CONTRA GENTILES

Chapter 2

THAT THERE IS GENERATION, PATERNITY, AND SONSHIP IN THE DIVINITY

[1] Let us take the beginning of our study from the secret of the divine generation, and first set down what one must hold about it according to the testimonies of sacred Scripture. Then we may set out the arguments against the truth of the faith which unbelief has invented; by achieving the solution of these we will be pursuing the purpose of this study.

[2] Sacred Scripture, then, hands on to us the names of “paternity” and “sonship” in the divinity, insisting that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. One finds this most frequently in the books of the New Testament. Thus, Matthew (1: 27): “No one knows the Son but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father but the Son.” With this Mark begins his Gospel, saying: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” John the Evangelist also frequently points to this, for he says: “The Father loves the Son and He hath given all things into His hand” (3:35) and “As the Father raises up the dead, and gives life: so the Son also gives life to whom He will” (5:21). Paul the Apostle also frequently inserts these words, for he calls himself in Romans (1:1-3) “separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy scriptures concerning His Son”; and says in Hebrews (1:1): “God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son.”

[3] This is also. given us, although more rarely, in the books of the Old Testament. Thus, Proverbs (30:4) says: “What is His name, and what is the name of His Son, if you know?” One reads it also in the Psalms (2:7; 88:27): “The Lord said to me: You are My Son”; and again: “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father.”

[4] To be sure, some would like to twist these last two sayings into another sense, so as to refer “The Lord hath said to Me: You are My Son” to David; and so as to ascribe “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father” to Solomon. Nevertheless, the additions in each instance show that this cannot be quite the case. For David cannot be fitted into this addition: “This day have I begotten You” (Ps. 2:7); nor into this one: “I will give You the Gentiles for your inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for your possession” (2:8); since David’s kingdom was not extended to the utmost parts of the earth, as the history of the Book of Kings shows. No more is the saying: “He shall cry out to Me: You are My Father” fitting to Solomon, since there follows: “I will make His rule to endure for evermore: and His throne as the days of heaven” (Ps. 88:30). Hence, one is given to understand that because some of the things joined to the texts mentioned are suitable to David and Solomon, some absolutely unsuitable, what is said of David and Solomon in these words is said, as customarily in Scripture, figuratively of that other in whom the whole is fulfilled.

[5] However, since the names of “Father” and “Son” follow on a generation, Scripture has not been silent about the very name of “divine generation.” For in the Psalm (2:7), as was said, one reads: “This day have I begotten You.” And Proverbs (8:24-2.5): “The depths were not as yet and I was already conceived: before the hills I was brought forth”; or, according to another reading: “Before all the hills did the Lord beget me.” And Isaiah (66:9, 8) also says: “Shall not I that make others to bring forth... Myself bring forth, saith the Lord? Shall I that give generation to others be barren, says the Lord your God?” We grant that one can say that this text must be related to the multiplication of the children of Israel returning from captivity into their own country, because earlier this is said: “Zion has been in labour and has brought forth her children.” But this does not defeat our purpose. For, however the essence of it be adapted, the essence of it which is given from the voice of God remains fixed and stable thus: If He Himself grants generation to others, He is not sterile. Nor would it become Him who makes others generate truly to generate Himself not truly but by a likeness. For a thing must he more nobly in its cause than in that which is caused, as was shown. Again, it says in John (1:14): “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father”; and later: “The only-begotten Son ho is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him” (1:18). And Paul says: “And again when He brings his first-begotten into the world He says: ‘And let all the angels of God adore Him’” (Heb. 1:6).

Chapter 3

THAT THE SON OF GOD IS GOD

[1] Consideration must, of course, be given to the fact that the names mentioned are used by the divine Scripture in its exposition of the creation of things, for in Job (38:28-29) it says: “Who is the father of rain? Or who begot the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice; and the frost from heaven who engendered it!” Therefore, lest nothing more be understood by the words for “paternity,” “sonship,” and “generation” than the efficacy of creation, the authority of Scripture added something: When it was naming Him “Son” and “begotten”, it was not silent about His being God, so that the generation mentioned might be understood as something more than creation. For John (1:1) says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That by the name “Word” one should understand Son is made plain in the sequel, for he adds: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father” (1:14). And Paul says: “The goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared” (Titus 3:4).

[2] Neither was the writing in the Old Testament silent about this; it named Christ God. For a Psalm (44:7-8) says: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. You loved justice, and hated iniquity.”—That this is spoken to Christ is clear from what follows: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” And Isaiah (9:6) says: “A Child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace.”

[3] Thus, then, are we taught from sacred Scripture that the Son of God, begotten of God, is God. And Peter confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He said: “You are Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mat. 16:16). He Himself, therefore, is both the Only-begotten and God.

Chapter 4

THE OPINION OF PROTINUS ON THE SON OF GOD, AND ITS REFUTATION

[1] Now, certain men, who perversely presumed to measure the truth of this doctrine by their own comprehension of it, conceived on the points just mentioned opinions both vain and various.

[2] Some among these took into consideration Scripture’s custom of calling those who are justified by divine grace “sons of God,”, as in John (1:12): “He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name.” And Romans (8:16) says: “The Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” And 1 John (3: 1) : “Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God.” And Scripture does not hesitate to call these “begotten of God,” for it says in James (1:18): “For of His own will bath He begotten us by the word of truth”; and 1 John (3:9) says: “Whosoever is born of God commits not sin: for His seed abides in him.” Also, to the same men, which is more marvelous, the name of “divinity” is applied. For the Lord said to Moses: “I have appointed you the God of Pharaoh” (Ex. 7:1); and the Psalmist says: “I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High” (Ps. 81:6); and, as our Lmd ms: “He called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken” (John 10:35).

[3] After this fashion, therefore, they formed the opinion that Jesus Christ was pure man, that He had had a beginning from the Virgin Mary, that by the merit of His blessed life He had received the honor of divinity above all others; and they thought that He was, like other men, a son of God by the spirit of adoption, begotten of God by grace, and by a kind of likens to God called God in Scripture not by nature, but by partaking in the divine goodness, just as it says of the saints in 2 Peter (1:4): “That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.”

[4] Such was the position they were trying to establish by the authority of sacred Scripture.

[5] For our Lord says in Matthew (28:18): “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth.” But, if He were God before all times, He would not have received power in time.

[6] Again, Romans (1:34) says of the Son: “Who was made to Him,” to God, namely, “of the seed of David according to the flesh”; and says that He was “predestinated the Son of God in power.” But what was predestinated and was made seems not to be eternal.

[7] The Apostle also says (Phil. 2:8): “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also bath exalted Him, and bath given Him a name which is above all names.” From this it appears clear that by the merit of His obedience and passion He was given divine honor and was exalted above all things.

[8] Peter also says: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God bath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Therefore, it seems that He was made God in time, not born before time.

[9] They also bring in to shore up their opinion whatever Scripture says which seems to imply a defect in Christ: that He was carried in a woman’s womb, that He progressed in age, that He suffered hunger, was wearied with fatigue, and was subject to death; that He advanced in wisdom, confessed He did not know the day of judgment; that He was stricken with the fear of death; and other things of this sort which could not be in agreement with a God existing by His nature. Hence their conclusion: that by merit Christ acquired divine honor through grace and that He was not by nature divine.

[10] Now, this position was first invented by certain ancient heretics, Cerinthus and Ebion. later, Paul of Samosata renewed it; and later it was strengthened by Photinus, so that those who dogmatize thus are called Photinian.

[11] However, those who diligently examine the words of sacred Scripture do not find in them the meaning which these men have by their own opinion constructed. For, when Solomon says: “The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived,” (Prov. 8:24), he makes it clear enough that this generation existed before all bodily things. Hence, it follows that the Son begotten by God received no beginning of being from Mary. To be sure, they endeavored to debase these and other like testimonies by their perverse exposition. These, they said, should be understood after the manner of predestination: that before the foundation of the world it was arranged that a Son of God should be born of the Virgin Mary, not that the Son of God had been before the world. But they are refuted by this: Not only in predestination, but in reality as well, He had been before Mary. For after the words of Solomon just quoted this is added: “When He balanced the foundations of the earth: I was with Him forming all things” (Prov. 8:29-30); but if He had been present in predestination only, He would have been able to do nothing. One gets this also from the words of John the Evangelist, for, when he had first set down: “In the beginning was the Word” (by which name the Son is understood as was shown) to keep anyone from taking this as predestination, he adds: “All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing” (1:1, 3); and this could not be true if He had not really existed before the world. Again, the Son of God says in John (3:13): “No man has ascended to heave except He who descended fro heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven”; again in John (6:38): “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” Clearly, therefore, he was before He descended from heaven.

