In giving the reply I owe to the speech of Maximinus, the Arian bishop, whose great length used up the space of the day on which we held our discussion in person, I certainly ought to address him, whether he still thinks I must be contradicted when he has read this, or whether, with the Lord working marvelously in his heart, he consents to the truth that has been made manifest. What did you have in mind, Arian, in saying so much and yet saying nothing for the cause that is at issue between us, as if to be able to answer were the same as not being able to keep silent? First, then, I will show that you were unable to refute what I said; then, as far as will seem necessary, I myself will refute what you said.

1. As to what you said about two gods, I certainly replied to your words, where you said that you worship one God: It follows, I said, that either you do not worship Christ, or you worship not one God, but two. Trying to answer this, you said much indeed, asserting that you also worship Christ as God; but although you did not deny that you worship two gods, you nonetheless did not dare to confess it. For you perceived that Christian ears cannot bear that two gods are to be worshiped. Oh, how near you came to correcting yourself, if only you feared to believe what you feared to say! For since the Apostle cries out, One believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved (Rom 10:10), if you think that what you believe pertains to justification, why do you not also confess it with the mouth unto salvation? But if it does not pertain to salvation to confess that two gods are to be worshiped, then without doubt neither does it pertain to justification to believe it. Why, then, you who do not want your mouth held guilty by such a confession, do you not cleanse your heart of such a belief? Hold the right faith with the Catholic Church, and do not be ashamed to amend the perverse one. Hold with the Catholic Church that the Father is not he who is the Son, and the Son is not he who is the Father; and that the Father is God and the Son is God; and yet that both together are not two gods, but one. In this way alone will it come about that you worship both the Father and the Son and yet do not say that two gods are to be worshiped, but one, so that your conscience may not be stung by the guilt of impiety when the divine words sound in your ears, that there is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4), and Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4); and when you hear, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:13), you may securely serve, with the service owed to the one God, not the Father only but also the Son. Remember, then, that you did not reply to my objection, namely, that you worship not one God, but two.

2. In the second place I dealt with you about your words, where you had said that God the Father did not descend to human contagions, as though Christ suffered those things in the flesh; and I pointed out how a contagion is usually understood, namely, only in some defect, from all of which we know Christ to be immune. Nor were you able to answer anything to this. For the divine testimonies that you cited could not help you at all, for by them you could not prove that Christ was tainted by any human contagion. For as to what you recall the Apostle to have said, Since Christ, who was no sinner, was made sin for us, read more carefully, and lest perhaps you have stumbled upon a faulty manuscript, or the Latin translator has erred, look at the Greek; and you will find that Christ did not make sin for us, but that Christ himself was made sin by God the Father, that is, a sacrifice for sin. For the Apostle says, We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God: him who knew no sin he made to be sin for us (2 Cor 5:20-21). Therefore he himself did not make sin, but God made him to be sin for us, that is, as I said, a sacrifice for sin. For if you recall or reread, you will find that in the books of the Old Testament sacrifices for sins are called sins. The likeness of sinful flesh, too, in which he came to us, was itself called sin: God, it says, sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and from sin he condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3), that is, from the likeness of sinful flesh, which was his own, he condemned sin in the flesh of sin, which is ours. For this reason it is also said of him, For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God (Rom 6:10). For he died to sin once, because he died to the likeness of sinful flesh when in dying he was stripped of the flesh, so that through this mystery he might signify that those who are baptized into his death die to sin in order to live to God. So too through the cross he became a curse for us (Gal 3:13). For hanging on the tree, he hung upon the tree the death that had come from the curse of God, and thus our old self was crucified together with him (Rom 6:6), so that what is said in the Law may be understood as said without falsehood, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Deut 21:23). What is cursed but You are earth, and to earth you shall go (Gen 3:19)? And what is everyone but that Christ himself also, who although he was life, nonetheless died with a true death, not a feigned one? If you understand these mysteries, you will at the same time understand that there are no contagions. But what is it to us if, speaking in your usual way, you perhaps wished to call the contact of mortals a contagion, since you hold with us that the Lord Jesus had no sin either in spirit or in flesh?

3. In the third place, when I dealt with the invisible God, I urged you to believe that not only the Father but also the Son is invisible according to his divinity, not according to the flesh, in which who denies that he appeared visibly to mortals? And on this I argued further in another place. But you, yielding to the most manifest truth, agreed that the Son is invisible; and thereby you destroyed what you had said, namely, that the Father alone is invisible. But again, disturbed by your own agreement, because you had agreed that the Son too is invisible, you dared to say that the lesser are seen by the greater, but the greater cannot be seen by the lesser, saying that the angels are seen by the archangels, and souls by the angels, but that the angels are not seen by souls; whence also, asserting that Christ according to the substance of his divinity is seen not only by no human beings but not even by the heavenly Powers, you said for that reason that the Father alone is invisible, because he has no superior by whom he may be observed. Tell us, I ask you, when did the archangels indicate to you that they see the angels but are not seen by the angels? From the report of which angels did you learn that they see souls, while souls do not see them? From whom did you hear these things? Where did you learn them? Where did you read them? Would you not do better to direct your mind to the divine Books, where we read both that angels were seen by human beings, when they willed and how they willed to be seen, at the command or with the permission of the Creator of all? Yet you who had said that the Father alone must be called invisible, because he has no superior by whom he may be observed, afterward confessed that he is visible to the Son, bringing forth against yourself the gospel testimony where the Son himself says, Not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father (John 6:46). Here indeed the truth most openly conquered you; but you, unwilling to be freed from error, did not want to be salutarily conquered. For when you had cited against yourself the gospel testimony by which it became clear that the Father is seen by the Son, the Son himself saying, But he who is from God, he has seen the Father, you straightway added on your own, But he saw the incomprehensible one. Meanwhile you lost what you had said, that the Father alone is invisible because he has no superior, since, conquered by the truth, you confessed that he is seen by an inferior. For you say that the Son is inferior, and yet, the Son compelling you to testify, you said that the Father is seen by him. About the incomprehensible we will see later, so that the truth may conquer you there too. For the question between us was not about the comprehensible and the incomprehensible, but about the visible and the invisible, in which question, if you yourself are visible to yourself, you see that you have been conquered.

4. In the fourth place I dealt with you about the immortal God, the Son as well. For that statement of the Apostle, who alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16), you wanted understood as if it were said of the Father alone, whereas he said this not of the Father but of God, which is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. So I showed that the Son too has immortality according to the substance of his divinity. For according to the flesh, who denies that he was mortal? But when you wished to answer me on this point, hemmed in by the plain truth, you also confessed that God the Son has immortality. You were therefore conquered in what you were saying, that the Apostle said of the Father only that he alone has immortality. Nor indeed do you slip out of the bonds of the truth because you say, The Son does indeed have immortality, but received from the Father. The question is not whence he has it, but whether he has it. For you want it understood of the Father alone that it is written, He alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16). The Father has immortality received from no one, and the Son has immortality received from the Father; yet both the Father and the Son have immortality. Otherwise, if the Son does not have it, either the Father did not give it to the Son, or the Son lost what he received. But the Father gave it to the Son, and the Son did not lose it; nor did the Father in giving lose what he gave by begetting. Both the Father and the Son, therefore, have immortality, not the Father alone. You are thus compelled to confess that it was not said of the Father alone, who alone has immortality, since you have already been compelled to confess that the Son too has immortality. But the one who has this alone is God, which is not the Father alone, because this is the Son too, and each, with the Holy Spirit joined, is one God. But why God alone is said to have immortality, since the soul too in its own way is immortal, and so is the other spiritual and heavenly creation, we will see later; for now it is enough for us that to what I said you could answer nothing, and that you were compelled to confess that not the Father only, but the Son too, although from the Father, nonetheless has immortality.

5. In the fifth place I showed in what way the Father is greater than the Son: that he is not greater as God, for in that respect the Son is coeternal with him, but he is greater than the man, because the Son was made in time. There I cited the apostolic testimony, Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil 2:6). For equality with God was his by nature, not by grasping. To this you replied, saying, For who denies that the Son is in the form of God? That he is God, that he is Lord, that he is King, we have, I think, already set forth at length. And as to 'he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,' the blessed apostle Paul instructs us in this, that he did not grasp it, and neither do we say so. These words of yours not only have nothing against us; rather, they appear to be more for us. For if you confess the form of God, why do you not openly confess the Son of God equal to God? Especially since, regarding the Apostle's words where he says he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, you could not find anything to say for your side. And because you could not deny that the Apostle said this, you therefore said, that he did not grasp it, and neither do we say so, as though he did not grasp were the same as he did not have, that is, equality with God; and as though it were said, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, as if it were said: He did not think that equality with God was a thing to be grasped, because it was foreign to him. For one who grasps is a usurper of what belongs to another, as though the Son, when he could have, had been unwilling to grasp it. You see with how great folly this is understood. Understand, therefore, that the Apostle said he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped because he did not count what he was born to be as foreign to him; yet although he did not count equality with God as foreign but as his own, he emptied himself (Phil 2:7), seeking not what was his own but what was ours. That you may know this is so, attend to how the Apostle arrived at it. For when he was enjoining on Christians the humility of love, he said, each esteeming the other as superior to himself, each looking not to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Then, to exhort them by Christ's example to seek and look not to their own interests but also to the interests of others, he said, Have this mind among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, though he was in the form of God, which was his own, did not count it a thing to be grasped, that is, did not count it foreign, to be equal with God; but rather, seeking what was ours, not his own, he emptied himself, not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:5-7). For that nature is not changeable, so that he emptied himself by losing what he was, but by taking what he was not; not by consuming what was his own, but by assuming what was ours; and then, in the form of a servant, obeying as a man unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:8-9), and so on. He gave these things, then, to the man, not to God. For when he was in the form of God he was not without exaltation, nor did the things of heaven, of earth, and of the underworld fail to bend the knee to him. But when it is said, Therefore he exalted him, it is sufficiently clear why he exalted him, that is, on account of the obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. In the form, therefore, in which he was crucified, that very form was exalted, to it was given the name which is above every name, so that in that very form of a servant the only-begotten Son of God is named. Do not, then, make the form of God unequal to God, which cannot be said even among human beings. For when it is said, This man is in the form of that man, no one understands anything but equals. Or do you perhaps not want to take since he was in the form of God in such a way that you understand the Son in the form of God the Father, where nothing but the equality of the two appears; but rather you think in the form of God is to be understood as in his own form, because he too is certainly God? I do not much care if you understand it even in that way. For where the increments of age do not bring fullness of form, but the Son was born perfect by the Father's begetting, then without doubt, if the form of the Son is not equal to the form of the Father, he is not a true Son. But it is written, that we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20). The form, therefore, of the true Son cannot be unequal to the form of God the Father. Accordingly, neither to this passage of my discourse, where from the words of the Apostle I proved the Son equal to the Father, could you answer anything for your purpose.

6. In the sixth place, in order to show that the Son is of the same nature as the Father, I set even the offspring of mortal animals against the monstrousness of your error, rebuking your heart, you who deny that God the Son is of the same nature as the Father, although you do not deny that he is a true Son, since God himself has given to animals to beget what they themselves are; where I named not only a man the son of a man but even a dog the son of a dog, not as a likeness to God, but to the confusion of those who disparage the Son of God; who, although they see that corruptible and mortal natures nonetheless have unity of nature from their parents, are unwilling to grant to the Son of God the sharing of one nature from the Father, although he is inseparable from the Father, and incorruptible and eternal with the Father. Hence I also said that, according to you, the human condition is better, where it is granted to grow, so that by growing the children can attain to the strength of their parents; but the Son of God, as you say and teach, having been begotten lesser than the Father, so remained, and, since he could not attain to the form of the Father, did not grow. Here you, in order to make plain how great a mass of truth was pressing on you, did not answer to the point at all; but, as if panting with failing breath, you thought I should be reproached, saying that so foul a comparison, namely of the son of a man or a dog, ought not to be brought up into that great immensity. Is this to answer, or rather to show the poverty of an answer? As if I had brought forth these examples of earthly natures in order to equate corruption with incorruption, mortality with immortality, visible things with invisible, temporal things with eternal; and not rather in order to convict you, who err in great and highest matters, from small and lowliest things, you who do not see the good that the supremely good Creator has given even to the lowest and cheapest creatures, namely, that although they are far other than he is, they nonetheless beget what they themselves are. Nor do you attend to what an evil thing you say, that while human beings and dogs and the rest of this kind have true sons, whom truth creates as they beget, the very Truth should not be the true Son of God. Or if, compelled by holy Scripture, you allow that he is a true Son, we ask: allow that he is not degenerate. And degenerate how? Let Catholics hear that at which heretics should blush. The son of a brave man, if he does not have bravery, is called degenerate; yet he is a man, which his father also is; and in an unlike life he is nonetheless not of a foreign substance. But you so want the only-begotten Son of God to be degenerate that you deny him the very substance of the Father; you boast that he was born lesser and remained lesser; you grant him no age by which he can be increased, you grant him not the same form by which he can be made equal. Since you take away so much of his nature, I wonder with what face you call him a true Son; unless it be that, by a most wretched error, you think you cannot arrive at the glory of the one Father except through insult to the one Son.

7. In the seventh place I said: We acknowledge the Son to be so great a God that we call him equal to the Father. And so without cause, I said, you wanted to prove by testimonies and much speaking what we strongly profess. And to these words of mine I added a discussion in which I gave the reason why the Son, although he is equal to the Father, nonetheless calls him his God, where he says, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God (John 20:17). For you had cited this gospel testimony, by which you thought to prove that the Son was not equal to the Father. And so, answering you on these points, I said that the Father is for this reason the God also of the only-begotten Son, because he became man and was born of a woman; and that this is what he says in the Psalm, where he foretold what was to be: From my mother's womb you are my God (Ps 22:10 (21:11)); so that he might show that the Father is his God from this, that he became man. For man is born from the mother's womb, and according to the man God was born of the Virgin, so that not only would he be his Father who begot him from himself, but he would also be his God, who from the mother's womb created him a man. When you wished to answer these things, you said much, and brought forth many testimonies that help you not at all. Yet how it is said, From my mother's womb you are my God, although you mentioned the same words of holy Scripture, you could in no way find out. But why you put there the testimony of another psalm, where it is written, With you is the principality in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints; from the womb before the daystar I begot you (Ps 110:3 (109:3)), I do not see at all. For it is not the person of the Son speaking who says, From your womb, or, From your belly, you are my God. Even if that ineffable generation is taken as from the womb of the Father, this is what is signified: that from himself, that is, from his own substance, God begot God, just as, when he was born from the mother's womb, man begot man; so that we might understand that in each generation the substances of him who was born and of those from whom he was born are not different. The substance is indeed different, God the Father and man the mother; yet the substance is not different, God the Father and God the Son, just as the substance is not different, man the mother and man the son. But hear what this Son says in the prophecy: From my mother's womb, he says, you are my God (Ps 22:10 (21:11)). Do not try with many words unnecessary to the matter to cover clear things. He who is Father to the Son from his own womb is his God from the mother's womb, not from his own. To this, then, you could answer nothing at all.

8. In the eighth place I answered you concerning the subjection by which the Son is subject to the Father, since you had said, By his subjection he establishes one God. I answered, then, that this too is rightly taken according to the man, namely, that the Son is subject to the Father. Nor is this to be wondered at, since according to that very form of a servant he is read to be subject even to his parents (See Luke 2:51); and of him it is written, You have made him a little lower than the angels (Ps 8:5 (8:6)). To this you, as if answering, said that I had argued very well, since on account of the form of a servant he was subject even to his parents. Then, wishing to make it appear as if for you what you saw was against you, and so, before incautious and less attentive people, whoever should read these things, to make yourself appear to be answering where you had nothing to say, you add and say: For if he is found subject to the parents whom he himself created, since all things were made through him—for we know the Son to have been begotten by the Father not after time, but before time—if then, you say, he was subject to his parents, as the authority of the divine Scriptures proclaims clearer than light, how much more is he subject to his own Begetter, who begot him so great and such as he is; according to what Paul says: 'When all things are subjected to the Son, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him' (1 Cor 15:28)? These words of yours could be thought to have been said by me, and to be entirely mine, were it not that, when they were said to those listening, and afterward to all who read them, it plainly appeared that you said them. For who would believe that you could agree with us that Christ is subject according to the form of a servant, and thereby not according to the form of God?

9. In the ninth place I asked of you that you show, through the divine Scriptures, if you could, whether the Holy Spirit adores the Father. For you had said this; but, as your very discourse, to which I replied, sufficiently indicates, you had not proved it. To this inquiry of mine, then, see what you answered in your later discourse. For when you had said as much as you wished about the judgment of the Son, which we too most faithfully believe, and about the subjection that we do not deny the Son renders to the Father according to the form of a servant, when you came to prove that the Father is adored by the Holy Spirit, you went back to those groanings, about which I had already answered you before, according to the manner of the holy Scriptures, in what manner of speaking it is said, And the Spirit himself intercedes with unutterable groanings (Rom 8:26); lest we believe that the Holy Spirit can never be without groanings, since there is found no day, no hour, no moment of time in which prayers are not poured out to God by holy ones somewhere, by some here, by others elsewhere. Since, then, no time is free of the prayers of the holy ones, seeing that day and night, when some are refreshing themselves with food and drink, others are doing some other thing, others are sleeping, there are surely never lacking those whom holy desire compels to pray; so it comes about that the Holy Spirit, who is present everywhere to all, is not allowed to cease even a little from groanings—which would be the height of misery, if he were compelled to groan for any who pray—unless to intercede with unutterable groanings be understood, as I said, that is, because he makes the holy ones intercede with the groanings of holy desires, into whom he pours the pious affection of spiritual grace. But I cited from the holy Scriptures similar modes of speech, where through what produces an effect that very effect is signified—as we call cold lazy, because it makes people lazy; and a day sad or glad, because it makes people sad or glad—as where God says to Abraham, Now I have known (Gen 22:12), which is nothing other than: Now I have made you to know; for God is not then to be said to have come to know what he could never, before it happened, fail to know. These modes of speech, brought forth by me from the divine words, you did not find how to interpret otherwise; you ought by no means to have gone back to those groanings. For no one is so minded about the Holy Spirit except one who is minded according to the flesh, not according to the Spirit.

Yet even if it were granted to you that, as you suppose, the Holy Spirit so intercedes for the holy ones, to intercede or to pray is one thing, to adore another. Everyone who prays asks; not everyone who adores asks, nor does everyone who asks adore. Recall the custom of kings, who are very often adored and not asked, and sometimes asked and not adored. And so you could in no way demonstrate that the Father is adored by the Holy Spirit.

10. In the tenth place I dealt with you that you might understand how, through an ineffable conjunction, the Trinity itself is one God, which we say is of one substance; since even in different substances we find—that is, the spirit of man and the Spirit of the Lord—that, through the conjunction by which a man cleaves to the Lord, they are called one spirit, where the Apostle says, But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). Answering this, or rather not keeping silent, you tried to show how the Father and the Son are one, not by unity of nature, but of will. This indeed you are accustomed to say, but you are accustomed to say it then, when there is objected to you what the Lord says, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). But in this place I did not wish to prove that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one—which indeed we most faithfully believe on account of the unity of substance—but that the same Trinity is one God. For it is one thing, they are one; another, he is one God. Distinguish: he is, and they are. Nor does the Apostle say, Those who cleave to the Lord are one, since the substance is different; but he says, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. But if you, when of two it is said, He is one, and it is said what one—as the Apostle says, he is one spirit—think this is the same as when of two it is said, They are one, and it is not said what one—as the Savior says, I and the Father are one—why do you not say, The Father and the Son are one God? Why, when you hear, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4), do you want it understood of the Father only? For surely the Father is Lord God, and the Son is Lord God; why with you is not each one Lord God, just as with the blessed Apostle the spirit of man and the Spirit of the Lord are one spirit? But what does it profit your cause that you say this comes about through agreement of will? It does indeed come about, but where there is a different nature, just as the nature of man and of the Lord is different; and yet he who cleaves to the Lord, surely through agreement of will, is one spirit. If, then, you will not have it through unity of substance, at least through agreement of will say—say it at some time, say it in whatever way—the Father and the Son are one God. But you do not say it, lest you be compelled to confess what you never wished, that it was said of both, not of the Father alone, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4); since you will not confess the Holy Spirit to be God, you will not confess him Lord. Say, I say, by whatever reasoning you wish, The Father and the Son are one Lord God, so that, serving the Father and the Son, you may serve not two gods and two lords against the precept of God, but the one Lord. But for now let this much be said about this matter. I think that when you read these things you could answer nothing to what I cited from the Apostle, he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17); if you lay aside contention, you will not deny it.

