The Son in the Father and the Father in the Son

The Ario-maniacs, it seems, having once made up their minds to transgress and to revolt from the truth, are eager to make these words of Scripture their own: “When the impious comes into a depth of evils, he despises.” Refutation does not stop them, and being at a loss does not shame them. Having “a prostitute’s forehead,” they “refuse to be ashamed” before all people in their impiety. The passages they put forward, “The Lord created me,” and “made better than the angels,” and “firstborn,” and “faithful to him who made him,” have a right sense and teach reverence toward Christ. Yet these men, as if soaked in the serpent’s poison, not seeing what they ought to see and not understanding what they read, have gone on, as if spewing it up from the depths of their impious heart, to disparage our Lord’s words, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” They say, “How can the one be contained in the other and the other in the one?” or, “How can the Father, who is the greater, be contained at all in the Son, who is the less?” or, “What wonder is it if the Son is in the Father?” seeing that it is written even of us, “In him we live and move and have our being.” This state of mind fits their perversity. They think of God as material, and they do not understand what is meant by “true Father” and “true Son,” or by “Light invisible and eternal” and its “invisible Radiance,” or by “invisible hypostasis,” and “immaterial Imprint,” and “immaterial Image.” If they knew, they would not dishonor and ridicule the Lord of glory, nor would they twist good words by interpreting immaterial things in a material way. It would indeed be enough, simply on hearing words that are the Lord’s, to believe at once, since the faith of simplicity is better than an elaborate process of persuasion. But since they have tried to profane even this passage for their own heresy, it becomes necessary to expose their perversity and to show the true meaning, at least for the security of the faithful. When it is said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” this does not mean, as these men suppose, that the Father and the Son are poured into each other, each filling the other, as happens with empty vessels, so that the Son fills the emptiness of the Father and the Father that of the Son, and neither of them by himself is complete and perfect. That belongs to bodies, and so merely to say it is full of impiety. For the Father is full and perfect, and the Son is the fullness of the Godhead. Nor again is God in the Son in the way he comes into the saints and strengthens them. For the Son is himself the Father’s Power and Wisdom, and it is by sharing in him that the things that have come into being are sanctified in the Spirit. But the Son himself is not Son by sharing; he is the Father’s own Offspring. Nor again is the Son in the Father in the sense of the passage, “In him we live and move and have our being.” For he, being from the Father as from a fountain, is the Life in which all things are given life and hold together. The Life does not live in life, or it would not be Life; rather, he gives life to all things. [a]

But now let us see what Asterius the Sophist says, the hired advocate of the heresy. Copying the Jews thus far, he writes as follows: “It is very plain that he said he is in the Father and the Father again in him for this reason: that neither is the word he was speaking his own, as he says, but the Father’s, nor do the works belong to him, but to the Father who gave him the power.” If a little child had said this offhand, he would have been excused because of his age. But when the writer is one who bears the title of Sophist and claims to know everything, what serious condemnation he deserves! Does he not show himself a stranger to the apostle, puffed up as he is with persuasive words of wisdom, and thinking that by them he will succeed in deceiving, while he does not understand what he is saying or the things about which he makes confident assertions? What the Son said as belonging and fitting to a Son alone, who is the Word and Wisdom and Image of the Father’s substance, he levels down to all the creatures and makes common to the Son and to them. And he says, lawless man that he is, that the Power of the Father receives power. From this impiety of his it would follow that the Son was made a son in a son, and that the Word received a word’s authority. Far from granting that the Son spoke these words as Son, he ranks him with all things that were made, as having learned them as they did. For suppose the Son said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” because his discourses were not his own words but the Father’s, and his works likewise. Then consider. David says, “I will hear what the Lord God will say in me,” and Solomon, again, “My words are spoken by God.” Moses was the minister of words that came from God, and each of the prophets spoke not what was his own but what came from God: “Thus says the Lord.” And the works of the saints, as they themselves declared, were not their own but God’s, who gave the power. Elijah, for instance, and Elisha called on God to raise the dead himself. Elisha said to Naaman, when he cleansed him of leprosy, “so that you may know that there is a God in Israel.” Samuel too, in the days of the harvest, prayed to God to grant rain. And the apostles said that they worked miracles not by their own power but by the Lord’s grace. So it is plain that, according to Asterius, such a statement must be common to all, so that each of them could say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” And it would follow that he is no longer the one Son of God, and Word, and Wisdom, but, like the others, only one out of many. [g] But if the Lord meant this, his words would rightly have been, not “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” but rather, “I too am in the Father, and the Father is in me too.” Then he would have nothing of his own, and nothing special to him as a Son in relation to the Father, but only the same grace in common with all. But it is not as they think. Because they do not understand that he is the genuine Son from the Father, they tell lies about the one who is such, the only one whom it befits to say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” For the Son is in the Father, so far as we are allowed to know, because the whole being of the Son belongs to the Father’s substance as its own, as radiance from light and a stream from a fountain. So whoever sees the Son sees what is the Father’s own, and knows that the Son’s being, because it is from the Father, is therefore in the Father. And the Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and is his own, as the sun is in its radiance, the thought in the word, and the fountain in the stream. Whoever contemplates the Son in this way contemplates what belongs to the Father’s substance, and knows that the Father is in the Son. For since the Form and Godhead of the Father is the being of the Son, it follows that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. [k]