[12] There is more. According to the position described above, a man by the merit of his life advanced to being God. The Apostle shows, on the contrary, that when He was God He became man. For he says: ‘Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Phil. 2:6). Therefore, the position described is in conflict with apostolic teaching.

[13] Furthermore, among all the rest of those who had the grace of God, Moses had it in abundance; it says of him in Exodus (33:11) : “The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” If, therefore, Jesus Christ is not said to be a son of God except by the grace of adoption, like other saints, on the same grounds Moses should be called son and Christ, even though Christ was endowed with more abundant grace: among the other saints, also, one is endowed with greater grace than another, but all are called sons of God on the same ground. But Moses is not called son on the same ground that Christ is so called, for the Apostle distinguishes Christ from Moses as the Son from the servant. He says in Hebrews (3:5-6): “Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be said: But Christ as the Son in His own house.” Manifestly, then, Christ is not called the Son of God by the grace of adoption, as other saints are.

[14] One can gather a similar understanding from several other places in Scripture, in which Christ is named in some singular way and prior to others as the Son of God. Sometimes singularly and without others He is named “Son”: as the voice of the Father thundered at the baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17). Sometimes He is named “Only-begotten” as in John: “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father”; and again: “The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:14, 18). If He were to be called son in some common fashion like others, He could not be called the Only-begotten. Sometimes, also, He is named “First-begotten” to show an overflowing of sonship from Him to others: as in Romans (8:29): ‘Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren7; and Galatians (4:4-5) says: “God sent His Son that we might receive the adoption of sons. On another ground, therefore, is He a Son, through likeness to whose sonship others are called sons.

[15] In sacred Scripture, moreover, certain works are properly attributed to God, and in such wise that they cannot be assigned to another: such are the sanctification of souls and the remission of sins; for it is said in Leviticus (20:8): “I am the Lord that sanctify you”; and in Isaiah (45:25): “I am He that blot out your iniquities for My own sake.” Yet Scripture attributes each of these to Christ, for we read in Hebrews (2:11; 13:12): “Both he that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified, are all of one”; and again: “Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered without the gate.” Our Lord Himself insisted that He had the “power to forgive sins,” and confirmed this by a miracle as is told in Matthew (9:16). This is also what the angel foretold of Him when he said: “He shall save His people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21). Christ, therefore, who both sanctifies and forgives sins, is not called God as they are called gods who are sanctified, and whose sins are forgiven, but as one who has the power and the nature of divinity.

[16] The Scriptural testimonies by which they tried to show that Christ was not God by nature are useless for establishing their proposition. For it is our confession that in Christ the Son of God, after the mystery of the Incarnation, there were two natures; namely, human and divine. And so, things are said of Him which are proper to God by reason of the divine nature, and things are also said which seem to involve deficiency by reason of the human nature, as will be more fully explained later. But now, for the present consideration of the divine generation, let it suffice to have pointed out in accord with the Scriptures that Christ the Son of God is also called God, not only as a pure man is by the grace of adoption, but by reason Of the nature of divinity.

Chapter 5

THE OPINION OF SABELLIUS ON THE SON OF GOD, AND ITS REFUTATION

[1] Since, of course, the fixed mental conception of all who think rightly about God is this: There can be but one God—certain men, conceiving from the Scriptures that Christ is truly and naturally God and the Son of God, have confessed that the one God is Christ the Son of God and God the Father; and that God, nevertheless, is not called Son in His nature or from eternity, but that He then received the name of sonship when He was born of the Virgin Mary in the mystery of the Incarnation. Thus, all the things which Christ bore in the flesh they used to attribute to God the Father: for example, that He was the son of the Virgin, conceived and born of her, that He suffered, died and rose again, and all else which the Scriptures say of Christ in the flesh.

[2] They attempted to strengthen their position by Scriptural authorities. For it says in Exodus (i.e., Deut. 6:41): “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”; and in Deuteronomy (32:39): “I alone am and there is no other God besides Me”; and John (14:10, 9, 11): “The Father who abides in Me, He doth the works”; and again: “He that sees Me, sees the Father also... I am in the Father and the Father in Me.” From all these they used to conceive that God the Father was being called the very Son incarnate of the Virgin.

[3] This was, of course, the opinion of the Sabellians, who were also called Patripassionists because they confess that the Father suffered, holding that the Father Himself was Christ.

[4] Now, the latter position differs from the one just de scribed with respect to Christ’s divinity (for the latter confesses that Christ is true and natural God which the first denied); nevertheless, with respect to generation and sonship, each of the two opinions conforms with the other: for, as the first holds that there was no sonship and generation by which Christ is said to be Son before Mary, so the latter also maintains. Therefore, neither of these positions relates the generation and sonship to the divine nature, but to the human nature only. The second position has this special feature: that when one says “Son of God” one designates not a subsisting person but a kind of additional property of a pre-existing person, for the Father Himself, in that He assumed flesh from the Virgin, received the name of Son; it is not as though the Son is a subsisting Person distinct from the Person of the Father.

[5] The authority of Scripture makes the falsity of this position quite manifest. For Scripture does not call Christ merely the Virgin’s son, but also the Son of God. We made this clear before. But it cannot be that one be his own son, for, since a son is begotten by a father, and he who begets gives being to the begotten, it would follow that he who gives is identified with him who receives being-and this is entirely impossible. Therefore, God the Father is not Himself the Son, but the Son is other than He, and the Father is other than the Son.

[6] Then, too, our Lord says: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me”; and: “Glorify Me, O Father with Yourself” (John 6:38; 17:5). From all, of these and similar sayings the Son is shown to be other than the Father.

[7] Of course, it can be said within this position that Christ is called the Son of God the Father in His human nature only; namely, because God the Father Himself created and sanctified the human nature which He assumed. Thus, then, the same one is in His divinity called His own Father in His humanity. Thus, there is also no objection to saying that the same one in His humanity is distinct from Himself in His divinity. But in this fashion it will follow that Christ is called a son of God as are other men, whether by reason of creation, or by reason of sanctification. It has, however, already been shown that Christ is called the Son of God for another reason than other holy men are. It cannot, therefore, be understood that the Father Himself is Christ and His very own son.

[8] There is more. Where there is one subsisting supposit, it does not receive a plural predication. But Christ speaks of Himself and the Father in the plural; He says: “I and the Father are one (John 10:30). The Son, therefore, is not the Father Himself.

[9] Furthermore, if it is by the mystery of the Incarnation alone that the Son is distinguished from the Father, there was no distinction whatever before the Incarnation. In the sacred Scripture, however, the Son is found to have been distinct from the Father even before the Incarnation. For it says in John (1:1): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So, the Word who was with God had some distinction from Him. This is our usual manner of speaking: one is said “to be with” another. In the same way in Proverbs (8:30) the Begotten says: “I was with Him forming all things.” Here, again, an association and some distinction is designated. It says also in Hosea (1:7): “I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God,” where God the Father is speaking of saving the people in God the Son, as of a person distinct from Himself, who is held worthy of the name of God. We read, also, in Genesis (1:26): “Let us make man to our image and likeness”; and in this the plurality and distinction of those who make man is expressly designated. Yet Scripture teaches that man was made by God alone. Thus, there was a plurality and distinction of God the Father and God the Son even before the Incarnation of Christ. Therefore, the Father Himself is not called the Son by reason of the mystery of the Incarnation.

[10] Furthermore, true sonship relates to the supposit of the one called son, for it is not a man’s hand or foot which receives the name of sonship properly speaking, but the man himself whose parts they are. But the names of “paternity” and of “sonship” require a distinction in those to whom they are applied, just as “begetting” and “begotten” do. Necessarily, then, if one is truly called son he must be distinguished in supposit from his father. But Christ is truly the Son of God, for we read in 1 John (5:20): “That we may be in His true Son, Jesus Christ.” Necessarily, then, Christ is distinct in supposit from the Father. Therefore, the Father Himself is not the Son. Furthermore, after the mystery of the Incarnation the Father proclaims of the Son: “This is My beloved Son” (Mat. 3:17). Such a designation is a reference to a supposit. Christ is, therefore, as a supposit other than the Father.

[11] The points by which Sabellius attempts to strengthen his position do not prove what he intends to prove. We will make this clear more fully later on. For, by reason of the truth that “God is one,” or that “the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father,” one does not bold that the Father and the Son are one in supposit; there can be a unity of two who are distinct in supposit.

