Faithful to Him Who Made Him

I really did think that enough had already been said against the hollow champions of Arius’s madness, both to refute them and to defend the truth, to make them stop and repent of their evil thoughts and words about the Savior. Yet, for whatever reason, they still do not give in. Like swine and dogs wallowing in their own vomit and their own mire, they would rather invent new devices for their impiety. So they misunderstand the passage in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways, for his works,” and the words of the apostle, “Who was faithful to him who made him,” and at once they argue that the Son of God is a work and a creature. They might have learned from what has been said above, if they had not completely lost their power of understanding, that the Son is not from nothing and is not among things that have come into being at all; the Truth itself bears witness to it. For, being God, he cannot be a work, and it is impious to call him a creature; and it is of creatures and works that we say ‘out of nothing’ and ‘it was not before it was begotten.’ Yet, as though they dreaded abandoning their own invention, they habitually bring forward these passages of divine Scripture, which have a good meaning but which they twist. So let us take up afresh the question of what these passages mean, to remind the faithful, and to show from each of them that these men have no knowledge of Christianity at all. If it were otherwise, they would not have shut themselves up in the unbelief of the Jews of today. They would have asked and learned that, whereas “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” it follows that it was when, by the good pleasure of the Father, the Word became man, that these things were said of him: by John, “The Word became flesh”; by Peter, “He has made him Lord and Christ”; through Solomon, in the person of the Lord himself, “The Lord created me a beginning of his ways, for his works”; by Paul, “Having become so much better than the angels”; and again, “He emptied himself, and took on himself the form of a servant”; and again, “Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to him who made him.” All these texts have the same force and meaning, and it is a reverent one, declaring the divinity of the Word, even those of them that speak of him in human terms, because he has become the Son of Man. This distinction is enough to refute them. Still, they misunderstand the apostle’s words (to take these first), and consider the Word of God to be one of the works because it is written, “Who was faithful to him who made him.” So I have thought it necessary to silence this further argument of theirs, taking up, as before, the proposition they put forward. [a]

If, then, he is not a Son, let him be called a work, and let everything that is said of works be said of him. Then let him not, he alone, be called Son, or Word, or Wisdom; and let God not be called Father, but only Framer and Creator of the things that come to be through him. Let the creature be the image and expression of his framing will, and let God, as they would have it, be without a nature that begets, so that there is neither Word, nor Wisdom, no, nor Image, of his own substance. For if he is not Son, neither is he Image. But if there is no Son, how then can you say that God is a Creator? For all things that come to be come through the Word and in Wisdom, and without this nothing can be; and yet you say he does not have that in which and through which he makes all things. For if the divine substance is not fruitful in itself, but barren, as they hold, like a light that gives no light, or a dried-up spring, are they not ashamed to speak of his having the power to frame things? And while they deny what is by nature, do they not blush to put before it what is by will? But if he frames things that are outside himself and did not exist before, by willing them to be, and becomes their Maker, much more will he first be Father of an Offspring from his own substance. For if they attribute to God the willing of things that do not exist, why do they not recognize in God what lies above will? And it is something that surpasses will that he should be by nature, and should be Father of his own Word. If, then, what comes first, what is according to nature, did not exist, as in their folly they would have it, how could what is second, what is according to will, come to be? For the Word comes first, and then the creation. On the contrary, the Word exists, whatever those impious men affirm; for through him creation came to be. And God, being Maker, plainly also has his framing Word, not outside himself but his own; for this must be repeated. If he has the power to will, and his will is effective and is enough to bring into being the things that come to be, and if his Word is effective and a Framer, then that Word must surely be the living Will of the Father, an energy belonging to his substance, and a real Word, in whom all things both hold together and are excellently governed. No one can even doubt that he who orders things comes before the ordering and the things ordered. And so, as I said, God’s creating comes second to his begetting. For ‘Son’ means something that is the Father’s own, truly from that blessed and everlasting substance; but what comes from his will is brought into being from outside, and is framed through his own Offspring, who is from that substance.

