us.’ And the grace given is one, given from the Father in the Son, as Paul writes in every Epistle, ‘Grace unto you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ For the light must be with the ray, and the radiance must be contemplated together with its own light. Whence the Jews, as denying the Son as well as they, have not the Father either; for, as having left the ‘Fountain of Wisdom Baruch 3:12,’ as Baruch reproaches them, they put from them the Wisdom springing from it, our Lord Jesus Christ (for ‘Christ,’ says the Apostle, is ‘God’s power and God’s wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24),’ when they said, ‘We have no king but Cæsar John 19:15.’ The Jews then have the penal award of their denial; for their city as well as their reasoning came to nought. And these too hazard the fullness of the mystery, I mean Baptism; for if the consecration is given to us into the Name of Father and Son, and they do not confess a true Father, because they deny what is from Him and like His Essence, and deny also the true Son, and name another of their own framing as created out of nothing, is not the rite administered by them altogether empty and unprofitable, making a show, but in reality being no help towards religion? For the Arians do not baptize into Father and Son, but into Creator and creature, and into Maker and work. And as a creature is other than the Son, so the Baptism, which is supposed to be given by them, is other than the truth, though they pretend to name the Name of the Father and the Son, because of the words of Scripture, For not he who simply says, ‘O Lord,’ gives Baptism; but he who with the Name has also the right faith. On this account therefore our Saviour also did not simply command to baptize, but first says, ‘Teach;’ then thus: ‘Baptize into the Name of Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost;’ that the right faith might follow upon learning, and together with faith might come the consecration of Baptism.

Chapter 21. Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs 8:22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be ‘created,’ or the works to be ‘begotten.’ ‘In the beginning’ means in the case of the works ‘from the beginning.’ Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of ‘First-born of the dead;’ of ‘First-born among many brethren;’ of ‘First-born of all creation,’ contrasted with ‘Only-begotten.’ Further interpretation of ‘beginning of ways,’ and ‘for the works.’ Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works.

72. But if the Word were a work, then certainly He as others had been made in Wisdom; nor would Scripture distinguish Him from the works, nor while it named them works, preach Him as Word and own Wisdom of God. But, as it is, distinguishing Him from the works, He shows that Wisdom is Framer of the works, and not a work. This distinction Paul also observes, writing to the Hebrews, ‘The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature hidden before Him, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom is our account Hebrews 4:12-13.’ For behold he calls things originate ‘creature;’ but the Son he recognises as the Word of God, as if He were other than the creatures. And again saying, ‘All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom is our account,’ he signifies that He is other than all of them. For hence it is that He judges, but each of all things originate is bound to give account to Him. And so also, when the whole creation is groaning together with us in order to be set free from the bondage of corruption, the Son is thereby shown to be other than the creatures. For if He were creature, He too would be one of those who groan, and would need one who should bring adoption and deliverance to Himself as well as others. But if the whole creation groans together, for the sake of freedom from the bondage of corruption, whereas the Son is not of those that groan nor of those who need freedom, but He it is who gives sonship and freedom to all, saying to the Jews of His time , ‘The servant remains not in the house for ever, but the Son remains for ever; if then the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed John 8:35-36;’ it is clearer than the light from these considerations also, that the Word of God is not a creature but true Son, and by nature genuine, of the Father. Concerning then ‘The Lord has created me a beginning of the ways,’ this is sufficient, as I think, though in few words, to afford matter to the learned to frame more ample refutations of the Arian heresy.

Chapter 22. Texts Explained; Sixthly, the Context of Proverbs 8:22, and application of it to created Wisdom as seen in the works. The Son reveals the Father, first by the works, then by the Incarnation.

But since the heretics, reading the next verse, take a perverse view of that also, because it is written, ‘He founded me before the world Proverbs 8:23,’ namely, that this is said of the Godhead of the Word and not of His incarnate Presence , it is necessary, explaining this verse also, to show their error.

73. It is written, ‘The Lord in Wisdom founded the earth Proverbs 3:19;’ if then by Wisdom the earth is founded, how can He who founds be founded? Nay, this too is said after the manner of proverbs , and we must in like manner investigate its sense; that we may know that, while by Wisdom the Father frames and founds the earth to be firm and steadfast , Wisdom Itself is founded for us, that It may become beginning and foundation of our new creation and renewal. Accordingly here as before, He says not, ‘Before the world He has made me Word or Son,’ lest there should be as it were a beginning of His making. For this we must seek before all things, whether He is Son , ‘and on this point specially search the Scriptures ;’ for this it was, when the Apostles were questioned, that Peter answered, saying, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God Matthew 16:16.’ This also the father of the Arian heresy asked as one of his first questions; ‘If Thou be the Son of God Matthew 4:3;’ for he knew that this is the truth and the sovereign principle of our faith; and that, if He were Himself the Son, the tyranny of the devil would have its end; but if He were a creature, He too was one of those descended from that Adam whom he deceived, and he had no cause for anxiety. For the same reason the Jews of the day were angered, because the Lord said that He was Son of God, and that God was His proper Father. For had He called Himself one of the creatures, or said, ‘I am a work,’ they had not been startled at the intelligence, nor thought such words blasphemy, knowing, as they did, that even Angels had come among their fathers; but since He called Himself Son, they perceived that such was not the note of a creature, but of Godhead and of the Father’s nature. The Arians then ought, even in imitation of their own father the devil, to take some special pains on this point; and if He has said, ‘He founded me to be Word or Son,’ then to think as they do; but if He has not so spoken, not to invent for themselves what is not.

Discourse 3 Against the Arians

Chapter 23. Texts Explained; Seventhly, John 14:10 Introduction. The doctrine of the coinherence. The Father and the Son Each whole and perfect God. They are in Each Other, because their Essence is One and the Same. They are Each Perfect and have One Essence, because the Second Person is the Son of the First. Asterius’s evasive explanation of the text under review; refuted. Since the Son has all that the Father has, He is His Image; and the Father is the One God, because the Son is in the Father.

2. But now let us see what Asterius the Sophist says, the retained pleader for the heresy. In imitation then of the Jews so far, he writes as follows; ‘It is very plain that He has said, that He is in the Father and the Father again in Him, for this reason, that neither the word on which He was discoursing is, as He says, His own, but the Father’s, nor the works belong to Him, but to the Father who gave Him the power.’ Now this, if uttered at random by a little child, had been excused from his age; but when one who bears the title of Sophist, and professes universal knowledge , is the writer, what a serious condemnation does he deserve! And does he not show himself a stranger to the Apostle 1 Corinthians 2:4, as being puffed up with persuasive words of wisdom, and thinking thereby to succeed in deceiving, not understanding himself what he says nor whereof he affirms 1 Timothy 1:7? For what the Son has said as proper and suitable to a Son only, who is Word and Wisdom and Image of the Father’s Essence, that he levels to all the creatures, and makes common to the Son and to them; and he says, lawless man, that the Power of the Father receives power, that from this his irreligion it may follow to say that in a son the Son was made a son, and the Word received a word’s authority; and, far from granting that He spoke this as a Son, He ranks Him with all things made as having learned it as they have. For if the Son said, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in Me,’ because His discourses were not His own words but the Father’s, and so of His works, then — since David says, ‘I will hear what the Lord God shall say in me ,’ and again Solomon , ‘My words are spoken by God,’ and since Moses was minister of words which were from God, and each of the Prophets spoke not what was his own but what was from God, ‘Thus says the Lord,’ and since the works of the Saints, as they professed, were not their own but God’s who gave the power, Elijah for instance and Elisha invoking God that He Himself would raise the dead, and Elisha saying to Naaman, on cleansing him from the leprosy, ‘that you may know that there is a God in Israel 2 Kings 5:8, 15,’ and Samuel too in the days of the harvest praying to God to grant rain, and the Apostles saying that not in their own power they did miracles but in the Lord’s grace— it is plain that, according to Asterius such a statement must be common to all, so that each of them is able to say, ‘I in the Father and the Father in me;’ and as a consequence that He is no longer one Son of God and Word and Wisdom, but, as others, is only one out of many.

Chapter 24. Texts Explained; Eighthly, John 17:3. and the Like. Our Lord’s divinity cannot interfere with His Father’s prerogatives, as the One God, which were so earnestly upheld by the Son. ‘One’ is used in contrast to false gods and idols, not to the Son, through whom the Father spoke. Our Lord adds His Name to the Father’s, as included in Him. The Father the First, not as if the Son were not First too, but as Origin.

8. And this account of the meaning of such passages is satisfactory; for since those who are devoted to gods falsely so called, revolt from the True God, therefore God, being good and careful for mankind, recalling the wanderers, says, ‘I am Only God,’ and ‘I Am,’ and ‘Besides Me there is no God,’ and the like; that He may condemn things which are not, and may convert all men to Himself. And as, supposing in the daytime when the sun was shining, a man were rudely to paint a piece of wood, which had not even the appearance of light, and call that image the cause of light, and if the sun with regard to it were to say, ‘I alone am the light of the day, and there is no other light of the day but I,’ he would say this, with regard, not to his own radiance, but to the error arising from the wooden image and the dissimilitude of that vain representation; so it is with ‘I am,’ and ‘I am Only God,’ and ‘There is none other besides Me,’ viz. that He may make men renounce falsely called gods, and that they may recognise Him the true God instead. Indeed when God said this, He said it through His own Word, unless forsooth the modern Jews add this too, that He has not said this through His Word; but so has He spoken, though they rave, these followers of the devil. For the Word of the Lord came to the Prophet, and this was what was heard; nor is there a thing which God says or does, but He says and does it in the Word. Not then with reference to Him is this said, O Christ’s enemies, but to things foreign to Him and not from Him. For according to the aforesaid illustration, if the sun had spoken those words, he would have been setting right the error and have so spoken, not as having his radiance without him, but in the radiance showing his own light. Therefore not for the denial of the Son, nor with reference to Him, are such passages, but to the overthrow of falsehood. Accordingly God spoke not such words to Adam at the beginning, though His Word was with Him, by whom all things came to be; for there was no need, before idols came in; but when men made insurrection against the truth and named for themselves gods such as they would , then it was that need arose of such words, for the denial of gods that were not. Nay I would add, that they were said even in anticipation of the folly of these Christ-opposers , that they might know, that whatsoever god they devise external to the Father’s Essence, he is not True God, nor Image and Son of the Only and First.

Chapter 25. Texts Explained; Ninthly, John 10:30; 17:11, etc. Arianexplanation, that the Son is one with the Father in will and judgment; but so are all good men, nay things inanimate; contrast of the Son. Oneness between Them is in nature, because oneness in operation. Angels not objects of prayer, because they do not work together with God, but the Son; texts quoted. Seeing an Angel, is not seeing God. Ariansin fact hold two Gods, and tend to Gentile polytheism. Arianexplanation that the Father and Son are one as we are one with Christ, is put aside by the Regula Fidei, and shown invalid by the usage of Scripture in illustrations; the true force of the comparison; force of the terms used. Force of ‘in us;’ force of ‘as;’ confirmed by St. John. In what sense we are ‘in God’ and His ‘sons.’

15. For divine Scripture wishing us thus to understand the matter, has given such illustrations, as we have said above, from which we are able both to press the traitorous Jews, and to refute the allegation of Gentiles who maintain and think, on account of the Trinity, that we profess many gods. For, as the illustration shows, we do not introduce three Origins or three Fathers, as the followers of Marcion and Manichæus; since we have not suggested the image of three suns, but sun and radiance. And one is the light from the sun in the radiance; and so we know of but one origin; and the All-framing Word we profess to have no other manner of godhead, than that of the Only God, because He is born from Him. Rather then will the Ario-maniacs with reason incur the charge of polytheism or else of atheism , because they idly talk of the Son as external and a creature, and again the Spirit as from nothing. For either they will say that the Word is not God; or saying that He is God , because it is so written, but not proper to the Father’s Essence, they will introduce many because of their difference of kind (unless forsooth they shall dare to say that by participation only, He, as all things else, is called God; though, if this be their sentiment, their irreligion is the same, since they consider the Word as one among all things). But let this never even come into our mind. For there is but one form of Godhead, which is also in the Word; and one God, the Father, existing by Himself according as He is above all, and appearing in the Son according as He pervades all things, and in the Spirit according as in Him He acts in all things through the Word. For thus we confess God to be one through the Triad, and we say that it is much more religious than the godhead of the heretics with its many kinds , and many parts, to entertain a belief of the One Godhead in a Triad.

16. For if it be not so, but the Word is a creature and a work out of nothing, either He is not True God because He is Himself one of the creatures, or if they name Him God from regard for the Scriptures, they must of necessity say that there are two Gods , one Creator, the other creature, and must serve two Lords, one Unoriginate, and the other originate and a creature; and must have two faiths, one in the True God, and the other in one who is made and fashioned by themselves and called God. And it follows of necessity in so great blindness, that, when they worship the Unoriginate, they renounce the originate, and when they come to the creature, they turn from the Creator. For they cannot see the One in the Other, because their natures and operations are foreign and distinct. And with such sentiments, they will certainly be going on to more gods, for this will be the essay of those who revolt from the One God. Wherefore then, when the Arians have these speculations and views, do they not rank themselves with the Gentiles? For they too, as these, worship the creature rather than God the Creator of all , and though they shrink from the Gentile name, in order to deceive the unskilful, yet they secretly hold a like sentiment with them. For their subtle saying which they are accustomed to urge, We say not two ‘Unoriginates ,’ they plainly say to deceive the simple; for in their very professing ‘We say not two Unoriginates,’ they imply two Gods, and these with different natures, one originate and one Unoriginate. And though the Greeks worship one Unoriginate and many originate, but these one Unoriginate and one originate, this is no difference from them; for the God whom they call originate is one out of many, and again the many gods of the Greeks have the same nature with this one, for both he and they are creatures. Unhappy are they, and the more for that their hurt is from thinking against Christ; for they have fallen from the truth, and are greater traitors than the Jews in denying the Christ, and they wallow with the Gentiles, hateful as they are to God, worshipping the creature and many deities. For there is One God, and not many, and One is His Word, and not many; for the Word is God, and He alone has the Form of the Father. Being then such, the Saviour Himself troubled the Jews with these words, ‘The Father Himself which has sent Me, has borne witness of Me; you have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His Form; and you have not His Word abiding in you; for whom He has sent, Him ye believe not John 5:37.’ Suitably has He joined the ‘Word’ to the ‘Form,’ to show that the Word of God is Himself Image and Expression and Form of His Father; and that the Jews who did not receive Him who spoke to them, thereby did not receive the Word, which is the Form of God. This too it was that the Patriarch Jacob having seen, received a blessing from Him and the name of Israel instead of Jacob, as divine Scripture witnesses, saying, ‘And as he passed by the Form of God, the Sun rose upon him.’ And This it was who said, ‘He that has seen Me has seen the Father,’ and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ and, ‘I and the Father are one ;’ for thus God is One, and one the faith in the Father and Son; for, though the Word be God, the Lord our God is one Lord; for the Son is proper to that One, and inseparable according to the propriety and peculiarity of His Essence.

