God Alone, and His Word

God existed alone, with nothing alongside him, and he decided to create the world. He conceived it in his mind, willed it, spoke the word, and made it; and at once it appeared, formed exactly as it had pleased him. For us it is enough simply to know that there was nothing alongside God. Beside him there was nothing — and yet, existing alone, he was many. He was not without reason, or without wisdom, or without power, or without counsel. All things were in him, and he was the All. [a]

When he willed, and as he willed, he showed his Word at the times he himself had fixed, and through him he made all things. When he wills, he acts; when he thinks, he carries it out; when he speaks, he makes it known; when he shapes a thing, he plans it in wisdom. Everything that is made he forms by reason and wisdom — creating in reason, arranging in wisdom. So he made them as it pleased him, for he was God.

And as the originator, the fellow counselor and the craftsman of the things that were taking shape, he brought forth the Word. He carries this Word in himself; and while the Word was still invisible to the created world, he makes him visible. Uttering the voice first, and bringing him forth as Light from Light, he set him before the world as its Lord and as his own mind. Until then the Word had been visible to him alone and invisible to the world that was made; he makes him visible so that the world might see him when he appeared, and might be able to be saved.

And so there appeared another beside himself. When I say “another,” I do not mean that there are two Gods. I mean it only as light from light, or water from a spring, or a ray from the sun. For there is one power, and it is from the All; and the Father is the All, and from him comes this power, the Word. This is the mind that came out into the world and was shown to be the Son of God. All things, then, are through him, and he alone is from the Father. [d]

Who is it, then, that keeps bringing in a crowd of gods, one after another? For they are all shut up to admitting this much, however unwilling they are: that the All runs back into one. And if all things run back into one — even on the account of Valentinus and Marcion and Cerinthus and all their nonsense — then they too are driven, however unwilling, to the position that they must acknowledge the One as the cause of all things. So these men also fall in with the truth, though they do not want to, and admit that one God made all things as it pleased him. And he gave the law and the prophets; and in giving them he made them speak by the Holy Spirit, so that, supplied with the breath of the Father’s power, they might declare the Father’s counsel and will.

So the Word, acting in these prophets, spoke about himself. He had already become his own herald, showing that the Word would be made known among men. That is why he cried out: “I was made known to those who were not looking for me; I was found by those who were not asking for me.” And who is it that is made known, if not the Word of the Father — whom the Father sent, and in whom he showed men the power that comes from himself? [g]

So the Word was made known, exactly as the blessed John says. John gathers up what the prophets had said and shows that this is the Word through whom all things were made. He puts it like this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” And further down he says: “The world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” If, then, the world was made through him — as the prophet’s word has it, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” — then this is the Word who was also made known. So we see the Word made flesh, and through him we know the Father; we believe in the Son, and we worship the Holy Spirit. Let us look, then, at what Scripture testifies about the announcement that the Word would be made known.

Now Jeremiah says: “Who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and seen his Word?” But the Word of God is the one word that can be seen, while a human word can only be heard. When Jeremiah speaks of seeing the Word, I have to believe that this visible Word has been sent — and no one else was sent but the Word. That he was sent, Peter testifies when he says to Cornelius the centurion: “God sent his Word to the sons of Israel, through the preaching of Jesus Christ. This is the God who is Lord of all.” If, then, the Word is sent by Jesus Christ, the will of the Father is Jesus Christ. [j]

These things, brothers, are what the Scriptures declare. And the blessed John, testifying in his Gospel, gives us an account of this arrangement and acknowledges this Word as God when he says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” If, then, the Word was with God and was also God, what follows? Would anyone say that he is speaking of two Gods? [l]

I will not speak of two Gods, but of one — and of two persons, and of a third arrangement, the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the Father is one, but there are two persons, because there is the Son as well; and then there is the third, the Holy Spirit. The Father decrees, the Word carries it out, and the Son is made known, and through him the Father is believed. The arrangement that brings them into agreement leads back to one God, for God is one. It is the Father who commands, the Son who obeys, and the Holy Spirit who gives understanding: the Father who is over all, the Son who is through all, and the Holy Spirit who is in all. And there is no other way to think of one God than by believing in truth in Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

For the Jews glorified the Father, but did not give him thanks, because they did not recognize the Son. The disciples recognized the Son, but not in the Holy Spirit, and so they denied him as well. The Father’s Word, then, knowing the arrangement and the will of the Father — that the Father seeks to be worshiped in no other way than this — gave this charge to the disciples after he rose from the dead: “Go and teach all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” By this he showed that whoever leaves out any one of these fails to glorify God completely. For it is through this triad that the Father is glorified. The Father willed it, the Son did it, the Spirit made it known. So all the Scriptures proclaim this.

