How the Son and the Father Are One

Here too, however, they bring in their own private inventions. They contend that the Son and the Father are not “one” or “like” in the way the church preaches, but in the way they themselves would have it. For they say this: since what the Father wills the Son wills too, and he is not opposed to him either in what he thinks or in what he judges, but agrees with him in everything, declaring the same teachings and speaking a word that is consistent and united with the Father’s teaching, that is why he and the Father are one. And some of them have dared to write this as well as say it. Now what could be more unseemly or more unreasonable than this? For if this is why the Son and the Father are one, and if this is how the Word is like the Father, it follows at once that the angels too, and the other beings above us, the Powers and Authorities, the Thrones and Dominions, and the things we see, the sun and moon and stars, must also be sons, as the Son is. And it must be said of them too that they and the Father are one, and that each of them is God’s Image and Word. For what God wills, they will. They do not disagree with him in judgment or in teaching, but obey their Maker in everything. Indeed, they would not have remained in their own glory unless they had willed what the Father willed. The one who did not remain, but went astray, heard the words, “How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” But if this is so, how is he alone the only Son and Word and Wisdom? Or how, when so many are like the Father, is he alone an Image? For among men too many will be found who are like the Father: great numbers of martyrs, for example, and before them the apostles and prophets, and before them again the patriarchs. And many even now keep the Savior’s command, being merciful “as their Father who is in heaven,” and following the exhortation, “Therefore be imitators of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us.” Many too have become imitators of Paul, as he was of Christ. And yet not one of these is Word or Wisdom or only Son or Image. Not one of them dared to say, “I and the Father are one,” or, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” Rather, it is said of all of them, “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? And who will be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” And of him, on the contrary, it is said that he alone is the true and natural Image of the Father. For though we have been made after the Image, and are called both the image and the glory of God, it is still not on our own account that we have the grace of this name. We have it because of that Image and true Glory of God who dwells in us, his Word, who was afterward made flesh for us. [a]

Since this notion of theirs, like the rest, is plainly unseemly and unreasonable, the likeness and the oneness must be referred to the very substance of the Son. Unless it is taken so, he will not be shown to have anything more than originated things, as has been said. Nor will he be like the Father; he will be like the Father’s teachings. And he differs from the Father in this, that the Father is Father, while the teachings and instruction are the Father’s. If, then, the Son is like the Father in respect of the teachings and instruction, then according to them the Father will be Father in name only, and the Son will not be an exact Image. Or rather, he will be seen to have nothing at all of what is the Father’s own, and no likeness to him. For what likeness, or what share in what is the Father’s own, does someone have who is so utterly different from the Father? Paul taught like the Savior, yet he was not like him “in substance.” So in holding such notions they speak falsely. But the Son and the Father are one in the way that has been said, and in that way the Son is like the Father himself and is from him, as we may see and understand a son to be toward his father, and as we may see the radiance toward the sun. Since the Son is such, when the Son works, the Father is the one working; and when the Son comes to the saints, it is the Father who comes in the Son, as he promised when he said, “My Father and I will come, and will make our home with him.” For the Father is seen in the Image, and the Light is in the Radiance. That is also why, as we said just now, when the Father gives grace and peace, the Son gives it too, as Paul shows in every letter when he writes, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For one and the same grace comes from the Father in the Son, just as the light of the sun and of its radiance is one, and the sun’s light reaches us through the radiance. So too when Paul prays for the Thessalonians, saying, “Now may God himself, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you,” he has guarded the unity of the Father and of the Son. For he has not said, “May they direct,” as if a double grace were given from two sources, this one and that one, but “May he direct,” to show that the Father gives it through the Son. These impious men will not blush at this, though they well might. [c]

