A against the Egyptians: and many other impious men have stood against the impious. Therefore, it does not suffice to resist impiety, unless that resistance to impiety is made for the sake of piety. In many grave matters the Jews are able to convict idolaters, and they rightly bring charges against them for serving the creature rather than the creator. Yet they are not to be acknowledged as thinking piously merely because they convict impiety, while they deny the Son of God, through whom all things were made, and accuse those who worship the Father through Him of polytheism. Wherefore we have come out from the Gentiles, and have been separated, so as not to be mingled with their impure idolatries; and we have come out also from the blasphemy of the Jews, by confessing the Son of God, and fleeing the destructive denial of our Lord, who says: “Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” B We confess the Son to be from the Father, and always with the Father, believing Him who says and promises: “Everyone who shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven.”
2. Beholding this example, let us now be separated from those who under the name of Christianity side with the Gentiles, daring to call the handiwork of God, God, and to worship it. We are separated also from the Judaizers who corrupt Christianity into Judaism: who deny that He who is from God is God, and proclaim God as one in the manner of the Jews: not that they say He is the only God because He is the only unbegotten one and the only fountain of deity; but as if He were without a Son, and without a living Word and true wisdom. For they regard the Word of God as being like the word from a human heart, and the wisdom of God as being such as exists in the soul; and therefore they say that God together with His word is one person, C just as they consider a man together with his own word to be one man, thinking nothing more than the Jews, who do not accept the evangelist crying out from the very beginning: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” For if God has the Word in His heart, not truly begotten from Him as God from God, how could the Word exist with God? And how could the Word be God? For the word of a man is not a man to another man, since it is neither living nor subsistent, but is merely a movement of a living and subsistent heart; and it is uttered in an instant, and is not, and, being often spoken, D it never continues.
A Regarding the Word of God, however, the Psalmist long ago proclaimed in these words: "For ever, O Lord, thy Word endureth in heaven." [Ps. CXVII, 89] And the Evangelist, who confesses that the Word is God, harmonizes with him in this matter, preaching that he appeared, reporting his arrival, and proclaiming that he was incarnate, yet he does not include the Father in the incarnation of the Word; for he says: "The Word was made flesh [Joan. I, 14], and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." You see the Word, who is the Only-begotten, being manifested in the world, dwelling among men, and glory being attributed to him as of the Only-begotten of the Father: not as though the Word himself were the Father, nor as though the Father had manifested himself along with the Word, just as a man appears along with his own word; yet it is impossible for the word to appear unless he who utters it is present and speaking. B To whom, then, shall we give credence? To those who preach to us that the Son has come from the Father, or to those who affirm that the Father is one person with the Word? For if there is but one person, how is it that the one sends, while the other is sent and is seen through the flesh? For "No man hath seen God at any time [Joan. I, 18]; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," and he himself, having arrived, speaks with a holy voice, offering a view of himself, and through this he establishes the knowledge of the Father: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father [Joan. XIV, 9]," not claiming to be the Father himself—for how could he, being invisible?—but that he is such as the Father is, for he had previously said: "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also [ibid. 7]." C By this he declares to us openly the duality of persons, recognized in a divinity that is in no way different. Therefore, he who is deemed worthy of the sight of the Son is by no means deprived of the sight of the Father. For the Begetter did not beget one unlike himself, but one who is such as he is himself. If, therefore, you consider there to be only one thing, when in truth there are two, you are ignorant of both the Father and the Son. What communion, then, do you have with ecclesiastical doctrine? And in what way will you receive the words of the Lord: "I," he says, "and the Father are one [Joan. X, 30]"? And again, discussing the Father: "I am from him," he says, "and he hath sent me [Joan. VII, 29]." And he adds also a third: "I," he says, "will pray my Father, and he shall give you another Comforter [Joan. XIV, 16]." When, therefore, he speaks concerning himself as "I," and concerning the Father as "He," and concerning the Spirit,
