as it looks toward the meadow of Scripture. For the diversity of the beauty of the thoughts draws the soul equally toward everything, and makes its desire unsteady, because it is unable to easily find what is preferable among things that are equally honorable. Behold, for instance, how the flowers of prophecy shine forth through the great David; and what sort of flower the divine Apostle is, signifying the beauty of the cultivation of Paradise, and breathing forth much of the fragrance of Christ! And as for the beauty of the Gospel meadows, what human speech could explain it? B But it seems appropriate to me at this time to make mention of that proverbial praise, and to emulate the bee. For Scripture says that while she is weak in strength (for she was never seen gathering the whole flower and carrying it upon her back to her hives), yet she takes up the fine and dusty pollen found in the midst of the flower—shaken off by her wings—with her curved legs, and by these she effects that wise work, raising up an equal number of angles to the six-sided frame, and through the center, with the smoothness of her wings, like some sort of polish, she smoothes those thin and membranous C walls. And if our discourse is to be conducive to health for kings and private citizens alike, as Solomon says, let us, both I and you, pray to draw that grace to ourselves. For the gain is common, or rather, the larger portion of it is yours, since to receive something good brings more profit than to provide it. The Gospel forbids the pouring of new wine into old wineskins; perhaps this riddle looks toward the present time. For wine that is freshly pressed, on account of the warmth that naturally exists in the liquid, is full of breath, and through this natural movement, it exhales and rejects the muddy dregs from itself through the foam. Now this is nothing else, in my opinion, than the doctrine which is handed down concerning the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says, "fervent in Spirit"; which rotten and leaking wineskins, worn out by unbelief, do not contain, but are rather burst assunder by the majesty of the doctrine. Therefore, if any sublime thought from this doctrine happens to enter them, they are split by the magnitude of the doctrine; and they themselves are rendered useless by the rupture, and they cause the grace of the Spirit to flow out in D vain and to no purpose. For "wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul," as Scripture says. But rather, allow me to imitate the custom of the poor; for it is habitual for them, whenever they are found worthy of a rich table, shamelessly to provide for themselves food for the next day from what has been set before them. Therefore, I too, having taken up a small remnant from yesterday's magnificence, will therefrom, according to my own ability, prepare my discourse, having reserved the greater part of what was set forth today for the more perfect guests. What then was the part of yesterday's feast that was uneaten and unprocessed? The history of the Acts of the Apostles, the one at Athens...
and how the Holy Spirit was stirred up within blessed Paul, as if a certain river were flooding and constrained within the soul of the Apostle, finding no exit among the unworthy. For this reason, he enters into conflict with the Stoics and the Epicureans, and standing upon the Areopagus, taking occasion from their own institutions, he endeavors to lead them to the knowledge of God; for he takes an altar he finds there, along with its title and inscription, as the prelude to his discourse. To what purpose, then, have I recalled this reading? Because even now there are those who, like those Athenians, have leisure for nothing else but to tell or hear something new, who yesterday or just a little while ago came forth from sedentary, plebeian, and servile crafts—certain impromptu authors of theological opinions, perhaps certain servants and scoundrels run away from servile tasks, who philosophize to us magnificently about incomprehensible things. You certainly are not ignorant of whom this speech speaks. For all places in the city are filled with such people: the alleys, the turnings of the roads, the market-places, the squares: the sellers of garments, those in charge of money-changers' tables, those who sell us food. If you ask one of them about coins, he philosophizes to you B about the nature of the begotten and the unbegotten; and if you inquire about the price and value of bread, "The Father is greater," he says, "and the Son is subject." But if you say, "The washing is sufficient," he determines that the Son is from non-existent things. I do not know by what name one ought to call this evil—phrenitis, or madness, or some such pestilential evil that spreads among the people and produces a perversion of the mind.