For if there were no unity, and the Word were not the Father’s own Offspring from his substance, as the radiance is of the light, but the Son were divided from the Father in nature, it would be enough for the Father alone to give, since no originated thing is a partner with its Maker in his giving. But as it is, this way of giving shows the oneness of the Father and the Son. No one, for example, would pray to receive something from God and the angels, or from any other creature, and no one would say, “May God and the angel give it to you.” But people pray to receive from the Father and the Son, because of their oneness and the oneness of their giving. For what is given is given through the Son, and there is nothing that the Father does not work through the Son. That is how grace is secure for the one who receives it. And when the patriarch Jacob blessed his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh, he said, “God who fed me all my life long to this day, the Angel who delivered me from all evil, bless the boys.” Yet he did not join any of the created angels, angels by nature, to God their Creator. Nor did he set aside God who had fed him and ask the blessing for his grandsons from an angel. In saying, “who delivered me from all evil,” he showed that it was no created angel, but the Word of God, whom he joined to the Father in his prayer, the one through whom God delivers whomever he wills. For he knew that he is also called the Father’s “Angel of great Counsel,” and so he said that no one other than he was the Giver of blessing and the Deliverer from evil. Nor was it that he desired a blessing for himself from God but for his grandchildren from the angel. The one he himself had entreated, saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (for that was God, as he says himself, “I have seen God face to face”), was the one he prayed to bless the sons of Joseph also. It belongs to an angel, then, to serve at God’s command. Often an angel goes out to drive out the Amorite, and is sent to guard the people on the way. But these are not his own doings. They are the doings of God, who commanded and sent him, and to whom it belongs to deliver whomever he will deliver. So it was no other than the Lord God himself whom Jacob had seen, who said to him, “Behold, I am with you, to guard you in all the way you go.” It was no other than God whom he had seen, who kept Laban from his treachery by ordering him not to speak evil words to Jacob. And it was no other than God whom Jacob himself entreated, saying, “Rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I fear him.” For in talking with his wives too he said, “God did not allow Laban to harm me.” [d]

So it was none other than God himself whom David too entreated for his deliverance: “When I was in trouble, I called on the Lord, and he heard me. Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue.” It was to him too that he gave thanks when he spoke the words of the song in the seventeenth Psalm, on the day the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul: “I will love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my strong rock, my defense and my deliverer.” And Paul, after enduring many persecutions, gave thanks to none other than God, saying, “Out of them all the Lord delivered me; and he will deliver, he in whom we trust.” And none other than God blessed Abraham and Isaac; and Isaac, praying for Jacob, said, “May God bless you and increase you and multiply you, and you will become many companies of nations; and may he give you the blessing of Abraham my father.” But if it belongs to none other than God to bless and to deliver, and the deliverer of Jacob was none other than the Lord himself, and it was the one who delivered him whom the patriarch entreated for his grandsons, then plainly the one he joined to God in his prayer was none other than God’s Word. He called him Angel because it is he alone who reveals the Father. The apostle did the same when he said, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For in this way the blessing was secure, because the Son is not divided from the Father, and because the grace given by them is one and the same. For though the Father gives it, the gift comes through the Son; and though the Son is said to grant it, it is the Father who supplies it through and in the Son. “I thank my God always on your behalf,” the apostle writes to the Corinthians, “for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus.” One may see this in the case of light and its radiance. What the light lights up, the radiance shines upon; and what the radiance shines upon receives its light from the light. So too when the Son is seen, so is the Father, for he is the Father’s radiance; and so the Father and the Son are one. [g]

