Against Praxeus

The treatise “Against Praxeus” (Chapter 31, 213) sets out Tertullian’s teaching on the Holy Trinity. He defends the trinity of Persons in God against the modalistic monarchianism of Praxeus. This is the last of Tertullian's anti-heretical works. The introduction contains some information about the personality of Praxeus: he was a confessor from Phrygia and an opponent of the Montanists. Praxeus developed the doctrine of the incarnation and suffering of the Father and spread his heresy at the end of the 2nd century. in Rome and Carthage. Tertullian sharply objects to attempts to distort Orthodox teaching by attributing to one God the appearance in different “modes” of the Father, Son or Holy Spirit. Against heretical error, Tertullian reveals the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity - the unity and trinity of Persons in God, for which he provides evidence from the Holy Scriptures. The divine substance, beginning in the Father, continues in the Son and ends in the Holy Spirit. The analogies that Tertullian uses to explain his thoughts are: root, trunk and fruit; source, stream, river; sun, ray, light. However, revealing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Tertullian reproduces the subordination teaching of the apologists, although in some triadological expressions and turns he approaches the creed of the Council of Nicaea. *The title of the work in Latin is Adversus Praxean. Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Praxeus and his heresy (§1) Chapter 2. The symbol of faith, containing the sacrament of economy, which determines the presence in God of One Essence and Three Persons (§2) Chapter 3. The principle of monarchy (unity) does not contradict the presence of other governing persons in the monarch (§3, 4) Chapter 4. The birth of the Son from the Father. Reason and Word as two moments of the existence of the Son (§5–8) Chapter 5. The difference between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, coming from Their very names and other concepts found in the Holy Scripture (§9–11) Chapter 6. Other evidence of the Holy Scripture about the Holy Trinity. The distinction between the Commander and the Executor does not introduce Two Gods and Two Lords (§12, 13) Chapter 7. The distinction contained in the Holy Scriptures between the Father and the Son as invisible and visible, hidden and revealed, unmanifest and revealed (§14–16) Chapter 8. The commonality of the names of the Father and the Son (§17) Chapter 9. Establishment of the Sacred The Scriptures about the unity of God do not contradict the unity of the Godhead of the Father and the Son (§18, 19) Chapter 10. Proof that the Son is not identical with the Father and the Holy Spirit, based on the Gospel of John (§20-25) Chapter 11. Evidence of the same from other Gospels. The substantiality of the Son as the Spirit of God (§26) Chapter 12. Christology: the unity of the Person of Jesus Christ and the duality of His natures and natural actions (§27–30) Chapter 13. The heresy of Praxeus (modalism) - a type of Judaism (§31) Quintus Septimius Florent Tertullian Against Praxeus 1 The treatise “Against Praxeus” (Adversus Praxean), belonging to one of the most remarkable Western Christian apologists of the late 2nd - early 3rd centuries, Quintus Septimius Tertullian, belongs to the dogmatic-polemical works and is the first treatise in the history of Christian theology specifically devoted to the Trinitarian issue. This treatise was written around 213 and was directed against the heresy of Praxeus, who argued that God is One not only in essence, but also in Person, that is, he denied the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Subsequently, this heresy received the name monarchianism (unity of command), which meant the doctrine of the indistinguishability of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. In addition, the heresy of Praxeus was called patripassianism, that is, the doctrine of the suffering of God the Father on the cross. Tertullian refutes in detail the heresy of Praxeus, which he considers a type of Judaism, and also sets out his point of view on the Trinitarian question, which boils down to the famous formula una substantia tres personae (“one essence and Three Persons”). At the same time, Tertullian himself, in some details of his teaching, also deviated from church teaching, in particular, by bringing too close the existence of the Second and Third Hypostases of the Holy Trinity to the creation of the world and Divine providence about it (which is generally expressed by Tertullian in the concept of oikonomia, that is, economy). Finally, Tertullian defends Montanism, a schismatic movement that arose at the end of the 2nd century. in Asia Minor and quickly spread to the West of the empire, of which he himself became a supporter. The specifics of Tertullian's theology are discussed in more detail in the notes to the translation. Chapter 1. Praxeus and his heresy (§1) 1. The devil opposes the truth in different ways. Sometimes he seeks to crush her under the guise of protecting her. [This time] he insists that there is only One Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order to invent a heresy based on the assertion of His unity. The devil says that the Father Himself descended into the Virgin, He Himself was born of Her, He Himself suffered, and finally, that He Himself is Christ. This serpent forgot that, tempting Christ after John's baptism, he approached the Son of God, for he knew that God has a Son, he knew this even from the Holy Scripture itself, on the basis of which he built his temptation: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread (Matthew 4:3). And also: If You are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command His angels concerning You, - that is, the Father [commands], - and in their hands they will bear You up, lest You dash Your foot against a stone (Matt. 4:6; Ps. 90:11-12). Or, perhaps, he reproached the Gospel for lying, in fact saying: “Let Matthew and Luke see [Him], but I approached God Himself, tempted the Almighty Himself face to face. That is why I began to tempt [Him]. On the contrary, if it were the Son of God, I probably would not have honored Him with attention.” Still, the devil himself is a liar from the beginning (John 8:44), no matter who he attracts to his side, such as Praxeas. After all, Praxeus was the first from Asia to bring this type of error to Roman soil, an otherwise restless man 2, in addition, over-inflated with the boast of martyrdom, solely because he experienced the slight and short-lived unpleasantness of prison [imprisonment]. But even if Praxeus had given his body to be burned, it would have been of no benefit to him (1 Cor. 13:3), for he does not have love for God, whose grace he resisted. After all, when the Roman bishop 3 had already recognized the prophecies of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla 4 and with this recognition brought the long-awaited peace to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, then Praxeus, strenuously spreading lies about these prophets and their churches, and referring to the authority of the bishop’s predecessors [in the Roman see], forced him to withdraw the letters of peace that had already been sent and turn away from accepting the charisms 5 . Thus, Praxeus committed two diabolical deeds in Rome: he expelled prophecy and brought heresy, that is, he expelled the Comforter and crucified the Father. While many were sleeping in the simplicity of the teaching, the newly sown Praxean tares bore fruit here too 6 and, spreading from here 7 , seemed to have already been eradicated thanks to the one whom God wanted [to choose]. Finally, this “teacher” continues to adhere to his previous opinions in order to evade correction, [about which] his own handwritten receipt remains with the “psychics” 8 among whom this happened 9 . And after that nothing more was heard [about him]. We subsequently separated ourselves from the “psychics” by recognizing and defending the Comforter 10. And these tares then spread their seeds everywhere, although for some time they remained hidden by hypocrisy and deceit, and now they have sprung up again. But they will be eradicated again, if the Lord wants, now; if not now, then on his day, when all the evil fruits will be gathered and, along with other temptations, will be burned with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12, 13:30). Chapter 2. The symbol of faith, containing the sacrament of economy, which determines the presence in God of One Essence and Three Persons (§2) 2. So, [the heretics claim that] after a certain time the Father was born and the Father suffered, the Lord God Almighty Himself, whom they proclaim to be Jesus Christ. We have always, and now especially, having been taught by the Comforter, that is, the Teacher of all Truth, we believe in One God while maintaining that distribution [of Persons in God], which we call οικονομιαν 11. In accordance with it, the One God has His Word, which came from Him, and through which all things began to be, and without which nothing began to be (John 1:3). We believe that It was sent from the Father to the Holy Virgin and was born of Her - God and man, the Son of God and the Son of Man, called Jesus Christ. We believe also that He suffered, died and was buried according to the Scriptures, and was raised by the Father, and taken up again into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and comes to judge the living and the dead. Then He sent, as He promised, from the Father the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This rule [of faith] comes originally from the Gospel itself before any ancient heretics, not to mention the latter-day Praxeas, which confirms the very latest origin of all heretics, as well as the very novelty of the latter-day Praxeas. This condemnation applies equally to all heresies: everything that is primary is true, and everything that is secondary is false. But while this basic refutation is retained for the instruction and admonition of anyone, there should be room for discussion, so that it does not seem that we have condemned any heresy without any previous examination. And even more so that heresy which believes that it possesses the truth in all its purity, since it believes that one should believe in the One God only by considering the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the same [Person]. As if it were impossible for them all to be one in such a way that they all come from one with the unity of their essence! After all, in this way the sacrament of economy is no less preserved, which arranges the Unit into the Trinity, producing the Three - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And Three, not in position, but in degree, not in essence, but in form, not in power, but in appearance. Indeed, They have one essence, one position and one power, for