Firstborn of All Creation

For if he were a creature, he would not have said, ‘He begets me.’ Creatures come from outside and are works of the Maker. But the Offspring does not come from outside and is not a work; he is from the Father and belongs to his substance. So they are creatures, but this is God’s Word and only Son. For instance, Moses did not say of the creation, ‘In the beginning he begot,’ nor ‘In the beginning was,’ but ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ Nor did David say in the Psalm, ‘Your hands have “begotten me,”’ but ‘made me and fashioned me.’ Everywhere he applies the word ‘made’ to the creatures. But of the Son it is the other way around. He has not said, ‘I made,’ but ‘I have begotten,’ and ‘He begets me,’ and ‘My heart has uttered a good Word.’ And in the case of the creation it says, ‘In the beginning he made’; but in the case of the Son, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ And there is this difference. The creatures are made upon a beginning, and they have a beginning of existence that is bound up with an interval. That is why what is said of them, ‘In the beginning he made,’ amounts to saying, ‘From the beginning he made.’ So the Lord taught, knowing what he himself had made, when he silenced the Pharisees with the words, ‘He who made them from the beginning made them male and female.’ For it was from some beginning, when they did not yet exist, that originated things were brought into being and created. The Holy Spirit too has signified this in the Psalms, saying, ‘You, Lord, at the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,’ and again, ‘Remember your congregation, which you purchased from the beginning.’ Now it is plain that what takes place at the beginning has a beginning of its creation, and that God purchased his congregation from some beginning. And Moses himself shows that ‘In the beginning he made,’ because of the word ‘made,’ means ‘began to make.’ After all things were completed, he says, ‘And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he had rested from all his work which God began to make.’ So the creatures began to be made. But the Word of God, having no beginning of being, certainly did not begin to be, nor begin to come into being, but always was. The works have their beginning in their making, and their beginning comes before their coming to be. But the Word, not being one of the things that come to be, is himself rather the Framer of those that have a beginning. The being of originated things is measured by their coming to be, and God begins to make them through the Word from some beginning, so that it may be known that they did not exist before they were brought into being. But the Word has his being in no other beginning than the Father, whom they admit to be without beginning. So he too exists without beginning in the Father, being his Offspring, not his creature. [a]

So divine Scripture recognizes the difference between the Offspring and things made. It shows that the Offspring is a Son, not begun from any beginning but eternal, while the thing made, as an outside work of the Maker, began to come into being. That is why John, teaching divine truth about the Son and knowing the difference between the phrases, did not say, ‘In the beginning has become’ or ‘has been made,’ but ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ He wanted us to understand ‘Offspring’ by ‘was,’ and not to reckon him by intervals of time, but to believe that the Son exists always and eternally. With these proofs before you, you Arians, how did you dare, misunderstanding the passage in Deuteronomy, to commit a fresh act of impiety against the Lord, saying that ‘he is a work,’ or ‘a creature,’ or indeed ‘an offspring’? For you take offspring and work to mean the same thing. But here too you will be shown to be as unlearned as you are impious. Your first passage is this: ‘Is not he your Father who bought you? Did he not make you and create you?’ And shortly after, in the same Song, he says, ‘You deserted God who begot you, and forgot God who nourished you.’ Now the meaning carried by these passages is very remarkable. He does not say ‘He begot’ first, so that the term would not be taken as no different from ‘He made.’ Otherwise these men would have an excuse for saying, ‘Moses tells us indeed that God said from the beginning, “Let us make man,”’ and that soon afterward he himself says, ‘You deserted God who begot you,’ as if the terms made no difference, offspring and work being the same. But after the words ‘bought’ and ‘made,’ he has added ‘begot’ last of all, so that the sentence would carry its own interpretation. By the word ‘made’ he accurately marks what belongs to human beings by nature: to be works and things made. But by the word ‘begot’ he shows God’s love for humankind, shown to them after he had created them. And since they proved ungrateful for this, Moses then reproaches them. First he says, ‘Is this how you repay the Lord?’ and then he adds, ‘Is not he your Father who bought you? Did he not make you and create you?’ And next he says, ‘They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know. New and strange gods came up, whom your fathers did not know. You deserted God who begot you.’ [e]