Chapter 26. Introductory to Texts from the Gospels on the Incarnation. Enumeration of texts still to be explained. Arianscompared to the Jews. We must recur to the Regula Fidei. Our Lord did not come into, but became, man, and therefore had the acts and affections of the flesh. The same works divine and human. Thus the flesh was purified, and men were made immortal. Reference to I Peter 4:1.

26. For behold, as if not wearied in their words of irreligion, but hardened with Pharaoh, while they hear and see the Saviour’s human attributes in the Gospels , they have utterly forgotten, like the Samosatene, the Son’s paternal Godhead , and with arrogant and audacious tongue they say, ‘How can the Son be from the Father by nature, and be like Him in essence,’ who says, ‘All power is given unto Me;’ and ‘The Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto the Son.’ and ‘The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand; he that believes in the Son has everlasting life;’ and again, ‘All things were delivered unto Me of My Father, and no one knows the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him;’ and again, ‘All that the Father has given unto Me, shall come to Me.’ On this they observe, ‘If He was, as you say, Son by nature, He had no need to receive, but He had by nature as a Son.’ Or how can He be the natural and true Power of the Father, who near upon the season of the passion says, ‘Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour; but for this came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Your Name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again John 12:27-28.’ And He said the same another time; ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me;’ and ‘When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me. ‘ Then these perverse men argue; ‘If He were Power, He had not feared, but rather He had supplied power to others.’ Further they say; ‘If He were by nature the true and own Wisdom of the Father,’ how is it written, ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man ?’ In like manner, when He had come into the parts of Cæsarea Philippi, He asked the disciples whom men said that He was; and when He was at Bethany He asked where Lazarus lay; and He said besides to His disciples, ‘How many loaves have ye ? How then,’ say they, ‘is He Wisdom, who increased in wisdom and was ignorant of what He asked of others?’ This too they urge; How can He be the own Word of the Father, without whom the Father never was, through whom He makes all things, as you think, who said upon the Cross ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ and before that had prayed, ‘Glorify Your Name,’ and, ‘O Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with You before the world was.’ And He used to pray in the deserts and charge His disciples to pray lest they should enter into temptation; and, ‘The spirit indeed is willing,’ He said, ‘but the flesh is weak.’ And, ‘Of that day and that hour knows no man, no, nor the Angels, neither the Son. ‘ Upon this again say the miserable men, If the Son were, according to your interpretation , eternally existent with God, He had not been ignorant of the Day, but had known as Word; nor had been forsaken as being coexistent; nor had asked to receive glory, as having it in the Father; nor would have prayed at all; for, being the Word, He had needed nothing; but since He is a creature and one of things originate, therefore He thus spoke, and needed what He had not; for it is proper to creatures to require and to need what they have not.

27. This then is what the irreligious men allege in their discourses; and if they thus argue, they might consistently speak yet more daringly; ‘Why did the Word become flesh at all?’ and they might add; ‘For how could He, being God, become man?’ or, ‘How could the Immaterial bear a body?’ or they might speak with Caiaphas still more Judaically, ‘Wherefore at all did Christ, being a man, make Himself God ?’ for this and the like the Jews then muttered when they saw, and now the Ario-maniacs disbelieve when they read, and have fallen away into blasphemies. If then a man should carefully parallel the words of these and those, he will of a certainty find them both arriving at the same unbelief, and the daring of their irreligion equal, and their dispute with us a common one. For the Jews said; ‘How, being a man, can He be God.’ And the Arians, ‘If He were very God from God, how could He become man?’ And the Jews were offended then and mocked, saying, ‘Had He been Son of God, He had not endured the Cross;’ and the Arians standing over against them, urge upon us, ‘How dare ye say that He is the Word proper to the Father’s Essence, who had a body, so as to endure all this?’ Next, while the Jews sought to kill the Lord, because He said that God was His own Father and made Himself equal to Him, as working what the Father works, the Arians also, not only have learned to deny, both that He is equal to God and that God is the own and natural Father of the Word, but those who hold this they seek to kill. Again, whereas the Jews said, ‘Is not this the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then is it that He says, Before Abraham was, I am, and I came down from heaven ?’ the Arians on the other hand make response and say conformably, ‘How can He be Word or God who slept as man, and wept, and inquired?’ Thus both parties deny the Eternity and Godhead of the Word in consequence of those human attributes which the Saviour took on Him by reason of that flesh which He bore.

28. Such error then being Judaic, and Judaic after the mind of Judas the traitor, let them openly confess themselves scholars of Caiaphas and Herod, instead of cloking Judaism with the name of Christianity, and let them deny outright, as we have said before, the Saviour’s appearance in the flesh, for this doctrine is akin to their heresy; or if they fear openly to Judaize and be circumcised , from servility towards Constantius and for their sake whom they have beguiled, then let them not say what the Jews say; for if they disown the name, let them in fairness renounce the doctrine. For we are Christians, O Arians, Christians we; our privilege is it well to know the Gospels concerning the Saviour, and neither, with Jews to stone Him, if we hear of His Godhead and Eternity, nor with you to stumble at such lowly sayings as He may speak for our sakes as man. If then you would become Christians , put off Arius’s madness, and cleanse with the words of religion those ears of yours which blaspheming has defiled; knowing that, by ceasing to be Arians, you will cease also from the malevolence of the present Jews. Then at once will truth shine on you out of darkness, and you will no longer reproach us with holding two Eternals , but you will yourselves acknowledge that the Lord is God’s true Son by nature, and not as merely eternal , but revealed as co-existing in the Father’s eternity. For there are things called eternal of which He is Framer; for in the twenty-third Psalm it is written, ‘Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates ;’ and it is plain that through Him these things were made; but if even of things everlasting He is the Framer, who of us shall be able henceforth to dispute that He is anterior to those things eternal, and in consequence is proved to be Lord not so much from His eternity, as in that He is God’s Son; for being the Son, He is inseparable from the Father, and never was there when He was not, but He was always; and being the Father’s Image and Radiance, He has the Father’s eternity. Now what has been briefly said above may suffice to show their misunderstanding of the passages they then alleged; and that of what they now allege from the Gospels they certainly give an unsound interpretation , we may easily see, if we now consider the scope of that faith which we Christians hold, and using it as a rule, apply ourselves, as the Apostle teaches, to the reading of inspired Scripture. For Christ’s enemies, being ignorant of this scope, have wandered from the way of truth, and have stumbled Romans 9:32 on a stone of stumbling, thinking otherwise than they should think.

29. Now the scope and character of Holy Scripture, as we have often said, is this — it contains a double account of the Saviour; that He was ever God, and is the Son, being the Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom ; and that afterwards for us He took flesh of a Virgin, Mary Bearer of God , and was made man. And this scope is to be found throughout inspired Scripture, as the Lord Himself has said, ‘Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me John 5:39.’ But lest I should exceed in writing, by bringing together all the passages on the subject, let it suffice to mention as a specimen, first John saying, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made not one thing ;’ next, ‘And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of one Only-begotten from the Father ;’ and next Paul writing, ‘Who being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion like a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross Philippians 2:6-8.’ Any one, beginning with these passages and going through the whole of the Scripture upon the interpretation which they suggest, will perceive how in the beginning the Father said to Him, ‘Let there be light,’ and ‘Let there be a firmament,’ and ‘Let us make man ;’ but in fullness of the ages, He sent Him into the world, not that He might judge the world, but that the world by Him might be saved, and how it is written ‘Behold, the Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his Name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us Matthew 1:23.’

30. The reader then of divine Scripture may acquaint himself with these passages from the ancient books; and from the Gospels on the other hand he will perceive that the Lord became man; for ‘the Word,’ he says, ‘became flesh, and dwelt among us John 1:14.’ And He became man, and did not come into man; for this it is necessary to know, lest perchance these irreligious men fall into this notion also, and beguile any into thinking, that, as in former times the Word was used to come into each of the Saints, so now He sojourned in a man, hallowing him also, and manifesting Himself as in the others. For if it were so, and He only appeared in a man, it were nothing strange, nor had those who saw Him been startled, saying, Whence is He? And wherefore do You, being a man, make Yourself God? For they were familiar with the idea, from the words, ‘And the Word of the Lord came’ to this or that of the Prophets. But now, since the Word of God, by whom all things came to be, endured to become also Son of man, and humbled Himself, taking a servant’s form, therefore to the Jews the Cross of Christ is a scandal, but to us Christ is ‘God’s power’ and ‘God’s wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:24;’ for ‘the Word,’ as John says, ‘became flesh’ (it being the custom of Scripture to call man by the name of ‘flesh,’ as it says by Joel the Prophet, ‘I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh;’ and as Daniel said to Astyages, ‘I do not worship idols made with hands, but the Living God, who has created the heaven and the earth, and has sovereignty over all flesh ;’ for both he and Joel call mankind flesh).

31. Of old time He was wont to come to the Saints individually, and to hallow those who rightly received Him; but neither, when they were begotten was it said that He had become man, nor, when they suffered, was it said that He Himself suffered. But when He came among us from Mary once at the end of the ages for the abolition of sin (for so it was pleasing to the Father, to send His own Son ‘made of a woman, made under the Law’), then it is said, that He took flesh and became man, and in that flesh He suffered for us (as Peter says, ‘Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh Galatians 4:4; 1 Peter 4:1,’ that it might be shown, and that all might believe, that whereas He was ever God, and hallowed those to whom He came, and ordered all things according to the Father’s will , afterwards for our sakes He became man, and ‘bodily Colossians 2:9,’ as the Apostle says, the Godhead dwelt in the flesh; as much as to say, ‘Being God, He had His own body, and using this as an instrument , He became man for our sakes.’ And on account of this, the properties of the flesh are said to be His, since He was in it, such as to hunger, to thirst, to suffer, to weary, and the like, of which the flesh is capable; while on the other hand the works proper to the Word Himself, such as to raise the dead, to restore sight to the blind, and to cure the woman with an issue of blood, He did through His own body. And the Word bore the infirmities of the flesh, as His own, for His was the flesh; and the flesh ministered to the works of the Godhead, because the Godhead was in it, for the body was God’s. And well has the Prophet said ‘carried Isaiah 53:4;’ and has not said, ‘He remedied our infirmities,’ lest, as being external to the body, and only healing it, as He has always done, He should leave men subject still to death; but He carries our infirmities, and He Himself bears our sins, that it might be shown that He has become man for us, and that the body which in Him bore them, was His own body; and, while He received no hurt Himself by ‘bearing our sins in His body on the tree,’ as Peter speaks, we men were redeemed from our own affections , and were filled with the righteousness of the Word.

32. Whence it was that, when the flesh suffered, the Word was not external to it; and therefore is the passion said to be His: and when He did divinely His Father’s works, the flesh was not external to Him, but in the body itself did the Lord do them. Hence, when made man, He said , ‘If I do not the works of the Father, believe Me not; but if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that you may know that the Father is in Me and I in Him.’ And thus when there was need to raise Peter’s wife’s mother, who was sick of a fever, He stretched forth His hand humanly, but He stopped the illness divinely. And in the case of the man blind from the birth, human was the spittle which He gave forth from the flesh, but divinely did He open the eyes through the clay. And in the case of Lazarus, He gave forth a human voice as man; but divinely, as God, did He raise Lazarus from the dead. These things were so done, were so manifested, because He had a body, not in appearance, but in truth ; and it became the Lord, in putting on human flesh, to put it on whole with the affections proper to it; that, as we say that the body was His own, so also we may say that the affections of the body were proper to Him alone, though they did not touch Him according to His Godhead. If then the body had been another’s, to him too had been the affections attributed; but if the flesh is the Word’s (for ‘the Word became flesh’), of necessity then the affections also of the flesh are ascribed to Him, whose the flesh is. And to whom the affections are ascribed, such namely as to be condemned, to be scourged, to thirst, and the cross, and death, and the other infirmities of the body, of Him too is the triumph and the grace. For this cause then, consistently and fittingly such affections are ascribed not to another , but to the Lord; that the grace also may be from Him , and that we may become, not worshippers of any other, but truly devout towards God, because we invoke no originate thing, no ordinary man, but the natural and true Son from God, who has become man, yet is not the less Lord and God and Saviour.

33. Who will not admire this? Or who will not agree that such a thing is truly divine? For if the works of the Word’s Godhead had not taken place through the body, man had not been deified; and again, had not the properties of the flesh been ascribed to the Word, man had not been thoroughly delivered from them ; but though they had ceased for a little while, as I said before, still sin had remained in him and corruption, as was the case with mankind before Him; and for this reason:— Many for instance have been made holy and clean from all sin; nay, Jeremiah was hallowed even from the womb, and John, while yet in the womb, leapt for joy at the voice of Mary Bearer of God ; nevertheless ‘death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression Romans 5:14;’ and thus man remained mortal and corruptible as before, liable to the affections proper to their nature. But now the Word having become man and having appropriated what pertains to the flesh, no longer do these things touch the body, because of the Word who has come in it, but they are destroyed by Him, and henceforth men no longer remain sinners and dead according to their proper affections, but having risen according to the Word’s power, they abide ever immortal and incorruptible. Whence also, whereas the flesh is born of Mary Bearer of God , He Himself is said to have been born, who furnishes to others an origin of being; in order that He may transfer our origin into Himself, and we may no longer, as mere earth, return to earth, but as being knit into the Word from heaven, may be carried to heaven by Him. Therefore in like manner not without reason has He transferred to Himself the other affections of the body also; that we, no longer as being men, but as proper to the Word, may have share in eternal life. For no longer according to our former origin in Adam do we die; but henceforward our origin and all infirmity of flesh being transferred to the Word, we rise from the earth, the curse from sin being removed, because of Him who is in us , and who has become a curse for us. And with reason; for as we are all from earth and die in Adam, so being regenerated from above of water and Spirit, in the Christ we are all quickened; the flesh being no longer earthly, but being henceforth made Word , by reason of God’s Word who for our sake ‘became flesh.’

