Two, Yet One God

“I and the Father are one.” You say either that the two things are one, or that the one thing has two names, or else that the one thing is divided into two. Now if the one is divided into two, what is divided must be a body, and neither part is perfect, since each is a part and not a whole. But if again the one thing has two names, this is the device of Sabellius, who said that Son and Father were the same, and so did away with each of them: with the Father when there is a Son, and with the Son when there is a Father. But if the two are one, then they must be two, yet one according to the Godhead, and according to the Son’s being of one substance with the Father, and the Word’s being from the Father himself. So they are two, because there is a Father and a Son, that is, the Word; and they are one, because there is one God. Otherwise he would have said, “I am the Father,” or, “I and the Father am.” But in fact, by the “I” he means the Son; by “and the Father,” the one who begot him; and by “one,” the one Godhead and his being of one substance with the Father. For the same one is not, as the Gentiles hold, both the Wise and the Wisdom, or the same one both the Father and the Word, since it would be unfitting for him to be his own Father. No, the divine teaching knows a Father and a Son, the Wise and the Wisdom, God and the Word. And all the while it keeps him indivisible, inseparable and indissoluble in every respect. [a]

But someone may hear that the Father and the Son are two, and misrepresent us as preaching two Gods. Some do invent this for themselves and at once mock us, saying, “You hold two Gods.” To such people we must answer: if to acknowledge a Father and a Son is to hold two Gods, it follows at once that, to confess only one, we must deny the Son and become Sabellians. For if to speak of two is to fall into paganism, then if we speak of one, we must fall into Sabellianism. But this is not so. Perish the thought! As when we say that the Father and the Son are two, we still confess one God, so when we say that there is one God, let us consider the Father and the Son to be two, while they are one in the Godhead, and in the Father’s Word being indissoluble, indivisible and inseparable from him. And let a fire and the radiance that comes from it serve as a human comparison. They are two in being and in appearance, but one in that its radiance comes from it without division. [c]