God’s Word and Man’s Word

But what the truth holds on this matter must not be kept hidden; it must be proclaimed aloud. The Word of God was not made for our sake; rather, we were made for his, and “in him all things were created.” Nor was it because we were weak that he was made strong, made by the Father alone so that the Father might fashion us by means of him as an instrument. Perish the thought! It is not so. For even if God had chosen not to make things originated, the Word would still have been with God no less, and the Father in him. At the same time, things originated could not be brought into being without the Word; that is why they were made through him, and rightly so. For since the Word is the Son of God by nature, belongs to his substance, and is from him and in him, as he himself said, the creatures could not have come into being except through him. For as the light enlightens all things by its radiance, and without its radiance nothing would be lit, so also the Father worked all things in the Word, as by a hand, and without him makes nothing. For instance, God said, as Moses relates, “Let there be light,” and “Let the waters be gathered together,” and “Let the dry land appear,” and “Let us make man”; as holy David also says in the Psalm, “He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.” And he spoke, not so that, as with men, some under-worker might hear, learn the will of the one who spoke, and go away and do it. That is what belongs to creatures, and it is unfitting to think or speak so of the Word. For the Word of God is Fashioner and Maker, and he is the Father’s Will. That is why divine Scripture does not say that someone heard and answered about the manner or nature of the things God wished to be made. God only said, “Let it be,” and Scripture adds, “And it was.” For what he thought good and resolved, the Word at once began to do and to finish. For when God gives commands to others, whether to the angels, or speaks with Moses, or commands Abraham, then the one who hears answers. The one says, “How shall I know?” and the other, “Send someone else”; and again, “If they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” And the angel said to Zechariah, “Thus says the Lord”; and he asked the Lord, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem?” and waited to hear good and comforting words. For each of these has the Word as Mediator, and the Wisdom of God, which makes known the Father’s will. But when that Word himself works and creates, there is no questioning and answering, for the Father is in him and the Word in the Father; it is enough to will, and the work is done. So the words “He said” are a sign of the will, given for our sake, and “It was so” means the work that is done through the Word and the Wisdom, in which Wisdom the Father’s Will also is. And “God said” is explained by “the Word,” for, Scripture says, “You have made all things in Wisdom,” and “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm,” and “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” [a]

It is plain from this that the Arians are not fighting with us about their heresy; while they pretend to be fighting us, their real fight is against the Godhead itself. If the voice that says, “This is my Son,” were ours, our complaint against them would be small. But if it is the Father’s voice, and the disciples heard it, and the Son also says of himself, “Before all the mountains he begot me,” are they not fighting against God, like the giants of the old stories, with their tongue, as the psalmist says, a sharp sword for impiety? For they neither feared the voice of the Father, nor revered the Savior’s words, nor trusted the saints. One of the saints writes, “Who, being the Radiance of his glory and the Exact Imprint of his being,” and “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Another says in the Psalm, “With you is the spring of life, and in your light we shall see light,” and “You made all things in Wisdom.” The prophets say, “And the Word of the Lord came to me”; and John, “In the beginning was the Word”; and Luke, “As they delivered them to us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word”; and as David again says, “He sent his Word and healed them.” All these passages condemn the Arian heresy from every side, and show the eternity of the Word, and that he is not foreign to the Father’s substance but its own. For who ever saw light without radiance? Or who dares to say that the imprint can be different from the being it bears the stamp of? Or has not a man lost his mind who so much as entertains the thought that God was ever without Reason and without Wisdom? For Scripture has offered such illustrations and such images so that, since human nature cannot comprehend God, we might be able to form some idea even from these, however poorly and dimly, and as far as we can attain. Creation contains abundant material for knowing that there is a God and a Providence (“for from the greatness and beauty of the creatures their Maker is seen by comparison”). We learn from the creatures without asking for voices; hearing the Scriptures, we believe; and surveying the very order and harmony of all things, we acknowledge that he is Maker and Lord and God of all, and grasp his marvelous Providence and government over all things. In just the same way, about the Son’s Godhead, what has been said above is enough. It becomes superfluous, or rather it is utter madness, to dispute about it, or to ask in the heretics’ way, “How can the Son be from eternity?” or, “How can he be from the Father’s substance and yet not be a part, since what is said to be from another is a part of him, and what is divided is not whole?” [e]