But it is not so with originated things and creatures. When the Father works, it is not that some angel works, or any other creature. For none of these is a cause that brings things about; they belong among the things that come to be. Moreover, since they are separate and divided from the only God, other than he in nature, and are his works, they can neither do what God does nor, as I said before, give grace together with him when God gives grace. Nor would anyone who saw an angel say that he had seen the Father. For angels, as it is written, are “ministering spirits sent out to serve,” and they are heralds of gifts given by him through the Word to those who receive them. And when an angel appears, he himself confesses that he has been sent by his Lord, as Gabriel confessed in the case of Zechariah, and also in the case of Mary, the bearer of God. And whoever sees a vision of angels knows that he has seen an angel and not God. For Zechariah saw an angel, but Isaiah saw the Lord. Manoah, the father of Samson, saw an angel, but Moses beheld God. Gideon saw an angel, but to Abraham God appeared. The one who saw God did not see an angel, and the one who saw an angel did not think that he saw God. For things originated by nature differ greatly from God the Creator, or rather they differ from him entirely. Sometimes, when an angel was seen, the one who saw it heard God’s voice, as happened at the bush: “The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush, and the Lord called Moses out of the bush, saying, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Yet the angel was not the God of Abraham; God spoke in the angel. What was seen was an angel, but God spoke in him. For just as he spoke to Moses in the pillar of cloud in the tabernacle, so God also appears and speaks in angels. So again he spoke to the son of Nun by an angel. But what God speaks, it is very plain that he speaks through the Word, and not through another. And since the Word is not separate from the Father, nor unlike and foreign to the Father’s substance, what he works are the Father’s works, and his framing of all things is one with the Father’s; and what the Son gives is the Father’s gift. Whoever has seen the Son knows that in seeing him he has seen, not an angel, nor one merely greater than the angels, nor any creature at all, but the Father himself. And whoever hears the Word knows that he hears the Father, just as someone lit by the radiance knows that he is lit by the sun. [i]

Divine Scripture, wishing us to understand the matter in this way, has given such illustrations as we have spoken of above. From them we are able both to press hard on the traitorous Jews and to refute the charge of the pagans, who maintain and think that because of the Trinity we profess many gods. For, as the illustration shows, we do not bring in three origins or three Fathers, as the followers of Marcion and Mani do. We have not offered the image of three suns, but of the sun and its radiance. And the light from the sun in the radiance is one; so we know of only one origin. And we profess that the Word who framed all things has no other kind of godhead than that of the only God, because he is born from him. Rather, then, it is the Ario-maniacs who will rightly bear the charge of believing in many gods, or else of having no God, because they idly talk of the Son as external to God and a creature, and again of the Spirit as made from nothing. For either they will say that the Word is not God; or, saying that he is God because it is so written, but not belonging to the Father’s substance, they will bring in many gods because of their difference in kind. (Unless, of course, they dare to say that he is called God only by participation, as all other things are. But if that is their view, their impiety is the same, since they regard the Word as one among all things.) But let such a thing never even come into our minds. For there is but one form of Godhead, and it is also in the Word. And there is one God, the Father, existing by himself in that he is above all, appearing in the Son in that he pervades all things, and in the Spirit in that in him he acts in all things through the Word. For in this way we confess God to be one through the Triad. And we say that it is far more godly to hold a belief in the one Godhead in a Triad than to hold the godhead of the heretics, with its many kinds and many parts. [k]

