1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, the firstborn of all creation.

2. Established by the will of God his Father before all ages.

3. By his will and command he made, by his own power, things heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible, bodies and spirits, out of things that did not exist, so that they might exist.

4. And before he made all things, he had been established as the God and Lord, king and creator of all that was to be, having in his nature foreknowledge of all that was to come, and in making all things awaiting in everything the command of the Father; he himself, by the will and command of the Father, came down from heaven and came into this world, as he himself says: For I have not come from myself, but he sent me (Jn 8:42).

5. And because, of all the spiritual and rational ranks, man seemed, on account of the quality and frailty of the body, to have been made a little lower than the angels (See Ps 8:6 (8:5)), so that he might not think himself worthless and despair of his salvation, the Lord Jesus, honoring his own handiwork, deigned to take up human flesh; and he showed that man is not worthless but precious, as it is written: A man is a great thing, and a precious thing is a man (Prov 20:6, according to the Septuagint). And therefore he deigned to make man alone heir to his Father, and indeed coheir to himself, so that what man had received less of in nature he might have more of in honor.

6. When, he says, the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Gal 4:4). He who took up flesh by the will of the Father, he too dwelt in the body by his will and command, as he himself says: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). He too, by the will of the Father, was baptized at thirty years of age, made manifest by the voice and testimony of the Father (See Lk 3:21-23), and by the will and command of the Father he preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, as he himself says: I must preach the gospel to other cities also; for I was sent for this (Lk 4:43); and: He himself gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak (Jn 12:49). And so, by the will and command of the Father, he hastened to his passion and death, as he himself says: Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will (Mt 26:39). And the Apostle affirms and says: He became obedient to the Father unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8).

7. He too, hanging on the cross, by the will and command of the Father gave up into the hands of men the human flesh that he had taken from the holy virgin Mary, and commended his divinity into the hands of the Father, saying: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46). For Mary bore a body destined to die, but the immortal God begot an immortal Son. Therefore the death of Christ is not a diminishment of the divinity, but a laying down of the body. For just as his generation from the virgin was not a corruption of his deity but an assumption of a body, so too in his death there was no suffering or failure of his deity, but a separation of his flesh. For just as one who tears a garment does an injury to the one wearing it, so too those who crucified his flesh inflicted an insult upon his divinity.

8. He who by the will and command of the Father fulfilled the whole plan, by the will and command of the Father raised his own body from the dead; and with that very body, as a shepherd with his sheep, and a priest with his offering, and a king with his purple, and God with his temple, he was taken up by the Father into glory.

9. He who by the will of the Father came down and ascended, by the will and command of the Father sits at his right hand, hearing the Father say to him: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet (Ps 110:1 (109:1)). He who by the will and command of the Father sits at his right hand, he by the will and command of the Father is to come at the consummation of the age, as the Apostle cries out and says: The Lord himself, at the command, at the voice of an archangel, and at the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven (1 Thess 4:16). He who by the will and command of the Father will come, by the will and command of the Father is to judge the whole world in equity and to render to each according to his faith and his works, as he himself says: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; and again: As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is true; for I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 5:22, 30). Hence, even in judging, he puts the presence of the Father first and his own divine dignity and power second, saying: Come, you blessed of my Father (Mt 25:34). The Son, therefore, is the just judge; but the honor and authority of the one judging are the imperial laws of the Father; just as the dutiful advocacy and consolation of the Holy Spirit are the dignity of the only-begotten God, the just judge.

10. The Son, therefore, was begotten by the Father; the Holy Spirit was made through the Son.

11. The Son proclaims the Father; the Holy Spirit announces the Son.

12. The first and chief work of the Son is to reveal the glory of his begetter; the first and chief work of the Holy Spirit is to make manifest the dignity of Christ in the souls of men.

13. The Son is the witness of the Father; the Spirit is the witness of the Son.

14. The Son is sent by the Father; the Spirit is sent by the Son.

15. The Son is the minister of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the minister of the Son.

16. The Son is commanded by the Father; the Holy Spirit is commanded by the Son.

17. The Son is subject to the Father; the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son.

18. The Son does what the Father commands; the Holy Spirit speaks what the Son enjoins.

19. The Son adores and honors the Father; the Holy Spirit adores and honors the Son, as the Son himself says: Father, I have honored you on earth; I have accomplished the work that you gave me (Jn 17:4); and concerning the Holy Spirit he says: He will honor me, for he will receive from what is mine and will announce it to you (Jn 16:14).

20. The Son can do nothing of himself (See Jn 5:19), but in all things awaits the nod of the Father. The Spirit does not speak of himself, but in all things awaits the command of Christ: He will not, he says, speak of himself; but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come (Jn 16:13).

21. The Son intercedes for us with the Father; the Spirit makes petition for us to the Son.

22. The Son is the living and true, proper and worthy image of all the goodness and wisdom and power of the Father; the Spirit is the manifestation of all the wisdom and power of the Son.

23. The Son is not a part or portion of the Father, but the proper and most beloved, perfect and full only-begotten Son. The Spirit is not a part or portion of the Son, but the first and chief work of the only-begotten God above all others whatsoever.

24. The Father is greater than his Son; the Son is incomparably greater and better than the Spirit.

25. The Father is God and Lord to his Son; the Son is God and Lord to the Spirit.

26. The Father, willing immovably and impassibly, begot the Son; the Son, without labor and weariness, by his own power alone, made the Spirit.

27. The Son, as a priest, adores his God, and is adored by all as God and creator of all; but the Father alone adores no one, since he has no one greater, nor equal, whom he might adore; he gives thanks to no one, since he has received the benefit of no one; out of his goodness he granted to all that they might exist, while he himself received from no one what he is. Therefore there is this distinction of three substances, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and this difference of three realities, the unbegotten God, the only-begotten God, and the advocate Spirit; and the Father is God and Lord to his Son and to all things that were made through the power of the Son by his will; the Son is the minister and high priest of his Father, but he is the Lord and God of all his own works, by the Father's willing it.

28. And just as no one can pass to the Father without the Son, so too no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit; therefore the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit.

29. Through the Son the Father is glorified.

30. The work and care of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify and to guard the saints; and to sanctify not only rational beings, as some suppose, but also many irrational ones; and to restore to their former state those who have fallen through their own negligence; to teach the ignorant, to admonish the forgetful, to reprove sinners, to exhort the slothful, to think and to act anxiously for their salvation, to lead the erring back to the way of truth, to heal the weak, to restrain the frailty of the body through the eagerness of the soul, to confirm them in the love of piety and chastity, and to enlighten all; above all, to bestow faith and love on each one, and, according to each one's zeal and diligence, according to the sincerity and simplicity of mind, according to the measure of faith and the merit of conduct, to apportion grace for their benefit, and to assign each one to that work and purpose for which he is fitted.

31. He is other than the Son both in nature and in order, in rank and in disposition, in dignity and in power, in might and in operation; just as the Son too, in nature and in order, in rank and in disposition, in divine dignity and in power, the only-begotten God, is other than the unbegotten God.

32. It is impossible, therefore, that one and the same should be Father and Son, the one begetting and the one being born, the one to whom witness is borne and the one who bears witness, the greater and the one who confesses the greater, the one who sits at the right hand and the one who gave the honor of the seat, the one who was sent and the one who sent; nor that disciple and teacher, as he himself taught when he said: As the Father taught me, so I speak (Jn 8:28); the like and the imitator and the one whose like and imitator he is; the one who prays and the one who hears; the one who gives thanks and the one who blesses; the one who received the commandment and the one who gave the commandment; and the minister and the one who commands, the suppliant and the eminent one, the subject and the superior, the firstborn and the everlasting one, the only-begotten and the unbegotten, the priest and the God—that these should be one and the same.

33. But God, who is without beginning, foreknew that he would be the father of his child, the only-begotten God; yet he never foreknew that he would become God, since he is unbegotten and never began either to foreknow or to know. And what is foreknowledge but the knowledge of things to come? Now the Father, by begetting the Son, was named by that very Son; and by the Son's revelation he was known by all Christians as the God and Father of the only-begotten God, and was made manifest as greater than the great and better than the good.