But someone will say to me: “You are bringing me something strange when you call the Son the Word. John does speak of the Word, but he means it as a figure of speech.” No — it is not a figure of speech. For in setting out this Word who was from the beginning and has now been sent out, John says further on, in the Revelation: “And I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse; and the one sitting on it was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written that no one knew but he himself. He was clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.” [p]

See then, brothers, how the robe sprinkled with blood stood as a sign for the flesh, through which the Word of God, who cannot suffer, came under suffering — as the prophets also testify to me. The blessed Micah speaks like this: “The house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord to anger. These are their doings. Are not his words good with them, and do they not walk rightly? But they have risen up in hostility against his face of peace, and they have stripped off his glory.” That means his suffering in the flesh. In the same way the blessed Paul also says: “For what the law could not do, since it was weak, God did: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law might be shown in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

What Son of his own, then, did God send through the flesh, if not the Word — whom he addressed as Son because he was going to become Son in time to come? And in being called Son he takes up the name that carries the tenderest affection among people. For before he took flesh, while he was by himself, the Word was not yet perfect Son, although he was perfect Word, the only Son. Nor could the flesh hold together by itself, apart from the Word, because it has what holds it together in the Word. So in this way one perfect Son of God was made known.

These, then, are testimonies bearing on the Word coming in flesh, and there are a great many more. But let us look at the matter in hand, brothers — the question whether it was in fact the Father’s power, which is the Word, that came down from heaven, and not the Father himself. For this is how he speaks: “I came out from the Father, and I have come.” Now what is the subject of that sentence, “I came out from the Father,” if not the Word? And what is it that is brought forth from him, if not the Spirit — that is to say, the Word? [w]

But you will say to me: how is he brought forth? In your own case you can give no account of how you were brought into being, though you see the human cause of it every day; and you cannot give an exact account of how it was arranged in his case either. It is not in your power to acquaint yourself with the practiced and indescribable craft of the Maker. You can only see, and understand, and believe that a human being is God’s work.

And here you are, asking for an account of the bringing forth of the Word, whom God the Father brought forth as he willed, because it pleased him. Is it not enough for you to learn that God made the world — must you also ask what he made it out of? Is it not enough for you to learn that the Son of God has been made known to you for your salvation, if you believe — must you also inquire, out of curiosity, how he was brought forth as Spirit? Only two men, after all, were entrusted with giving the account of his birth in the flesh; and are you so bold as to demand the account of his bringing forth as Spirit, which the Father keeps to himself and means to reveal only then, to the holy ones and to those worthy of seeing his face?

Be satisfied with the word Christ spoke: “What is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In the same way, when God speaks through the prophet about the bringing forth of the Word, he shows the fact that he is brought forth, but keeps back the manner and the means, to reveal them only at the time he himself has fixed. For he speaks like this: “From the womb, before the morning star, I have brought you forth.”

These testimonies are enough for those who believe and who study the truth; and for those who do not believe, no testimony is enough. For the Holy Spirit, speaking in the person of the apostles, testified to this, saying, “And who has believed our report?” So let us not prove ourselves unbelieving, or the word that was spoken will be fulfilled in us. [aa]

So let us believe, blessed brothers, according to the tradition of the apostles: that God the Word came down from heaven into the holy virgin Mary, so that by taking flesh from her, and taking on as well a human soul — I mean a reasoning soul — and becoming everything a man is except sin, he might save fallen man and give immortality to those who believe on his name.

In everything, then, the word of truth is shown to us: that the Father is one, whose Word is present with him, and through whom he made all things; and this Word, as we said above, the Father sent out in later times for the salvation of men. This is the Word who was preached by the law and the prophets as the one who would come into the world; and just as he was preached then, so he came and made himself known, made a new man by the virgin and the Holy Spirit. For he had what is heavenly, from the Father, as the Word, and what is earthly, since he took the flesh to himself from the old Adam by way of the virgin. So now, coming out into the world, he was made known as God in a body, and came forth as a complete man as well. For it was not in appearance, and not by being turned into something else, but in truth, that he became man.

So then, though he was shown to be God, he does not refuse what belongs to him as a man. He hungers, he grows tired, he is thirsty and worn out, he runs away in fear, he prays in distress. He whose nature as God never sleeps sleeps on a cushion. He who came into the world for this very purpose asks to be let off the cup of suffering. In anguish he sweats blood, and is strengthened by an angel — he who himself strengthens those who believe in him, and who taught people to think nothing of death by what he did. [ad]

He who knew what kind of man Judas was is handed over by Judas. He whom Caiaphas once served as God in his priesthood is treated with contempt by Caiaphas. He is counted as nothing by Herod, though he is the one who is to judge the whole earth. He is flogged by Pilate — he who took our weaknesses upon himself. He is mocked by the soldiers, though at his command stand thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand angels and archangels. He who fixed the heavens like a vault is fastened to the cross by the Jews.

He who cannot be separated from the Father cries out to the Father and entrusts his spirit to him; and bowing his head, he gives up his spirit — he who said, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again.” And because he was not overpowered by death, being himself Life, he said this: “I lay it down of myself.” He who gives life generously to all has his side pierced with a spear. He who raises the dead is wrapped in linen and laid in a tomb; and on the third day he is raised.