there is One God, from Whom these degrees, forms, and species come - Father, Son and Holy Spirit 12. How can [They| allow [plural] numbers without division, as our treatise will show later. Chapter 3. The principle of monarchy (unity) does not contradict the presence of other governing persons for the monarch (§3, 4) 3. In fact, these simpletons, not to say ignoramuses and fools, who always make up the majority of believers 13, proceeding from the fact that the very rule of faith refers from the multitude of world gods to the One and True God, and, not understanding that one should believe in the One God, but together with His economy, they are afraid of this economy. They consider the number and distribution of the Trinity to be a division of Its Unity, whereas in fact the Unity, producing the Trinity from Itself, is not destroyed by It, but is preserved. Thus, they publicly declare that we preach two and even three [Gods], and consider themselves worshipers of the One God, as if an unreasonably contracted Unity does not lead to heresy, and a rationally expanded Trinity does not constitute the Truth. “We adhere to the monarchy,” they say, and they pronounce this [Greek] word in Latin so loudly and so skillfully that one would think that they understand the monarchy as well as they proclaim it. But they are accustomed to saying “monarchy” in Latin, but do not want to understand the meaning of the Greek word “economy.” I, if I use something from both languages, could designate the monarchy only as the sole and unified power. But such a monarchy, as belonging to someone alone, does not prevent the one to whom it belongs from having a son, or making himself a son, or exercising his monarchical power through those whom he wants. And I will say that there is no dominion that would belong to such an extent to one and would be to such an extent the only one, in a word, would be such a monarchy that it could not also be governed through others, those closest to the monarch, whom he himself chose as governors. And if the one to whom the monarchy belongs had a son, then it would not be divided and would not cease to be a monarchy only on the grounds that the son also became a member of it. In fact, it still primarily belongs to the one from whom it is communicated to the son. And since it belongs to him, it is a monarchy, which is maintained by two persons connected with each other. Consequently, the Divine Monarchy, even if it is controlled through Angelic legions and armies, - as it is written: Thousands of thousands served Him and ten thousand thousand stood before Him (Dan. 7:10), - does not cease to belong to One and does not cease to be a Monarchy, although it is controlled through such a great multitude of Powers. How can it turn out that God in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, who received second and third place as partners in the essence of the Father, undergoes division and dispersion, which He does not experience in such a great number of Angels, so (alien) the essence of the Father? Do you really believe that Those Who are the members, pledges, organs, the very power and the whole system of the monarchy, distort it? But this is not true. I want you to practice more in understanding the essence of a thing than in pronouncing words. You should know that the destruction of the monarchy occurs when another power appears, with its own conditions and its own status and therefore competing [with the first]. When, for example, together with Marcion, another God is introduced, opposite to the Creator, or even many [gods], as among the Valentinians and Prodicians 14. Then the distortion of the monarchy occurs, since the Creator is abolished. 4. But since I do not produce from somewhere outside, but from the very essence of the Father 15 the Son, who does nothing without the will of the Father and receives all power from the Father, then how can I destroy the faith in the monarchy, which I preserve in the Son as transmitted to the Son from the Father? Here I should also speak about the Third Degree [of Godhead], for I believe that the Holy Spirit does not come from anyone else, but from the Father through the Son. So, look, are you not the most likely to destroy the monarchy, abolishing its arrangement and distribution, established in as many names as God wanted? And while [the monarchy] retains its status, it is fitting for the Trinity to be so that the monarchy is returned by the Son to the Father, as the Apostle writes about the end of all things, when the Son transfers power to God and the Father: For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet (1 Cor. 15:25) - that is, according to the Psalm: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool ( Ps.109:1 ), - When (...) all things are subjected to Him (...) except Him who put all things in subjection to Him (...) then the Son Himself will submit to Him who put all things in subjection to Him, so that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:27-28). So, we see that the Son does not interfere with the monarchy, even if it now resides with the Son. For she remains with the Son, maintaining her status, and together with this status she will be returned by the Son to the Father. Thus, no one will destroy it, that is, the monarchy, by this name [of the Son], (if) he allows the Son, to whom, as is known, it was transmitted from the Father, and from whom it will in due time have to return to the Father. We could, with the help of this chapter of the Apostolic Epistle alone, show that the Father and the Son are Two. But in addition [this is indicated] by the very names of the Father and the Son, and the very fact that One is the One who handed over the kingdom, and the Other is the One to whom He handed it over, and also One is the One who conquered, and the Other is the One to whom He conquered. Chapter 4. The birth of the Son from the Father. Reason and Word as two moments of the existence of the Son (§5–8) 5. But since the heretics want the Two to be One, and that the Father and the Son are considered to be One and the same, everything about the Son must be thoroughly examined: whether He is, Who He is, how He is, and thus the matter itself will reveal its essence by means of the Holy Scriptures and the interpretations that defend them. Some say that the book of Genesis in Hebrew begins like this: In the beginning God created Himself a Son. But since this is not certain, other evidence leads me from the very state of God in which He was before the creation of the world, to the very moment of the birth of the Son. First of all, God was One, being for Himself both the world, and the place, and everything. However, even then He was not alone: ​​He had with Him His own reason (Ratio), which He had in Himself. After all, God is intelligent, and intelligence was in Him from the beginning, and it is in this way that everything [came from Him]. This mind is the mind (sensus) of God. In Greek He is called λογος. We translate this term as the Word (Sermo), since, due to the simplicity of the translation, it is customary for us to say this: In the beginning (...) the Word (Sermo) was with God (John 1:1). Although Reason should rather be considered more ancient [than the Word], since God, even before the beginning, is rational, and not verbal. And the Word itself, contained in the mind, shows that the mind as the essence of the Word is prior [to Him]. But this is not so important. Indeed, God, together with His mind, pondering and arranging [His] Word, carried out what He discussed with the Word. And so that you can understand this more easily, first think about yourself as the image and likeness of God 16, thanks to which you have reason in yourself, being a rational animal, and, therefore, not just created by a rational Creator, but even animated from His essence 17. Notice when you are silently talking to yourself in your mind. This is what happens in you when your reason, together with words, accompanies every movement of your thinking, every impulse of your feeling. And whatever you think is a word, and whatever you feel is a mind. It is necessary that you say this in your soul, and while you speak, you feel your interlocutor - the word, in which there is this very mind, thanks to which you speak, thinking along with the word, and thanks to which you think, expressing [the word]. So, the word in you is, as it were, the second thing through which you speak when you think, and through which you think when you speak. The word itself is different [than reason] 18. [Think] how much more fully this happens in God, whose image and likeness you are considered, since He silently has in Himself reason and in reason the Word. So, I can no longer be afraid to assume that then, before the creation of the world, God was not One, for He had in Himself a mind and in mind the Word, which He made second after Himself, acting through Him within Himself 19 . 6. This power and constitution of the Divine mind is expressed in the Holy Scriptures also in the name of Wisdom (sophiae). After all, what could be wiser than the mind of God and His Word? So, listen to Wisdom Herself, created (conditam) 20 as the Second Person: First the Lord created (creavit) Me as the beginning of the ways for His works (...) before He created the earth, before the mountains were raised, before all the hills He gave birth (generavit) Me (Prov. 8:22, 24-25) 21. It is clear that He gave birth and laid Her in His mind. From here learn that She was present at the creation itself: When He prepared the heavens, I was with Him (...) and when He established [His] throne above the winds, which is the clouds above, and when he strengthened the springs that are under the sky, I was an artist with Him and was the One in Whom He rejoiced; every day, rejoicing before His face (Prov. 8:27-30) 22. For when God wanted to produce as independent essences and forms that which He had previously arranged in Himself with the help of Wisdom, reason and the Word, 23 He first uttered the Word, which inseparably had reason and Wisdom in itself, so that through Him everything came into being and through Him everything was thought and arranged, or rather, even created in the mind of God. After all, this world lacked the fact that it could be known and exist independently in its own forms and essences. 