34. And because the Homoousians say that our Savior spoke all these things about the Father's foreknowledge and about his own subjection out of humility, whereas we Christians believe that he spoke all these things with the Father commanding and the Son complying, we say and prove that the heretics are convicted and refuted by their own statements. For if he humbled himself, that very humility of his shows his obedience; and that obedience itself declares that one is eminent above and another is subsisting beneath and subject, just as the Apostle says: He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the Father unto death (Phil 2:8). And that humility of his is truth, not falsehood. For who, or when, that is wise is content to humble himself, unless he has someone greater and better whom he is eager to please through humility? And I, he says, always do the things that are pleasing to him (Jn 8:29). For having once been born before all ages by the will of God, he does all things according to that one's will. But if he humbled himself and lied—which God forbid—and if the truth lies, which is impossible, where would anyone seek the truth? But the truth neither lies nor varies, he who came for this, that he might teach the truth; he who is not a teacher of ignorance but a master of truth, as he himself said: Do not call yourselves masters on earth; for one is your master, Christ (Mt 23:10). But if they say that, humbling himself on earth on account of his incarnation, he was speaking these things for the sake of men, let us show them that those testimonies which are set down in the Scriptures concerning the subjection of the Son are greater and firmer than those things which are done in the Gospel. For if he was humbling himself on earth for the sake of men, and not complying with his Father as an obedient and subject son with incomparable love and thanksgiving—since the more exalted he is in power, the more humble he is in compliance—why, before he took up flesh, did he obey when commanded, and why does he now, sitting at the right hand of God, intercede for us (See Rom 8:34), and, while established in a body on earth, did he promise that he would ask the Father in heaven, saying: And I will ask my Father, and he will give you another advocate (Jn 14:16)? And if in all these things they still refuse to believe, because of the hardness and blindness of their heart, but dare to say that all these things are done for the sake of humility, then—after the consummation of the age, unless he knew himself to be subject and obedient by nature and by will, why would he humble himself, where humility is not necessary for the sake of men? For after the consummation of the age too, when all things will have been made subject to him (See 1 Cor 15:28)—since now indeed all things are subject by nature, as a creation to its Creator, but by will, on account of free choice, we do not see all things subject to him; yet then, on the day of judgment, when at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal, and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (See Phil 2:10-11), all things will be subject to him without end, both by will and by nature; and he himself, after the subjection of all things to him, abiding in that subjection and love in which he always abides, he too as Son will be subject to the one who made all things subject to him; no Christian who hears is ignorant that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (See Rom 10:17)—so that God may be all in all, always holding the monarchy and power over all things, to whom be glory and honor, praise and thanksgiving, through his only-begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, in the Holy Spirit, now and through all ages of ages. Amen.

1. 1. To their preceding argument I reply with this argument. They confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed God, but they refuse to confess that he is true God and one God with the Father, and so they bring in for us two gods of a diverse and unequal nature, one true, the other not true—contrary to what is written: Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4). For if they want this understood of the Father, it follows that Christ is not the Lord our God. But if of the Son, the Father will not be the Lord our God. But if of both, then surely the Father and the Son are one Lord our God. And on this account, what is written in the Gospel, That they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:3), must be taken to mean that he said this: That they may know you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent to be the one true God. For of Christ too it was said by John the apostle: He is the true God and eternal life (1 Jn 5:20).

1. 2. Again, when they say that Christ was established by the will of God his Father before all ages, they are forced to confess that the Son is coeternal with the Father. For if at some time the Father was without the Son, there was before the Son some time in which the Father was alone without him. And how was the Son before all ages, if before him there was a time in which the Father was without him? Furthermore, if the Son was before all times—for there is no other way to understand In the beginning was the Word; and: All things were made through him (Jn 1:1, 3); since time too cannot exist without some motions of creation, and therefore we confess that times also were made through him, through whom all things were made—then beyond doubt the Son is coeternal with the Father. But they say he was established by the will of the Father, being unwilling to say that he is God from God, equal, begotten, and coeternal. Yet nowhere do they read that the Son was established by the will of the Father before all ages. But they say this for this reason, so that the will of the Father, by which they want him established, may seem prior to him. And their argument is usually of this sort: they ask whether the Father begot the Son willingly or unwillingly, so that, if the answer is that he begot him willingly, they may say: Then the will of the Father is prior. But who can say that he begot him unwillingly? Yet, so that they may recognize how empty are the things they say, they too must be asked whether God the Father is God willingly or unwillingly. For they will not dare to say that he does not will to be God. If then they answer that he is God willingly, in the same way their own emptiness is to be brought home to them, by which it could be said that his will is prior to him; and what could be said more foolish than this?

2. 3. Next they say that he, by the will and command of the Father, made by his own power things heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible, bodies and spirits, out of things that did not exist, so that they might exist. Here we ask them whether he too was made by the Father out of things that did not exist, that is, out of nothing. And if they will not dare to say this, then he is God from God, not made out of nothing by God. This shows that the nature of the Father and of the Son is one and the same. For man, beast, bird, and fish can beget offspring of the same nature, and could God not do so? But if, by such a precipice of impiety, they dare to plunge headlong as to say that even the only-begotten Son was established by the Father out of nothing, let them ask through whom the Son was made by the Father out of nothing. For he could not have been made through himself, as though he already existed before he was made, so that he himself were the one through whom that same self was made. And what need was there for him to be made who already existed? Or how was he being made so as to exist, who already existed before he was made? Furthermore, if he was made by the Father through some other, who is that other, since all things were made through him? But if he was made by the Father through no one, how was anything made by the Father through no one, since through the Son, that is, through his Word, all things were made?

The Trinity itself is one God, and is one God in the way that there is one creator. How the sending of the Son is ineffable.

3. 4. And before he made all things, they say, he had been established as the God and Lord, king and creator of all that was to be, having in his nature foreknowledge of all that was to come, and in making all things awaiting in everything the command of the Father; he himself, by the will of the Father, came down from heaven and came into this world, as he himself says: For I have not come from myself, but he sent me (Jn 8:42). I would wish that these men would say whether they posit two creators. And if they do not dare to—for there is one, since from him and through him and in him are all things (See Rom 11:36); for the Trinity itself is one God, and is one God in the way that there is one creator—what is it that they say, that the Son created all things at the Father's command, as though the Father did not create, but ordered them to be created by the Son? Let those who think in a carnal way consider with what other words the Father commanded the one Word. For they form for themselves in the fantasy of their heart, as it were, two beings, even if alongside one another, yet established in their own places, one commanding, the other complying. And they do not understand that the very command of the Father that all things should be made is nothing other than the Word of the Father through whom all things were made. But that the Father sent the Son cannot be denied. Yet let them consider, if they can, how he sent the one with whom he himself came. Or did he lie who said: I am not alone, for the Father is with me (Jn 16:32)? But however they choose to understand the sending, is the nature therefore diverse, because the Father sends and the Son is sent? Unless perhaps a human father can send a human son of one and the same substance, and God cannot—since a man sent by a sending man is separated from him, which God cannot be. But fire sends forth its splendor, and the splendor that is sent cannot be separated from the fire that sends it; although this comparison, since it is a visible creation, is not comparable in every respect to this matter. For when fire sends forth its splendor, the splendor reaches farther than the fire reaches. Hence the splendor sent from the fire that is in a lamp, if it could speak, could surely not say truly, upon the wall it has reached without the fire of the lamp: The fire that sent me is with me; but the Son, sent by the Father, could say: The Father is with me. Since, then, this sending of the Son by the Father is utterly ineffable, and cannot be grasped by anyone's thought, they find no way to show from this that the Son is of another and inferior essence; seeing that not even a man sent by a man demonstrates that the nature of the sender and the sent is diverse.

4. 4. But here this too can be understood: that the Son is said to have been sent by the Father precisely because the Son appeared to men in the flesh, not the Father. For who is sent to a place where he is? Yet where is the Wisdom of God, which is Christ, not present, of whom we read: She reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly (Wis 8:1)? Since, then, the Son too is everywhere, where was he to be sent, where he was not, except by appearing in a way in which he was not appearing? Although we also read that the Holy Spirit was sent, who certainly did not assume a human nature into the unity of his person. Nor was he sent by the Son alone, as it is written: When I go, I will send him to you (Jn 16:7); but by the Father also, as it is written: Whom the Father will send in my name (Jn 14:26). Here it is shown that neither the Father without the Son nor the Son without the Father sent the Holy Spirit, but both alike sent him. For the works of the Trinity are inseparable. The Father alone is not read to have been sent, since he alone has no author from whom he is begotten or from whom he proceeds. And therefore it is not on account of a diversity of nature, of which there is none in the Trinity, but on account of that very authority that the Father alone is not said to be sent. For it is not the splendor or the heat that sends the fire, but the fire that sends either the splendor or the heat. Yet these things are far unlike; nor is anything found, whether among spiritual or among corporeal creatures, that could rightly be compared to that Trinity which is God.

5. 5. They also say: And because, of all the spiritual and rational ranks, man seemed, on account of the quality and frailty of the body, to have been made a little lower than the angels (See Ps 8:6 (8:5)); so that he might not think himself worthless and despair of his salvation, the Lord Jesus, honoring his own handiwork, deigned to take up human flesh and to show that man is not worthless but precious, as it is written: A man is a great thing, and a precious thing is a man (Prov 20:6, according to the Septuagint). And therefore he deigned to make man alone heir to his Father, and indeed coheir to himself, so that what man had received less of in nature he might have more of in honor. In saying these things, they want it understood that Christ assumed human flesh without a human soul. This is properly the heresy of the Apollinarians; but we find that these men too, that is, the Arians, hold in their arguments not only that the natures of the Trinity are diverse, but also this, that Christ does not have a human soul. But this will appear more evidently in what follows in this discussion. For now we reply this to these words of theirs that we have set out: let them recall that in the Letter to the Hebrews what is written is understood of Christ: You made him a little lower than the angels (Heb 2:7); and let them see that what he said, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28), does not bear on a diversity and inequality of nature between the Father and the Son, but rather on the fact that in the form of a servant, on account of the weakness in which he could suffer and die, he was made lower even than the angels.