For this reason, I say that the history according to the Apostle applies to these people; for the things that Scripture recounts concerning the Athenians can now be seen in these men; or rather, if one must speak the truth, the sin of these men is less worthy of pardon than their error, and they deserve less forgiveness than those did. For although those people, C because the error of the worship of idols had invaded the eyes of their souls like a certain blearedness, could not look directly upon the pious truth concerning all things; nevertheless, by a certain groping of their reasoning, they understood thus much, that the Divine is not entirely comprehensible, nor is the nature of the Transcendent such as human reasoning supposes it to be. Therefore, confessing that the true God is unknown, they honor the Unknown with an altar and an inscription; for that their mind was gazing toward the God who truly is, the Apostle himself testifies, while he was announcing to them that God whom they thought they were piously worshipping through the honor of the altar. How then are those who now act so foolishly not more grievous than those mentioned? They who do not allow the Divine to be above their own comprehension, but boast that they know God just as He knows Himself? How could anyone worthily lament such blindness of these miserable men, D who, when such a light of truth shines throughout the whole world in our life through the pious faith, are alone toward the
A eyes dimmed? Or are you ignorant of what light I say abounds in our life? Count for me the royal luminaries, which, equal in number to the evangelical luminaries, illuminate almost the entire world in peace and piety; when God, the Maker of all things, imitates that first marvelous work of the origin of the world, who not only established the great luminary as the leader of seen things, but also joined with it the lesser luminary, which shines together, having received light from the paternal rays. Then, with such blessings set before us in common, as if goaded into madness by a plague of demons, do they shamelessly oppose the truth of the doctrines, just like those Stoics and Epicureans with whom Paul contends among the Athenians? And so that you may not think the speech proceeds by slander, let us examine the very opinions of those mentioned. The Stoics suspect the Divine to be material; these men also invent the only-begotten Son to be created. Yet you surely know what affinity exists between the created and the material. Again, to the Epicureans, it seems that no superior power presides over the constitution B and administration of things, but that all things are borne along rashly and by fortuitous chance, with no providence pervading affairs; and to speak more concisely and briefly of their error, their opinions look toward atheism, that is, the negation of the divine godhead. Let us see, therefore, whether those who dishonor the Son are not imitators of the Epicureans. And let no one object to the argument that Epicurus neither knows the Father nor confesses His godhead, and how, therefore, are these men equally impious as those, since they do not deny or reject the godhead of the Father? For if you wait a little and hesitate, you will find in the Anomoean another Epicurus. Let us consider the matter thus. The Apostle called the Son the "splendor of glory" and the "express image of the substance" and the "power of God" and "wisdom" and whatever things are such as these; each of which, as if in certain necessary pairings, is in no way understood by itself C alone and separately, but both are taken together and comprehended with one another. For splendor is absolutely the splendor of some thing, and a likeness and image is absolutely the image of some thing. Just as, therefore, splendor cannot exist from light if the illuminating cause does not exist, so the nature emitting the splendor cannot be understood by itself unless the splendor is understood simultaneously. Similarly, also, the likeness and image shows the substance, and the substance is known through the image; so also the power of God cannot exist without God, and God cannot naturally be understood without power. Therefore, whoever denies one [of these things] which are signified through this copulation, along with that power, he utterly destroys also what remains. Yet the champions of impiety say that the Son at one time was not. If, therefore, the Son was not, then certainly neither was the Father; if the splendor was not, neither was the illuminating source; if the likeness was not, D then certainly neither was the substance; if the power was not, the wisdom was not; but if these
A were not, without which God is not, how was the God over all? For by these things the existence of God is established. For it is not possible to conceive of glory without splendor, nor substance without a likeness, nor one wise without wisdom, nor one powerful without power, nor a Father without a Son. Therefore, it has been demonstrated by what has been said that he who denies the Son denies the Father as well; and where neither the Son is glorified nor the Father is believed to be, there the Godhead is altogether denied; and to deny the Godhead is the mark of none other than Epicurus.