For if it is not so, but the Word is a creature and a work made out of nothing, then either he is not true God, because he is himself one of the creatures; or, if they call him God out of regard for the Scriptures, they must necessarily say that there are two Gods, one Creator and the other a creature. They must serve two Lords, one Unoriginate and the other originated and a creature. And they must have two faiths, one in the true God, and the other in one who was made and fashioned by themselves and is called God. And in such great blindness it necessarily follows that when they worship the Unoriginate they renounce the originated, and when they come to the creature they turn away from the Creator. For they cannot see the one in the other, because their natures and their workings are foreign to each other and distinct. And with such views they will certainly go on to more gods, for that is what those who revolt from the one God will set about next. Why then, when the Arians hold these speculations and views, do they not rank themselves with the pagans? For they too, like the pagans, worship the creature rather than God the Creator of all. And though they shrink from the pagan name in order to deceive the unlearned, they secretly hold the same view as the pagans. That clever saying of theirs which they are in the habit of putting forward, “We do not say two Unoriginates,” they plainly say to deceive the simple. For in the very act of professing, “We do not say two Unoriginates,” they imply two Gods, and these with different natures, one originated and one Unoriginate. And though the Greeks worship one Unoriginate and many originated gods, while these worship one Unoriginate and one originated, this makes no difference between them. For the god they call originated is one out of many, and the many gods of the Greeks have the same nature as this one, since he and they alike are creatures. Unhappy men! And all the more so because their harm comes from thinking against Christ. For they have fallen from the truth. They are greater traitors than the Jews in denying the Christ, and they wallow with the pagans, hateful to God as they are, worshiping the creature and many deities. For there is one God, and not many; and his Word is one, and not many. For the Word is God, and he alone has the Form of the Father. Since he is such, the Savior himself troubled the Jews with these words: “The Father himself who sent me has borne witness about me. You have never heard his voice or seen his Form; and you do not have his Word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” He has fittingly joined the “Word” to the “Form,” to show that the Word of God is himself the Image and Exact Imprint and Form of his Father, and that the Jews, by not receiving the one who spoke to them, by that very fact did not receive the Word, who is the Form of God. This too is the one whom the patriarch Jacob saw, and from whom he received a blessing and the name Israel instead of Jacob, as divine Scripture testifies, saying, “And as he passed by the Form of God, the sun rose upon him.” And this is the one who said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” and, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and, “I and the Father are one.” For in this way God is one, and the faith in the Father and the Son is one. For though the Word is God, the Lord our God is one Lord; for the Son belongs as his own to that One, and is inseparable from him by what is proper and peculiar to his substance. [m]

The Arians, however, are not put to shame even by this. They reply, “Not as you say, but as we will. For since you have overthrown our former devices, we have invented a new one, and it is this. The Son and the Father are one, and the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, in the same way that we too may become one in him. For this is written in the Gospel according to John, and Christ desired it for us in these words: ‘Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we are.’ And shortly after: ‘I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you sent me.’” Then, as though they had found a way out, these crafty men add: “If he and the Father are one in the same way that we become one in the Father, and in this way he too is in the Father, how can you claim, from his saying, ‘I and the Father are one,’ and, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me,’ that he belongs to the Father’s substance and is like it? For it follows either that we too belong to the Father’s substance, or that he is foreign to it, as we are foreign to it.” So they babble idly. But in this perverseness of theirs I see nothing but unreasoning presumption and a recklessness that comes from the devil, since it is speaking after his pattern: “We will ascend to heaven; we will be like the Most High.” For what is given to man by grace they would make equal to the Godhead of the Giver. So, hearing that men are called sons, they thought themselves equal to the true Son, who is Son by nature. And now again, hearing the Savior say, “that they may be one as we are,” they deceive themselves and are arrogant enough to think that they may be such as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. They do not consider the fall of their “father the devil,” which happened through just such an imagining. [o]

If, then, as we have said many times, the Word of God is the same as we are, and differs from us in nothing except in time, let him be like us and have the same place with the Father that we have. Let him not be called only Son, nor the only Word or Wisdom of the Father; rather let the same name apply in common to all of us who are like him. For it is right that those who have one nature should have their name in common, though they differ from one another in time. Adam was a man, and Paul was a man, and the child born now is a man; time is not what changes the nature of the race. If, then, the Word too differs from us only in time, we must be as he is. But in truth neither are we Word or Wisdom, nor is he a creature or a work. Otherwise why are all of us sprung from one, while he is the only Word? But though it may suit them to talk this way, it is not fitting for us, at least, to entertain their blasphemies. And yet, though there is no need to labor over these passages, since their sense is so clear and so godly and our own belief is orthodox, still, so that their impiety may be shown here too, come, let us briefly expose their unorthodox teaching from this passage, as we have received it from the fathers. It is a custom of divine Scripture to take the things of nature as images and illustrations for mankind. It does this so that from these natural objects the moral impulses of man may be explained, and so their conduct may be shown to be either bad or righteous. In the case of the bad, for instance, it commands, “Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding.” Or, complaining of those who have become such, it says, “Man, being in honor, has no understanding, but is compared to the beasts that perish.” And again, “They were like lustful horses.” And the Savior, to expose Herod, said, “Tell that fox.” But on the other hand he charged his disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” He said this not so that we might become beasts of burden by nature, or become serpents and doves. He himself has not made us so, and therefore nature does not allow it. He said it so that we might shun the unreasoning impulses of the one, and, knowing the wisdom of that other animal, might not be deceived by it, and might take on ourselves the gentleness of the dove. [p]