6. 6. Again they say: When, he says, the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Gal 4:4). He who took up flesh by the will of the Father, he too dwelt in the body by his will and command, as he himself says: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). He too, by the will of the Father, was baptized at thirty years of age, made manifest by the voice and testimony of the Father (See Lk 3:21-23), and by the will and command of the Father he preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, as he himself says: I must preach the gospel to other cities also; for I was sent for this (Lk 4:43); and: He himself gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak (Jn 12:49). And so, by the will and command of the Father, he hastened to his passion and death, as he himself says: Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will (Mt 26:39). And the Apostle affirms and says: He became obedient to the Father unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8). By these testimonies of the holy Scriptures, what are they trying to prove, except that the natures of the Father and the Son are diverse, because the Son is shown to be obedient to the Father? Yet this they would surely not say of human beings: for if a human son is obedient to his human father, the nature of the two is not on that account diverse.

7. 6. And yet even this very thing that Jesus says, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38), may be referred to that first man Adam—of whom the Apostle says: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12)—who, by doing his own will, not the will of the one who made him, made the whole human race liable to guilt and punishment through a corrupted stock. Hence, conversely, the one through whom we were to be freed did not do his own will, but the will of the one who sent him. For in this place "his own will" is so spoken of that it is understood to be a private will against the will of God. For when we obey God, and by that obedience are said to do his will, we do not do it unwillingly but willingly; and on this account, if we do it willingly, in what way do we not do our own will, unless because what Scripture, speaking thus, calls "our own will" is understood to be a private will against the will of God? This Adam had, so that in him we died; this Christ did not have, so that in him we might live. For this can rightly be said of human nature, in which there arose, through disobedience, a private will that was opposed to the will of God. But as for what pertains to the divinity of the Son, the will of the Father and of the Son is one and the same; nor can it in any way be diverse, where the whole nature of the Trinity is unchangeable. But so that the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (See 1 Tim 2:5), might not do a private will, which is opposed to God, he was not only man, but God and man—by which marvelous and singular grace the human nature could be in him without any sin. For this reason, then, he says: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38): so that the cause of so great an obedience, which was altogether without any sin of the man whom he bore, was that he had come down from heaven; that is, he was not only man, but also God. For he shows that there is one person in each nature, that is, of God and of man, lest, if he should make two, there begin to be a quaternity, not a trinity. Since, therefore, the substance is indeed twofold, but the person is one, what was said, I have come down from heaven, refers to the excellence of God; but what was added, not to do my own will, on account of Adam who did his own, refers to the obedience of the man: but Christ is both, that is, God and man; yet the obedience in him, which is contrary to the disobedience of the first man, is commended according to what he is as man. Hence the Apostle says: For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so too through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19).

8. 6. Nor, because he said of the man, did he separate God, who assumed the man; because, as I said—and it must be strongly emphasized—the person is one. For he, the one Christ, is both the Son of God always by nature and the son of man who was assumed in time by grace; nor was he so assumed that, having first been created, he was afterward assumed, but so that he was created by that very assumption. And on this account, so that this unity of person in each nature may be understood, the Son of man too is said to have come down from heaven, although he was assumed from the Virgin who had been on earth; and the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, although he suffered these things not in the divinity itself by which he is the Only-begotten coeternal with the Father, but in the weakness of his human nature. For that the Son of man came down from heaven, we read that he himself said: No one has ascended into heaven except him who came down from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven (Jn 3:13). And that the only-begotten Son of God was crucified and buried, we all confess even in the Creed. Hence too there is that saying of the Apostle: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). This unity of the person of Christ Jesus our Lord, so consisting of each nature, namely the divine and the human, that either of them imparts its own designation also to the other—both the divine to the human and the human to the divine—the blessed Apostle shows, where, when he was exhorting us to merciful humility by the example of Christ, he says: Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man: he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:5-8). Since, then, the name of Christ belongs to him from what is written in the prophecy, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps 45:7 (44:8))—whence what pertains to his having been made man is that, taking the form of a servant, he was found in fashion as a man, a fashion that certainly began in time—yet of this same Christ it was said: Though he was in the form of God; whereas surely, in the form of God, before the form of a servant had been taken by him, he was not yet the Son of man, but the Son of God, for whom equality with the Father was not robbery but nature. For he was not exalted by usurpation, but was born this, and therefore is truth. He was not yet, then, Christ—which he began to be when he emptied himself, not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant. But if we ask, Who is he who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God? we are answered with the apostolic word: Christ Jesus. Therefore that divinity too received the name of this humanity. Likewise, if we ask who it is that became obedient unto death, even death on a cross, it is most rightly answered: He who, though he was in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God. Therefore that humanity too received the name of that divinity. Yet this same Christ appears as a giant of twofold substance, in one respect obedient, in another equal to God; in one respect the Son of man, in another the Son of God; in one respect saying, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28); in another, I and the Father are one (Jn 10:30); in one respect not doing his own will, but the will of him who sent him (See Jn 6:38); in another, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so too the Son gives life to whom he wills (Jn 5:21).

9. 7. Again they continue and say: He too, hanging on the cross, by the will and command of the Father gave up into the hands of men the human flesh that he had taken from the holy virgin Mary, and commended his divinity into the hands of the Father, saying: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46). For Mary bore a body destined to die, but the immortal God begot an immortal Son. Therefore the death of Christ is not a diminishment of the divinity, but a laying down of the body. For just as his generation from the virgin was not a corruption of his deity, but an assumption of a body, so too in his death there was no suffering or failure of his deity, but a separation of his flesh. For just as one who tears a garment does an injury to the one wearing it, so too those who crucified his flesh inflicted an insult upon his divinity. See in what words of their own they altogether make plain that they deny that a human soul also belongs to the unity of the person of Christ, and confess in Christ only flesh and divinity. For, since he says, when he was hanging on the wood, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, they want it understood that he commended to the Father the divinity itself, not a human spirit, which is the soul. With good reason, earlier in this very discussion, where they wanted it understood that Christ did the Father's will, not his own—thereby thinking him to be of a lesser and diverse nature—they recalled what he said: Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will; but they were unwilling to recall what he said: My soul is sorrowful unto death (Mt 26:39, 38). Let them then hear, as we recall these things: My soul is sorrowful unto death; I have power to lay down my soul (Jn 10:18); No one has greater love than this, to lay down his soul for his friends (Jn 15:13); and what the Apostles understood to have been prophesied of him: For you will not abandon my soul in hell (Ps 16:10 (15:10); Acts 2:31; 13:35). And let them not resist these and similar testimonies of the holy Scriptures, but confess that Christ joined to the only-begotten Word not only flesh but also a human soul; so that there might be one person, which is Christ, the Word and the man: but the man himself is soul and flesh; and on this account Christ is the Word, soul, and flesh. And therefore he is to be understood as of twofold substance, namely the divine and the human, in such a way that the human itself consists of soul and flesh. Or if they are moved by what is written, The Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), and there the soul is not named: let them understand "flesh" put for "man," by that manner of speaking in which the part signifies the whole; as in: To you shall all flesh come (Ps 65:3 (64:3)); likewise: By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (Rom 3:20). This he said more openly in another place: By the law no one is justified (Gal 3:11); and likewise in another: A man is not justified by the works of the law (Gal 2:16). So then he said all flesh as if he said: every man. So too it was said, The Word became flesh, as if it were said: the Word became man. Yet these men, since they want only his human flesh to be understood as the man Christ—for they will not deny that he is a man, of whom it is said most openly: The one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5)—I marvel that they are unwilling to grant that on account of this human nature, however it be, it could be said, The Father is greater than I, and not on account of that nature of which it was said, I and the Father are one. For who could bear it if any mere man whatever should say: I and God are one? And who would not accept it if a man should say: God is greater than I? Such is that which the blessed John says: God is greater than our heart (1 Jn 3:20).

10. 8. Again they say: He who by the will and command of the Father fulfilled the whole plan, by the will and command of the Father raised his own body from the dead; and with that very body, as a shepherd with his sheep, and a priest with his offering, and a king with his purple, and God with his temple, he was taken up by the Father into glory. It must be asked of those who say these things, what sort of sheep the shepherd carried back to the Father. For if it is flesh without a soul that he carried back, what is this sheep but earth without sense, which cannot even give thanks? For what can flesh do without a soul?