7. So, the Word Itself received His form and beauty, sound and voice when God said: Let there be light (Gen. 1:3). This is the perfect birth of the Word when It comes from God 24. After all, at first It was created by God for reflection as Wisdom: The Lord created Me as the beginning of the ways for His works (Proverbs 8:22). And then It was born for action: When He prepared the heavens, I was with Him (Prov. 8:27). Therefore, It had Him as its Father, having descended from Whom it became the Firstborn Son, that is, begotten first of all, and the Only Begotten [Son], that is, the Only Begotten, namely, born of God, namely from the depths of His heart, according to which the Father Himself testifies: My heart has poured out the good Word (Ps. 44:2) 25. And then, rejoicing in Him who rejoiced before Him (Proverbs 8:30): You are My Son; Today I have given birth to You (Ps. 2:7) and: Before the morning star I have given birth to You (Ps. 109:3) 26. Likewise, the Son, in the name of Wisdom, that is, in His Person, confesses the Father: The Lord created Me as the beginning of the ways for His works (...) before all the hills He gave birth to Me (Prov. 8:22, 25). For if here it seems that Wisdom says that she was created by the Lord for works and in His ways, then in another place it is shown that everything began to be through the Word and without Him nothing began to be (John 1:3), as in another place: By His Word the heavens were established, and by His Spirit all their powers (Ps. 32:6) 27, that is, by the Spirit that was in the Word. It is clear that this is the same Power, sometimes called Wisdom, sometimes the Word, which became the beginning of the paths for the works of God, which established the heavens, through which everything began to be and without which nothing began to be. And enough of this, as if it were not the Word itself that is meant in the name of Wisdom, reason, the whole Soul and the whole Spirit of God - the Word Who became the Son of God, having come from Whom He was born 28! “Consequently,” you say, “you admit that the Word is a certain independent essence, consisting of Spirit, Wisdom and Reason?” Certainly. But you do not want to admit that the Word really was something independent, having Its own essence, so that It could be considered a certain reality and even a Person and, thus, It, being established Second after God, could lead to the recognition of Two - the Father and the Son, God and [His] Word. “But what is a word,” you say, “if not the voice and sound of the mouth, and, as the grammarians say, vibrating air, perceived by the ear, but otherwise, I don’t know, how empty, hollow 29 and incorporeal?” But I say that nothing hollow and empty could have come from God, because It did not come from a hollow and empty thing, and that which came from such an Essence and [Itself] created such essences is not devoid of independent existence. After all, It Itself created what arose through Him. And how can He be nothing, without Whom nothing can exist, or for the hollow to create the dense, the empty to create the full, and the Incorporeal to create the corporeal? 30 For although sometimes something can become different from that through which it came into being, yet nothing can come into being through that which is empty and hollow. So, is the Word of God, which is called the Son [of God] and even God Himself, empty and hollow? After all, the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). It is written: Do not take the name of God in vain (Ex. 20:7). So it is clear that He is the One who, being in the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God (Phil. 2:6). In what Image of God? In any case, somehow, and not at all. For who will deny that God is a body, although God is a spirit (John 4:24)? 31 For the Spirit is a kind of body in its own image. But if everything invisible that exists has in God both its body and its form, through which it is visible only to God, how much more likely is it that That which came from His essence is not itself devoid of essence. And whatever be the substance of the Word, I call it Person, and append to it the name of the Son, and since I acknowledge the Son, I defend the position that He is Second after the Father. 8. And if anyone thinks that I am here trying to introduce a certain προβολη 32, that is, the origin of one thing from another, as Valentinus did, producing aeons one from another, then first of all I will tell you: Truth should not be afraid to use this term, its concept and meaning, only because heresy has already used it. On the contrary, this heresy takes from the truth what it uses to build its lies. So, [tell me], has the 33 Word of God been spoken or not? If it is pronounced, then find out the true προβολη, and let him see the heresy in which it imitated the truth. Let's explore who and how uses any thing and its name. Valentine tears off and separates his προβολαι from the Father and removes them so far from Him that the aeon does not know its Father. And even if he wanted to recognize Him, he could not, so he completely dissolves and dissipates in the rest of the substance. With us, only the Son knew the Father (Matt. 11:27), and revealed the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), and heard and saw everything from the Father (John 3:32, 8:38), and what was entrusted by the Father, he speaks (John 8:26), and did not his own, but the Father’s will (John 6:38), which he knew directly and initially. For who has known what is in God except the Spirit who is in Him (cf. 1 Cor. 2:11)? The Word is formed by the Spirit and, if I may say so, the body of the 34 Word is the Spirit. Consequently, the Word was always in the Father, as It Himself says: I am in the Father (John 10:38), and was always with God, as it is written: And the Word was with God (John 1:1), and never existed separately or alienated from the Father, since [it is written]: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). This will be the true προβολη - the guardian of unity, on the basis of which we call the Son descended from the Father, but not separated [from Him]. In fact, God spoke the Word, as the Comforter also teaches, just as a root produced a shoot, a source a river, the sun a ray 35 . After all, these images are προβολαι of those essences from which they come. And I have no doubt when I call the Son the Shoot of the Root, the River of the Source and the Ray of the Sun, since every beginning is a parent and everything that comes from the beginning is a generation, especially the Word of God, which receives its own name of the Son. And just as no shoot is separated from the root, no river from the source, no ray from the sun, so the Word is not separated from God. Thus, according to all these examples, I declare that I speak of Two: God and His Word, the Father and His Son. After all, the root and the shoot are two things, but connected; the source and the river are two images, but inseparable; the sun and the ray are two forms, but connected. Everything that comes from something is necessarily secondary to that from which it came, but is not separated [from it]. And where there is a second, there are two, and where there is a third, there are three. The third from God and the Son [of God] is the Holy Spirit, just as the third from the root is the fruit of the shoot, the third from the source is the stream from the river and the third from the sun is the radiance from the ray. However, none of this is alienated from its producing principle, from which it receives its originality. Thus the Holy Trinity descends from the Father through united and connected steps, without in any way violating the monarchy and maintaining the state of economy. Chapter 5. The distinction of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, coming from Their very names and other concepts found in the Holy Scriptures (§9–11) 9. So, everywhere adhere to this rule given by me, by which I testify that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so you will understand what is called and how. And so, I say that there is another Father, another Son and another Holy Spirit. This is poorly understood by someone who is ignorant or who distorts what is said, pointing to some kind of opposition and from it concluding about the separateness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I say this out of necessity, since those who flatteringly oppose the economy of the monarchy assert that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same. [I insist] that the Son is different from the Father, not in opposition, but in distribution, and different not in division, but in distinction, since the Father and the Son are not One and the same, or One differs from the Other only in the way of His being 36. For the Father is the whole essence, while the Son is a branch and part of the whole, as He Himself says: For My Father is greater than I (John 14:28). And in the psalm He is sung by the least of the Father: [You have made] Him a little lower than the angels (Ps. 8:6). Likewise, the Father is different from the Son, since One is the One who gave birth, and the Other is the One who was born; One is the One who sent, and the other is the One who was sent; One is the One who created, and the Other is the One through Whom it was created. It is good that the Lord, using this very word, in the person of the Comforter, pointed not to division, but to distribution [of functions in God], saying: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (...) the Spirit of truth (John 14:16-17). Thus [He showed] that the Comforter is other than He (just as He Himself, as we know, is other than the Father), in order to thereby show in the Comforter the Third degree [of Divinity], just as in the Son we [see] the Second [degree] for the sake of maintaining the economy. And in general, aren’t they different from each other by their very names – “Father” and “Son”? After all, as everything is called, so it is, and as it is, so it is called, and different terms should not be confused at all, otherwise they would not designate the things that they are called. [But let your word be]: yes, yes; no no; and anything beyond this is from the evil one (Matthew 5:37). 