Chapter 6

THE OPINION OF ARIUS ABOUT THE SON OF GOD

[1] Now, sacred doctrine does not agree that the Son of God took His beginning from Mary, as Photinus used to say, nor that He who was God from eternity and is the Father began to be the Son by taking flesh, as Sabellius had said. And so, there were others who developed this opinion about the divine generation of which Scripture treats: that the Son of God existed before the mystery of the Incarnation and even before the foundation of the world; and, because that Son of God is other than God the Father, they judged He was not of the same nature with God the Father, for they could not understand and did not wish to believe that any two who are distinct as persons have one essence and nature. And because in the faith’s teaching only the nature of God the Father is believed to be eternal, they believed that the nature of the Son did not exist from eternity, although the Son was before other creatures. And since whatever is not eternal is made from nothing and created by God, they used to preach that the Son of God was made from nothing and was a creature. But, since the authority of Scripture forced them to name the Son also, as was brought out in the foregoing they used to say that He was one with God the Father—not to be sure, by nature, but by a kind of union of consent, and by a participation in the divine likeness above all other creatures. Now, the highest creatures whom we call angels are named “gods” and “sons of God” in Scripture, as in Job (58:4, 7): “Where were you when the morning stars praised Me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody?” and in a Psalm (81:1): “God has stood in the congregation of gods: Accordingly, this one should be called Son of God and God more than the others, to show that He is more noble than any other creature in that through Him God the Father established all the rest of creation.

[2] They used to try to strengthen this position by the testimonies of sacred Scripture.

[3] For the Son says, speaking to the Father in John (17:3): “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God.” The Father alone, therefore, is true God. Since, therefore, the Son is not the Father, the Son cannot be true God.

[4] The Apostle also says: “Keep the commandment without spot, blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His times He shall shew who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, and inhabits light inaccessible” (1 Tim. 6:14-16). These words make a distinction between the Father who shows and Christ who is shown. Therefore, only the Father who shows is the King of kings and Lord of lords; He alone is immortal and dwells in inaccessible light. Therefore, the Father alone is true God. Therefore, the Son is not.

[5] Furthermore, our Lord says: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:z8); and the Apostle says: “When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him,” namely, to the Father, “that put all things under Him” (1 Cor. 15:28). But if the nature of the Father and Son were one, their greatness and majesty would also be one. For then the Son would not be less than the Father, or subject to the Father. It follows, then, from Scripture that the Son is not of the same nature as the Father, so they believed.

[6] The nature of the Father, furthermore, suffers no need. But one finds need in the Son, for it is shown from Scripture that He receives from the Father—and he who receives is in need. For Matthew (13:27) says: “All things are delivered to Me by My Father”; and John (3:35): “The Father loves the Son: and He has given all things into His hand.” The Son, therefore, seems not to be of the same nature with the Father.

[7] He is in need, moreover, who is taught and is helped. But the Son is taught and is helped by the Father. For John (5:19-20; 14:15) says: “The Son cannot do any thing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing”; and later: “The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that he is doing”; and the Son says to the disciples: “What I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.” Therefore, the Son appears not to be of the same nature as the Father.

[8] There is more. To receive a command, to obey, to be sent seem proper to an inferior. But these we read about the Son. For the Son says in John (14:31): “As the Father has given Me commandment, so do I”; and the Apostle: “Becoming obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8). And John (1436): “I shall ask the Father, and He will give you another paraclete!” And the Apostle also says: “When the fulness of the time was come God sent His Son” (Gal. 4:4). Therefore, the Son is less than the Father and is subject to Him.

[9] Furthermore, the Son is glorified by the Father, as He Himself says in John (13:28): “Father, glorify your name”; and thereafter: “A voice, therefore, came from heaven: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The Apostle also says that God “raised up Jesus Christ from the dead” (Rom. 8:11). And Peter says that He “was exalted by the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33). And from these it seems that the Son is inferior to the Father.

[10]] In the Father’s nature, furthermore, there can be no failure. But one finds a failure in power in the Son, for He says in Matthew (20:23): “To sit on My right or left hand is not Mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is pre pared by My Father.” There is a failure also in knowledge; for He Himself says: “That day or hour no man knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:22). There is also a failure in stability of love, since Scripture asserts that there was sadness in the Son and anger and other changes of this sort. Therefore, the Son does not appear to be of the same nature as the Father.

[11] It is, furthermore, found expressly in Scripture that the Son of God is a creature. For Sirach (24:12, 14) says: “The creator of all things said to Me: and He that made Me rested in My tabernacle”; and again: “From the beginning, and before the world, was I created.” Therefore, the Son is a creature.

[12] What is more, the Son is numbered among creatures. For it says in the person of Wisdom: “I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures” (Sirach 24:5). And the Apostle says of the Son that He is “the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15). The Son, then, seems to belong to the order of creatures as one who holds the first rank therein.

[13] The Son, moreover, says in John (17:22), praying for the disciples to the Father: “The glory which You hast given Me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as We also are one.” Therefore, the Father and Son are one as He wished the disciples to be one. But He did not wish the disciples to be essentially one. Therefore, the Father and Son are not essentially one. Thus it follows that He is a creature and subject to the Father.

[14] Now, this is the position of Arius and Eunomius. And it seems to have arisen from the sayings of the Platonists, who used to hold that there was a supreme God, the Father and Creator of all things, and from Him there emanated a certain “Mind” in which were the forms of all things, and it was superior to all things; and they named this the “paternal intellect”; after this they put the soul of the world, and then the other creatures. Therefore, what is said in sacred Scripture of the Son of God they used to understand of the mind just mentioned; and the more so because sacred Scripture names the Son of God “the Wisdom of God” and “the Word of God.” And with this opinion the position of Avicenna agrees; he holds that above the soul of the first heaven there is a first intelligence moving the first heaven, and further beyond this he placed God at the summit.

[15] In this way, then, the Arians were inclined to think that the Son of God was a kind of creature, pre-eminent over all other creatures, the medium by which God had created all things; they were all the more so inclined by the fact that certain philosophers also held that things proceeded from their first source in an order, resulting in the creation of all things through one first creature.

Chapter 7

REFUTATION OF THE OPINION OF ARIUS ON THE SON OF GOD

[1] That this opinion is manifestly repugnant to divine Scripture anyone can see who considers diligently what sacred Scripture says.

[2] For, when divine Scripture names Christ the Son of God and angels the sons of God it does so for different reasons. Hence, the Apostle says: “To which of the angels has He said at any time, ‘You are My Son, today have I begotten You” (Heb. 1:5). And it was to Christ that this was said, he asserts. But, according to the aforesaid position, angels are called sons for the same reason as Christ, for the name of sonship is fitting to each according to a kind of sublimity of nature in which they were created by God.

[3] Neither is this objection met if Christ is of a nature more excellent than other angels. For, even among the angels diverse orders are discovered, which became clear above, and for all that, to all of them the same notion of sonship is suitable. Therefore, Christ is not called the Son of God in the way the position described maintains.

[4] Again, since by reason of creation the name of divine sonship is suitable to many-for it belongs to all the angels and saints—if Christ also were called Son on the same ground, He would not be “only-begotten; although by reason of the excellence of His nature over all others He could be called “firstborn.” However, Scripture asserts that He is only-begotten: “We saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). It is not, therefore, by reason of creation that He is called the Son of God.

[5] Moreover, the name of sonship properly and truly follows on the generation of living things in which the begotten proceeds from the substance of the one begetting; otherwise, the name of sonship is taken not in truth but in similitude, as when we call either students or others who are in our charge our sons. If, then, Christ were not called Son except by reason of creation, since that which is created by God is not derived from the substance of God, Christ could not be called Son truly. But He is called the true Son in 1 John (5:20): “that we may be; he says, “in His true Son, Jesus Christ.” Therefore, He is not called the Son of God as created by God in an excellence of nature, however great, but as one begotten of God’s substance.

[6] What is more, if Christ is called Son by reason of creation, He will not be truly God. For nothing created can be called God unless by some similitude to God. But this same Jesus Christ is true God, for, when John had said: “that we may be in His true Son,” he added: “This is the true God and life eternal.” Therefore, Christ is not called the Son of God by reason of creation.

[7] Furthermore, the Apostle says: “Of whom is Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:5); and in Titus (2:13): “Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” And Jeremiah (23:5-6) says: “I will raise up to David a just branch”; and adds below: “and this is the name that they shall call Him: The Lord our just one.” There in Hebrew the name is the tetragrammaton, which certainly is said of God alone. From these sayings it is clear that the Son of God is true God.

[8] Moreover, if Christ be the true Son, of necessity it follows that He is true God. For, that cannot truly be called son which is begotten of another, even if the thing be born of the substance of the one begetting unless it comes forth in species like the one begetting; the son of a man must be a man. If, therefore, Christ be the true Son of God, He must be true God. Therefore, He is not anything created.

[9] Again, no creature receives the complete fullness of divine goodness, because, as was made clear above, perfections proceed from God to creatures in a kind of descent. But Christ has in Himself the complete fullness of the divine goodness, for the Apostle says: “In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9). Therefore, Christ is not a creature.