A *another* — how is it not a clear defection and apostasy to deny the three, and say that only He exists who says: "I am not alone, because the Father who sent me is with me"? He uses also a legal expression, and by means of this he demonstrates that there are two, both himself and the Father: "For in your law," he says, "it is written that the testimony of two men is true: I," he says, "am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me." Behold, for there are two persons; and if you say that there are not two in truth, while you affirm this, you do not even allow the testimony to stand, which is nevertheless true. For that testimony is proven by the fact that it is given not by one alone, but by two. For indeed the Father has testified from heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son"; and the only-begotten Son of God B testifies that he is the Son of God, and has spoken clearly to the Father in the hearing of men, saying: "I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, because so it was pleasing before you. All things have been handed over to me by my Father." But what do the ministers of the Jewish denial answer to these things, so that they might not be clearly refuted as opposing the Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so that two hypostases might not appear in this way: one, the Father as God, and the other, the Son as man? O the impiety! And how does this differ from the defense of Samosatensis? Let them say how a man dares to utter such things about himself: "He who has seen me has seen the Father"? And how does the evangelist testify concerning him, who was saying these things, that he called God his own Father, making himself equal C to God? A man is not equal to God, but God from God will be equal to the one who generated him according to nature, as Paul also testifies, not speaking about the incarnation, but explaining things before the incarnation: "Who, existing in the form of God, did not count it a prize to be equal to God." We know also that the Savior often spoke in a human way; but not when he says: "I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me." For it is not a man who was sent into the world, who says: "I came out from the Father and have come"; or who says: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life"; or who says: "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." But if you wish D
to hear him speaking as a human, and in a manner A congruent to the carnal form which appeared, and to the humanity which his hearers thought was naked and alone in him, hear his words: "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true," meaning that he is not deemed worthy of trust, nor is a man thought to be credible who testifies to himself; yet when he says: "Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, because I know where I come from and where I am going." When, by numbering the Father and himself, he says there are two witnesses to his glory, he is not speaking in human terms, but above all human dignity; and what do I say human? Above angelic, above principalities, above powers, above dominations. For what capacity is there for numbering a man with God? What affinity is there, or what communion? But when he says: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth," if he seems to you to be a man, you are right; for the divinity that came into the world B has the human element mingled with it; since the divinity which came into the world has joined humanity to itself.
4. But do not be ignorant of God because of the veil of the flesh, for he immediately adds regarding himself, and says: "No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." The Lord has excluded your calumny: for he declares himself to be God even in the human form, C known only by the Father and knowing the Father, and who reveals the knowledge of himself and of the Father to those he deems worthy; and he calls us to himself, promising rest with him, and exhorting us to bear his yoke. In saying these things, he unfolds his divinity; he interprets that magnitude which is hidden by his small form; he demonstrates the supercelestial power veiled in a worldly body. And why need I recount the myriad divine voices of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the innovation of the Samosatene concerning the Savior—as being a mere man—is rightfully and deservedly exploded, and the senseless trifles of those who imitate him are driven out along with it? Come, for D that we may recall a few testimonies, who is it who says such things: "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven"? That is not the word of a man, but of God, showing his genuine generation from the Father, and therefore not refusing the title of Lord. For he is Lord, begotten of the only Lord, as was said by Moses:
“The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord.” A And elsewhere the Savior says to the apostles: “You call me Master and Lord, and you speak well; for I am.” And again, declaring himself Lord of his father’s house, as the Only-begotten Son: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more his household.” Therefore, that Jesus Christ is God, the Lord of all, inasmuch as he was begotten from God, is evident to everyone. But when he says, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens,” he adds that which clearly reveals the Father to us, explaining: “But he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.”