11. 9. Again they continue and say: He who by the will of the Father came down and ascended, by the will and command of the Father sat at his right hand, hearing the Father say to him: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet (Ps 110:1 (109:1)). He who by the will and command of the Father sat at his right hand, he by the will and command of the Father is to come at the consummation of the age, as the Apostle cries out and says: The Lord himself, at the command, at the voice of an archangel, and at the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven (1 Thess 4:16). He who by the will and command of the Father will come, by the will and command of the Father is to judge the whole world in equity, and to render to each according to his faith and his works; as he himself says: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; and again: As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is true; for I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 5:22, 30). Hence, even in judging, he puts the presence of the Father first and his own divine dignity and power second, saying: Come, you blessed of my Father (Mt 25:34). The Son, therefore, is the just judge; but the honor and authority of the one judging are the imperial laws of the Father; just as the dutiful advocacy and consolation of the Holy Spirit are the dignity of the only-begotten God, the just judge. Now what we replied earlier holds in like manner against these things too. For that the Son is obedient to the will and command of the Father does not, even among human beings, demonstrate a diverse and unequal nature of a commanding father and an obedient son. To this is added that Christ is not only God, by which nature he is equal to the Father, but also man, by which nature the Father is greater, of whom he is not only Father but also Lord. For thence too is that prophetic saying: The Lord said to me: You are my Son (Ps 2:7). For there is the lower substance by which the Father is greater, and the form of a servant of which he is Lord. But this form of his humanity, which he took while the form of his divinity remained, so that he was made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man (See Phil 2:6-7), will appear also in the judgment, in which he will judge the living and the dead. For this reason it was said of the Father that he will not judge anyone, but has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). For the impious will then see in Christ the form of the Son of man who is to judge them, of whom it was said: They will look on him whom they have pierced (Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37). But the form of God in this same Christ, by which he is equal to the Father, they will certainly not see. Hence the prophecy went before: Let the impious be taken away, that he may not see the glory of the Lord (Isa 26:10). For to this also pertains: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8). Finally, he attests this most openly, where he says: He gave him power to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man (Jn 5:27). Not, therefore, because he is the Son of God; for according to this he has, coeternal with the Father, one and the same power; but because he is the Son of man, which he began to be in time, so that power might be given him in time. This is not said as though he too did not give it to himself, that is, as though that nature which is divine in him did not give power to the nature which is human in him: God forbid that we should believe this. For how would the Father do anything except through the only-begotten Son? Nor without the Holy Spirit, since the works of the Trinity are inseparable. And on this account, what he gave to the Son power, because he is the Son of man, he gave to him through that very same one, because he is the Son of God. For all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3). But he honorably and fittingly attributes to the Father what he himself also does as God; because he is God from the Father. For he himself is God from God, but the Father is God, yet not from God.

12. 9. He heard, they say, from the Father: Sit at my right hand (Ps 110:1 (109:1)), and therefore he sat at the right hand of the Father: as though he did this by the Father's command, and not also by his own power. Indeed, unless this be taken spiritually, the Father will be at the Son's left hand. But what is the right hand of the Father, except that eternal and ineffable happiness to which the Son of man came, having received even the immortality of the flesh? For if we wisely and faithfully think of the hand of God the Father not according to the lineaments of a body, which are not in God, but according to effective power, what shall we understand but the Only-begotten himself, through whom all things were made? Of whom the prophet too said: And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed? (Isa 53:1) But how does the Son hear the Father? How are many words said by the Father to the one Word? How does he speak passingly to the one whom he speaks abidingly? How does he say something temporally to the one in whom, coeternal with himself, there already were all the things that he says at their fitting times? Who would dare to ask these things? Who could find the answer? And yet: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand (Ps 110:1 (109:1)); and because it was said, therefore it was done. This, then, was already in the Word, namely that the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). And because it was already truly in the Word before the flesh, therefore it was effectively completed in the flesh; because it was already in the Word without time, therefore it was completed in the flesh in its own time. In which flesh he ascended into heaven, he who did not depart from heaven even when he came down from it; and in which he sits at the right hand of the Father, the arm of the Father; and in which he is to descend to the judgment at the command, at the voice of an archangel, and at the trumpet of God (1 Thess 4:16).

13. 9. Here they want the power of the Son to seem lesser, because he was said to be about to descend at the command. But it must be asked of them, at the command of whom. If of the Father, they must again be asked with what temporal words the Father commands his eternal Word to come down from heaven. For that very command of God which will take place in its own time was already, before all times, in the Word of God himself. But if the Son of God comes down from heaven through the fact that he is the Son of man, then through the fact that he is the Word, he is commanded through himself to come down from heaven. For if the Father does not command through him, then the Father does not command through his own Word; or else there will be another Word through which the one Word is commanded. And I marvel if it will still be the one Word, if there will also be another. There were indeed certain words of the Father to the Son made even temporally, as from the cloud it sounded: You are my beloved Son (Mt 3:17); yet not so that the only-begotten Son might learn anything through them, but rather those who needed thus to hear. And on this account even that sound of passing words was not made for the Son without the Son; otherwise not all things were made through him. But surely, when he will be commanded to come down from heaven, will there be need of such sounds and words by which the Son may come to know the Father's will? God forbid that we should believe this. Whatever, then, that will be which must be done toward the Son, the Father will do it only through that same Son. Toward him, namely, because he is the Son of man and was made among all things. But through him, because he is the Son of God and through him all things are done by the Father. But if what was said, at the command, at the voice of an archangel, they want understood as the command of the archangel himself, as the very words seem to sound, what remains for them but to say that the only-begotten Son is lower even than the angels, to whose commands he is said to be obedient, if the one who is commanded is lower than the one who commands? Although what was said, at the command, at the voice of an archangel, can also be understood thus, that the very voice of the archangel is taken to be made at the command of God; that is, that the angel, who is to be understood as the trumpet of God, is commanded by the Lord God to send forth his voice, which the lower creation will need to hear when the Son of God descends from heaven. For this is the trumpet of which he speaks in another place: For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible (1 Cor 15:52).

14. 9. The Son, then, said: As I hear, I judge (Jn 5:30): whether from his human subjection, because he is also the Son of man; or according to that unchangeable and simple nature, which is so the Son's that nevertheless it is his from the Father—in which nature it is not one thing to hear, another to see, another to be, but what it is to be, this it is to hear, this to see. Hence from him he has to hear and to see, from whom he has his very being. For also that which he says elsewhere, The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing, is much more difficult to understand than this which these men have set down, where he said: As I hear, I judge. For if the Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19), how will he be able to judge, if he does not see the Father judging? But the Father judges no one; for he has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). The Son, therefore, judges, having received from the Father not some, but all judgment; although he does not see the Father judging, since the Father judges no one. How, then, can the Son do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing, when he judges, and does not see the Father judging? For he did not say: The Son can do nothing of himself except what he hears the Father commanding; but, what he sees the Father doing. Let them attend to these things, let them ponder these things, let them consider these things; and let the intention of those be in some way, as far as can be, disembodied, who by carnal thoughts strive both to separate the one and the same nature of the Trinity by a distance of substances, and to arrange it by degrees of powers. For it was said that the Son does nothing of himself, because he is not of himself; and therefore whatever he does, he sees the Father doing, because he sees that he has the power of doing from the one from whom he sees that he has the nature of existing. And what he says, that he cannot, is not of one who fails, but of one who abides in the fact that he was born of the Father; and it is as praiseworthy that the Almighty cannot be changed as it is praiseworthy that the Almighty cannot die. For the Son could do what he had not seen the Father doing, if he could do what the Father does not do through him: that is, if he could sin, and not befit the unchangeably good nature which was begotten of the Father. But because he cannot do this, he cannot do it not deficiently, but powerfully.