10. So, [One of Them] is the Father, and [the Other] is the Son. And just as day and night are not the same thing, so the Son and the Father are not One and the Same, so that it does not turn out that They are Both One, and Each of Them at the same time was the Other, which is what these empty monarchians want. They say: “He made Himself His Son.” But if the Father presupposes the Son, and the Son presupposes the Father, and Each of Them presupposes the Other, then They could in no way come from Themselves for themselves, so that the Father would make Himself His Son, and the Son would make Himself His Father. For everything that God has established, He Himself keeps. Therefore, in order for the Father to be the Father, He must have the Son, and for the Son to be the Son, He [needs] to have the Father. For it is one thing to have, another thing to be. For example, in order for me to be a husband, I should have a wife, because I won’t be my own wife. In the same way, for me to be a father, I [must] have a son, because I will not be my own son. And for me to be a son, I [must] have a father, because I won’t be my own father. If I have someone who will make me [father or son], then if I have a son, I will be a father, and if I have a father, I will be a son. Further, if I myself am one of them, then I will no longer have what I myself will be, neither a father, since I myself will be a father, nor a son, since I myself will be a son. As much as I should have one of them and be the other, so much so that if I am one of them, I will not be the other until I have the other. After all, if I myself am a son, who at the same time supposedly is a father, then I no longer have a son, but I myself am a son. And without having a son, since I myself am a son, how will I be a father? I must have a son to be a father. Therefore, I am not a son, since I do not have a father who makes a son [a son]. Likewise, if I myself am a father, who at the same time is supposedly a son, then I no longer have a father, but I myself am a father. And without having a father, since I myself am a father, how will I be a son? After all, I must have a father in order to be a son. Therefore, I will not be a father, since I do not have a son, which makes a father [a father]. This will be entirely an invention of the devil - to exclude One from the Other and at the same time, enclosing both One and the Other in One, under the guise of reverence for the monarchy, to introduce something in between [between the Father and the Son], so that there would be neither a Father, who in this case does not have a Son, nor a Son, who also does not have a Father. After all, since He is the Father, He will no longer be the Son. This is how those who preserve neither the Father nor the Son adhere to the monarchy. After all, [they say]: Who does not know that nothing is difficult for God (cf. Matt. 19:26)? And who does not know that what is impossible for the world is possible for God (cf. Luke 18:27)? And also that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Cor. 1:27)? We read all this. Consequently, say the heretics, it was not difficult for God to make Himself both Father and Son, contrary to the usual human order of things. After all, it was not difficult for God to make it so that the barren woman, like the Virgin, gave birth contrary to nature. Of course, nothing is difficult for God. But if we so thoughtlessly use this position in our assumptions, then we will be able to imagine anything about God, as if He created it, because He could create it. Therefore, just because He can create everything, one should not believe that He created what He actually did not create, but one should find out whether He really created it. After all, God could, if He wanted, give man wings for flight, which He gave to kites. But He did not do this just because He could [do it]. He definitely could have destroyed Praxeus, as well as all the other heretics, but he did not destroy him on the sole grounds that he could [destroy]. After all, it was fitting that there should be both kites and heretics. It was fitting that the Father should also be crucified. In this sense, there will [perhaps] be something difficult for God, namely, everything that He will not do; but He will not do it, not because He cannot, but because He does not want to. After all, for God, being able means wanting, and not being able means not wanting. And what He wanted, He was able to [do] and did. Therefore, if He wanted to make Himself His Son, He could [do it], and since He could, He would do it. Therefore, only then will you prove that He could and wanted [to do it] if you prove that He actually did [it]. 11. And you will have to prove [this] from the Holy Scriptures as clearly as we prove that God made His own Word His Son. After all, if He called Him Son, then the Son is none other than the One who came from Him. The Word came from Him, He is the Son, and not He Himself from Whom it came - after all, God does not come from Himself. Further, by calling the Father and the Son One and the Same, you make it so that One and the Same both produced and came from Himself. But although God could have done this, he did not. Or you give a proof which, as I demand, must be similar to mine, that is, one which, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures themselves, would show that the Father and the Son are One and the Same, just as we have shown that the Father and the Son are different - different, I repeat, and not separate. And just as I will cite what God said: My heart has poured out the good Word (Ps. 44:2), so you bring some place where God would say the opposite, [that is]: My heart has poured out the good Word for Me, so that He will be both the One who poured out and the One who poured out; and by the One Who pronounces and by the One That is spoken, if only He Himself is both the Word and God. For example, I will cite what the Father said to the Son: You are My Son; Today I have given birth to You (Ps. 2:7). If you want me to believe that He is both Father and Son at the same time, then show this statement somewhere else: The Lord said to Himself: I am My Son. Today I have given birth to Myself. In exactly the same way is this: Before the morning star I gave birth to Myself, and: I, the Lord, created Myself as the beginning of the ways for My works, before all the hills I gave birth to Myself, or something else of the same kind. Whom would the Lord God of the universe fear to proclaim so, if it were so in reality? Would He really fear that people would not believe Him if He simply declared Himself Father and Son? No, He was afraid of one thing - to lie, [for] He Himself is the Creator of truth and the Truth Itself 37. And therefore, believing in the true God, I know that He did not declare otherwise than He predecreed, and He did not predetermine otherwise than He declared. Further, you will make Him a deceiver, a liar and a destroyer of trust in Himself, if He, supposedly His own Son, begins to attribute the Face of the Son to Another. At the same time, all the Holy Scriptures point to the Holy Trinity and the difference of Her [Persons], on the basis of which [we build] our objection and conclude that the One Who speaks, the One He speaks about, and the One He speaks cannot be the same. After all, neither deception nor lying befits God, which would be the case if He, being the One to whom He addressed, began to address someone else rather than Himself. So, pay attention to other words of the Father about the Son, spoken through the prophet Isaiah: Behold My Son, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom I am well pleased. I will put My spirit on Him, and He will proclaim judgment to the nations (Is.42:1) 38. And also to the following words: It will be greatness for you that you will be called My Son for the restoration of the tribes of Jacob and for the return of the scattered remnants of Israel; and I will make You the light of the nations, that You may be salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6) 39. Pay attention also to the words of the Son about the Father: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, therefore He has anointed Me to preach the good news to people (Isa. 61:1) 40. The Son speaks about the same thing to the Father in the psalm: Do not forsake Me, until I proclaim Your arm to all the coming generation (Ps. 70:18) 41, and also in another psalm: Lord, why have My enemies multiplied? (Ps. 3:2). And almost all the psalms (which) prophesy about the Person of Christ represent the Son speaking with the Father, that is, Christ with God. Finally, pay attention to what the Spirit says from the Third Person about the Father and the Son: The Lord said to My Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool (Ps. 109:1). The same is true through the prophet Isaiah: Thus says the Lord to my Lord Christ (Is. 45:1) 42. Through him it is said to the Father about the Son: Lord! who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? We proclaim about Him: [He] is like an offspring and like a root in a dry land; there was neither His form nor glory (Is. 53:1-2) 43. This is a little about a lot. We did not strive to analyze the entire Holy Scripture, when with the help of individual chapters we testified to the fullness of [its] greatness and authority. After all, we have already provided even more evidence earlier. But even from such limited evidence, the difference between the [Persons] of the Holy Trinity becomes clear. Indeed, the One who proclaims is the Holy Spirit, the One to whom He announces is the Father, and the One He announces is the Son. So and so on, said either by the Father about the Son or to the Son, or by the Son about the Father or the Father, or by the Holy Spirit, shows each Person in His own particularity. Chapter 6. Other evidence of the Holy Scriptures about the Holy Trinity. The distinction between the Commander and the Executor does not introduce Two Gods and Two Lords (§12, 13) 12. And if you are still confused by the number of the Trinity, as if [its Persons] are not connected with each other in simple unity, I ask [you] how the One and only speaks of himself in the plural: Let us make man in our image (...) and (...) likeness (Gen. 1:26). After all, if He were the One and only, He would have to say: “I will create man in My image and likeness.” But is He really lying or mocking when in the following verses He speaks about Himself in the plural: Behold, Adam became like one of Us (Gen. 3:22) 44, while He is One and only? Or was it He who addressed certain angels, as the Jews interpret, since they do not recognize the Son? Is it not, rather, because He (God) was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and therefore spoke of Himself in the plural, showing that He is plural? And since He was joined by the Second Person - the Son, His Word, and the Third - the Holy Spirit in the Word, therefore He pronounced in the plural we will create, Ours and Us. After all, together with Them He created man and created one like Them, namely, together with the Son, Who was to put on man, and with the Spirit, Who was to sanctify man. [And with Them], as with stewards and witnesses, He conversed in the unity of the Trinity. And in the following [verses] the Holy Scripture shows the difference between the Persons: [And] God created man (...) in the image of God he created him (Gen. 1:27). Why is it not [said]: in His own way, if there is only One Who created, and there was no One in Whose [image] He created? However, there was One in Whose image He created; of course, in [the image of] the Son, who, intending to become an authentic and true man, created His image, called man, which then had to come from the dust, as the image and likeness of the true [Man] 45. But [let us turn to what] is written about the previous events of the [creation] of the world. In the beginning, when the Son had not yet appeared, God said: let there be light. And there became [light] (Gen. 1:3), that is, the Word Himself, the true Light, which enlightens every person who comes into the world (John 1:9), and through Him the world’s light has already [come into existence] 46 . Then, it was in the Word-Christ, present and fulfilling [the command of the Father], that God wanted to create and created: And God said, Let there be a firmament (Gen. 1:6), And God created the firmament (Gen. 1:7); And God said: let there be lights (Gen.1:14), And God created (...) the greater light (...) and the lesser (Gen.1:16). But this and everything else was created by the same One who [was] before [all things], that is, the Word of God, through Whom all things began to be, and without Whom nothing began to be (John 1:3). If It is God, - [after all] according to the Apostle John, the Word was God (John 1:1), - then you have Two: One who says let it be, and the other who does it. And I have already shown how you should understand that [the Son] is different in person, and not in the name of essence, [different] in distinction, and not in division. And in general, wherever I represent the One Essence in Three Interconnected [Persons], from the very concept it is necessary for me to call One the One Who Commands, and the Other – the One Who Executes. After all, He (the Father) would not have commanded if He had created Himself when He commanded: Let it be. However, [the Father] commanded through the Son, and if He were One, [he would have commanded] either intending to command Himself, or intending to create without ordering, since He does not need to command Himself. 