34. And that one may attain to a more exact knowledge of the impassibility of the Word’s nature and of the infirmities ascribed to Him because of the flesh, it will be well to listen to the blessed Peter; for he will be a trustworthy witness concerning the Saviour. He writes then in his Epistle thus; ‘Christ then having suffered for us in the flesh 1 Peter 4:1.’ Therefore also when He is said to hunger and thirst and to toil and not to know, and to sleep, and to weep, and to ask, and to flee, and to be born, and to deprecate the cup, and in a word to undergo all that belongs to the flesh , let it be said, as is congruous, in each case ‘Christ then hungering and thirsting for us in the flesh;‘ and saying ‘He did not know, and being buffeted, and toiling for us in the flesh;‘ and ‘being exalted too, and born, and growing in the flesh;‘ and ‘fearing and hiding in the flesh;‘ and ‘saying, If it be possible let this cup pass from Me Matthew 26:39, and being beaten, and receiving, for us in the flesh;‘ and in a word all such things ‘for us in the flesh.’ For on this account has the Apostle himself said, ‘Christ then having suffered,’ not in His Godhead, but ‘for us in the flesh,’ that these affections may be acknowledged as, not proper to the very Word by nature, but proper by nature to the very flesh.

Let no one then stumble at what belongs to man, but rather let a man know that in nature the Word Himself is impassible, and yet because of that flesh which He put on, these things are ascribed to Him, since they are proper to the flesh, and the body itself is proper to the Saviour. And while He Himself, being impassible in nature, remains as He is, not harmed by these affections, but rather obliterating and destroying them, men, their passions as if changed and abolished in the Impassible, henceforth become themselves also impassible and free from them for ever, as John taught, saying, ‘And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin 1 John 3:5.’ And this being so, no heretic shall object, ‘Wherefore rises the flesh, being by nature mortal? And if it rises, why not hunger too and thirst, and suffer, and remain mortal? For it came from the earth, and how can its natural condition pass from it?’ since the flesh is able now to make answer to this so contentious heretic, ‘I am from earth, being by nature mortal, but afterwards I have become the Word’s flesh,’ and He ‘carried’ my affections, though He is without them; and so I became free from them, being no more abandoned to their service because of the Lord who has made me free from them. For if you object to my being rid of that corruption which is by nature, see that you object not to God’s Word having taken my form of servitude; for as the Lord, putting on the body, became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through His flesh, and henceforward inherit life ‘everlasting.’

35. These points we have found it necessary first to examine, that, when we see Him doing or saying anything divinely through the instrument of His own body, we may know that He so works, being God, and also, if we see Him speaking or suffering humanly, we may not be ignorant that He bore flesh and became man, and hence He so acts and so speaks. For if we recognise what is proper to each, and see and understand that both these things and those are done by One , we are right in our faith, and shall never stray. But if a man looking at what is done divinely by the Word, deny the body, or looking at what is proper to the body, deny the Word’s presence in the flesh, or from what is human entertain low thoughts concerning the Word, such a one, as a Jewish vintner , mixing water with the wine, shall account the Cross an offense, or as a Gentile, will deem the preaching folly. This then is what happens to God’s enemies the Arians; for looking at what is human in the Saviour, they have judged Him a creature. Therefore they ought, looking also at the divine works of the Word, to deny the origination of His body, and henceforth to rank themselves with Manichees. But for them, learn they, however tardily, that ‘the Word became flesh;’ and let us, retaining the general scope of the faith, acknowledge that what they interpret ill, has a right interpretation.

Chapter 27. Texts Explained; Tenthly, Matthew 11:27; John 3:35, etc. These texts intended to preclude the Sabellian notion of the Son; they fall in with the Catholic doctrine concerning the Son; they are explained by ‘so’ in John 5:26. (Anticipation of the next chapter.) Again they are used with reference to our Lord’s human nature; for our sake, that we might receive and not lose, as receiving in Him. And consistently with other parts of Scripture, which show that He had the power, etc., before He received it. He was Godand man, and His actions are often at once divine and human.

41. Cease then, O abhorred of God , and degrade not the Word; nor detract from His Godhead, which is the Father’s , as though He needed or were ignorant; lest ye be casting your own arguments against the Christ, as the Jews who once stoned Him. For these belong not to the Word, as the Word; but are proper to men and, as when He spat, and stretched forth the hand, and called Lazarus, we did not say that the triumphs were human, though they were done through the body, but were God’s, so, on the other hand, though human things are ascribed to the Saviour in the Gospel, let us, considering the nature of what is said and that they are foreign to God, not impute them to the Word’s Godhead, but to His manhood. For though ‘the Word became flesh,’ yet to the flesh are the affections proper; and though the flesh is possessed by God in the Word, yet to the Word belong the grace and the power. He did then the Father’s works through the flesh; and as truly contrariwise were the affections of the flesh displayed in Him; for instance, He inquired and He raised Lazarus, He chid His Mother, saying, ‘My hour is not yet come,’ and then at once He made the water wine. For He was Very God in the flesh, and He was true flesh in the Word. Therefore from His works He revealed both Himself as Son of God, and His own Father, and from the affections of the flesh He showed that He bore a true body, and that it was His own.

Chapter 28. Texts Explained; Eleventhly, Mark 13:32 and Luke 2:52 Arianexplanation of the former text is against the Regula Fidei; and against the context. Our Lord said He was ignorant of the Day, by reason of His human nature. If the Holy Spiritknowsthe Day, therefore the Son knows; if the Son knowsthe Father, therefore He knowsthe Day; if He has all that is the Father’s, therefore knowledge of the Day; if in the Father, He knowsthe Day in the Father; if He created and upholds all things, He knowswhen they will cease to be. He knowsnot as Man, argued from Matthew 24:42. As He asked about Lazarus’s grave, etc., yet knew, so He knows; as St. Paul says, ‘whether in the body I knownot,’ etc., yet knew, so He knows. He said He knew not for our profit, that we be not curious as in Acts 1:7, where on the contrary He did not say He knew not. As the Almighty asks of Adam and of Cain, yet knew, so the Son knows[as God]. Again, He advanced in wisdom also as man, else He made Angels perfect before Himself. He advanced, in that the Godhead was manifested in Him more fully as time went on.

52. For men, creatures as they are, are capable in a certain way of reaching forward and advancing in virtue. Enoch, for instance, was thus translated, and Moses increased and was perfected; and Isaac ‘by advancing became great ;’ and the Apostle said that he ‘reached forth Philippians 3:13 ‘ day by day to what was before him. For each had room for advancing, looking to the step before him. But the Son of God, who is One and Only, what room had He for reaching forward? For all things advance by looking at Him; and He, being One and Only, is in the Only Father, from whom again He does not reach forward, but in Him abides ever. To men then belongs advance; but the Son of God, since He could not advance, being perfect in the Father, humbled Himself for us, that in His humbling we on the other hand might be able to increase. And our increase is no other than the renouncing things sensible, and coming to the Word Himself; since His humbling is nothing else than His taking our flesh. It was not then the Word, considered as the Word, who advanced; who is perfect from the perfect Father , who needs nothing, nay brings forward others to an advance; but humanly is He here also said to advance, since advance belongs to man. Hence the Evangelist, speaking with cautious exactness , has mentioned stature in the advance; but being Word and God He is not measured by stature, which belongs to bodies. Of the body then is the advance; for, it advancing, in it advanced also the manifestation of the Godhead to those who saw it. And, as the Godhead was more and more revealed, by so much more did His grace as man increase before all men. For as a child He was carried to the Temple; and when He became a boy, He remained there, and questioned the priests about the Law. And by degrees His body increasing, and the Word manifesting Himself in it, He is confessed henceforth by Peter first, then also by all, ‘Truly this is the Son of God ;’ however wilfully the Jews, both the ancient and these modern , shut fast their eyes, lest they see that to advance in wisdom is not the advance of Wisdom Itself, but rather the manhood’s advance in It. For ‘Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace;’ and, if we may speak what is explanatory as well as true, He advanced in Himself; for ‘Wisdom built herself a house,’ and in herself she gave the house advancement.

Chapter 29. Texts Explained; Twelfthly, Matthew 26:39; John 12:27, etc. Arianinferences are against the Regula Fidei, as before. He wept and the like, as man. Other texts prove Him God. God could not fear. He feared because His flesh feared.

54. Therefore as, when the flesh advanced, He is said to have advanced, because the body was His own, so also what is said at the season of His death, that He was troubled, that He wept, must be taken in the same sense. For they, going up and down , as if thereby recommending their heresy anew, allege; Behold, ‘He wept,’ and said, ‘Now is My soul troubled,’ and He besought that the cup might pass away; how then, if He so spoke, is He God, and Word of the Father? Yea, it is written that He wept, O God’s enemies, and that He said, ‘I am troubled,’ and on the Cross He said, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ and He besought that the cup might pass away. Thus certainly it is written; but again I would ask you (for the same rejoinder must of necessity be made to each of your objections ), If the speaker is mere man, let him weep and fear death, as being man; but if He is the Word in flesh (for one must not be reluctant to repeat), whom had He to fear being God? Or wherefore should He fear death, who was Himself Life, and was rescuing others from death? Or how, whereas He said, ‘Fear not him that kills the body Luke 12:4,’ should He Himself fear? And how should He who said to Abraham, ‘Fear not, for I am with you,’ and encouraged Moses against Pharaoh, and said to the son of Nun, ‘Be strong, and of a good courage ,’ Himself feel terror before Herod and Pilate? Further, He who succours others against fear (for ‘the Lord,’ says Scripture, ‘is on my side, I will not fear what man shall do unto me ‘), did He fear governors, mortal men? Did He who Himself had come against death, feel terror of death? Is it not both unseemly and irreligious to say that He was terrified at death or hades, whom the keepers of the gates of hades saw and shuddered? But if, as you would hold, the Word was in terror wherefore, when He spoke long before of the conspiracy of the Jews, did He not flee, nay said when actually sought, ‘I am He?’ for He could have avoided death, as He said, ‘I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again;’ and ‘No one takes it from Me. ‘

55. But these affections were not proper to the nature of the Word, as far as He was Word; but in the flesh which was thus affected was the Word, O Christ’s enemies and unthankful Jews! For He said not all this prior to the flesh; but when the ‘Word became flesh,’ and has become man, then is it written that He said this, that is, humanly. Surely He of whom this is written was He who raised Lazarus from the dead, and made the water wine, and vouchsafed sight to the man born blind, and said, ‘I and My Father are one.’ If then they make His human attributes a ground for low thoughts concerning the Son of God, nay consider Him altogether man from the earth, and not from heaven, wherefore not from His divine works recognise the Word who is in the Father, and henceforward renounce their self-willed irreligion? For they are given to see, how He who did the works is the same as He who showed that His body was passible by His permitting it to weep and hunger, and to show other properties of a body. For while by means of such He made it known that, though God impassible, He had taken a passible flesh; yet from the works He showed Himself the Word of God, who had afterwards become man, saying, Though you believe not Me, beholding Me clad in a human body, yet believe the works, that you may know that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.  ‘And Christ’s enemies seem to me to show plain shamelessness and blasphemy;’ for, when they hear ‘I and the Father are one ,’ they violently distort the sense, and separate the unity of the Father and the Son; but reading of His tears or sweat or sufferings, they do not advert to His body, but on account of these rank in the creation Him by whom the creation was made. What then is left for them to differ from the Jews in? For as the Jews blasphemously ascribed God’s works to Beelzebub, so also will these, ranking with the creatures the Lord who wrought those works, undergo the same condemnation as theirs without mercy.

Chapter 30. Objections continued, as in Chapters vii.— x. Whether the Son is begotten of the Father’s will? This virtually the same as whether once He was not? And used by the Ariansto introduce the latter question. The Regula Fidei answers it at once in the negative by contrary texts. The Ariansfollow the Valentinians in maintaining a precedent will; which really is only exercised by God towards creatures. Instances from Scripture. Inconsistency of Asterius. If the Son by will, there must be another Word before Him. If God is good, or exist, by His will, then is the Son by His will. If He willed to have reason or wisdom, then is His Word and Wisdom at His will. The Son is the Living Will, and has all titles which denote connaturality. That will which the Father has to the Son, the Son has to the Father. The Father wills the Son and the Son wills the Father

67. Therefore call not the Son a work of good pleasure; nor bring in the doctrine of Valentinus into the Church; but be He the Living Counsel, and Offspring in truth and nature, as the Radiance from the Light. For thus has the Father spoken, ‘My heart uttered a good Word.’ and the Son conformably, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ But if the Word be in the heart, where is will? And if the Son in the Father, where is good pleasure? And if He be Will Himself, how is counsel in Will? It is unseemly; lest the Word come into being in a word, and the Son in a son, and Wisdom in a wisdom, as has been repeatedly said. For the Son is the Father’s All; and nothing was in the Father before the Word; but in the Word is will also, and through Him the objects of will are carried into effect, as holy Scriptures have shown. And I could wish that the irreligious men, having fallen into such want of reason as to be considering about will, would now ask their childbearing women no more, whom they used to ask, ‘Had you a son before conceiving him ?’ but the father, ‘Do ye become fathers by counsel, or by the natural law of your will.’ or ‘Are your children like your nature and essence ?’ that, even from fathers they may learn shame, from whom they assumed this proposition about birth, and from whom they hoped to gain knowledge in point. For they will reply to them, ‘What we beget, is like, not our good pleasure , but like ourselves; nor become we parents by previous counsel, but to beget is proper to our nature; since we too are images of our fathers.’ Either then let them condemn themselves , and cease asking women about the Son of God, or let them learn from them, that the Son is begotten not by will, but in nature and truth. Becoming and suitable to them is a refutation from human instances , since the perverse-minded men dispute in a human way concerning the Godhead. Why then are Christ’s enemies still mad? For this, as well as their other pretences, is shown and proved to be mere fantasy and fable; and on this account, they ought, however late, contemplating the precipice of folly down which they have fallen, to rise again from the depth and to flee the snare of the devil, as we admonish them. For Truth is loving unto men and cries continually, ‘If because of My clothing of the body ye believe Me not, yet believe the works, that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, and I and the Father are one, and He that has seen Me has seen the Father. ‘ But the Lord according to His wont is loving to man, and would fain ‘help them that are fallen,’ as the praise of David says; but the irreligious men, not desirous to hear the Lord’s voice, nor bearing to see Him acknowledged by all as God and God’s Son, go about, miserable men, as beetles, seeking with their father the devil pretexts for irreligion. What pretexts then, and whence will they be able next to find? Unless they borrow blasphemies of Jews and Caiaphas, and take atheism from Gentiles? For the divine Scriptures are closed to them, and from every part of them they are refuted as insensate and Christ’s enemies.