For God not only created them to be human beings, but called them to be sons, as having begotten them. For here, as elsewhere, the term ‘begot’ points to a son, as he says through the prophet, ‘I begot sons and exalted them.’ And in general, when Scripture wishes to signify a son, it does so not by the term ‘created’ but without fail by ‘begot.’ John seems to say this: ‘He gave them power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ Here too the careful distinction is well kept. First he says ‘become,’ because they are not called sons by nature but by adoption; then he says ‘were begotten,’ because they too had received, at any rate, the name of son. But the people, as the prophet says, ‘despised’ their Benefactor. But this is God’s love for humankind: that of those whose Maker he is, he afterward becomes Father also, according to grace. He becomes so, that is, when human beings, his creatures, receive into their hearts, as the apostle says, ‘the Spirit of his Son, crying, Abba, Father.’ These are the ones who, having received the Word, gained power from him to become sons of God. For being creatures by nature, they could not become sons in any other way than by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. That is why, so that this might happen, ‘the Word became flesh,’ to make man capable of Godhead. The same meaning may also be drawn from the prophet Malachi, who says, ‘Has not one God created us? Have we not all one Father?’ He puts ‘created’ first and ‘Father’ next, to show, as the other writers do, that from the beginning we were creatures by nature, and God is our Creator through the Word; but afterward we were made sons, and from then on God the Creator becomes our Father as well. So ‘Father’ belongs properly to the Son; and what belongs properly to the Father is not ‘creature’ but ‘Son.’ Accordingly this passage also proves that we are not sons by nature, but the Son who is in us is; and again, that God is not our Father by nature, but is Father of that Word in us, in whom and because of whom we ‘cry, Abba, Father.’ In the same way, the Father calls sons all those in whom he sees his own Son, and says, ‘I begot,’ since begetting signifies a Son, and making indicates the works. And so we are not begotten first, but made, for it is written, ‘Let us make man.’ But afterward, on receiving the grace of the Spirit, we are said from then on to be begotten as well. Just so the great Moses in his Song, with a fitting meaning, says first ‘He bought’ and afterward ‘He begot.’ He did this so that, hearing ‘He begot,’ they would not forget their own original nature, but would know that from the beginning they are creatures; and that when they are said by grace to be begotten as sons, they are still, no less than before, works by nature. [g]

And that creature and offspring are not the same, but differ from each other in nature and in what the words signify, the Lord himself shows even in the Proverbs. Having said, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of his ways,’ he has added, ‘But before all the hills he begot me.’ If the Word were by nature and in his substance a creature, and there were no difference between offspring and creature, he would not have added, ‘He begot me,’ but would have been satisfied with ‘He created,’ as if that term implied ‘He begot.’ But as it is, after saying, ‘He created me a beginning of his ways for his works,’ he has added not simply ‘begot me,’ but, linked by the conjunction ‘But’ as a safeguard on the term ‘created,’ ‘But before all the hills he begot me.’ For ‘begot me,’ following so closely on ‘created me,’ makes the meaning one, and shows that ‘created’ is said for a purpose, but that ‘begot me’ comes before ‘created me.’ If he had said it the other way around, ‘The Lord begot me,’ and gone on, ‘But before the hills he created me,’ then ‘created’ would certainly come before ‘begot.’ So, having said ‘created’ first and then added, ‘But before all the hills he begot me,’ he necessarily shows that ‘begot’ came before ‘created.’ For in saying, ‘Before all he begot me,’ he indicates that he is other than all things. It was shown to be true earlier in this book that no one creature was made before another, but that all originated things came into existence at once, together, at one and the same command. So the words that follow ‘created’ do not also follow ‘begot me.’ With ‘created’ is added ‘a beginning of ways’; but of ‘begot me’ he does not say, ‘He begot me as a beginning,’ but ‘Before all he begot me.’ But he who is before all is not a beginning of all, but other than all. And if he is other than all, and the beginning of all is included in that ‘all,’ it follows that he is other than the creatures. And it becomes clear that the Word, being other than all things and before all, is afterward created ‘a beginning of the ways for the works,’ because he became man. He became man so that, as the apostle has said, he who is ‘the beginning’ and ‘firstborn from the dead, in all things might have the preeminence.’ [h]