[10] Grant, furthermore, that the intellect of an angel has a more perfect knowledge than the intellect of man; it is still in great want from the divine intellect. But the intellect of Christ is not in want of knowledge from the divine intellect, for the Apostle says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Therefore, Christ the Son of God is not a creature.

[11] Furthermore, whatever God has in Himself is His essence, as was shown in Book I. But, all things the Father has are the Son’s. For the Son Himself says: “All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine” (John 16:15); and in John (17:10), speaking to the Father, he says: “All My things are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” The essence and nature, then, of the Father and Son is the very same. Therefore, the Son is not. a creature.

[12] What is more, the Apostle says that the Son, before He emptied himself taking the form of a servant, was “in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6-7). By the form of God, however, nothing is understood but the divine nature, just as by the form of the servant human nature is understood. The Son, then, is in the divine nature. Therefore, He is not a creature.

[13] Furthermore, nothing created can be equal to God. The Son, however, is equal to the Father. For John (5:18) says: “The Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He did not only break the Sabbath, but also said God was His Father, making Himself equal to God.” And this is the narrative of the Evangelist whose “testimony is true” (John 19:13; 21:74): that Christ said He was the Son of God and the equal of God, and that for these things the Jews were persecuting Him. Nor is there doubt for any Christian that what Christ said of Himself is true, when the Apostle also says that He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6). The Son, therefore, is equal to the Father. He is not, then, a creature.

[14] Moreover, in the Psalms (88:7; 82:1) we read that there is no likeness of anyone to God even among the angels who are called the sons of God. “Who,” it says, “among the sons of God shall be like God?” And elsewhere: “O God, who shall be like to You?” This should be understood of perfect likeness; which is clear from the things treated in Book I. But Christ showed his perfect likeness to the Father even in living, for John (5:26) says: “As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself.” Therefore, Christ is not to be counted among the created sons of God.

[15] Furthermore, no created substance represents God in His substance, for, whatever be the perfection of any creature whatever that appears, it is less than that which God is; hence, there is no creature through whom we can know what-He-is about God. But the Son does represent the Father, for of Him the Apostle says that He “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). And lest He be judged a deficient image, one not representing the essence of God, one through which what-He-is could not be known of God (thus is man called the “image of God” in 1 Cor. 11:7); He is shown to be the perfect image, representing the very substance of God, when the Apostle says: “Who being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance” (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, the Son is not a creature.

[16] There is more. Nothing which is in a genus is the universal cause of those things which are in that genus. So, the universal cause of men is not a man for nothing is the cause of itself, but the sun which is outside the human genus is the universal cause of human generation, and beyond it God is. But, the Son is the universal cause of creatures, for John (1:3) says: “All things were made by Him”; and in Proverbs (8:30) the begotten Wisdom says: “I was with Him forming all things”; and the Apostle says: “In Him were all things created in heaven and on earth” (Col. 1:16). Therefore, He Himself is not in the genus of creatures.

[17] Similarly, it is clear from what was shown in Book II that the incorporeal substances that we call angels cannot be made except by creation, and it was also shown that no substance can create but God alone. But the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the cause of the angels, bringing them into being, for the Apostle says: “whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him” (Col. 1:16)., Therefore, the Son Himself, is not a creature.

[18] Furthermore, since the proper action of anything at all follows its very nature, a thing’s proper action is fitting to nothing to which the nature of that thing is not fitting; thus, what does not have the human species does not have the human action. Now, the proper actions of God belong to the Son: to create (as already shown), to contain and conserve all things in being; and to wipe away sins. That these are proper to God is clear from the foregoing. But of the Son it is said that “by Him all things consist” (Col. 1: 3-7); and that He upholds “all things by the word of His power, making purgation of sins” (Heb. 1:3). The Son of God, then, is of the divine nature, and is not a creature.

[19] But because an Arian might say that the Son does these things not as a principal agent, but as an instrument of the principal agent which acts not by its own power but by the power of the principal agent, our Lord excluded this argument, saying in John (5:19): “what things soever the Father doth, these the Son also doth in like manner.” Then, just as the Father operates of Himself and by His proper power, so also does the Son.

[20] A still further conclusion from this saying is that virtue and power are identified in the Son and the Father. For He says that the Son works not only like the Father but the same things “in like manner.” But the same operation cannot be performed by two agents unless in dissimilarity: as the same thing done by a principal agent and its instrument; or, if in similarity, it must be that the agents come together in one power. Now, this power is sometimes collected from diverse powers in diverse agents, as when many men draw up a boat, for they all draw it up in the same way, and because the power of each is imperfect and insufficient for that effect, from the diverse powers is collected one power of them all which is sufficient for drawing up the boat. But, one cannot say this in the case of the Father and the Son, for the power of the Father is not imperfect but infinite, as was shown in Book I. There must, then, be numerical identity in the power of the Father and the Son. And since power follows nature, there must be numerical identity in the nature and essence of the Father and the Son. This also can be concluded from the things that were said earlier. For, if in the Son there is the divine nature (as has been shown in many ways), and if the divine nature cannot be multiplied as was shown in Book I, it follows necessarily that there is numerical identity of nature and essence in the Father and the Son.

[21] Again, our beatitude is ultimately in God alone, in whom alone also the hope of man must be placed, to whom alone also the honor of adoration must be given, as was shown in Book III. But our beatitude is in the Son of God. For He says in John (17:3): “This is eternal life: that they may know You,” namely, the Father, “and Jesus Christ whom You hast sent.” And 1 John (5:20) says of the Son that He is “true God and life eternal,” Now, it is certain that by the name “life eternal” the sacred Scripture signifies ultimate beatitude. Isaiah also says of the Son, as the Apostle brings out: “‘there shall be a root of Jesse, and He that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope” (Rom. 15:12; Isa. 11:10). It is said also in a Psalm (71:11): “And all the kings of the earth shall adore Him; all nations shall serve Him.” And John (5:23): “That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father.” And again a Psalm (96:7) says: “Adore Him, all you His angels.” That this is said of the Son the Apostle sets forth in Hebrews (1:6). Manifestly, therefore, the Son of God is true God.

[22] The arguments are also valid for establishing this point which were previously used against Photinus to show that Christ is not made God but true God.

[23] Taught, therefore, by those mentioned and very similar testimonies of sacred Scripture, the Catholic Church maintains that Christ is the true and natural Son of God, eternal, equal to the Father, true God, identical in essence and nature with the Father, begotten, not created, and not made.

[24] Wherefore it is clear that only in the Catholic Church does faith truly confess generation in God, when it relates the very generation of the Son to this: the Son has received the divine nature from the Father. But others who are heretics relate this generation to some extraneous nature: Photinus and Sabellius to human nature, indeed; Arius, however, to some created nature more worthy than all other creatures.

Arius also differs from Sabellius and Photinus in this: the former asserts that such generation was before the world was; the latter two deny that it was before the birth from the Virgin.

Sabellius nevertheless differs from Photinus in this: Sabellius confesses that Christ is true and natural God, but Photinus does not; neither does Arius. Photinus holds that He is pure man; Arius, that He is a kind of mixture of a certain very excellent creature both divine and human. The latter two, however, confess that the Person of the Father is other than the Person of the Son; this Sabellius denies.

[25] Therefore, the Catholic faith, keeping to the middle road, holds with Arius and Pbotinus against Sabellius that the Person of the Father is other than the Person of the Son, that the Son is begotten, but the Father entirely unbegotten; but with Sabellius against Photinus and Arius that Christ is true and natural God, the same in nature as the Father, although not the same in person. And from this, also, an indication of the Catholic truth can be gathered. For, as the Philosopher says, [Prior Analytics II, 2] even falsehoods give witness, for falsehoods stand apart not only from the truth but from one another.

Chapter 8

SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITIES WHICH ARIUS PROPOSED FOR HIMSELF

[1] Since, however, truth cannot be truth’s contrary, it is obvious that the points of Scriptural truth introduced by the Arians to confirm their error cannot be helpful to their teaching. For, since it was shown from divine Scripture that the essence and divine nature of the Father and Son are numerically identical, and according to this each is called true God, it must be that the Father and Son cannot be two gods, but one God. For, if there were many gods, a necessary consequence would be the partition in each of the essence of divinity, just as in two men the humanity differs in number from one to the other; and the more so because the divine nature is not one thing and God Himself another. This was shown above. From this it follows necessarily that, since there exists one divine nature in the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son are one God. Therefore, although we confess that the Father is God and the Son God, we are not withdrawing from the teaching which sets down that there is one only God, which we established both by reasonings and by authorities in Book I. Hence, although there is one only true God, we confess that this is predicated of the Father and of the Son.