Discourse 4 Against the Arians

15-24. Since the Word is from God, He must be Son. Since the Son is from everlasting, He must be the Word; else either He is superior to the Word, or the Word is the Father. Texts of the New Testamentwhich state the unity of the Son with the Father; therefore the Son is the Word. Three hypotheses refuted — 1. That the Man is the Son; 2. That the Word and Man together are the Son; 3. That the Word became Son on His incarnation. Texts of the Old Testamentwhich speak of the Son. If they are merely prophetical, then those concerning the Word may be such also.

16. If then the Son too were a work, well might God begin to be a Father towards Him as others; but if the Son is not a work, then ever was the Father and ever the Son. But if the Son was ever, He must be the Word; for if the Word be not Son, and this is what a man waxes bold to say, either he holds that Word to be Father or the Son superior to the Word. For the Son being ‘in the bosom of the Father John 1:18,’ of necessity either the Word is not before the Son (for nothing is before Him who is in the Father), or if the Word be other than the Son, the Word must be the Father in whom is the Son. But if the Word is not Father but Word, the Word must be external to the Father, since it is the Son who is ‘in the bosom of the Father.’ For not both the Word and the Son are in the bosom, but one must be, and He the Son, who is Only-begotten. And it follows for another reason, if the Word is one, and the Son another, that the Son is superior to the Word; for ‘no one knows the Father save the Son Matthew 11:27,’ not the Word. Either then the Word does not know, or if He knows, it is not true that ‘no one knows.’ And the same of ‘He that has seen Me, has seen the Father,’ and ‘I and the Father are One,’ for this is uttered by the Son, not the Word, as they would have it, as is plain from the Gospel; for according to John when the Lord said, ‘I and the Father are One,’ the Jews took up stones to stone Him. ‘Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from My Father, for which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we stone You not, but for blasphemy, and because that You, being a man, make Yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blaspheme, 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, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.’ And yet, as far as the surface of the words intimated, He said neither ‘I am God,’ nor ‘I am Son of God,’ but ‘I and the Father are One.’

17. The Jews then, when they heard ‘One,’ thought like Sabellius that He said that He was the Father, but our Saviour shows their sin by this argument: ‘Though I had said God, you should have remembered what is written, I said, You are gods;‘ then to clear up ‘I and the Father are One,’ He has explained the Son’s oneness with the Father in the words, ‘Because I said, I am the Son of God.’ For if He did not say it in words, still He has referred the sense of ‘are One’ to the Son. For nothing is one with the Father, but what is from Him. What is that which is from Him but the Son? And therefore He adds, ‘that you may know that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.’ For, when expounding the ‘One,’ He said that the union and the inseparability lay, not in This being That, with which It was One, but in His being in the Father and the Father in the Son. For thus He overthrows both Sabellius, in saying, ‘I am’ not, the Father, but, ‘the Son of God;’ and Arius, in saying, ‘are One.’ If then the Son and the Word are not the same, it is not that the Word is one with the Father, but the Son; nor he that has seen the Word ‘has seen the Father,’ but ‘he that has seen’ the Son. And from this it follows, either that the Son is greater than the Word, or the Word has nothing beyond the Son. For what can be greater or more perfect than ‘One,’ and ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ and ‘He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.’ for these utterances also belong to the Son. And hence the same John says, ‘He that has seen Me, has seen Him that sent Me,’ and, ‘He that receives Me, receives Him that sent Me;’ and, ‘I have come a light into the world, that whosoever believes in Me, should not abide in darkness. And, if any one hear My words and observe them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The word which he shall hear, the same shall judge him in the last day, because I go unto the Father.’ The preaching, He says, judges him who has not observed the commandment; ‘for if,’ He says, ‘I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they shall have no cloke John 15:22,’ He says, having heard My words, through which those who observe them shall reap salvation.

23. For if simply, when made Man, He has become Son, the becoming Man is the cause. And if the Man is cause of His being Son, or both together, then the same absurdities result. Next, if He is first Word and then Son, it will appear that He knew the Father afterwards, not before; for not as being Word does He know Him, but as Son. For ‘No one knows the Father but the Son.’ And this too will result, that He has come afterwards to be ‘in the bosom of the Father Matthew 11:27; John 1:18,’ and afterwards He and the Father have become One; and afterwards is, ‘He that has seen Me, has seen the Father John 14:9.’ For all these things are said of the Son. Hence they will be forced to say, The Word was nothing but a name. For neither is it He who is in us with the Father, nor whoever has seen the Word, has seen the Father, nor was the Father known to any one at all, for through the Son is the Father known (for so it is written, ‘And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him’), and, the Word not being yet Son, not yet did any know the Father. How then was He seen by Moses, how by the fathers? For He says Himself in the Kingdoms, ‘Was I not plainly revealed to the house of your father ?’ But if God was revealed, there must have been a Son to reveal, as He says Himself, ‘And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.’ It is irreligious then and foolish to say that the Word is one and the Son another, and whence they gained such an idea it were well to ask them. They answer, Because no mention is made in the Old Testament of the Son, but of the Word; and for this reason they are positive in their opinion that the Son came later than the Word, because not in the Old, but in the New only, is He spoken of. This is what they irreligiously say; for first to separate between the Testaments, so that the one does not hold with the other, is the device of Manichees and Jews, the one of whom oppose the Old, and the other the New. Next, on their showing, if what is contained in the Old is of older date, and what in the New of later, and times depend upon the writing, it follows that ‘I and the Father are One,’ and ‘Only-begotten,’ and ‘He that has seen Me has seen the Father ,’ are later, for these testimonies are adduced not from the Old but from the New.

26-36. That the Son is the Co-existing Word, argued from the New Testament. Texts from the Old Testamentcontinued; especially Psalm 110:3. Besides, the Word in Old Testamentmay be Son in New, as Spirit in Old Testamentis Paraclete in New. Objection from Acts 10:36; answered by parallels, such as 1 Corinthians 1:5. Lev. 9:7. etc. Necessity of the Word’s taking flesh, viz. to sanctify, yet without destroying, the flesh.

34. Let us then consider Christ in both ways, the divine Word made one in Mary with Him which is from Mary. For in her womb the Word fashioned for Himself His house, as at the beginning He formed Adam from the earth; or rather more divinely, concerning whom Solomon too says openly, knowing that the Word was also called Wisdom, ‘Wisdom built herself a house Proverbs 9:1;’ which the Apostle interprets when he says, ‘Which house are we Hebrews 3:6,’ and elsewhere calls us a temple, as far as it is fitting to God to inhabit a temple, of which the image, made of stones, He by Solomon commanded the ancient people to build; whence, on the appearance of the Truth, the image ceased. For when the ruthless men wished to prove the image to be the truth, and to destroy that true habitation which we surely believe His union with us to be, He threatened them not; but knowing that their crime was against themselves, He says to them, ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up John 2:19,’ He, our Saviour, surely showing thereby that the things about which men busy themselves, carry their dissolution with them. For unless the Lord had built the house, and kept the city, in vain did the builders toil, and the keepers watch. And so the works of the Jews are undone, for they were a shadow; but the Church is firmly established; it is ‘founded on the rock,’ and ‘the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.’ Theirs it was to say, ‘Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God ?’ and their disciple is the Samosatene; whence to his followers with reason does he teach his heresy. But ‘we did not so learn Christ, if so be that we heard’ Him, and were taught from Him, ‘putting off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,’ and taking up ‘the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.’ Let Christ then in both ways be religiously considered.

35. But if Scripture often calls even the body by the name of Christ, as in the blessed Peter’s words to Cornelius, when he teaches him of ‘Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost,’ and again to the Jews, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God for you ,’ and again the blessed Paul to the Athenians, ‘By that Man, whom He ordained, giving assurance to all men, in that He raised Him from the dead Acts 17:31 ‘ (for we find the appointment and the mission often synonymous with the anointing; from which any one who will may learn, that there is no discordance in the words of the sacred writers, but that they but give various names to the union of God the Word with the Man from Mary, sometimes as anointing, sometimes as mission, sometimes as appointment), it follows that what the blessed Peter says is right , and he proclaims in purity the Godhead of the Only begotten, without separating the subsistence of God the Word from the Man from Mary (perish the thought! For how should he, who had heard in so many ways, ‘I and the Father are one,’ and ‘He that has seen Me, has seen the Father ?)’ In which Man, after the resurrection also, when the doors were shut, we know of His coming to the whole band of the Apostles, and dispersing all that was hard to believe in it by His words, ‘Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have Luke 24:39.’ And He did not say, ‘This,’ or ‘this Man which I have taken to Me,’ but ‘Me.’ Wherefore the Samosatene will gain no allowance, being refuted by so many arguments for the union of God the Word, nay by God the Word Himself, who now brings the news to all, and assures them by eating, and permitting to them that handling of Him which then took place. For certainly he who gives food to others, and they who give him, touch hands. For ‘they gave Him,’ Scripture says, ‘a piece of a broiled fish and of an honey-comb, and’ when He had ‘eaten before them, He took the remains and gave to them.’ See now, though not as Thomas was allowed, yet by another way, He afforded to them full assurance, in being touched by them; but if you would now see the scars, learn from Thomas. ‘Reach hither your hand and thrust it into My side, and reach hither your finger and behold My hands John 20:27;’ so says God the Word, speaking of His own side and hands, and of Himself as whole man and God together, first affording to the Saints even perception of the Word through the body , as we may consider, by entering when the doors were shut; and next standing near them in the body and affording full assurance. So much may be conveniently said for confirmation of the faithful, and correction of the unbelieving.

Source. New Advent – Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2816.htm>.

De Synodis

Part 1. History of the Councils

5. As to the Nicene Council, it was not a common meeting, but convened upon a pressing necessity, and for a reasonable object. The Syrians, Cilicians, and Mesopotamians, were out of order in celebrating the Feast, and kept Easter with the Jews ; on the other hand, the Arian heresy had risen up against the Catholic Church, and found supporters in Eusebius and his fellows, who were both zealous for the heresy, and conducted the attack upon religious people. This gave occasion for an Ecumenical Council, that the feast might be everywhere celebrated on one day, and that the heresy which was springing up might be anathematized. It took place then; and the Syrians submitted, and the Fathers pronounced the Arian heresy to be the forerunner of Antichrist , and drew up a suitable formula against it. And yet in this, many as they are, they ventured on nothing like the proceedings of these three or four men. Without pre-fixing Consulate, month, and day, they wrote concerning Easter, ‘It seemed good as follows,’ for it did then seem good that there should be a general compliance; but about the faith they wrote not, ‘It seemed good,’ but, ‘Thus believes the Catholic Church;’ and thereupon they confessed how they believed, in order to show that their own sentiments were not novel, but Apostolical; and what they wrote down was no discovery of theirs, but is the same as was taught by the Apostles.

Part 2. History of ArianOpinions

(5.) We abhor besides, and anathematize those who make a pretence of saying that He is but the mere word of God and unexisting, having His being in another — now as if pronounced, as some speak, now as mental — holding that He was not Christ or Son of God or mediator or image of God before ages; but that He first became Christ and Son of God, when He took our flesh from the Virgin, not quite four hundred years since. For they will have it that then Christ began His Kingdom, and that it will have an end after the consummation of all and the judgment. Such are the disciples of Marcellus and Scotinus of Galatian Ancyra, who, equally with Jews, negative Christ’s existence before ages, and His Godhead, and unending Kingdom, upon pretence of supporting the divine Monarchy. We, on the contrary, regard Him not as simply God’s pronounced word or mental, but as Living God and Word, existing in Himself, and Son of God and Christ; being and abiding with His Father before ages, and that not in foreknowledge only , and ministering to Him for the whole framing whether of things visible or invisible. For He it is, to whom the Father said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness ‘ Genesis 1:26, who also was seen in His own Person by the patriarchs, gave the law, spoke by the prophets, and at last, became man, and manifested His own Father to all men, and reigns to never-ending ages. For Christ has taken no recent dignity, but we have believed Him to be perfect from the first, and like in all things to the Father.

(11.) Whosoever shall explain ‘I God the First and I the Last, and besides Me there is no God,’ Isaiah 44:6, which is said for the denial of idols and of gods that are not, to the denial of the Only-begotten, before ages God, as Jews do, be he anathema.

And His One Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, generated from Him before the ages; and that we may not speak of two Gods, since the Lord Himself has said, ‘I go to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God?’ John 20:17. On this account He is God of all, as also the Apostle taught: ‘Is He God of the Jews only, is He not also of the Gentiles? Yea of the Gentiles also: since there is one God who shall justify the circumcision from faith, and the uncircumcision through faith‘ Romans 3:29-30; and every thing else agrees, and has no ambiguity.

Part 3. On the Symbols ‘Of the Essence’ And ‘Coessential.’

33. But since they are thus minded both towards each other and towards those who preceded them, proceed we to ascertain from them what absurdity they have seen, or what they complain of in the received phrases, that they have proved ‘disobedient to parents’ Romans 1:30, and contend against an Ecumenical Council ? ‘The phrases of the essence and coessential,‘ say they, ‘do not please us, for they are an offense to some and a trouble to many.’ This then is what they allege in their writings; but one may reasonably answer them thus: If the very words were by themselves a cause of offense to them, it must have followed, not that some only should have been offended, and many troubled, but that we also and all the rest should have been affected by them in the same way; but if on the contrary all men are well content with the words, and they who wrote them were no ordinary persons but men who came together from the whole world, and to these testify in addition the 400 Bishops and more who now met at Ariminum, does not this plainly prove against those who accuse the Council, that the terms are not in fault, but the perverseness of those who misinterpret them? How many men read divine Scripture wrongly, and as thus conceiving it, find fault with the Saints? Such were the former Jews, who rejected the Lord, and the present Manichees who blaspheme the Law ; yet are not the Scriptures the cause to them, but their own evil humours. If then you can show the terms to be actually unsound, do so and let the proof proceed, and drop the pretence of offense created, lest you come into the condition of the Pharisees of old. For when they pretended offense at the Lord’s teaching, He said, ‘Every plant, which My heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up’ Matthew 15:13. By which He showed that not the words of the Father planted by Him were really an offense to them, but that they misinterpreted what was well said, and offended themselves. And in like manner they who at that time blamed the Epistles of the Apostle, impeached, not Paul, but their own deficient learning and distorted minds.