Such, then, is the difference between ‘created’ and ‘begot me,’ and between ‘beginning of ways’ and ‘before all.’ God, who is first Creator, next becomes, as has been said, Father of human beings, because of his Word dwelling in them. But with the Word it is the reverse. God, being his Father by nature, afterward becomes both his Creator and Maker, when the Word puts on that flesh which was created and made, and becomes man. For just as human beings, receiving the Spirit of the Son, become children through him, so the Word of God, when he himself puts on human flesh, is then said both to be created and to have been made. If, then, we are sons by nature, then he is a creature and a work by nature. But if we become sons by adoption and grace, then the Word also, when in grace toward us he became man, said, ‘The Lord created me.’ And next, when he put on a created nature and became like us in body, he was rightly called both our Brother and ‘Firstborn.’ For though it was after us that he was made man for us, and became our brother by likeness of body, he is still called, and is, the ‘Firstborn’ of us for this reason: when all human beings were lost through the transgression of Adam, his flesh was saved and set free before all others, as being the Word’s body. And from then on we, being joined into one body with it, are saved after its pattern. For in it the Lord becomes our guide to the kingdom of heaven and to his own Father, saying, ‘I am the way,’ and ‘the door,’ and ‘through me all must enter.’ That is also why he is called ‘firstborn from the dead.’ It is not that he died before us, for we had died first. But having undergone death for us and abolished it, he was the first to rise, as man, raising his own body for our sake. From then on, since he has risen, we too rise in due course from the dead, from him and because of him. [i]

And if he is also called ‘firstborn of the creation,’ this is not as if he were put on a level with the creatures and were merely the first of them in time. How could that be, since he is ‘only Son’? It is because of the Word’s stooping down to the creatures, by which he has become the ‘Brother’ of ‘many.’ For the term ‘only Son’ is used where there are no brothers, but ‘firstborn’ because of brothers. Accordingly it is nowhere written in the Scriptures, ‘the firstborn of God,’ nor ‘the creature of God.’ But ‘only Son’ and ‘Son’ and ‘Word’ and ‘Wisdom’ refer to him as belonging to the Father. So: ‘We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father’; and ‘God sent his only Son’; and ‘O Lord, your Word endures forever’; and ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God’; and ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God’; and ‘This is my beloved Son’; and ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ But ‘firstborn’ implied the coming down to the creation, for it is of the creation that he has been called firstborn. And ‘He created’ implies his grace toward the works, for it is for them that he is created. If, then, he is only Son, as indeed he is, ‘firstborn’ needs some explanation; but if he is really firstborn, then he is not only Son. For the same one cannot be both only Son and firstborn except in different respects: only Son because of his birth from the Father, as has been said, and firstborn because of his stooping down to the creation and his making the many his brothers. Certainly, since the two terms are inconsistent with each other, one should say that being only Son has the rightful preference in the case of the Word, since there is no other Word or other Wisdom, but he alone is true Son of the Father. Moreover, as I said before, it is said of him without any reason attached, but absolutely, ‘The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.’ But the word ‘firstborn’ again has the creation attached to it as its reason, which Paul goes on to state: ‘for in him all things were created.’ But if all the creatures were created in him, he is other than the creatures, and is not a creature but the Creator of the creatures. [j]