Therefore, the present dogmatizers of deception have been shown to be Epicureans, who, through the insult inflicted upon the Only-Begotten Son, ascribe superiorities to the Father, saying that the one is greater and the other lesser; that the one sends and the other is sent; and even though the foolish ones advance certain sayings of Scripture concerning this and claim that the Lord himself confesses that He was sent by the Father. But you know that He was sent; have you not heard that He who sent Him is with Him? "He who sent me," He says, "is with me" (John viii, 29); and have you not learned through what has been said that He is both sent and not separated? For He is sent on account of His love for mankind, but He is not separated because of the indivisibility of His nature. B
They say again that it is confessed by the Only-Begotten that the Father is greater than He, while He says: "My Father is greater than I" (John xiv, 28). Let us therefore examine, brothers, whether He lies who said: "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (ibid. 10). If the Father is greater than the Son, how is the greater contained in the lesser? If the Son is lesser than the Father, how is the greater filled by the lesser? For the greater is necessarily cramped within the lesser, and the lesser cannot be extended to the surpassing magnitude; so that it would be a necessity that the Son is deficient in the Father, and the Father overflows in the Son. And he who said, "I am in the Father"—whereas, if He were lesser, He ought to have said, "I am in a part of the Father"—and "the Father is in me," lies; for it would have been truer to say, if the Father were indeed greater, "A certain part of the Father is in me." But if the whole Father is in the whole Son, and the whole Son is in the whole Father, where is the "more" and where is the "less"? And what is the need to say much, when it C is fitting to circumscribe all their petulance and garrulity with one word? "Who, being in the form of God, deemed not that equality with God was a matter for clutching" (Philippians ii, 6). Tell me, hearing "equal," did you understand "unequal"? O new doctrine, which interprets the unequal through the equal! But perhaps it is reasonable that someone desirous of learning should seek the rationale for these things: how the Father is greater than the Son, and the Son is equal and on a par with the Father? For these things seem in some way not to accord with one another. Therefore, leaving aside the wrangling with the common herd of adversaries, I will discourse to you in a fatherly way concerning the matters proposed. I do not know all the utterances of the Gospel—insofar as they teach about the Lord—to be of equal rank, nor are they all revealed from the same D
A dignity; for some declare the height of the divinity of the Son of God with the majesty of their words, while others lower and accommodate themselves to the humility of human nature. For when the Lord says: *I command thee*; and, *I will, be thou made clean*; and, *The Father is in me, and I in the Father*; and, *He that hath seen me hath seen the Father*; and, *I and the Father are one*; and, *No man knoweth the Son, but the Father*; and, *All mine are thine, and thine are mine*; and, *I am glorified in them*; and whatever things are of this kind, they indicate a power that is above all nature and authority. But when he inclines his discourse to the infirmity of our nature, it pronounces: *My soul is sorrowful*; *If it be possible, let this chalice pass from me*; *The Son can do nothing of himself*; *I have received commandment what I should say and what I should speak*; *I go to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God*. Set among these also the tears poured out over Lazarus, and the weariness contracted from the journey, and the B seeking of food, and the request for water, and the course toward the fig tree, and the ignorance of the tree’s lack of fruit, and the sleep in the boat. For all these things, and whatever are such as these, do not demonstrate the dignity of the Word of God as He was in the beginning, but rather the accommodation and self-emptying of Him who humbled Himself in the form of a servant toward the weakness of our nature.
It has been said, therefore: *He that sent me is greater than I*. Let us then consider by whom this statement is uttered. How was He sent? Was it while endowed with the form of God, or having taken the form of a servant? While remaining in the fullness of the divinity, or when He had emptied Himself in the form of a servant? For I think it is entirely clear that the divine power and nature, since it is everywhere and penetrates and pervades through all things and encompasses all things, cannot rightly be said to be sent; for there is nothing empty or void outside of it C into which it was not previously, and into which it might arrive after it has been sent; but since it holds together and contains all things with its preserving power, it has nowhere to pass, as it is itself the fullness of the universe.
