Defense of Dionysius, Part 2

Now if the sense of these statements were in doubt, someone would be needed to interpret them. But since he wrote plainly, and again and again, on the same subject, let Arius gnash his teeth when he sees his own heresy overturned by Dionysius, and hears him say what he does not want to hear: “God was always Father; and the Son is not eternal in an unqualified sense, but his eternity flows from the eternity of the Father, and he exists together with him as the radiance exists with the light.” And let those who have so much as imagined that Dionysius agreed with Arius put away such a slander against him. For what do the two have in common? Arius says, “The Son was not before he was begotten; there was once a time when he was not.” Dionysius teaches, “Now God is eternal Light, with no beginning and never to end. So the radiance lies before him eternally and exists together with him, shining before him without beginning and ever begotten.” Others allege that Dionysius, when he speaks of the Father, does not name the Son, and again, when he speaks of the Son, does not name the Father, but divides, removes and separates the Son from the Father. To meet their suspicion, he answers them and puts them to shame in his second book, as follows. [a]

“Each of the names I have mentioned is inseparable and indivisible from the one next to it. I spoke of the Father, and before I referred to the Son, I signified him too in the Father. I referred to the Son, and even if I did not also mention the Father in so many words, he was certainly to be understood beforehand in the Son. I added the Holy Spirit, but at the same time I also added both from whom and through whom he proceeded. “But they do not know that the Father, as Father, is not separated from the Son, for the name carries that relationship with it; nor is the Son exiled from the Father. For the title Father points to the bond they share. And in their hands is the Spirit, who cannot be parted either from the one who sent him or from the one who brought him. How then can I, who use these names, imagine that they are cut off and utterly separated from one another?” A little further on he goes on: “So, then, we extend the Unity into the Trinity without dividing it, and in turn we gather the Trinity together into the Unity without lessening it.” [c]

Next he refutes their charge that he called the Son one of the things that came into being, and not of one substance with the Father. Once more in the first book, he writes as follows: “It is only that, in saying that certain things were seen to have come into being and to have been created, I gave them in passing as examples, as being less fitting. I said that the plant is not of one substance with the vinedresser, nor the boat with its builder. But then I dwelt more on comparisons that were more apt and suitable, and went at greater length into those nearer the truth, working out various proofs, which I wrote to you in another letter. By these proofs I showed also that the charge they bring against me is untrue, namely, that I denied that Christ is of one substance with God. “For even if I argue that I have not found this word, homoousios, nor read it anywhere in the Holy Scriptures, still my later reasonings, which they have kept quiet about, do not disagree with its meaning. For I gave the example of human birth, which is plainly a case of the same kind, saying that parents certainly differ from their children only in not being themselves the children; otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. “As I said before, circumstances prevent me from producing the letter; otherwise I would have sent you the exact words I used then, or rather a copy of the whole letter. I will do so if I have the opportunity. But I know and remember that I added several comparisons from things that are related to each other. I said that a plant grown from a seed or a root is different from what it sprang from, and at the same time entirely of one nature with it. And I said that a stream flowing from a spring takes another form and name, for the spring is not called a river, nor the river a spring; that both exist; and that the spring is, as it were, a father, while the river is water from the spring. “But they pretend not to see these and similar written statements. They act as if they were blind, while they try to pelt me from a distance with two disconnected expressions, as if with stones. They do not know that in matters beyond our knowledge, which take training to grasp, examples that are not only unlike but even opposite often serve to illustrate the problem at hand.” And in the third book he says, “Life was begotten from Life, and flowed like a river from a spring; and from unquenchable Light, bright Light was kindled.” [f]

Who that hears this will not count as mad those who suspect Dionysius of agreeing with Arius? For see how in these words, by arguments founded on the truth, he tramples on Arius’s entire heresy. By the comparison of the radiance he destroys their statements, “He was not before he was begotten,” and “There was a time when he was not,” as he does also by saying that the Father was never without offspring. Their claim that the Son was made “out of nothing” he destroys by saying that the Word was like a river from a spring, a shoot from a stock, a child from a parent, Light from Light, and Life from Life. Their walling off and separating the Word from God he overthrows by saying that the Trinity is gathered together into the Unity without division and without lessening. And their statement that the Son has no share in the Father’s substance he plainly tramples down by saying that the Son is of one substance with the Father. Here one has to wonder at the shamelessness of these impious people. Dionysius, whom they claim as their partisan, says that the Son is of one substance. How then can they themselves go about buzzing like gnats, complaining that the council was wrong to write “of one substance”? If Dionysius is their friend, let them not deny what their own partisan holds. But if they think the expression was wrongly used, how can they keep repeating that Dionysius, who used it, agreed with them? All the more so, since he does not seem to have written these things merely in passing. He had written other letters before, and here he convicts of falsehood those who had charged him with not saying that the Son was of one substance with the Father. He also refutes those who thought he said that the Word had come into being, showing that he did not hold what they supposed. Even if he had used such expressions, he had done so only to show that it was the Son, not the Father, who put on the body that came into being, was formed, and was created. That is why the Son too is said to have come into being, to have been created, and to have been formed. [i]