[2] When our Lord, therefore, speaking to the Father, says “that they may know You the only true God,” it is not so to be understood that the Father alone is true God, as though the Son is not true God (the contrary is proved clearly by Scriptural testimony); but it must be understood that the one sole true deity belongs to the Father, in such wise, nonetheless, that the Son is not excluded therefrom. Hence, it is significant that our Lord does not say: “that they may know the one only true God,” as though He alone be God, but said: “that they may know You,” and added “the only true God” to show that the Father, whose Son He insisted He was, is the God in whom one finds that only true divinity. And because a true son must be of the same nature as his father, it follows that the only true divinity belongs to the Son, rather than that the Son is excluded from it. Wherefore John, also, at the end of his first canonical Epistle (5:20)—expounding, as it were, these words of our Lord—attributes to the true Son each of the things which our Lord here says of the Father; namely, that He is true God and that in Him is eternal life. John says (5:20): “That we may know the true God, and may be in His true Son. He is the true God and life eternal.”

If the Son had nevertheless confessed that the Father alone is true God, one would not for this reason need to understand that the Son is excluded from true divinity. For, since the Father and Son are one God, as was shown, whatever is said of the Father by reason of divinity is the same as if it were said of the Son, and conversely. For, by reason of the fact that our Lord says: “No one knows the Son but the Father: neither does any one know the Father but the Son” (Mat. 11:27), it is not understood that the Father is excluded from knowledge of Himself, or that the Son is.

[3] It is also clear from this that the true divinity of the Son is not excluded by the words of the Apostle: “Which in His times He shall show who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” In these words the Father is not named, but that which is common to the Father and the Son. That the Son is the King of kings and Lord of lords is manifestly shown in the Apocalypse (19:13), which says: “He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood; and His name is called THE WORD OF GOD”; and adds below: “And He has on His garment and on His thigh written: KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (19:i6). Nor is the Son excluded from that which is added: “Who only has immortality,” since He also bestows immortality on those who believe in Him. Thus, John (11: 26) says: “Who believes in Me shall not die for ever.” But what is added,” “Whom no man has seen, nor can see,” certainly is also suitable to the Son, since our Lord says: “No one knows the Son but the Father” (Mat. 11:27). To this it is not an objection that He appeared visibly, for this was according to the flesh. However, He is invisible in His deity just as the Father is; wherefore the Apostle says in the same Epistle (1 Tim. 3:16): “Evidently great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh.” Nor are we forced to understand these sayings of the Father alone because it is said that there must be one who shows and another who is shown. The Son also shows Himself, for He says: “He that loves Me shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21.). Accordingly, we also say to Him: “Shew us your face, and we shall be saved” (Ps. 79:4).

[4] But how the saying of our Lord, “The Father is greater than I” must be understood we are taught by the”Apostle. Since “greater” is referred to ‘lesser,” one must understand that this is said of the Son so far as He is lessened. Now, the Apostle shows that He is lessened by taking on the servile form—in such wise, however, that in the divine form He exists the equal of God the Father, for he says: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). Nor is it wondrous if for this reason the Father be said to be greater than He, since He was even made lesser than the angels; the Apostle says: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lesser than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. 2:9).

From this it is also clear that in the same way the Son is said to be “subject to the Father”; namely, in His human nature. This is to be gathered from the very context of the expression. For the Apostle had already said: “For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead”; and afterwards he had subjoined: “Everyone shall rise in his own order: the firstfruits Christ, then they that are of Christ”; and later he added: “Afterwards the end, when He shall have de, livered up the kingdom to God and the Father”; and when he has shown what sort of kingdom this is, namely, that things must be subject to it, he consequently subjoins: “When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him that put all things under Him” (1 Cor. 15:23-28). The very context of the expression, therefore, shows that this ought to be understood of Christ so far as He is man, for thus did He die and rise again. Now, in His divinity, since “whatever He does the Father does,” as was shown, He Himself also subjects all things to Himself; wherefore the Apostle says: “We look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21).

[5] From the fact that the Father is said in the Scriptures “to give!” to the Son—from which it follows that He “receives”—one cannot show any indigence in Him.” But this is required by His being the Son, for He could not be called Son if He were not begotten by the Father. For everything which is generated receives from the generator the nature of the generator. Therefore, by this giving of the Father to the Son is understood nothing but the generation of the Son in which the Father gave the Son His nature. This very thing can be understood from that which is given. For our Lord says: “That which My Father has given Me is greater than all” (John 10:29). But that which is greater than all is the divine nature, in which the Son is equal to the Father. And this our Lord’s very words show, for He had said before that no man should pluck His sheep from His hand (John 10:28-30). For proof of this He introduces the word stated; namely, that which is given to Him by the Father is greater than all, and that “out of the hand of My Father”—as He adds—nothing can be plucked.” From this it follows that neither can it be plucked from the hand of the Son. But this would not follow unless through that which is given to Him by the Father He were equal to the Father. And so, to explain this more clearly, He adds: “I and the Father are one.”

Similarly, the Apostle also says that God “has given Him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:9-10). But the name higher than all names which every creature venerates is none other than the name of divinity. By this giving, therefore, the generation itself is understood in which the Father gave the Son true divinity. The same thing is shown by His saying that “all things are delivered to Me by My Father” (Mat. 11:27). But all things would not be given to Him unless “all the fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9) which is in the Father were in the Son.

[6] Thus, by asserting that the Father has given to Him He therefore confesses that He is the true Son-against Sabellius. Yet, from the greatness of that which is given He confesses that He is equal to the Father—so Arius is confounded. Clearly, therefore, such gift-giving does not indicate indigence in the Son. He was not the Son before He was given to Himself, since His generation is the very gift-giving. Nor does the fullness of the given allow that He can be in need to whom this gift was clearly made.

[7] Nor is this an obstacle to what has been said: that one reads in Scripture that the Father has given to the Son at a point in time; our Lord after the Resurrection, for example, says to the disciples: “All power has been given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 28:18); and the Apostle speaks of the cause for which God “exalted” Christ and “gave Him a name which is above all names” (Phil. 2:8-9), that is, He had become “obedient unto death,” as though He has not had this name from eternity. For it is usual of Scripture to say that some things are or are made when they begin to be known. Now, the fact that the Son has from eternity received all power and the divine name was made known to the world after the Resurrection by the preaching of the disciples. And this, too, the words of our Lord reveal. For our Lord says: “Glorify Me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was” (John 17:5). For He asks that His glory which eternally He has received from the Father as God be declared to be in Him now made man.

[8] Now, from this it is manifest how the Son is taught, although He is not ignorant. For it was shown in Book II that in God to understand and to be are identical. Wherefore, communication of the divine nature is also the communication of understanding. Now, the communication of understanding can be called “showing” or “speech” or “teaching.” By reason of the fact, then, that the Son received the divine nature in His birth from the Father, it is said that He has “heard something from the Father,” or that the Father “has shown Him something,” or one reads something else like this in the Scriptures; but not that first the Son was ignorant or did not know and afterward the Father taught Him. For the Apostle confesses: “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Now, it is not possible that wisdom be ignorant, nor that power be feeble.

[9] The saying also, then, “the Son cannot do anything of Himself,’” does not point to any Weakness of action in the Son. But, because for God to act is not other than to be, and His action is not other than His essence, as was proved above, so one says that the Son cannot act from Himself but only from the Father, just as He is not able to be from Himself but only from the Father. For, if He were from Himself, He would no longer be the Son. Therefore, just as the Son cannot not be the Son, so neither can He act of Himself. However, because the Son receives the same nature as the Father and, consequently, the same power, although the Son neither is of Himself nor operates of Himself, He nevertheless is through Himself and operates through Himself, since just as He is through His own nature received from the Father, so He operates through His own nature received from the Father. Hence, after our Lord had said: “the Son cannot do anything of Himself,” to show that, although the Son does not operate of Himself, He does operate through Himself, He adds: “Whatever He does”—namely, the Father—“these the Son does likewise.”

[10] From the foregoing it also is clear how “the Father commands the Son” or “the Son obeys the Father” or “the Son prays to the Father” or “is sent by the Father.” For, all these things are suitable to the Son inasmuch as He is subject to the Father. And this is only according to the humanity He has assumed, as was shown. The Father, therefore, commands the Son as subject to Him in His human nature. The very words of our Lord make this clear. For, when our Lord says “that the world may know that I love the Father: and as the Father has given Me commandment, so do I,” (John 24:31), what the commandment is is shown by what is added: “Arise, let us go hence.” He said this approaching His passion. But the commandment to suffer clearly pertains to the Son only in His human nature. In the same way, where He says: “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His love,” (John 15:10), these precepts clearly pertain to the Son as He is loved by the Father as man; just as He loved His disciples as men.

