Human Fathers and the Eternal Son

There is no need to answer their other question either, a very simple and foolish one, which they put to silly women; or at least no answer is needed beyond the one already given, namely that it is not fitting to measure the divine begetting by the nature of men. Still, so that, as before, they may pass judgment on themselves, it is well to meet them on their own ground, like this. Plainly, if they question parents about their son, let them consider where the child who is begotten comes from. For even granting that the parent had no son before he begot him, still, once he had him, he had him not as something external or foreign, but as from himself, belonging to his own substance and his exact image, so that the father is seen in the son, and the son is contemplated in the father. If, then, they take from human examples the idea that begetting implies time, why do they not take from the same examples the idea that it implies what is by nature and what is one’s own? Why, like serpents, do they draw from the earth only what turns to poison? [a]

Those who question parents and say, ‘Did you have a son before you begot him?’ ought to add, ‘And if you had a son, did you buy him from outside, like a house or any other possession?’ And then they would be answered: ‘He is not from outside, but from myself. Things that come from outside are possessions, and they pass from one person to another. But my son is from me, my own and like my substance. He did not become mine from someone else; he was begotten of me. That is why I too am wholly in him, while I remain what I am myself.’ So it is. Though the parent is separate from his son in time, since he is a man and has himself come to be in time, he too would have had his child always existing with him, except that his nature held him back and made it impossible. For Levi too was already in the loins of his great-grandfather before he himself was begotten, or even before his grandfather was. So when a man reaches the age at which nature gives him the power, at once, with nature no longer holding him back, he becomes father of the son who is from himself.

So if, when they ask parents about children, they are answered that children who are by nature are not from outside but from their parents, let them confess in the same way about the Word of God that he is simply from the Father. And if they raise the question of time, let them say what there is to hold God back. For their impiety has to be proved on the very ground where they make their scoff. Let them tell us what there is to hold God back from always being Father of the Son; for that what is begotten must be from its father is undeniable. Moreover, they will pass judgment on themselves for attributing such things to God if, as they questioned women on the subject of time, they also ask the sun about its radiance, and the spring about the water that flows from it. They will find that these, though they are offspring, always exist with the things they come from. And if parents such as these have their nature and their duration in common with their offspring, why, if they suppose God inferior to things that come to be, do they not say their impiety openly? But if they do not dare to say this openly, and the Son is confessed to be not from outside but a natural offspring from the Father, and if nothing holds God back (for he is not as man, but more than the sun, or rather the God of the sun), then it follows that the Word is from him and always exists with him. And it was through him that the Father brought into being all the things that were not. So it is certain, even from the nature of the case, that the Son does not come from nothing, but is eternal and from the Father. And the heretics’ question to parents exposes their perversity: they admit the point about nature, and now they have been put to shame on the point of time. [d]

As we said above, so we now repeat: the divine begetting must not be compared to the nature of men. The Son must not be thought of as a part of God, and the begetting must not be supposed to involve any passion whatever. God is not as man. For men beget subject to passion, since they have a nature that is always passing, and because of its weakness it has to wait for its proper time. But with God this cannot be, for he is not made up of parts. Being free from passion and simple, he is the Father of the Son without passion and without division. This again is strongly shown and proved by divine Scripture. For the Word of God is his Son, and the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom; and Word and Wisdom is neither a creature, nor a part of him whose Word he is, nor an offspring begotten with passion. So Scripture joins the two titles. It speaks of a ‘Son’ to proclaim the natural and true offspring of his substance. And on the other hand, so that no one may think of the Offspring in a human way, while it signifies his substance it also calls him Word, Wisdom, and Radiance, to teach us that the begetting was free from passion, eternal, and worthy of God. [f]

What passion, then, or what part of the Father is the Word, the Wisdom, the Radiance? So much may be impressed even on these men of folly. For as they asked women about God’s Son, so let them ask men about the word, and they will find that the word they speak is neither a passion in them nor a part of their mind. But if the word of men, who are subject to passion and made of parts, is like this, why do they speculate about passions and parts in the case of God, who is without body and without division? Is it so that, under a pretense of reverence, they may deny the true and natural begetting of the Son? Enough was said above to show that the offspring from God is not a passion; and now it has been shown in particular that the Word is not begotten by way of passion. The same may be said of Wisdom. God is not as man, and here too they must not think of him in a human way. For while men are capable of wisdom, God shares in nothing; he is himself the Father of his own Wisdom, and those who share in it are given the name of wise. And this Wisdom too is not a passion, nor a part, but an Offspring that belongs to the Father as his own. That is why he is always Father, and being Father is not something that came to God later from outside, or he would seem capable of change. For if it is good that he should be Father, but he has not always been Father, then good has not always been in him.

‘But look,’ they say, ‘God was always a Maker, and the power of making did not come to him later from outside. Does it follow, then, that because he is the Fashioner of all things, his works also are eternal? And is it wicked to say of them too that they did not exist before they came into being?’ These Arians are senseless. What likeness is there between a son and a work, that they should set a father’s role beside a maker’s? How is it that, with the difference between offspring and work that has been shown, they remain so badly taught? Let it be said again, then: a work is outside the nature of its maker, but a son is the offspring that belongs to the substance. So a work need not always have existed, for the workman makes it when he wishes; but an offspring is not subject to will, it belongs to the substance. A man may be, and may be called, a maker though his works do not yet exist; but he cannot be called a father, nor can he be one, unless a son exists. [g]

And suppose they pry further and ask why God, though he always had the power to make, does not always make. This too is the presumption of madmen, for ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ Or how shall ‘the thing formed say to’ the potter, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Still, so as not to leave even a weak argument unanswered, they must be told this: although God always had the power to make, the things brought into being did not have the power to be eternal. For they are from nothing, and so they did not exist before they came into being. And how could things that did not exist before they came into being exist together with the ever-existing God? So God, looking to what was good for them, made them all at the time when he saw that, once brought into being, they were able to endure. And just as he was able, even from the beginning, in the time of Adam or Noah or Moses, to send his own Word, yet did not send him until the end of the ages, because he saw that this was good for the whole creation, so too he made the things brought into being when he willed, and as was good for them. But the Son, not being a work but the Father’s own offspring, always exists. For since the Father always exists, what belongs to his substance must always exist; and this is his Word and his Wisdom. That creatures should not be in existence takes nothing away from the Maker, for he has the power to make them when he wills. But for the offspring not to be always with the Father would take away from the perfection of his substance. That is why his works were made through his Word when he willed; but the Son is always the Father’s own offspring, from his substance.