5. You have a Son, you have a Father. Do not fear duality; for there is no distinction in nature, nor does he who speaks of two alienate the offspring from the Begetter. Nor, because of the other madness of those who deny that the deity of the two is one, should one for this reason avoid saying "two." There is one God, because there is also one Father; but the Son is also God. He possesses identity with regard to the Father, B as Son, though he is not himself the Father, but is united to the Father by nature; two indeed in number, but one existing essence, perfect; two, not from two parts. The perfect Son comes from the perfect Father, existing from the Existent, the image of the paternal hypostasis, not a Verbum lacking subsistence, but a living power, and the cause of life for all, not like the power of a man, by which a man is powerful; for the power of a man is not his offspring or son. But the Son of God is his power, so that the Father is perfectly powerful, because he is the Father of power, and the Son is perfect power, because he is his offspring. The Son is also the Wisdom of the Father, but not as the wisdom of a man, through which a man is wise; but this is wisdom from the Wise, C of whom it is said: “To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” But, they say, the Father did not beget. How then is he a Father, and of whom? But if he did beget, then he who exists is he who has been begotten. But I, he will say, confess generation: for the word is begotten when it is spoken and known. And how often, tell me, will the same be begotten? Or will you say that there are many Words of God begotten at various times? And will you imagine God sometimes silent, and sometimes speaking, and passing from silence to speech, with opened lips or a moved heart? God is not a man; have you supposed, lawless one, that God will be like you? O man, even if you hear of the eyes of God, even if you hear of the other members of D
the body, do not understand it carnally, but through the likeness of bodily things, understand the incorporeal. For it has been said to you: "God is Spirit"; thus the Word also is not human, nor of the kind you have: for He is God, even if it does not seem so to you, and there are not two gods, just as there are not two Fathers, nor is the begotten of a different substance from the begetter.
B 6. For he who introduces two principles proclaims two gods. This is the impiety of Marcion, who asserts that the just God is the Father of Christ’s own, and that another good God is the Father of Christ’s own. Again, he who says that one God is unbegotten, while another is begotten, also admits two gods, because of the difference of substance which he blasphemously introduces. But where there is one single principle, and one offspring from it, there is a most absolute and natural image, because it is begotten from it; there also is one God, so that the divinity is understood to be perfect in the Father, and the paternal divinity also exists perfect in the Son. Furthermore, since by this small example (which divine Scripture has brought forward when it calls Christ the image of the invisible God) you are able to grasp what is said, let us here again shun the unlikeness which is in the example, namely that the image of God is made by art and is of another substance; but let us confess that it is begotten and consubstantial. Yet he who sees the king’s image sees the king; and says: "Behold, this is the king," and he does not constitute two kings, nor does he call the image a part of the king, nor the king a part of the image. So therefore the Father is one God, and one is the divinity of the Father and of the Son. But as you say, the one will be composite, made of two imperfect parts. But it is fitting to close one’s ears to this impiety, and to wash clean one’s soul: for he who devises these things confesses neither the Son nor the Father; for neither the Father nor the Son can be understood as imperfect. C
7. Yet it is said, he says: "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." But the Father is not the Word in the heart of the Son; therefore neither is the Son the Word in the heart of the Father, but He is a living Word from the living Father God, who has appeared by eternal generation, and coexists with the Father without beginning, so that the Father is never to be thought of as alone. For the Trinity is always Trinity, and it never receives an addition of divinity. Neither is the Son added to Him later, as if He were not previously with the Father, nor does the Holy Spirit accrue to the Son. For those things which have been made from some beginning are both works and subservient, and are in no way numbered with the Trinity. For, "Go," He says, "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." D Now as for a principle, neither one, nor power...
nor virtue did He enumerate; for it is impossible for things not eternal to be enumerated with the eternal, and those things which do not share in the divinity are not ranked with the divinity. How, then, is the Begotten in the Begetter? And again, the Begetter in the Begotten? How is the one in the other, and the other in the former? A Because he himself is such as the other is, and the other such as he is. And thus it is that the two are one, in that they do not differ, nor are they separated, nor is the Son understood according to an alien kind or a foreign character, but He is God, just as the Father is. For since, when He said, "I and the Father are one," the Jews were indignant, saying, "Because you, being a man, make yourself God," the Savior answered, confirming what had been said by them, as if He had declared nothing other than this in saying, "I and the Father are one," than that He himself also is God, being the Son of God. "If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? If I do not perform the works of my Father, do not believe me; B but if I do, even if you do not want to believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that I am in the Father, and the Father in me." Therefore, for the Son to be in the Father, and the Father in the Son, this is nothing other than that He who is begotten from God is the Son of God and is God by nature, just as the Father is, and shows the Father's form in Himself, and is shown in the paternal substance.