15. 9. For the works of the Father and the Son are the same, not because the Son is the very same as the Father, but because there is no work of the Son which the Father does not do through him, nor any of the Father which he does not do through the Son working together with him. For whatever the Father does, these same things the Son likewise does (Jn 5:19). This too is a gospel saying, brought forth consequently from the mouth of the Son himself. The works of the Son and of the Father, then, are not different, but these same; nor are they done by the Son unlike, but likewise. But since not different, similar things, but these same things are done by the Son which are done by the Father, what is likewise, if not with no unlike ease, with no unlike power? For if both do indeed these same things, but the one more easily and powerfully than the other, the Son surely does not do them likewise. But when it is both these same things and likewise, surely the works of the Son are not different from those of the Father, nor is the power of the workers diverse. Nor, indeed, without the Holy Spirit: for the Spirit of both will in no way be separated from the doing of the works of both. In a marvelous and surely divine way, then, the works of all are done by all, and the works even of each one by all. For the works of all are heaven and earth and every creation. For of the Son it was said: All things were made through him (Jn 1:3). But who would dare to alienate from the Holy Spirit the works of any creatures whatever, whom he discerns to work the gifts of the saints, of which it is written: But all these one and the same Spirit works, apportioning to each his own as he wills (1 Cor 12:11)? Finally, since Christ is Lord of all (See 1 Cor 8:6) and God over all, blessed forever (See Rom 9:5), what among all things can be denied to be also the work of the Holy Spirit, who worked Christ himself in the womb of the virgin? For when the virgin had said to the angel announcing to her the birth to come, How will this be, since I do not know a man, she received the answer: The Holy Spirit will come upon you (Lk 1:34-35). But the works of each one are said to be those which are shown to pertain to each of their persons. As the one born of the virgin is none but the Son (See Mt 1:20-25); and the voice from the cloud, You are my beloved Son, pertains to the person of the Father alone; and in a bodily form, like a dove, the Holy Spirit alone appeared (See Mt 3:16-17). Yet both that flesh of the Son alone, and that voice of the Father alone, and that form of the Holy Spirit alone, the whole Trinity worked: not because each of them is unable, without the others, to accomplish what he works; but because the operation cannot be divided where the nature is not only equal, but also undivided: so that, although there are three, and each one of them is God, yet they are not three gods. For the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; nor is the Son the same as the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit the same as either the Father or the Son; but the Father is always Father, and the Son is always Son, and the Spirit of both is never to any of them either Father or Son, but always the Spirit of both: yet the whole Trinity is one God. Who, then, would deny that not the Father, not the Holy Spirit, but the Son walked upon the waters (See Mt 14:25)? For the flesh is the Son's alone, whose flesh's feet were set upon the waters and led through the waters. But God forbid that he should be believed to have done this without the Father; since of his works he says universally: But the Father abiding in me does his works (Jn 14:10); or without the Holy Spirit, since likewise it is the work of the Son that he cast out demons. For the tongue of that flesh, pertaining to the Son alone, was that by which it was commanded the demons to go out; and yet he says: By the Holy Spirit I cast out demons (Mt 12:28). Again, who but the Son alone rose again? For he alone could die, who had flesh; and yet from this work, by which the Son alone rose again, the Father was not estranged, of whom it is written: Who raised Jesus from the dead (Gal 1:1). Or did he perhaps not raise himself? And where is what he says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (Jn 2:19); and that he says he has power to lay down and to take up again his soul (See Jn 10:18)? But who would be so foolish as to think that the Holy Spirit did not cooperate in the resurrection of the man Christ, when he had worked that very man Christ?

16. 9. There is something similar in man, though in no way to be compared to the excellence of that Trinity which is God: for that is God, this is a creature; yet this too has something whereby, in whatever manner, what is said of that ineffable nature of God may be understood. For it was not without reason that it was not said, Let us make man to your image, as though the Father were speaking to the Son; nor, to my image; but it was said, to our image (Gen 1:26). And this is most rightly taken as from the person of the Trinity itself. Let us then consider these three things in the soul of man: memory, understanding, and will. From these three comes everything that we do. And when these three are well and rightly disposed, everything that we do is good and right; if neither forgetfulness deceives the memory, nor error the understanding, nor iniquity the will. For thus are we reformed to the image of God. Every work of ours, therefore, comes from these three: for we do nothing that these three do not do together. Then, when we speak of them individually, even what pertains to each one is done by all. For the speech that we make about memory alone, memory alone does not make; but understanding and will cooperate in it, although it pertains to memory alone. This too is most easy to see in the other two. For whatever the understanding says of itself, it does not say without memory and will; and whatever the will says or writes of itself, it does not do without understanding and memory. But how far these things are similar, and again how far unlike that unchangeable Trinity which is God, would take long to discuss most precisely. But I thought this need only be mentioned so much, that I might bring forward something even from the creature itself; whence these men, if they can, may understand how it is not absurd, what we say of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that inseparable works are done by all, pertaining not only to all, but also to each.

17. 9. As the Son hears, then, he judges (See Jn 5:30): whether because he is also the Son of man; or because he is not of himself, but is the Word of the Father. For what it is for us, when we hear, to receive a word, this it is for him to be the Word from the Father. For the Father can be said to have given the Word to the Son, that is, that he be the Word, in the same way as he is said to have given life to the Son, that is, that he be life. For he himself says: As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself (Jn 5:26). Not, of course, that he himself is one thing and the life that is in him another, but that the same life is the same self. Just as the Father too is no other than the life that is in him: but the Son did not give this to the Father, since he did not beget the Father; whereas the Father gave life to the Son, by begetting him as life, just as he himself too is life. But he did not so beget the Word that he too is the Word. For when we say "life," it can be of no other, as the Father's life is, or, as is more expressly said, the Father is life, which is not from another so that it should be; whereas when "Word" is said, it can in no way be understood except as of someone, and indeed of him from whom it is. Not, therefore, in the way that the Son is God from God, light from light, life from life, can the Word be said to be Word from word: since he alone is the Word; and as it is proper to the Father to beget the Word, so it is proper to the Son to be the Word. And therefore, as he hears, he judges; because, as the Word was begotten so that the same Word is truth, so according to truth he judges.

18. 9. And his judgment is surely just; because he does not seek his own will, but the will of him who sent him (See Jn 5:30). For in saying this, he wished to direct our attention to that man who, by seeking his own will and not the will of the one who made him, did not have a just judgment about himself, but a just judgment was rendered about him. For he, doing his own will, not God's, did not believe that he would die: but this judgment of his was not just. In the end, he did, and he died; because the judgment of God is just. This judgment the Son of God executes by not seeking his own will, although he is also the son of man: not because there is no will of his own in judging—for who would be so very foolish as to say this?—but because his will is not so his own that it is alien to the will of the Father. If these men considered these things, they would not, with carnal thoughts, so arrange the powers or offices of the Trinity by unequal degrees as to make them, as it were, three men of unequal and unlike dignity, as though the Father were an emperor, the Son a judge, and the Holy Spirit an advocate. For the things according to which the Son judges, like imperial laws, they assert to be the Father's: in which they constitute the honor and authority of the Son who judges; but the dutiful advocacy and consolation of the Holy Spirit they hold to pertain to the dignity of the judge, that is, of the only-begotten God: as though it were the judge's dignity that he should have an advocate; just as it is the emperor's dignity that he sends a judge who is to judge according to his imperial laws. Yet by this carnal thought of theirs, they cannot demonstrate in these three persons a diversity of nature, which is the greatest question between us and them. For when they refer these things to human ways, and do not depart from the custom of the human race which they can grasp by thinking (for the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14)), what else do they remind us of, except that an emperor, a judge, and an advocate are men? Accordingly, a judge, even if he is lesser in power than an emperor, is no less a man. Nor is an advocate less a man than a judge, even if in office he seems to be subject to the judge. Therefore, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, even if they think the power unequal, let them at least confess the nature equal. What of the fact that they fashion them in a condition even worse than the human? For it can happen in human affairs that one who has been a judge may even become an emperor: this these men do not deign to grant even to the one Son the rank of emperor in that Trinity. But if perhaps, from the formula of human law or custom, they are too greatly afraid of the crime of treason even in the case of a son, surely, I think, they ought to concede to the advocate that he may at some time attain to judiciary power. Yet not even this do they will. Therefore the condition in that Trinity is—God forbid—worse than in the mortality of the human race.

19. 9. Furthermore, holy Scripture, which measures these divine acts not by a difference of powers, but by the ineffability of the works, knows our advocate to be himself also the judge, since the apostle John says: If anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just (1 Jn 2:1). This too he himself signifies where he says: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate (Jn 14:16). For the Holy Spirit would not be another advocate, unless the Son were this too. Yet, to demonstrate that his works and the Father's are inseparable, he says: When I go, I will send him to you (Jn 16:7); although in another place he says: Whom the Father will send in my name (Jn 14:26). Here it is shown that both the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. Just as it is shown through the prophet that both the Father and the Holy Spirit sent the Son. For who but the Son, foretelling his own coming through Isaiah, says: Hear me, Jacob and Israel, whom I will call: I am the first, and I am forever; and my hand founded the earth, and my right hand made firm the heavens; I will call them, and they will stand together, and all will come together also, and will hear: who among them announced these things? But loving you, I have done your will against Babylon, that the seed of the Chaldeans might be taken away. I have spoken, I have called, I have brought him, and have made his way prosperous. Come together to me, and hear these things; for I have not from the beginning spoken in secret: when they were being made, I was there, and now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit (Isa 48:12-16)? What could be more evident? Behold, he who founded the earth and made firm the heaven says that he himself was sent by the Holy Spirit. Here is recognized the Only-begotten, through whom all things were made. But the comforter—an office which, as of the lowest person in that Trinity, these men assign to the Holy Spirit—the Apostle calls God, as we read in his Letter to the Corinthians: He who comforts the lowly, God comforted us by the coming of Titus (2 Cor 7:6). God, therefore, is the comforter of the saints. For they are the lowly: hence those three men in the furnace say: Bless the Lord, you holy and lowly of heart (Dan 3:87). The Holy Spirit, then, who comforts the lowly, is God. Accordingly, let these men either confess, though unwilling, that the Holy Spirit is God; or, if they want this said by the Apostle of the Father or of the Son, let them cease to separate the person of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son by consolation as though by a proper function.