11. In the eleventh place I showed that the Holy Spirit is God, from his temple, which we ourselves are, on the testimony of the Apostle, where he says, Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16); and again, Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19) But to these things you answered nothing. For you said, I accept what you brought forth: 'Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you?' For God, you say, does not dwell in a man whom the Spirit has not first sanctified and purified. And in this way you wanted it understood that the Holy Spirit was not said to be God, nor that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, but of God; and that this is what was said, You are God's temple. But that for this reason was added, God's Spirit dwells in you, because the Holy Spirit purifies the temple of God, not his own, so that when he himself has purified it, then God may dwell there. What great absurdity follows this view of yours I do not wish to say now. For now I ought to show only how, by saying much, you said nothing to the point. For you abandoned the cause and proceeded to the praise of the Holy Spirit, and pursued it copiously against yourself. Against yourself, I said, because you will not call him God whose so great divinity you were compelled, by praising him, to confess; so that, since he is one, he is everywhere present, and is lacking to no one to be sanctified, wherever any Christian wishes to be and to pray to God, presenting himself to all at once, whether they are baptized in the east or in the west in Christ: this we too say. But the one whom we say is such and so great, far be it from us that we deny him to be God; which is also most quickly and easily shown by his temple, which we ourselves are. For unless he were our God, he could not have us ourselves as a temple; and that you might conceal this, and in your speech turn the minds of human beings away from the light of truth, you said whatever you said about the temple of God, whom you would not have understood to be the Holy Spirit; but about the temple of the Holy Spirit, which was most openly shown, you kept entirely silent. For when I had set before you two testimonies of the apostle Paul—one where he says, Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16); the other where he says, Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? (1 Cor 6:19)—why did you act so fraudulently as to mention one of these, what was said, You are God's temple, and keep silent about the other, what was said, Your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? Why did you do this, I ask you, unless because you could in no way argue how he would not be our God who has us ourselves as a temple, whom without doubt we would recognize as God if we were commanded by divine Scripture to make him a temple of wood and stones?

12. In the twelfth place I urged you to bring forth, if you could, by what divine authority it was said that they are one where the substances are different. But you, wishing to answer this, could bring forth nothing of the kind; rather, constrained by great straits, you dared to affirm that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son. This Christ did not say at all; for it was said by you as though the Father and the Son and the apostles are one. But Christ did not say, That they and we may be one; he said, That they may be one, as we also are one. For, to set down the very words of the gospel, Holy Father, he says, keep them in your name whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we also are one. Did he say, That they may be one with us, or, That they and we may be one? Likewise, after a little: I do not pray for these only, he says, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word, that they all may be one. Neither here did he say, That they may be one with us. Then there follows, As you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us. And here he did not say, May we be one, or, May they be one with us; but, May they be one in us; so that those who are one by nature, because they are human beings, may also be one in the Father and the Son; not one with them, that is, not so that they and these are one. Further he adds and says: That the world may believe that you sent me, and the glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected into one (John 17:11-23). Although, then, he so often said, That they may be one, yet nowhere did he say, That they and we may be one, that is, that they may be one with us; but he said either in us, or as we are; that is, they according to their own nature, we according to ours. For he wanted those who were one by nature to be perfected in this very thing, that they were one. For because he says, You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48), he does not want to join them to God by unity of nature, as though their nature and his were one and the same; but he wants them to be perfect in their own nature, just as God is perfect in his own, although a different nature, not one; and unless we are in him, we cannot exist at all. Not as all are in him, because he himself contains all that he created—on account of which he was said to be not far from each one of us, because in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28)—but as such are in him as those to whom it was said, For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). Hence also is that, Let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39). You could not, therefore, bring forth where it was said, They are one, of those whose substance is not one but different; and yet in an obscure passage you wished to creep up on us, so as to say that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son, as though the apostles and the Father and the Son were one, when it is manifest that the substance of the apostles is different from that of the Father and the Son. But since it is manifest that Christ nowhere said, That they and we may be one, or, May they be one with us, let it be manifest also that you could not answer us and wished to commit a fraud.

13. In the thirteenth place I reminded you that the Father is not greater than the Son for the reason that the Father bore testimony to the Son. For I also recalled that the prophets bore testimony to him, whom you cannot say to be greater than he. For you had said that the Father bore testimony to the Son; which I took as though from this you wished to prove that he to whom testimony was borne is greater than the one who bore it: but since in your later discourse you kept entirely silent about this, I took your silence in place of agreement; although it can be that you mentioned the Father bearing testimony to the Son in order to prove from this that the one is one and the other is another, not in order to prove that the one is greater than the other. But that the Father is one and the Son is another, since the Father is not the same as the Son, is a teaching common to you and to us against the Sabellians. For they say that the Son is not another but the same as the Father; but we say that the Father is indeed one and the Son another; yet we say that what the Father is, this the Son is.

14. In the fourteenth place, to what you had said—I read of one who is loved, and I believe that the Father is the one who loves, and the Son the one who is loved—I replied, saying: But you say in this way that there is a diversity between the Father and the Son, because the Father loves and the Son is loved; as though you could deny that the Son too loves the Father. Then I added: If both love each other in turn, why do you deny that they are of one nature? This I said, of course, so that you might not from this deny that the two are of one nature, because you yourself said that the one loves and the other is loved. Answering this, you agreed indeed that the Son too loves the Father, but you would not agree that they are of one nature; as though the Son loves the Father as a creature loves the Creator, not as the only-begotten loves his begetter, whom you want to be degenerate by a diversity of substance.

15. In the fifteenth place I said that the Trinity is equally invisible, not the Father only; but that the Son nonetheless appeared visible in the form of a servant, on account of which he said, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28). But since the divinity showed itself to the fathers, I said that this was done through a subordinate creature, not through its own nature, by which the Trinity is invisible. And to prove this, I recalled Moses saying to him, with whom he spoke face to face, If I have found grace before you, show me yourself plainly (Exod 33:11-13); that you might understand how he saw him whom he desired to be shown to himself; for surely, if he saw God in the substance by which God is, he would not have asked that he show himself to him. I also said that Christ is the creator of things visible and invisible, in order to prove that he is not visible through his own substance, by whom there could be created not only visible things but also invisible. Trying to answer these things, how many things you said that are not to the point, let those who read observe; and yet about Moses—why he wished God, with whom he spoke, to be shown to him, if he discerned his nature and substance—you dared to say nothing at all; and still you did not cease to affirm that the Son of God, the creator of invisible things, even before he took the form of a servant, was in the form of God visible; whom, above, you had yourself already confessed could be seen in the form of a servant, but in the substance of his divinity to be invisible.

16. In the sixteenth place, because you had said that the Apostle spoke of the Father only, To the only wise God (Rom 16:27), I said: Then the Father alone is the wise God, and the very Wisdom of God, which is Christ, is not wise—of whom the Apostle says, 'Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God!' (1 Cor 1:24) Then I added: It remains for you to say (for what do you not dare?) that the Wisdom of God is unwise. To these things you said: The blessed apostle Paul, you say, proclaims the Father alone wise, saying thus: 'To the only wise God.' But the reason must be sought, you say, how he is the only wise, not that Christ is not wise. You then go on and add how you confess Christ too to be wise; for after some things which you wove in that are not to the point, in order to prolong your speech and the time, you also inserted this in your words, saying: But truly the Father alone is wise; as though the Apostle had said, To the only wise Father. But he said, To the only wise God; because the Son too is God, which you also want; the Holy Spirit too is God, though you do not want it; and this Trinity is the only wise God, who never could be at all unwise, nor will be able to be; not partaker of wisdom by grace, but wise by the immobility and immutability of his nature. For if I should say to you: Is it really so, O man who glory in the Christian name, that Christ is wise in such a way as not to be truly wise? Is Christ, then, who is true God, not truly wise? Would you not be so confounded by this question that you would immediately answer that Christ is truly wise? What is it, then, that you said: But truly the Father alone is wise? Surely you now perceive where you have arrived, and from how great a blasphemy you ought to recall yourself.

17. In the seventeenth place I dealt with you about the fact that the Son too, not the Father only, is uncreated, that is, was not made. For you had said that for this reason one God is proclaimed by you, because he is one above all, unbegotten, uncreated. Answering, then, this audacity of yours, I said: But you call the Father uncreated, as though the Son were made, through whom all things were made. Then I added: Know that the Son was made, but in the form of a servant. For in the form of God he was so far from being made that through him all things were made. For if he himself was made, I said, then all things were not made through him, but only the rest. To these things you, with all the great length of your speech, found so little to say that you fell wholly silent about this matter, as though you had not heard it.

18. In the eighteenth place I thought I should deal with you also about the unborn Father, that is, the unbegotten—since you had said this too—and I said: I therefore do not call the Son unbegotten; but the Father the begetter, the Son the begotten. Yet the Father begot what he is; otherwise he is not a true Son, if the Son is not what the Father is; as we have already said above concerning the offspring of animals. To this too you brought forth nothing, neither true nor false.

19. In the nineteenth place, because you had demanded of me that I show the Holy Spirit to be equal to the Father, I answered you, saying: But what is it that you demand, that I show you the Holy Spirit to be equal to the Father, as though you had shown the Father to be greater than the Holy Spirit, as you were able to show concerning the Son, on account of the form of a servant? For we know, I said, that the Father was said to be greater than the Son, because the Son was in the form of a servant; and the Son is still in human form, which he raised to heaven; for this reason it was said of him that even now he "intercedes for us" (Rom 8:34). And this same immortal form will be everlasting in the kingdom; on account of which it was said: 'Then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who put all things under him' (1 Cor 15:28). But of the Holy Spirit, who took up no creature into the unity of his person—although he too deigned to show himself visibly through a subordinate creature, whether in the appearance of a dove or in tongues of fire (See Matt 3:16; Acts 2:3)—the Father was never said to be greater than he; the Spirit was never said to have adored the Father; he was never said to be less than the Father. To these things you, as if answering, nonetheless did not answer. For you could not show that anywhere the Father was said to be greater than the Holy Spirit, as the Son, on account of the form of a servant, said, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28). And when I had said that the Holy Spirit took up no creature into the unity of his person, you said that the Holy Spirit appeared in the dove and the fire just as Christ appeared in the man; as though the dove and the Spirit, or the fire and the Spirit, were one person, just as the Word and the man are one person. For those things appeared for an hour, to show visibly, by signifying, the invisible Holy Spirit—the dove on account of holy love, the fire on account of the light and fervor of love; and when the office of signification was completed, those bodily appearances passed away and ceased to be any longer, just as the pillar of cloud, cloudy by day, luminous by night (See Exod 13:21-22). In short, lest the dove or the flame should be thought to belong to the substance of the Holy Spirit, or that a nature of such great majesty turned itself into these visible things, or took them up into the unity of his person, the Holy Spirit is never afterward read to have so appeared. But Christ, who did not take on a human appearance for an hour, in which he might appear to human beings and then that appearance pass away, but into the unity of his person, the invisible form of God remaining, took the visible form of a man; not only was he born in it of a human mother, but he also grew in it, and ate, and drank, and slept in it, and was slain in it, and rose again in it, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father in it, and is to come to judge the living and the dead in it, and in his kingdom will be subject in it to him who put all things under him. These things, briefly said in my reply, which I have now explained somewhat more at length so that you might at least so understand, you would not attend to and consider, rushing into so great a blasphemy that you said the divine nature of God and of the Holy Spirit was convertible—oh, the wickedness!—and changeable. For these are your very words: The things, you say, which I argued about the invisibility of the omnipotent God, you yourself also, though with another purpose, nonetheless affirmed in your words: that the Holy Spirit was seen in the appearance of a dove, and also in the appearance of fire; the Son indeed in the form of a man; but the Father, neither in the appearance of a dove nor in the form of a man; nor did he ever turn himself into forms, nor will he ever be turned; of whom it is written: 'I am who I am, and I am not changed' (Exod 3:14; Mal 3:6). Then you add and say: The Son indeed, already established in the form of God, took, as you yourself brought forth, the form of a servant, which the Father did not; the Holy Spirit likewise took up the appearance of a dove, which the Father did not take up. Know therefore, you say, that the one is invisible, the one also incomprehensible and immense. Would you say these things, if you could think according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, what you say? For you are a man who read in the holy Scriptures, I am who I am, and I am not changed. And although these words are not of the Father alone, but of the Trinity itself, which is one God, you, attributing them to the Father only, believe the Son to be changeable! You believe the Only-Begotten, through whom all things were made, to be changeable; him of whom the Gospel says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and, All things were made through him (John 1:1, 3), you believe to be changeable! What shall I now say of the Holy Spirit, when you believe him to be changeable whom you confess to be the true Son of God and true God? This you surely would not believe, if, like a Catholic, you believed that the form of a servant was taken up by the form of God, not that the form of God was changed into the form of a servant; and if you thought, not carnally but spiritually, that, the visible man being assumed, the invisible God remained; and if you did not, by contending, distrust, but, by understanding, behold; and if you could faithfully consider that the Holy Spirit, his invisible nature remaining, in no way changed and turned into the appearance of fire or of a dove, appeared through a subordinate creature, as he willed, visibly (See Acts 2:3; Matt 3:16). Remember, however, that by no divine testimonies could you demonstrate, against my proposition, either that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, or that the Father was adored by the Holy Spirit.

20. In the twentieth place, since you had said of the Son, If he is equal to the Father, surely he is such as he; if such, surely unborn, I answered you: But you say, I said, of the Son, If equal, surely such; that is, that because he is not unbegotten, he does not seem such. You could say that he whom Adam begot is not a man, because Adam himself was not begotten but made by God. But if Adam could both not be begotten and yet beget what he himself was, will you not have it that God could beget a God equal to himself? To these things I do not wonder that you found no answer; but I plainly praise that you did not even try to answer. And would that you had done this everywhere! For nowhere in our discourses could you find what to answer rightly, and yet almost everywhere you were unwilling to keep silent. But since in other matters you said so many things not necessary to the cause that is at issue between us, and consumed the time in speaking, thanks are to be given you where you saw that you could not refute certain things in such a way that you preferred to pass them over in deepest silence.

The matter now demands that, in what remains, with the Lord's help, I fulfill my promise. For at the beginning of this work I said: First, I will show that you were unable to refute what I said; then, as far as will seem necessary, I myself will refute what you said. Since, then, as I was able with God's help, I have shown that you could not refute what I said, it remains for me to refute what you said, as I shall be able with God's help. Your earlier discourses, to which I made my replies in succession in this discussion that has now been undertaken by me, I will not go over again; but that last one, so very long that it took from me on that day the space for a reply, I will refute thus—if he who rules us so wills—that you may rest in the light of truth, if you have not loved the darkness of contention. First, then, I will strip away your superfluities from the necessity of my reply. For the cause at issue between us is whether the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of different substance, as you say, or rather, as we say, of one and the same substance, and the Trinity itself is one God; while it is agreed between us that the Father is not he who is the Son, nor the Son he who is the Father, nor the Father or the Son he who is the Holy Spirit. Whatever, therefore, you said with so great a length of discourse, to show that the Father is one, the Son another, the Holy Spirit another—know that, when you deal with us, it is altogether superfluous; and if you come upon Sabellians to be assailed, turn against them these arms common to us and to you, if you please. You also said much to prove that the Lord Jesus Christ is a great God; what is that to us, since we too say this? You also poured out great and true praises of the Holy Spirit; but we can add to them, not deny them; there was therefore no need to say against us things which we say with you. Do we not equally confess that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father? Yet you wished to prove this by testimonies of the divine words, as though we somewhere denied it. That Christ came in the flesh, both of us know and hold; you so brought forward divine testimonies to teach this, as though we resisted it. These and other matters, which I will show in their proper places, in which you wasted superfluous effort to weave delays and prolong the time, I ought to touch on by way of mention, not to refute by way of disputation.

1. You say that I, fortified by the help of princes, do not speak according to the fear of God; though you know that we are commanded to pray for kings, that they may come to the knowledge of the truth (See 1 Tim 2:2, 4); and that this has been fulfilled in certain ones, we give thanks to God, while you grieve. But our words indicate to those who rightly understand which of us speaks according to the fear of God: whether the one who so praises God the Father that he refers to his praise the fact that he begot for himself a Son equal to him; or the one who so dishonors both the begetter and the begotten that he says both that the begetter could not beget a son like himself in all things, and that the begotten, once born, did not degenerate, but was born degenerate.

2. You say that you worship Christ as the God of all creation, to whom every knee bends, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; whom nonetheless you will not have equal to God the Father, because the Father gave this to him; for the Apostle says, Therefore God also exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, and so on. Nor do you ask to whom he gave it, whether to the man or to God. For how he gave it appears clearly. He humbled himself, he says, unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:8-9). If, then, he gave him the name which is above every name because he became obedient unto the death of the cross, was it not the case that, before this happened, he was the exalted Son of God, God, the Word of God, God with God; but only after he was exalted on this account, because he became obedient unto the death of the cross, did he then begin to be the exalted Son of God, the only Son of God, God, then begin to have the name which is above every name? What most foolish person would say this? This, then, was given to him as man, according to which the Son became obedient unto the death of the cross—what the same Son of God himself, God born of God, equal, already had.

3. You object to me that I say the Holy Spirit is equal to the Son. I say so plainly. Give, you say, testimonies where the Holy Spirit is adored. As I see, you want him shown to be equal to Christ from this, if he is adored like Christ. Then now confess that Christ is equal to the Father, whom you yourself confess to be adored like the Father. But what kind of people are you, of what religious humility, who will not adore the Holy Spirit, when you read, The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6)? You will not, then, adore him whom you do not deny gives life to souls; while father Abraham adored human beings because they granted him a tomb where he might lay the body of his dead wife. For so it is written: And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep. And Abraham rose up from beside his dead, and said to the sons of Heth: 'I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me therefore the possession of a tomb, where I may bury my dead.' And the sons of Heth answered Abraham, saying: 'Not so, my lord; hear us now also: you are a king from God among us; bury your dead in our choice tombs; for none of us will keep you from his tomb, that you may bury your dead there.' And Abraham rose up and adored the people of the sons of Heth (Gen 23:2-7). And you do not permit the Holy Spirit to be adored, that you yourselves may remain ungrateful to the grace of God! But, Give, you say, testimonies where the Holy Spirit is adored; as though from the things we read we did not understand some things also that we do not read. But, lest I be compelled to seek out many things, where did you read that God the Father is unbegotten or unborn? And yet it is true. But that you said several times that the Father is incomparable even to the Son, you neither read nor is it true. But if you considered, as is fitting, the religion by which God is worshiped, you would discern it to be far more that the Holy Spirit has a temple than if you read that he was adored. For human beings too, as I taught above, we know to have been adored; but a temple has been made by human beings only either for the true God, as Solomon made one, or for those who are held to be gods, as the gentiles who do not know God. But the Holy Spirit—what was said with great honor of God—does not dwell in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24), but our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And lest you despise our bodies, they are members of Christ (See 1 Cor 6:19, 15). What kind of God, then, is he for whom a temple is built, and by God, and out of the members of God?

4. You say that Christ is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us (See Rom 8:34). Why do you object this to us, if you acknowledge him to be not only God but also man? What, then, does it help you that he is read again and again to sit at the right hand of the Father? Why do you strive to prove to us—not, indeed, by empty testimonies, but yet emptily—what we confess?

5. You say that you fittingly honor the Holy Spirit as teacher, as guide, as enlightener, as sanctifier; that you worship Christ as creator; that you adore the Father with sincere devotion as author. If you call the Father author because the Son is from him, while he himself is not from the Son; and because the Holy Spirit so proceeds from him and the Son that he himself gave this to the Son by begetting him such that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from him; if you call the Son creator in such a way that you do not deny the Father and the Holy Spirit to be creator; if, finally, you call the Holy Spirit teacher, guide, enlightener, sanctifier in such a way that you dare not take these works away from either the Father or the Son: then let these words of yours be ours too. But if you set up such idols in your heart that you make two gods, one greater, that is, the Father, the other lesser, that is, the Son; and feign the Holy Spirit so far the least of all three that you do not even deign to name him God: this is not our faith, since it is not the Christian faith, and therefore not faith at all. This too we forgive you, that, using the word unskillfully, you indicated that Christ descended to earthly contagions. And because I wished to correct this in you, that you might know how we ought to use the word "contagions," you say that these are slanders, and you suppose that they come from training in the philosophic art. It is enough for me that you so thought Christ descended to earthly contagions that you nonetheless confessed he had no sin.

6. That, indeed, which I mentioned—the offspring of animals, which, though they are earthly and mortal, nonetheless beget what they themselves are, as a man a man, a dog a dog—I think you did not really shudder at in disdain, but pretended to disdain and shudder, saying that so foul a comparison ought not to be brought up into that great immensity. For why did you say this, unless lest the truth should grip your throat from those very corruptible offspring and not let you breathe, as indeed it does? Since you discern that a corruptible creature begets its offspring as what it itself is, and yet you believe that God the omnipotent Father could not beget his only Son except with his nature degenerating.