These are the evil sophistries of the heterodox. Though we have already shown how shallow they are, the exact sense of these passages themselves and the force of these illustrations will show how baseless their loathsome teaching is. For we see that reason always exists, comes from the one whose reason it is, belongs to his substance, and admits no before and after. Again, we see that the radiance from the sun belongs to it, and the sun’s substance is not divided or lessened. Its substance is whole, and its radiance perfect and whole, without lessening the substance of the light, but as a true offspring from it. In the same way we understand that the Son is begotten not from outside but from the Father; and while the Father remains whole, the Imprint of his being always exists, and keeps the Father’s likeness and unchanging Image, so that whoever sees him sees in him the being too, of which he is the Imprint. And from the working of the Imprint we understand the true Godhead of the being it bears the stamp of, as the Savior himself teaches when he says, “The Father who dwells in me does the works” that I do; and “I and the Father are one”; and “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” Therefore let this heresy that fights against Christ first try to divide the examples found among things originated, and say, “Once the sun was without its radiance,” or, “Radiance does not belong to the substance of light,” or, “It does belong to it, but it is a part of the light by division.” Then let it divide reason, and declare that it is foreign to the mind, or that once it was not, or that it did not belong to the mind’s substance, or that it is a part of the mind by division. And let it do violence in the same way to his Imprint, and the Light, and the Power, as with reason and radiance; and in their place let it imagine whatever it likes. But if such extravagance is impossible for them, are they not quite out of their minds, pushing presumptuously into what is higher than things originated and higher than their own nature, and attempting the impossible? [j]

For if, in the case of these originated and irrational things, offspring are found that are not parts of the substances they come from, that do not come into being with passion, and that do not lessen the substances of their sources, are they not mad again to look for parts and passions, and to guess at them, in the case of the immaterial and true God, and to ascribe divisions to him who is beyond passion and change? And they do it to confuse the ears of simple people and turn them away from the truth. For who hears of a son without thinking of what belongs to the father’s substance? Who, when he was first instructed in the faith, heard that God has a Son and has made all things by his own Word, and did not understand it in the sense in which we now mean it? Who, when this hateful heresy of the Arians arose, was not at once startled at what he heard, as something strange, a second sowing beside the Word that had been sown from the beginning? For what is sown in every soul from the beginning is that God has a Son, the Word, the Wisdom, the Power, that is, his Image and Radiance. From this it follows at once that he always is; that he is from the Father; that he is like him; that he is the eternal offspring of his substance; and no thought of creature or work is involved in any of this. But when the man who is an enemy, while men slept, made a second sowing of “He is a creature,” and “There was once when he was not,” and “How can it be?”, from then on the wicked heresy of Christ’s enemies sprang up like weeds. And at once, as men robbed of every right thought, they go meddling about like robbers, and venture to say, “How can the Son always exist with the Father? For men come from men and become sons after a time; the father is thirty years old when the son begins to exist by being begotten; and in short, it is true of every son of man that he did not exist before he was begotten.” And again they whisper, “How can the Son be Word, or the Word be God’s Image? For the word of men is made up of syllables; it only signifies the speaker’s will, and then it is over and lost.” [k]