Clearly, then, since he had used such expressions earlier, he bids the Arians a long farewell and demands a good conscience from his hearers. He is entitled to plead the difficulty, or one might even say the incomprehensibility, of the questions involved. He asks that they judge, not by the words, but by the meaning of the writer, all the more since there is so much to show what he intended. For example, he says himself, “I used the examples of such relations in passing, as being less fitting, the plant and the vinedresser, for instance; while I dwelt on the more pertinent examples, and went at greater length into those nearer the truth.” But a man who says this shows that it is nearer the truth to say that the Son is eternal and from the Father than to say that he came into being. For the second points to the Lord’s bodily nature, but the first to his eternal being as God. In the following words, for example, he maintains, and not only that but deliberately and with real power of proof, that those who charged him with not saying that the Son is of one substance with the Father stand refuted: “Even if I did not find this expression in the Scriptures, yet by gathering from the Scriptures themselves their general sense, I knew that, being Son and Word, he could not be outside the substance of the Father.” That he does not hold the Son to be a thing created or formed (for on this point too they have quoted him again and again), he says in the second book, as follows: “But if any of my slanderers thinks, because I called God the Creator the maker of all things, that I mean he is the maker of Christ too, let him notice that I first called him Father, and in that term the Son is also implied. For after saying that the Father is Maker, I added: neither is he Father of the things he created, if the one who begot is to be called Father in the strict sense. The wider sense of the word Father we will work out in what follows. “Nor is the Father a maker, if by maker is meant simply the craftsman. For among the Greeks, philosophers are called ‘makers’ of their own discourses. And the apostle speaks of a ‘doer of the law,’ for people are called ‘doers’ of inward qualities, such as virtue and vice; as God said, ‘I looked for one to do justice, but he did wickedness.’” [k]

Truly, one who hears this is reminded of the divine saying, “Wherever the ungodly man turns, he is destroyed.” For see how these ungodly men, turning cunningly in every direction, are destroyed, having no excuse even here so far as Dionysius is concerned. He teaches openly that the Son is not a thing made or created. And he takes to task and corrects those who accuse him of having said that God was the creator of Christ, because they failed to notice that he had first spoken of God as Father, and in that word the Son also is implied. In saying this, he shows that the Son is not one of the creatures, and that God is not the maker but the Father of his own Word. Since certain people had ignorantly objected that he called God the maker of Christ, he defends himself in various ways, showing that not even here is what he said open to blame. For he had said that God was the maker of Christ with regard to his flesh, which the Word took, and which was in itself created. But if anyone suspected that this referred to the Word, here too they were bound to give him a fair hearing: “For since I do not hold that the Word is a creature, and I call God not his maker but his Father, even if, in passing, while speaking of the Son, I call God a creator, even here I am able to defend myself. For the Greek philosophers call themselves makers of their own discourses, although they are their fathers; and the divine Scripture describes us as makers, that is, doers, even of the motions of our hearts, speaking of ‘doers’ of the law and of judgment and justice.” So on every side he shows not only that the Son is not a thing made or created, but also that he himself has nothing to do with the Arian error. [l]

Let no Arian suppose that he says anything even of this kind: “The Son exists together with the Father in such a way that, while the names go together, the realities are far apart. The Son did not always exist together with the Father; when the Son came into being, God received from that fact the additional name of Father, and his existing together with him dates from that time, as happens with human beings.” On the contrary, let him look at and keep in mind what we said before, and he will see that the faith of Dionysius is correct. For when he says, “For there was no time when God was not Father,” and again, “God at any rate is eternal light, without beginning and never to end; so the radiance is eternally before him and exists together with him, without beginning and ever begotten, shining in his presence,” he should make it impossible for anyone to hold any such suspicion against him. Moreover, the examples of the spring and the river, the root and the branch, and the breath and the vapor put to shame the enemies of Christ when they keep repeating the contrary against him. [n]