That the Father’s commandments to the Son must be understood as pertaining to the human nature assumed by the Son is shown by the Apostle. He calls the Son obedient to the Father in the things which belong to His human nature, for he says: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). The Apostle also shows that praying belongs to the Son in His human nature, for he says: “Who in the days of His flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to Him that was able to save Him from death, was heard for His reverence” (Heb. 5:7). The way in which He “was sent” by the Father is also shown by the Apostle. “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). He is, therefore, said to be sent in that He was made of a woman, and certainly this belongs to Him in the flesh He has assumed. Clearly, then, in none of these can it be shown that the Son is subject to the Father except in His human nature. For all that, one should recognize that the Son is said to be sent by the Father invisibly and as divine, without prejudice to His equality to the Father, as will he shown below when we deal with the sending of the Holy Spirit.

[11] It is clear, and in the same way, that from the fact that “the Son is glorified by the Father” or “raised up” or “exalted” one cannot show that the Son is less than the Father except in His human nature. For, the Son needs no glory as one who receives new glory, since He professes that He had it “before the world was” (John 17:5). But His glory, hidden under the weakness of the flesh, necessarily had to be manifested by the glorification of the flesh, and the working of miracles, in the faith of peoples believing. Hence, of His glory being hidden, Isaiah (53:3) says: “His look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.” And the way in which Christ was raised up is like the way He s ere and died, that is, in the flesh. For it says in 1 Peter (4:1): “Christ having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought.” To be exalted also became Him in the way in which He was humiliated, for the Apostle says: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death.... For which cause God also has exalted Him” (Phil. 2:8-9).

[12] Thus, then, the fact that the Father glorifies, raises up, and exalts the Son does not show that the Son is less than the Father, except in His human nature. For, in the divine nature by which He is equal to the Father, the power of the Father and the Son is the same and their operation is the same. Hence, the Son Himself exalts Himself by His own power, as the Psalmist says: “Be Thou. exalted, O Lord, in your own strength” (Ps. 70:14). He Himself raises Himself up, because He says of Himself: “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again!” (John 10:18). He also glorifies not Himself alone, but the Father as well, for in John (17:1) He says: “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify You.” This is not because the Father is hidden by the veil of flesh He has assumed, but by the invisibility of His nature. In this way the Son also is hidden according to the divine nature, for common to both Father and Son is the saying of Isaiah (45:35): “Verily You are a bidden God, the God of Israel, the savior.” The Son, of course, glorifies the Father, not by giving Him glory, but by manifesting Him to the world; for He Himself says in the same place: “I have manifested your name to men” (John 17:6).

[13] One must not, however, believe that in the Son of God there is any failure of power, since He Himself says: “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 28:18). Hence, His own saying, “To sit on My right or left hand is not Mine to give to you, but to those for whom it is prepared by My Father” (cf. Mat. 20:23), does not show that the Son lacks the power of distribution over the seats of heaven, since by seating of this kind one understands participation in eternal life, and that its bestowal belongs to Him He shows when He says: “My sheep hear My voice: and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting” (John 10: 27). One reads also: “The Father has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22); and it does belong to judgment that some are to be established in heavenly glory according to their merits. Hence, we read that the Son of Man “shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left” (Mat. 25:33). It does, then, belong to the Son’s power to set someone on His. right hand or His left. This is true if each of these acts refers to differing participation in glory, or if the one refers to glory and the other to punishment. Therefore, one must take the meaning of the sentence proposed (Mat. 20: 23) from what went before it Now, this is what went before it (Mat. 20:20-21): The mother of the sons of Zebedee had approached Jesus to ask Him that one of her sons should sit at His right hand and the other at His left. She seems to have been stimulated to this request by a certain confidence in her close blood relationship to the man, Christ. Our Lord, then, in His answer did not say that it did not belong to His power to give what was asked, but that it did not belong to Him to give it to those for whom it was asked. For He did not say: “To sit on My right hand or My left is not Mine to give anyone.” Indeed, He shows rather that it is His to give to “those for whom it is prepared” by His Father. For to give this was not proper to Him as the Son of the Virgin, but as the Son of God. Accordingly, this favor was not His to give to some just because they belonged to Him in so far as He was the Virgin’s Son, that is, in close blood relationship. It was His to give to those who belonged to Him as the Son of God; namely, to those for whom it had been prepared by the Father through eternal predestination. But, that this very preparation is included in the power of the Son, our Lord Himself indicates, saying: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). The many mansions are the different grades of participation in beatitude, which in predestination God has eternally prepared. When, therefore, our Lord says: “If not,” that is, if there were a deficiency of mansions prepared for the men who are to enter into beatitude, and adds: “I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you,” He is showing that preparation of this sort belongs to His power.

[14] Nor, again, can it be understood that the Son is ignorant of the hour of His coming, since in Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 7:3), as the Apostle says, and since He knows perfectly that which is greater; namely, the Father (Mat. 11:27). But one must understand here that the Son, set as a man among men, considered Himself as ignoring something so long as He did not reveal it to His disciples. For it is usual in Scripture to say that God knows something if He makes someone know it; so we find in Genesis (22:12): “Now I know that you feart God,” that is, “now I have made men begin to know it.” Thus, conversely, the Son is said not to know that which He does not make us know.

[15] Sorrow, of course, and fear, and other things of this sort manifestly belong to Christ so far as He is man. Hence, one cannot apprehend in this fact any lessening of the divinity of the Son.

[16] Consider, now, the saying that wisdom “is created.” First of all, one can understand it not of the Wisdom which is the Son of God, but of the wisdom which God bestowed on creatures. For one reads in Sirach (1:9-10): “He created her,” namely, wisdom, “in the Holy Spirit.... and He poured her out upon all His works.” One can also refer this to the created nature assumed by the Son. Then the meaning is: “From the beginning, and before the world, was I created” (Sirach 24:14); that is, “I was foreseen in union with a creature.” Or it may be that Wisdom is named (cf. Prov. 8:24-25), since both “created” and “begotten” suggest to us the mode of divine generation. For in generation the begotten receives the nature of him who begets, and this is a mark of perfection. But, in the generations which take place among us, he who begets is himself changed, and this is a mark of imperfection. In creation, on the other hand, the creator is not changed, but the created does not receive the nature of the creator. Therefore, the Son is called “created” and “begotten” at the very same time, that from creation one may gather the immutability of the Father, and from generation the unity of nature in the Father and the Son. It was thus that the Synod expounded the meaning of this sort of Scriptural expression. Hilary makes this clear [De synodis, 17-18].

[17] However, that the Son is called the “first-born of every creature” is not because the Son is in the order of creatures, but because the Son both is from the Father and receives from the Father, from whom creatures both are and receive. But the Son receives from the Father the very same nature; creatures do not. Hence, the Son is not called merely “first begotten,” but “only-begotten” as well (John 1:18), by reason of His unique manner of receiving from the Father.

[18] Now, our Lord says to the Father about the disciples: “that they may be one, as We also are one” (John 17:22). This only shows that the Father and Son are one in the way in which the disciples should be one, namely, through love. Nevertheless, this mode of union does not exclude unity of essence; rather, it points to it, for John (3:35) says. “The Father loves the Son: and He has given all things into His hand.” By this is the fullness of divinity shown to be in the Son, as was said.

[19] Thus, then, it is clear that the testimonies of the Scriptures which the Arians were taking for themselves are not hostile to the truth which the Catholic faith maintains.

Chapter 9

SOLUTION OF THE AUTHORITIES OF PHOTINUS AND OF SABELLIUS

[1] From these considerations, of course, it appears that the points from Scripture which both Photinus and Sabellius used to bring up in support of their opinions cannot confirm their errors.

[2] For what our Lord says after the resurrection, “All power has been given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Mat. 2-8: 18), is not said for this reason: that at that time He had newly received this power; but for this reason: that the power which the Son of God had eternally received had—because of the victory He had had over death by resurrection—begun to appear in the same Son made man.

[3] Now, as to the Apostle’s word concerning the Son, “Who was made to Him of the seed of David” (Rom. 1:3), one sees clearly how it should be understood from the addition: “according to the flesh.” For he did not say that the Son of God had been made simply, but that He had been made of the seed of David, according to the flesh,” by the assumption of human nature as John (1:14) puts it: “The Word was made flesh.” Hence, also, the following phrase—“Who was predestinated the Son of God in power”—clearly refers to the Son in His human nature. For, that a human nature he united to the Son of God, that thus a man could be called the Son of God, was not a matter of human merit. It was by the grace of God’s predestination.

