and eternally begotten A, not a Word uttered or internal, nor an effluence from the Perfect, nor a division of the impassible nature, nor a projection, but a Son perfect in Himself, living and acting, the true image of the Father, equal in honor and glory; for this is, as He says, the will of the Father, "That, as they honor the Father, so they should honor also the Son"; true God from true God, as John says in his Catholic Epistles: "We are in the truth, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and life eternal." Almighty from Almighty; for of all things over which the Father rules and holds sway, the Son also rules and holds sway; whole from whole, being like to the Father, as the Lord says: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." He was begotten, moreover, in a manner ineffable and incomprehensible; "for who shall declare his generation?" B that is to say, none. He who, at the consummation of the ages, having descended from the bosom of the Father, took upon Himself our manhood from the spotless Virgin Mary, Christ Jesus, whom He delivered to suffer for us by His own volition, as the Lord says: "No one takes my life from me; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." In which man, having been crucified and having died for us, He rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens. Having been created for us as the "beginning of the ways," when He was on earth, He showed us light out of darkness, salvation out of error, life out of the dead, an entry into paradise, from which Adam had been cast out, and into which he entered again through the thief, as the Lord said: "Today you will be with me in paradise"; into which also Paul entered; and an ascent into the heavens, where the Lord C as a forerunner has entered for us.
A Lordly man, in whom he is to judge the living and the dead.
2. We believe likewise 34 in the Holy Spirit, who searches all things, even the depths of God, and we anathematize the dogmas that are contrary to this 35. For we do not entertain the notion of a Son-Father, as the Sabellians do, saying that the essence is single and not consubstantial, and by this means doing away with the existence of the Son; nor do we attribute the passible body, which he assumed for the salvation of the whole world, to the Father; nor is it possible to conceive of three hypostases separated by themselves, as occurs in humans by the nature of bodies, lest we think in terms of a plurality of gods 36, as the nations do; but just as a river B born from a fountain is not separated, even though there are two forms and two names. 37 For the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father; for the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son is the Son of the Father. For just as the fountain is not a river, nor the river a fountain, but both are one and the same water that flows from the fountain into the river; so the divinity from the Father into the Son exists flowlessly and indivisibly 38. For the Lord says: "I came out from the Father and have come." But he who is in the bosom of the Father is always with the Father; for the bosom of the Father was never emptied of the divinity of the Son; for he says: "I was by his side, arranging." We do not consider the God who is the creator of all things, the Son of God, to be a creature 39 or a work, or [made] from things that do not exist, as one who is from the Existing [One], the one from the only [One], as 40 the like glory and power was co-begotten from the Father eternally; for he who has seen the Son has seen the Father. For it is plain that all things were created through the Son; but he himself is not a creature, as Paul says concerning the Lord: "Because in him were created all things, and he is before all things." He does not say that he was created before all things, but that he is before all things; for the term "to be created" applies to all things, but the phrase "he is before all things" applies to the Son alone.
C 3. Thus the offspring is by nature perfect from the Perfect, born before all hills, that is, before every rational and intellectual essence, just as in another place Paul 41 calls him the firstborn of every
creature. 26 But when he said "firstborn," he signified that he is not a created thing, but the offspring of the Father; for it is alien to his divinity to be called a created thing. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten of the Father, wherefore the Word of God is the firstborn of every creature, immutable from the immutable.
Therefore, the body which he took upon himself for our sake is a created thing, concerning which Jeremiah says according to the edition of the Seventy Interpreters: "The Lord has created for us a new salvation unto a planting, in which salvation men shall walk about." 27 And according to Aquila, concerning the same passage, it is stated: "The Lord created a new thing in the female." B Now the salvation created for us unto a planting—new and not old, for us and not before us—is Jesus, who is the man that came to be after the manner of the Savior, which word, Jesus, is rendered sometimes as salvation and sometimes as Savior. For salvation is from the Savior, just as illumination is from light. Therefore, the salvation created from the Savior is new, just as Jeremiah says, "He created for us a new salvation," and as Aquila says, "The Lord created a new thing in the female," that is, in Mary. For nothing new was created in the female except for the Lord’s body, which the Virgin Mary brought forth without intercourse, as it is also read in Proverbs in the person of Jesus: 28 "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works." He does not say, "he created me before the works," so that no one might refer the C utterance to the divinity of the Word.
4. Therefore, both these divine statements concerning the created thing have been written with regard to Jesus according to the body: for the Lord’s man, whom he revealed to us for our salvation, was created as the beginning of the ways. 29 For through him we have our access to the Father; for he himself is the way, which brings us to the Father. And the way is a certain corporeal spectacle, which is the Lord’s man. In any case, the Word of God created all things, not being a created thing himself, but an offspring. For none of the created things has created anything equal or similar to itself; but it belongs to the Father to beget, and to the artisan to create. Therefore, the body which he put on for our sake, the Lord, is a work and a created thing that has been D made.