The Father Did Not Suffer

Some people are secretly bringing in another teaching. They are the followers of a man named Noetus, a native of Smyrna, who lived not very long ago. This man was badly swollen with pride, puffed up by the conceit of a strange spirit. He claimed that Christ was the Father himself, and that the Father himself was born, and suffered, and died. You can see what pride of heart, what strange bloated spirit, had worked its way into him. His other behavior is proof enough that he was not speaking with a pure spirit, for anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is shut out from the holy inheritance. He claimed that he himself was Moses, and that his brother was Aaron. [a]

When the blessed elders heard of this, they summoned him before the church and questioned him. At first he denied holding any such views. Later, though, he took shelter with certain people, gathered around himself some others who had taken up the same error, and set out to defend his teaching openly as correct. So the blessed elders called him in a second time and questioned him. But he stood his ground against them and said, “What harm am I doing, then, in glorifying Christ?” And the elders answered him, “We too know, in truth, one God. We know Christ. We know that the Son suffered just as he suffered, and died just as he died, and rose again on the third day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. And what we have been taught is what we say.” Then, having examined him, they expelled him from the church. And his pride carried him so far that he set up a school of his own.

They try to lay a foundation for their teaching by citing a word in the law, “I am the God of your fathers; you shall have no other gods besides me,” and again, in another passage, “I am the first,” he says, “and the last, and besides me there is no other.” By this, they say, they prove that God is one. And then they argue in this way: “If, then, I acknowledge that Christ is God, he is the Father himself — assuming he really is God. And Christ suffered, being himself God. And so the Father suffered, since he was the Father himself.” But that is not how things stand, for the Scriptures do not set the matter out that way. They make use of other proof texts as well. This, they say, is how it is written: “This is our God, and no other will be reckoned beside him. He found out the whole way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. Afterward he showed himself on earth and lived among men.” You see, then, he says, that this is God, the only one, who afterward showed himself and lived among men. And in another place he says, “Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of great stature, will come over to you, and they will be your slaves. They will walk behind you bound in chains, and they will bow down to you and plead with you, because God is in you; and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it — God of Israel, the Savior.” Do you see, he says, how the Scriptures proclaim one God? And since this is plainly displayed, and these passages testify to it, I am forced, he says — one God being acknowledged — to make that one the subject of the suffering. For Christ was God, and suffered for our sake, being himself the Father, so that he might be able to save us. And we cannot put it any other way, he says, since the apostle too acknowledges one God when he says, “Theirs are the fathers, and from them, as far as the flesh goes, came Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever.” [d]

That is how they choose to set these things out, and they use only one class of passages — the same one-sided handling that Theodotus used when he tried to prove that Christ was a man and nothing more. But neither party has understood the matter rightly. The Scriptures themselves refute the folly of both and testify to the truth. [h]

Look, brothers, at the reckless and outrageous teaching they have brought in, saying without shame that the Father is himself Christ, himself the Son, that he himself was born, himself suffered, himself raised himself. But it is not so. The Scriptures say what is right; it is Noetus who is of a different mind from them. And though Noetus does not understand the truth, that is no reason to throw the Scriptures out. For who would not say that there is one God? Yet a man will not on that account deny the arrangement. So the right way to handle the question is first to refute the meaning these men put on these passages, and then to explain what the passages really mean. For the first thing to set out is the truth that the Father is one God, “from whom every family comes,” “through whom are all things, from whom are all things, and we in him.”

Let us see, as I said, how he is refuted, and then let us set out the truth. He quotes the words, “Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabeans,” and so on down to “For you are the God of Israel, the Savior.” But he quotes them without understanding what comes before them. Whenever these people want to try something underhanded, they cut the Scriptures up. Let him quote the passage whole, and he will discover the reason it was written. The section begins a little above, and of course we ought to begin there, in showing whom the passage is speaking to and about. [k]

Here is how the section begins: “Ask me about my sons and my daughters, and give me orders about the work of my hands. I made the earth, and man upon it. With my hand I set the heaven in place; I gave commands to all the stars. I have raised him up, and all his ways are straight. He will build my city, and he will bring the captivity back — not for a price and not for a reward, said the Lord of hosts. Thus said the Lord of hosts: Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabeans, men of great stature, will come over to you, and they will be your slaves. They will walk behind you bound in chains, and they will bow down to you and plead with you, because God is in you; and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it — the God of Israel, the Savior.”

“In you, therefore,” he says, “is God.” But in whom is God, except in Christ Jesus, the Father’s Word and the mystery of the arrangement? And again, showing the truth about him, the prophet points to his being in the flesh when he says, “I have raised him up in righteousness, and all his ways are straight.” What does that mean? About whom does the Father say it? It is of the Son that the Father says, “I have raised him up in righteousness.” And that the Father did raise up his Son in righteousness, the apostle Paul bears witness: “But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you.” See how the word spoken by the prophet is made good: “I have raised him up in righteousness.” And in saying, “God is in you,” he was pointing to the mystery of the arrangement; because when the Word became flesh and became man, the Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father, while the Son was living among men. This, then, brothers, was what was being signified: that in reality the mystery of the arrangement, worked by the Holy Spirit and the virgin, was this Word, making yet one Son for God. And it is not only I who say this. He himself testifies to it, the one who came down from heaven, for he speaks this way: “No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.”