Therefore, the descent of the Son of God to our humility and infirmity, which took place by the will of the Father, is called a mission. For the migration from the immortal nature to our life does not signify a movement of the Lord from place to place, but indicates a descent from the height of glory to the humility of the flesh. He descended, therefore, and appeared not as the bare Word, but having become flesh; not the form of God in itself, but seen in the form of a servant. This, then, is He who said He could do nothing of Himself, clearly insofar as He became flesh; for inability is a mark of infirmity. For as darkness is to light, and death to life, so is infirmity opposed to power; yet Christ is the power of God and the D
wisdom of God: therefore, the Power is in no way lacking in capability. For if the power were infirm, what would be that which is powerful? When, therefore, the Word declares that He cannot do something, it is manifest that He is not attributing inability to the divinity of the Only-Begotten, but is bearing witness to the inability of our own infirm nature. For the flesh is infirm, as it is written: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Therefore, divine Scripture speaks truthfully through both, acknowledging the greater and not denying the equal. For when the Word looks toward what is human, He confesses that He who is not seen is greater than He who was seen through the flesh; but when He leads the mind toward the divinity, this comparative opposition of greater and lesser ceases, and in its place unity is proclaimed: "I and the Father are one." B Things which differ in inequality cannot be one. Does our discourse satisfy you by responding, and by separating and setting apart the heretical inequality from the pious dogmas? Or do you require, as in a court of law, that the argument be confirmed by more witnesses? If so, grant me the liberty to digress briefly from the argument, by calling to mind one of the events of ancient history. Perhaps the narrative will not be beside the point. Listen to the apostolic lesson, which relates the history of Abraham in summary, where it says: "God, having promised to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, swore by Himself," according to what He said. C Since, therefore, it is likely that the details of the history are unknown to many, I will set them forth for you briefly, as best I can. God commands Abraham to leave his own kinsfolk and lands, and the patriarch was in a foreign land, persevering in the hope of the promise. The man’s steadfastness toward God is put to the test by the long delay of the things hoped for; and the promise was that Abraham should be the father of a nation. Much time had passed, and as his age had already inclined toward old age, that which is natural followed, and yet his hope was further extended; for it is reasonable and likely that in old age the powers for procreation, both his own D and his wife’s, had become extinct. And the history points this out without hesitation, declaring that Sarah’s monthly cycles—through which conception occurs—had ceased. And while his body, with the youthful vigor of nature spent, was bowed with age, the hope toward God in them was somehow ageless and flourishing. In this state Isaac is born to them, so that that birth might appear not as a work of nature, but as an effect of divine power. They were overjoyed, as is natural, at the gift of God; their gray hair flourished again through the child, and bountiful fountains of milk flowed for the elder in accordance with her need; she who had grown old pressed her milk-flooded breast to the child. She exulted in the miracle contrary to nature, saying: "Who would say to Abraham that..."
A Sarah suckles a child?" Then the infant grew strong, and was running into the age of youth, and was already a boy in the flower of his prime, in the height of his beauty, a delightful spectacle to his parents, advancing in age, progressing to the height of his vigor, increasing his virtues along with the beauty of his body. How the parents were affected on his account, you yourselves, laying the matter out in your own thoughts, examine: how a father feels seeing his son playing, and applying himself to the wrestling school, to games, to studies, or to the sweetest companionships of his age-mates. In these things, a test and trial is brought to the patriarch: to which he gives more weight, the love toward God, or the inclination toward nature. I shudder as I describe the sharpness of the trial B and the atrocity of the danger. God speaks to him again, and calls him by name; and he follows the call readily, expecting by all means the addition of a second gift from those things he had already obtained. But what is the command? "Take for me," he says, "your son." Perhaps the word does not yet strike the heart of the father; for he interprets it in a way that suggests that He is ordering him to unite his son in marriage and hasten the marriage bed, so that the blessing upon his seed might reach its end. But let us see the addition to the word: "Take for me," He says, "your son, your beloved one, your only-begotten." See the goads of the speech, how it pierces the father's bowels; how it fans into flame the fire of nature; how it arouses the affection, calling him both beloved and only-begotten son, so that through such names the affection for him might boil over. "And when I have taken him, what shall I do? Offer him to me," He says. Do you order a priest to be C appointed, whom you have commanded me to offer? Not a priest, but an offering and