34. For answer, what is much to the purpose, Who are they whom you pretend are offended and troubled at these terms? Of those who are religious towards Christ not one; on the contrary they defend and maintain them. But if they are Arians who thus feel, what wonder they should be distressed at words which destroy their heresy? For it is not the terms which offend them, but the proscription of their irreligion which afflicts them. Therefore let us have no more murmuring against the Fathers, nor pretence of this kind; or next you will be making complaints of the Lord’s Cross, because it is ‘to Jews an offense and to Gentiles foolishness,’ as said the Apostle 1 Corinthians 1:23-24. But as the Cross is not faulty, for to us who believe it is ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,’ though Jews rave, so neither are the terms of the Fathers faulty, but profitable to those who honestly read, and subversive of all irreligion, though the Arians so often burst with rage as being condemned by them. Since then the pretence that persons are offended does not hold, tell us yourselves, why is it you are not pleased with the phrase ‘of the essence‘ (this must first be enquired about), when you yourselves have written that the Son is generated from the Father? If when you name the Father, or use the word ‘God,’ you do not signify essence, or understand Him according to essence, who is that He is, but signify something else about Him , not to say inferior, then you should not have written that the Son was from the Father, but from what is about Him or in Him ; and so, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making Him compound who is simple, in a material way, you will be authors of a newer blasphemy. And, with such ideas, you must needs consider the Word, and the title ‘Son,’ not as an essence but as a name only, and in consequence hold your own views as far as names only, and be talking, not of what you believe to exist, but of what you think not to exist.

49. This is why He has equality with the Father by titles expressive of unity , and what is said of the Father, is said in Scripture of the Son also, all but His being called Father. For the Son Himself said, ‘All things that the Father has are Mine’ John 16:15; and He says to the Father, ‘All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine’ John 17:10 — as for instance , the name God; for ‘the Word was God;’— Almighty, ‘Thus says He that is, and that was, and that is to come, the Almighty’ John 1:1; Apocalypse 1:8:— the being Light, ‘I am,’ He says, ‘the Light’ John 8:12:— the Operative Cause, ‘All things were made by Him,’ and, ‘whatsoever I see the Father do, I do also’ John 1:3; 5:19:— the being Everlasting, ‘His eternal power and godhead,’ and, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ and, ‘He was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world;’— the being Lord, for, ‘The Lord rained fire and brimstone from the Lord,’ and the Father says, ‘I am the Lord,’ and, ‘Thus says the Lord, the Almighty God;’ and of the Son Paul speaks thus, ‘One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things’ Romans 1:20; John 1:1-9; Genesis 19:24; Isaiah 45:5; Amos 5:16; 1 Corinthians 8:6. And on the Father Angels wait, and again the Son too is worshipped by them, ‘And let all the Angels of God worship Him;’ and He is said to be Lord of Angels, for ‘the Angels ministered unto Him,’ and ‘the Son of Man shall send His Angels.’ The being honoured as the Father, for ‘that they may honour the Son,’ He says, ‘as they honour the Father;’— being equal to God, ‘He counted it not a prize to be equal with God?’ Hebrews 1:6; Matthew 4:11; 24:31; John 5:23; Philippians 2:6:— the being Truth from the True, and Life from the Living, as being truly from the Fountain, even the Father;— the quickening and raising the dead as the Father, for so it is written in the Gospel. And of the Father it is written, ‘The Lord your God is One Lord,’ and, ‘The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth;’ and of the Son, ‘The Lord God has shined upon us,’ and, ‘The God of gods shall be seen in Sion.’ And again of God, Isaiah says, ‘Who is a God like You, taking away iniquities and passing over unrighteousness?’ Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 50:1; 118:27; 84:7 (Septuagint); Micah 7:18). But the Son said to whom He would, ‘Your sins are forgiven you;’ for instance, when, on the Jews murmuring, He manifested the remission by His act, saying to the paralytic, ‘Rise, take up your bed, and go unto your house.’ And of God Paul says, ‘To the King eternal;’ and again of the Son, David in the Psalm, ‘Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.’ And Daniel heard it said, ‘His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and His Kingdom shall not be destroyed’ Matthew 9:5; Mark 2:11; 1 Timothy 1:17; Psalm 24:7; Daniel 4:3; 7:14. And in a word, all that you find said of the Father, so much will you find said of the Son, all but His being Father, as has been said.

50. If then any think of other beginning, and other Father, considering the equality of these attributes, it is a mad thought. But if, since the Son is from the Father, all that is the Father’s is the Son’s as in an image and Expression, let it be considered dispassionately, whether an essence foreign from the Father’s essence admit of such attributes; and whether such a one be other in nature and alien in essence, and not coessential with the Father. For we must take reverent heed, lest transferring what is proper to the Father to what is unlike Him in essence, and expressing the Father’s godhead by what is unlike in kind and alien in essence, we introduce another essence foreign to Him, yet capable of the properties of the first essence , and lest we be silenced by God Himself, saying, ‘My glory I will not give to another,’ and be discovered worshipping this alien God, and be accounted such as were the Jews of that day, who said, ‘Wherefore do You, being a man, make Yourself God.’ referring, the while, to another source the things of the Spirit, and blasphemously saying, ‘He casts out devils through Beelzebub‘ Isaiah 42:8; John 10:33; Luke 11:15. But if this is shocking, plainly the Son is not unlike in essence, but coessential with the Father; for if what the Father has is by nature the Son’s, and the Son Himself is from the Father, and because of this oneness of godhead and of nature He and the Father are one, and He that has seen the Son has seen the Father, reasonably is He called by the Fathers ‘Coessential;’ for to what is other in essence, it belongs not to possess such prerogatives.

Source. New Advent – Translated by John Henry Newman and Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2817.htm>.

Ad Afros Epistola Synodica

2. The Synod of Nicæa contrasted with the local Synods held since.

For this was why an ecumenical synod has been held at Nicæa, 318 bishops assembling to discuss the faith on account of the Arian heresy, namely, in order that local synods should no more be held on the subject of the Faith, but that, even if held, they should not hold good. For what does that Council lack, that any one should seek to innovate? It is full of piety, beloved; and has filled the whole world with it. Indians have acknowledged it, and all Christians of other barbarous nations. Vain then is the labour of those who have often made attempts against it. For already the men we refer to have held ten or more synods, changing their ground at each, and while taking away some things from earlier decisions, in later ones make changes and additions. And so far they have gained nothing by writing, erasing, and using force, not knowing that ‘every plant that the Heavenly Father has not planted shall be plucked up Matthew 15:13.’ But the word of the Lord which came through the ecumenical Synod at Nicæa, abides forever. 1 Peter 1:25 For if one compare number with number, these who met at Nicæa are more than those at local synods, inasmuch as the whole is greater than the part. But if a man wishes to discern the reason of the Synod at Nicæa, and that of the large number subsequently held by these men, he will find that while there was a reasonable cause for the former, the others were got together by force, by reason of hatred and contention. For the former council was summoned because of the Arian heresy, and because of Easter, in that they of Syria, Cilicia and Mesopotamia differed from us, and kept the feast at the same season as the Jews. But thanks to the Lord, harmony has resulted not only as to the Faith, but also as to the Sacred Feast. And that was the reason of the synod at Nicæa. But the subsequent ones were without number, all however planned in opposition to the ecumenical.

3. The true nature of the proceedings at Ariminum.

This being pointed out, who will accept those who cite the synod of Ariminum, or any other, against the Nicene? Or who could help hating men who set at nought their fathers’ decisions, and put above them the newer ones, drawn up at Ariminum with contention and violence? Or who would wish to agree with these men, who do not accept even their own? For in their own ten or more synods, as I said above, they wrote now one thing, now another, and so came out clearly as themselves the accusers of each one. Their case is not unlike that of the Jewish traitors in old times. For just as they left the one well of the living water, and hewed for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water, as the prophet Jeremiah has it , so these men, fighting against the one ecumenical synod, ‘hewed for themselves’ many synods, and all appeared empty, like ‘a sheaf without strength.’ Let us not then tolerate those who cite the Ariminian or any other synod against that of Nicæa. For even they who cite that of Ariminum appear not to know what was done there, for else they would have said nothing about it. For you know, beloved, from those who went from you to Ariminum, how Ursacius and Valens, Eudoxius and Auxentius (and there Demophilus also was with them), were deposed, after wishing to write something to supersede the Nicene decisions. For on being requested to anathematise the Arian heresy, they refused, and preferred to be its ringleaders. So the bishops, like genuine servants of the Lord and orthodox believers (and there were nearly 200 ), wrote that they were satisfied with the Nicene alone, and desired and held nothing more or less than that. This they also reported to Constantius, who had ordered the assembling of the synod. But the men who had been deposed at Ariminum went off to Constantius, and caused those who had reported against them to be insulted, and threatened with not being allowed to return to their dioceses, and to be treated with violence in Thrace that very winter, to compel them to tolerate their innovations.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2819.htm>.

Letter 1

7. Wherefore, my beloved, having our souls nourished with divine food, with the Word, and according to the will of God, and fasting bodily in things external, let us keep this great and saving feast as becomes us. Even the ignorant Jews received this divine food, through the type, when they ate a lamb in the passover. But not understanding the type, even to this day they eat the lamb, erring in that they are without the city and the truth. As long as Judæa and the city existed, there were a type, and a lamb, and a shadow, since the law thus commanded : These things shall not be done in another city; but in the land of Judæa, and in no place without [the land of Judæa]. And besides this, the law commanded them to offer whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, there being no other altar than that in Jerusalem. For on this account, in that city alone was there an altar and temple built, and in no other city were they permitted to perform these rites, so that when that city should come to an end, then those things that were figurative might also be done away.

8. Now observe; that city, since the coming of our Savior, has had an end, and all the land of the Jews has been laid waste; so that from the testimony of these things (and we need no further proof, being assured by our own eyes of the fact) there must, of necessity, be an end of the shadow. And not from me should these things be learned, but the sacred voice of the prophet foretold, crying; ‘Behold upon the mountains the feet of Him that brings good tidings, and publishes peace Nahum 1:15;’ and what is the message he published, but that which he goes on to say to them, ‘Keep your feasts, O Judah; pay to the Lord your vows. For they shall no more go to that which is old; it is finished; it is taken away: He is gone up who breathed upon the face, and delivered you from affliction.’ Now who is he that went up? A man may say to the Jews, in order that even the boast of the shadow may be done away; neither is it an idle thing to listen to the expression, ‘It is finished; he is gone up who breathed.’ For nothing was finished before he went up who breathed. But as soon as he went up, it was finished. Who was he then, O Jews, as I said before? If Moses, the assertion would be false; for the people were not yet come to the land in which alone they were commanded to perform these rites. But if Samuel, or any other of the prophets, even in that case there would be a perversion of the truth; for hitherto these things were done in Judæa, and the city was standing. For it was necessary that while that stood, these things should be performed. So that it was none of these, my beloved, who went up. But if you would hear the true matter, and be kept from Jewish fables, behold our Saviour who went up, and ‘breathed upon the face, and said to His disciples, Receive the Holy Ghost John 20:22.’ For as soon as these things were done, everything was finished, for the altar was broken, and the veil of the temple was rent; and although the city was not yet laid waste, the abomination was ready to sit in the midst of the temple, and the city and those ancient ordinances to receive their final consummation.

10. We begin the holy fast on the fifth day of Pharmuthi (March 31), and adding to it according to the number of those six holy and great days, which are the symbol of the creation of this world, let us rest and cease (from fasting) on the tenth day of the same Pharmuthi (April 5), on the holy sabbath of the week. And when the first day of the holy week dawns and rises upon us, on the eleventh day of the same month (April 6), from which again we count all the seven weeks one by one, let us keep feast on the holy day of Pentecost — on that which was at one time to the Jews, typically, the feast of weeks, in which they granted forgiveness and settlement of debts; and indeed that day was one of deliverance in every respect. Let us keep the feast on the first day of the great week, as a symbol of the world to come, in which we here receive a pledge that we shall have everlasting life hereafter. Then having passed hence, we shall keep a perfect feast with Christ, while we cry out and say, like the saints, ‘I will pass to the place of the wondrous tabernacle, to the house of God; with the voice of gladness and thanksgiving, the shouting of those who rejoice ;’ whence pain and sorrow and sighing have fled, and upon our heads gladness and joy shall have come to us! May we be judged worthy to be partakers in these things.

Letter 2

6. For not only in outward form did those wicked men dissemble, putting on as the Lord says sheep’s clothing, and appearing like whited sepulchres; but they took those divine words in their mouth, while they inwardly cherished evil intentions. And the first to put on this appearance was the serpent, the inventor of wickedness from the beginning — the devil — who, in disguise, conversed with Eve, and immediately deceived her. But after him and with him are all inventors of unlawful heresies, who indeed refer to the Scriptures, but do not hold such opinions as the saints have handed down, and receiving them as the traditions of men, err, because they do not rightly know them nor their Matthew 22:29 power. Therefore Paul justly praises the Corinthians 1 Corinthians 11:2, because their opinions were in accordance with his traditions. And the Lord most righteously reproved the Jews, saying, ‘Wherefore do you also transgress the commandments of God on account of your traditions Matthew 15:3.’ For they changed the commandments they received from God after their own understanding, preferring to observe the traditions of men. And about these, a little after, the blessed Paul again gave directions to the Galatians who were in danger thereof, writing to them, ‘If any man preach to you anything else than that you have received, let him be accursed Galatians 1:9.’