But in addition to all his own wickedness, Arius has raked up this expression too, as if from a dunghill: “The Word is not the Father’s own. The Word that is in God is a different one, while this one, the Lord, is outside the substance of the Father and has nothing to do with it. He is called ‘Word’ only in our way of thinking, and is not Son of God by nature and in truth; he too is called Son by adoption, as a creature.” And since, in saying this, he boasts among the ignorant as though here too he had Dionysius as his partisan, look at the faith of Dionysius on these points also, and see how he contradicts these perversities of Arius. In the first book he writes as follows: “Now I have said that God is the spring of all that is good, while the Son has been described as the river that flows from him. For a word is an outflow of the mind; and, to borrow language that applies to human beings, the mind that issues by the tongue is drawn from the heart through the mouth, and comes out different from the word in the heart. For the word in the heart remains as it was after sending the other forth. But the other is sent forth and flies out, and is carried in every direction. And so each is in the other, and each is distinct from the other; they are one, and at the same time two. In the same way the Father and the Son were said to be one, and the one in the other.” And in the fourth book he says: “Our mind utters the word from itself, as the prophet says, ‘My heart has uttered a good word.’ Each is distinct from the other, occupying a place of its own: the one dwells and stirs in the heart, the other on the tongue. Yet they are not separated, not for a moment lost to one another. The mind is not wordless, nor the word mindless. The mind creates the word, being shown forth in it, and the word shows forth the mind, having come into being in it. The mind is, as it were, a word within, and the word is mind issuing forth. The mind passes over into the word, while the word carries the mind around among the hearers; and so, through the word, the mind finds a home in the souls of the hearers, entering in together with the word. “The mind is, as it were, the father of the word, existing in itself, while the word is, as it were, the son of the mind. The word does not have its origin before the mind, of course, nor yet alongside it from some source outside, but by springing out of it. Just so, the mighty Father, the Mind of all things, has the Son before all things as his Word, Interpreter and Messenger.” [o]

Arius either never heard these things, or heard them and in his ignorance did not understand them. Otherwise, had he understood, he would not have slandered the bishop so grossly; he would certainly have reviled him too, as he did us, because of his hatred of the truth. For being an enemy of Christ, he will not hesitate to persecute also those who hold the teaching of Christ, as the Lord himself said beforehand: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” Or, if the leaders of ungodliness think Dionysius was their partisan, let them write and confess what he did. Let them write about the vine and the vinedresser, the boat and the shipbuilder; and at the same time let them confess, as he did in his defense, the oneness of substance, and that the Son is from the Father’s substance, and eternal; and the relation of mind and word, and of the spring and the river, and the rest. Then they may see from the very contrast that he used the first kind of language for a particular purpose, but the second as expressing the full meaning of the Christian faith. And so, by adopting this language, let them take back what they have held against it. For in what way does the faith of Dionysius come anywhere near the mischief of Arius? Does not Arius limit the name Word to our way of thinking, while Dionysius calls him the true Word of God by nature? And while the one banishes the Word from the Father, the other teaches that he is the Father’s own and inseparable from his substance, as the word is from the mind and the river from the spring. If, then, anyone is able to separate and banish the word from the mind, or to put the river and the spring apart and wall them off from each other, or to say that the river is of another substance than the spring and to show that the water comes from somewhere else, or if he dares to divide the radiance from the light and say that the radiance is from another substance, then let him join Arius in his madness. For such a person will have ceased to have even the appearance of human intelligence. But if nature knows that these things are indivisible, and that what comes from them is their very own, then let no one any longer hold with Arius or slander Dionysius. Rather, on these grounds, let them admire the plainness of his language and the soundness of his faith. [q]