a victim, which through sacrifice is to be entirely consumed by fire. "Offer him to me," He says, "for a sacrifice of burnt offering upon the mountain which I shall show you." How are you affected, you who hear this narrative, whoever among you are fathers and have been taught by nature the affection for children? You know fully how a father's hearing receives the slaughter of an only-begotten child. Who would not have been struck with terror at the voice? Who would not have turned away his hearing, and preferred to die at the command rather than receive the word into his heart? Would he not have argued with Him, setting up nature herself as his advocate, saying, "Why do you command these things, O Lord? Did you make me a father for this, that you might turn me into a child-killer? Did you make me taste of this sweet gift for this, that you might make me a fable to the world? Shall I slaughter the child with my own hands, and pour out to you his kindred blood? D And do you command these things, and delight in such sacrifices? Shall I kill the son by whom I hoped to be buried? Shall I construct such a bridal chamber for him? Shall I prepare such a joy of marriage for him? And shall I light for him not a bridal torch, but a funeral fire? Shall I then also be crowned for these things? So shall I be
A the father of nations, I who am not even permitted to have a child? Did Abraham say any such thing, or contemplate it? Certainly not. But when he saw the purpose of the command, he looked up toward the divine love, and immediately forgot nature; and casting off the affections of nature as a kind of earthy burden, he gave himself entirely to God and to the command. And he did not tell his spouse about this, acting rightly and advantageously for himself, since he judged the female sex to be not suited for counsel. For indeed, it was not useful nor advantageous to Adam that he followed the counsel of Eve. For this reason, that Sarah might not suffer something womanish and maternal, and break the intensity and purity of Abraham’s love toward God, he took care to keep his spouse in the dark. For how many things is it likely that Sarah would have done, or lamented to him, had she known that such a thing was happening? And what misery would have overwhelmed her as she fell upon her child and clasped him in her arms, had she seen him being violently dragged to slaughter? What words would she have used? O husband, spare nature, do not become a base tale in the story of life. My only child is this, Isaac, born in travail, the only one in my arms. He is my offspring, my first and my last. Whom shall we see at the table after him? Who will address me with that sweet voice? Who will call me mother? Who will care for my old age? Who will shroud me after death? Who will heap up earth upon my body? You see the flower of a youth; even if one saw him in an enemy, he would surely pity his prime. This is the fruit of long prayer, this is the branch of the succession, this is the remnant of the line, this is the staff of old age. If you draw the sword against him, grant this favor to me, miserable as I am: use the sword on me first, and then do what seems best for him. Let our burial mound be common to both, let the common dust cover our bodies, let a common monument tell of the suffering; may the eye of Sarah not see either Abraham killing his son, or Isaac being killed by paternal hands. B Such words, and words like these, Sarah certainly would have said to Abraham, had she perceived what was coming to pass. But so that no obstacle might arise to the undertaking, he loaded the wood upon the ass, and taking some of the servants with him, he was entirely given over to the divine will. Then, leaving the servants behind—lest they, thinking something more cowardly and servile, prevent the sacrifice of the lad—he takes only his son, who was already sufficiently strengthened by age to undertake heavier tasks. For, transferring the burden from the ass to the lad, he ordered him to carry the load of wood upon his shoulders. Again, the voice of the lad wounds the father’s heart; this is another trial, no milder than the former. Isaac calls to his father with that sweet voice and says, Father. And he is not choked by tears, C as one who considered that a little later he would no longer hear such a voice, nor does he groan in prayer, nor does he [produce] a lamentable and
tearful utterance, but with a settled, immovable soul, he receives the child's voice and sends forth his own. For he says to him, "What is it, my son?" Here, consider with me the intelligence and the prudent moderation of the youth at the same time: how, upon thinking himself neglected by his father, he brings it to his memory without any offense of mind, neither upbraiding his father with madness nor forgetfulness, but under the pretext of wishing to learn, as it were, he reminds him of the oversight. "For behold," he says, "the wood, the fire, the knife; but where is the victim?" And he, whether to encourage the boy or as a prophet guaranteeing what was to come, says, "God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son." And upon these things, the trial and examination of the patriarch's soul was B still extended. He reaches the place previously shown to him, he builds the altar to God, the boy laid the wood for his father; the pyre was being prepared, and yet the work is not forbidden, lest any of the fainter-hearted might say that if the trial had happened to stop and cease up to that point, he himself would not have remained the same, if he had drawn closer to the danger.