What more can he look for beyond what stands written there? Will he really say that flesh was in heaven? Yet there is the flesh that was presented by the Father’s Word as an offering — the flesh that came by the Spirit and the virgin, and was shown to be the perfect Son of God. Clearly, then, it was himself that he offered to the Father. And before this there was no flesh in heaven. Who, then, was in heaven but the Word without flesh, who was sent to show that he was on earth and was also in heaven? For he was Word, he was Spirit, he was Power. This same one took to himself the name that is common and current among men, and from the beginning was called the Son of man, on account of what he was going to be, although he was not yet man. Daniel bears witness to this when he says, “I saw, and look, one like a son of man came on the clouds of heaven.” So the prophet was right to say that the one who was in heaven was called from the beginning by this name, the Word of God, since that is what he was from the beginning.

But what does the other passage mean, he says: “This is God, and no other will be reckoned beside him”? He said that rightly. For who is to be reckoned alongside the Father? But he says, “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him. He found out the whole way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved.” He says it well. For who is Jacob his servant, and Israel his beloved, but the one about whom he calls out, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him”? So then, having received all knowledge from the Father, the perfect Israel, the true Jacob, afterward showed himself on earth and lived among men. And who, again, is meant by Israel but a man who sees God? And there is no one who sees God except the Son alone, the perfect man, who alone declares the Father’s will. John says the same: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the Father’s embrace, has told of him.” And again: “The one who came down from heaven testifies to what he has heard and seen.” This, then, is the one to whom the Father has given all knowledge, who showed himself on earth and lived among men. [p]

Now let us look at the apostle’s word: “Theirs are the fathers, and from them, as far as the flesh goes, came Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever.” This word states the mystery of the truth rightly and clearly. The one who is over all is God, for he speaks boldly this way: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” The one who is over all, God blessed, has been born; and having become man, he is God forever. John said the same: “Who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.” And he was right to call Christ Almighty, for in doing so he says only what Christ testifies about himself. Christ gave this testimony when he said, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” Christ rules all things, and has been appointed Almighty by the Father. In the same way Paul, setting out the truth that all things have been handed over to him, said: “Christ the firstfruits; then those who belong to Christ, at his coming. Then comes the end, when he hands the kingdom over to God the Father, when he has put down every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For all things have been put under him. But when it says that all things have been put under him, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things under him. Then the Son himself will also be subject to the one who put all things under him, so that God may be all in all.” If, then, all things have been put under him except the one who put them under him, he is Lord of all, and the Father is Lord of him — so that in everything one God may be seen, to whom all things are made subject along with Christ, and to whom the Father has made all things subject, himself excepted. And Christ himself says this, as when in the Gospel he acknowledged him to be his Father and his God. He speaks this way: “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” If, then, Noetus dares to say that Christ is the Father himself, to what father will he say Christ is going, according to the word of the Gospel? But if he wants us to abandon the Gospel and believe his nonsense instead, he is spending his effort for nothing. For “we ought to obey God rather than men.” [s]

Suppose, again, he brings forward Christ’s own word, when he said, “I and the Father are one.” Let him attend to the fact and understand that he did not say, “I and the Father am one,” but “are one.” The word “are” is not said of one person; it refers to two persons and one power. He made this clear himself when he spoke to his Father about the disciples: “The glory you gave me I have given them, so that they may be one, just as we are one — I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to completion in one, so that the world may know that you sent me.” What have the followers of Noetus to say to this? Are we all one body in substance? Or is it rather that we become one in power and in the disposition of a common mind? In the same way the Son, who was sent and was not known by those who are in the world, acknowledged that he was in the Father in power and in disposition. For the Son is the one mind of the Father. We who have the Father’s mind believe this; but those who do not have it have denied the Son. And if they choose to bring up the fact that Philip asked about the Father, saying, “Show us the Father, and that is enough for us,” to which the Lord answered, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” — and if they want to maintain that their teaching is confirmed by this passage, as though he owned himself to be the Father, let them know that it tells decisively against them, and that they are refuted by this very word. For although Christ had spoken about himself and shown himself to everyone as the Son, they had not yet recognized him for what he was, and had not been able to grasp or contemplate his real power. Philip could not take this in, as far as it was possible to see it, and so he asked to look upon the Father. To him, then, the Lord said, “Philip, have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” What he means is this: if you have seen me, you can know the Father through me. For through the image, which is like the original, the Father is readily made known. But if you have not known the image, which is the Son, how do you go looking to see the Father? And that this is the case is made clear by the rest of the chapter, which shows that the Son who “was set forth” was sent from the Father and is going to the Father. [t]

Many other passages — or rather all of them — testify to the truth. A man is therefore compelled, even against his will, to acknowledge God the Father Almighty, and Christ Jesus the Son of God, who, being God, became man, and to whom the Father made all things subject, himself excepted, and the Holy Spirit; and that these, therefore, are three. But if he wants to learn how it is still shown that there is one God, let him understand that his power is one. As far as the power goes, then, God is one. But as far as the arrangement goes, what is shown is threefold — as will be proved later, when we give our account of the true teaching. On these matters, as we have set them out here, we are at one. For there is one God in whom we must believe: a God who had no beginning, who cannot suffer, who cannot die, doing all things as he wills, in the way he wills, and when he wills. What, then, will this Noetus dare to say to this — Noetus, who understands nothing of the truth? And now that Noetus has been refuted, let us turn to setting out the truth itself, so that we may establish the truth against which all these powerful false teachings have risen up, without being able to say anything to the point. [x]

There is, brothers, one God, and the knowledge of him we get from the Holy Scriptures and from no other source. For just as a man who wants to be skilled in the wisdom of this world will find he cannot get at it in any other way than by mastering the settled teachings of the philosophers, so all of us who want to practice godliness will be unable to learn how to practice it from any other quarter than the sayings of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us look; whatever things they teach, these let us learn. As the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; as he wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify him; as he wills the Holy Spirit to be given, let us receive him — not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor doing violence to the things God has given, but just as he has chosen to teach them through the Holy Scriptures, so let us understand them. [z]