Letter 3

5. But the faithful and true servants of the Lord, knowing that the Lord loves the thankful, never cease to praise Him, ever giving thanks unto the Lord. And whether the time is one of ease or of affliction, they offer up praise to God with thanksgiving, not reckoning these things of time, but worshipping the Lord, the God of times. Thus of old time, Job, who possessed fortitude above all men, thought of these things when in prosperity; and when in adversity, he patiently endured, and when he suffered, gave thanks. As also the humble David, in the very time of affliction sang praises and said, ‘I will bless the Lord at all times.’ And the blessed Paul, in all his Epistles, so to say, ceased not to thank God. In times of ease, he failed not, and in afflictions he gloried, knowing that ‘tribulation works patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and that hope makes not ashamed Romans 5:3.’ Let us, being followers of such men, pass no season without thanksgiving, but especially now, when the time is one of tribulation, which the heretics excite against us, will we praise the Lord, uttering the words of the saints; ‘All these things have come upon us, yet have we not forgotten You.’ For as the Jews at that time, although suffering an assault from the tabernacles of the Edomites, and oppressed by the enemies of Jerusalem, did not give themselves up, but all the more sang praises to God; so we, my beloved brethren, though hindered from speaking the word of the Lord, will the more proclaim it, and being afflicted, we will sing Psalms , in that we are accounted worthy to be despised, and to labour anxiously for the truth. Yea, moreover, being grievously vexed, we will give thanks. For the blessed Apostle, who gave thanks at all times, urges us in the same manner to draw near to God saying, ‘Let your requests, with thanksgiving, be made known unto God Philippians 4:6.’ And being desirous that we should always continue in this resolution, he says, ‘At all times give thanks; pray without ceasing 1 Thessalonians 5:17.’ For he knew that believers are strong while employed in thanksgiving, and that rejoicing they pass over the walls of the enemy, like those saints who said, ‘Through You will we pierce through our enemies, and by my God I will leap over a wall.’ At all times let us stand firm, but especially now, although many afflictions overtake us, and many heretics are furious against us. Let us then, my beloved brethren, celebrate with thanksgiving the holy feast which now draws near to us, ‘girding up the loins of our minds 1 Peter 1:13,’ like our Saviour Jesus Christ, of Whom it is written, ‘Righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins Isaiah 11:5.’ Each one of us having in his hand the staff which came out of the root of Jesse, and our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel , let us keep the feast as Paul says, ‘Not with the old leaven, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 1 Corinthians 5:8;’ reverently trusting that we are reconciled through Christ, and not departing from faith in Him, nor do we defile ourselves together with heretics, and strangers to the truth, whose conversation and whose will degrade them. But rejoicing in afflictions, we break through the furnace of iron and darkness, and pass, unharmed, over that terrible Red Sea. Thus also, when we look upon the confusion of heretics, we shall, with Moses, sing that great song of praise, and say, ‘We will sing unto the Lord, for He is to be gloriously praised Exodus 15:1.’ Thus, singing praises, and seeing that the sin which is in us has been cast into the sea, we pass over to the wilderness. And being first purified by the fast of forty days, by prayers, and fastings, and discipline, and good works, we shall be able to eat the holy Passover in Jerusalem.

Letter 4

4. By these things Israel of old, having first, as in a figure, striven for the victory, came to the feast, for these things were then foreshadowed and typified. But we, my beloved, the shadow having received its fulfilment, and the types being accomplished, should no longer consider the feast typical, neither should we go up to Jerusalem which is here below, to sacrifice the Passover, according to the unseasonable observance of the Jews, lest, while the season passes away, we should be regarded as acting unseasonably ; but, in accordance with the injunction of the Apostles, let us go beyond the types, and sing the new song of praise. For perceiving this, and being assembled together with the Truth , they drew near, and said to our Saviour, ‘Where will You that we should make ready for You the Passover Matthew 26:17?’ For no longer were these things to be done which belonged to Jerusalem which is beneath; neither there alone was the feast to be celebrated, but wherever God willed it to be. Now He willed it to be in every place, so that ‘in every place incense and a sacrifice might be offered to Him Malachi 1:11.’ For although, as in the historical account, in no other place might the feast of the Passover be kept save only in Jerusalem, yet when the things pertaining to that time were fulfilled, and those which belonged to shadows had passed away, and the preaching of the Gospel was about to extend everywhere; when indeed the disciples were spreading the feast in all places, they asked the Saviour, ‘Where will You that we shall make ready?’ The Saviour also, since He was changing the typical for the spiritual, promised them that they should no longer eat the flesh of a lamb, but His own, saying, ‘Take, eat and drink; this is My body, and My blood.’ When we are thus nourished by these things, we also, my beloved, shall truly keep the feast of the Passover.

Letter 5

4. Now our life, my brethren, truly consists in our denying all bodily things, and continuing steadfast in those only of our Saviour. Therefore the present season requires of us, that we should not only utter such words, but should also imitate the deeds of the saints. But we imitate them, when we acknowledge Him who died, and no longer live unto ourselves, but Christ henceforth lives in us; when we render a recompense to the Lord to the utmost of our power, though when we make a return we give nothing of our own, but those things which we have before received from Him, this being especially of His grace, that He should require, as from us, His own gifts. He bears witness to this when He says, ‘My offerings are My own gifts.’ That is, those things which you give Me are yours, as having received them from Me, but they are the gifts of God. And let us offer to the Lord every virtue, and that true holiness which is in Him, and in piety let us keep the feast to Him with those things which He has hallowed for us. Let us thus engage in the holy fasts, as having been prescribed by Him, and by means of which we find the way to God. But let us not be like the heathen, or the ignorant Jews, or as the heretics and schismatics of the present time. For the heathen think the accomplishment of the feast is in the abundance of food; the Jews, erring in the type and shadow, think it still such; the schismatics keep it in separate places, and with vain imaginations. But let us, my brethren, be superior to the heathen, in keeping the feast with sincerity of soul, and purity of body; to the Jews, in no longer receiving the type and the shadow, but as having been gloriously illumined with the light of truth, and as looking upon the Sun of Righteousness Malachi 4:2; to the schismatics, in not rending the coat of Christ, but in one house, even in the Catholic Church, let us eat the Passover of the Lord, Who, by ordaining His holy laws, guided us towards virtue, and counselled the abstinence of this feast. For the Passover is indeed abstinence from evil for exercise of virtue, and a departure from death unto life. This may be learned even from the type of old time. For then they toiled earnestly to pass from Egypt to Jerusalem, but now we depart from death to life; they then passed from Pharaoh to Moses, but now we rise from the devil to the Saviour. And as, at that time, the type of deliverance bore witness every year, so now we commemorate our salvation. We fast meditating on death, that we may be able to live; and we watch, not as mourners, but as they that wait for the Lord, when He shall have returned from the wedding, so that we may vie with each other in the triumph, hastening to announce the sign of victory over death.

Letter 10

5. But what need we many words? Our Lord and Saviour, when He was persecuted by the Pharisees, wept for their destruction. He was injured, but He threatened not; not when He was afflicted, not even when He was killed. But He grieved for those who dared to do such things. He, the Saviour, suffered for man, but they despised and cast from them life, and light, and grace. All these were theirs through that Saviour Who suffered in our stead. And verily for their darkness and blindness, He wept. For if they had understood the things which are written in the Psalms, they would not have been so vainly daring against the Saviour, the Spirit having said, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ And if they had considered the prophecy of Moses, they would not have hanged Him Who was their Life. And if they had examined with their understanding the things which were written, they would not have carefully fulfilled the prophecies which were against themselves, so as for their city to be now desolate, grace taken from them, and they themselves without the law, being no longer called children, but strangers. For thus in the Psalms was it before declared, saying, ‘The strange children have acted falsely by Me.’ And by Isaiah the prophet; ‘I have begotten and brought up children, and they have rejected Me.’ And they are no longer named the people of God, and a holy nation, but rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrha; having exceeded in this even the iniquity of the Sodomites, as the prophet also says, ‘Sodom is justified before you.’ For the Sodomites raved against angels, but these against the Lord and God and King of all, and these dared to slay the Lord of angels, not knowing that Christ, who was slain by them, lives. But those Jews who had conspired against the Lord died, having rejoiced a very little in these temporal things, and having fallen away from those which are eternal. They were ignorant of this — that the immortal promise has not respect to temporal enjoyment, but to the hope of those things which are everlasting. For through many tribulations, and labours, and sorrows, the saint enters into the kingdom of heaven; but when he arrives where sorrow, and distress, and sighing, shall flee away, he shall thenceforward enjoy rest; as Job, who, when tried here, was afterwards the familiar friend of the Lord. But the lover of pleasures, rejoicing for a little while, afterwards passes a sorrowful life; like Esau, who had temporal food, but afterwards was condemned thereby.

9. Now because they did not thus consider these matters, the Ario-maniacs , being opponents of Christ, and heretics, smite Him who is their Helper with their tongue, and blaspheme Him who set [them] free, and hold all manner of different opinions against the Saviour. Because of His coming down, which was on behalf of man, they have denied His essential Godhead; and seeing that He came forth from the Virgin, they doubt His being truly the Son of God, and considering Him as become incarnate in time, they deny His eternity; and, looking upon Him as having suffered for us, they do not believe in Him as the incorruptible Son from the incorruptible Father. And finally, because He endured for our sakes, they deny the things which concern His essential eternity; allowing the deed of the unthankful, these despise the Saviour, and offer Him insult instead of acknowledging His grace. To them may these words justly be addressed: Oh! unthankful opponent of Christ, altogether wicked, and the slayer of his Lord, mentally blind, and a Jew in his mind, had you understood the Scriptures, and listened to the saints, who said, ‘Cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved.’ or again, ‘Send out Your light and Your truth ;’— then would you have known that the Lord did not descend for His own sake, but for ours; and for this reason, you would the more have admired His loving kindness. And had you considered what the Father is, and what the Son, you would not have blasphemed the Son, as of a mutable nature. And had you understood His work of loving-kindness towards us, you would not have alienated the Son from the Father, nor have looked upon Him as a stranger , Who reconciled us to His Father. I know these [words] are grievous, not only to those who dispute with Christ , but also to the schismatics; for they are united together, as men of kindred feelings. For they have learned to rend the seamless coat of God: they think it not strange to divide the indivisible Son from the Father.

11. What then is our duty, my brethren, for the sake of these things, but to praise and give thanks to God, the King of all? And let us first exclaim in the words of the Psalms, ‘Blessed be the Lord, Who has not given us over as a prey to their teeth.’ Let us keep the feast in that way which He has dedicated for us unto salvation— the holy day Easter— so that we may celebrate the feast which is in heaven with the angels. Thus anciently, the people of the Jews, when they came out of affliction into a state of ease, kept the feast, staging a song of praise for their victory. So also the people in the time of Esther, because they were delivered from the edict of death, kept a feast to the Lord , reckoning it a feast, returning thanks to the Lord, and praising Him for having changed their condition. Therefore let us, performing our vows to the Lord, and confessing our sins, keep the feast to the Lord, in conversation, moral conduct, and manner of life; praising our Lord, Who has chastened us a little, but has not utterly failed nor forsaken us, nor altogether kept silence from us. For if, having brought us out of the deceitful and famous Egypt of the opponents of Christ, He has caused us to pass through many trials and afflictions, as it were in the wilderness, to His holy Church, so that from hence, according to custom, we can send to you, as well as receive letters from you; on this account especially I both give thanks to God myself, and exhort you to thank Him with me and on my behalf, this being the Apostolic custom, which these opponents of Christ, and the schismatics, wished to put an end to, and to break off. The Lord did not permit it, but both renewed and preserved that which was ordained by Him through the Apostle, so that we may keep the feast together, and together keep holy-day, according to the tradition and commandment of the fathers.

Letter 11

4. It will also be well if a man is not offended at the testimony of the Shepherd, saying in the beginning of his book, ‘Before all things believe that there is one God, Who created and established all these things, and from non-existence called them into being.’ And, further, the blessed Evangelists — who recorded the words of the Lord — in the beginning of the Gospels, wrote the things concerning our Saviour; so that, having first made known the Lord, the Creator, they might be believed when narrating the events that took place. For how could they have been believed, when writing respecting him who [was blind] from his mother’s womb, and those other blind men who recovered their sight, and those who rose from the dead, and the changing of water into wine, and those lepers who were cleansed; if they had not taught of Him as the Creator, writing, ‘In the beginning was the Word John 1:1?’ Or, according to Matthew, that He Who was born of the seed of David, was Emmanuel, and the Son of the living God? He from Whom the Jews, with the Arians, turn away their faces, but Whom we acknowledge and worship. The Apostle therefore, as was meet, sent to different people, but his own son he especially reminded, ‘that he should not despise the things in which he had been instructed by him,’ and enjoined on him, ‘Remember Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel.’ And speaking of these things being delivered to him, to be always had in remembrance, he immediately writes to him, saying, ‘Meditate on these things: be engaged in them. 1 Timothy 4:15 ‘ For constant meditation, and the remembrance of divine words, strengthens piety towards God, and produces a love to Him inseparable and not merely formal ; as he, being of this mind, speaks about himself and others like-minded, saying boldly, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of God Romans 8:35?’ For such men, being confirmed in the Lord, and possessing an unshaken disposition towards Him, and being one in spirit (for 1 Corinthians 6:17 ‘he who is joined to the Spirit is one spirit’), are sure ‘as the mount Sion.’ and although ten thousand trials may rage against them, they are founded upon a rock, which is Christ. In Him the careless take no delight; and having no continuous purpose of good, they are sullied by temporal attacks, and esteem nothing more highly than present things, being unstable and deserving reproof as regards the faith. For ‘either the care of this world, or the deceitfulness of riches, chokes them Matthew 13:22;’ or, as Jesus said in that parable which had reference to them, since they have not established the faith that has been preached to them, but continue only for a time, immediately, in time of persecution, or when affliction arises through the word, they are offended. Now those who meditate evil we say, [think] not truth, but falsehood and not righteousness, but iniquity, for their tongue learns to speak lies. They have done evil, and have not ceased that they might repent. For, persevering with delight in wicked actions, they hasten thereto without turning back, even treading under foot the commandment with regard to neighbours, and, instead of loving them, devise evil against them, as the saint testifies, saying, ‘And those who seek me evil have spoken vanity, and imagined deceit all the day.’ But that the cause of such meditation is none other than the want of instruction, the divine proverb has already declared; ‘The son that forsakes the commandment of his father meditates evil words.’ But such meditation, because it is evil, the Holy Spirit blames in these words, and reproves too in other terms, saying, ‘Your hands are polluted with blood, your fingers with sins; your lips have spoken lawlessness, and your tongue imagines iniquity: no man speaks right things, nor is there true judgment Isaiah 59:3-4.’ But what the end is of such perverse imagining, He immediately declares, saying, ‘They trust in vanities and speak falsehood; for they conceive mischief, and bring forth lawlessness. They have hatched the eggs of an asp, and woven a spider’s web; and he who is prepared to eat of their eggs, when he breaks them finds gall, and a basilisk therein.’ Again, what the hope of such is, He has already announced. ‘Because righteousness does not overtake them, when they waited for light, they had darkness; when they waited for brightness, they walked in a thick cloud. They shall grope for the wall like the blind, and as those who have no eyes shall they grope; they shall fall at noon-day as at midnight; when dead, they shall groan. They shall roar together as a bear, or as a dove. ‘

5. The Jews in their imaginings, and in their agreeing to act unjustly against the Lord, forgot that they were bringing wrath upon themselves. Therefore does the Word lament for them, saying, ‘Why do the people exalt themselves, and the nations imagine vain things ?’ For vain indeed was the imagination of the Jews, meditating death against the Life , and devising unreasonable things against the ‘Word of the Father.’ For who that looks upon their dispersion, and the desolation of their city, may not aptly say, ‘Woe unto them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us.’ And full well is it so, my brethren; for when they erred concerning the Scriptures, they knew not that ‘he who digs a pit for his neighbour falls therein; and he who destroys a hedge, a serpent shall bite him Ecclesiastes 10:8.’ And if they had not turned their faces from the Lord, they would have feared what was written before in the divine Psalms: ‘The heathen are caught in the pit which they made; in the snare which they hid is their own foot taken. The Lord is known when executing judgments: by the works of his hands is the sinner taken.’ Let them observe this, and how that ‘the snare they know not shall come upon them, and the net they hid take them.’ But they understood not these things, for had they done so, ‘they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2:8.’