As we have shown, then, those who say that the Lord is not Son of God but a work are guilty of great extravagance, and it follows that all of us must confess that he is Son. And if he is Son, as indeed he is, and a son is admitted to be not outside his father but from him, let them not quibble, as I said before, about the terms the sacred writers use of the Word himself, namely, not ‘to him who begot him’ but ‘to him who made him.’ For once it is agreed what his nature is, the word used in such cases need raise no question. Terms do not lessen his nature; rather, that nature draws the terms to itself and changes them. For terms do not come before substances; substances come first, and terms second. So when the substance is a work or a creature, then the words ‘he made,’ ‘he became,’ and ‘he created’ are used of it properly, and mark it as a work. But when the substance is an Offspring and Son, then ‘he made,’ ‘he became,’ and ‘he created’ no longer properly belong to it, nor do they mark a work; and we use ‘he made’ freely for ‘he begot.’ So fathers often call the sons born to them their servants, yet without denying that they are their true sons by nature. And they often affectionately call their own servants children, yet without losing sight of the fact that they bought them in the first place. They use the one name from their authority as fathers; in the other they speak from affection. So Sarah called Abraham lord, though she was not a servant but a wife. And while the apostle joined Onesimus the servant to Philemon the master as a brother, Bathsheba, though she was his mother, called her son a servant, saying to his father, “Your servant Solomon.” Afterwards Nathan the prophet also came in and repeated her words to David: “Solomon your servant.” They did not mind calling the son a servant. For David, while he heard it, recognized his nature, and they, while they said it, did not forget that he was a true son; they were praying that the one they called a servant might be made his father’s heir. For to David he was a son by nature. [e] So when we read this, we interpret it fairly. We do not count Solomon a servant because we hear him called one; we take him for a son, natural and true. In the same way, the Savior is confessed to be truly the Son and by nature the Word. So if the saints say of him, “Who was faithful to him who made him,” or if he says of himself, “The Lord created me,” and, “I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid,” and the like, let no one on that account deny that he is the Father’s own and from him. Rather, as in the case of Solomon and David, let them think rightly of the Father and the Son. For if, hearing Solomon called a servant, they still acknowledge him to be a son, do they not deserve to die many times over? Instead of keeping the same explanation in the case of the Lord, whenever they hear ‘Offspring,’ and ‘Word,’ and ‘Wisdom,’ they forcibly twist the meaning and deny the natural and true begetting of the Son from the Father. But when they hear words and terms that belong to a work, they at once drop to the notion that he is by nature a work, and they deny the Word; and this, though it is possible, since he has been made man, to refer all these terms to his humanity. Are they not shown to be “an abomination to the Lord” as well, since they keep “differing weights,” weighing the other cases with one and blaspheming the Lord with the other? But perhaps they grant that the word ‘servant’ is used with a certain understanding, but lean on ‘who made him’ as some great support for their heresy. But this prop of theirs is also a broken reed. For if they know the style of Scripture, they must at once pass sentence on themselves. For as Solomon, though a son, is called a servant, so, to repeat what was said above, parents call the sons who spring from them ‘made’ and ‘created’ and ‘coming to be,’ and for all that they do not deny their nature. So Hezekiah, as it is written in Isaiah, said in his prayer, “From this day I will make children, who will declare your righteousness, O God of my salvation.” He said, ‘I will make’; but the prophet, in that same book and in the Fourth Book of Kings, speaks this way: “And the sons who will come out of you.” So he uses ‘make’ for ‘beget,’ and he calls those who were to spring from him ‘made,’ and no one questions whether the term refers to natural children. Again, when Eve bore Cain she said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord”; so she too used ‘gotten’ for ‘brought forth.’ For first she saw the child, and then she said, ‘I have gotten.’ Yet no one would think, because of ‘I have gotten,’ that Cain was bought from outside instead of being born of her. Again, the patriarch Jacob said to Joseph, “And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who came to be yours in Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine.” And Scripture says of Job, “And seven sons and three daughters came to be his.” So too Moses said in the law, “If a man has sons that come to be his,” and, “If he makes a son.” Here again they speak of those who are begotten as having ‘come to be’ and been ‘made,’ knowing that, since they are acknowledged to be sons, there is no need to make a question of ‘they came to be,’ or ‘I have gotten,’ or ‘I made.’ For nature and truth draw the meaning to themselves. [f]