7. But you say: Lord begot Lord, God begot God, King begot King, Creator begot Creator, the good begot the good, the wise begot the wise, the merciful the merciful, the powerful the powerful. If under these words you think you guard yourself against what is objected to you—that you do not believe God could beget what he himself is—and therefore say, Lord begot Lord, God begot God, and the rest; why then, just as you said, the powerful the powerful, do you not say, The omnipotent the omnipotent? If you want to say what you think, say: A greater Lord begot a lesser lord; a greater God a lesser god; a greater King a lesser king; a greater Creator a lesser creator; a better one a good one, a wiser one a wise one, a more merciful one a merciful one, a more powerful one a powerful one. But if you do not say these things, and you agree that the Son has nothing less than the Father has, why do you not say he is equal? And why do you not run through all those terms so as to say: Lord begot an equal Lord, God an equal God, King an equal King, Creator an equal Creator, the good one equally good, the wise one equally wise, the merciful one equally merciful, the powerful one equally powerful? But if you deny that he is equal, say openly that he is degenerate. For you do not even allow the god whom you say to be lesser, born of a greater God, to grow at least like an infant, so that he might at some time be equal to his Father. For you say he was born perfect for this purpose, not that his praise might grow from this, but that his nature might remain lesser. And although you think these things, you nonetheless go on and say: The Father took nothing away in begetting the Son. How did he take nothing away in begetting the Son, whom he begot not equal but lesser? Or did he take nothing away because he took from the begotten none of the things he gave by begetting? Indeed in that sense he took nothing away; but the Creator also takes nothing away from the children of human beings who are happily born, once they are born; rather, he adds, so that there may accrue to them as they grow what was lacking to them as they were born. What great thing, then, did you say about the Father in regard to his only Son, who was made neither out of nothing nor out of some matter, but born of him? What is great in his not taking away what he gave, if by not giving he took away what he could have given? Where is it that you said he is not envious? Or perhaps he could not give? Where is the omnipotence of God the Father? The matter is gathered to this very point: that God the Father either could not, or would not, beget a Son equal to himself. If he could not, he is found weak; if he would not, envious. But both of these are false. The true Son, therefore, is equal to God the Father. If, then, as you praise, that pleases you which I cited: For his invisible things, through the things that have been made, are understood and seen (Rom 1:20); through that which has been made in the visible creature, that parents beget what they themselves are, understand the invisible birth of the true Son of God, lest you say that God the Father begot what he himself is not. But if he begot this, which he himself is, do not refuse to confess that the substance of the Father and the Son is one.

8. As for what follows, which you so strung together as to wish to prove to us, from the cross or the incarnation of Christ, what we equally believe, you kept to your custom; but, answering you nothing on these matters, I too keep my promise.

9. 1. When we were dealing with the invisible Son, whom you agreed to be invisible according to his divinity—you who had earlier presumed that the Father alone is invisible—you said many things not to the point about invisible creatures: which those who read will be able to judge. The question between us is about the invisible God; and this is what makes the question, that you think the Father alone was called invisible, where the Apostle says, To the immortal, invisible, only God (1 Tim 1:17). If he had said, To the only Father, perhaps the question would be more difficult to resolve; but because he said, to the only God, it is surely not against us; for both the Only-Begotten in the form of God, and the Holy Spirit in his own nature, is invisible. For the Trinity itself is proclaimed by us as the one and only God. Whether we understand this rightly has been demonstrated by us in other places, and where there is still need, it will be demonstrated. Now, in this question, it can not unreasonably move one how it was said of the only God, who is the Trinity itself, To the invisible, only God; since there is also a certain invisible creature, on account of which it was said of Christ that in him all things were created, visible and invisible (Col 1:16). Because, then, there are visible false gods, therefore it was said, To the invisible, only God be honor and glory. For although there is an invisible creature, it is nonetheless not a god to us. But even if it had not been said, to the only God, but it had been said, But to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, alone be honor and glory, who would this be but God? Honor, therefore, and glory to the only God, who is the invisible God, not who is alone invisible; since there is, as we said, also an invisible creature. Likewise it can be asked how it was said, No one has ever seen God (John 1:18); when the words of the same Lord are, Do you not know that their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven? (Matt 18:10) Which sentence refutes you, who do not know in what manner you call the Father invisible. But that which he says, Not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father (John 6:46)—the word anyone can be referred to human beings. And because he himself was a man who was then speaking in the flesh, he said this as if he said: Not that any of human beings has seen the Father except me; as it is said, Who is wise, and will understand these things? (Ps 107:43 (106:43)) For this cannot be taken of the holy angels too. Hence the Apostle put it more plainly concerning the invisible God: Whom no one of human beings has seen or can see (1 Tim 6:16). For he did not say, No one, but, No one of human beings. Here he shows how it ought to be understood that it was said, No one has ever seen God; that is, no one of human beings, just as, No one has ascended into heaven (John 3:13); though angels are accustomed to ascend there, because they are accustomed to descend from there. Nor yet did the Apostle say, No one of human beings will be able to see God; but, No one can. For a human being will be able to see God, but then, when the reward of the faithful will be eternal. On account of which the apostle John says, Beloved, we are children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). What, then, is it that you say, that the Father alone is invisible? Which you would say in vain, even if he were seen by the Son alone. But now, since the divine words testify that he is seen even by the angels, and is to be seen even by human beings, when they have been made equal to the angels (See Matt 22:30), what is it that you say? Where is what you dared to define, that the lesser are seen by the greater, but the greater are not seen by the lesser? Which indeed you afterward lost, when you confessed that the Father is seen by the Son, while you say that the Son is lesser even in the very substance of divinity, and the Father greater. But what will you say of the angels, who always see the face of God the Father? Surely, on account of your rule, which you fixed without consideration, the angels are not to be thought greater than God the Father?

9. 2. But you think you elegantly found what to say, where you said of the Son, He saw the Father, then, but he saw the incomprehensible one. Nor do you attend to the fact that, although he saw the incomprehensible one, whom, as you suppose, he could not comprehend, he nonetheless did not see an invisible one, whom he could see. But you, when you said these things, were disputing with us not about the comprehensible and the incomprehensible, but about the visible and the invisible; for the Apostle did not say, To the incomprehensible, but he said, To the invisible, only God (1 Tim 1:17). Hence you thought this testimony should be brought forward for you, so that from it you might also disparage the Son, as though he were not invisible in the form of God. But since, convicted by the truth, you confessed the Son too to be invisible, you prepared yourself, as I suppose, to say thus: The invisible begot the invisible; just as you said, the powerful the powerful; so that, when you were pressed how this could be said by you, you might answer: A more invisible one begot an invisible one, just as a more powerful one a powerful one, a wiser one a wise one, and the rest of your terms. But how wisely you showed the Father incomprehensible to the Son, but the Son comprehensible to the Father! For you said: He saw the Father, then, but he saw the incomprehensible one. But the Father, you say, sees the Son in such a way as to hold him and have him in his bosom. Thus none are minded but those who are minded carnally. For you imagine a bosom, as I see, as some capacity of the greater Father, by which he may contain and hold the lesser Son: just as a house bodily contains a man, or as a nurse's bosom contains an infant. Therefore among the marvels of Christ this too will be counted, that in the form of a servant he grew and was made greater than he had been in the form of God, so that, though earlier he was carried in the bosom of the Father, he now sits at the right hand of the Father. Cast these childish or old-wives' phantasms out of your heart; and take the bosom of the Father to have been so called that the one may be understood as begotten, the other as begetter; not that the one is greater, the other lesser. For if the Father is incomprehensible, but the Son is not incomprehensible, then it was not said truly, All things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15); since it can be answered to him: Behold, the Father has incomprehensibility, which is not yours. But since what the Truth said was said truly, and all things that the Father has are the Son's, the incomprehensibility of the Father, however great it be, cannot but be the Son's. And this sentence of the Lord, where he says, All things that the Father has are mine, we ought to apply to you in many cases, as a most correct rule, whether to convict you or, what we more desire, to correct you: so that wherever you attribute to the Father something which you deny to the Son, we may produce this most faithful witness against your errors or against your lies. But what need is there to resist you in this, that you contend human wisdom is visible, when you have granted that the human soul itself, in which surely human wisdom is, is invisible? But whatever you think about the whole invisible creation, as far as concerns God, about whom the matter is at issue between us, it has been sufficiently demonstrated to you that the Father is not alone invisible.

10. 1. You think that God the Father, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, cannot be one God; for you fear lest the Father alone not be one God, but a part of one God who consists of three. Do not fear: no division into parts occurs in the unity of deity. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, the Trinity itself, is one God. He is the one God of whom it was said, There is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4); and who said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4). To this one and only God we acknowledge that we serve without any scruple, when we hear and read, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:13). Lest perhaps, on account of these words, we should be unwilling to serve Christ, whose members we are (See 1 Cor 6:15), or the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are (See 1 Cor 3:17), if we took what was said—the Lord your God only shall you serve—as though it were said of the Father alone, and not of the Trinity itself. But you, when you are asked whom you believe him to be of whom it is written, The Lord your God, the Lord is one, answer, It is God the Father. And likewise, when you are asked of which Lord God it was said, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve, you answer again: Of God the Father. Then it is said to you: If the Lord our God is one Lord, and this is the Father, why do you make two lord gods, by saying that Christ too is Lord God? Likewise, if it is the Father, the one Lord God whom alone is to be served, how do you obey this precept, you who serve Christ too as Lord God? For he does not serve him alone who serves this one too. But according to the right faith, all of us who have learned that the Trinity itself is our one Lord God, surely, when we serve him alone with the service that is owed to God, we trust that we serve the Lord God alone.

10. 2. Therefore, you say, God the Father is a part of God. God forbid. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons; and these three, because they are of one substance, are one, and supremely one, where there is no diversity of natures, no diversity of wills. But if they were one in nature and were not so by agreement, they would not be supremely one; but if they were unequal in nature, they would not be one. These three, then, who are one on account of the ineffable conjunction of deity by which they are ineffably joined, are one God. Now Christ is one person of a twofold substance, because he is both God and man. Yet God cannot be called a part of this person; otherwise the Son of God, God, was not whole before he took the form of a servant, and he grew when the man was added to his divinity. But if this is said most absurdly of the one person, because God cannot be a part of any thing, how much more can no one of the three in the Trinity be a part of the Trinity? Then, where the Apostle says, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17), is the Lord a part of this one? For if we say this, what else are we caught saying but that he is increased when a man cleaves to him, and is diminished when one departs? In the Trinity, therefore, which is God, both the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and together these three are one God; and one is not a third part of this Trinity, nor are two there a greater part than one; nor are all together anything greater than each singly: because the greatness is spiritual, not corporeal. Let him who can grasp it, grasp it (See Matt 19:12); but let him who cannot, believe, and pray that he may understand what he believes. For it is true what is said through the prophet, Unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa 7:9).

10. 3. You indeed said that the one God is not composed of parts. And because you want this understood of the Father, you say: He, what he is, is an unbegotten power, simple. And yet in this simple power, see how many things you mentioned. For your earlier words are these: God begot God, Lord begot Lord, King begot King, Creator begot Creator, the good begot the good, the wise begot the wise, the merciful the merciful, the powerful the powerful. Why, then, in the simple power, which is God, were you not afraid to mention so many powers? For, to omit the four you set down in the earlier place, and to name another four, which we can express by usual terms—are not goodness and wisdom and mercy and power parts of the one power which you said is simple? If you say, They are parts, then the simple power is composed of parts, and this simple power, by your definition, is one God. Do you, then, say that the one God is composed of parts? I do not say so, you reply. They are not parts, then; and yet they are four, and there is one power, and the same is simple. If, then, in the one person of the Father you find both several things and do not find parts, how much more are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit both one God on account of the indivisible deity, and three persons on account of the property of each, and not parts of one God on account of the perfection of each? The Father is power, the Son is power, the Holy Spirit is power. This you say truly; but that you will not have the power begotten of power, and the power proceeding from power, to have the same nature—this you say falsely, this you say against the right and Catholic faith.

11. You return to ask of me in what way the Son is invisible—about which I have already said above what seemed to be said. But, if for this reason, you say, the Son is declared invisible by you, because he cannot be beheld with human eyes, why do you not equally declare the heavenly powers invisible, since they too cannot be seen by human gazes? You say this as though the manner by which the heavenly powers are invisible could be comprehended by a human being; or as though we ought to be intent on inquiring into this, when Scripture says, Do not seek things higher than yourself (Sir 3:22). Despising this precept, you dared to say that an angel is seen by an archangel, but an archangel is not seen by an angel. Let it be enough that I showed it does not follow that we should believe the Son visible in the form of God because it is written, To the invisible, only God (1 Tim 1:17). Which you showed yourself to take of the Father in such a way as though the Son were not invisible, although Scripture testifies that he is the creator even of invisible things. Yet it remains for you to say: Both are indeed invisible, that is, both the Father and the Son, but the Father is more invisible; and so, by giving something to the Father which is not the Son's, you make the same Son a liar when he says, All things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15).

12. 1. You are minded thus about power too, namely, that the Son is indeed powerful, but the Father more powerful than the Son: so that, with you as authors and teachers, the powerful one could beget a powerful one, but the omnipotent one could not beget an omnipotent one. And thereby, if the Father has an omnipotence which the Son does not have, what the Son says is false: All things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15). Then, if the Father does anything that the Son cannot do, the Father is rightly said to be more powerful than the Son; but since he says, Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19), is he not better heard than you, and is he not better believed when he teaches than you when you deceive? But the Father, you say, received power from no one, while the Son received it from the Father. We too confess that the Son received power from him of whom he was born powerful; but to the Father no one gave power, because no one begot him. For by begetting the Father gave power to the Son, just as he gave him, by begetting, all that he has in his substance, to him whom he begot of his substance. But the question is whether the Father gave the Son as great a power as is his own, or a lesser one. If as great, then let him be said, believed, and understood to have begotten not only a powerful one but an omnipotent one: if a lesser, how are all things that the Father has the Son's? If the Father's omnipotence is not the Son's, how does whatever the Father does, the Son do likewise? Which surely he cannot, if he is not omnipotent.

12. 2. And thereby, what the Apostle says, Blessed and alone powerful, I am not compelled to take of the Father only, but of God, which is the Trinity itself. For, speaking to Timothy, he says: I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment without stain, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in its own times he will show who is the blessed and alone powerful, King of kings and Lord of lords; who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light; whom no one of human beings has seen or can see; to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen (1 Tim 6:13-16). I see nothing here said that does not befit the Trinity. But, to keep silent now about the Holy Spirit, whom you will not have to be God even as one lesser than the Son—because you will not have him to be God at all—it is enough that we convict you concerning the Father and the Son. For surely, because the Apostle said, I testify to you before God, who gives life to all things, does the Father alone, and not the Son too, give life to all things? If you say that the Father alone gives life to all things, how then does whatever the Father does, the Son do likewise (John 5:19)? Since the Father, as you suppose, gives life to all things, which the Son does not do. Then, where he says, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will (John 5:21), how is it true, if the Father gives life to all things without the Son? Accordingly, what he added, and before Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, he wished to say properly of the Son: for the Son indeed, like the Father, gives life to all things; but under Pontius Pilate, in the form of a servant, we know it was the Son who suffered, not the Father. Then it is added: to keep the commandment without stain, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; which in its own times he will show who is blessed and alone powerful; which—namely, the appearing of the Lord Christ; he will show—surely God, which is not the Father alone, because according to the truth, not according to your error, the Trinity is one God: blessed and alone powerful, King of kings and Lord of lords. For do even you dare to say that the Son is not King of kings and Lord of lords? Of whom, among other things, it is written in the Revelation of John: And he himself treads the winepress of the wine of the mighty, and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev 19:15-16). But lest perhaps you say that the Son has the name of the Father written on his garment and on his thigh, in another place of the same book it is read earlier: And the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings (Rev 17:14). Therefore, according to you, there are two kings of kings and lords of lords; and it is against you, if the Apostle says of the Father only, Blessed and alone powerful, King of kings and Lord of lords. But truly, according to the right faith, the Trinity itself is one God, blessed and alone powerful, King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light. And how will it be true, Come to him and be enlightened (Ps 34:5 (33:6)), unless because no one can do this if one presumes upon oneself, but only if he himself grants it? But God is said to have immortality alone, because he alone is immutable. For in every mutable nature the change itself is a kind of death, because it makes something in it not to be what it was. Accordingly, even the human soul itself, which is called immortal for this reason, that in whatever way, according to its mode, it never ceases to live, nonetheless has, according to its own mode, a kind of death of its own: for if it was living justly and sins, it dies to justice; if it was a sinner and is justified, it dies to sin—to say nothing of its other changes, about which it is long to dispute. And the nature of heavenly creatures could die, because it could sin: for angels too sinned and were made demons, of whom the devil is prince. And those who did not sin were able to sin. And to whatever rational creature it is granted that it cannot sin, this is not of its own nature but of God's grace. And thereby God alone has immortality, who, not by anyone's grace but by his own nature, neither could nor can be changed by any turning, neither could nor will be able to sin by any change. Whom, according to the nature by which he is God, no one of human beings has seen or can see; but one will at some time be able to, if he belongs to that number of human beings of whom it was said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). To this God, that is, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which Trinity is one God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

12. 3. But far be it that, as you suppose, the Father is more powerful than the Son for this reason, that the Father begot a creator, while the Son did not beget a creator. For it was not that he could not, but that he ought not. For the divine generation would be without measure, if the begotten Son begot a grandson for the Father: because that grandson too, unless he begot a great-grandson for his grandfather, would, according to your marvelous wisdom, be called impotent. Likewise, that one too, if he did not beget a grandson for his grandfather and a great-grandson for his great-grandfather, would not be called by you omnipotent: nor would the series of generation be completed, if always one were born of another; nor would anyone bring it to completion, if one did not suffice. The Omnipotent, therefore, begot an omnipotent Son; since whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19). For surely the Father's nature begot the Son, it did not make him.

13. 1. In that testimony too, where the Apostle says, To the only wise God (Rom 16:27), your error is not unlike the other; but what we answered you about power, this also we answer about wisdom. For if the Apostle had said, To the only wise Father, not even so would he separate the Son from it. For surely, because in the Revelation it is read of the Son, Having a name written, which no one knows but he himself (Rev 19:12), does the Father therefore not know this name, from whom the Son is inseparable? As, then, the Father too knows what no one was said to know except the Son, because they are inseparable; so also, if it had been said, To the only wise Father, the Son too ought to be understood together, because they are inseparable. But since it was not said, To the only wise Father, but, To the only wise God, and the one God is the Trinity itself, the solution of this question is much easier for us; so that we understand the only wise God just as we understood the only powerful one, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is the one and only God, whom alone we are commanded to serve: lest, understanding it badly, or rather not understanding it, we should seem to act against this precept, because we serve the Lord Christ too with the service that is owed to God. For it was not said: You shall worship the Lord your God the Father, and him you shall serve more; so that we should be permitted to serve the Son too, but more the Father as greater, and less the Son as a lesser God; but it was said, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:13); the only omnipotent, the only wise God; so that you should be refuted, you who, unwilling to accept the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as one and only God, and saying that the one Lord God, whom alone is to be served, is none but God the Father, and yet confessing the Son too to be God and Lord, most openly say there are two gods and lords, one greater, the other lesser; and you show yourselves guilty, according to your error, of violating this precept, because you serve not only the greater, but also the lesser, with the service that is owed to the Lord God.

13. 2. But where the Apostle said, To the only wise God, when he wrote to the Romans, he speaks thus at the end of the Letter: Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for eternal ages but now made manifest through the writing of the Prophets, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all the gentiles unto the obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever (Rom 16:25-27). That is, To him who is able to strengthen you, to the only wise God, be glory for ever and ever. But as for what is inserted, through Jesus Christ—whether it ought to be taken as to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, that is, so that the only wise God is understood to be wise through Jesus Christ, not by participating but by begetting wisdom, which is Christ Jesus; or rather not as wise through Jesus Christ, but as glory to the only wise God through Jesus Christ—seems ambiguous. But who would dare to say that it comes about through Jesus Christ that God the Father is wise, when, according to his own substance, it is not to be doubted that he is wise, and the substance of the Son is rather through the begetting Father than the substance of the Father through the begotten Son? It remains, then, that to the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ, that is, clear knowledge with praise, by which God the Trinity has become known to the gentiles: therefore through Jesus Christ, because—to be silent about other things—he himself commanded the gentiles to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (See Matt 28:19); where the glory of this indivisible Trinity was especially commended. God, therefore, which is the Trinity itself, is rightly called the only wise for this reason, that he alone is wise according to his own substance: not according to an accidental or accruing participation of wisdom, as any rational creature is wise. But as for the addition of to whom, so that it is said, to whom be glory, when it would suffice if it had been said, But to him be glory, this indicates a manner of speech unusual in our language; it does not introduce a meaning that we should inquire into, or about which we should be in doubt. For what is lost to the meaning if it is said: To him be glory, to whom be glory through Christ? For this, through Jesus Christ to whom be glory, is the same as, to whom through Jesus Christ be glory. But of these the one order of words is unusual, the other usual.