13. Let us therefore keep the feast, my brethren, celebrating it not at all as an occasion of distress and mourning, neither let us mingle with heretics through temporal trials brought upon us by godliness. But if anything that would promote joy and gladness should offer, let us attend to it; so that our heart may not be sad, like that of Cain; but that, like faithful and good servants of the Lord, we may hear the words, ‘Enter into the joy of your Lord Matthew 25:21.’ For we do not institute days of mourning and sorrow, as some may consider these of Easter to be, but we keep the feast, being filled with joy and gladness. We keep it then, not regarding it after the deceitful error of the Jews, nor according to the teaching of the Arians, which takes away the Son from the Godhead, and numbers Him among creatures; but we look to the correct doctrine we derive from the Lord. For the guile of the Jews, and the unbounded impiety of the Arians, cause nothing but sad reflections, for the former at the beginning slew the Lord; but these latter take away His position of having conquered that death to which the Jews brought Him, in that they say He is not the Creator, but a creature. For if He were a creature, He would have been holden by death; but if He was not holden by death, according to the Scriptures, He is not a creature, but the Lord of the creatures, and the subject of this immortal feast.

14. For the Lord of death would abolish death, and being Lord, what He would was accomplished; for we have all passed from death unto life. But the imagination of the Jews, and of those who are like them, was vain, since the result was not such as they contemplated, but turned out adverse to themselves; and ‘at both of them He that sits in the heaven shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.’ Hence, when our Saviour was led to death, He restrained the women who followed Him weeping, saying, ‘Weep not for Me Luke 23:28;’ meaning to show that the Lord’s death is an event, not of sorrow but of joy, and that He Who dies for us is alive. For He does not derive His being from those things which are not, but from the Father. It is truly a subject of joy, that we can see the signs of victory against death, even our own incorruptibility, through the body of the Lord. For since He rose gloriously, it is clear that the resurrection of all of us will take place; and since His body remained without corruption, there can be no doubt regarding our incorruption. For as by one man Romans 5:12, as says Paul (and it is the truth), sin passed upon all men, so by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall all rise. ‘For,’ he says, ‘this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality 1 Corinthians 15:53.’ Now this came to pass in the time of the Passion, in which our Lord died for us, for ‘our Passover, Christ, is sacrificed.’ Therefore, because He was sacrificed, let each of us feed upon Him, and with alacrity and diligence partake of His sustenance; since He is given to all without grudging, and is in every one ‘a well of water flowing to everlasting life John 4:14.’

Letter 14

4. Why therefore do we tarry, and why do we delay, and not come with all eagerness and diligence to the feast, trusting that it is Jesus who calls us? Who is all things for us, and was laden in ten thousand ways for our salvation; Who hungered and thirsted for us, though He gives us food and drink in His saving gifts. For this is His glory, this the miracle of His divinity, that He changed our sufferings for His happiness. For, being life, He died that He might make us alive, being the Word, He became flesh, that He might instruct the flesh in the Word, and being the fountain of life, He thirsted our thirst, that thereby He might urge us to the feast, saying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink John 7:37.’ At that time, Moses proclaimed the beginning of the feast, saying, ‘This month is the beginning of months to you Exodus 12:2.’ But the Lord, Who came down in the end of the ages Hebrews 9:26, proclaimed a different day, not as though He would abolish the law, far from it, but that He should establish the law, and be the end of the law. ‘For Christ is the end of the law to every one that believes in righteousness;’ as the blessed Paul says, ‘Do we make void the law by faith? Far from it: we rather establish the law.’ Now these things astonished even the officers who were sent by the Jews, so that wondering they said to the Pharisees, ‘No man ever thus spoke John 7:46.’ What was it then that astonished those officers, or what was it which so affected the men as to make them marvel? It was nothing but the boldness and authority of our Saviour. For when of old time prophets and scribes studied the Scriptures, they perceived that what they read did not refer to themselves, but to others. Moses, for instance, ‘A prophet will the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, like me; to him hearken in all that he commands you.’ Isaiah again, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.’ And others prophesied in different and various ways, concerning the Lord. But by the Lord, of Himself, and of no other, were these things prophesied; to Himself He limited them all, saying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to Me John 7:37 ‘— not to any other person, but to ‘Me.’ A man may indeed hear from those concerning My coming, but he must not henceforth drink from others, but from Me.

Letter 19

‘Blessed is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Ephesians 1:3,’ for such an introduction is fitting for an Epistle, and more especially now, when it brings thanksgiving to the Lord, in the Apostle’s words, because He has brought us from a distance, and granted us again to send openly to you, as usual, the Festal Letters. For this is the season of the feast, my brethren, and it is near; being not now proclaimed by trumpets, as the history records , but being made known and brought near to us by the Saviour, Who suffered on our behalf and rose again, even as Paul preached, saying, ‘Our Passover, Christ, is sacrificed.’ Henceforth the feast of the Passover is ours, not that of a stranger, nor is it any longer of the Jews. For the time of shadows is abolished, and those former things have ceased, and now the month of new things is at hand, in which every man should keep the feast, in obedience to Him who said, ‘Observe the month of new things, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God.’ Even the heathen fancy they keep festival, and the Jews hypo-critically feign to do so. But the feast of the heathen He reproves, as the bread Hosea 9:4 of mourners, and He turns His face from that of the Jews, as being outcasts, saying, ‘Your new moons and your sabbaths My soul hates Isaiah 1:14.’

2. For actions not done lawfully and piously, are not of advantage, though they may be reputed to be so, but they rather argue hypocrisy in those who venture upon them. Therefore, although such persons feign to offer sacrifices, yet they hear from the Father, ‘Your whole burnt-offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please Me; and although you bring fine flour, it is vanity, incense also is an abomination unto Me.’ For God does not need anything ; and, since nothing is unclean to Him, He is full in regard to them, as He testifies, by Isaiah, saying, ‘I am full Isaiah 1:11.’ Now there was a law given about these things, for the instruction of the people, and to prefigure things to come, for Paul says to the Galatians; ‘Before faith came, we were kept guarded under the law, being shut up in the faith which should afterwards be revealed unto us; wherefore the law was our instructor in Christ, that we might be justified by faith.’ But the Jews knew not, neither did they understand, therefore they walked in the daytime as in darkness, feeling for, but not touching, the truth we possess, which [was contained] in the law; conforming to the letter, but not submitting to the spirit. And when Moses was veiled, they looked on him, but turned away their faces from him when he was uncovered. For they knew not what they read, but erroneously substituted one thing for another. The prophet, therefore, cried against them, saying, ‘Falsehood and faithlessness have prevailed among them.’ The Lord also therefore said concerning them, ‘The strange children have dealt falsely with Me; the strange children have waxen old.’ But how gently does He reprove them, saying, ‘Had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me John 5:46.’ But being faithless, they went on to deal falsely with the law, affirming things after their own pleasure, but not understanding the Scripture; and, further, as they had hypocritically made a pretence of the plain text of Scripture, and had confidence in this, He is angry with them, saying by Isaiah, ‘Who has required these of your hands Isaiah 1:12?’ And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, ‘Gather together your whole burnt-offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh, for I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices Jeremiah 7:21-22.’ For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law, but they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bondsmen, and gathering themselves together for strifes and quarrels, and they smote the lowly with the fist, and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue without a feast until the end, although they make a display now of eating flesh, out of place and out of season. For, instead of the legally-appointed lamb, they have learned to sacrifice to Baal; instead of the true unleavened bread, ‘they collect the wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their wives prepare the dough, that they may make cakes to the host of heaven, and pour out libations to strange gods, that they may provoke Me to anger, says the Lord.’ They have the just reward of such devices, since, although they pretend to keep the Passover, yet joy and gladness is taken from their mouth, as says Jeremiah, ‘There has been taken away from the cities of Judah, and the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of those who are glad, and the voice of those who rejoice; the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.’ Therefore now, ‘he who among them sacrifices an ox, is as he who smites a man, and he who sacrifices a lamb is as he who kills a dog, he that offers fine flour, is as [if he offered] swine’s blood, he that gives frankincense for a memorial, is as a blasphemer Isaiah 66:3.’ Now these things will never please God, neither thus has the word required of them. But He says, ‘These have chosen their own ways; and their abominations are what their soul delights in. ‘

5. Samuel, that great man, no less clearly reproved Saul, saying, ‘Is not the word better than a gift Sirach 18:17?’ For hereby a man fulfils the law, and pleases God, as He says, ‘The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me.’ Let a man ‘learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice ,’ and I will not condemn the adversaries. But this wearied them, for they were not anxious to understand, ‘for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2:8.’ And what their end is, the prophet foretold, crying, ‘Woe unto their soul, for they have devised an evil thought, saying, let us bind the just man, because he is not pleasing to us.’ The end of such abandonment as this can be nothing but error, as the Lord, when reproving them, says, ‘You do err, not knowing the Scriptures Matthew 22:29.’ Afterwards when, being reproved, they should have come to their senses, they rather grew insolent, saying, ‘We are Moses’ disciples; and we know that God spoke to Moses John 9:28-29;’ dealing the more falsely by that very expression, and accusing themselves. For had they believed him to whom they hearkened, they would not have denied the Lord, Who spoke by Moses, when He was present. Not so did the eunuch in the Acts, for when he heard, ‘Do you understand what you read?’ Acts 8:30 he was not ashamed to confess his ignorance, and implored to be taught. Therefore, to him who became a learner, the grace of the Spirit was given. But as for those Jews who persisted in their ignorance; as the proverb says, ‘Death came upon them. For the fool dies in his sins. ‘

6. Like these too, are the heretics, who, having fallen from true discernment, dare to invent to themselves atheism. ‘For the fool says in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, and become abominable in their doings.’ Of such as are fools in their thoughts, the actions are wicked, as He says, ‘can you, being evil, speak good things Matthew 12:34;’ for they were evil, because they thought wickedness. Or how can those do just acts, whose minds are set upon fraud? Or how shall he love, who is prepared beforehand to hate? How shall he be merciful, who is bent upon the love of money? How shall he be chaste, who looks upon a woman to lust after her? ‘For from the heart proceed evil thoughts, fornications, adulteries, murders.’ By them the fool is wrecked, as by the waves of the sea, being led away and enticed by his fleshly pleasures; for this stands written, ‘All flesh of fools is greatly tempest-tossed.’ While he associates with folly, he is tossed by a tempest, and perishes, as Solomon says in the Proverbs, ‘The fool and he who lacks understanding shall perish together, and shall leave their wealth to strangers.’ Now they suffer such things, because there is not among them one sound of mind to guide them. For where there is sagacity, there the Word, who is the Pilot of souls, is with the vessel; ‘for he that has understanding shall possess guidance ;’ but they who are without guidance fall like the leaves. Who has so completely fallen away as Hymenæus and Philetus, who held evil opinions respecting the resurrection, and concerning faith in it suffered shipwreck? And Judas being a traitor, fell away from the Pilot, and perished with the Jews. But the disciples since they were wise, and therefore remained with the Lord, although the sea was agitated, and the ship covered with the waves, for there was a storm, and the wind was contrary, yet fell not away. For they awoke the Word, Who was sailing with them , and immediately the sea became smooth at the command of its Lord, and they were saved. They became preachers and teachers at the same time; relating the miracles of our Saviour, and teaching us also to imitate their example. These things were written on our account and for our profit, so that through these signs we may acknowledge the Lord Who wrought them.

Letter 20

Let us now keep the feast, my brethren, for as our Lord then gave notice to His disciples, so He now tells us beforehand, that ‘after some days is the Passover Matthew 26:2,’ in which the Jews indeed betrayed the Lord, but we celebrate His death as a feast, rejoicing because we then obtained rest from our afflictions. We are diligent in assembling ourselves together, for we were scattered in time past and were lost, and are found. We were far off, and are brought near, we were strangers, and have become His, Who suffered for us, and was nailed on the cross, Who bore our sins, as the prophet Isaiah 53:4 says, and was afflicted for us, that He might put away from all of us grief, and sorrow, and sighing. When we thirst, He satisfies us on the feast-day itself; standing and crying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink John 7:37.’ For such is the love of the saints at all times, that they never once leave off, but offer the uninterrupted, constant sacrifice to the Lord, and continually thirst, and ask of Him to drink ; as David sang, ‘My God, my God, early will I seek You, my soul thirsts for You; many times my heart and flesh longs for You in a barren land, without a path, and without water. Thus was I seen by You in the sanctuary.’ And Isaiah the prophet says, ‘From the night my spirit seeks You early, O God, because Your commandments are light Isaiah 26:9.’ And another says, ‘My soul faints for the longing it has for Your judgments at all times.’ And again he says, ‘For Your judgments I have hoped, and Your law will I keep at all times.’ Another boldly cries out, saying, ‘My eye is ever towards the Lord.’ And with him one says, ‘The meditation of my heart is before You at all times.’ And Paul further advises, ‘At all times give thanks; pray without ceasing.’ Those who are thus continually engaged, are waiting entirely on the Lord, and say, ‘Let us follow on to know the Lord: we shall find Him ready as the morning, and He will come to us as the early and the latter rain for the earth Hosea 6:3.’ For not only does He satisfy them in the morning; neither does He give them only as much to drink as they ask; but He gives them abundantly according to the multitude of His lovingkindness, vouchsafing to them at all times the grace of the Spirit. And what it is they thirst for He immediately adds, saying, ‘He that believes in Me.’ For, ‘as cold waters are pleasant to those who are thirsty John 7:38; Proverbs 25:25,’ according to the proverb, so to those who believe in the Lord, the coming of the Spirit is better than all refreshment and delight.