13. You say: “If God said and God did, or One God said and another God did, then by this two Gods are preached.” But if you are so stubborn, then think for yourself, and in order to better understand this, pay attention to the fact that the psalm also mentions Two Gods: Your throne, O God, is forever; the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, O God, Your God anointed You (Ps. 44:7-8). So, if the psalm addresses God, and the God anointed by God, then here too it is affirmed about Two Gods [based on the words: the rod of Your kingdom]. Therefore, Isaiah also turns to the Face of Christ: And the Shebaites, a tall people, will come over to You and follow You with their hands tied, and will worship before You, for God is in You. Truly You are our God and we know no [other], God of Israel (Is. 45:14–15) 47. And here [the prophet] points to Two Gods, saying: in You is God and You are God, that is, to the One who was in the Anointed One (Christ), and to the Anointed One Himself. In addition, you can also find in the Gospel the words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), that is, One is the One who was, and the Other is the One who was. And the name Lord refers to Two: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand (Ps. 109:1). And Isaiah also says: Lord! who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? (Isa.53:1). After all, he would have said: Thine arm, and not the Lord’s, if he did not want the Lord Father and the Lord Son to be understood here. And in [the book of] Genesis, long before this, it says: And the Lord [Jehovah] rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah (...) brimstone and fire from the Lord [Jehovah] from heaven (Gen. 19:24). So, either you deny that this is written, or who are you not to consider that what is written should be understood as it is written, especially that which has its meaning not in allegories and parables, but in clear and simple expressions? And if you are one of those who then did not support the Lord, who said that He is the Son of God, and did not believe that He is the Lord, then remember that for such it was written: I said: You are gods and sons of the Most High, and: God stood up in the assembly of gods (Ps. 82:6, 1). So, if the Holy Scriptures were not afraid to call gods people who became sons of God by faith, then understand that with great right it refers the name Lord to the one true Son of God. “Therefore,” you say, “I challenge you now, on the authority of these same Holy Scriptures, to firmly declare two Gods and two Lords.” It won't happen! After all, we, disciples of the Comforter, and not of men, by the grace of God, considering the times and causes of [events found in] the Holy Scriptures, distinguish Two - the Father and the Son, and even Three - together with the Holy Spirit, according to the concept of economy, which produces [in God the plural] number. And we do not believe what your perversity has invented - that [allegedly] the Father Himself was born and suffered 48. This does not deserve faith, because it is not conveyed that way [in Holy Scripture]. However, our lips have never said that there are two Gods and two Lords. But not because it cannot be that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and each of them is God, but because both two Gods and two Lords were preached before, so that when Christ came, He would be recognized as God and called Lord, for He is the Son of God and the Lord. After all, if in the Holy Scripture one could find one Person of both God and Lord, then rightly Christ could not be called by the name of God and Lord; after all, [in the Holy Scriptures] no one is preached except the One God and Lord. And then it will be necessary to follow that the Father Himself descended [to earth], since [the Holy Scriptures] speak only of One God and One Lord. And thus, His entire economy, which was thought out in advance and intended to become the subject of [our] faith, will be darkened. When Christ came and was recognized by us as the One Himself who brought into existence [in God the plural] number, becoming Second after the Father, and together with the Holy Spirit the Third, and through Whom the Father was more fully revealed, then the name of God and the Lord was again united together so that the pagans would move from the multitude of idols to the One God, and a distinction would be established between the worshipers of the One God and many deities. For Christians, as sons of light, must shine in the world, honoring and calling the One God and Lord the light of the world. However, if, following that idea, thanks to which we know that the name of God and Lord belongs to both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we began to call Them Gods and Lords, we would have to extinguish our torches and moderate our ardor for martyrdom, because the opportunity would open up for us to avoid [it], as soon as we would swear by Gods and Lords, like some heretics who have many gods. So, I would not use the expression Gods or Lord at all, but would follow the Apostle, and if the Father and the Son should be called the same, I would call the Father God, and Jesus Christ would call Lord (Rom. 1:7). But I can call Christ alone God, as the same Apostle says: From them is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). For I will call the sun the individual ray of the sun. However, if I first called the sun the thing to which the ray belongs, I would not immediately call the ray the sun, because then I would make two suns. However, I would consider both the sun and its ray to be two independent things and two types of one and indivisible essence, just like God and His Word as Father and Son. Chapter 7. The distinction contained in the Holy Scriptures between the Father and the Son as invisible and visible, hidden and revealed, unmanifest and revealed (§14-16) 14. Now, to defend the position that the Father and the Son are Two, let us resort to the help of that rule which calls God invisible. In fact, when Moses in Egypt 49 wanted to see the Lord and said: If I have found favor in Your sight (...) appear to me, so that I may know and see You (Exodus 33:13) 50, then [the Lord] said to [him]: You cannot see My Face, because man cannot see My Face and live (Exodus 33:20) 51. This means that whoever sees it will certainly die. However, we often find [in the Holy Scriptures] that many have seen God and none of those who have seen Him died. For God was visible according to the perceptive abilities of man, and not in all the fullness of [His] Divinity. Thus, it is said that the patriarchs saw God, for example, Abraham and Jacob, as well as the prophets, for example, Isaiah, Ezekiel, but none of them died. Therefore, one of two things remains: either they had to die (for no one can see God and live), or, if they nevertheless saw God and did not die, the Holy Scripture lies about God when it says: Man cannot see My Face and live. But Holy Scripture in no way lies, either when it declares God visible or invisible. For He Who was seen was different, because the same One who was visible cannot be called invisible. From this it follows that we must consider the Father invisible because of the fullness of His [Divine] Majesty, and the Son visible as a certain separate part, 52 just as we cannot see the sun in all the fullness of its essence, which is in heaven, but we can see with our eyes its rays because of the moderation of this part of it, which reaches from there to the earth itself. But someone, on the contrary, will want to assert that the Son, as the Word and the Spirit, is invisible, and since he wants to preserve this [as a common] property of the Father and the Son, he will rather assert that the Father and the Son are One and the Same. But we have already said that the Holy Scripture, dividing the concepts of “visible” and “invisible,” thereby affirms the difference [of Persons]. The heretics also add to their arguments that if the Son then spoke to Moses and Himself declared that no one could see His Face, then this means that under the name of the Son there was the invisible Father Himself. On the basis of this, they want the visible and the invisible to be considered One and the same, just as [in their opinion] One and the same is the Father and the Son, since a little higher before [God] denied that Moses [could see] His Face, it is written: And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to his friend (Ex. 33:11), and also about Jacob [it is written]: I saw God face to face ( Gen.32:30). “Consequently,” they say, “one and the same is visible and invisible, and since the two are one and the same, then the invisible Father Himself is visible, for He is also the Son.” As if those examples from the Holy Scriptures that we have given are inapplicable to the Son, Who was seen separately from the Father! We also affirm that the Son is invisible in His kind even now, inasmuch as He is the Word and Spirit of God according to the peculiarity of His essence, for He is God, being the Word and Spirit of God. And He was visible even before [the perception of] the flesh in the same way as He revealed to Aaron and Miriam: If there is a prophet among you, then I reveal myself to him in a vision, I speak to him in a dream; but not so with Moses: mouth to mouth I speak to him openly, that is, truly, not in fortune-telling, that is, not in image (Num. 12:6-8) 53. The Apostle also says: Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). So, since He leaves for Moses [the opportunity] to see Himself and speak with