So it was not because he was from the Father that he was called ‘firstborn,’ but because in him the creation came to be. And just as he was the Son before the creation, and through him the creation came to be, so also, before he was called the firstborn of the whole creation, the Word himself was nonetheless with God, and the Word was God. But not understanding this either, these impious men go about saying, ‘If he is firstborn of all creation, it is plain that he too is one of the creation.’ Senseless men! If he is simply ‘firstborn of the whole creation,’ then he is other than the whole creation. For it does not say, ‘He is firstborn above the rest of the creatures,’ so that he would not be counted as one of the creatures; but it is written, ‘of the whole creation,’ so that he may appear other than the creation. Reuben, for instance, is not said to be firstborn of all the children of Jacob, but of Jacob himself and his brothers, so that he would not be thought to be someone other than the children of Jacob. Indeed, even concerning the Lord himself the apostle does not say, ‘so that he may become firstborn of all,’ so that he would not be thought to have a body other than ours, but ‘among many brothers,’ because of the likeness of the flesh. If, then, the Word were also one of the creatures, Scripture would have said of him too that he was firstborn of other creatures. But in fact, since the saints say that he is ‘firstborn of the whole creation,’ the Son of God is plainly shown to be other than the whole creation and not a creature. For if he is a creature, he will be firstborn of himself. How then is it possible, you Arians, for him to be both before and after himself? Next, if he is a creature, and the whole creation came to be through him and holds together in him, how can he both create the creation and be one of the things that hold together in him? Since such a notion is unseemly in itself, the truth proves against them that he is called ‘firstborn among many brothers’ because of the kinship of the flesh; and ‘firstborn from the dead’ because the resurrection of the dead is from him and after him; and ‘firstborn of the whole creation’ because of the Father’s love for humankind. It was this love that brought it about that in his Word not only ‘all things hold together,’ but also that the creation itself, of which the apostle speaks, ‘waiting for the revealing of the sons of God, will be set free’ one day ‘from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’ Of this creation, once set free, the Lord will be firstborn, both of it and of all those who are made children, so that by his being called first, those who come after him may remain, depending on the Word as on their beginning. [n]

And I think the impious men themselves will be ashamed of such a thought. For if the case is not as we have said, and they insist that he is ‘firstborn of the whole creation’ in substance, as a creature among creatures, let them reflect that they will be thinking of him as the brother and fellow of things without reason and without life. For these too are parts of the whole creation. And the ‘firstborn’ must be first indeed in time, but only in that way, and in kind and likeness must be the same as all the rest. How then can they say this without going beyond every measure of impiety? Who will put up with them if this is how they talk? Who can help hating them even for imagining such things? For it is evident to all that he has not been called ‘firstborn’ of the creation for his own sake, as being a creature, nor as having any kinship in substance with the whole creation. It is because the Word, when at the beginning he framed the creatures, stooped down to originated things, so that it might be possible for them to come into being. For they could not have endured his nature, which was an untempered splendor, the very splendor of the Father, unless he had stooped down by the Father’s love for humankind, and had supported them, taken hold of them, and brought them into existence. And next, it is because by this stooping down of the Word the creation too is made a son through him, so that he might be in every respect its ‘firstborn,’ as has been said: both in creating it, and in being brought into this very world for the sake of all. For so it is written, ‘When he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says, Let all the angels of God worship him.’ Let Christ’s enemies hear and tear themselves to pieces: it is his coming into the world that makes him called ‘firstborn’ of all. And so the Son is the Father’s ‘only Son’ because he alone is from him, and he is the ‘firstborn of creation’ because of this adoption of all as sons. And as he is firstborn among brothers, and rose from the dead as ‘the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,’ so, since it was fitting for him ‘in all things to have the preeminence,’ he is therefore created ‘a beginning of ways.’ He is so created that we, walking along it and entering through him who says, ‘I am the Way’ and ‘the Door,’ and sharing in the knowledge of the Father, may also hear the words, ‘Blessed are the undefiled in the way,’ and ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ [r]

Since the truth declares, then, that the Word is not by nature a creature, it is fitting now to say in what sense he is ‘beginning of ways.’ When the first way, which was through Adam, was lost, and instead of paradise we turned aside to death and heard the words, ‘Dust you are, and to dust you shall return,’ then the Word of God, who loves humankind, put on created flesh at the Father’s will. He did this so that, where the first man had made it dead through the transgression, he himself might give it life in the blood of his own body, and might open ‘for us a new and living way,’ as the apostle says, ‘through the veil, that is, his flesh.’ He signifies this elsewhere too: ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; see, all things have become new.’ But if a new creation has come about, someone must be first of this creation. Now a man made of earth only, such as we have become since the transgression, could not be that one. For in the first creation human beings had become unfaithful, and through them that first creation had been lost; and there was need of someone else to renew the first creation and to preserve the new one that had come to be. Therefore, out of love for humankind, none other than the Lord, the ‘beginning’ of the new creation, is created as ‘the Way,’ and fittingly says, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of ways for his works.’ He says it so that man might no longer walk according to that first creation; but, there being as it were a beginning of a new creation, and with Christ ‘a beginning of its ways,’ we might from now on follow him who says to us, ‘I am the Way.’ So the blessed apostle teaches in Colossians, saying, ‘He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the Beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.’ [s]