Again, taking patterns for man from divine things, the Savior says, “Be merciful, as your Father who is in heaven is merciful,” and, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He said this too, not so that we might become such as the Father is; for to become as the Father is impossible for us, who are creatures brought into being out of nothing. But just as when he charged us, “Do not be like the horse,” he did not mean that we should become draft animals, but that we should not imitate their lack of reason, so too, when he said, “Be merciful as your Father,” he did not mean that we might become as God. He meant that, looking at his kind acts, we might do good, not for men’s sake but for his sake, so that we may have our reward from him and not from men. For although there is one Son by nature, true and only, we too become sons, not as he is in nature and truth, but by the grace of the one who calls us. And though we are men from the earth, we are still called gods, not as the true God or his Word is, but as it has pleased God, who has given us that grace. In the same way we become merciful as God is, not by being made equal to God, nor by becoming benefactors in nature and truth (for it is not ours to bestow benefits; that belongs to God), but so that what has come to us from God himself by grace we may share with others, without making distinctions, extending our kind service generously to all. For only in this way, and in no other, can we in any way become imitators: when we serve others with what comes from him. And just as we give these texts a fair and right sense, such again is the sense of the passage in John. For he does not say that we must become such as the Son is in the Father. How could that be? He is God’s Word and Wisdom, and we were fashioned out of the earth. He is Word and true God by nature and substance; for so John says: “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” But we are made sons through him by adoption and grace, by sharing in his Spirit; for “as many as received him,” John says, “to them he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” And so he is also the Truth, saying, “I am the Truth,” and in his address to his Father, “Sanctify them through your truth; your word is truth.” But we become virtuous and sons by imitation. So it was not that we might become such as he is that he said, “that they may be one as we are.” He said it so that, just as he, being the Word, is in his own Father, we too, taking a pattern and looking at him, might become one with each other in harmony and oneness of spirit, and not be at odds like the Corinthians, but be of one mind, like those five thousand in the Acts, who were as one. [q]

For it is as “sons,” not as the Son; as “gods,” not as he himself is; and not as the Father, but “merciful as the Father.” And, as has been said, by becoming one in this way, as the Father and the Son are, we will be so, not as the Father is by nature in the Son and the Son in the Father, but according to our own nature, insofar as it is possible for us to be molded from that pattern and to learn how we ought to be one, just as we also learned to be merciful. For like things are naturally one with like; so all flesh is ranked together in kind. But the Word is unlike us and like the Father. And therefore, while he is one with his own Father in nature and truth, we, being of one kind with each other (for all were made from one, and the nature of all men is one), become one with each other in good disposition, having as our copy the Son’s natural unity with the Father. For just as he taught us gentleness from himself, saying, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,” not so that we might become equal to him, which is impossible, but so that, looking toward him, we might remain gentle always, so here too, wishing our good disposition toward each other to be true and firm and unbreakable, he takes the pattern from himself and says, “that they may be one as we are,” whose oneness cannot be divided. That is: that they, learning from us of that undivided nature, may in the same way keep agreement with one another. And this imitation of what is natural is especially safe for man, as has been said. For since natural things remain and never change, while the conduct of men is very changeable, one may look to what is unchangeable by nature, and avoid what is bad, and remodel himself on what is best. [s]