20. 9. Now as for that point, that they try to show the Holy Spirit to be lesser than the Son, because the former is the advocate of the latter as of a judge, by a marvelous blindness they even set holy men above him, of whom the same Lord says: You will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). There let them answer what the Holy Spirit will be: judge with the Son, or advocate before judges who are even men? But let this madness be far from a faithful heart, that the advocate Holy Spirit should be lesser than the judges; since they, in order to be judges, are surely filled with the Holy Spirit, by living according to whom they become spiritual. For the spiritual man judges all things (1 Cor 2:15). How, then, is he lesser than the judge who makes the judges, when he makes them to be the members and the temple of that judge, since the Apostle says: Your bodies are members of Christ; and likewise saying: Your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you (1 Cor 6:15, 19)? And yet, if they read most openly in the holy Scriptures that King Solomon, by the command of God, built with wood and stones a temple for the Holy Spirit, they could not doubt that the Holy Spirit is God, to whom so great a service of religion, which is called latria, was lawfully rendered among the people of God that even a temple was built for him; since the Lord says: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve (Deut 6:13): which in Greek is,
. And they dare to deny that he is God, who has for a temple not wood and stones, but the members of Christ! For thus they subject the Holy Spirit to the power of Christ, since his temple is the members of Christ, just as they subject the Son himself to the imperial laws of God, although he himself is the Word of God, and in no way is the word of the emperor subject to the laws, but makes the laws.

21. 10. These men, indeed, whose argument I received and to which I am replying, do not dare to say that what is begotten is the same as what is made; and they distinguish these two, so that they say the Son was begotten by the Father, but the Holy Spirit was made by the Son. This they nowhere read in the holy Scriptures, since the Son himself says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

21. 11. The Son, they say, proclaims the Father; the Holy Spirit announces the Son. As if the Son did not announce that the Holy Spirit was to come, or as if the Father too did not proclaim the Son, by saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; listen to him (Mt 17:5).

21. 12. And on this account, not only does the Son reveal the glory of the Father, but the Father also reveals the glory of the Son; nor does only the Holy Spirit manifest the dignity of the Son, but the Son also manifests the dignity of the Holy Spirit.

21. 13. And therefore, as the Son bears witness to the Father, so the Father also to the Son; and as the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Son, so the Son also bears witness to the Holy Spirit.

21. 14. Now the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son; and the Son is sent by the Father and the Spirit.

22. 15. The Son, they say, is the minister of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the minister of the Son. And they do not notice that in this way they make the holy Apostles better than the Holy Spirit; for when these say that they are ministers of God, surely these men will not deny that they are also ministers of God the Father. For they were made ministers of him in whose name they also baptized, that is, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And on this account, according to the empty talk of these men, the ministers of the Trinity will be better; if the Holy Spirit is lesser for this reason, that he is the minister of the Son alone.

22. 16. The Son, they say, is commanded by the Father; the Holy Spirit is commanded by the Son. Nowhere do they read this in the holy Scriptures: although we read that the Son is obedient according to the form of a servant, by which the Father is greater; not according to the form of God, in which he and the Father are one.

22. 17. We read, then, in the holy Scriptures that the Son is subject to the Father. For there is the form of a servant, in which he was also subject to his human parents; as the Gospel says: And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and he was subject to them (Lk 2:51). But nowhere does holy Scripture say that the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son.

22. 18. Accordingly, both the Son does what the Father commands on account of the form of a servant, and the Son does what the Father does on account of the form of God. For he did not say: Whatever the Father commands, this the Son does; but he said: Whatever the Father does, this the Son also does likewise (Jn 5:19). Furthermore, if they say that the Holy Spirit speaks these things which the Son enjoins, because it is written, He will receive from what is mine and will announce it to you (Jn 16:14), why does the Son not also speak those things which the Holy Spirit enjoins, since the Apostle says: The things that are of God no one knows but the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11); and since Jesus himself confirms that there was fulfilled in himself what is written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because of this he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor (Lk 4:18, 21)? For if he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor for this reason, that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, what was he preaching to the poor but what he had of the Spirit of the Lord, with whom he was filled? For of him too it is written that he was filled with the Holy Spirit (See Lk 4:1).

23. 19. The Son, they say, adores and honors the Father; the Holy Spirit adores and honors the Son. Here there is no need to want scrupulously to distinguish what difference there is between honoring and adoring: for these things are said of the Son on account of the form of a servant. Let them say, if they can, where they have read that the Son is adored by the Holy Spirit. For what they subjoin, from which they try to prove this—namely that it is written: Father, I have honored you on earth; I have accomplished the work that you gave me (Jn 17:4); and of the Holy Spirit: He will honor me, for he will receive from what is mine, and will announce it to you (Jn 16:14)—does not pertain to the matter at hand. For everyone who adores honors, but not everyone who honors adores. For brothers too, according to the Apostle, anticipate one another in honor (See Rom 12:10), and yet do not adore one another. Otherwise, if to honor is to adore, let them say, if they please, that the Father too adores the Son, and this at the Son's command, who says to him: Honor me (Jn 17:5). But what he said of the Holy Spirit, He will receive from what is mine, he himself resolves the question: lest it be thought that the Holy Spirit is, as it were, by certain degrees from him in the way that he himself is from the Father; since both are from the Father, the one being born, the other proceeding—two things which are altogether difficult to distinguish in the sublimity of that nature. Therefore, lest this be thought, as I said, he immediately subjoined: All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said: He will receive from what is mine (Jn 16:15). Thus, without doubt, wanting it understood that the Spirit receives from the Father. But therefore from what is his own, because all that the Father has is his. This, however, is not a commendation of a diversity of nature, but of a single principle.

23. 20. According to this, the Holy Spirit does not speak of himself, because he who proceeds from the Father is not of himself: just as neither can the Son do anything of himself, because he too is not of himself, as I have already explained above: not that in all things he awaits the nod of the Father; for he did not say: Except what he sees the Father nodding; but, what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19), according to the things we have already discussed. But that in all things the Holy Spirit awaits the command of Christ, as they say, let them read it if they can. For what was said, He will not speak of himself, was not said: Whatever he hears from me; but: whatever he hears he will speak (Jn 16:13). But why it was said has already become clear a little before, from that exposition of the Lord which I recalled, where he says: All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said: He will receive from what is mine (Jn 16:15). Now from where he will receive, thence beyond doubt is that which he will speak; because thence he hears, whence he proceeds. For the Word of God knows, by proceeding from the same source whence the Word is born, so that he is in common the Spirit of both the Father and the Word.

24. 20. Nor let it trouble anyone that will receive is a verb of future time, as though he did not yet have. For verbs of time are used indifferently, although eternity is understood to abide without time. For he both received, because he proceeded from the Father; and he receives, because he proceeds from the Father; and he will receive, because he will never cease to proceed from the Father: just as God both is, and was, and will be; and yet he neither has, nor had, nor will have a beginning or end of time.

25. 21. The Son, they say, intercedes for us with the Father; and the Spirit makes petition for us to the Son. Just as they read that the Son intercedes with the Father, according to the things which we too discussed above, recalling them, so let them find from where they may bring forth that the Spirit makes petition to the Son. For what the Apostle says—For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings: and he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God (Rom 8:26-27)—however these men take it (and it is much to their advantage to take it as it ought to be taken), it was not said: He intercedes with Christ, or: He intercedes with the Son; but it was said, the Holy Spirit intercedes, because he makes us intercede. Just as God says: Now I have known (Gen 22:12), as though he did not know before: which is nothing other than, I have made you to know. Hence too is that saying of the Apostle: But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9): lest they should attribute to themselves that they had known God. So then he said, known by God, that they might understand that God, by his grace, had made them knowers of him. According to this manner of speaking it was said: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Eph 4:30): that is, do not grieve us, who according to the Spirit of God are grieved over you. For they were grieved out of love, which the Holy Spirit was pouring out in their hearts (See Rom 5:5), and through this he himself made them sorrowful over the evils of the brethren. Finally, the same apostle says: You have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry: Abba, Father (Rom 8:15); and elsewhere, recalling the same thought, he says: God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father (Gal 4:6). How is it there in whom we cry, and how here crying, unless because in saying crying here he means making us cry? But even if, according to their own meaning, we take crying as though he does not make us cry, but cries himself; behold, in saying Abba, Father, he does not intercede with the Son, but with the Father. For they will not dare to say that the Holy Spirit is the son of Christ: for surely, lest they say this, they chose to say he was not begotten by the Son, but made. We do not, therefore, know of ourselves what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes, that is, makes us intercede for the things that are according to God; and unless he does this, we do not pray except according to this world, to fulfill the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the ambition of the age, which are not from the Father, but are from the world (See 1 Jn 2:16). Although some think that what was said, The Spirit himself intercedes with groanings (Rom 8:26), is to be understood of the spirit of man.