Him face to face in the future - after all, this was fulfilled only later, when [the Lord] withdrew to the Mount [of Transfiguration], as we read in the Gospel, where Moses appeared talking with Him 54 - it is clear that earlier God, that is, the Son of God, revealed himself in the mirror, in fortune telling, in vision and in dreams to the prophets and patriarchs, just as here - to Moses himself. And even if the Lord Himself, apparently, spoke [with Moses] face to face, yet man saw His Face not as it really was, but most likely only in the mirror and in fortune telling. Finally, if this is exactly how the Lord spoke to Moses, that Moses saw His Face very close, then how did he immediately, right there, want to see His Face, which he would not have wanted to [see], since he had already seen? And how then does the Lord deny that one can see His Face, which He supposedly revealed, if He actually revealed it? And what is the Face of God that cannot be seen? If it is the one that was seen, as Jacob said: I saw God face to face, and my soul was preserved (Gen. 32:30), then there must be another Face, which, if anyone saw, would certainly perish. But can it not be that the Son was visible - even if by His Face, but still only in a vision, in a dream, in a mirror and in fortune telling, since the Word and the Spirit cannot be visible except in the form of images - and He calls the invisible Father His Face? After all, Who is the Father? Is He not the Person of the Son on the basis of the authority which [the Son] inherits as Begotten of the Father? Indeed, is it not possible to say about some superior person: “This person is my face,” and “he represents my face”? [The Son] says: [My] Father is greater than Me (John 14:28). Therefore, the Father must be the Face (fades) of the Son. After all, what does Holy Scripture say? Spirit Person (personae) His Christ the Lord (Lam. 4:20) 55. So, if Christ is the Spirit of the Father's Person (personae paternae), then in justice the Spirit of Him to Whose Person (persona) He belonged (that is, [the Person] of the Father) by virtue of unity called Him His Person (faciem). Truly, it is an amazing thing if the Father can be considered the Face (fades) of the Son, while He is the Head of the Son, [as it is written]: The head of Christ is God (1 Cor. 11:3)! 15. If to clarify this position we do not turn to the evidence of the Old Testament, then to confirm our point of view I will cite [the evidence] of the New Testament, so that you do not attribute to the Father absolutely everything that I attribute to the Son. But behold, both in the Gospels and in the Apostolic [epistles] I find that God is called visible and invisible on the basis of a clear distinction between the Persons of the Father and the Son 56 . The Apostle John exclaims: No one has ever seen God (John 1:18). It is clear that this also applies to earlier times. For by the words of God never seen, he eliminates all question of time. And the Apostle [Paul] states about God: whom no man has seen or can see (1 Tim. 6:16), - of course, because everyone who sees will die. But the apostles themselves testify to themselves that they saw and touched Christ (1 John 1:1). If Christ Himself is both Father and Son, then how was He both visible and invisible at the same time? However, someone will want to object to us and reconcile this difference between the visible and the invisible, saying that both these statements are true, because He [that is, God] was visible in the flesh and was invisible before the flesh, so that He who was the Father, invisible before the flesh, is also the Son, visible in the flesh. But if One and the same was invisible before the [perception of] the flesh, then how was He visible long before the [perception of] the flesh? Likewise, if One and the same became visible after the [perception of] the flesh, then why else is He now declared invisible by the apostles, if not because One is the One who was previously visible in fortune-telling and Whom the [perception of] the flesh made even more accessible to vision, that is, the Word Himself made flesh, and the Other is the One whom no one has ever seen, that is, the Father, to whom the Word belongs? Finally, let's think carefully about Whom the Apostles saw. The Apostle John says: What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, about the Word of life (1 John 1:1). Indeed, the Word of life became flesh and was audible, visible and tangible because it was flesh. And before [the perception of] flesh, It was the Word in the beginning with God, and not the Father Himself with Himself. For although the Word is God, He is with God, since He is God from God and since He is with the Father and with the Father. And we saw His glory, - [says the same Apostle], - the glory as the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14), that is, the [glory] of the Son, who was visible and glorified by the invisible Father. And in order not to give opponents a reason [to think] that he supposedly saw the Father Himself, since he called the Word of God God, to distinguish between the invisible Father and the visible Son, [the Apostle] immediately added: no one has ever seen God (John 1:18). What God? Word? But it is said: We have heard (...) seen (...) and touched the Word of life (1 John 1:1). Then what kind of God? Of course, the Father, Who had God the Word, the Only Begotten Son, Who Himself revealed the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). It was He who was heard, visible and even tangible, so that they would not think that He was a ghost. And it was Him, and not the Father, that the Apostle Paul saw, who says: Have I not seen Jesus [Christ]? (1 Cor. 9:1). But he also called Christ God: theirs are the fathers, and from them is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). He also shows that it was God the Son who was visible, that is, the Word of God, since He who became flesh is called Christ. And about the Father [the same Apostle] writes to Timothy: Whom no man has seen or can see, and especially emphasizes: He alone has immortality, Who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). He said about Him above: But to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, only God [honor and glory] (1 Tim. 1:17) 57 so that we ascribe the opposite - mortality, availability - to the Son Himself, Who, as he testifies, died according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3), and Whom, after all, he himself saw in accessible light (Acts 9:3-9; 1 Cor. 15:8 ). Although the apostle felt this light not without danger to his vision (Acts 22:11), just as the apostles Peter, John and James [saw it not without danger] to their minds, and [as if] in madness (Matthew 17:1-6), for if they had seen the glory of the Father, and not the Son, Who was about to suffer, I think they would have died immediately. For no one can see God and live (Ex. 33:20). If all this is so, then it is clear that always, from the very beginning, He was visible who was visible in the end, and that in the end He was not visible who was not visible from the very beginning. And thus, the visible and the invisible are Two, [and not One]. Therefore, it was the Son who was always visible, and it was the Son who always communicated [with people], and it was the Son who always acted in the name and will of the Father. For the Son cannot create anything from Himself unless He sees the Father creating (John 5:19), that is, creating in His own mind. After all, the Father acts with his mind, and the Son does what he sees in the Father’s mind. This is exactly how everything began to be through the Son, and without Him nothing began to be (John 1:3). 16. Do not think that through the Son only the creation of the world took place, but also everything that was done by God subsequently. For the Father, who loves the Son and gave all things into His hand (John 3:35), loved [Him] from the beginning and delivered Him from the beginning, therefore from the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). It is to Him that the Father has given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). And the Father does not judge anyone, but gave all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), also from the beginning. After all, when He speaks of all power and all judgment and that all things came into being through Him (John 1:3), and also that everything was handed over into His hands, He does not allow any temporary limitation, for all this would not have existed [with the Son] if it had not existed at all times 58 . Therefore, the Son is the One who carried out judgment from the beginning, throwing down the proud tower, confusing languages, punishing the whole world with a terrible flood, pouring fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah - God is from God [Jehovah from Jehovah] (Gen. 19:24). For He Himself always went down and talked with people, from Adam to the patriarchs and prophets, in vision, in dreams, in the mirror and in fortune telling, from the beginning always preparing His path, which He followed at the end 59. Thus, God has always been in the habit of communicating with people on earth, and it is none other than the Word who was to become flesh. He taught [us] in order to spread faith among us and so that we would more easily believe and know [later] that the Son of God came into the world, (if) we had already known in advance that similar things had happened before. After all, for our sake everything, as it was written, came to pass, [us], in whom the ages have reached their end (1 Cor. 10:11). Thus, even then, [at the beginning of the world], He knew human passions 60, intending to perceive the very constituent parts of human essence 61 - flesh and soul. He asked Adam, as if not knowing: Adam, where are you? (Gen.3:9). He repented that he had created man, as if he had not foreseen [this]. He tested Abraham as if he did not know what was in man (John 2:25). He was angry and reconciled with the same [people]. And if heretics 62 mention anything supposedly unworthy of God to humiliate the Creator, they do not know that this refers to the Son, Who was to become subject to human passions: thirst, hunger, tears, birth itself and death itself, because of which He was a little humbled by the Father before the Angels (Ps. 8:6). But some heretics 63 believe that it is not suitable for the Son of God that you attribute to the Father Himself, as if He Himself diminished for our sake, although the Holy Scripture says that One was humbled by the Other, and not by Himself. Well, what if One is the One who is crowned with glory and honor (Ps. 8:6), and the Other is the One who crowns, that is, the Father of the Son? And how can it be that the omnipotent, invisible God, Who dwells in the unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16), and not in churches made with hands (Acts 7:48), and Whom no man has seen or can