Since this is so, when people ask whether the Lord is a creature or a work, the proper thing is to ask them first whether he is Son, and Word, and Wisdom. For if this is shown, the guess about work and creation falls to the ground at once and is finished. A work could never be Son and Word, nor could the Son be a work. And again, since this is how things stand, the proof is plain to everyone that the phrase ‘to him who made him’ does not serve their heresy but rather condemns it. For it has been shown that the expression ‘he made’ is used in divine Scripture even of true and natural children. So, since the Lord has been proved to be the Father’s Son by nature and in truth, and his Word and Wisdom, then even if ‘he made’ or ‘he became’ is used of him, it is not said of him as of a work. The saints simply do not hesitate to use the expression, as in the case of Solomon and of Hezekiah’s children. For though their fathers had begotten them from themselves, it is still written, ‘I have made,’ and ‘I have gotten,’ and ‘he became.’ Therefore God’s enemies, though they keep bringing forward such little phrases, ought now, late as it is, after what has been said, to give up their impious thoughts, and to think of the Lord as the true Son, Word, and Wisdom of the Father, not a work, not a creature. For if the Son is a creature, then by what word and by what wisdom was he himself made? For all the works were made through the Word and the Wisdom, as it is written, “In wisdom you have made them all,” and, “All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made.” But if he is the Word and the Wisdom by which all things come to be, it follows that he is not among the works, nor, in short, among things that have come into being, but is the Offspring of the Father. [i]

Consider how serious an error it is to call God’s Word a work. Solomon says in one place in Ecclesiastes that “God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil.” If, then, the Word is a work, do you mean that he too will be brought into judgment along with the others? And what room is there for judgment when the Judge is on trial? Who will give the just their blessing, and the unworthy their punishment, if the Lord, as you must suppose, stands on trial with the rest? By what law will he, the Lawgiver, himself be judged? These things belong to the works: to be on trial, and to be blessed or punished by the Son. Now then, fear the Judge, and let Solomon’s words convince you. For if God will bring the works, every one of them, into judgment, but the Son is not among those put on trial, but is rather himself the Judge of all the works, is not the proof clearer than the sun that the Son is not a work but the Father’s Word, in whom all the works both come to be and come into judgment? Further, if the expression ‘who was faithful’ troubles them, because they think ‘faithful’ is used of him as of others, as though he exercised faith and so received the reward of faith, then at this rate they must go on to find fault with Moses for saying, “God, faithful and true,” and with Saint Paul for writing, “God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able.” But when the saints spoke this way, they were not thinking of God in human terms. They recognized two senses of the word ‘faithful’ in Scripture: first ‘believing,’ then ‘trustworthy.’ The first belongs to man, the second to God. So Abraham was faithful, because he believed God’s word; and God is faithful, for, as David says in the Psalm, “The Lord is faithful in all his words”; that is, he is trustworthy and cannot lie. Again, “If any faithful woman has widows,” she is called faithful for her right faith; but “It is a faithful saying,” because what he has spoken deserves our faith, for it is true and is not otherwise. Accordingly the words ‘who is faithful to him who made him’ imply no likeness to others, nor do they mean that he became well-pleasing by having faith. They mean that, being Son of the true God, he too is faithful, and ought to be believed in all he says and does, while he himself remains unalterable and unchanged in the plan of salvation by which he became man, and in his presence in the flesh. [j]