26. 22. They say that the Son is the living and true, proper and worthy image of all the goodness and wisdom and power of the Father. But the apostle Paul says that he is not the image of the power and wisdom of God, but is God himself: the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). By the very fact, then, that the Son is the image of the Father, he is his Power and Wisdom. But a full and perfect image, that is, one not made by him out of nothing, but begotten of him, has nothing less than the one whose image it is: for the highest image of the Father, that is, one so like that in it there is nothing unlike, is the only-begotten Son. Yet they have not dared to call the Holy Spirit the image of the Son, but the manifestation. For this reason they said he was not begotten, but made by him. This they do not read at all in the holy Scriptures.

27. 23. But what Catholic would say that the Son is a part of the Father, or that the Holy Spirit is a part of the Son? This they thought must be denied, as though there were any question about it between us and them. We say that the Trinity is of the same nature; we do not call any person there a part of another. But since they so deny that the Son is a part of the Father that they nevertheless call him the proper and most beloved, perfect and full only-begotten Son: it must be asked of them, concerning those whom God makes his sons voluntarily, begetting them by the word of truth, when they have arrived at that perfection that they cannot be more perfect, whether they too are proper and most beloved, perfect and full sons of God. For if they will be, then he will not be the Only-begotten, since he will have many equals, but only the firstborn. But if they will not be, how is his fullness and perfection to be taken, except that he is altogether equal to the one begetting him, and in nothing whatever unlike; and, to say it more briefly and plainly, these are sons by grace, he by nature, since in these there is a participation of divinity, in him a fullness? Although, even in him, the fact that he took up a man, and that the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), is not nature, but grace; while the nature of the Word, which is equal to the Father, abides. Then let them answer—since they say that the Holy Spirit is not a son, but the first and chief work of the Son above all others—whether those sons whom the Father voluntarily begot by the word of truth (Jas 1:18) will be better than the Holy Spirit. For how are they not forced to say this, since beyond doubt it is better to be sons of the Father than the work of the Son? Let them ponder these things, and amend their empty and impious blasphemies, and confess that in that Trinity no person—except that the Son, remaining God, was made man—is in any way a creature, or anything made by God; but the whole, whatever it is, is the highest, true, unchangeable God.

27. 24. For God forbid that, as they suppose, the Father is greater than his Son according to what is his only-begotten Word; rather it is according to what the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). But what wonder, since in that same flesh he was made lower even than the angels? God forbid that, as they blaspheme, the Son is incomparably greater and better than the Holy Spirit; and—what is most insane to believe—that the members of a greater are the temple of a lesser.

28. 25. The Father indeed is God and Lord to his Son: because there is in him the form of a servant, which was prophesied when it was said: The Lord said to me, You are my Son (Ps 2:7). To whom also, in the same prophecy, the same Son says: From my mother's womb you are my God (Ps 22:11 (21:11)). For from his mother's womb, where he took up the man, he is his God. But he is his Father because he begot him coeternal not only before his mother's womb, but before all ages. But where, even in their dreams, have they heard holy Scripture say that the Son is God and Lord of the Holy Spirit?

28. 26. The Father, they say, willing immovably and impassibly, begot the Son; the Son, without labor and weariness, by his own power alone, made the Spirit. O singular praise of the Son and the Holy Spirit! As if the Father begot us movably and passibly and unwillingly, who begot us voluntarily by the word of truth; or as if the Son created heaven and earth with labor and weariness? Let these works, then, according to them, be made equal to either the Son or the Holy Spirit; or, if they are in no way made equal, what did it profit to say this, about which there is no question—namely, that the Father begets, or the Son makes, without any labor and weariness? Let them indeed consider how they say that the Son made the Holy Spirit by his own power alone. For in this way they are forced to confess that the Son made something which he did not see the Father doing. Or does it please them to say that the Father too made the Holy Spirit? Then the Son did not make him by his own power alone. Or did the Father first make another, so that the Son could make the one whom he made—the Son who cannot do anything except what he sees the Father doing? And what is it that not different, similar things, but whatever the Father does, these same things the Son does likewise (Jn 5:19)? If they try to ponder these things, beyond doubt all the things which they construct for themselves by carnal thought will be thrown into confusion for them.

29. 27. But it is true that the Father gave to all things that are, that they should exist; and he himself received from no one what he is: yet he gave his equality to no one except the Son, who was born of him, and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from him. Since these things are so, there is not that difference of the Trinity which these men want; because the nature in the Trinity is undifferentiated, and the power in the Trinity is undifferentiated: that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father (Jn 5:23), which he himself says; and those who want to live devoutly should adore the Lord their God, and serve him alone, which was also commanded to the ancient fathers by the law of God, nor can it in any way be otherwise, that we should serve the Lord our God alone with that service which is owed to God. For this is what is called in Greek
, which word was set down there when it was said: Him alone shall you serve (Deut 6:13). In no way, I say, can this be done, unless the Lord our God himself is the whole Trinity. Otherwise, this service, which is called latria, which servants do not owe to those whom they have as masters according to the flesh, but which all men owe to the Lord their God alone—this service, then, we will not render to the Son, if it was said of the Father: And him alone shall you serve; or we will not render it to the Father, if it was said of the Son: And him alone shall you serve. But now, if we were to build a temple for the Holy Spirit out of some masses of earth, who would doubt that we serve him with latria, that is, with that service of which I now speak? How, then, do we not render to him the service which is called latria, for whom we do not make a temple, but are ourselves the temple? Or how is he not also our God, of whom the Apostle says: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? And a little later: Glorify God, therefore, in your body (1 Cor 6:19, 20). And he says that our bodies are in us the temple of the Holy Spirit. Since, then, we serve both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with that service which is called latria, and we hear the law of God commanding that we render this to no other, but to the Lord our God alone; beyond doubt the one and only Lord our God is the Trinity itself, to whom, the one and only, we owe by the right of devotion such service.

30. 28. Just as no one can, they say, pass to the Father without the Son, so too no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit: as though anyone could come to the Son without the Father, since he himself says: No one comes to me, unless the Father, who sent me, draws him (Jn 6:44); or as though we could attain to the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, who confer him on us by their grace. For what else is it to come to them, but to have them dwelling in us? For in this way they too come to us, since God is everywhere and is contained by no bodily place. The Savior himself says of himself and of the Father: We will come to him, and make our dwelling with him (Jn 14:23); and of the Holy Spirit he says: Unless I go, the advocate will not come to you (Jn 16:7). What, then, is it that they say: Just as no one can pass to the Father without the Son, so too no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit; and then subjoin: Therefore the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit? Surely these things do not indicate a difference of natures, about which the question between us and them is turning? For if no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit, and the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit, then surely the Holy Spirit too is truth: because, when the Son is adored in him, as they have said, he is adored in truth. But the Son himself says: I am the truth (Jn 14:6). Therefore he is adored also in himself, when he is adored in truth. And on this account the Son is adored both in himself and in the Holy Spirit. But who would be so impious as to separate the Father from this? For how do we not adore also in him, in whom we live and move and have our being (See Acts 17:28)? Accordingly, that the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit, we too say; but that the Son is adored by the Holy Spirit, let them read it if they can.

31. 29. For who denies that the Father is glorified through the Son? But who would dare to deny that the Son too is glorified through the Father, to whom the Son himself says: Glorify me; to whom he also says: I have glorified you (Jn 12:28; 17:5, 4)? But to glorify, and to honor, and to make bright are indeed three words, but the reality is one, which in Greek is said
: yet by the variety of translators it has been rendered in Latin one way and another.

32. 30. The work and care of the Holy Spirit is, they say, to sanctify and to guard the saints; and to sanctify not only rational beings, as some suppose, but also many irrational ones; and to recall to their former state those who have fallen through their own negligence; to teach the ignorant, to admonish the forgetful, to reprove sinners, to exhort the slothful to think and to act anxiously for their salvation, to lead the erring back to the way of truth, to heal the weak, to restrain the frailty of the body through the eagerness of the soul, and to confirm them in the love of piety and chastity, and to enlighten all; above all, to bestow faith and love on each one, and, according to each one's zeal and diligence, according to the simplicity and sincerity of mind, according to the measure of faith and the merit of conduct, to apportion grace for their benefit, and to assign each one to that work and purpose for which he is fitted. The Holy Spirit does indeed do these things: but God forbid that he should do them without the Son. For who would so stray from the way of truth as to deny that the saints are guarded by Christ, that the fallen are restored to their former state, that the ignorant are taught, the forgetful admonished, sinners reproved, the slothful exhorted, the erring led back to the way of truth, the weak healed, the blind enlightened, and the rest which these men thought should be attributed to the Holy Spirit, as though he alone did them? For, to be silent about the rest, lest it be too long, how will they deny that the saints are taught by Christ, to whom he says: Do not be called rabbi by men; for one is your master, Christ (Mt 23:8)? How will they deny that the blind are enlightened by Christ, of whom they read it written: He was the true light, which enlightens every man (Jn 1:9)? The Holy Spirit, then, just as he teaches or enlightens no one without Christ, so without Christ he sanctifies nothing. But as for that which God says through the prophet, That they may know that I am he who sanctifies them (Exod 31:13), let them choose by whom they want to believe it was said. If by the Father, why do they separate from him the works of the Holy Spirit, when they think that the saints are sanctified by the Holy Spirit as though properly and separably? If by the Son, let them at least not separate from him the works of the Holy Spirit the sanctifier. If by the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit too is God—which they refuse—who said through the prophet: That they may know that I am he who sanctifies them (Ezek 20:12; see Lev 21:23; 22:9, 16). But if, as is better understood, that voice is of the Trinity itself through the prophet, then, with no one doubting, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things; to him be glory forever and ever. Amen (See Rom 11:36).