Arius in his madness says that the Word that is in God is different from the one of whom John said, “In the beginning was the Word,” and that God’s own wisdom within himself is not the same as the one the apostle refers to as “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Dionysius resists and denounces any such error, as you may see in the second book, where he writes on the subject as follows: “‘In the beginning was the Word’; but it was not the Word that sent forth the Word, for ‘the Word was with God.’ The Lord has been made wisdom; so the one who sent forth Wisdom was not Wisdom, for ‘I was the one,’ says Wisdom, ‘in whom he delighted.’ Christ is truth; but ‘Blessed,’ he says, ‘be the God of truth.’” There he overthrows both Sabellius and Arius, and shows both heresies to be equal in ungodliness. For neither is the Father of the Word himself the Word, nor is the offspring of the Father a creature; he is the very own offspring of the Father’s substance. And again, the Word who came forth is not the Father, nor is he one word among many; he alone is the Father’s Son, the true and genuine Son by nature, who both is in him now and is eternally and indivisibly from within him. So the Lord is both Wisdom and Truth, and does not stand second after some other wisdom. He alone is the one through whom the Father made all things, and in him he made the many and varied substances of created things; through him the Father is made known to whom he wills, and in him he carries on and accomplishes his providence over all things. For Dionysius recognizes him alone as the Word of God. This is the faith of Dionysius. I have gathered and copied a few statements from his letters, enough to lead you to add to their number, and to put the Arians to complete shame for their slander of the bishop. For in everything he wrote, even in the details, he exposed their error and branded their heresy. [r]

From this it is also plain that even the letter to Euphranor and Ammonius was written by him in a different sense and for a particular purpose; his defense makes this clear. And truly, for anyone who wants a short way with those heretics, this is an effective way to argue for overturning the madness of Sabellius. One should not start from the expressions that belong to the deity of the Word, such as that the Son is God’s Word and Wisdom and Power, and “I and the Father are one.” Otherwise they may twist what is well said, and use such expressions as a cover for their shameless quarrelsomeness when they hear the texts “I and the Father are one” and “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Instead, one should stress what is said of the Savior as man, as he himself did: his being hungry and thirsty and tired, how he is the Vine, and how he prayed and suffered. For the lowlier these expressions are, the clearer it becomes that it was not the Father who became man. When the Lord is called the Vine, it follows that there must also be a vinedresser; when he prayed, there was someone to hear; and when he asked, there was someone to give. Such things show up the madness of the Sabellians far more readily, because the one who prayed was one, and the one who heard was another; one was the Vine, and another the Vinedresser. For whatever expressions are cited to distinguish between the Son and the Father are used of him because of the flesh that he bore for our sake. For created things are distinct in nature from God. So, since the flesh is a created thing, and “the Word,” as John says, “became flesh,” then although by nature he is the Father’s own and inseparable from him, yet because of the flesh the Father is widely distinguished from him. For he himself allows what belongs to the flesh to be said of him, so that it may be made plain that the body was his own and not someone else’s. Since this is the sense of these sayings, Sabellius will be refuted all the more quickly, once it is proved that it was not the Father who became flesh, but his Word, who also redeemed the flesh and offered it to the Father. And once he has refuted and persuaded him in this way, he will next be able more readily to teach him about the deity of the Word: that he is the Word and Wisdom, Son and Power, Radiance and Exact Imprint. For here again it necessarily follows that, as the Word exists, the Father of the Word must exist too; as Wisdom exists, so does its Parent; and as the Radiance exists, so does the Light. In this way the Son and the Father are one. [s]

Dionysius knew this when he wrote. By his first letters he silenced Sabellius, and in his others he overcame the heresy of Arius. For just as the human qualities of the Savior overthrew Sabellius, so against the Arian madmen one must use proofs drawn, not from the human qualities, but from what shows the deity of the Word. Otherwise they will twist what is said of the Lord because of his body, think that the Word is of like nature with us human beings, and so remain in their madness. But if they are also taught about his deity, they will condemn their own error; and when they understand that the Word became flesh, they too will from then on more easily tell the human characteristics apart from those that fit his deity. Since this is so, and the bishop Dionysius has been shown by his writings to be godly, what will the Arian madmen do next? Convicted on this evidence, whom will they dare to slander now? For they must do so: since they have fallen from the foundation of the apostles and have no settled mind of their own, they must look for some support, and if they can find none, then slander the fathers. But no one will believe them any longer, even if they try hard to slander them, for the heresy is condemned on every side. Unless perhaps from now on they will name the devil, for he is their only partisan; or rather, he is the one who suggested their heresy to them. Who, then, can any longer call people “Christians” whose leader is the devil, and not rather “Diabolici,” so that they bear the name not merely of enemies of Christ but of partisans of the devil? Unless, indeed, they turn around, reject the ungodliness they have invented, and come to know the truth. That will at once be for their own good, and this is how it is right for us to pray for all who are in error. [v]