After these things, the father touches the son, and nature does not oppose what is being done: the son gives himself to his father, to be handled as he wills. Which of those two should I admire more: this one, who, on account of his love for God, laid hands upon his son, or the one who obeyed and followed his father even unto death? They strive against one another; the one raising C himself above nature, and the other judging it to be heavier and more atrocious than death to oppose and resist his father. Then, the father first binds the son with chains. I have often seen an image of this pitiable event in a painting, and I have not passed by the sight without tears, the art of painting so clearly and evidently placing the finished deed before the eyes. Isaac falls before his father near the altar itself, resting on bent knees, with his hands drawn backward; whilst he, having stepped behind the curve of his knees with his feet, and drawing the hair of the boy toward himself with his left hand, leans over the face of the one looking up at him miserably, and directs his right hand, armed with the sword, toward the slaughter; and already the point of the sword was touching the body, and then at last a voice D is sent to him from God, prohibiting the deed. And the voice was of such a kind. For with difficulty, just as if we were to bring back to the straight path a certain obstinate and untamed young horse, which, having turned aside from the straight road and having capered about sideways in many circles and windings, we brought our discourse back to the straight way. For this was our purpose: to show that the Apostle bears witness to the argument that the Father is not greater than the Son. For here, since the Scripture had placed an angel before the discourse of God, it adds the voice: "For the angel of the Lord called him and said, 'Because you have done this word, and have not spared your beloved son, I have sworn by myself,'" to do those things which it is possible to learn even in the promise of the Word. Who then is the one who spoke to Abraham? Could it be the Father? But you would not say it of an angel...
A Therefore, the only-begotten God was he of whom the prophet speaks, saying, “His name is called the Angel of great counsel.” Paul, who was initiated into the unspeakable mysteries in paradise, is by no means unaware that this adjured promise comes from the Only-begotten. Paul says that God, the Word of God, when promising to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, swore by himself. B How then do these people say that the Father is greater than the Son, when Paul says that he has nothing greater?
But let us return again to that new evangelical wine, so that, having ourselves received the fervor of the Spirit through instruction, we may become suitable vessels and receptacles for such wine, neither bursting ourselves, nor pouring out the grace hidden and stored within us. I heard the writer of the Psalms prophesying and predicting, as I believe, concerning present evils; for he says regarding sinners: “Sinners are alienated from the womb, they have gone astray from the belly.” By “womb” I believe the Church is meant, of those who are born according to God; for she, carrying those C who are brought to perfection in her within her own bosom, brings them to the light through faith. But sinners, like abortions of births, have been alienated from the womb, and have strayed from the true and genuine belly; for I do not see the deserters of the faith in the maternal bosom, and I say that the prophecy speaks of these, those who have been led astray through deceit, that “they have gone astray from the belly; they have gone astray by speaking lies.” “Their fury is,” he says, “according to the likeness of the serpent,” not simply “of a serpent,” lest they might relate this comparison to that beast; but the addition of the article D points by enigmas to the archetypal evil. But perhaps our mention of the serpent is not ill-timed, for the refutation of those who speak rashly and inconsiderately against the Spirit. For because they think they have this strong handle against the Spirit—that the Spirit is not called God by Holy Scripture (as they themselves think; for we do not agree with them)—and they say that divinity is indicative of nature, and because this name is not applied to the Spirit, they conclude that the Spirit is not of the same nature as the Father and the Son; let them take the serpent as the accuser of their foolish blasphemy. For just as we say that the divine nature either does not have a name indicative of itself, or does not have one for us; but if anything is said, whether from human custom or from Holy Scripture, it is one of the things that are signified about it; yet the divine nature itself remains unspeakable and unutterable, transcending all significance by means of sound. I think it is appropriate to set before you that part of Scripture where the serpent went to Eve, showing that the name of divinity has the meaning of a viewing activity. For, advising them to touch the things from