For this reason also the words “that they may be one in us” have a right sense. If it were possible for us to become as the Son is in the Father, the words ought to run, “that they may be one in you,” as the Son is in the Father. But as it is, he has not said this. By saying “in us” he has pointed out the distance and the difference: that he alone is in the Father alone, as the only Word and Wisdom, while we are in the Son, and through him in the Father. And in speaking this way he meant only this: “By our unity may they also be one with each other, as we are one in nature and truth; for otherwise they could not be one, except by learning unity in us.” That “in us” has this meaning we may learn from Paul, who says, “These things I have applied in a figure to myself and to Apollos, so that you may learn in us not to be puffed up beyond what is written.” So the words “in us” do not mean “in the Father,” as the Son is in him. They imply an example and image, in place of saying, “Let them learn from us.” For as Paul was to the Corinthians, so the oneness of the Son and the Father is a pattern and lesson to all, by which, looking to that natural unity of the Father and the Son, they may learn how they themselves ought to be one in spirit toward each other. Or, if the phrase needs to be explained another way, the words “in us” may mean that in the power of the Father and the Son they may be one, speaking the same things; for without God this is impossible. This way of speaking too we may find in the divine writings, as in, “In God we will do great deeds,” and, “In God I will leap over the wall,” and, “In you we will trample down our enemies.” So it is plain that in the name of the Father and the Son we will be able, by becoming one, to hold firm the bond of love. For, dwelling still on the same thought, the Lord says, “And the glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one as we are one.” Fittingly he has here too said, not, “that they may be in you as I am,” but, “as we are.” Now whoever says “as” signifies not identity, but an image and example of the matter in hand. [t]

The Word, then, has the real and true identity of nature with the Father; but to us it is given to imitate it, as has been said. For he immediately adds, “I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” Here at last the Lord asks something greater and more perfect for us. For it is plain that the Word has come to be in us, since he has put on our body. “And you, Father, in me”: that is, “For I am your Word; and since you are in me because I am your Word, and I am in them because of the body, and because of you the salvation of men is made perfect in me, I ask that they too may become one, according to the body that is in me and according to its perfection; that they too may become perfect, having oneness with it and having become one in it; that, as though all were carried by me, all may be one body and one spirit, and may grow up to a perfect man.” For all of us, sharing in the same, become one body, having the one Lord in ourselves. Since the passage has this meaning, the unorthodox teaching of Christ’s enemies is refuted still more plainly. I say it again: if he had said simply and without qualification, “that they may be one in you,” or, “that they and I may be one in you,” God’s enemies would have had some excuse, though a shameless one. But in fact he has not spoken simply. He said, “As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may all be one.” Moreover, by using the word “as,” he signifies those who come to be, at a distance, as he is in the Father; at a distance not in place but in nature. For in place nothing is far from God; only in nature are all things far from him. And, as I said before, whoever uses the particle “as” implies not identity, nor equality, but a pattern of the matter in question, seen in a certain respect. [u]

Indeed, we may learn this from the Savior himself, when he says, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jonah was not as the Savior. Jonah did not go down to Hades, and the whale was not Hades. Nor, when Jonah was swallowed, did he bring up those who had been swallowed by the whale before him; he alone came out, when the whale was commanded. So no identity or equality is signified in the word “as,” but one thing and another; and it shows a certain kind of parallel in the case of Jonah, because of the three days. In the same way, then, when the Lord says “as,” we neither become as the Son is in the Father, nor as the Father is in the Son. For we become one as the Father and the Son are, in mind and in agreement of spirit, and the Savior will be as Jonah in the earth. But the Savior is not Jonah, nor did the Savior go down into Hades in the way Jonah was swallowed; it is only a parallel. In the same way, if we too become one as the Son is in the Father, we will not be as the Son, nor equal to him; for he and we are only parallel. That is why the word “as” is applied to us: because things that differ from others in nature become “as” they are when seen in a certain respect. So the Son himself is in the Father simply and without any condition, for he has this by nature. But for us, to whom it is not natural, an image and example is needed, so that he may say of us, “As you are in me, and I in you.” “And when they are perfected in this way,” he says, “then the world knows that you have sent me. For unless I had come and borne this body of theirs, not one of them would have been perfected, but one and all would have remained subject to corruption. Work in them, then, O Father, and as you have given me to bear this body, grant them your Spirit, so that they too may become one in it and may be perfected in me. For their perfecting shows that your Word has lived among them; and the world, seeing them perfect and filled with God, will wholly believe that you have sent me and that I have lived here. For where does their perfecting come from, if not from this, that I, your Word, have borne their body and become man, and have perfected the work which you gave me, O Father? And the work is perfected because men, redeemed from sin, no longer remain dead, but, being deified, have the bond of love with one another by looking at me.” [v]

