Son, Not Brother

When these points have been proved, their impiety goes further. “If there never was a time when the Son was not,” they say, “but he is eternal and exists together with the Father, then you no longer call him the Father’s Son, but his brother.” Senseless and quarrelsome men! If we said only that he was eternally with the Father, and not that he was his Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility. But if, while we say that he is eternal, we also confess him to be Son from the Father, how can the one who is begotten be thought the brother of the one who begets him? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? How can the Word be called the brother of the one whose Word he is? This is not an objection from men who are really ignorant, for they understand how the truth lies. It is a Jewish pretense, and it comes from those who, in Solomon’s words, “through desire separate themselves” from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not begotten from some origin that existed before them, so that we should count them brothers. The Father is the Origin of the Son and begot him. The Father is Father, and was not born the son of anyone; and the Son is Son, and not brother. [a]

Further, if he is called the eternal offspring of the Father, he is rightly called so. For the substance of the Father was never imperfect, so that what belongs to it should be added afterward. Nor has the Son been begotten as a man is from a man, so as to be later than his Father’s existence. He is God’s offspring, and since he is God’s own Son, and God always is, he exists eternally. For while it belongs to men to beget in time, because their nature is imperfect, God’s offspring is eternal, for his nature is always perfect. If, then, he is not a Son but a work made out of nothing, let them prove it. Then they are free, as though they were imagining things about a creature, to cry out, “There was once when he was not”; for things that have come into being once were not, and then came to be. But if he is Son, as the Father says and the Scriptures proclaim, and “Son” is nothing other than what is begotten from the Father, and what is begotten from the Father is his Word and Wisdom and Radiance, what is there to say? Only this: that in maintaining, “Once the Son was not,” they rob God of his Word, like plunderers. They openly say of him that he was once without his own Word and Wisdom, that the Light was once without its radiance, and that the Fountain was once barren and dry. For though they pretend to be alarmed at the word “time,” because of those who reproach them with it, and say that he was before times, yet since they assign certain intervals in which they imagine he was not, they are still most irreverent, for they suggest times just the same, and charge God with being without Reason.

But suppose that, while they agree with us in using the name “Son,” because they do not want to be publicly condemned by everyone, they deny that the Son is the Father’s own offspring from his substance, on the ground that this must mean parts and divisions. What is this but to deny that he is truly Son, and to call him Son in name only? And is it not a serious error to have material thoughts about what is immaterial, and, because of the weakness of their own nature, to deny what is natural and proper to the Father? It only remains for them to deny him too, since they do not understand how God is, or what the Father is, now that, foolish men, they measure the Father’s Offspring by themselves. People in such a frame of mind, who think there cannot be a Son of God, deserve our pity. But they must be questioned and exposed, in the hope of bringing them to their senses. [e]

If, then, as you say, “the Son is from nothing” and “was not before he was begotten,” then of course he, like the other creatures, must be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation. For that is how all other creatures hold together, and by being made holy they are glorified. So you must tell us what he shares in. All other things share in the Spirit; but he, by your account, what does he share in? The Spirit? No; rather, the Spirit himself receives from the Son, as he himself says, and it is not reasonable to say that the Son is made holy by the Spirit. So it is the Father that he shares in, for that is all that is left to say. But this thing that is shared, what is it, and where does it come from? If it is something external, provided by the Father, then he will no longer share in the Father, but in what is external to him. He will no longer even be second after the Father, since he has this other thing before him. Nor can he be called the Son of the Father, but of that thing, by sharing in which he has been called Son and God. And if this is unfitting and irreverent, since the Father says, “This is my beloved Son,” and the Son says that God is his own Father, it follows that what is shared is not external, but is from the substance of the Father. And again, if this is something other than the substance of the Son, we meet an equal absurdity; for there would then be something between what is from the Father and the substance of the Son, whatever that may be.

Since such thoughts are plainly unfitting and untrue, we are driven to say that what is from the substance of the Father, and is his own, is wholly the Son. For it is all one to say that God is wholly shared and that he begets; and what does begetting mean but a Son? So it is in the Son himself that all things share, by the grace of the Spirit that comes from him. This shows that the Son himself shares in nothing, but that what is shared from the Father is the Son. For by sharing in the Son himself we are said to share in God. This is what Peter said: “that you may be partakers of a divine nature.” So too the apostle says, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God?” and, “We are the temple of a living God.” And seeing the Son, we see the Father; for to think of the Son and grasp him is to know the Father, because the Son is his own offspring from his substance. Now none of us would ever call being shared a passion or a division of God’s substance; for it has been shown and agreed that God is shared, and that to be shared is the same as to beget. So what is begotten is neither a passion nor a division of that blessed substance. It is not incredible, then, that God should have a Son, the Offspring of his own substance. Nor do we imply passion or division of God’s substance when we speak of “Son” and “Offspring.” Rather, we believe as those who acknowledge the genuine and true only Son of God. [f]

If, then, as we have stated and are showing, the Offspring of the Father’s substance is the Son, we cannot hesitate; rather, we must be certain that this same one is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in whom and through whom he creates and makes all things. He is his Brightness too, in whom he gives light to all things and is revealed to whomever he wills. He is his Exact Imprint and his Image, in whom he is contemplated and known; that is why “he and his Father are one,” and whoever looks on him looks on the Father. And he is the Christ, in whom all things are redeemed and the new creation is made afresh. On the other hand, since the Son is such an Offspring, it is not fitting, and is rather full of danger, to say that he is a work out of nothing, or that he was not before he was begotten. For whoever speaks so of what belongs to the Father’s substance already blasphemes the Father himself, since he really thinks of the Father what he falsely imagines about his offspring.