So we may answer these shameless men, and show from the single expression ‘he made’ that they are wrong in thinking that the Word of God is a work. But further, since the drift of the context is orthodox too, and shows the time and the relation to which this expression points, I ought to show from it also how the heretics lack reason; that is, by considering, as we have done above, the occasion on which it was used and its purpose. Now the apostle is not speaking of things before the creation when he says this, but of the time when “the Word became flesh.” For this is how it is written: “Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to him who made him.” When did he become ‘Apostle,’ if not when he put on our flesh? And when did he become ‘High Priest of our confession,’ if not when, after offering himself for us, he raised his body from the dead, and now himself brings near and offers to the Father those who come to him in faith, redeeming all, and propitiating God for all? So it was not to signify the substance of the Word, nor his natural begetting from the Father, that the apostle said, “Who was faithful to him who made him.” Perish the thought! For the Word is not made; he makes. He said it to signify his coming down to mankind, and his high priesthood, which did ‘come to be.’ One may easily see this from the account given of the law and of Aaron. I mean that Aaron was not born a high priest, but a man; and in the course of time, when God willed it, he became a high priest. Yet he did not become one simply, nor was he marked out by his ordinary clothes. He put over them the ephod, the breastplate, and the robe, which the women made at God’s command, and going into the holy place in them, he offered the sacrifice for the people; and in them, so to speak, he stood as mediator between the vision of God and the sacrifices of men. So it was with the Lord too. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But when the Father willed that ransoms should be paid for all, and grace be given to all, then truly the Word, as Aaron took his robe, took earthly flesh, having Mary as the mother of his body, as though she were untilled earth. He did this so that, as a High Priest having, like the others, something to offer, he might offer himself to the Father, and cleanse us all from sins in his own blood, and rise from the dead. [m] For what happened of old was a shadow of this, and what the Savior did at his coming, Aaron foreshadowed under the law. Aaron was the same man and did not change by putting on the high priest’s clothing; he remained the same and was only robed. So if anyone had seen him offering and had said, ‘Look, Aaron has become high priest today,’ he would not have meant that Aaron had been born a man that day, for he was a man even before he became high priest. He would have meant that Aaron had been made high priest in his ministry, by putting on the garments made and prepared for the high priesthood. In the same way it is possible, in the Lord’s case too, to understand rightly that he did not become someone other than himself when he took the flesh, but, being the same as before, was robed in it. The expressions ‘he became’ and ‘he was made’ must not be understood to mean that the Word, considered as the Word, was made, but that the Word, being Framer of all, was afterwards made High Priest by putting on a body that had come into being and been made, one such as he could offer for us. That is why he is said to be made. If the Lord did not become man, let the Arians fight for that point. But if “the Word became flesh,” what ought to have been said of him once he had become man, but “who was faithful to him who made him”? For as it belongs to the Word to have it said of him, “In the beginning was the Word,” so it belongs to man to ‘become’ and to be ‘made.’ Who, then, seeing the Lord walking about as a man, and yet appearing to be God from his works, would not have asked, ‘Who made him man?’ And who again, asked such a question, would not have answered that the Father made him man and sent him to us as High Priest? The apostle himself, the writer of the words ‘who is faithful to him who made him,’ will best make this meaning, and time, and character plain to us, if we pay attention to what comes before them. For there is one train of thought, and the whole reading is about one and the same person. He writes, then, in the letter to the Hebrews: “Since, then, the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part in the same, so that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to slavery. For truly he did not take on himself the nature of angels, but he took on himself the seed of Abraham. Therefore in all things he had to be made like his brothers, so that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things relating to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For since he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to him who made him.” [o]