So, as if they had forgotten the proofs already brought against them, they once more “pierce themselves through” with these bonds of impiety, and argue in this way. But the word of truth refutes them as follows. If they were disputing about some man, then let them reason in this human way about his word and his son. But if they are disputing about God, who created man, let them no longer entertain human thoughts, but others that are above human nature. For as the one who begets is, so of necessity is the offspring; and as the Word’s Father is, so must his Word be also. Now man, begotten in time, also begets his child in time; and since he came to be from nothing, his word too is over and does not last. But God is not as man, as Scripture has said; he exists and always is. Therefore his Word also exists, and is everlastingly with the Father, as radiance with light. Man’s word is made up of syllables; it neither lives nor accomplishes anything, but only signifies the speaker’s intention. It goes out and passes by, never to appear again, since it did not exist at all before it was spoken. So the word of man neither lives nor accomplishes anything, and in short is not a man. And this happens to it, as I said before, because man, who begets it, has his nature from nothing. But God’s Word is not merely something pronounced, as one might say, nor a sound of accents; nor is it his command that is meant by his Son. But as radiance is from light, so he is perfect offspring from perfect. That is why he is also God, as being God’s Image; for “the Word was God,” says Scripture. And men’s words have no power to act; so man works not by means of words but by his hands, for his hands have being, while man’s word has no real existence of its own. But “the Word of God,” as the apostle says, “is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” He, then, is Fashioner of all, “and without him not one thing was made,” nor can anything be made without him. [m]

Nor should we ask why the Word of God is not like our word, since God is not like us, as was said before. Nor again is it right to inquire how the Word is from God, or how he is God’s radiance, or how God begets, and what the manner of his begetting is. A man must be out of his mind to venture on such points, demanding that something beyond words, belonging to God’s nature and known only to him and to the Son, be explained in words. It is all one as if they asked where God is, and how God is, and of what nature the Father is. But just as asking such questions is impious and shows ignorance of God, so it is not holy to venture such questions about the begetting of the Son of God, or to measure God and his Wisdom by our own nature and weakness. Nor is anyone free on that account to stray in his thoughts from the truth; nor, if someone is perplexed in such inquiries, should he disbelieve what is written. For it is better to be silent and believe when perplexed than to disbelieve because of the perplexity. The one who is perplexed may in some way obtain mercy, because, though he has questioned, he has still kept quiet. But when a man is led by his perplexity to form for himself doctrines that are unfitting, and says what is unworthy of God, such daring incurs a sentence without mercy. For in such perplexities divine Scripture is able to give him some relief, so that he may take what is written rightly and dwell on our own word as an illustration: as our word belongs to us and is from us, and is not a work outside us, so also God’s Word belongs to him and is from him, and is not a work; and yet it is not like the word of man, or else we must suppose God to be a man. For notice: men’s words are many and various, and they pass away day by day, because those that come before others do not last but vanish. This happens because their authors are men, with seasons that pass away and ideas that follow one after another; and whatever strikes them first and second, that they utter. So they have many words, and yet after them all nothing whatever remains; for the speaker stops, and his word is spent at once. But God’s Word is one and the same, and, as it is written, “The Word of God endures forever”: not changed, not before or after another, but always existing the same. For it was fitting, since God is one, that his Image should also be one, and his Word one, and his Wisdom one. [o]

So I am amazed how, when God is one, these men bring in, out of their own private notions, many images and wisdoms and words. They say that the Father’s own natural Word is other than the Son, and that it was by this Word that he even made the Son; and that he who is really Son is called Word only in idea, as he is called vine, and way, and door, and tree of life. And they say that he is called Wisdom too only in name, while the Father’s own true Wisdom, which exists with him without origin, is other than the Son; that by this Wisdom the Father even made the Son, and named him Wisdom because he shares in it. They have not only said this: Arius set it down in his Thalia, and Asterius the sophist wrote what we have quoted above, as follows: “Blessed Paul did not say that he preached Christ as ‘the power of God’ or ‘the wisdom of God,’ but, without the article, as ‘God’s power and God’s wisdom.’ In this way he preached that the power belonging to God himself, which is natural to him and exists with him without origin, is something else besides, which begets Christ and creates the whole world. About this power he teaches in his letter to the Romans: ‘The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal Power and Godhead.’ For as no one would say that the Godhead mentioned there is Christ, but the Father himself, so, as I think, ‘his eternal Power and Godhead’ is not the only Son either, but the Father who begot him.” And he teaches that there is another power and wisdom of God, made known through Christ. And a little later the same Asterius says: “However, his eternal power and wisdom, which truth argues to be without beginning and unoriginate, must surely be one. For there are many wisdoms, created by him one by one, of which Christ is the firstborn and only Son. All of them, however, depend equally on their Possessor. And all the powers are rightly called his, who created them and uses them. So the prophet says that the locust, which came as a divine punishment for human sins, was called by God himself not only a power but a great power; and blessed David, in most of the Psalms, calls on not the angels alone but also the Powers to praise God.” [p]