see (1 Tim. 6:16), from the sight of Whom the earth trembles (...) the mountains melt like wax ( Joel. 2:10; Ps.96:4-5), Whose hand seizes the whole world like a nest (Is.10:14), Whose heaven is his throne (...) and the earth is his footstool (Is.66:1-2), in Whom every place is, but He Himself is in no place, Who is the extreme limit of the universe, this Most High [God] walked in the evening in paradise, looking for Adam, closed the ark, after Noah entered there, rested with Abraham under the oak tree, called Moses from the burning bush and appeared fourth in the cave of the Babylonian king, although He is called the Son of Man 64. [As for the fact that God] appeared (in a vision, in a mirror and in fortune-telling), then, of course, this should not have been believed about the Son of God, if this were not contained in the Holy Scriptures 65. Perhaps, too, we should not believe this about the Father, even if it were contained in the Holy Scriptures, since the heretics take Him to the bosom of Mary, bring Him to the judgment of Pilate, and imprison Him in the tomb of Joseph. From this their error becomes clear. After all, not understanding that the entire order of the Divine economy was accomplished through the Son, they believe that the Father Himself was visible, came, acted, experienced thirst and hunger. But all this is contrary to the prophet, who says: The Eternal God does not thirst or hunger at all (Is. 40:28) 66. How much more does He not die or be buried! Thus, the One God, that is, the Father, always did what was done through the Son. Chapter 8. The commonality of the names of the Father and the Son (§17) 17. These heretics 67 more easily agree that the Father came in the name of the Son than with the fact that the Son is in the name of the Father, although the Lord Himself says: I have come in the name of My Father (John 5:43). And even turning to the Father Himself [He says]: I have revealed Your name to men (John 17:6). And the Holy Scripture also says: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord (Matthew 21:9), that is, the Son in the name of the Father. “But,” they say, “the name of the Father is God Almighty, (the Highest), the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the Jehovah.” Since the Holy Scriptures teach this, we also say that all these names also correspond to the Son. The Son came with them, always acted in them, and thus revealed them in Himself to people. Everything that belongs to the Father, says [the Lord], belongs to Me (John 17:10). Why not names? Therefore, when you read that God is Almighty, the Most High, the God of hosts, the King of Israel, the Existing One, see if these names are not also signifying the Son, Who is rightfully God (Almighty), for He is the Word of God Almighty, Who has received power over all things. He is the Most High, for he was exalted by the right hand of God, as Peter declares in Acts (Acts 2:33). He is the Lord of hosts, because all things are subject to Him through the Father. He is the King of Israel, for it was He who inherited this people. He is also Jehovah, since many are called sons, but are not such. But since they want the name of Christ to also belong to the Father, let them listen [to what I say] in another place. So, let this be my immediate response to the statements of the heretics about the words of the Revelation of the Apostle John: I am (...) the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Rev. 1:8), as well as to all other places where they deny that the name of God Almighty applies to the Son. As if the Coming One (the Son of the Almighty will be the Almighty Himself), although the Son of the Almighty is as much the Son of God and the Almighty as the Son of God is God! Chapter 9. The statement of Holy Scripture about the unity of God does not contradict the unity of the Divinity of the Father and the Son (§18, 19) 18. But they cannot simply and without difficulty discern this community of names of the Father and the Son. They are confused by the Holy Scripture, which sometimes speaks of One God, as if it itself did not point to Two Gods and Two Lords, as we showed above. “Since,” they say, “we find [a reference to] Two and One, therefore Both are One and the Same, that is, at the same time both Son and Father.” However, the Holy Scriptures are not at all endangered and do not need your proofs so as not to be contradictory to themselves. It makes sense both when it affirms the One God, and when there are Two - the Father and the Son, and is self-sufficient. It is known that the Son is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. After all, even if the Son is preserved, it is possible to give a correct definition of the One God, to Whom the Son belongs. After all, He who has the Son does not cease to be One, and precisely by virtue of His name, by which He is called so many times even without the Son. Without the Son, He is called when it is primarily defined as the First Person, Who should be placed before the name of the Son, for first the Father is known, and after the Father the Son is named. So, there is one God the Father, and there is no other besides Him. And what He brings does not deny the Son, but another God. However, the Father has no other Son. Finally, consider the context of statements of this kind, and you will perhaps find that the definition given by these statements has reference to the creators and worshipers of idols, so that the plurality of false gods is overthrown by the uniqueness of the Godhead, Who nevertheless has a Son, as inseparable and inseparable from the Father as He is to be represented in the Father even when He is not expressly named. And if [the Father] calls Him, he separates Him by this [from others], saying this: “There is no one else besides Me, except My Son.” After all, He made the Son different, whom He separated from others. Imagine that the sun would say: “I am the sun, and there is no one else besides me, except my ray.” Would you not recognize this statement as idle talk if the ray were not represented together with the sun? So, the fact that there is no other God besides Himself is [said] because of idolatry, both pagan and Israeli. And also because of heretics, who, just as pagans create idols with their hands, so they create idols with words, that is, one is God, and the other is Christ. Therefore, when God declared Himself One, He took care of the Son, so that they would believe that Christ did not come from another God, but from the One who first said: I am God, and there is no other beside Me (Is. 45:5) 68, and Who showed Himself to be One, but together with the Son, with whom He alone spread out the heavens (Is. 44:24). 19. However, heretics also use these words of God as an argument in favor of His uniqueness. “I (...) alone,” He says, “stretched out the heavens” (Is. 44:24). [Of course, He said this] because He is alone compared to the other [angelic] powers. Thus, He prepared in advance [an antidote] against the intentions of heretics 69, who claim that the world was created by Angels and various Powers, and declare the Creator Himself to be an Angel or someone else who came from outside to create the world, not knowing [the purpose of creation] and occupying a subordinate position 70. But if this is how it should be understood that He alone spread out the heavens, as these heretics falsely imagine, as if He were the only one, then wisdom would not say: When He prepared the heavens, I was there (Prov. 8:27). And the prophet Isaiah would not have said: Who understood the mind 71 of the Lord and was His counselor? (Isa.40:13). Of course, the prophet had in mind [everyone] except wisdom, which was with Him, and in Him, and was with Him the artist of all things (Prov. 8:30), not being ignorant of what she did. He meant [everyone] except wisdom, that is, except the Son, who, according to the Apostle, is Christ, God's Power and God's wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24) - the only one who knew the mind of the Father. For who knows God except the Spirit of God who is in Him (1 Cor. 2:11) 72 and not He who is outside of Him? Consequently, there was One who made God not the only one, except in comparison with the other [angelic powers]. So [together with the heretics] we will have to reject the Gospel itself, which says that everything was created by God through the Word, and without Him nothing was created (John 1:3). If I am not mistaken, somewhere else it is written: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the breath of His mouth all their host (Ps. 32:6). The Word, the Power of God and the wisdom of God is the Son Himself. So, if everything [began to be] through the Son, then God also extended the heavens through the Son, and therefore He did not extend [them] alone, except in the sense that He is One in comparison with the other [angelic powers]. Therefore, God immediately says about the Son: Who else dispels the signs of ventriloquists and fortune-telling from the heart, turns back the wise and makes their advice foolish, confirming the words of His Son? (Isa.44:25–26) 73, [affirming], of course, with the words: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; Listen to Him (Matthew 17:5)? Thus, by adding [words about] the Son, He Himself indicates how it should be interpreted that He alone spread out the heavens, that is, One (solus) with the Son, just as He is One (unum) with the Son (John 10:30). Hence these words also belong to the Son: I alone stretched out the heavens, since the heavens were established by the Word and since the heavens were prepared by the Wisdom present in the Word, and everything came into being through the Word. Therefore, we can say that the Son alone spread out the heavens, since He alone served the cause of the Father. Then it was He who said: I am the first Lord, and in those who are to come I am (Is. 41:4) 74. This means that the Word was before all things: the Word was in principle, and in the beginning He came from the Father. The Father, however, has no beginning, since he did not come from anyone, and as the unborn, he cannot be seen. He who has always been alone (solus) cannot have origin (ordinem) 75. Consequently, even if heretics therefore believe that One and the Same is Father and Son, in order for them to defend the unity of God, His unity [still] remains unchanged, since He is One, although He has a Son, Who is equally known from the same Holy Scriptures. If they do not want to recognize the Son as Second after the Father, so that it does not turn out that the Second will lead to the recognition of Two Gods, then we showed above that the Holy Scriptures mention both Two Gods and Two Lords. But so that they will not be tempted in this regard, we precisely give the reasons for which They are not called Two Gods or Lords, but for which the Father and the Son are Two, not according to the division of Their essence, but according to