14. 1. You ask of me: If the Son is of the substance of the Father, the Holy Spirit too is of the substance of the Father; why is the one a Son, and the other not a son? Behold, I answer, whether you grasp it or do not grasp it. The Son is of the Father, the Holy Spirit is of the Father; but the one is begotten, the other proceeding: therefore the one is the Son of the Father, of whom he is begotten; but the other is the Spirit of both, since he proceeds from both. But the reason the Son, when he spoke of him, said, He proceeds from the Father (John 15:26), is that the Father is the author of his procession, who begot such a Son, and by begetting gave him that the Holy Spirit should proceed also from him. For unless he proceeded also from him, he would not have said to the disciples, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), and given him by breathing on them, so that, signifying that he proceeds from himself too, he might openly show by breathing what by inspiring he was giving secretly. Because, then, if he were born, he would surely be born not only of the Father, nor only of the Son, but of both; without doubt he would be called the son of both. And thereby, because he is in no way the son of both, it was not fitting that he be born of both. He is, then, the Spirit of both, by proceeding from both. But what difference there is between being born and proceeding, who can explain, speaking of that most excellent nature? Not everything that proceeds is born, although everything that is born proceeds; just as not everything that is two-footed is a human being, although everyone who is a human being is two-footed. This I know; but to distinguish between that generation and this procession I do not know, I am not able, I do not suffice. And thereby, because both that and this are ineffable, just as the prophet, speaking of the Son, says, Who shall declare his generation? (Isa 53:8), so of the Holy Spirit it is most truly said: Who shall declare his procession? Let it be enough for us, then, that the Son is not of himself, but of him of whom he was born; the Holy Spirit is not of himself, but of him from whom he proceeds. And because he proceeds from both, as we have already shown: hence he is called both the Spirit of the Father, where it is read, But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you; and the Spirit of the Son, where it is read, But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Rom 8:11, 9). For there are not two Holy Spirits, as if one each for each, one of the Father, the other of the Son; but rather one of the Father and the Son: of which one Spirit it is written, For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free; and we were all given to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12:13). And in another place: One body and one Spirit (Eph 4:4).

14. 2. What, then, is this Trinity but of one and the same substance? Since the Son is not of some matter or of nothing, but of him of whom he was begotten; and likewise the Holy Spirit is not of some matter or of nothing, but is from there whence he proceeds. But you will not have the Son begotten of the Father's substance, and yet you grant that he is neither out of nothing nor out of some matter, but out of the Father. Nor do you see how necessary it is that one who is not out of nothing, is not out of some other thing, but out of God, cannot but be out of God's substance, and be what God is of whom he is, that is, God of God. Wherefore God born of God—because there was not first something else, but a coeternal nature is from God—is nothing other than he of whom he is, that is, of one and the same nature, or of one and the same substance. When you hear this, I do not know what kind of heart you have, you who think that we say the Son was born of the Father just as bodies are born of bodies; and because these are born corruptibly, you accuse us as though we attributed bodily suffering and corruption to the generation of the Only-Begotten, which is from the Father. For, full of carnal thoughts, you do not think that the substance of God can beget a Son from itself unless it suffer what the substance of the flesh suffers when it begets. You err, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (See Matt 22:29). When you read, That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20), think of the true Son of God. But you in no way think of this Son as the true Son of God, if you deny that he was born of the substance of the Father. For was he already the son of a man, and made by God's gift the Son of God—born of God indeed, but by grace, not by nature? Or perhaps, though not the son of a man, he was nonetheless already some kind of creature, and was, by God's changing, turned into the Son of God? If none of these, then he was born either of nothing or of some substance. But lest we should believe that you think the Son of God is of nothing, you have already freed us from this concern: for you affirmed that you do not say the Son of God is of nothing. He is, then, of some substance. If not of the Father's, of what? Tell us. But you do not find it. Now, therefore, let it not irk you to confess with us that the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is of the substance of the Father.

14. 3. The Father, then, and the Son are of one and the same substance. This is that homoousios which in the Council of Nicaea was established against the Arian heretics by the Catholic Fathers with the authority of truth and the truth of authority: which afterward, in the Council of Ariminum, on account of the novelty of the word—understood less than it ought to have been, though the ancient faith had given it birth—the heretical impiety, under the heretical emperor Constantius, tried to overthrow, with many deceived by the fraud of a few. But after no long time, the liberty of the Catholic faith prevailing, after the force of the word was understood as it should have been, that homoousios was defended far and wide by the soundness of the Catholic faith. For what is homoousios but of one and the same substance? What, I say, is homoousios but, I and the Father are one (John 10:30)? But now neither ought I to bring forward the Council of Nicaea, nor you the Council of Ariminum, as though to prejudge the matter. Neither am I bound by the authority of the one, nor you by that of the other: let matter contend with matter, cause with cause, reason with reason, by the authorities of the Scriptures—witnesses belonging not to either of us privately, but common to both. Both of us read: That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ; he is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). Let both of us yield to masses of such great weight. Tell us, then, whether this true Son of God—distinguished by a certain property of this name from those who are sons by grace—is of no substance, or of some. I do not say, you reply, of none, lest I say of nothing. Then he is of some: I ask, of what? If not of the Father's, seek another. If you do not find another, because you find none at all, acknowledge the Father's, and confess the Son to be homoousios with the Father. Flesh is born of flesh, the son of flesh is born of the substance of flesh. Take corruption out of the way, cast carnal passions away from the light of the mind, and behold the invisible things of God, understood through the things that have been made (See Rom 1:20). Believe the Creator, who gave to flesh to beget flesh, who gave to parents to generate true sons of the flesh from the substance of the flesh, and so that the sons are of one substance with the parents—much more was he able to beget a true Son of his substance, and to have one substance with the true Son, spiritual incorruption remaining, and carnal corruption being most utterly foreign to this.

14. 4. For what you meant to say about the soul, I do not know. For your words are these, where you say: For we do not compare that great magnificence to the nobility of the soul, but to the frailty of the body. From the body, surely, you say, is born flesh, a bodily son; yet from the soul a soul is not born. After this, as it were, definition of yours, you again affirm that the soul generates children. For you add and say: If, then, our soul generates incorruptibly and impassibly, feeling no diminution, no defilement, but lawfully, according to divine right, generates a child—lending the assent of wisdom to the body, while itself remaining whole—how much more the omnipotent God? And a little after you say: How much more did God the incorruptible Father incorruptibly beget the Son? I have already said above that I do not know what you wished to be understood about the soul, of which you first said that a soul is not born of a soul, and afterward, that the soul incorruptibly begets a child. If it begets a soul, how is a soul not born of a soul? If it begets flesh, you may see how flesh is a true son of the soul. For Christ, on whose account you thought this comparison should be applied, is the true Son of God. But if you wished it to be taken thus, that the soul incorruptibly begets a child, as the Apostle says, For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel (1 Cor 4:15), why do you not attend to the fact that those souls already existed in their old life, whom the Apostle begot by renewing them through the gospel? But the Word of God, the only-begotten Son, God, as we have already argued, was not first something else and then generated by the Father by renewal, but always was with the Father; just as he is and always will be, in a marvelous and ineffable manner, begotten from eternity, coeternal. But if you introduced this unlike likeness for this reason, to assert that God the Father begot incorruptibly, do not labor: I confess entirely that God the Father begot incorruptibly, but that he begot what he himself is. For I say here again, what must often be said to you: Either the Son of God was born of some substance, or of none. If of none, then of nothing; which we now hold that you do not say. If of some, and yet not of the Father's, he is not a true Son. If of the Father's, the Father and the Son are of one and the same substance. But how did he take nothing away from the Son, as you say, if he is of the same substance, and yet is lesser, and cannot grow like an infant?

14. 5. But concerning the immortality of God—that the Apostle said not the Father, but God, who is both Father and Son and Holy Spirit, alone has immortality—I have argued sufficiently above, when I both set down the whole apostolic testimony itself and expounded it.

14. 6. It displeases you that we assert the Son to be equal to the Father: as though one could be unequal who is a true Son, not born in time, but coeternal with his begetter, just as the splendor begotten of fire is shown to be coeval with its begetter. But, you say, the Son of God has the Father as his author. If you call God the Father the author of God the Son for this reason, that the one begot, the other was begotten; that the one is of the other, not the other of the one—I admit and concede it. But if by the name "author" you wish to make the Son lesser and the Father greater, and the Son not of the same substance as the Father—I will detest and reject it:

for the son of a man also, insofar as he is a son, has an author of whom he was born, his father; nor for that reason is he not of the same substance as his father; and although the one is lesser and the other greater, the one can nonetheless attain to the form and strength of the father by growing—in which respect he does not find the father altogether such, because the father too has declined by growing old. For so it is necessary that mortality be varied by age, where the birth is temporal, not eternal. But that other birth is not so, where the Son neither grows nor the Father grows old. And therefore the age of the two is not unequal; because where there is eternity, there is no age: therefore the form of the two is not unequal; since the true Son, who was not born in order to be increased, lest he remain degenerate, was born equal. Let the divine birth, then, be far better and more excellent than the human birth, by an incorruptible and inviolable generation; yet let it not be inferior by a diversity of nature.

14. 7. But, he says, the Son received life from the Father. He received it as one begotten from one begetting. All things, he says, that the Father has are mine (John 16:15). All things, then, that the Father has, the one gave by begetting, the other received by being born. Neither did the one lose by giving what he had; nor did the other receive when he existed and did not have: but just as the one remained having all things, when he had given to the Son all the things that he has; so the other was never without all the things which he received, not by needing, but by being born as Son: because he never could be unborn, and the things without which he was not born—and he was born immutable—he always had, because he was always born. For if the Father did not give to the Son some of the things that he has, what the Son says is false: All things that the Father has are mine. But because it is true, the one gave absolutely all things that the Father has, as we said, by begetting, and the other received them by being born. And thereby the one gave life, because he begot life; the other received life, because he was born life: if a lesser, if a faded, if a different life, then it is not the life that the Father had which he gave to the Son. And how is it true, All things that the Father has are mine? But who would dare to say: What the Truth said is not true? Wherefore, as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself (John 5:26). As he has, he gave; what he has, he gave; such as he has, such he gave; as much as he has, so much he gave. All things that the Father has are the Son's. He did not, therefore, give to the Son anything less than the Father has; nor did the Father lose the life which he gave to the Son. For by living he kept the life which by begetting he gave. But the Father himself is life, the Son himself is life. For both the one and the other has what he himself is: but the one is life of no one, the other is life of life; yet such as that life, as great as that life, altogether what that life is; because he is a true Son, because he is a perfect Son, because the only Son, God, is not degenerate from the one God the Father, the Son, therefore, is equal to the Father. Whatever you say he received from the Father, we too confess: absolutely, the Father gave, the Son received. But since the Father gave all things that he has by begetting, he surely begot an equal, since he gave nothing less. How, then, do you say that, because the one gave, the other received, the Son is therefore not equal to the Father, when you see that the one to whom all things were given received equality itself? It is written indeed, It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35); but in this life, where there is want, than which abundance is surely better. For it is better to have than to lack; and it is better to give than to receive, to bestow than to beg. But where the one who gave, gave by begetting, and the one who received, received by being born, the one in want was not relieved, but abundance itself was generated. Nor can the one who received be unequal to the one who gave, because he received this too, that he should be equal. For he who says, All things that the Father has are mine, has nothing less than the Father. He is equal, therefore. But because he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not losing the form of God; so he was made, in that same form of a servant, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, in which he was made a little lower than the angels (Phil 2:7-8; see Ps 8:5 (8:6)), that he might remain equal to the Father in the form of God: because that form is not changeable.

14. 8. What wonder is it, then, if he says the things you mention: I always do what is pleasing to the Father (John 8:29); and at the tomb of Lazarus, Father, I thank you that you have heard me; I knew that you always hear me, but I said it on account of those who stand around, that they may believe that you sent me (John 11:41-42); and again, I must work the works of him who sent me (John 9:4); and before he broke the loaves, he first gave thanks to the Father (Matt 26:26; Mark 8:6; John 6:11)? If by these and like testimonies you had wished to show that the Son is, in the form of a servant, lesser than the Father, and that in the very form of God the one is of the other, not the other of the one—which, often signifying, he says many things in such a way that those who do not understand him suppose him lesser even in his very divinity—then you would hold the right rule of faith, so as not to contradict the truth; nor would you assail the Gospel through such testimonies, but teach it. For what things are pleasing to the Father which are not also pleasing to the Son? Or whence can the Son do anything but the things that are pleasing to the Father, from whom he has all the things in which he is equal to the Father? How does he not give thanks to the Father, of whom he is, especially in the form of a servant, in which he is lesser than him? How does he not, as man, ask the Father, who as God hears together with the Father? But what Christian does not know that the Father sent, and the Son was sent? For it was fitting that not the begetter be sent by the one whom he begot, but the begotten by the begetter: yet this is not an inequality of substance, but an order of nature; not that the one was prior to the other, but that the one was from the other. It was fitting, then, that the one who was sent work the works of the one by whom he was sent: and what works of the Father are not also the Son's, when the same Son says, Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19)? Yet he says they are the works of the Father: for he does not forget from whom he is; for from the Father it is his to be the worker of such works. But you understand these things in such a way that from this too you think the Father greater than the Son, because he said that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without the will of the Father (See Matt 10:29); as though it fall without the will of the Son. Or do you want the Son so much lesser that he does not have even sparrows in his power? But if you will not rest in this rule—that wherever you read, in the authority of the divine words, something by which the Son seems to be shown lesser than the Father, you either take it as said of the form of a servant, in which he is truly lesser than the Father, or take it as said in such a way that no one is shown to be greater or lesser than another, but rather that the one is shown to be of the other—if, I say, you will not rest in this most correct rule, you will certainly nonetheless by no reasoning call him the true Son of God, if you do not say that he is of the same substance as the Father. For, to say something human on account of the weakness of the carnal-minded: when there are two human beings, father and son, if the son is obedient to the father, and, for some existing cause, asks the father, gives thanks to the father, and finally is sent somewhere by the father, where he says he did not come to do his own will but the will of him who sent him—is it thereby shown that he is not of the same substance as the father? Why, then, when you read such things of the Son of God, do you straightway rush out into so great a sacrilege in heart and mouth as to believe and say that the true Son of God is not of one and the same substance with the Father?

14. 9. What of the fact that you thought this too should be mentioned, which he most manifestly speaks as a man: I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. For this commandment I have received from my Father (John 10:18)? How does this help your cause? For did he say anything but, I have power to die and to rise again? And so, when he says, No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself, and I take it again (John 10:18), what did he wish to be understood, but that he would not have died unless he himself had willed it? Yet, unless he were a man, could he have died and risen again? But you so introduced this testimony as to preface it, saying: Here indeed he was speaking also of his power, which he received from the Father: 'I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again'; as though, if he were not a man, he would lay down his life. As man, then, not as God, he received this power; although he did not say, This power, but, this commandment I have received from my Father. But who does not know that a commandment is one thing, power another? For we have in our power what we can do when we will. But a commandment so acts with us that we do what is already in our power: but if it is not yet in our power, we pray that power be given us, that we may fulfill what is commanded. Wherefore, if you would attend to what is plain, he had received this power as man. But on account of the contentious, I will conclude on both counts: If he received this power as man, you yourself see that this testimony profits you nothing; because if from this power received from the Father you wish to prove the Son lesser than the Father, we too do not doubt that, insofar as Christ is man, he is lesser than the Father: but if you wish him to have received this power as God, the Father, by begetting him equal to himself, gave him as great a power over all things as is the Father's own. For if he has anything less in his power than the Father, the things that the Father has are not his; but because they are his, he has without doubt as great a power as the Father. The commandment too he received either as man or as God: if as man, there is no question, because as man he is lesser than the Father; if as God, he is not thereby shown lesser; because he received it by being born, not by needing. For in the one Word of God are all the commandments of God, which he, begetting, gave to the one being born; he did not, after he had begotten, add them to one in need: and thereby he begot one as great as he himself is; because of himself he begot a true Son, and begot him perfect in the fullness of divinity, not to be perfected by the accession of age. But I ask you more humbly: why, if any son of a man receive a commandment from his father, do you not say that he is of a different substance, and yet of the Son of God, God, you dare to deny that he is of the Father's substance because he received a commandment from the Father? Indeed, he both received a commandment from the Father, and is of the same substance as he who gave it. Who would bear you contradicting, if human fathers and sons, both of the same substance, gathered to hear you; nor are the sons degenerate for the reason that the fathers so gave them commandments? But perhaps you say that learned fathers gave commandments to unlearned sons. Refer yourself now to the Son of God, God born of God the Father, who surely was born imperfect, if he received a commandment as one unlearned. But because he was born perfect, the one gave the commandment by begetting, the other received it by being born. For the true Son of God was never unlearned; but he was never not a Son.

15. 1. You do not deny that the Son is in the form of God, and you deny that he is equal to God the Father, thinking the form of the Father to be greater than that of the Son: as though the Father had not the means to fulfill his own form in the Son, whom he begot of himself, did not make from nothing, did not make from another. Or if he could beget his own form full in his only Son, and yet did not beget it full but lesser, attend to what follows, and return to the way, lest you be compelled to call the Father envious. You say the Son is God, you say he is Lord; but in order to make two gods and lords, against Scripture crying out, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4). But what does it profit you, in this sacrilege, that you give the Father as great a form as you do not give the Son? Surely, if one is greater and the other lesser, are there not therefore two gods and lords? If you wish to be rid of this error, say in such a way that the Father is one and the Son another, that you nonetheless do not say that both together are two, but one Lord God. You say that the King the Son was surely born of the King the Father: nor do you observe that among the human race the sons of kings, even if they are not kings of kings, are nonetheless men of men; and that they do not have royal power with their fathers, and yet hold the same nature. But you grant to the Son of God the King a kingdom with the Father, and by impious vanity deny him the paternal nature; and you say he is unequal to God the Father, who did not count it a thing to be grasped, that is, did not count it foreign, to be equal with God; but nonetheless, looking not to what was his own but to what was ours, he emptied himself; not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant, in which he was made obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:6-8). In which form you will not acknowledge him to be lesser than God the Father in such a way that you do not deny him equal to the Father in the form of God. We, you say, are called sons by grace, not born so by nature: therefore he is the only-begotten Son, because what he is according to the nature of his divinity, that he was born as Son. These are not only your words, but ours too. Why, then, do you contend that the one whom you confess to be the Son of God by nature, not by grace, is not of the same nature as the Father, and do not attend to what an evil thing is said by you? Would you not more tolerably take the paternal kingdom from the Son of God the King than the nature?

15. 2. But concerning the Holy Spirit—how he too is of God, and yet is not himself a son, since he is read to be of God by proceeding, not by being born—I have already argued above, as far as seemed sufficient. We, you say, have not received that the Father is unborn God by nature. And as if giving a reason why you do not say he is of the nature of God the Father, you soon add and say: We believe what Christ says: 'God is spirit' (John 4:24); as though Christ, according to that which is God, is not spirit, whom nonetheless you said to be Son by nature. The Father, then, is not nature for the reason that he is spirit. But perhaps because he was not born, for that reason you will not have him to be nature; for you think that "nature" (natura) is so called from being born (nascendo). Know, then, that whatever a thing is said to be through its substance, this it surely is through nature. Certainly, if you do not think it should be said that the Son is of the same nature as the Father, say that he is of the same substance as the Father: for the cause at issue between us, that suffices for us. Yet you must be admonished to observe what the Apostle says: You served those who by nature are not gods (Gal 4:8); where he surely showed that we serve a God who is God by nature. You, then, who believe that God the Father is not God by nature, consider where you place him; and if there is any shame in you, blush. Behold, we say to you: we do not serve a God who is not God by nature, lest we be such as those were to whom it was said, You served those who by nature are not gods. If you wish to be such, we ask you not to wish it, and to say that God the Father is God by nature; and his Son, whom you now say to be Son not by grace but by nature, do not deny to be of the same nature as the Father, lest you deny him to be anything other than a true Son. For how do you say both that you profess him a true Son and do not deny him like the Father, when you deny that he is of one substance with the Father? But as one substance indicates a true Son, so a different substance indicates a false one. And how do you say the Son is like the Father, to whom you will not give the Father's substance? Is not a painting or a statue like a man, and yet cannot be called his son, because it is of a different substance? Man indeed was made to the likeness of God; yet because he is not of one and the same substance, he is not a true son; and therefore he becomes a son by grace, because he is not one by nature. If, then, you wish to confess the true Son of God, say first and chiefly that he is of one and the same substance, so that you may say he is a true Son and the Son of God, like the Father in all things. For the one whom you think to have a different substance, you call more unlike than like, and altogether deny to be a true Son. For you would do well to know how much one and the same substance avails to show a true son: even if a son of a man, a man, is in some things like, in some things unlike his father; nonetheless, because he is of the same substance, he cannot be denied to be a true son: and because he is a true son, he cannot be denied to be of the same substance. But you so say that the true Son of God is like the Father that you would have them be of different substance, through which alone a true son can be shown. For two true men, even if neither is the son of the other, are nonetheless of one and the same substance; but a man can in no way be the true son of another man unless he be of the same substance as the father, even if he is not like the father in all things. Wherefore the true Son of God is both of one substance with the Father, because he is a true Son; and is like the Father in all things, because he is the Son of God. For it is not lawful to say, as happens in the sons of human beings or of any animals, that the true Son of God is indeed of one substance with the Father, but not like the Father in all things. Hold, therefore, the Council of Nicaea with us, if you wish to call Christ the true Son of God.