Now are they not worthy of every hatred merely for saying this? For if, as they hold, he is Son not because he is begotten of the Father and belongs to his substance, but is called Word only because of rational things, and Wisdom because of things gifted with wisdom, and Power because of things gifted with power, then surely he must be named Son because of those who are made sons. And perhaps, because there are things that exist, he even has his existence only in our ideas. And then, after all, what is he? He is none of these things himself, if they are only his names; he has only a semblance of being, and is decorated with these names by us. Rather, this is some recklessness of the devil, or worse, if they are content to have a real existence themselves, yet think that God’s Word exists only in name. Is it not monstrous to say that Wisdom exists with the Father, and yet not to say that this is the Christ, but that there are many created powers and wisdoms, of which one is the Lord, whom they go on to compare with the caterpillar and the locust? And are they not shameless, who, when they hear us say that the Word exists with the Father, at once mutter, “Are you not speaking of two Unoriginates?” and yet, when they themselves speak of “his Unoriginate Wisdom,” do not see that they have already brought on themselves the very charge they so rashly press against us? Moreover, what folly there is in that idea of theirs, that the Unoriginate Wisdom that exists with God is God himself! For what exists with something does not exist with itself, but with someone else; as the evangelists say of the Lord that he was together with his disciples, for he was not together with himself, but with his disciples. Unless indeed they would say that God is of a compound nature, having wisdom as a constituent or completing part of his substance, unoriginate as well as himself, which they further make out to be the fashioner of the world, so that they may rob the Son of the fashioning of it. For there is nothing they would not maintain sooner than hold the truth about the Lord. [s]

For where in divine Scripture have they found, or from whom have they heard, that there is another Word and another Wisdom besides this Son, that they should frame such a doctrine for themselves? True, it is written, “Are not my words like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” and in the Proverbs, “I will make my words known to you.” But these are precepts and commands, which God has spoken to the saints through his own and only true Word; it was of these that the psalmist said, “I have held back my feet from every evil way, so that I may keep your words.” Such words, then, the Savior shows to be distinct from himself when he says in his own person, “The words that I have spoken to you.” For certainly such words are not offspring or sons. Nor are there so many words that fashion the world, nor so many images of the one God, nor so many who have become man for us; nor is the one who became flesh, as John says, one out of many such. Rather, John preached him as the only Word of God: “The Word became flesh,” and “All things were made through him.” So of him alone, our Lord Jesus Christ, and of his oneness with the Father, the testimonies are written and set forth: the Father’s, showing that the Son is one, and the saints’, who knew this and said that the Word is one and that he is the only Son. And his works too are set forth; for all things, visible and invisible, have been brought into being through him, and “without him not one thing was made.” But of another, or of anyone else, the saints have no thought; nor do they frame for themselves words or wisdoms whose name and deeds Scripture never shows, and which these men alone name. For it is their own invention and a surmise that opposes Christ. They misuse the name of the Word and the Wisdom, and by framing others for themselves they deny the true Word of God and the real and only Wisdom of the Father; and in this, wretched men, they rival the Manichaeans. For they too, when they see the works of God, deny that he is the only and true God, and frame for themselves another, whom they can show neither by any work nor by any testimony drawn from the divine oracles. [t]