That is why, and with good reason, having said before, “I and the Father are one,” he added, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” to show the sameness of the Godhead and the oneness of the substance. For they are one, not as one thing divided into two parts that are nothing but one, nor as one thing named twice, so that the same one is at one time Father and at another his own Son. Sabellius held this and was judged a heretic. But they are two, because the Father is Father and is not also Son, and the Son is Son and is not also Father. Yet the nature is one, for the offspring is not unlike its parent, since it is his image; and all that is the Father’s is the Son’s. That is why the Son is not another God either, for he was not procured from outside. Otherwise there would be many gods, if a godhead foreign to the Father’s were procured. For though the Son is other, as Offspring, he is still the same as God; and he and the Father are one in what is proper and peculiar to their nature, and in the sameness of the one Godhead, as has been said. For the radiance too is light. It is not second to the sun, nor a different light, nor light by sharing in the sun, but a whole offspring that is the sun’s own. Such an offspring is necessarily one light with it. No one would say that they are two lights. Sun and radiance are two, but the light from the sun is one, lighting all things in its radiance. So too the Godhead of the Son is the Father’s; that is why it is indivisible; and so there is one God and no other but he. And so, since they are one and the Godhead itself is one, the same things are said of the Son as are said of the Father, except that he is called Father. For instance, that he is God: “And the Word was God”; Almighty: “Thus says he who was and is and is to come, the Almighty”; Lord: “one Lord Jesus Christ”; that he is Light: “I am the Light”; that he wipes out sins: “so that you may know,” he says, “that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”; and so with the other attributes. For “all things whatever the Father has,” says the Son himself, “are mine”; and again, “And mine are yours.” [l] When we hear the attributes of the Father spoken of the Son, we will see the Father in the Son by this means; and we will contemplate the Son in the Father when what is said of the Son is said of the Father also. And why are the attributes of the Father given to the Son, unless the Son is an Offspring from him? And why are the Son’s attributes the Father’s own, unless, again, the Son is the Offspring proper to his substance? And the Son, being the Offspring proper to the Father’s substance, says with good reason that the Father’s attributes are his own also. So it is fitting, and consistent with his saying, “I and the Father are one,” that he adds, “so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” Moreover, he has added this again: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” There is one and the same sense in these three passages. For whoever understands in this sense that the Son and the Father are one knows that he is in the Father and the Father in the Son. For the Godhead of the Son is the Father’s, and it is in the Son. And whoever enters into this is convinced that “whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father,” for in the Son the Father’s Godhead is contemplated. We may see this at once from the example of the emperor’s image. In the image is the shape and form of the emperor, and in the emperor is that shape which is in the image. For the likeness of the emperor in the image is exact, so that whoever looks at the image sees the emperor in it, and whoever sees the emperor recognizes that it is he who is in the image. And since the likeness does not differ, the image might say to someone who, after seeing it, wished to see the emperor: “I and the emperor are one. I am in him, and he is in me. What you see in me you behold in him, and what you have seen in him you hold in me.” So whoever worships the image worships the emperor in it as well, for the image is his form and appearance. Since, then, the Son too is the Father’s Image, it must necessarily be understood that the Godhead of the Father, and what is the Father’s own, is the being of the Son. [n] This is the meaning of “who, being in the form of God,” and of “the Father in me.” Nor is this Form of the Godhead merely partial; the fullness of the Father’s Godhead is the being of the Son, and the Son is whole God. That is why, being equal to God, he “did not think it a prize to be equal to God.” And again, since the Godhead and the Form of the Son is no one else’s but the Father’s, this is what he says: “I am in the Father.” So “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” For the Son, in whom the creation was then reconciled to God, is what is proper to the Father’s substance. So the things the Son then did are the Father’s works, for the Son is the Form of that Godhead of the Father which did the works. And so whoever looks at the Son sees the Father. For the Son is, and is contemplated, in the Father’s Godhead; and the Father’s Form, which is in him, shows the Father in him; and so the Father is in the Son. And what is proper to the Father, and the Godhead that is from the Father in the Son, shows the Son in the Father, and shows that he cannot be separated from him. Whoever hears and sees that what is said of the Father is also said of the Son, not as something added to his substance by grace or by sharing, but because the very being of the Son is the Offspring proper to the Father’s substance, will rightly understand the words, as I said before, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” and “I and the Father are one.” For the Son is such as the Father is, because he has all that is the Father’s. That is why he is also implied together with the Father. If there is no son, one cannot say “father.” But when we call God a Maker, we do not necessarily point to the things that have come into being, for a maker exists before his works. When we call God Father, however, we signify the Son’s existence at once together with the Father. That is why whoever believes in the Son believes also in the Father, for he believes in what is proper to the Father’s substance; and so the faith is one, in one God. And whoever worships and honors the Son worships and honors the Father in the Son, for the Godhead is one. And so the honor is one, and the worship is one, that is paid to the Father in and through the Son. And whoever worships in this way worships one God, for there is one God and no other but he. So when the Father is called the only God, and we read that there is one God, and “I am,” and “Besides me there is no God,” and “I am the first and I am the last,” this has a fitting meaning. For God is One and Only and First. But this is not said to deny the Son. Perish the thought! For he is in that One and First and Only, since he is the only Word and Wisdom and Radiance of that One and Only and First. And he too is the First, as the fullness of the Godhead of the First and Only, being whole and full God. This, then, is not said on his account, but to deny that there is any other such as the Father and his Word. [p]