Who can read this whole passage without condemning the Arians and admiring the blessed apostle, who has spoken so well? For when was Christ ‘made,’ when did he become ‘Apostle,’ except when, like us, he “took part in flesh and blood”? And when did he become “a merciful and faithful High Priest,” except when “in all things he was made like his brothers”? And he was ‘made like’ them when he became man, having put on our flesh. So Paul was writing of the plan of salvation by which the Word became man, and not of his substance, when he said, “Who was faithful to him who made him.” So do not go on being so mad as to say that the Word of God is a work. He is by nature the only Son, and he came to have ‘brothers’ when he took on himself flesh like ours. And by offering himself he was named and became ‘merciful and faithful’: merciful, because in mercy to us he offered himself for us; and faithful, not as sharing faith with us, nor as having faith in anyone as we do, but as deserving to be believed in all he says and does, and as offering a faithful sacrifice, one that remains and does not come to nothing. For the sacrifices offered under the law did not have this faithfulness; they passed away with the day and needed a further cleansing. But the Savior’s sacrifice, made once, has brought everything to completion, and has become faithful because it remains forever. Aaron had successors, and in short the priesthood under the law changed its first ministers as time and death went on. But the Lord, having a high priesthood that does not pass to another and has no successor, has become a ‘faithful High Priest,’ because he continues forever; and faithful too in his promise, so that he may hear those who come to him and not mislead them. This may also be learned from the letter of the great Peter, who says, “Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to a faithful Creator.” For he is faithful because he does not change, but abides forever, and gives what he has promised. [q]

Now the so-called gods of the Greeks, unworthy of the name, are faithful neither in their substance nor in their promises. The same gods are not found everywhere; indeed, the local deities come to nothing in the course of time and undergo a natural dissolution. That is why the Word cries out against them that “faith is not strong in them,” that they are “waters that fail,” and that “there is no faith in them.” But the God of all, being one, really and indeed, and true, is faithful. He is always the same, and says, “See now that I, I am he,” and, “I do not change.” And therefore his Son is ‘faithful,’ being always the same and unchanging, deceiving neither in his substance nor in his promise. As the apostle says again, writing to the Thessalonians, “Faithful is he who calls you, who also will do it”; for in doing what he promises, “he is faithful to his words.” And he writes this to the Hebrews of the word as meaning ‘unchangeable’: “If we do not believe, yet he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself.” So the apostle, speaking of the bodily presence of the Word, has good reason to say ‘Apostle’ and ‘faithful to him who made him,’ showing us that even when he was made man, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever,” and is unchangeable. And as the apostle mentions in his letter that he was made man when he speaks of his High Priesthood, so too he did not keep long silent about his Godhead, but mentions it at once. He gives us a safeguard on every side, and most of all when he speaks of his lowliness, so that we may know at once his loftiness and his majesty, which is the Father’s. For example, he says, “Moses as a servant, but Christ as a Son”: the one “faithful in his house,” the other “over the house,” as having built it himself, and being its Lord and Framer, and, as God, making it holy. For Moses, a man by nature, became faithful by believing God, who spoke to him by his Word. But the Word was not in a body as one of the things that have come into being, nor as a creature in a creature, but as God in flesh, and as Framer of all and Builder in what he himself had built. Men are clothed in flesh in order to exist and to subsist; but the Word of God was made man in order to sanctify the flesh, and, though he was Lord, he was in the form of a servant. For the whole creation, which came to be through him and was made, is the Word’s servant. [r]

So it holds that the apostle’s expression ‘he made’ does not prove that the Word is made, but that the body is made, which he took like ours; and in consequence he is called our brother, because he became man. But it has also been shown that, even if the word ‘made’ is referred to the very Word himself, it is used for ‘begot.’ What further perverse device, then, can they fall back on, now that this discussion has cleared up the word from every point of view, and has shown that the Son is not a work, but in his substance is the Father’s Offspring, while in the plan of salvation, by the good pleasure of the Father, he was made for our sake and exists as man? For this reason, then, the apostle says, “Who was faithful to him who made him”; and in the Proverbs even creation is spoken of. For as long as we confess that he became man, there is no question, as was observed before, about saying ‘he became,’ or ‘he has been made,’ or ‘created,’ or ‘formed,’ or ‘servant,’ or ‘son of a handmaid,’ or ‘son of man,’ or ‘was established,’ or ‘set out on his journey,’ or ‘bridegroom,’ or ‘brother’s son,’ or ‘brother.’ All these terms happen to belong to man’s makeup; and terms like these do not describe the substance of the Word, but show that he has become man. [u]