For if, as has been said, he is called a beginning because of the resurrection from the dead, and a resurrection took place when he, bearing our flesh, had given himself to death for us, it is evident that his words, ‘He created me a beginning of ways,’ point not to his substance but to his presence in the body. For death belonged to the body; and in the same way the words ‘The Lord created me a beginning of his ways’ belong to his presence in the body. For since the Savior was created in this way according to the flesh, and had become a beginning of things newly created, and had our firstfruits, namely that human flesh which he took to himself, therefore after him, as is fitting, the people to come is also created. David says, ‘Let this be written for another generation, and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord.’ And again in the twenty-first Psalm: ‘The generation to come shall declare to the Lord, and they shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born, whom the Lord made.’ For we shall no longer hear, ‘In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die,’ but, ‘Where I am, there you’ shall ‘be also’; so that we may say, ‘We are his workmanship, created for good works.’ And again: God’s work, that is, man, though created perfect, has become lacking through the transgression and dead through sin, and it was not fitting that the work of God should remain imperfect. That is why all the saints were praying about this, as in the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, where they say, ‘Lord, you will repay on my behalf; do not then despise the works of your hands.’ Therefore the perfect Word of God puts on himself an imperfect body, and is said to be created ‘for the works,’ so that, paying the debt in our place, he might by himself make perfect what was lacking to man. Now what man lacked was immortality, and the way to paradise. This, then, is what the Savior says: ‘I glorified you on the earth; I have perfected the work which you gave me to do.’ And again: ‘The works which the Father has given me to perfect, the very works that I do, bear witness of me.’ But ‘the works’ which he says here the Father had given him to perfect are those for which he is created, as he says in the Proverbs, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of his ways, for his works.’ For it is all one to say, ‘The Father has given me the works,’ and ‘The Lord created me for the works.’ [t]

When, then, did he receive the works to perfect, you enemies of God? For from this, too, the meaning of ‘He created’ will be understood. If you say, ‘At the beginning, when he brought them into being out of what was not,’ it is untrue, for they had not yet been made, whereas he appears to speak as one taking what was already in being. Nor is it reverent to refer it to the time before the Word became flesh, or else his coming would seem superfluous, since that coming took place for the sake of these works. So it remains for us to say that it was when he had become man that he took the works. For it was then that he perfected them, by healing our wounds and granting us the resurrection from the dead. But if it was when the Word became flesh that the works were given to him, then plainly it was when he became man that he is also created for the works. So ‘He created’ points not to his substance, as has been said many times, but to his birth in the body. For since the works had become imperfect and maimed through the transgression, he is said to be created as regards the body, so that by perfecting them and making them whole he might present the church to the Father, as the apostle says, ‘not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.’ So mankind is perfected in him and restored, as it was made at the beginning, and indeed with greater grace. For on rising from the dead we shall no longer fear death, but shall reign forever in Christ in the heavens. And this has been done because the very Word of God himself, who is from the Father, has put on the flesh and become man. For if he had been a creature when he became man, man would have remained just what he was, not joined to God. For how could a work have been joined to the Creator by a work? Or what help could have come from like to like, when the one needed it as much as the other? And if the Word were a creature, how would he have had power to undo God’s sentence and to forgive sin, when it is written in the prophets that this is God’s doing? For ‘who is a God like you, who pardons wrongdoing and passes over transgression?’ For since God has said, ‘Dust you are, and to dust you shall return,’ human beings have become mortal. How then could originated things undo sin? But it is the Lord who has undone it, as he himself says, ‘Unless the Son makes you free.’ And the Son, who made us free, has shown in truth that he is no creature, nor one of the originated things, but the Father’s own Word and the Image of the Father’s substance, who at the beginning passed the sentence and alone forgives sins. For since it was said in the Word, ‘Dust you are, and to dust you shall return,’ it is fitting that the freedom and the undoing of the condemnation should come about through the Word himself and in him. [v]