From Letter 39

6. These are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take ought from these. For concerning these the Lord put to shame the Sadducees, and said, ‘You err, not knowing the Scriptures.’ And He reproved the Jews, saying, ‘Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of Me Matthew 22:29; John 5:39.’

Letter 49

I am at a loss how to write. Am I to blame you for your refusal? Or for having regard to the trials, and hiding for fear of the Jews ? In any case, however it may be, what you have done is worthy of blame, beloved Dracontius. For it was not fitting that after receiving the grace you should hide, nor that, being a wise man, you should furnish others with a pretext for flight. For many are offended when they hear it; not merely that you have done this, but that you have done it having regard to the times and to the afflictions which are weighing upon the Church. And I fear lest, in flying for your own sake, you prove to be in peril in the sight of the Lord on account of others. For if ‘he that offends one of the little ones, should rather choose that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea Matthew 18:6,’ what can be in store for you, if you prove an offense to so many? For the surprising unanimity about your election in the district of Alexandria will of necessity be broken up by your retirement: and the episcopate of the district will be grasped at by many — and many unfit persons, as you are well aware. And many heathen who were promising to become Christians upon your election will remain heathen, if your piety sets at nought the grace given you.

Letter 51

Although I believe that tidings have reached your holiness also of the persecution which the enemies of Christ have just now attempted to raise, seeking our blood, yet our own most beloved messengers can tell your piety about it. For to such a length did they dare to carry their madness by means of the soldiers, that they not only banished the Clergy of the city, but also went out to the Hermits, and laid their fatal hands upon Solitaries. Hence I also withdrew far away, lest those who entertained me should suffer trouble at their hands. For whom do Arians spare, who have spared not even their own souls? Or how can they give up their infamous actions while they persist in denying Christ our Lord the only Son of God? This is the root of their wickedness; on this foundation of sand they build up the perversity of their ways, as we find it written in the thirteenth Psalm, ‘The fool said in his heart there is no God;’ and presently follows, ‘Corrupt are they and become abominable in their works.’ Hence the Jews who denied the Son of God, deserved to be called ‘a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children without law Isaiah 1:4.’ Why ‘without law?’— because you have deserted the Lord. And so the most blessed Paul, when he had begun not only to believe in the Son of God, but also to preach His deity, wrote, ‘I know nothing against myself 1 Corinthians 4:4.’ Accordingly we too, according to your confession of faith, desire to hold the Apostolic tradition , and to live according to the commands of the divine law, that we may be found along with you in that band in which now Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs are rejoicing. So then, though the Arian madness, aided by external power, was so active that our brethren on account of their fury could not even see the open air with freedom, yet by God’s favour, according to your prayers, I have been able, though with trouble and danger, to see the brother who is wont to bring me necessaries and the letters of your holiness, along with those of others. And so we have received the books of your most wise and religious soul, in which we have seen the image of an Apostle, the confidence of a Prophet, the teaching of truth, the doctrine of true faith, the way of heaven, the glory of martyrdom, the triumphs against the Arian heresy, the unimpaired tradition of our Fathers, the right rule of the Church’s order. O truly Lucifer, who according to your name bring the light of truth, and have set it on a candlestick to give light to all. For who, except the Arians, does not clearly see from your teaching the true faith and the taint of the Arians. Forcibly and admirably, like light from darkness, you have separated the truth from the subtlety and dishonesty of heretics, defended the Catholic Church, proved that the arguments of the Arians are nothing but a kind of hallucination, and taught that the diabolical gnashings of the teeth are to be despised. How good and welcome are your exhortations to martyrdom; how highly to be desired have you shown death to be on behalf of Christ the Son of the living God. What love you have shown for the world to come and for the heavenly life. You seem to be a true temple of the Saviour, Who dwells in you and utters these exact words through you, and has given such grace to your discourses. Beloved as you were before among all, now such passionate affection for you is settled in the minds of all, that they call you the Elijah of our times; and no wonder. For if they who seem to please God are called Sons of God, much more proper is it to give that name to the associates of the Prophets, namely the Confessors, and especially to you. Believe me, Lucifer, it is not you only who has uttered this, but the Holy Spirit with you. Whence comes so great a memory for the Scriptures? Whence an unimpaired sense and understanding of them? Whence has such an order of discourse been framed? Whence did you get such exhortations to the way of heaven, whence such confidence against the devil, and such proofs against heretics, unless the Holy Spirit had been lodged in you? Rejoice therefore to see that you are already there where also are your predecessors the martyrs, that is, among the band of angels. We also rejoice, having you as an example of valour, and patience, and liberty. For I blush to say anything of what you have written about my name , lest I should appear a flatterer. But I know and believe that the Lord Himself, Who has revealed all knowledge to your holy and religious spirit, will reward you for this labour also with a reward in the kingdom of the heavens. Since then you are such a man, we ask the Lord in prayer that you may pray for us, that in His mercy He may now deign to look down upon the Catholic Church, and deliver all His servants from the hands of persecutors; in order that all they too who have fallen on account of temporal fear may at length be enabled to raise themselves and return to the way of righteousness, led away from which they are wandering, poor people, not knowing in what a pit they are. In particular I ask, if I have said anything amiss, you would be good enough to overlook it, for from so great a fountain my unskilfulness has not been able to draw what it might have done. But as to our brethren, I ask you again to overlook my not having been able to see them. For truth itself is my witness that I wished and longed to compass this, and was greatly grieved at being unable. For my eyes ceased not from tears, nor my spirit from groaning, because we are not permitted even to see the brethren. But God is my witness, that on account of their persecution I have not been able to see even the parents whom I have. For what is there that the Arians leave undone? They watch the roads, observe those who enter and leave the city, search the vessels, go round the deserts, ransack houses, harass the brethren, cause unrest to everybody. But thanks be to God, in so doing they are more and more incurring the execration of all, and coming to be truly known for what your holiness has called them: slaves of Antichrist. And, poor wretches, hated as they are, they persist in their malice, until they shall be condemned to the death of their ancestor Pharaoh. Those with me salute your piety. Pray salute those who are with you. May God’s divine grace preserve you, mindful of us and ever blessed, worthily called man of God, servant of Christ, partner of the Apostles, comfort of the brotherhood, master of truth, and in all things most longed for.

Letter 60

We have read what your piety has written to us, and genuinely approve your piety toward Christ. And above all we glorify God, Who has given you such grace as not only to have right opinions, but also, so far as that is possible, not to be ignorant of the devices 2 Corinthians 2:11 of the devil. But we marvel at the perversity of the heretics, seeing that they have fallen into such a pit of impiety that they no longer retain even their senses, but have their understanding corrupted on all sides. But this attempt is a plot of the devil, and an imitation of the disobedient Jews. For as the latter, when refuted on all sides, kept devising excuses to their own hurt, if only they could deny the Lord and bring upon themselves what was prophesied against them, in like manner these men, seeing themselves proscribed on all hands, and perceiving that their heresy has become abominable to all, prove themselves ‘inventors of evil things Romans 1:30,’ in order that, not ceasing their fightings against the truth, they may remain consistent and genuine adversaries of Christ. For whence has this new mischief of theirs sprung forth? How have they even ventured to utter this new blasphemy against the Saviour? But the impious man, it seems, is a worthless object, and truly ‘reprobate concerning the Faith 2 Timothy 3:8.’ For formerly, while denying the Godhead of the only-begotten Son of God, they pretended at any rate to acknowledge His coming in the Flesh. But now, gradually going from bad to worse, they have fallen from this opinion of theirs, and become Godless on all hands, so as neither to acknowledge Him as God, nor to believe that He has become man. For if they believed this they would not have uttered such things as your piety has reported against them.

3. We do not worship a creature. Far be the thought. For such an error belongs to heathens and Arians. But we worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the flesh also is in itself a part of the created world, yet it has become God’s body. And we neither divide the body, being such, from the Word, and worship it by itself , nor when we wish to worship the Word do we set Him far apart from the Flesh, but knowing, as we said above, that ‘the Word was made flesh,’ we recognise Him as God also, after having come in the flesh. Who, accordingly, is so senseless as to say to the Lord: ‘Leave the Body that I may worship You;’ or so impious as to join the senseless Jews in saying, on account of the Body, ‘Why do You, being a man, make Yourself God John 10:33?’ But the leper was not one of this sort, for he worshipped God in the Body, and recognised that He was God, saying, ‘Lord, if You will You can make me clean Matthew 8:2.’ Neither by reason of the Flesh did he think the Word of God a creature: nor because the Word was the maker of all creation did he despise the Flesh which He had put on. But he worshipped the Creator of the universe as dwelling in a created temple, and was cleansed. So also the woman with an issue of blood, who believed, and only touched the hem of His garment, was healed Matthew 9:20, and the sea with its foaming waves heard the incarnate Word, and ceased its storm , while the man blind from birth was healed by the fleshly spitting of the Word. John 9:6 And, what is greater and more startling (for perhaps this even offended those most impious men), even when the Lord was hanging upon the actual cross (for it was His Body and the Word was in it), the sun was darkened and the earth shook, the rocks were rent, and the veil of the temple rent, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose.

5. Seeing then that Flesh was taken by the Word to deliver all men, raise all from the dead, and make redemption for sins, must not they appear ungrateful, and be worthy of all hatred, who make light of the Flesh, as well as those who on account of it charge the Son of God with being a thing created or made? For they as good as cry to God and say: ‘Send not Your Only-begotten Son in the Flesh, cause Him not to take flesh of a virgin, lest He redeem us from death and sin. We do not wish Him to come in the body, lest He should undergo death on our behalf: we do not desire the Word to be made flesh, lest in it He should become our Mediator to gain access to you, and we so inhabit the heavenly mansions. Let the gates of the heavens be shut lest Your Word consecrate for us the road there through the veil, namely His Flesh Hebrews 10:20.’ These are their utterances, vented with diabolical daring, by the error they have devised. For they who do not wish to worship the Word made flesh, are ungrateful for His becoming man. And they who divide the Word from the Flesh do not hold that one redemption from sin has taken place, or one destruction of death. But where at all will these impious men find the Flesh which the Saviour took, apart from Him, that they should even venture to say ‘we do not worship the Lord with the Flesh, but we separate the Body, and worship Him alone.’ Why, the blessed Stephen saw in the heavens the Lord standing on [God’s] right hand Acts 7:55, while the Angels said to the disciples, ‘He shall so come in like manner as you beheld Him going into heaven :’ and the Lord Himself says, addressing the Father, ‘I will that where I am, they also may be with Me John 17:24.’ And surely if the Flesh is inseparable from the Word, does it not follow that these men must either lay aside their error, and for the future worship the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or, if they do not worship or serve the Word Who came in the Flesh, be cast out on all sides, and count no longer as Christians but either as heathens, or among the Jews.

Letter 61

Having read the letter now come from you, I approve your piety: but, marvelling at the rashness of those ‘who understand neither what they say nor whereof they confidently affirm 1 Timothy 1:7,’ I had really decided to say nothing. For to reply upon matters which are so plain and which are clearer than light, is simply to give an excuse for shamelessness to such lawless men. And this we have learned from the Saviour. For when Pilate had washed his hands, and acquiesced in the false accusation of the Jews of that day, the Lord answered him no more, but rather warned his wife in a dream, so that He that was being judged might be believed to be God not in word, but in power. While after vouchsafing Caiaphas no reply to his folly, He Himself by his promise brought all over to knowledge. Accordingly for some time I delayed, and have reluctantly yielded to your zeal for the truth, in view of the argumentativeness of men without shame. And I have dictated nothing beyond what your letter contains, in order that the adversary may from henceforth be convinced on the points to which he has objected, and may ‘keep his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile.’ And would that they would no longer join the Jews who passed by of old in reproaching Him that hung upon the Tree: ‘If you be the Son of God save Yourself Matthew 27:40; Luke 28:37.’ But if even after this they will not give in, yet do you remember the apostolic injunction, and ‘a man that is heretical after a first and second admonition refuse, knowing that such an one is perverted and sins being self-condemned Titus 3:10-11.’ For if they are Gentiles, or of the Judaisers, who are thus daring, let them, as Jews, think the Cross of Christ a stumbling-block, or as Gentiles, foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:23 But if they pretend to be Christians let them learn that the crucified Christ is at once Lord of Glory, and the Power of God and Wisdom of God.

2. But if they are in doubt whether He is God at all, let them reverence Thomas, who handled the Crucified and pronounced Him Lord and God. John 20:28 Or let them fear the Lord Himself, who said, after washing the feet of the disciples: ‘You call Me Lord and Master , and you say well, for so I am.’ But in the same body in which He was when he washed their feet, He also carried up our sins to the Tree. 1 Peter 2:24 And He was witnessed to as Master of Creation, in that the Sun withdrew his beams and the earth trembled and the rocks were rent, and the executioners recognised that the Crucified was truly Son of God. For the Body they beheld was not that of some man, but of God, being in which, even when being crucified, He raised the dead. Accordingly it is no good venture of theirs to say that the Word of God came into a certain holy man; for this was true of each of the prophets and of the other saints, and on that assumption He would clearly be born and die in the case of each one of them. But this is not so, far be the thought. But once for all ‘at the consummation of the ages Hebrews 9:26, to put away sin‘ ‘the Word was made flesh John 1:14 ‘ and proceeded forth from Mary the Virgin, Man after our likeness, as also He said to the Jews, ‘Wherefore do you seek to kill Me, a man that has told you the truth ?’ And we are deified not by partaking of the body of some man, but by receiving the Body of the Word Himself.

Source. New Advent – Translated by Archibald Robertson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 4. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806.htm>.

Expositiones in Psalmos. 

Not in BiblIndex. TLG. ²⁵  The catenist treats the comments in the previous section as applying equally to Jews and Gentiles.

On Ps.89:8.  “You have set our iniquities before our eyes.”  You have not passed over, he says, our iniquities, since we have called them down ourselves on our own heads, because we said, “His blood be upon us and upon our children,” “May our age be in the light of your face.”  It is as if to say, “Our life and its works seem evil in your sight. There is nothing that you do not know about the acts in us, from the beginning to the end.”

Source. Roger Pearse – PG 27, col. 397 line 27.