15. 3. We are accused, you say, of saying that the natures are different. And what else do you say of God the Father and God the Son? What else do you say? Or do you think you are cleared of this accusation because you immediately add, saying: Know this, that we say the Father, spirit, begot a spirit before all ages, God begot God? This indeed you say, and you say truly: but you kept silent about this, which you say falsely and execrably. Spirit begot a spirit, you say truly: but you say this truth with this intent, because "spirit" is said even of a different nature. For the Spirit of God, or the Spirit God, and the spirit of man are of different natures; and yet each is called spirit. Likewise the spirit of man and the spirit of a beast are of different natures; and yet nonetheless each is called spirit. Likewise it is said: God, God; and a man is called god; as it was said, You are gods (Ps 82:6 (81:6)). And as Moses was given as a god to Pharaoh (See Exod 7:1). And although the substance of God and of man is different, yet each is called God. Indeed you are truly accused that, although you say of God the Father and God the Son, Spirit begot a spirit, you nonetheless say the natures are different: and although you say, God begot God, even so you do not withdraw from a diversity of nature, because you say the Son is not like the Father in all things. For if you said he was like in all things, we would consistently understand that you said they were also of one and the same nature or substance. If, then, you intend to clear yourself of this charge brought against you—that you say the natures of God the Father and God the Son are different—then, as you say, Spirit begot a spirit, so say: A spirit begot a spirit of the same nature or substance. Likewise, as you say, God begot God, so say: God begot God of the same nature or substance. If you believe and say this, you will be accused no further about this matter. But if you do not say this, what does it profit that you say, The true unborn Father begot a true Son, when without doubt he is not a true Son, if he is not of one and the same substance with him who begot him?

15. 4. The Son indeed says to the Father, And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3); that is, that they may know you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, the only true God. In which words you, taking the Father alone, not together with the Son, to be the true God, what else do you do but deny the Son to be the true God? But because the Father and the Son are not two gods, but one God, without doubt the Son too is the true God, and, with the Holy Spirit joined, is alone God. For it ought not to move us that the Holy Spirit is not named in this place, as though he were not God, or not the true God. For this is like the case where someone might say that Christ does not know the things that are God's; since the Apostle says thus: And the things that are God's no one knows except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). For this, No one knows except the Spirit of God, is the same as: The Spirit of God alone knows them. As, then, Christ is not excluded from this knowledge, which only the Spirit of God was said to have; so the Holy Spirit is not excluded from that which the Father and Christ were said to be, the only true God. So too that name which in the Revelation no one was said to know except he himself who had it written (See Rev 19:12), that is, Christ, the Father too surely knew, which you cannot deny; the Holy Spirit too knew, even if you deny it. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10). Unless perhaps, because he was called a searcher, it is denied that he apprehends: then let it be denied that God apprehends the hearts and reins of human beings; for it is written, God who searches the hearts and reins (Ps 7:9 (7:10)). So, then, the Father and Jesus Christ were called the only true God in such a way that the Holy Spirit was in no way alienated from this truth of deity. But the Son does not, as it seems to you, say that the Father alone is the powerful, the only wise, the only good God. But the one and only God is the Trinity itself, as the things we have already very often said above show.

15. 5. But as for the fact that God the Father begot the Son, God, not as one progressing, but as one perfect, you say truly. But that you will not make the very perfection of the Son equal to the perfection of the Father—this you say falsely, and you contradict the truth by which he is a true Son. For a man, if he could, you say, at once generate a perfect son, would not generate a little one, who, with years added together, would at length at some time fulfill the will of his begetter. You speak most truly, altogether against yourself. But that what you say may not be against you, acknowledge the equality of the Father and the Son. For a man too, if he could, would at once generate an equal son, nor would he wait for the years through which his will could be fulfilled in the form of the son. Why, then, did God not beget an equal Son, for whom neither were years necessary through which this might be fulfilled, nor was omnipotence lacking? Or did he perhaps not will it? Then—God forbid—he was envious. But he was not envious: therefore he begot an equal. And thereby one of the same substance: since a man, who does not generate an equal for the reason that he cannot, nonetheless generates a son of the same substance as he himself is. And if it were not so, surely he could not be a true son. What, then, is it that you say: The Father begot such a Son as he now is, and as he remains without end? You would say this well, if you did not deny the true Son to be equal to the Father. But when you call him perfect, and deny him equal, and do not deny that, such as he was born, he remains without end, without doubt you declare that the son remains, without end, lesser than the Father. And thereby the son of a man is born lesser than the father; and because he is born imperfect, by growing he attains to the form of the father: the Son of God is born lesser than the Father; and because he was born perfect and immortally, he receives no increase, but his very perfection makes him for ever foreign to the form of the Father. Behold what you believe, behold what you say; behold what, what is worse, you teach. But, you say, it is in the judgment of the hearers to choose one of two: either the Son obedient to the Father, who 'emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,' to whom the Father also 'gave the name which is above every name' (Phil 2:7, 9); or your interpretation. Indeed, the hearers to whom the Lord grants understanding choose not one of these two, but both; that is, both the Son obedient to the Father, and my interpretation, or rather exposition, by which I showed that he was so obedient in the form of a servant that he did not lose the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father. But see how insultingly you attribute obedience to the Son of God, whose nature you diminish in his divinity.

16. 1. But when did you hear from me that on account of the Jews, for the sake of humility, not of truth, the Son said that his Father is his God? This you could never so hear from me, just as I never said it: but I plainly said that it was said on account of the form of a servant. And just as the form of a servant itself is true, not false, so he truly said, and did not humbly feign, that his Father is his God also on account of that form. For what is the fruit of humility where there is detriment to truth? But you tried to refute this most certain truth in such a way as to say that the very words by which the Lord says, my God and your God (John 20:17), do not pertain to the form of a servant, because the Lord used these words after the resurrection; as though by the resurrection he consumed the form of a servant, and did not rather change it for the better; as though it was not he who died who also rose again; as though it was not the form which was slain that itself revived; as though it was not that very form which was raised to heaven, in which the Son of God sits at the right hand of the Father, in which he is to come to judge the living and the dead. Is it not the clearest testimony of the angels saying, So he will come, in the way you saw him going into heaven (Acts 1:11)? Why, then, after the resurrection, would he not say, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God (John 20:17), when he was about to ascend in that same form, on account of which, in time, he is the God of the one who, without time, is his Father? On account of which form not only after the resurrection but even after the judgment he will be subject to him who put all things under him (1 Cor 15:28). However many testimonies, then, you set down by which to prove that the one who is the Father of Christ was called the God of Christ, to discuss how they were said I judge superfluous: but that they were mentioned by you in vain, I think that you yourself ought not to doubt.

16. 2. But that passage where the Lord, established in the same flesh which he had raised up, and bearing the same man, says to his disciples, All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth: go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Matt 28:18-20)—why you mentioned it, and what you wished to prove from it, I do not know at all. For did he say: Power has been given to me by my God? And if he had said this, it ought not to be doubted that it was said on account of that human form. But because he did not say it, I do not understand what you wished to do with this testimony. Rather, I understand that you did this in order to speak more abundantly. For if this power was given to him as God, the Father gave it to him as he was being born, not as one in need; because he gave it by begetting, not by increasing. But if this power was given to him as man, what question is there? Or did you perhaps wish to admonish us that the Lord commanded the nations to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Where you hear one name, and you will not understand one deity.

16. 3. But as for your saying that even before the incarnation of Christ the Father was called his God, since it is written, God, your God, has anointed you (Ps 45:7 (44:7)), long before Christ had come in the flesh: do you not so understand that it was foretold in prophecy, as though that had been done which was to be? Or does not the Lord himself say thus in prophecy, They have pierced my hands and feet (Ps 22:16 (21:18)); and the rest by which he foretold his passion so long before, and expressed what was to be as though it had already been done? It was said, then, in the prophecy of future things, as if by a manner of speaking of past things: God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps 45:7 (44:7)); signifying his fellows, who were to be his servants, his companions, his friends, his brothers, his members. It was foretold, then, what was to be: that God would anoint the man Christ of Christ; who nonetheless so became man that he remained God. But he would anoint, not with visible and bodily oil, but with the Holy Spirit, whom Scripture signifies by the name "oil of gladness," by a figurative manner of speaking, as is its custom. But he said, he anointed; he did not say, He will anoint; because in predestination it had already been done, what in its own time was to be. Here you, fearing lest the Holy Spirit, by whom Christ was anointed, seem to be greater than Christ—because in truth he is greater than the man Christ; for he who sanctifies is greater than he who is sanctified—this, then, fearing, you wished the oil of gladness to be seen as signifying that joy with which the Son rejoiced with the Father when the creature was founded. And you mentioned, as you are wont, testimonies not necessary to your cause, about the joy of the Father and the Son. But what will you do? Where will you go? How will you either deny what is clearer than light, or turn it into anything else, when there is recited to you what blessed Peter said in the Acts of the Apostles: This Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38)? Behold what was being prophesied, when it was said, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness, or, with the oil of joy, above your fellows. For the God to whom it was said in the same Psalm, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom; you have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you (Ps 45:6-7 (44:7-8))—the Son was anointed by God the Father, who so became man that he remained God, with which anointing he was full, that is, with the Holy Spirit. On account of which it is written of him, And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan (Luke 4:1).

17. 1. You say that, in the person of the Holy Spirit, what was said of the Son cannot be taken: All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:3). And you say this in order to persuade whomever you can of what has been ill persuaded to you, that the Holy Spirit is not creator; as though you read: All things were made through him without the Holy Spirit; or: All things were made through no one but him. And yet, even if you did read something of the kind, we ought not for that reason to believe the Holy Spirit excluded from this operation by which the creature was constituted; just as the Son is not excluded from that knowledge of which it was said, The things that are God's no one knows except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). But if, because it was not named that the creature was made also through him, when it was said of the Son, All things were made through him, you therefore think that the Spirit of God is not creator: then without doubt you will not be able to say that those were baptized in his name to whom Peter says, Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38); because he does not say, And of the Holy Spirit; nor in the name of the Father, because neither is he named there. But if, even with the Father and the Holy Spirit not named, they were commanded to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ; and yet they are understood to be baptized only in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; why do you not so hear of the Son of God, All things were made through him (John 1:3), that you understand the Holy Spirit also to be there, though not named?

17. 2. For what is more excellent among creatures than the powers of the heavens? But it is written, By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power (Ps 33:6 (32:6)). You had indeed said that I do not find such things in the divine Scriptures by which I might assert the Holy Spirit equal to the Son. Behold, I have found where he might even seem greater, did not piety, which truly confesses him equal, recall me. For surely the powers of the heavens, which were established by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth, that is, by the Holy Spirit, are something greater than the heavens, which were established by the word of the Lord, that is, by the only-begotten Son. But if you consult the truth, each thing was established by each; and what is said of the one and kept silent about the other is understood of both. But what is more inconsiderate than to deny that the Spirit of God is creator, when it is said to the Lord, You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and be turned into their dust: you will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth (Ps 104:29-30 (103:29-30))? Unless perhaps the Holy Spirit was less fit for creating the things that were to fail, while he is fit for creating the things that are to remain without end. A little before I said: What is more excellent among creatures than the powers of the heavens? What shall I say of the flesh of the Creator? Since the Creator himself, through whom all things were made, says, The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world (John 6:51). What, then? The world was made through the Son, and the Son is creator: was his flesh, which was given for the life of the world, made through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not creator? For when the Virgin Mary said to the angel who promised her a son, How shall this be, since I know not a man? the angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:34-35). Here you, as I have noted in a certain place in what follows of your discourse, tried to assert that the Holy Spirit went before, to cleanse and sanctify the Virgin Mary; and that then the power of the Most High came, that is, the Wisdom of God, which is Christ (See 1 Cor 1:24); and that this Wisdom, as it is written, built herself a house (See Prov 9:1), that is, herself created flesh for herself, not the Holy Spirit. What, then, is it that the holy Gospel says, She was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18)? Surely the mouth of those who speak iniquities is stopped (See Ps 63:11 (62:12)). If, then, you intend to open your mouth truly, confess not only the Son but also the Holy Spirit to be the creator of the flesh of the Son.

17. 3. Or will you perhaps say that the things I mentioned were made through the Holy Spirit—that is, that all the power of the heavens was established through him, that human beings will be created anew through him who were first so created that they are turned into their dust, that he himself wrought the flesh of Christ (for about the soul I do not wish to say anything, whose question is most difficult)—and whatever else could be found to have been created through the Holy Spirit: but not all things, as through the only-begotten Son, of whom it was said, All things were made through him (John 1:3)? If you say this, do you not fear lest it be said to you that the Holy Spirit is for that reason superior to the Son, because he chose for himself better things to make, and did not deign to make inferior ones? But who is so minded except one who is out of his mind? All things, then, were made through the Son; far be it that the Holy Spirit be separated from this work; just as of those great works it was said, But all these one and the same Spirit works (1 Cor 12:11); nor yet is the Son separated from this operation.

17. 4. You think, indeed, you are saying something great, because you say: The Son was in the beginning, before anything existed; but the Father, before the beginning. Where did you read this, that you should believe it? Whence did you presume to say this, where there is neither any authority nor reason? For what is "before the beginning," since whatever existed before would be the beginning? If, then, the Father is before the beginning, he is before himself; because he himself too is a beginning. But what is, In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1), but: In the Father was the Son? And the Son himself, asked by the Jews who he was, answered, The Beginning, who also speak to you (John 8:25). The Father, then, is a beginning not from a beginning; the Son a beginning from a beginning: but both together, not two, but one beginning; just as the Father is God and the Son is God, but both together not two gods, but one God. Nor will I deny that the Holy Spirit, proceeding from both, is a beginning: but these three together, just as I say they are one God, so I say they are one beginning.

18. 1. What if you hear, you say, the Father saying: 'With you is the principality in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints; from the womb before the daystar I begot you' (Ps 110:3 (109:3))? What do you promise, or what do you threaten, if I hear what I frequently hear and faithfully believe? But why you do not see that you are not helped at all by this, I greatly wonder. For whether the prophet says this in his own person to the Lord Jesus, or in the person of the Father to the Son, since I accept, venerate, and proclaim both generations of Christ—both from God the Father without time, and from a human mother in the fullness of time—this testimony is not against me. But it indicates that you wished to weave delays, where I rather understand why he said from the womb I begot you: because you too take this as said in the person of the Father. For God does not have a womb in the way the members of the human body are arranged; but the word was transferred from a bodily to an incorporeal substance, that we might understand the only-begotten Son begotten of the substance of the Father; and thereby what else but of one and the same substance? And so I ought to have brought forth this testimony against you: but I give thanks that you reminded me. Consider, then, how great an evil it is that you deny to be of the same substance the Son whom you confess to be begotten of the womb of the Father, doing a most grievous injury to God, as though he could have begotten of his womb that which he himself was not. Do you not perceive that you believe the generation of God to be defective and proclaim it monstrous, you who dare to say that a different nature proceeded from the womb of God? But if, as you ought, you shudder at this and reject it with us, then now at last praise and hold the Council of Nicaea and the homoousios with us.

18. 2. But who would not see your failure here, where, when you had heard me mention that Christ said in prophecy to his Father, From my mother's womb you are my God (Ps 22:10 (21:11))—that we might understand him to be the God of that nature which the Son himself received in time from the mother's womb, but the Father of that nature which he generated of himself—you, not finding what to answer, yet, lest you be silent, said: You profess that Christ was born of the mother's womb according to the flesh; and you added, which not even the Jews disbelieve. And then you asked: Why are those testimonies not brought forward which demonstrate that birth in the beginning, just as the preceding testimony, you say, instructs us? As though I did not believe, proclaim, and embrace that birth of Christ which is not temporal but eternal, on account of which it was said, In the beginning was the Word; but only asserted Christ to have been born of the mother's womb? Behold, I say that God the Son was begotten of God the Father without time. But how the one who is his Father is also his God, I showed, on account of the man whom he took up, and in whom he was born of the mother's womb, without the intercourse of a human father. To prove which I gave the testimony where he says in prophecy to his Father, From my mother's womb you are my God. You who say that I profess Christ born of the mother's womb, which not even the Jews disbelieve, as though I professed this birth of Christ alone, do not try to escape through empty things, and say rather why you did not answer me where Christ says to the Father, From my mother's womb you are my God. For because you saw you had nothing to say to this, you thought another birth, which is that of God from God, should be interposed by which you might flee. I ask you: when you have nothing to answer, how much better it would be to keep silent?

18. 3. If on account of the body, you say, in which he emptied himself, he feels himself a debtor to his begetter; much more must he who begot him so great and such venerate him and offer him obedience always. Whatever you may carnally think about the veneration and obedience of the Son toward the Father, his Father is not his God except from his mother's womb. Now, however much God the Son obeys God the Father—since I see that you do not understand how great is the equality of the begotten and the begetter in that generation—is the nature of a human father and of a human son therefore different, because the son obeys the father? This is altogether intolerable in you, that from the obedience of the Son you wish to prove a different substance of the Father and the Son. It is plainly one question, whether the Father and the Son are of one and the same substance; and another question, whether the Son obeys the Father. Meanwhile let us not deny a true Son, who is in no way a true Son if there is not one and the same nature of himself and the Father. Say, then, that God the Father and God the Son are of one and the same substance. Let the divinity wring from you what the divinity itself granted to humanity. A man obeys his father, of whom he was born a man; yet by obeying he does not cease to be a man. And if a son were, I do not say equally honored, but more honored, the father would rejoice, not envy: yet that son too would honor the father, even if, not a little one to be increased by the accession of age, he had been born equal to him. But if a human father could have begotten an equal, he would, with no one doubting it, have begotten one. Who, then, would dare to say: This not even the Omnipotent could do? I add also that, if a man could, he would generate a son greater and better than himself: but nothing can be greater or better than God; therefore let us believe the true Son to be equal to him. But if you say: For this very reason the Father is greater than the Son, that, begotten of no one, he nonetheless begot an equal; I will quickly answer: On the contrary, for this reason the Father is not greater than the Son, because he begot an equal, not a lesser. For the question of origin is, Who is of whom; but the question of equality is, Of what kind or how great he is. Accordingly, if the reasoning of truth allows that an equal Son obey an equal Father, we do not deny obedience; but if through obedience you wish to believe him lesser in nature, we forbid it; for in no way would God the Father, in order to have the obedience of his only Son, wish to deny him his nature.

18. 4. But that Christ was subject to his parents was not of the divine majesty, but of the human age. In vain, therefore, did you say: If he was subject to the parents whom he created (See Luke 2:51), how much more to his begetter, who begot him so great and such? For it is answered to you: If he was subject to his parents on account of childhood, how much more to God on account of the very form of a man? And since he made this form immortal, and did not lose it by death, why do you wonder if even after the end of this world he will be subject in it to him who put all things under him? But you say the Son is subject to the Father not on account of the form of a servant, but because he begot him so great and such, that is, a great God, though lesser than the Father himself: in which you both detract from the Father, who either could not, or would not, beget his only Son equal to himself; and from the Son himself, who as the only Son was not generated equal to the Father, and therefore was born perfect, lest he should ever even by growing become what he could not be by being born.

18. 5. But we say that not only the body of the Son, that is, the body of the man, but also the human spirit is subject to the Father; and we understand it said according to that by which he was made man: But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who put all things under him (1 Cor 15:28). According to that by which Christ is head and body: the head, namely, the Savior himself, who rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father; and the Church, which is his body, his fullness, as the Apostle most plainly says (See Col 1:18). And thereby, when all things have been subjected to Christ, they will without doubt be subjected to both the head and the body. For according to that by which he was born God without time, nothing could ever fail to be subject to him.

18. 6. We know, what you thought should be mentioned to us, that the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). Yet I would have you tell us how the Father judges no one, when the Son himself says again and again, I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and judges (John 8:50); that you may know it was said for this reason, The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, because for the judging of the living and the dead the form of a man will appear, which the Father does not have; on account of which the prophet says, They will look on him whom they pierced (Zech 12:10). But invisibly the Father too will be with him, because he is inseparable from him. For if, I am not alone, because the Father is with me (John 16:32), he himself says when about to die, how much more will he have the Father with him when about to judge the dead and the living? With him will be also the Holy Spirit. For how will the Holy Spirit desert him on the royal throne, full of whom he returned from the Jordan (See Luke 4:1)? And so what is written to the Hebrews, But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him: but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels on account of the suffering of death (Heb 2:8-9), ought to teach us how to understand what is written to the Corinthians, But when all things have been subjected to him; because it was said according to that by which he was made man, not according to that by which he is God. So, then, appearing in the man, in whom through the suffering of death he was made a little lower than the angels, he will judge the living and the dead, when he is about to say, Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matt 25:34). By which testimony you wished to prove, as it were, not the man, but God lesser than his Father: but, as is perceived by those who understand, you did not prove it.

19. But concerning the groanings of the Holy Spirit—that he himself does not groan, but, breathing into us holy desire, makes us groan as long as we are pilgrims away from the Lord—I think I have already answered you sufficiently. And such manners of speech from the holy Scriptures I showed, as far as seemed enough, that the Holy Spirit is so said to groan because he makes us groan; just as God said, Now I have known (Gen 22:12), when he made the man to know. For he had not then come to know what he then said he had come to know, who knows all things before they happen. That you could not answer this, what does it profit that you perceive it, when you do not consent?