8. One, then, and one; and the duality is not divided by nature, since it is in no need of anything for its integrity. The whole fullness of the divinity is the Father, as Father; and the whole fullness of the divinity is the Son, as Son. Since, C indeed, one form is understood of both, which is shown entire in both. Let no one deny the life that appeared in the world: "Which was," He says, "with the Father, and appeared to us." And before appearing, it was the same that it was seen to be when it appeared. For He has been begotten eternally, and exists with His own Father. Let no one, while denying the three, think that he can find the unity; but let him conceive of the one in the Trinity, having the sum of the faith in baptism, and in the three holy seals, through which he has been regenerated unto salvation, remembering the Apostle who says: "One God the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." Let him also be mindful of the Father saying: D "From the womb, before the morning star, I begat you," and of the Son testifying that He was before the world with the Father, having the glory of the divinity; for "Glorify me," He says,
"Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with you," A asking for the glory that is according to man, but testifying that He possessed that which is according to God before the creation of the world. He possessed the glory because He was and existed; for he who is not, cannot be glorified. But if He was, He had also been begotten; for there is no Son who has not been begotten. But if He has been begotten, they say, He exists outside the Begetter and is divided from Him. Yet it is necessary that the Word, existing in God, be indivisible from God and not appear outside of God. For in what place could He appear outside of Him, when God fills all things, as it is written: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord?"
9. B By such fantasies they attempt to destroy the generation of the Son, and His eternal procession from the Father, and His existence with the Father, and that the Father perfectly subsists by Himself, and the Son also perfectly subsists by Himself. Let them learn, therefore, that they do not understand what they are saying, nor concerning what they are affirming, when they circumscribe God by place, and imagine the Son to be in another place, thinking them to be divided—one here, the other there—if they confess that the Son was begotten and appeared after the Father. "What is the place of my rest?" says the Lord through the Prophet. "Heaven and the heaven of heaven will not be sufficient for you," says Solomon to God. By this great argument God teaches men that no place is capable of containing Him. "For my hand," He says, C "has made all these things." Therefore, the works do not contain the Maker, who was even before them and provides existence to them, and makes them stable by the very power of the Maker. Wherefore Paul says: "From whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and in whom are all things," and again: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
10. Therefore, remove from yourself the notion that He is "situated in a place," when you consider God, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; remove local separations, and do not suspect that the Father is in one place and that He sends forth the Son in another when He begets Him. For these are mendacious, or rather, impious reasonings that become a stumbling block to you concerning the substance of the Son. D Together with the Son, you also deny the Holy Spirit, while you imagine all things to be preoccupied by the Father alone. Do not seek a magnitude of place so great that it might be able to contain the magnitude of God; for the immeasurable is not in the measured, but He measures the heaven with His span, as the prophet explains metaphorically; and He also measures the water with His hand, and all the earth with His palm. Since all things are thus small, as the [next page continues]
prophetic parable moderately indicates, how could it be thought that He is extended along with the small and minimal creation? For God has not filled all things by being extended along with them, for that is something which pertains only to a body, just as if someone were to say that the air fills the entire space between the earth and the heaven; but rather, as a power He holds all things together. For a power is incorporeal, invisible, not surrounding, nor surrounded. The same must also be said about the Son and about the Holy Spirit; for through the Son and in the Spirit, God both created and, in holding them together, preserves all things. It is therefore impious both to seek and to think B where God is, or what place the Word has obtained, or what dwelling the Spirit has received. If, however, someone says that the Son does not exist, or was not begotten, because a place for His substance cannot be conceived or found, such a person would also have to say that the Father never existed, nor even that God exists, since no place is found that is capable of containing God. "The fool said in his heart, There is no God." Fools indeed are those who deceive themselves with vain fantasies; they are like infants and altogether senseless, those who desire the incorporeal to be grasped by the eye and enclosed by a place.
11. Let us, then, offer them a few small examples C from those incorporeals that do occur, mentioning certain things that exist among us and appear in the order of creation, if perhaps they might be able, by ascending through these, to conceive in some way of the incorporeal nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and no longer imagine places for them, nor think up local divisions in the Trinity. Being incorporeal and spiritual, the Law exists in the mind of the one learned in the Law; and in that same mind are also the prophets, the Gospels, and the apostles. Indeed, it has been said concerning the legal and prophetic words: "They have Moses and the prophets." And the Savior says that he who holds the new and old words in his mind is like a householder D who brings forth from his treasury things new and old. The mind of Moses received all Egyptian wisdom, as well as that which was given to him by God. And Daniel, having received all the wisdom of the Chaldeans, also grasped the manifold meanings of divine wisdom, as God indicates through Ezechiel: "Art thou wiser than Daniel? Have not all secrets been shown to thee?" Innumerable also was the wisdom of Solomon, and the breadth of his heart.