‘Yet,’ they say, ‘even if the Savior were a creature, God was able just to speak the word and undo the curse.’ Someone else will tell them in the same way, ‘Without his coming among us at all, God was able just to speak and undo the curse.’ But we must consider what was to the advantage of mankind, and not simply what is possible with God. He could have destroyed the transgressors of that time before the ark of Noah; but he did it after the ark. He could also have spoken the word alone, without Moses, and brought the people out of Egypt; but it was profitable to do it through Moses. And God was able to save his people without the judges; but it was profitable for the people that judges should be raised up for them for a season. The Savior too might have come among us from the beginning, or on his coming might not have been handed over to Pilate; but he came ‘at the fullness of the ages,’ and when they were looking for him he said, ‘I am he.’ For what he does is profitable for human beings, and was not fitting in any other way; and what is profitable and fitting, he provides. Accordingly he came ‘not to be served, but to serve,’ and to work our salvation. Certainly he was able to speak the law from heaven; but he saw that it was to people’s advantage for him to speak from Sinai, and he did so, so that it might be possible for Moses to go up, and for them, hearing the word close at hand, to believe all the more. Moreover, the good reason for what he did can be seen in this way. If God had only spoken, because it was in his power, and the curse had been undone that way, the power of him who gave the word would have been shown. But man would have become only what Adam was before the transgression, having received grace from outside, and not having it united to the body, for that was his state when he was placed in paradise. Indeed, he might perhaps have become worse, because he had learned to transgress. Such being his condition, if he had been led astray by the serpent, there would have been fresh need for God to give a command and undo the curse. And so the need would have become endless, and human beings would have remained under guilt no less than before, being enslaved to sin. Always sinning, they would always have needed someone to pardon them, and would never have become free, being flesh in themselves and always defeated by the law because of the weakness of the flesh. [w]

Again, if the Son were a creature, man would have remained mortal as before, not being joined to God. For a creature could not have joined creatures to God, since it would itself be looking for someone to join it; nor would a part of the creation have been the creation’s salvation, since it would itself need salvation. To provide against this too, God sends his own Son, and he becomes Son of Man by taking created flesh. He does so in order that, since all were under sentence of death, he, being other than them all, might himself offer his own body to death for all. And so, from then on, as though all had died through him, the word of that sentence might be fulfilled, for ‘all died’ in Christ; and all through him might then become free from sin and from the curse that came upon it, and might truly remain forever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption. For since the Word was clothed in the flesh, as has been explained many times, every bite of the serpent began to be utterly stanched from it, and whatever evil sprang from the impulses of the flesh began to be cut away. And with these, death also was abolished, the companion of sin. As the Lord himself says, ‘The ruler of this world is coming, and finds nothing in me’; and ‘For this purpose he was revealed,’ as John has written, ‘that he might destroy the works of the devil.’ And since these things were destroyed from the flesh, we were all set free by our kinship with that flesh, and for the future we too were joined to the Word. And being joined to God, we no longer remain on earth; but, as he himself has said, where he is, there we shall be also. And from now on we shall no longer fear the serpent, for he was brought to nothing when he was attacked by the Savior in the flesh and heard him say, ‘Get behind me, Satan.’ And so he is cast out of paradise into the eternal fire. Nor shall we have to be on guard against a woman deceiving us, for ‘in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels.’ And in Christ Jesus there shall be ‘a new creation,’ and ‘neither male nor female, but Christ is all and in all.’ And where Christ is, what fear, what danger can still arise? [x]

But this would not have come about if the Word had been a creature. For with a creature, the devil, himself a creature, would have kept up the battle forever, and man, standing between the two, would always have been in danger of death, having no one in whom and through whom he might be joined to God and set free from all fear. So the truth shows us that the Word is not one of the originated things, but is rather their Framer himself. For this is why he took on the originated, human body: so that, having renewed it as its Framer, he might deify it in himself, and so bring us all into the kingdom of heaven after his likeness. For man would not have been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son were true God. Nor would man have been brought into the Father’s presence unless the one who had put on the body had been the Father’s natural and true Word. And just as we would not have been set free from sin and the curse unless the flesh the Word put on had been human by nature, for we would have had nothing in common with what was foreign to us, so also man would not have been deified unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father, true, and his own. For this is why the union was of this kind: that he might unite what is human by nature to him who is in the nature of the Godhead, and so man’s salvation and deification might be sure. Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and belongs to his substance also deny that he took true human flesh from Mary, Ever-Virgin. For in neither case would it have been of any profit to us human beings, whether the Word were not true and by nature Son of God, or the flesh he took were not true. But surely he took true flesh, though Valentinus rave; yes, and the Word was by nature true God, though the Ario-maniacs rave. And in that flesh the beginning of our new creation has come about, since he was created man for our sake and has made that new way for us, as has been said. [z]