20. 1. Now too, concerning the words of the Lord where he says, I and the Father are one (John 10:30), I have shown that you could answer nothing. But that I may show this here too: if, by the examples, as you say, which I used, you wish to prove how it was said, I and the Father are one; and for this you mention the apostolic testimony which was set down by me, where he says, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17); then you too say: When the Son cleaves to the Father, he is one God. For the Apostle does not say, He who cleaves to the Lord, they are one, as it was said, I and the Father are one; but he says, he is one spirit. But since you do not say, When the Son cleaves to the Father, he is one God, why do you too bring forward this testimony of the Apostle, where he says, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit, unless that I may convict you by the very witness you have produced? Now at least distinguish these two things, which you could not, when we were together, distinguish in our disputation. Attend diligently, then, to what I say. When of two or more things it is said, He is one, or She is one, and there is added what one; it can be said both of those which are of different and of those which are of one substance. For the spirit of man and the Spirit of the Lord are of different substances; and yet it was said, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. But the souls of human beings and the hearts of human beings are of one substance; of whom it was said, They had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32). But where it is said of two or more, They are one, and there is not added what they are one; they are not understood to be of different, but of one substance; as it was said, He who plants and he who waters are one (1 Cor 3:8); and, I and the Father are one. But you, who would have the Father and the Son to be different substances, could not find where it was said of different substances, They are one. And you who will not say, When the Son cleaves to the Father, he is one God, you too brought forward the apostolic testimony which I had brought forward; but you brought it forward against yourself, where he says, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). For if of those who are of different substance it could rightly be said, he is one spirit, how much more of those who are of one substance is it rightly said, He is one God? If you understand these things, you now perceive that you did not answer them, and you recognize that you said so many things in vain about the agreement of will. For we too confess the incomparable agreement of will and of indivisible love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, on account of which we say: This Trinity is one God. But we say this also, which you do not say, on account of one and the same nature and substance: These three are one. If you distinguish these things, and are unwilling to be contentious, you will now see that you answered nothing to them, and about this question you will without doubt now keep silent.

20. 2. But where the Son said to the Father, Yet not what I will, but what you will, how does it help you that you add your words and say, He shows that his will is truly subject to his begetter; as though we deny that the will of a man ought to be subject to the will of God? For that the Lord said this from the nature of a man is quickly seen by one who looks a little more attentively at the very passage of the holy Gospel. For there he said, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matt 26:39, 38). Could this be said from the nature of the only Word? But, O man who think the nature of the Holy Spirit groans, why do you not also say that the nature of the only-begotten Word of God could be sorrowful? Yet he, lest anything of the kind be said, did not say, I am sorrowful; although even if he had said this, it would have had to be understood only from the nature of a man; but he said, My soul is sorrowful; which, as a man, he surely had as human. Although even in this, that he said, Not what I will, he showed that he willed something other than the Father: which he could not have except with a human heart, since he transfigured our weakness into his own—not divine, but human—affection. For if the man were not assumed, the only Word would in no way say to the Father, Not what I will. For that immutable nature could never will anything other than the Father. If you distinguished these things, you would not be Arian heretics.

20. 3. For that too which was said, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38), can indeed be taken even according to that by which he is the only-begotten Word; so that he said the will was not his own but the Father's, since whatever the Son is, is from the Father; but whatever the Father is, is not from the Son; according to which it was also said, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me (John 7:16); since he who is the Word of the Father is himself the teaching of the Father, and surely is not from himself, but from the Father. And again, when he says, All things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15), he shows himself equal to the Father. Yet it is not absurd that this too be taken as said according to that by which he was made man: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38). For the second Adam, who takes away the sin of the world, in this way distinguished himself from the first Adam, through whom sin entered into the world (See Rom 5:12): because this one did not do his own will, but the will of him by whom he was sent; while that one did his own, not the will of him by whom he was created. Nor let it trouble you how Christ, according to that by which he is man, came down from heaven, since he was made man of a mother who was on the earth. For this was said on account of the unity of the person, since Christ, God and man, is one person. On account of which also, No one, he says, has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven (John 3:13). If, then, you attend to the distinction of substances, the Son of God descended from heaven, the Son of man was crucified; if to the unity of the person, both the Son of man descended from heaven, and the Son of God was crucified. For he is the Lord of glory, of whom the Apostle says, For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). On account of this unity of the person, then, he said not only that the Son of man descended from heaven, but said he was in heaven, while he was speaking on the earth. He did not, therefore, do his own will, because he did not commit sin: but he did the will of him who sent him. For a man then does the will of God, when he does the justice which is from God.

20. 4. Nor let us think the Son was sent by the Father in such a way that he was not sent by the Holy Spirit; since his own voice through the prophet is, And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit. That the Son said this, the things said above indicate. For thus the way was reached to these words: Hear me, he says, O Jacob, and Israel whom I shall call. I am the first, and I am for ever; and my hand founded the earth, my right hand made firm the heaven. I will call them, and they will stand together; all will come together also, and will hear. Who has announced these things to them? Loving you, I did your will upon Babylon, that the seed of the Chaldeans might be taken away. I have spoken, I have called; I have brought him, and made his way prosperous. Come together to me, and hear these things. For not from the beginning have I 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 is plainer than this? Nor was he so sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit that he did not send himself; just as he is shown to be handed over by the Father, where it is read, Who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all (Rom 8:32); but in another place it is said of the Son himself, Who loved me and handed himself over for me (Gal 2:20). But how does he not do his own will, who said, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will (John 5:21); and when it had been said to him, If you will, you can make me clean, answered, I will, be clean; and at the word, what he said he willed was at once done (See Matt 8:2-3)? But as the Son does the will of the Father, so also the Father does the will of the Son. For the Son says, Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me (John 17:24). He did not say, I ask, or, I request; but, I will, so that, with him willing, the Father might do, just as, with the Father willing, the Son was doing: and the one not one thing, the other another; but what the one does, this the other also does. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19). They are his words, they are the words of truth, they cannot be false.

Paul Shows That the Holy Spirit Is God—to Be Glorified, Namely, in Our Body, as in His Temple.

21. 1. You say you accept what I brought forth: Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16) Which you proposed to say was said for this reason, that God dwells in no one whom the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and purified; as though the Holy Spirit sanctifies and purifies the temple for God who is to dwell there, not for himself; whereas the Apostle from this showed that he himself is God, whose temple he had said we are; for he did not say, And God's Spirit sanctifies and purifies you, that God may dwell in you; but he said, God's Spirit dwells in you. Surely God dwells in his own temple: for what is the temple of God but the dwelling place of God? But you too saw, consistently, that he is our God whose temple we are, and you were unwilling to mention the other testimony which I brought forth: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19) Now, then, confess that the Holy Spirit is God. For unless he were God, he would not have a temple, and a temple not made with hands, but built of the members of God: for Christ is God over all, blessed for ever (Rom 9:5), whose members are our bodies. For he who said, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? himself said, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:19, 15) Is it really so, that he for whom Solomon built a temple of wood and stones is God, but he for whom a temple is built of the members of Christ, that is, of the members of God, is not God? When the most blessed martyr Stephen, speaking of God, said, Solomon built him a house; but the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands (Acts 7:47-48). And yet the members of Christ, whose head is above all the heavens, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who, it is agreed, came from heaven. To deny him to be God—what is it but not to be, and to be unwilling to be, his temple? The Apostle addresses us, saying, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom 12:1). The bodies of the faithful, then, are a sacrifice to God, members of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not God! Who says this but one in whom he does not dwell? Since in whom he dwells, that one is surely his temple. Finally, when the Apostle had said, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a great price, he at once added, Glorify God, therefore, in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). Where he clearly shows that the Holy Spirit is God, to be glorified, namely, in our body, as in his temple. And what the apostle Peter said to Ananias, Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? and, showing that the Holy Spirit is God, You have not lied to men, he says, but to God (Acts 5:3-4).

21. 2. But I wonder at your heart, more than I can explain in words, how, when you so praise the Holy Spirit that you assert him present everywhere for the sanctifying of the faithful, you nonetheless dare to deny him to be God. Is he, then, not God, who has filled the world? For Scripture says, The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world (Wis 1:7). But what shall we say of him who filled the world, who filled even the Redeemer of the world? For the Lord Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan (Luke 4:1): and you presume to say that the Lord Jesus himself was God, but the Holy Spirit, of whom he was full, was not God; thinking so ill of the Holy Spirit that you do not attribute to him even what was attributed to Moses, the servant of God, who brought upon the Egyptians, in the same Holy Spirit—because he is the finger of God (See Exod 8:19)—not gifts of graces but prodigies of plagues, and yet was a god to Pharaoh. In one place he was, for the afflicting of the Egyptians, and was a god to Pharaoh (See Exod 7:1): the Holy Spirit is present everywhere for the regenerating of human beings unto eternal life, and is not God to them! On the contrary, he is, and is true God, because the members of the true God are his temple. And surely the temple is subject to him whose temple it is: how, then, is he not God, to whom the members of God are subject? And thereby he is also Lord of his temple: for who would deny this, who would be so foolish as to say that there is not some lord of his own house? How, then, is the Holy Spirit not Lord, who is Lord of the members of the Lord? For he is the Spirit of the Lord, of whom, in one and the same place, it was said, But when he turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor 3:16-17).

21. 3. I have already demonstrated above that the Holy Spirit is creator: but how is he not a king, whose temple is what are the members of the King? How does he not sit with the Father and the Son, who filled the Son, who possesses the members of the Son as his own house? Unless perhaps, when the Son returned from the Jordan, he was full of the Holy Spirit; and when he began to sit at the right hand of the Father, he excluded the Holy Spirit from himself? Then, since he proceeds from the Father, how does he not sit with the Father? Since the sitting itself is surely not to be conceived carnally: otherwise we shall be of the opinion that the Son sits more honorably than the Father; for one sits more honorably at the right hand: and it will seem to follow that the Father sits at the left. Finally, what kind of spirit has persuaded you to deny to the Holy Spirit what holy Scripture grants to holy human beings, you may see for yourselves. For the Apostle says, When we were dead in our sins, he made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved; and he raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:5-6). The holy ones, then, whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, made alive together with Christ, are so predestined to sit together that the Apostle says, as already done, what is certain to come to pass: and from the Holy Spirit himself you take away whatever that sitting together is, as though he were unworthy to sit with the Father or the Son, who makes others worthy of that same seat. To whom you also raise the question that he is not adored, and this surely by a most similar error, when you read, as I have already taught above, that even human beings were adored by holy ones. And yet, to avoid the odium of blaspheming, you so praise the Holy Spirit as to attribute to him what no creature has, and take away from him what even the human creature attains.

On the Gospel Words: That They May Be One.

22. 1. That I said what you mention, I admit, and I say now, that our Savior did not say, That they and we may be one; but, That they may be one. And concerning these gospel words I recall that I have already answered enough, when I showed that you could not refute what I said. Since I demanded that you bring forth where you read They are one said of any things which were not of one and the same substance: and you did not bring it forth. For how does it help you that you affirm it was said of Paul and Apollos, by agreement of love, He who plants and he who waters are one (1 Cor 3:8), when you do not show that they were of different substance? For both were human beings. For if they did not love one another, they would be one by nature, but not by love; but if they were not one by nature, they could not be called one by love. The Son, then, demands that they be one in such a way as he and the Father are one; that is, not only by nature, which they already were; but also by perfection of love and justice, according to the capacity of their nature, as far as they could be in the kingdom of God: so that they too may be supremely one in their own nature, just as the Father and the Son are supremely one, though in their more excellent and incomparably better nature. The Son, then, said to the Father, Holy Father, keep them in your name whom you have given me; that they may be one, as we also are (John 17:11). He did not say, That they may be one with us; or, That they and we may be one. Likewise a little after: I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word; that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us (John 17:20-21). Neither here did he say, That they and we may be one, but, that they may be one in us. Since human beings who are one by nature cannot, supremely and perfectly according to their mode, be one in the fullness of justice unless they are perfected in God, so as to be one in the Father and the Son; that is, one in them, not one with them. There follows still, and he adds: That the world may believe that you sent me, and the glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one (John 17:21-23). Neither here did he say, That they may be one with us, or, That they and we may be one. Then, when he had added, That the world may know that you sent me, and have loved them as you have loved me, he went on and added, Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me (John 17:23-24). Where I am, he says, let them be with me; he did not say, Let them be one with me. This, then, he willed, that they be with him, not that they and he be one. What is it that you wished to say: He made mention of love, and not of substance? Although you did not place these words of the Lord in the place where they were placed by him. But what is that to us? Since he did not say or will that they and he, or they and the Father, be one; but he willed that they be one whom he knew to be of one substance. As we also, he says, are one (John 17:22): whom he likewise knew to be of one substance.

22. 2. You, if you wish to answer anything, show, according to holy Scripture, that it is said of some things, They are one, whose substance is different. For Christ did not say this, which you nonetheless dared to say, that is, that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son, in that, looking in all things to the will of God the Father, in imitation of the Son, they are found subject, they too, to the one God the Father. Saying these things, you made God and holy human beings to be one. Can any of the holy ones, then, say: I and God are one? Far be this from holy hearts and mouths. But I think that you too, from whomever you hear this, shudder, and do not bear any man, however excellent in the gift of holiness, saying: I and God are one. But perhaps it would seem arrogance, if anyone said this of himself. Is it really so, that any of you, even if he dare not say, I and God are one, dare at least to say, Paul and God are one; as we unhesitatingly say, Paul and Apollos are one, God the Father and God the Son are one? Further, if you do not dare to say, Any holy man, any prophet, any apostle, and God, are one, who was pressing you, who was thrusting you, who was hurling you headlong, to say, The apostles are one with the Father and the Son? They are one, you say, the Father and the Son, yet not one; and at once you add, "One" (unum) pertains to concord; "one" (unus), to the number of singularity. But you meant to say, "They are one" pertains to concord; "He is one" to the number of singularity; but the impulse of disputation turned you away from consideration of your own words. For both unum and unus surely pertain to the singular number. But what is true: They are one, on account of what is added, "are," indicates a plural number, joined by a certain singularity: but "He is one" is most openly the singular number. But would the Apostle say: He who cleaves to the Lord, they are one? For what else would he say, if he said this, but: A holy man, and God, are one? But far, far be this opinion from that wisdom; and yet he said, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17); that you may know it is said of those things which are of one and the same substance: They are one; just as it was said to certain human beings, For you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28); and as Christ himself says, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). But when it is said, He is one, and what one is said: it can be said both of different substances, as it was said, He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit; and of things of one substance, as it was said, They had one soul and heart (Acts 4:32). They had, he said—he did not say, There were; since he said also what there was, that is, soul and heart. So too of the Father and the Son we both say, They are one, because they are two of one substance; and we say, He is one, but we add what one; that is, one God, one Lord, one Omnipotent, and the like. I think I have sufficiently impressed on you the difference of these two manners of speech. Search, then, the canonical Scriptures, old and new, and find, if you can, where any things were called, They are one, which are of different nature and substance.

22. 3. But I do not want you to be deceived in the Letter of the apostle John, where he says, There are three witnesses; the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three are one (1 John 5:8). Lest perhaps you say that the spirit and the water and the blood are different substances, and yet it was said, the three are one; for this reason I have admonished you, lest you be deceived. For these are sacraments, in which what they are is not always attended to, but what they show: since they are signs of things, being one thing and signifying another. If, then, those things which are signified by these are understood, they are found to be of one substance; as if we should say: The rock and the water are one, wishing by the rock to signify Christ, by the water the Holy Spirit: who doubts that the rock and the water are different natures? But because Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature, therefore, when it is said, The rock and the water are one, it can rightly be taken from that respect in which these two things, whose nature is different, are also signs of other things whose nature is one. We know, then, that three things came forth from the body of the Lord while he hung on the tree: first, the spirit; whence it is written, And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit (John 19:30); then, when his side was pierced with a lance, blood and water (See John 19:34). Which three things, if we behold them in themselves, each has a different substance; and thereby they are not one. But if we wish to inquire into the things signified by them, the Trinity itself not absurdly occurs—who is the one, only, true, supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, of whom it could most truly be said, There are three witnesses, and the three are one (1 John 5:8); so that by the name "spirit" we take to be signified God the Father: for the Lord was speaking of him, to be adored, where he said, God is spirit (John 4:24). But by the name "blood," the Son; because the Word was made flesh (John 1:14). And by the name "water" the Holy Spirit: for when Jesus was speaking of the water which he was to give to the thirsting, the evangelist says, But this he said of the Spirit, whom those believing in him were to receive (John 7:39). But that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are witnesses, who that believes the Gospel doubts, when the Son says, I am he who bears witness of myself: and the Father who sent me bears witness of me (John 8:18)? Where, although the Holy Spirit was not mentioned, he is nonetheless not understood to be separated. But neither did he keep silent about him elsewhere, and showed him plainly enough to be a witness. For when he promised him, he said, He will bear witness of me (John 15:26). These are the three witnesses: and the three are one (1 John 5:8), because they are of one substance. But that the signs by which they were signified came forth from the body of the Lord prefigured the Church proclaiming the one and the same nature of the Trinity: since these three, who were signified in a threefold manner, are one; and the Church proclaiming them is the body of Christ. If, then, the three things by which they were signified came forth from the body of the Lord: just as from the body of the Lord it sounded forth that the nations should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19). In the name; not, In the names; for these three are one, and these three are one God. But if in any other way this profundity of so great a sacrament, which is read in the Letter of John, can be expounded and understood according to the Catholic faith—which neither confuses nor separates the Trinity, neither denies the three persons, nor believes the substances to be different—it is by no reasoning to be rejected. For what is set down obscurely in the holy Scriptures, to exercise the minds of the faithful, is a matter for rejoicing, if it is expounded in many ways, yet not foolishly.

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Are One God.

23. 1. But what is it that you demand that I establish: If the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God; when the divine Scripture establishes this with the clearest voice, saying, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4)? Which you too would surely hear, if you wished to be Israel, not carnally as the Jews, but spiritually as Christians. For whoever will not faithfully hear what was said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one, it remains for him to believe that the one who said this is a liar. But if that one is not a liar, this voice is true: if this voice is true, this question is settled. For without doubt the truth compels you to confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one Lord God. But you deny the Holy Spirit, whose temple is not made with hands but is our body, whose temple is not wood and stones but the members of Christ, to be God: what will you say of Christ himself, whom you confess to be God and Lord? Answer us, then, whether the Father and the Son are one Lord God. For if he is not one, they are two; if they are two, he lies who says, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one; he lies who says, See that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Deut 32:39). But because you do not dare to call him a liar, why do you hesitate to correct yourselves, and to come, or return, to the Catholic faith, which believes the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be not three lord gods, but one Lord God, and hears him crying to his people, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one; and, See that I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me? If I should call you deaf and blind, who neither hear nor see these things, you would without doubt think me insulting. Behold, I do not say: expound to us how you take, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one; whether Christ too is to be understood there, or not. For if you say, He is there, you will confess with me that the Father and the Son are one Lord God. But if you answer that Christ is not to be understood there, you will introduce, against the divine voice, two lord gods, since you do not deny that Christ too is Lord God. Likewise I ask of you how you take, See that I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. Is Christ there too, or is he not? If he is there, then surely the Father and the Son are one Lord; but if he is not there, and yet is Lord, he lies who says, There is no other besides me. For the Son is another Lord, if the Father and the Son are not one Lord. For however more excellently you praise the Father, and press the Son down below him, you do this so that they are not equal, not so that they are not two. Cry out as much as you will: The Father is greater, the Son lesser; it is answered to you: They are two nonetheless, the greater and the lesser. Nor was it said: The Lord your God is greater, the Lord is one; but it was said, The Lord your God, the Lord is one. Nor was it said: There is no other equal to me; but it was said, There is no other Lord besides me. Either, then, confess that the Father and the Son are one Lord God, or openly deny that Christ is Lord God, as you openly deny that the Holy Spirit is Lord God. And if you do this, I will indeed not press you with these divine voices; but I will bring forth other divine testimonies by which I will convict you, even in that error, as more detestable. But now, even if you deny that the Holy Spirit is Lord God, yet, that you may be crushed by these voices of God, it is enough that you confess Christ to be Lord God; who, if he is not one Lord God with the Father, there will be two lord gods of ours, and those voices of God will be false: The Lord your God, the Lord is one; and, There is no other besides me. But how much better will it be for your words to be corrected, than for the words of God to be lies?