[4] In a, similar fashion, what the Apostle says in Philippians, “God exalted Christ through the merit of His passion,” must be referred to the human nature; the humility of the passion was in this human nature. Hence, also, what follows—“He has given Him a name which is above all names”— must be referred to this: the name belonging to the Son in His eternal birth had to be manifested in the peoples’ faith as belonging to the incarnate Son.

[5] In this way it also is plain that what Peter says, “God has made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus,” (Acts 2:36), must be referred to the Son in His human nature; in which He began to have temporally what He had in the nature of divinity eternally.

[6] The point which Sabellius introduces on the unity of the Deity—“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” and “See that I alone am, and there is no other God besides Me”—is not hostile to the teaching of the Catholic faith, which holds that the Father and the Son are not two gods, but one God, as we said before.

[7] In the same way, the sayings, “ne Father who abides in Me, He doth the works,” and “I am in the Father and the Father in Me,” do not show a unity of person, as Sabellius chose to understand, but that unity of essence which Arius denied. For, if there were one person of the Father and the Son, one could not say suitably that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, since properly the same supposit is not said to be in its very self; this is said only with reference to its parts. For, seeing that parts are in a whole, and that what is proper to parts can be attributed to a whole, sometimes a whole is said to he in itself. But this manner of speech does not suit speech about divinity, in which there can be no parts, as was shown in Book I. It remains true, then, that, when the Father is said to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, the Father and Son are not identical in supposit. One can see from this that the essence of the Father and the Son is one. For, once this is given, it is very clear in what way the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. For, since the Father is His essence, because in God essence is not other than what has essence, as we showed in Book I, it follows that in anything in which the essence of the Father is the Father is; and by the same reasoning in anything in which the essence of the Son is the Son is. Hence, since the essence of the Father is in the Son and the essence of the Son in the Father, because the essence of each of the two is one essence (as the Catholic faith teaches), it clearly follows that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. Thus, the selfsame saying (John 14:11) confutes the error of Sabellius as well as that of Arius.

Chapter 10

ARGUMENTS AGAINST DIVINE GENERATION AND PROCESSION

[1] When all things are carefully considered, it is clear and manifest that sacred Scripture proposes this for belief about the divine generation: that the Father and Son, although distinguished as persons, are nevertheless one God and have one essence or nature. But one finds this far removed from the nature of creatures: that any two be distinguished in supposit, yet one in their essence; so, human reason, proceeding from the properties of things, experiences difficulties in a great variety of ways in this secret of divine generation.

[2.] Since the generation known to us is a certain mutation to which corruption is opposed, it seems hard to put generation in God, who is immutable, incorruptible, and eternal, as is clear from the foregoing.

[3] If generation, moreover, is a change, whatever is generated must be changeable. But what is changed goes from potency to act, for “change is the act of the potential as such.” If, therefore, the Son of God is begotten, He is not eternal, it seems, as one going from potency to act; nor is He true God, since He is not pure act, but something which has potentiality.

[4] The begotten, furthermore, receives its nature from the generator. If, then, the Son is begotten by the Father, it follows that He has received the nature which He has from the Father. But it is not possible that He has received from the Father a nature numerically other than the Father has, but the same in species, as happens in univocal generations, when man generates man, or fire, fire. For we showed above the impossibility of a numerical plurality of deities. It seems equally impossible that He has received nature numerically the same as the Father has. For, if He receives a part of it, it follows that the divine nature is divisible; but, if the whole is transfused into the Son, it ceases to be in the Father; and so, in generation, the Father is corrupted. Nor, again, can it be said that by a kind of exuberance the divine nature flows from the Father to the Son, as the water of a spring flows into a stream and the spring is not emptied, for the divine nature cannot be divided, just as it cannot be increased. It seems, therefore, to remain that the Son has received from the Father a nature which is neither in number nor in species the same as the Father’s, but of another genus altogether. This is what happens in equivocal generation when animals born of putrefaction are generated by the power of the sun, but do not belong to its species. It follows, then, that the Son of God is neither a true Son, since the Father’s species is not His; nor true God, since He does not receive the divine nature.

[5] If the Son, again, receives a nature from God the Father, the recipient in Him must be other than the nature received, for nothing receives itself. The Son, then, is not His own essence or nature. Therefore, He is not true God.

[6] Moreover, let the Son be not other than the divine essence; let the divine essence be something subsistent, as was proved in Book I; clearly, the Father, also, is the divine essence. The conclusion appears to be that the Father and Son coincide in the very same subsisting thing. Now, “the subsistent thing in intellectual natures is called a person.” It follows, then, that if the Son is Himself the divine essence the Father and the Son coincide in person. But if the Son is not the very divine essence He is not true God. For we proved this about God in Book I. It seems, therefore, either that the Son was not true God, as Arius used to say, or that personally He is not other than the Father, as Sabellius asserted.

[7] Furthermore, that in a thing which is the principle of its individuation cannot possibly be in a second thing distinguished as a supposit from the first. For what is in many is not a principle of individuation. But the essence of God is that by which God is individuated, for the essence of God is not a form in matter so that God could be individuated by matter. There is, therefore, nothing in God the Father by which He might be individuated except His essence. Therefore, His essence cannot be in any other supposit. His essence, therefore, is not in the Son, and so the Son is not true God, following Arius; or the Son is not other in supposit than the Father, and so the Person of each is the same, following Sabellius.

[8] Again, if the Father and Son are two supposits or two Persons, yet are one in essence, there must be in them something other than the essence by which they are distinguished, for a common essence is ascribed to each and what is common cannot be a distinguishing principle. Therefore, that which distinguishes the Father from the Son must be other than the divine essence. The Person of the Son, then, is a composite of two, and so is the Person of the Father a composite of two: the common essence and the distinguishing principle. Therefore, each of the two is a composite and neither of the two is true God.

[9] But one may say that they are distinguished by a relation only, inasmuch as one is the Father, the other the Son. What is predicated relatively, however, seems not to predicate a something in that of which it is said, but rather a to something. Thus, by such predication no composition is brought in. But this answer appears not adequate for avoiding the awkward results just mentioned.

[10] For there can be no relation without something absolute. In whatever is relative there must be understood that which is said of itself (ad se) and, additionally, that which is said referring to another (ad aliud). Thus is something said absolutely of “servant” and, additionally, something is said referring “to the master.” Therefore, that relation by which the Father and the Son are distinguished must have something absolute on which it is founded. Now, then, either that absolute is one only, or there are two absolutes. If it is one only, a twofold relation cannot be founded upon it, unless, of course, it be a relation of identity which can produce no distinction-as when one says that the same is the same as the same. Therefore, if the relation be such that it calls for a distinction, there must be a prior understanding of a distinction of absolutes. Accordingly, it does not seem possible that the Persons of the Father and the Son are distinguished by relations only.

[11] One ought, along the same line, to say that the relation which distinguishes the Son from the Father either is a thing or is in the intellect alone. Let it, then, be a thing, and it seems not to be that thing which is the divine essence, since the divine essence is common to the Father and the Son. Therefore, in the Son there will be something which is not His essence. Thus, He is not true God, for we showed in Book I that there is nothing in God which is not His essence. But let that relation be in the intellect only, and it cannot, then, distinguish the Son from the Father personally, for things which are personally distinguished must be really distinguished.

[12] Again, every relative depends on its correlative. But what depends on another is not true God. If, then, the persons of the Father and the Son are distinguished by relations, neither of them is true God.

[13] If the Father, moreover, is God and the Son is God, this name “God” ought to be predicated substantially of the Father and the Son, since divinity cannot be an accident.” But a substantial predicate is truly that of which it is predicated. For, when one says “Man is animal,” what is truly man is animal; in the same way, when one says “Socrates is man,” what is truly Socrates is man. And from this there seems to follow the impossibility of discovering a plurality on the part of the subjects when there is unity on the part of the substantial predicate: Socrates and Plato are not one man, although they are one in humanity. Nor are man and ass one animal, although they are one in animal. Therefore, if the Father and the Son are two Persons, it seems impossible that they are one God.

[14] Opposed predicates, furthermore, show a plurality in that of which they are predicated. But opposites are predicated of God the Father and of God the Son. The Father is God unbegotten and generating, but the Son is God begotten. Therefore, it does not seem possible that the Father and Son are one God.

[15] These, then, and others like these are the arguments by which some whose will it is to measure divine mysteries by their own reason strive to attack divine generation. But, because truth is strong in itself and is overcome by no attack, it must be our intention to show that the truth of faith cannot he overcome by reason.

Chapter 11

HOW GENERATION IS TO 13E UNDERSTOOD IN DIVINITY, AND WHAT IS SAID OF THE SON OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE

[1] As starting point for this intention, one must take this: Following a diversity of natures, one finds a diverse manner of emanation in things, and, the higher a nature is, the more intimate to the nature is that which flows from it.