Therefore, if no other wisdom besides this Son is found in the divine oracles, and we have heard of none such from the fathers, and yet they have confessed and written that there is a Wisdom existing with the Father without origin, belonging to him, and the Fashioner of the world, then this must be the Son, who even by their own account exists eternally with the Father. For he is Fashioner of all, as it is written, “In Wisdom you have made them all.” Indeed, Asterius himself, as if forgetting what he wrote before, afterward, like Caiaphas, without meaning to, when he is arguing against the Greeks, confesses only one wisdom instead of naming many wisdoms or the caterpillar. These are his words: “God the Word is one, but the rational things are many; and the substance and nature of Wisdom is one, but the things wise and beautiful are many.” And soon afterward he says again: “Who are they whom they honor with the title of God’s children? For they will not say that they too are words, or maintain that there are many wisdoms. For it is not possible, since the Word is one and Wisdom has been set forth as one, to share out the substance of the Word among the multitude of children, and to bestow on them the name of Wisdom.” It is not at all surprising, then, that the Arians should fight against the truth, when they collide with their own principles and conflict with one another: at one time saying that there are many wisdoms, at another maintaining that there is one; at one time classing wisdom with the caterpillar, at another saying that it exists with the Father and belongs to him; now that the Father alone is unoriginate, and then again that his Wisdom and his Power are unoriginate too. And they fight with us for saying that the Word of God always is, yet they forget their own doctrines and say themselves that Wisdom exists with God without origin. So dizzy are they in all these matters, denying the true Wisdom and inventing one that does not exist, like the Manichaeans, who make another God for themselves after denying the one who is. [w]

But let the other heresies, and the Manichaeans too, know that the Father of the Christ is one, and is Lord and Maker of creation through his own Word. And let the Ario-maniacs know in particular that the Word of God is one, being the only Son, his own and genuine, from his substance, and having with his Father the oneness of Godhead undivided, as we have said many times, having been taught it by the Savior himself. For if it were not so, why does the Father create through him, and reveal himself in him to whom he wills, and enlighten them? Or why, too, in the consecration of baptism is the Son named together with the Father? For if they say that the Father is not all-sufficient, their answer is impious. But if he is, as it is right to say, what need is there of the Son for fashioning the worlds, or for the holy washing? For what fellowship is there between creature and Creator? Or why is a thing made counted with the Maker in the consecration of all of us? Or why, as you hold, is faith in one Creator and in one creature handed down to us? For if it was so that we might be joined to the Godhead, what need is there of the creature? But if it was so that we might be united to the Son, a creature, then by your account this naming of the Son in baptism is superfluous; for God, who made him a son, is able to make us sons too. Besides, if the Son is a creature, then, since the nature of rational creatures is one, no help will come to creatures from a creature, since all need grace from God. We said a few words just now about why it is fitting that all things should be made by him. But since the course of the discussion has led us also to mention holy baptism, it is necessary to state, as I think and believe, that the Son is named with the Father not as though the Father were not all-sufficient, nor without meaning, nor by accident. Rather, since he is God’s Word and his own Wisdom, and, being his Radiance, is always with the Father, it is impossible, if the Father gives grace, that he should not give it in the Son; for the Son is in the Father as the radiance is in the light. For not as one in need, but as a Father, God founded the earth in his own Wisdom, made all things in the Word who is from him, and in the Son confirms the holy washing. For where the Father is, there is the Son, and where the light is, there is the radiance. And as what the Father does, he does through the Son, and the Lord himself says, “What I see the Father do, that I also do,” so also, when baptism is given, whoever the Father baptizes, the Son baptizes; and whoever the Son baptizes is consecrated in the Holy Spirit. And again, as when the sun shines one might say that the radiance gives light, for the light is one and undivided and cannot be detached, so where the Father is, or is named, there plainly is the Son also. Is the Father named in baptism? Then the Son must be named with him. [z]