23. 2. You ask of me whether I exhort you to profess one God in the Jewish manner; or whether, rather, from the subjection of the Son, according to what the Christian faith holds, it be shown that there is one God, whose God our Son is. You say this as though it were the voice of the Jews, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4); or, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me (Deut 32:39). God himself said this: acknowledge it, and be silent; or rather, set forth how he spoke the truth, whom none of us dares to affirm to have lied. Set forth, I say, how it is true, The Lord your God, the Lord is one, if our lord gods, as you say, are two, one greater, the other lesser: set forth how it is true, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. For I ask who said this, whether the Father or the Son. If the Father said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he did not say the truth, because the Son is another Lord. If the Son said this, neither did he say the truth, because the Father is another Lord. But if the Trinity said this, then surely it both spoke the truth and showed that you speak falsely. For the Trinity, according to the right faith, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we are baptized, both is our one Lord God, and besides him there is no other. For he is the God of whom the Apostle says, There is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4). For if you take this as said of the Father, Christ will not be God to you, because the Scripture cannot be broken which says, There is no God but one; to keep silent here to you about the Holy Spirit, whom we have shown above to be Lord God, while you deny it. Wherefore, if you were Macedonian heretics, who refuse to consent to the Catholic faith concerning the Holy Spirit alone, but agree that the Father and the Son are indeed two, that is, the one Father, the one Son, and are equal, and of one and the same substance, yet not two lord gods, but both together one Lord God; if, then, you too erred at least to this extent, you would surely not be pressed by these divine voices. For you would assert that the Father and the Son, one Lord God, said, There is no other besides me. Would that it did not remain to deal with you except to have you add the Holy Spirit, and say that not a duality, but the Trinity is one Lord God. But now, since you so assert the Father to be Lord God, and the Son Lord God, that you do not say both together are one Lord God, but two, one greater, the other lesser; you are utterly transfixed by the sword of the truth that says, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4); who cries out, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. For God the Father would not so wish to recall the Israelites from the worship of many and false gods that he should lie to them about the one God and Lord, and say there is no other Lord besides himself, when he knew that his Son is God and Lord. Far be it that the Truth and the Father of truth should deceive his people by a lie: let this so horrible and detestable blasphemy be of heretics, not of Catholics. God plainly speaks the truth when he says, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one; because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three gods, but one God; nor three lords, but one Lord. He plainly speaks the truth, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me (Deut 32:39); because not the Father only, but the Trinity itself says this: This is the one Lord, and there is no other besides him. For if the Father said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he would surely deny that the only-begotten Son is Lord. And who of us would dare to confess him Lord, with the Father contradicting and saying, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me? And thereby, according to the right faith, this is the voice not of the Father, but of the Trinity: of the Father, therefore, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Let the tongues of those ignorant of the truth, then, fall silent: this Trinity is one God. Of this one God it is said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one. This one God says, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. The Son is indeed subject to the Father according to the form of a man: yet they are not two gods and two lords according to the form of God; but both, with their Spirit, are one Lord.

23. 3. The testimonies which you brought forth from the apostle Paul speak against you, and you do not know it. For he says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2). But how is the Lord Jesus Christ Lord, if the Father says, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me? It is not, therefore, as I said, the voice of the Father only, but of the Trinity. You bring forward another testimony, this too against yourself, where the Apostle says, One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we in him, as you spoke; but the Apostle says, and we through him; he does not say, in him. But what is this to the cause? Such things are wont to happen to those who bring forth testimonies from memory, not reading them from the manuscript: look rather at what pertains to the matter. Behold, the Apostle said, One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him (1 Cor 8:6). He altogether distinguished two persons, one of the Father, the other of the Son, without any confusion and without any error. For there are not two god-fathers, but one God the Father; nor two lord Jesus Christs, but one Lord Jesus Christ. For in that Trinity which is God, there is one Father, not two or three; and one Son, not two or three; and one Spirit of both, not two or three; and that one Father is surely God, and that one Son, even by your confession, is God, and that Spirit of both, even though you deny it, is God. So too if you ask about the Lord, I answer each one singly; but all together I call not three lord gods, but one Lord God. This is our faith, since this faith is right, which faith is also called Catholic. But you who contradict this faith, I beseech you, expound to us how Jesus Christ too is Lord, you who assert the voice I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me to be not of the Trinity, but of the Father only. Surely you are troubled; surely you find nothing to answer, except that you will not keep silent when you are convicted. For if not God the Trinity, but the Father only said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he without doubt denied the Son to be Lord; since if the Son too is Lord, it was falsely said, There is no other Lord besides me. For the matter is not of a lord such as human beings are lords of human servants, whom the Apostle says to be lords according to the flesh (See Eph 6:5): but the matter is of the Lord to whom that service is owed which in Greek is called latreia, according to which it was said, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:13). Which Lord God, if not the Trinity but the Father only, we are surely forbidden to serve the Lord Christ with such service, in that we hear, Him only shall you serve; if it was so said, as if it were said: God the Father only shall you serve. Who surely, if alone, and not the Trinity itself, said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, denied the Son to be such a Lord, to which kind of lord that service is owed which is rendered only to God with true religion. For he did not say: I am the greater or better Lord, and there is none so great or such besides me; but, wishing to himself alone the service that is owed to the Lord God to be rendered, I am, he says, the Lord, and there is no other besides me. Now if this voice, as the Catholic faith says, is of the one God, which is the Trinity itself; without any doubt this alone is to be served with that service which is owed only to the Lord God, because he is the Lord, and there is no other besides him.

23. 4. Then I ask how you take what was said, One God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him (1 Cor 8:6). Are not all things from the Son too, since he himself says, Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19)? But if you so distinguish that all things are not through the Father, but from the Father; and all things are not from the Son, but through the Son; which of them seems to you to be the one of whom the same apostle says, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Rom 11:33-36). Is the Father to be understood, or the Son? For he first named God, saying, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! But afterward he called him Lord, where he says, For who has known the mind of the Lord? But this has no controversy: for both names you too assign to the Father and to the Son. For you do not so say God the Father that you deny the Son to be God; or so say God the Son that you deny the Father to be God. Although in this apostolic testimony which you brought forward, the Father is called God, the Son Lord, that is: One God the Father, from whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. But attend to that where it was said, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! For whether this be the Father or the Son, from him, and through him, and in him are all things. How, then, are all things from the Father, not from the Son; and through the Son all things, not through the Father: since, whichever of them the Apostle wished to be understood in this place, From him, he says, and through him, and in him are all things? If, then, whether of the Father or of the Son, it is nonetheless most truly said that from him and through him, and in him are all things, without doubt the equality of the Father and the Son is demonstrated. But if, because he did not name the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but God and Lord—which can also be said of the Trinity itself—he wished each of these three to be referred to each: saying from him on account of the Father; and through him on account of the Son; in him on account of the Holy Spirit: why will you not acknowledge this Trinity to be one Lord God? Since he did not say: From them, and through them, and in them; but he said, from him, and through him, and in him are all things; nor did he say, To them be glory; but, to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

23. 5. You are surely deceived, who think it was said of the Father alone, No one is good but one, God. For if he had said, No one is good but one, the Father, not even so would he have wished the Son and the Holy Spirit to be understood as excluded from this unity of goodness; because that too which was said by a similar manner of speech, which I mentioned above, The things that are God's no one knows but the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11), does not exclude the Son of God from this knowledge. How much more, then, does the breadth of understanding lie open to us, because he did not say, No one is good but one, the Father; but, No one is good but one, God (Mark 10:18); which is the Trinity itself. For the one to whom Jesus made this answer was seeking not any kind of good, but the good by which one becomes blessed; rather, he was desiring true blessedness itself, that is, eternal life: and he had appealed to Christ as a man, not knowing him to be also God. For he had said, Good Teacher, what shall I do to obtain eternal life? Then that one said, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God (Mark 10:17-18). Or, as it is read in another evangelist, which is of equal force, No one is good but God alone (Luke 18:19). As though he said: You will rightly call me good, if you know me to be God. For when you think me nothing other than a man, why do you call me good? Nothing makes you good or blessed but the immutable good, which God alone is. For a good angel, a good man, the rest of good creation: these are not good in such a way that whoever attains them is blessed; nor is any life blessed if it is not eternal. But how is the true Son of God not such a good, since he is true God and eternal life, to which that one who had asked desired to attain?

23. 6. Accordingly, since I assert that No one is good but one (Mark 10:18) and God alone (Luke 18:19) was said of the Trinity itself, who is the one and only God; but you assert it was said of God the Father alone, because he is God of no other, good of no other; while the Son is God from the Father, great and good from the Father: attend diligently to which of us is rightly minded about God the Father and God the Son; whether I, who say: The Father indeed is God not from another God; but God the Son is God from God the Father, yet this one is as great from that one as that one is from no one; and the good Father is good not from another good; but the Son is good from the good Father, yet this one is as good from that one as that one is good from no one; or you, who say that the Father alone is the good God, because he is neither God from another God nor good from another good; but that the Son is for this reason not to be made equal to the Father, because from him he is God, from him he is good. In which opinion you blaspheme both: the Father, namely, because he did not beget one as great as he himself is, nor such as he himself is; and the Son, because he did not merit to be born as great and such as he is who begot him. Finally, these two very things about which we are dealing, that is, deity and goodness, since it was said, No one is good but one, God, fail in this opinion of yours. For if he could not beget one as great as he himself is, and such as he himself is, how is he God? if he would not, how is he good?

23. 7. The Father, you say, is the fount of goodness, who received from no one the fact that he is good. Is the Son therefore less good, because he received the fact that he is good from that Father, who could give to the Son being born as great a goodness as is his own, since he is God; and gave it, because being good he could not be envious? For if he gave to his only Son less of goodness than he himself has, he himself too is less good than he ought to be: which to think is madness. Therefore he gave to the Son as much goodness as he himself has. And because the Son is by nature, not by grace, he gave it to one being born, not to one in need; and, full, he begot one full, the fount of goodness begot the fount of goodness. And thereby neither did this one increase in himself what he received, nor did that one diminish in himself what he gave: because immutability has no means of failing, fullness has nothing whereby it may grow. But what is goodness itself, but life that gives life? Accordingly, because the fount begot the fount, as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will (John 5:21). The Son himself said this, not I. Whence it is rightly said to God the Father, For with you is the fount of life. But who is this fount of life with the Father, but he of whom it is said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God; of whom also a little after it was said, And the life was the light of men (John 1:1-2, 4)? This life is the fount of life, and this light is light of light. Whence, when it had been said, With you is the fount of life, there was at once added, In your light we shall see light (Ps 36:9 (35:10)), that is, in your Son the Holy Spirit; whom you too, in the first part of our Debate, professed to be the enlightener. The fount, then, from the fount, the Son from the Father, and together both one fount; light from light, the Son from the Father, and together both one light; just as God from God, and together both surely one God: and all this not without the Spirit of both. From this fount of goodness, from this fount of life, from this immutable light, from this unfailing fullness, that is, from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one only Lord God, whoever truly believe, taking according to the measure of their faith, become good, are made alive, are enlightened, are filled. To whom you, by your leave, by I know not what incredible rashness, have joined the only-begotten Son. For these are your words: Whether, you say, the Son, or those who were made through the Son, each one according to the measure of his faith has taken from that one fount of goodness, that they might be good. Where, then, is what you had earlier confessed, that he is Son by nature, not by grace? Behold, you come against your own opinion: behold, you now betray the wicked secret of your heresy, that you profess the only-begotten true Son of God, true God, to be Son not by nature, but by grace. For if he too, as your words proclaim, took, according to the measure of his faith, in order to be good; then he is Son by grace, not by nature: and there was a time when he was not good, and by believing he was made good; because, in order to be good, as you say, he took according to the measure of his faith from him who is the Father, the fount of goodness. We read indeed that Jesus advanced in age and wisdom, and the grace of God was in him (Luke 2:52): but according to the form of a man which he received for us from us, not according to the form of God, in which he did not count it foreign to be equal with God (See Phil 2:6). Yet even in that very form of a man we read that he advanced in age and wisdom, not, however, that by believing he merited to be made good from not-good. Nor is the question now turned among us about the nature of the son of man, in which the Son of God is lesser than the Father: but about the nature of the Son of God, in which, as we say and you deny, he is equal to the Father: because the true Son, the only Son, the Son who is true God from true God, degenerated in nothing from the Father. Accordingly, you could not anywhere in the holy Scriptures read that the Father is incomparable to the Son. Nor with sound faith did you yourself say that the Father too is immense; since you say it in order to estimate the Son as not equally immense, but bounded by measure. Keep your own measure to yourself, by which you may measure your false lord, and lie about the true Lord.

24. You confess well that both the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father: but if you would also confess this, that the love is not greater in the Father than in the Son. For because in the nature of divinity they are equal, they equally love each other. But the Son, as man, does the commandment of the Father. For as God, the Son himself is the commandment of the Father, because he himself is the Word of the Father. Whence in another place he says of the commandment of the Father, that is, of himself, I know that his commandment is eternal life (John 12:50). But that the Son of God himself is eternal life, the divine Scripture testifies. But where he says, He who has seen me has also seen the Father (John 14:9), who does not know that it was said for this reason, that whoever through understanding sees the Son surely sees him equal to the Father? Which you will not have, because through the eyes of the heart, as far as can be seen in this life, you do not see the Son.

25. You think it was not rightly said by me that on account of the form of a servant which the Son took up (See Phil 2:7), the Father is greater. For you, according to your heresy, would have the Father greater than the Son in the very form of God: to whom you so envy the paternal form that you would have the Son born perfect by an eternal perfection, in order that he may not be able even by growing to attain to the paternal form. But in vain does a man envy the paternal form to the Son of God, to whom the Father did not envy it, because he begot his only Son equal to himself. But you say it is not a great glory of the Father, if he is greater by that form of a servant, by which form even the angels are greater. See whether you attempt anything but to arrive at the glory of the one Father through insult to the only Son, namely, so that the Father is not increased in glory unless the Son is diminished in nature. Restrain yourself: do you not know that you thrust an insult upon both the Father and the Son, if neither could that one, or would, beget an equal to himself, nor could this one be born equal to the Father? God does not wish himself to be so praised as Father that the Son is said to have generated of himself one degenerate. The good lover of the Son does not wish his own form to be so proclaimed that his only Son could not either take it up by being born or grasp it by growing. But as for the fact that it seems to you that nothing great is said of God the Father if he is greater by the form of a servant, by which even the angels are seen to be greater: you do not rightly consider what place human nature, which was founded to the image of God, holds among things. The angels can be called greater than a man, because they are greater than the body of a man: they are greater also in mind, but in the form which the corruptible body, by the merit of original sin, weighs down. But than human nature—such a nature of the human mind as Christ assumed, which could be depraved by no sin—God alone is greater. Finally, why it was said, You made him a little lower than the angels (Ps 8:5 (8:6)), Scripture made clear, where it is read, But we have seen Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels on account of the suffering of death (Heb 2:9). Not, therefore, on account of the nature of the man; but, on account of the suffering of death. But than the nature of a man, which by its rational and intellectual mind surpasses the other creatures, God alone is greater: to whom surely no injury was done where it is written, God is greater than our heart (1 John 3:20). The Son of God, then, about to raise the man he had taken up to the Father, when he said, If you loved me, you would surely rejoice, because I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I (John 14:28), surely preferred God the Father not only to his flesh, but also to the human mind which he bore: which whole is without doubt recognized as the form of a servant, since the whole creature serves the Creator.

26. 1. Your final discussion was how God was seen by the fathers, when Christ had not yet taken the human body in which he might be seen, since the divine nature is in itself invisible. And although you too had confessed this in such a way that, among other things, you said that not only the Father, but not even the Son himself, was visible in the substance of his divinity, not only to human beings, but not even to the heavenly powers themselves: afterward, your opinion changed, you say that he appeared to the sight of mortals even before his incarnation, asserting that what the Apostle says, Whom no one of human beings has seen or can see (1 Tim 6:16), was said of God the Father alone; but that the Son was wont to be seen by human beings from the beginning of the human race. And when you wished to prove this, you brought forth many testimonies from the holy Scriptures, which could help you not at all. For you do not read anywhere that Moses wrote, as you say, that from that first man Adam down to the incarnation itself the Son was always seen. For you declare that he describes this in the book of Genesis—which is so false that it is even ridiculous. For does the book of Genesis contain the things that were done from Adam down to the incarnation of Christ? Or did Moses himself live in the flesh down to the times of the incarnation of Christ, or write the things that were done then? These things you say, and you think you are saying something, or you are thought to by those who cannot discern even these things, which are so manifestly false.

26. 2. Then, as for your mentioning that the Father said to the Son, Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen 1:26), what does this pertain to the matter, I ask you? What does it pertain to the matter? Had you so much leisure to talk that, not attending to what you had undertaken to prove, you ventilated to us, from memory and emptily, the Scripture of Genesis? Is it from this proved that Christ was seen by human beings before he took flesh, because the Father said to the Son, Let us make man to our image and likeness? Then you add and say, And God made man (Gen 1:27); and you add, Which God, but the Son? And, as if to prescribe to me about my own work: This surely, you say, you too set forth in your treatises. Where I do not wish to ask how truly you speak, when I see that what you speak pertains nothing to the cause. For the matter at issue between us is whether Christ appeared to human sight through the substance of his divinity. And you say, God made man; and you add, Which God, but the Son? as though it were therefore necessary that man see God his maker with the eyes of flesh. If this were so, all human beings would see God: for who else makes them in the wombs of their mothers? You go on to add such things, and say: This Son, then, who is the prophet of his begetter, said: 'It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself' (Gen 2:18). If I should ask who indicated to you that the Son said this, in what straits you will see yourself! For Scripture, which said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1), not expressing whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity itself made them, who is one God; throughout the rest too mentions God in such a way as to say, And God made; and God said (Gen 1-2 passim), through each of his works, of which it asserts him to be the founder. By a similar manner of speech, then, it says, And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness. And God made man (Gen 1:26, 27): nor did it speak otherwise where it says, It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself (Gen 2:18). Whence, then, were you persuaded that the Father said the other, earlier things, but the Son this? Whence, I ask, do you distinguish, whence do you discern that the Father said, Let there be light (Gen 1:3), and the rest; that the Father, finally, said, Let us make man; and the Son said, Let us make him a helper: when Scripture everywhere says to you nothing but, God said? What is this rashness? what presumption? Then, since you are wont to assert the Father greater because he said, Let this or that be made, as though commanding the Son; but the Son lesser because he performed the commands: what will you say where it is written, Let us make man? For he did not say, as in the earlier things, Let man be made, as though he commanded this to the Son; but, Let us make, he says, man. Which I do not ask whom you think to have said: for we already hold your words, that the Father said this to the Son. Why, then, did he not say, Let there be made, or, Make; but said, Let us make? Or did God command the rest, and the Son make them; but did both make man, but with the Father both commanding and cooperating, while the Son did not command but only did what was commanded? But if you therefore understand the Father as commanding, because it is written, God said: Let us make man, then the Son commanded too; because you yourself take it that not the Father said, but the Son: Let us make him a helper. And just as where it was said, And God made man, you would have the Son seen to have obeyed the commanding Father, because the Father had said, Let us make man: so also where we read, And the Lord sent a deep sleep upon Adam, and took one of his ribs (Gen 2:21), and the rest by which it is shown that a helper was made for man, let us, on your authority, understand that the Father obeyed the commanding Son; because you assert that not the Father, but the Son said, Let us make him a helper.

26. 3. But I speak these things as though anything pertained to the cause at issue between us, whatever you may wish from this to believe or suspect. Granted, as you say: the Father commanded, where it was said, Let us make man; and the Son obeyed, where it was said, And God made man; granted, as it delights you, the Son said, It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper; but, saying such things, he himself did not command, because you want this: how do you show that the Son who made man was seen by man? How do you show that the Son who said, It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper, was seen by man, or by the woman herself, if you will not have her made by the Father, lest the Father seem to have obeyed the Son; but the Son himself, as if commanding himself and obeying himself, both said she should be made and made her? Demonstrate that the Son was seen by the man, was seen by the woman. For you had promised that you would demonstrate that the Son was seen by human gazes even before he was incarnate. Show your promises. Why do you proceed in empty things? Why do you mock our expectation, and not produce your pledge? You multiply unnecessary words, in order to take up the necessary periods of time. If the Son was seen by the man because he made him, and seen by his woman because he made her; define, if you dare, that God the Son cannot both produce things that see and not be seen by his own works, though they see other things. But if God the Son can do this—for he himself even now produces all things that see, and yet is not seen by the eyes created by himself—what is it that you said? Why did you set down these things from the book of Genesis in your speech? why did you, by superfluous loquacity, finish off the periods of time necessary to us?

26. 4. But this Son, you say, was seen by Adam, according to what we read, Adam saying: 'I heard the sound of you walking in paradise; and I hid myself, because I am naked' (Gen 3:10). This, then, you should have said first, good man, and from there begun to show your promises. Although here too Adam says, I heard the sound of you; he did not say, I saw your face or appearance. And as for his saying, I hid myself, because I am naked, he feared to be seen by God; he did not show that God was seen by him. For if, when a voice is heard, a seeing follows, then God the Father too was seen as often as he attested by a voice to the Son. For we know in the Gospel the words of the Father sounding and saying, You are my beloved Son, and so on (Mark 1:11), where he was heard by human beings, yet was not seen. And thereby in those words too which you add, where he says, Who told you that you are naked? and what follows, God could be heard and not seen. See, then, that you have not yet said anything of what you had promised: and say at last something which we ought to discuss, or which we may admit to be for your cause.