The Word, then, is neither creature nor work; for creature, thing made, and work are all one, and if he were a creature and a thing made, he would also be a work. That is why he has not said, ‘He created me a work,’ nor ‘He made me with the works,’ so that he would not appear to be a creature in nature and substance. Nor has he said, ‘He created me to make works,’ so that, on the other hand, according to the perverseness of the impious, he would not seem to be an instrument made for our sake. Nor again has he declared, ‘He created me before the works,’ in case, since he really is before all as an Offspring, he should, if also created before the works, give ‘Offspring’ and ‘He created’ the same meaning. But with exact distinction he has said, ‘for the works,’ as much as to say, ‘The Father has made me into flesh, so that I might be man.’ This again shows that he is not a work but an offspring. For just as someone who comes into a house is not part of the house but other than the house, so he who is created for the works must by nature be other than the works. But if, as you hold, you Arians, the Word of God is a work, by what Hand and Wisdom did he himself come into being? For all things that came to be came by the Hand and Wisdom of God, who himself says, ‘My hand has made all these things.’ And David says in the Psalm, ‘And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands’; and again, in the hundred and forty-second Psalm, ‘I remember the time past; I meditate on all your works; yes, I occupy myself with the works of your hands.’ Therefore, if the works are wrought by the Hand of God, and it is written that ‘all things were made through the Word,’ and ‘without him not one thing was made,’ and again, ‘one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things,’ and ‘in him all things hold together,’ it is very plain that the Son cannot be a work, but is the Hand of God and the Wisdom. Knowing this, the martyrs in Babylon, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, stand as accusers of the Arian impiety. For when they say, ‘O all you works of the Lord, bless the Lord,’ they list things in heaven, things on earth, and the whole creation, as works; but the Son they do not name. They do not say, ‘Bless, O Word, and praise, O Wisdom.’ This shows that all other things are both praising and are works; but the Word is not a work, nor one of those that praise. He is praised with the Father, and worshiped and confessed as God, being his Word and Wisdom, and the Framer of the works. The Spirit too has declared this in the Psalms with a most fitting distinction: ‘The Word of the Lord is true, and all his works are faithful’; as in another Psalm too he says, ‘O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.’ [ac]

But if the Word were a work, then surely he too, like the others, would have been made in Wisdom; and Scripture would not distinguish him from the works, nor, while it named them works, proclaim him as the Word and God’s own Wisdom. But as it is, by distinguishing him from the works, he shows that Wisdom is the Framer of the works and not a work. Paul also observes this distinction, writing to the Hebrews: ‘The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nor is any creature hidden before him, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give our account.’ See, he calls things originated ‘creature’; but he recognizes the Son as the Word of God, as being other than the creatures. And again, by saying, ‘All things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give our account,’ he signifies that he is other than all of them. For this is why he judges, while each and every originated thing is bound to give account to him. So too, when the whole creation groans together with us in order to be set free from the bondage of corruption, the Son is shown by this to be other than the creatures. For if he were a creature, he too would be one of those who groan, and would need someone to bring adoption and deliverance to himself as well as to the others. But the whole creation groans together for the sake of freedom from the bondage of corruption, whereas the Son is not one of those who groan, nor of those who need freedom. He is the one who gives sonship and freedom to all, saying to the Jews of his time, ‘The servant does not remain in the house forever, but the Son remains forever. If then the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ So from these considerations too it is clearer than the light that the Word of God is not a creature but the true Son of the Father, genuine by nature. Concerning ‘The Lord created me a beginning of the ways,’ then, this is enough, I think, though in few words, to give the learned material for framing fuller refutations of the Arian heresy. [af]