A Since they behold so great a multitude of wisdoms in one mind, let them consider that these are not in a place. For what man of such magnitude would there be, who would be capable of receiving so many wisdoms, if he held each speculation in divided places? Since, therefore, spiritual things that are here, although they be many, yet do not require many places, but revolve within one and the same intellect; let us understand those things which are above us, and which are incorporeal by their own nature—namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—as requiring no place, nor being separated by places. Nor let anyone for this reason dare to opine that the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit does not exist, because a place cannot be defined and ascribed to each. But the Father indeed, who has a perfect essence and is lacking in no defect, is the root and source of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the Son is in full divinity, the living Word and offspring of the Father, which lacks nothing. Full also is the Holy Spirit of the Son, not a part of another, but whole in Himself. And so the Trinity, which truly exists, is joined without any interval. For there is nothing that divides it; it exists as one simultaneously from eternity, for no span of time intervenes. It presents one and the same form, since the Father is indeed beheld in the Son, while the Son is both understood in the Holy Spirit and has the man who is a participant in Him. B "For we all," he says, "with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
12. Let us not, therefore, imagine three indivisible members as if in a body. For that thought is impious, and alien to perfect incorporeal beings. Let us admit an indivisible co-existence of those who exist in one another without any distance; and although three in truth subsist, let us understand one form, which indeed begins from the Father, resplends in the Son, and is manifested through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they who bear the Spirit also bear Christ; for, "If any one," he says, "hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. But if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead by reason of sin," etc. And John says: "By this we know that he is in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us." D And Paul indeed names our bodies the temple of the Holy Spirit, but says that Christ is in us. But with Christ dwelling in our inner man, as it is written, it is God who dwells in us: for, "Know you not," he says, "that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Thus, from the divine words, learn piously that the divinity is indivisible, contemplating one form in three, not one object made out of three.
A Indivisible, moreover, are the persons even in operation, as we hear from the Apostle who unfolds the mysteries and says: "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all" (1 Cor. xii, 4-6). And after he has listed the gifts, he adds: "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will" (ibid. 11). When, therefore, all things are wrought by God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, I see an indivisible operation of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
13. B Yet I do not on that account compress into unity those words—"from whom," "through whom," and "in whom"—so as to endeavor to make the Trinity a monad; nor do I believe that God is like a man composed of three things—spirit, soul, and body—as they dare to do; nor, because of such an impious notion, do I propose indivisibility. Nor, if someone should say that the internal word, or the word uttered by voice, is inseparable from the one who thinks and speaks, should one think that the Son and the Spirit are likewise to be understood in relation to the Father. For the parts of a composite being, and the movements of a mover, have no communion with a nature that is incomposite and immutable. For how does the Father send His "part" or His "movement" while sending the Son? Or how does the Son send the Holy Spirit into the world? Is not the Son sent by the Father? C He testifies this everywhere, and promises that He will send the Spirit, the Comforter, and indeed He does send Him according to His promise. But those who make the Trinity a monad attempt to adulterate the mission, just as they do the generation. For they say that the Son, existing within the Father—that is, the one and only God Himself—works the sanctification of man, and that he who was thus sent was a man, and not God from God. For how, say they, was the Word sent, when He is neither divided nor separated from Him whose Word He is? That the incarnation of the Word has been proclaimed, who would deny, when the evangelist cries out clearly: "The Word was made flesh" (John i, 14); and when the Savior Himself affirms by crying out that He descended from heaven not once, but many times? D And yet that our Lord Jesus Christ is not only man, the Apostle Paul confirms to the Galatians. But even if He is a man of the same name as us, He is the "second man," and not such as the first, the "earthy"; for indeed that one is a "living soul," but this one is a "life-giving Spirit."