[2] For, in all things, inanimate bodies have the lowest place. There can be no emanations in these except by the action of some one upon another one. For this is the way in which fire is generated by fire, when an extraneous body is changed by the fire and is brought to the quality and species of fire.

[3] Among animate bodies the next place is held by the plants, and in these the emanation does proceed somewhat from what is within: to the extent, namely, that the internal humor of the plant is converted into seed and that the seed committed to the soil grows into a plant. Here, then, one has already found the first grade of life, for living things are those which move themselves to action, but those which can move only things external to them are entirely devoid of life. And in plants this is the mark of life: that which is within, them moves toward some form. The life of plants is nevertheless imperfect; this is because, although the emanation in plants proceeds from what is within, what comes forth little by little in the emanation is, at the end, found to be entirely external. For the humor first emerging from the tree becomes a blossom, and at length a fruit distinct from the tree’s bark, yet still fastened to it. But, when the fruit is perfected, it is separated from the tree altogether; it falls to the ground and its seeding power produces another plant. If one also considers this carefully, he will see that originally this emanation comes from what is external, for the internal humor of the tree is taken through the roots from the soil from which the plant receives nourishment.

[4] Beyond the life of plants one finds a higher grade of life: that of the sensitive soul. Its emanation may have an external beginning, but has an internal termination, and, the more fully the emanation proceeds, the more it reaches what is within. For the exterior sensible impresses its form on the exterior senses; from these it proceeds to the imagination and, further, to the storehouse of the memory. Nevertheless, in each step of this emanation the principle and the term refer to different things; no sensitive power reflects upon itself. This grade of life, then, is higher than the life of plants—higher to the extent that its operation takes place within the principles which are within; it is, nevertheless, not an entirely perfect life, since the emanation is always from some first to some second.

[5] That, then, is the supreme and perfect grade of life which is in the intellect, for the intellect reflects upon itself and the intellect can understand itself. But even in the intellectual life one finds diverse grades. For the human intellect, although it can know itself, does indeed take the first beginning of its knowledge from without, because it cannot understand without a phantasm, as is clear from the things said before. There is, therefore, a more perfect intellectual life in the angels. In them the intellect does not proceed to self-knowledge from anything exterior, but knows itself through itself. Nonetheless, it is not the ultimate perfection to which their life belongs. The reason is this: Although the intention understood is entirely intrinsic to them, the very intention understood is not their substance, for in them understanding is not identified with being (as is clear from the foregoing). Therefore, the ultimate perfection of life belongs to God, in whom understanding is not other than being, as has been shown; accordingly, the intention understood in God must be the divine essence itself.

[6] Now, I mean by the “intention understood” what the intellect conceives in itself of the thing understood. To be sure, in us this is neither the thing which is understood nor is it the very substance of the intellect. But it is a certain likeness of the thing understood conceived in the intellect, and which the exterior words signify. So, the intention itself is named the “interior word” which is signified by the exterior word. Indeed, that the intention aforesaid is not within us the thing understood is clear from this: It is one thing to understand a thing, and another to understand the intention itself, yet the intellect does so when it reflects on its own work; accordingly, some sciences are about things, and others are about intentions understood. Now, that the intention understood is not the very intellect within us is clear from this: The act of being of the intention understood consists in its very being understood; the being of our intellect does not so consist; its being is not its act of understanding.

[7] Since in God, therefore, being and understanding are identical, the intention understood in Him is His very intellect. And because understanding in Him is the thing understood (for by understanding Himself He understands all other things, as was shown in Book I), it follows that in God, because He understands Himself, the intellect, the thing understood, and the intention understood are all identical.

[8] From these considerations, then, we can somehow conceive how divine generation is to be taken. For, it is clearly impossible that divine generation is to be taken as one finds generation in inanimate things wherein the generating thing impresses its species on an exterior matter. For, as the faith sets down, the Son begotten by the Father must have true deity and be true God. But deity is not a form inhering in matter, nor is God a form existing out of matter, as was proved in Book I. In the same way, divine generation cannot be taken in the mode of the generation one finds in plants, and even in animals which have nutritive and generative powers in common with plants. For something which was in the plant or the animal is separated from it for the generation of one like it in species, and this, at the term of generation, is entirely outside the generator. But, since God is indivisible, nothing can be separated from Him. The very Son begotten by the Father is not outside the Father, but in Him (which is clear from the authorities cited above). Neither can one understand divine generation in the manner of emanation found in the sensitive soul. For, God does not receive from something exterior so as to able to influence some second thing, He would not then be the primary agent. Nor are the operations of the sensitive soul completed without bodily instruments. But, God is manifestly incorporeal. We are, therefore, left to understand the divine generation according to an intellectual emanation.

[9] This should be made clear in the following way. It is manifest, on the basis of Book I, that God understands Himself. Now, whatever is understood should, as understood, be in him who understands, for the significance of the very act of understanding is this: the grasping of that which is understood by an intellect; hence, even our intellect understanding itself is within itself, not only as identified with itself by its essence, but also as grasped by itself in the act of understanding. God, therefore, must be in Himself as the thing understood in him who understands. But, the thing understood is in him who understands the intention understood and the word. There is, therefore, in God understanding Himself the Word of God, as it were, God understood; so the intellect’s word of the stone is the stone understood. And to this point is the saying in John (1:1) : “The Word was with God.”

[10] The divine intellect, of course, since it does not pass from potency to act, but is always actually existent (which was proved in Book I), must necessarily have always understood itself. And from its understanding of itself it follows that the Word of that intellect is in it; this has been shown. Therefore, His Word necessarily always existed in God. His Word, then, is co-eternal with God, and is not acquired by Him in time, as our intellect acquires in time its interiorly conceived word which is the intention understood. Hence is the saying in John (1:1): “In the beginning was the Word.”

[11] Now, since the divine intellect is not only always in act, but is itself pure act, as we proved in Book I, the substance of the divine intellect must be its very act of understanding, and this is the act of the intellect. But the being of the Word interiorly conceived, or intention understood, is the very act of being understood. Therefore, the being of the divine Word is identical with that of the divine intellect and, consequently, with that of God, who is His own intellect. The being of God, of course, is His essence or nature, which is the same as God Himself, as was shown in Book I. The Word of God, therefore, is the divine being and His essence, and is true God Himself. Of course, such is not the case with the word of the human intellect. For, when our intellect understands itself, the being of the intellect is one being, and that of its act of understanding another, for the substance of the intellect was in potency to understanding before it actually understood. Consequently, the being of the intention understood is one being and that of the intellect itself is another being, since the being of the intention understood is the very being understood. Necessarily, then, in a man understanding himself, the word interiorly conceived is not a true man having the natural being of man, but is only man understood, a kind of likeness, as it were, of the true man which the intellect grasps. But the Word of God, precisely because He is God understood, is true God, having the divine being naturally, because the natural being of God is not one being and that of His understanding another, as was said. This is why it says in John (1:1): “God was the Word.” The fact that this is said absolutely shows that the Word of God must be understood to be true God. For the word of man could not be called “man” simply and absolutely, but relatively: namely, “man understood”; hence, this would be false: “ man is a word”; but this can be true: “man understood is a word.” When, therefore, this is said: “God was the Word,” this is shown: The divine Word is not merely an intention understood, as our word is, but it is also a thing existing and subsisting in nature. For God is a true subsistent thing, since His is substantial being in the highest degree.

[12] But the nature of God is not in the Word of God thus: it is one in species and differs in number. The way in which the Word has the nature of God is the way in which God’s act of understanding is His very being, as was said. Now, the act of understanding is the divine being itself. The Word, therefore, has the divine essence itself; has it with an identity not only of species but of number.

A nature, again, which is one in species, is not divided into a numerical many except by reason of matter. But the divine nature is entirely immaterial. It is, therefore, impossible that the divine nature be specifically one and numerically different. The Word of God, therefore, has a nature in common with God and has it with numerical identity. For this reason the Word of God and the God whose Word He is are not two gods, but one God. For the fact that among us two who have human nature are two men hinges on the fact that human nature is numerically divided in those two. But we showed in Book II that things which are divided in creatures are in God simply one being; thus, in creatures the essence is one thing and the act of being another; and in some creatures even what subsists in the essence is one thing, and its essence or nature another; for this man is neither his humanity nor his act of being. But God is both His essence and His act of being.

[13] And although in God these are most truly one, there is still in God whatever belongs to the notion of a subsistent, or of essence, or of being itself: for it is suitable to Him that He should not be in something, in that He is subsistent; that He be what He is, in that He is essence; and that He be in act, by reason of His act of being. Therefore, since in God the one understanding, the act of understanding, and the intention understood are the same as His own Word, there must most truly be in God that which belongs to the notion of the one understanding, th