33. 31. Since, then, we confess that those things are done by the Holy Spirit which they have recalled to be done by him, it does not follow from this what they add: that the Holy Spirit is other than the Son in nature and in order, in rank and in disposition, in dignity and in power, in might and in operation. For neither is the nature of men diverse, whose works can be separable—which the works of the Trinity cannot be. But order, rank, and disposition, which are found in the disparity and weakness of creation, are none of them in that coeternal and equal and impassible Trinity. But dignity, power, and might—how are they not equal in all, who work both the same things and likewise? For what they say, that they are diverse in operation, we have proved to be altogether false.

34. 32. But what they subjoin in this sermon—that it is impossible that one and the same should be Father and Son, the one begetting and the one being born; the one to whom witness is borne and the one who bears witness; the greater and the one who confesses the greater; the one who sits or stands at the right hand and the one who gives the honor of the seat; the one who was sent and the one who sent; nor disciple and teacher, as he himself taught when he said: As the Father taught me, so I speak (Jn 8:28): the like and the imitator, and the one whose like he is and whom he imitates; the one who prays and the one who hears; the one who gives thanks and the one who blesses; the one who receives the commandment and the one who gave the commandment; the minister and the one commanding; the suppliant and the eminent one; the subject and the superior; the only-begotten and the unbegotten; the priest and the God—in some part they say most truly, but let them say these things against the Sabellians, not against the Catholics. For those say that the Son is one and the same as the Father; whereas we say that the Father begetting and the Son begotten are two persons, but not two diverse natures. The Father and the Son, therefore, are not one and the same, but the Father and the Son are one. But that the Father is greater does not pertain to the nature of the one begetting and the one begotten, but of man and God; according to which form of the assumed man he both sits or stands at the right hand of the Father, and prays, and gives thanks, and is a priest, and is a minister, and is a suppliant, and is subject; but according to the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father, he is the only-begotten and coeternal with the one begetting him. And although he is the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created (Col 1:15-16), and he was begotten before these were created; yet he is everlasting, just as the Father, and did not begin in time. For we most rightly say that the Father too is prior to all the things he created, although he was not begotten. For nothing is so first as that before which there is nothing. But just as there is nothing before the Father, so there is nothing before the only-begotten Son, who is surely coeternal with the Father. For the fact that the one begot and the other was begotten does not make the Father prior in time. For if there is some time between the Father begetting and the Son begotten, then surely time is before the Son, and the Son is no longer the firstborn of all creation, since time too is surely a creation; nor are all things through him, if time is before him; but all things are through him (Col 1:16), therefore no time is before him. And on this account, just as fire and the splendor that is begotten of the fire and is diffused round about begin to exist together, nor is the begotten preceded by the one begetting it: so God the Father and God the Son from God begin to exist together, because they are equally without any beginning of time, nor is the begotten preceded by the one begetting. And just as the begetting fire and the begotten splendor are coeval, so God the Father begetting and God the Son begotten are coeternal. But because this one is from that one, not that one from this one, therefore he both receives a commandment from the Father, although he himself is the commandment of the Father; and the Father teaches him, although he himself is the teaching of the Father. For so he receives life from the Father, though, like the Father, he himself is life: so too he is like the Father, so that in nothing whatever is he unlike. But since the Father and the Son bear witness to each other in turn, I do not know how these men make one of them the one bearing witness, and the other the one to whom witness is borne. Does not the Father say: This is my beloved Son (Mt 3:17)? Does not the Son say: The Father who sent me bears witness of me (Jn 8:18)? Why, then, do they so distinguish them, as to call the Father the one to whom witness is borne, and the Son the one who bears witness? Why are they so empty in these matters, so deaf in these matters, so blind in these matters? But concerning the Father sending and the Son sent, it has already been treated sufficiently and abundantly in the earlier parts of this discussion.

35. 33. By no means, indeed, as that impiety raves: The Father foreknew that he would be the father of the only-begotten God: because he was never not the Father, having a coeternal Son, and begetting without time the one through whom he created times. And just as he did not foreknow that he would be God, which he always was; so neither that he would be Father, because he was always with the Son: nor is he greater than the great Son, nor better than the good; because it was said not to the Father alone, but to the whole Trinity: You are God, alone great (Ps 86:10 (85:10)). Nor is it of the Father alone, but of the whole Trinity, that the same Son is rightly understood to have said: No one is good but the one God (Mk 10:18); when one called him good master who did not yet understand him to be God; as though he said: If you call me good, understand me to be God; for no one is good but the one God. The Trinity, therefore, is the one God, alone great and good, whom, the one and only, as his law commands, we serve with that service which is called latria.

36. 34. But God forbid that we should say that the Son sometimes speaks thus, out of humility, not out of truth, so as to subject himself to the Father and to testify that he is greater. For we know in the Son the form of a servant, not feigned and pretended, but true: on account of which human guise, namely, and because he himself is God from the Father, not the Father from him, he says all those things from which these men take occasion to believe and to preach diverse natures of the Father and the Son. And though they plunge themselves into so great a gulf of impiety, they call us, as if by the reproach of a new name, Homoousians. For such is the antiquity of Catholic truth, that all heretics impose diverse names upon it, while they themselves keep their own single names, by which they are called by all. For it is the Arians and the Eunomians, no other heretics, who are wont to call us Homoousians, because against their error we defend, by the Greek word homoousion, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance, or, to say it more expressly, essence, which in Greek is called ousia: which is said more plainly, of one and the same nature. And yet, if any of those who call us Homoousians were to say that his son was not of his own nature, but of a diverse one, the son would rather be disinherited by him than be thought this. With how great an impiety, then, are these men blinded, who, although they confess the only-begotten Son of God, refuse to confess him to be of the same nature as the Father, but of a diverse and unequal one, unlike in many modes and respects, as though he were not born of God, but created by him out of nothing; and on this account he too would be a creature, a son by grace, not by nature? Behold those who call us Homoousians as if it were the stain of a new name, and do not perceive, when they hold these opinions, that they themselves are insane.

37. 34. But as for the fact that they confess the Son to have been born before all ages, how are they not contrary to themselves, in saying that the one was born before all ages before whose birth they set some span of time; as though whatever times there are were not either ages or parts of ages? But as for what the Apostle says, that even in the age to come the Son will be subject to the Father, where he says: Then the Son himself also will be subject to the one who subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28)—what wonder, since that human form in the Son, by which the Father is always greater, is destined to abide? Although there have not been lacking those who thought that that subjection of the Son was then to be understood as the changing of the human form itself into the divine substance, as though that be subjected to a thing into which it is turned and changed. But we have shown what we hold about this: that the Apostle rather said that even then the Son will be subject to the Father, lest anyone should think that in him the spirit and the human body would perish by some transformation: that God may be all things, not only in that form of man, but, in all (1 Cor 15:28), that is, that the divine nature may suffice for the having of life and for the satisfying of our desire in good things. For then God will be all in all, when we will have begun to want to have nothing at all besides him. For he himself will be all things to us, when, he himself sufficing, nothing will be lacking.

38. 34. But from where these men suppose that the Son obeyed when commanded before he received flesh, I do not know. Or was he commanded to receive flesh, so that he seems to have done when commanded what he did when sent? Let them return, then, again to those things which were discussed above, and ask and find, if they can, by what other word the Father commanded by the one Word; and whether it would have been fitting for the eternal Word to be made subject to a temporal word of one commanding: and from this let them understand that it was not the Father's command, as though it were not in his own power, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. But as for that he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil 2:7-8), he had surely already received flesh.

39. 34. I think that I have replied to all the things which the sermon of the Arians contains, which was sent to us by certain brothers that we might reply to it. So that it might be examined by those who read these things and who desire to explore whether everything has been answered, we thought it should be prefixed to this discussion of ours; so that it might first be read itself, and then our response. For we have not everywhere inserted the text of its words, lest we should make too long this work of ours, which we conclude at last with this ending.