In giving a rough account of the expressions in this passage, we have been led into many words. But blessed John will show the sense of the words from his letter, briefly and far more perfectly than we can. He will both disprove the interpretation of these impious men and teach how we come to be in God and God in us, and how again we become one in him, and how far the Son differs from us in nature. And he will stop the Arians from thinking any longer that they will be as the Son is, so that they do not hear it said to them, “You are a man and not God,” and, “Do not stretch yourself out beside a rich man, since you are poor.” John, then, writes this: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” So because of the grace of the Spirit that has been given to us, we come to be in him and he in us. And since it is the Spirit of God, it is reasonable that through its coming to be in us, we, having the Spirit, are considered to be in God, and so God is in us. So it is not as the Son is in the Father that we too come to be in the Father. For the Son does not merely share in the Spirit so that he too may be in the Father for that reason. Nor does he receive the Spirit; rather, he himself supplies it to all. And the Spirit does not unite the Word to the Father; rather, the Spirit receives from the Word. The Son is in the Father as his own Word and Radiance. But we, apart from the Spirit, are strangers and far from God, and by sharing in the Spirit we are knit into the Godhead. So our being in the Father is not our own; it is the Spirit’s, which is in us and abides in us, as long as by the true confession we keep it in us. As John says again, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” What, then, is our likeness and equality to the Son? Rather, are not the Arians refuted on every side, and especially by John, who shows that the Son is in the Father in one way and we come to be in him in another, and that we will never be as he is, nor is the Word as we are? Unless, as usual, they dare now to say that the Son too came to be in the Father by sharing in the Spirit and by improving his conduct. But here again even to admit the thought is an excess of impiety. For, as has been said, he gives to the Spirit, and whatever the Spirit has, it has from the Word. [x]

So when the Savior says of us, “As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they too may be one in us,” he does not mean that we were to have identity with him; that was shown from the example of Jonah. It is a request to the Father, as John has written, that the Spirit should be granted through him to those who believe. It is through the Spirit that we are found to be in God, and in this respect to be joined together in him. For since the Word is in the Father, and the Spirit is given from the Word, he wills that we should receive the Spirit, so that when we receive it, having in this way the Spirit of the Word who is in the Father, we too may be found, because of the Spirit, to become one in the Word, and through him in the Father. And if he says “as we are,” this again is only a request that such grace of the Spirit as is given to the disciples may be without failure and never be taken back. For what the Word has by nature in the Father, as I said, he wishes to be given to us through the Spirit beyond recall. Knowing this, the apostle said, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” For “the gifts of God” and “the grace of his calling are irrevocable.” It is the Spirit, then, that is in God, and not we considered in ourselves. And just as we are sons and gods because of the Word in us, so we will be in the Son and in the Father, and we will be counted as having become one in the Son and in the Father, because that Spirit is in us which is in the Word, who is in the Father. So when a man falls away from the Spirit through some wickedness, if he repents after his fall, the grace remains beyond recall for those who are willing. Otherwise the one who has fallen is no longer in God, because the Holy Spirit and Paraclete which is in God has deserted him. Instead the sinner will be in the one to whom he has subjected himself, as happened in Saul’s case; for the Spirit of God departed from him, and an evil spirit tormented him. God’s enemies, hearing this, ought to be ashamed from now on, and no longer pretend to be equal to God. But they neither understand (for “the ungodly,” it says, “does not understand knowledge”) nor bear to hear godly words, but find them heavy even to listen to. [y]