Asked About Origen, He Answers About the Trinity

He goes on: “Still, since there may be some people who wish to test my faith, or to hear and learn what it is, I declare that this is what I think about the Trinity,” and so on. At first you said that you were entrusting your faith to the bishop as a stick with which he could defend himself on your behalf against those barking dogs. Now you speak a little less confidently: “There may be some people who wish to test my faith.” You begin to waver, now that so many barks reach your ears. [a]

I will not stop to discuss your choice of words, for you look down on such things and condemn them; I will answer according to the meaning alone. You are asked about one thing, and you give an account of yourself on another. As for the teachings of Arius, you fought against them at Alexandria long ago, by imprisonment and exile, not with words but with blood. But the question now concerns the heresy of Origen, and the feeling stirred up against you on that subject. I would be sorry for you to trouble yourself curing wounds that are already healed. You confess a Trinity in one Godhead. The whole world confesses that now; and I think even the demons confess that the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary, and took on himself the flesh and the soul that belong to human nature.

But please do not think me a quarrelsome man if I examine you a little more closely. You say that the Son of God took the flesh and soul that belong to human nature. Well then, I ask you not to be annoyed with me, but to answer this question. That soul which Jesus took on himself: did it exist before it was born of Mary? Was it created together with the body, in that original virgin nature which was begotten by the Holy Spirit? Or, when the body was already formed in the womb, was it made all at once and sent down from heaven? I want to know which of these you choose as your opinion. If it existed before it was born from Mary, then it was not yet the soul of Jesus; it was occupied in some way, and as a reward for its virtues it was made his soul. If it arose by transmission from the parent, then human souls, which we believe to be eternal, are under the same condition as the souls of animals without reason, which perish with the body. But if it is created and sent into the body after the body has been formed, tell us so plainly, and free us from anxiety.