26. 5. This God, you say, was seen also by Abraham. That God was seen by Abraham we cannot deny. For most faithful Scripture most openly says this, saying, But God was seen by him at the oak of Mamre (Gen 18:1). But neither here is it expressed whether the Father or the Son. But when Scripture narrated how God was seen by him, it declares that three men appeared to him, in whom rather the Trinity itself, which is one God, can rightly be understood. Finally, he sees three, and calls them not lords, but Lord, since the Trinity is indeed three persons, but one Lord God. Now it is narrated thus what Abraham saw: Looking up, it says, with his eyes he saw, and behold, three men stood over him; and seeing them he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and adored upon the ground, and said: Lord, if I have found grace before you, do not pass by your servant (Gen 18:2-3). Here we see that three men appeared, and one Lord is named, and one Lord is asked not to pass by his servant, since it befits God to visit his servants. Then he addresses the three persons in the plural, saying, Let water now be taken, and let me wash your feet, and refresh yourselves under the tree, and I will take bread, and eat, and afterward you will pass on your way, for which you have turned aside to your servant (Gen 18:4-5). It is manifest that they are invited as men: for such service, by which they might refresh their needy bodies, would not be offered them, unless they were thought to be men. And Scripture mentions that they answered in the plural; for it says, And they said: Do so as you have said (Gen 18:5). It does not say, And he said; but, they said. Then, when the refreshment was prepared, Scripture says, And he set it before them, and they ate (Gen 18:8-9). It does not say, He set it before him, and he ate. But when it came to this, that a son was promised to Abraham from Sarah, because a divine benefit was being offered, not human service being shown as to men, Scripture narrates one saying, Where is Sarah your wife? For it does not say, And they said to him, but it says, And he said to him: Where is Sarah your wife? (Gen 18:9) But who said this, it afterward makes manifest; where, when Sarah had laughed, the same Scripture says, And the Lord said to Abraham: Why did Sarah laugh within herself? (Gen 18:13) and the rest down to the end, as one Lord speaking in the singular. And after these things, as men they are narrated to depart in the plural, and it is said, And the men, rising up from there, looked toward the face of Sodom and Gomorrah; but Abraham was walking with them, escorting them (Gen 18:16). But again Scripture returns to the singular number, and says, But the Lord said: Shall I hide from my servant Abraham what I am doing? (Gen 18:17) Then a glorious and copious posterity is promised to Abraham, and the destruction of Sodom is announced. But the following Scripture says, And the men, turning from there, came to Sodom; but Abraham was still standing before the Lord. And Abraham, drawing near, said: Will you destroy the just together with the impious; and shall the just be as the impious? (Gen 18:22-23) And after the conversation of the Lord and Abraham, Scripture goes on and says, And the Lord went away, when he had ceased to speak to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening (Gen 18:33-19:1). These are those of whom a little before it had said, The men, turning from there, came to Sodom (Gen 18:22). But it had not expressed that they were two, when from the beginning it had said that three men appeared to Abraham, and were received hospitably by him, whom also, as they departed, he escorted, walking with them.

26. 6. Perhaps, then, you now hasten to declare that one of them was the Lord Christ, who in the singular promised and answered Abraham; but the other two were his angels, who came to Sodom as angels sent by their Lord. But wait: why do you hurry? Let us consider all things diligently, and first behold the words of the Lord speaking to Abraham: The cry of Sodom, he says, and Gomorrah has been multiplied, and their sins are very great. Going down, therefore, I will see whether they are completing it according to the cry of theirs that comes to me (Gen 18:20-21). Here he said he himself would go down to Sodom, where, however, he himself did not go down, but the two angels. For he himself went away, when he ceased to speak to Abraham; but Abraham returned to his place. And there came, as it was said, two angels in the evening to Sodom (Gen 18:33-19:1). What if in those two angels too the one Lord is found, who, according to his word, went down in those angels to Sodom? Will it not be manifest that in those three men the one Lord was seen, where what else but the Trinity itself was prefigured? But let us see whether holy Scripture demonstrates to us that, even in those two angels, as I said, the one Lord was found, lest perhaps we seem to have affirmed this out of our own heart. There came, then, two angels to Sodom in the evening; but Lot was sitting, as it is written, by the gate of Sodom. And Lot, seeing them, rose up to meet them, and adored with his face to the ground (Gen 19:1). You see surely that here angels were adored by a just man, and you will not have the Holy Spirit adored, whom you too without ambiguity set before all angels? But you will say: He believed them to be men; for he invited them also into his lodging as men. This is rather against you, who say that the Holy Spirit, to be preferred to all angels, is not adored; when you see that even men inferior to angels are adored by just men. But still you will say: He adored the Lord: for he recognized him to be in those two whom he thought to be men, as in prophets. Now, then, it is proved—what I had promised I would demonstrate through holy Scripture—that the same Lord, who had been said to have gone away when he ceased to speak to Abraham, went down in those two angels to Sodom, as he had said, and was recognized in them by the just man. He therefore showed hospitality as to holy men of God, in whom he recognized God to be, since, as Abraham himself too, he did not know them to be angels. For these patriarchs are signified in the Letter to the Hebrews, where, speaking of hospitality, it says, Through this some, unknowing, have received angels into their hospitality (Heb 13:2). When, then, Lot had received them, not knowing that they were angels, yet recognizing, as he was able to recognize with the Lord himself demonstrating, who was in them—to be silent about the things that were done meanwhile—he went out with them from Sodom: which, before it was done, as Scripture says, the men said to Lot: Have you here sons-in-law, or sons, or daughters? or if you have any other in the city, lead them out of this place: for we are destroying this place; because their cry has been exalted before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to crush it (Gen 19:12-13). Behold where that burning of Sodom appears to have been done through angels, whom the Lord sent; in whom, however, he himself also was: for he does not so send his own as to withdraw from them. In them, therefore, he went down to Sodom, which he had foretold he would do, when he was speaking with Abraham: which after he did, he himself was said to have gone away, and the angels to have come to Sodom in the evening. Then, a little after, as soon as they had led him outside, and said, as the same Scripture narrates, Save your life; do not look back, nor stay in all the region; save yourself on the mountain, lest you be caught (Gen 19:17); Lot said to them, I pray, Lord, since your servant has found mercy before you, and so on (Gen 19:18-19). When he had finished speaking these things, and had chosen for himself a tiny city in which he might be saved, Scripture goes on and says that this answer was made to him: Behold, I have admired your face also in this matter, that I should not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hasten, therefore, to be saved there: for I shall not be able to do the thing, until you enter there (Gen 19:21-22). Who answered him this, but he to whom he had said, I pray, Lord? But this he had said to both, not to one, as it is most openly written, But Lot said to them: I pray, Lord. Lot, then, recognized one Lord in the two angels, just as Abraham recognized one in the three.

26. 7. There is no reason to say: That one had gone away who was the Lord and had spoken with Abraham; but the two were his angels who came to Sodom while he went away. For all three who appeared to Abraham were called men, as Scripture is wont to call even angels men. Nor did Abraham obey any one of them more promptly and humbly than the two, but he equally washed the feet of all, equally ministered the feast to all. Therefore in all he saw God. On account of which Scripture had foretold that God had been seen by Abraham at the oak of Mamre, under the shade of which tree he fed three men, whom he saw with the eyes of the body: but in them he saw God, not with the eyes of the body, but of the heart, that is, he understood and recognized; just as Lot in the two, with whom he spoke not in the plural but in the singular, and to whom he himself too answered as to one. For first Abraham heard him through the three men, afterward through one, who, while the two went to Sodom, remaining, spoke with him; but Lot through the two, yet he too heard one Lord, whom he asked for his deliverance, and who answered him: while both, that is, both Abraham and Lot, thought those who were angels to be men; but understood God to be in them, who was, and did not think to be who was not. What, then, does this visible Trinity and intelligible unity mean, but that it might be impressed on us that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are so three that yet together they are not three gods and lords, but one Lord God? But you said, This God was seen by Abraham; knowing that you had read what is written, that God was seen by Abraham at the oak of Mamre: and wishing, as it were, to prove that the Lord the Son was seen by that patriarch, you turned aside from those three men, and kept entirely silent about them, in whom Scripture narrates that God was seen by Abraham; lest you yourself remind us that the Trinity is God of one substance, just as the three men whom Abraham saw were of one substance; since Scripture had foretold, God was seen by Abraham, yet not that there are three gods, because it was said, God was seen, not, Gods were seen; and Abraham himself saw three, and adored one; by whom he wished not to be passed by; from one he received the answers of divinity. Nor did he perceive any two of them to be two gods, but one in all: because Lot too saw two, and yet recognized one Lord. Where it seems to me that by the angels the Son and the Holy Spirit are signified: since those angels said they were sent; and of the Trinity which is God, the Father alone is not read to be sent; but both the Son and the Holy Spirit are read to be sent; whose nature is not therefore different: for those men too, by whom they were signified, were of one and the same nature. This Scripture, then, by which you could be convicted, you avoided by a cunning silence. And when you had said, This God was seen by Abraham, wishing the Son alone to be thought seen in that which is read in Genesis, that God was seen by Abraham, you were unwilling to say how he was seen, lest there not the Son alone, but the Trinity be recognized as God.

26. 8. But you said: If you wish to believe that the Son was seen by Abraham, surely the Only-Begotten himself affirmed it in the holy Gospel thus: 'Abraham your father exulted that he might see my day; and he saw it, and rejoiced' (John 8:56). O what disputing, O what proving of promises! as though the Son of God had said: Abraham your father longed to see me; and he saw me, and rejoiced. Although this too could still be understood thus, that the holy Patriarch saw the Son of God with the eyes of the heart, not with the eyes of the flesh, about which the question is turned among us. But since Christ said, Abraham longed to see my day; and he saw it, and rejoiced, why do we not understand the day of Christ to be the time of Christ, in which he was to come in the flesh, which Abraham, as the other prophets too, could see in spirit and rejoice? Neither here, then, could you prove what you had proposed and promised.

26. 9. After these things you came to Jacob, who wrestled with the Angel, whom the very Scripture of Genesis calls both a man and God. For it is read thus: But Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. But he saw that he could not prevail against him, and he touched the breadth of his thigh, and the breadth of Jacob's thigh became numb while he wrestled with him; and he said to him: Let me go, for the dawn is rising. But he said: I will not let you go, unless you bless me. And he said to him: What is your name? And he said: Jacob. And he said to him: Your name shall no longer be called Jacob; but Israel shall be your name, because you have prevailed with God, and with men you are powerful. And Jacob asked him, saying: Tell me your name. And he said: Why do you ask my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place: The Sight of God: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved' (Gen 32:24-30). From this reading you try to show that the only Son of God appeared visibly even before he had come in the flesh: where, although Christ is not absurdly understood to be prefigured, on account of the prophecy announcing things to come—because it was to be that Jacob in his sons who crucified Christ would seem to have prevailed against Christ; and in his sons he would see Christ face to face, and the soul of the Israelites who faithfully saw this would be saved—yet this man who wrestled with Jacob, the prophet Hosea evidently calls an angel. For thus it is written in him about Jacob: In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his toil he prevailed with God, and he was strengthened with an angel, and prevailed (Hos 12:3-4). As, then, in Genesis he who wrestled with Jacob is called both a man and God; so also by this prophet both God and an angel. And thereby he who was an angel was so called a man, as those were called men who appeared to Abraham, when both he and Lot, unknowing, received angels into their hospitality. God, then, was in the angel, as God is in a man, especially when he speaks through a man. So indeed through this angel Christ was prefigured, as through a man. For Isaac too, the son of Abraham, what was he in figure, but Christ, when he was led like a sheep to the slaughter (See Isa 53:7), and when, as the Lord his cross, so he too carried for himself the wood on which he was to be laid? Finally, why do we wonder that Jesus was prefigured by an angel, if he was prefigured not only by a man, but even by a beast? For who else was that ram which was held by its horns in a thicket, but Christ crucified, or even crowned with thorns? But this ram Abraham sacrificed in place of his son, whom he was bidden to spare (See Gen 22:6-13). For God so commanded the man to be spared, that yet from a beast, on account of the passion of Christ, which was being foretold in that manner, the mystery of the sacred blood might be fulfilled. If, then, you think that by property, not by figure, Christ was the angel who wrestled with Jacob; you can say that by property, not by figure, Christ was the ram which the patriarch Abraham sacrificed: you can, finally, say that by property, not by figure, Christ was the rock, which, struck by the wood, poured out a most abundant drink for the thirsting people (See Exod 17:6). For thus the Apostle says, For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them; but the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). These were figures, not the things themselves, by which preceding figures the things were signified to be coming: which figures, through a creature subject to God, and especially through the ministry of angels, were exhibited to the gazes of mortals, with the power of God indeed acting, but yet the nature lying hidden, whether of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit.

26. 10. In vain, therefore, do you assert that the Son of God was seen by human beings, but the Father was not seen: since through a creature subject to him both the Father could be seen, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but through his own substance none of them was seen. God, therefore, was, as it were, to the weak senses of human beings, signified rather than demonstrated. He was not, then, seen as he is: for this is promised to the holy ones in the future life. Whence the apostle John says, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). The apostles, then, saw the Lord even in this world; they saw, but not as he is. Finally, Moses desired him to be shown to himself, although Scripture testifies that he spoke with him face to face (See Exod 33:13, 11). And when I had said this above in my discourse, you passed it over as if you had not heard, although I had wished the whole of the same discourse of mine to be read out to you from the records. But, not distinguishing what it is to see God through his own substance, and what it is to see God through a subject creature, you fell into so great a blasphemy as to say that the only-begotten Son of God, through this very fact that he is God, is changeable: since you thought it was to be attributed to the Father alone, that which you said was written, I am who I am, and I am not changed; as though the Son or the Holy Spirit was changed when he appeared visibly, either the one who, it is agreed, was born of a woman, or the other showing himself to human gazes in the appearance of a dove or in fiery tongues. Whence I have already answered you in that speech, where I showed that you did not refute what I said. But now, that you may understand how God said, I am who I am, and I am not changed, or, as is rather found written, For I am the Lord, and I am not changed (Exod 3:14; Mal 3:6); since not the Father alone, but the one God, who is the Trinity itself, said this; attend to the Psalm where it is read, You, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands: they will perish; but you will remain: and all will grow old like a garment, and like a covering you will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail (Ps 102:25-27 (101:26-28)). But that this was said to the Son of God, holy Scripture testifies in the Letter which is to the Hebrews (See Heb 1:10-12). But who does not understand that, where it is said, The heavens will be changed; but you are the same, nothing else is said but, You are not changed? And thereby it befits God the Son too to say, I am who I am, and I am not changed; or, For I am the Lord, and I am not changed. Which you therefore assigned to the Father alone, that the Son might be believed changeable in his substance; as though he so took up a man as to be turned into a man. This so great blasphemy you will not amend, unless you believe that, in the assumption of the man, there accrued to the Son what he was not, but there did not withdraw or fail what he was.

26. 11. Then I ask, who appeared to Moses in the fire when the bush was being set aflame and was not being burned. Although there too Scripture itself declares that an angel appeared, saying, But the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the bush (Exod 3:2). But that God was in the angel, who doubts? But which God was it? whether the Father or the Son? You will say, the Son: for you will not have the Father in any way, even through a subject creature, appear to the gazes of mortals. But whichever of these you choose, I answer to both. If it was the Father, then the Father too appeared to human beings: if it was the Son, then the Son too is not changed. For there, when Moses had asked who it was that sent him, he answered, I am who I am (Exod 3:14). Which is what else but: I am not changeable; just as you yourself set down the prophetic testimony, I am who I am, and I am not changed (Mal 3:6)? He also said again to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:6). Dare, if you can, to deny that God the Father is the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob (See Exod 3:15); if it was not he, but the Son, who spoke from the bush. But if it was the Father, confess that the Father too, God, was seen by human beings. But if each is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, which you grant; why do you doubt that each is one God? For Jacob himself is Israel, to whose sons it is said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4).

26. 12. Wherefore acknowledge that what I said is true: that the divinity appeared to the eyes of mortals when it willed, not through its own substance, in which it is invisible and immutable, but through a creature subject to it. Not, then, as you wished to take or to have taken my words, did I say that the divinity so showed itself to the fathers as though I wished it to be believed visible, which I had earlier said was invisible: but I said that, when the divinity showed itself to the fathers, it demonstrated itself visible through a subject creature. For through its own nature it is so far invisible that Moses himself, to whom it spoke face to face, said to it, If I have found grace before you, show me yourself plainly (Exod 33:13). Behold what I said: reread, and you will find that I speak the truth; but that you were unwilling, or unable, to understand what I said. Hear, then, the same thing as I set it forth somewhat more plainly. I say that the divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in its nature and substance, is invisible to the eyes of mortals. But that it turns itself into visible forms, far be it that I should say, because I say it is also immutable. It remains, then, that, when it showed itself to human gazes as it willed, it is understood to have done this through a subject creature, which can appear to the eyes of mortals.

26. 13. But what is it that, when you had said of the Father, He is the one invisible, about which enough has already been disputed, you added, the one also incomprehensible and immense? Incomprehensible indeed we do not read of God. Why exactly you say incomprehensible, I do not know. For if he cannot be comprehended, how do not only the Son but also the Father come to a man, as the Son himself says, and make their dwelling with him (See John 14:23)? I think that he comprehends them with whom they make their dwelling. Or do you perhaps say: Not wholly, but in part, are they comprehended? Say what you will; for it is answered to you: They are not, then, incomprehensible, who are even in part comprehensible. Or is it for this reason not enough for you to say incomprehensible, but you added also, and immense, in order to set forth in what sense you said incomprehensible? that is, because human nature is not capable of the whole; for he is immense? But this can be said of the Son too. For no one so comprehends the only-begotten Word as to dare to profess himself in every way capable of him. We do not doubt, indeed, that he too is immense. For I ask of you, of whom you take what is written, He is great, and has no end; lofty and immense (Bar 3:25). For of him it is said a little after, This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him; he found out every way of discipline, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved: after this he was seen upon the earth, and dwelt among men (Bar 3:36-38)? Who is this, answer? Who is it, I say, who is great, and has no end; lofty and immense; who was seen upon the earth, and dwelt among men? I see what storms, what straits you suffer. You fear to say: It is the Father; where you hear, he was seen upon the earth, and dwelt among men. For you would have the Father, truly invisible through his own substance, not seen by human beings even through a subject creature. You fear to say: It is the Son; where you hear, he has no end, lofty and immense. For you contend that the Father alone is immense. You fear to say: It is the Holy Spirit; where you hear, this is our God. For you will not have even the Holy Spirit to be God. What will you do, what will you answer, O man who will not be Catholic, so as to take Christ as seen upon the earth in the form of a servant, and dwelling among men, in such a way that you nonetheless confess him immense in the form of God, in which he remained invisible? This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him. Who other, but Antichrist, whom true faith does not reckon to be the true Christ, but whom the execrable error of the Jews awaits as the true Christ?

26. 14. If you pray and ask, as you say, to be a disciple of the divine Scriptures, consider the divine testimonies that pertain to the matter. Do not wander through many things that help you nothing: choose prudently to be silent rather than to speak emptily, when you do not find what to answer to the most manifest truth. You show yourself to fear lest I strip you before your disciples. Would that you so clothe yourself with Christ that you would wish your disciples to be his disciples rather than yours. For I do not regret, as far as the Lord grants, to take pains that you and your disciples may, under one master, be my fellow disciples. But to my treatise, to which after so long a time you still promise that you will reply, if you are going to reply in such a way as you have just now replied either to my questions or to my discourses, you will plainly answer nothing; but, in order somehow to deceive human beings who do not understand, you will not keep silent. From all these things, then, which I have disputed as I could, it sufficiently appears that of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is one power, one substance, one deity, one majesty, one glory; because the Trinity itself is our one Lord God, of whom it was said, Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one (Deut 6:4). But it was said then, when the Lord alone was leading them, and there was no strange god among them (Deut 32:12). For Christ too was not failing to lead them, since the Apostle says, Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted (1 Cor 10:9); either Christ is not God, or Christ is a strange god. This, then, is God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one God: whom alone we are bidden to serve with the service that is owed only to God, when we hear, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Deut 6:13). For we do not fail to serve Christ, whose members we are, with this service; or the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are. This Trinity, one God, says, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me (Deut 32:39). For Christ is not no Lord, whom you too confess to be God and Lord; or the Holy Spirit is not no Lord of his own house, that is, of his own temple. For he is the Spirit of the Lord, of whom it is said, Now the Lord is the Spirit; but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor 3:17). This is the Trinity, one God, of whom the Apostle says, There is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4). For when you hear these things, you do not dare to deny that the Only-Begotten is God. This God, the Trinity, says, I am who I am, and I am not changed (See Mal 3:6; Exod 3:14). For Christ is not changed, to whom it is said, You will change the heavens, and they will be changed; but you are the same (Ps 102:26-27 (101:27-28)); or the Spirit of truth will be changed, since he is the immutable truth, to whom Christ himself gives such great honor that he says, It is expedient for you that I go: for unless I go away, the Paraclete will not come to you (John 16:7); and, Whoever speaks blasphemy against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him (Matt 12:32). And although he said of himself, Behold, I am with you until the consummation of the age (Matt 28:20), of him he said, That he may be with you for ever (John 14:16). By these and like testimonies, which it is long to seek out and gather all, if you peaceably acquiesce, you will be, what you say you pray and desire, a disciple of the divine Scriptures, so that we may rejoice over your brotherhood.