A For these are divine and apostolic words and dogmas; and the works themselves bear testimony to the Godhead, being performed with heavenly power, when He commands the elements, checks the winds, restores mutilated bodies by His virtue, and heals diseases by His will; and He proclaims His power, and does not hide it, and death is abolished by Him, and life and incorruption shine forth, and the corrupt human nature is created anew, and the world is renewed by His presence, and a new creation appears through the resurrection of Christ, while the body of our humiliation is transformed into the conformity of the body of His glory; and the whole creation is liberated from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
That the incarnate Lord and our God Jesus Christ is not the Father, nor, as they would say, the only God, all the divine Scriptures bear witness, proclaiming Him who arrived to be the Son of God, and showing Him always discoursing regarding the Father, and stating that He went forth from the Father and returns to the Father. And there is no need to dwell on bringing forward testimonies; for all the Gospels, so to speak, and the writings of the apostles tend to this very point. B
15. They stir up further controversies of the Gentiles against us, and adopt the blasphemies of the Jews, mocking the mystery of the mission and incarnation of the Word. For, they say, if He is sent and descends, He will not be with the sender, nor will He cohere with Him who remains above. Let them learn that "above" and "on high" are not to be heard corporally, but should be understood as something of a newer meaning. For the expression, "The Lord is high above all nations" (Ps. cxii, 4), and, "I will exalt Thee, O Lord" (Ps. xxix, 1), and, "Praiseworthy and superexalted unto the ages" (Dan. iii, 52), does not declare that the Lord is in any place or on high, nor does it portray God as being exalted by men or by others who praise Him; but it calls the magnificence of the invisible Godhead "height." C And he who says, "The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth He hath given to the children of men" (Ps. cxiii, 16), does not assign heaven to God as a place of habitation, and the earth to men; but shows the superiority of God and His magnificence.
When, therefore, that which is venerable and magnificent is called "heavenly," and conversely that which is humble is said to be "earthly" and "upon the earth," D the descent of the Word is discovered to be the progress from the incorporeal magnificence to the vileness of a body, He having given Himself over to a bodily formation on account of His love for the human race and His saving providence for the universe. And in accordance with this He shall be understood as "sent," in that by the ineffable counsel of the incorporeal Father He gave Himself to a body.
himself. Let not, therefore, the bodily utterances—that is to say, the descent and the mission—be brought forward to deny his incarnation, because God A neither descends nor is sent in a local manner; but let them hear the Apostle explaining the matter, along with such comparisons, when he says: “Who, existing in the form of God, did not count it a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” This was what it meant to descend, this to be sent: that he might assume a garment more humble than his own dignity; to descend is [simply] to put on the human form according to the will of the Father. And if the Word is not circumscribed by place and body, he will not be torn away from the incorporeal Father because of his tempering with a body; for the body received him of his own will, in so far as the carnal nature is capable of receiving God. He remains, nevertheless, in his own nature, just as he had it before the incarnation. So that the descent from heaven B was not a migration from heaven, nor was the mission a separation from the Father who sends.
ADMONITION REGARDING THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE
It has long been the opinion of scholars that this book does not at all appear to be Athanasian, although it is evident that it is the work of some ancient and learned man. On this matter, it is agreeable to hear Petavius, in the fourth book of his *Theological Dogmas on the Trinity*, p. 315. Indeed, it does not seem to be Athanasius’; which we surmise from the style, which is more diffuse, and has less simplicity and more affectation than the genuine style of Athanasius, whose native elegance, flowing spontaneously, no imitation can achieve. Then, from the fact that he immediately links Marcellus of Ancyra with Paul of Samosata as a certain and confessed heretic; whereas Athanasius did not judge Marcellus so unfavorably. To these observations, sagaciously and learnedly made by Petavius, we add that, since the argument here is against heretics who held that there are two persons in Christ, for this reason as well this short work seems to be wrongly attributed to Athanasius, who in none of his works makes mention of this heresy. Nor is the question regarding two persons in Christ thought to have been agitated in the age of Athanasius. However, it exists in older codices, and appears to have been published in the fifth century, when the Nestorian heresy was prevalent.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS: THAT CHRIST IS ONE
S. P. N. ATHANASIUS: THAT CHRIST IS ONE
1. It was fitting that those who had once escaped the error of the Gentiles, and had acknowledged the one and only true God of all things, should no longer attach themselves to the creature.