That is why, when he made his promise to the saints, he spoke this way: “I and the Father will come and make our home with him”; and again, “that, as I and you are one, so they may be one in us.” And the grace given is one, given from the Father in the Son, as Paul writes in every letter: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For the light must be with the ray, and the radiance must be seen together with its own light. So the Jews, since they deny the Son as these men do, do not have the Father either. For having left “the Fountain of Wisdom,” as Baruch reproaches them, they put away from them the Wisdom springing from it, our Lord Jesus Christ (for “Christ,” says the apostle, is “God’s power and God’s wisdom”), when they said, “We have no king but Caesar.” The Jews, then, bear the penalty of their denial; for their city, as well as their reasoning, came to nothing. And these men too put at risk the fullness of the mystery, I mean baptism. For if the consecration is given to us into the name of Father and Son, and they do not confess a true Father, because they deny what is from him and like his substance, and deny also the true Son, and name another of their own making, created out of nothing, is not the rite they administer altogether empty and unprofitable, making a show but in reality no help toward piety? For the Arians do not baptize into Father and Son, but into Creator and creature, into Maker and work. And as a creature is other than the Son, so the baptism they are supposed to give is other than the truth, though they pretend to name the name of the Father and the Son because those are the words of Scripture. For it is not the one who simply says “O Lord” who gives baptism, but the one who has the right faith along with the name. For this reason our Savior also did not simply command us to baptize, but first says, “Teach,” and then, “Baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” so that right faith might follow from learning, and together with faith might come the consecration of baptism. [ab]

There are many other heresies too, which use the words alone, but not in a right sense, as I have said, nor with sound faith; and consequently the water they administer is unprofitable, since it lacks piety, so that the one who is sprinkled by them is defiled by impiety rather than redeemed. So the Gentiles too, though the name of God is on their lips, are charged with godlessness, because they do not know the real and true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the Manichaeans and the Phrygians and the disciples of the man from Samosata, though they use the Names, are nevertheless heretics. And the Arians follow the same course: though they read the words of Scripture and use the Names, they too mock those who receive the rite from them. They are more impious than the other heresies, go beyond them, and by their own recklessness of speech make them seem innocent. For these other heresies lie against the truth in some one respect. They err about the Lord’s body: as if he did not take flesh from Mary, or as if he did not die at all, nor become man, but only appeared, and was not truly so, and seemed to have a body when he had none, and seemed to have the form of a man, like visions in a dream. But the Arians are openly impious against the Father himself. For hearing from the Scriptures that his Godhead is shown in the Son as in an image, they blaspheme, saying that the Image is a creature; and everywhere they carry about with them, concerning that Image, the phrase “He was not,” like mud in a traveler’s bag, and spit it out as serpents spit their venom. Then, since their doctrine disgusts everyone, they at once prop up the heresy with human patronage as a support against its fall, so that simple people, at the sight of it or even out of fear, may overlook the harm of their perversity. It is right indeed to pity those they deceive; it is good to weep over them, because they sacrifice their own interest for the illusion of the moment that pleasures provide, and forfeit their future hope. In thinking to be baptized into the name of one who does not exist, they will receive nothing; ranking themselves with a creature, they will have no help from creation; and believing in one who is unlike the Father and foreign to him in substance, they will not be joined to the Father, since they do not have his own Son by nature, who is from him, who is in the Father, and in whom the Father is, as he himself has said. Led astray by these men, the wretched people remain from then on destitute and stripped of the Godhead. For this illusion of earthly goods will not follow them at their death; nor, when they see the Lord whom they have denied sitting on his Father’s throne and judging the living and the dead, will they be able to call to their help any of those who have now deceived them. For they will see them also at the judgment seat, repenting of their deeds of sin and impiety. [ae]