distribution, since we preach the Son indivisible and not separated from the Father, and different not by position (statu), but by degree (gradu). And if He (that is, the Son) is called God when mentioned separately, by this He leads to the recognition not of Two Gods, but of One [God], precisely by the very fact that He can be called God by His unity (ex unitate) with the Father. Chapter 10. Proof that the Son is not identical with the Father and the Holy Spirit, based on the Gospel of John (§20-25) 20. But let us now apply our efforts to refute their arguments, even if they have drawn some isolated evidence from the Holy Scriptures to confirm their point of view, leaving aside those evidences in which the rule of faith is actually preserved, and at the same time the unity of the Godhead and the state of unity of command are not violated. In fact, just as in the Old [Testament] they do not recognize anything other than the position: I am God, and there is no other besides Me (Is. 46:9), so in the Gospel they notice only the Lord’s answer to Philip: I and the Father are one (John 10:30) and [the expression]: He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9), and also: I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (John 14:10). And they want to reduce the entire Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments to just these three phrases, although the particular should be understood on the basis of the general. But this constitutes the distinguishing feature of all heretics. Indeed, since what they are able to find in the text [of Holy Scripture] constitutes only a small part [of it], they still defend the particular against the universal and accept what follows instead of what precedes. However, every rule is established from the very beginning in the previous one and refutes the subsequent one, and therefore the particular one. 21. Look, [Praxeus], ​​how much evidence there is in the Gospel, which, even before Philip’s question and before all your arguments, refute you. And first of all, the very beginning of the Gospel of John shows that before there was One who was to become flesh: In the beginning was the Word (Sermo), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being (John 1:1-3). So, if this is to be understood as it is written, and not in some other way, then it undoubtedly turns out that the other is the One who was from the beginning, and the other is the One with whom He was; one is the Word of God, and another is God (although it is fitting for the Word to be God, but insofar as He is the Son of God, and not the Father); one is He through Whom are all things, another is He from Whom are all things. However, we have often already declared in what sense we say otherwise. Since we say different, it is necessary that He is not the same; however (not the same) not as separated, and different by distribution [of Persons], and not by separation. So, it was It (that is, the Word) that became flesh (John 1:14), and not He Himself, Whose Word it was. And it was Him, and not the Father, that they saw glory, glory as the Only Begotten (unici) from the Father (John 1:14), because this is followed by (praecedit) 76 words: No one has ever seen God (John 1:18). And He is the only one (unicus) Who revealed the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), and not the Father Himself His own bosom. And [if] the Apostle John calls Him the Lamb of God (John 1:29), then He Himself is not the One Whose He [the Lamb] is. And truly He was always the beloved Son of God (Matthew 3:17), but He Himself is not the One Whose He is the Son. It was Him who Nathanael knew (sensit) (as elsewhere Peter 77): You are the Son of God (John 1:49). Yes, and He Himself confirmed the correctness of their faith, answering Nathanael: You believe because I said to you: I saw you under the fig tree (John 1:50), as He also confirmed [the words of] blessed Peter, to whom it was not revealed by flesh and blood that he also knew the Father, but the Father (...) who is in heaven (Matthew 16:17). Having said this, the Lord made a distinction between both Persons: the Son, Who is on earth and Whom Peter knew as the Son of God, and the Father, Who is in heaven and Who revealed to Peter that Peter knew Christ as the Son of God. In addition, when Christ entered the church, He, as the Son, called it the house of the Father (John 2:16). And when He said to Nicodemus: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). And further: For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:17–18). And when John [the Baptist] was asked something about Jesus, who baptized, he said: The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, and he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:35–36). Further, who did He introduce himself to the Samaritan woman? If the Messiah, that is, Christ (John 4:25), then He showed Himself to be the Son, and not the Father. And in another place He is called Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31), and not the Father. Therefore, He said to the disciples: My [food] is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work (John 4:34). And He Himself told the Jews about the healing of the paralytic: My Father works until now, and I work (John 5:17). So, the Son Himself says: I and the Father. Finally, most likely it was precisely because of this that the Jews wanted to kill Him, that is, not only because He violated the Sabbath, but also because He called God His Father, making Himself equal to God (John 5:18). Then He said to them: The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing: for whatever He does, the Son also does also. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything that He Himself creates; and He will show Him greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whomever He wills. For the Father does not judge anyone, but has given all judgment to the Son, so that everyone may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, the time is coming, and has already come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and having heard, they will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son to have life in Himself. And He gave Him authority to carry out judgment, because He is the Son of Man (John 5:19-27), that is, according to the flesh, just as He is the Son of God according to His Spirit. And he also added: I have a testimony greater than John: for the works that the Father gave Me to do, these very works that I have done, testify of Me that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me Himself testified of Me (John 5:36–37). And he added to this: But you have never heard His voice, nor seen His face (John 5:37). With these words He again confirmed that it was not the Father, but the Son who was seen and heard. Finally, He said: I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me (John 5:43). So, the Son was always in the name of God and the King, the Almighty and Most High Lord. And to those who asked Him what they should do, He answered: So that you may believe in Him whom He (God) sent (John 6:29). He also called Himself the bread that the Father gives (...) from heaven (John 6:32). Thus, everything that the Father gave Him will come to Him and will not be rejected by Him, for He came down from heaven not to do His will, but the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should inherit the resurrection and life. Moreover, no one can come to Him unless he is drawn by the Father, for everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Him. [It is no coincidence] He added here the words: This is not that anyone has seen the Father (John 6:46), but to show that the Word belongs to the Father, through whom they were taught. And when many departed from him, and He asked His Apostles if they also wanted to depart, what then did Simon Peter answer Him? - Who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life: and we have believed and known that You are the Christ (John 6:68–69). So, who is He: the Father or Christ the Father? 22. Whose teaching, then, that caused them astonishment, does He mean? Yours or your Father's? And to those who doubted among themselves whether He was the Christ, that is, not the Father, but the Son, He said: And you know Me, [and you know] where I come from; and I did not come from Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him because I abide with (apud) Him (John 7:28–29) 78. He did not say: “Because I am He myself” or “I sent Myself,” but: He sent Me (John 7:29). And when the Pharisees sent [ministers] to Him to arrest Him, [He said]: I will not be long with you, but I will go to Him who sent Me (John 7:33). And where He denies that He is one - [after all] He says: But I and [the Father] who sent Me (John 8:16) - does He not thereby point to Two, but Two inseparable? Rather, He outlined all this in order to show the inseparability of the Two. He even gave the following example: if the law recognizes the truth of the testimony of two people, in that case I myself testify of Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies of Me (John 8:18). Indeed, if He were one, since [supposedly] One and the same is the Son and the Father, then He would not have recourse to the authority of the law, which trusts the testimony of only two, and not one. Further, when He was asked where [His] Father was, He replied that they knew neither Him nor the Father (John 8:19). Thus He called the Two whom they do not know, for if they knew Him Himself, they would also know the Father (John 8:19), but not because the Father and the Son are supposedly One and the same, but because due to [Their] inseparability it is impossible to neither know nor not know One without the Other. “He who sent Me is true,” He says, “and whatever I have heard from Him, that is what I speak to the world (John 8:26). Because of their superficial understanding of the meaning of the Holy Scriptures, they did not understand what He told them about the Father, that is, that they had to know the words of the Father in the Son, which can be read about in the prophet Jeremiah: And the Lord said to Me: Behold, I have put My words in Your mouth (Jer. 1:9), and from the prophet Isaiah: The Lord will give Me a tongue of teaching, so that I may know when to utter a word ( Isa.50:4) 79. In the same way, He Himself again says: Then you will know that it is I, and that I say nothing of Myself, but as [My Father] taught Me, so I speak; because He who sent Me is with Me (John 8:28–29). This was said to testify to the inseparability of Both of Them. And in a dispute with the Jews, reproaching them for wanting to kill Him, He said: I speak what I saw in My Father, and you do what you saw in your father (John 8:38), and now you seek to kill [Me], the Man who told you the truth, which I heard from God (John 8:40), and further: If God were your Father, then you would love Me, because I proceeded and came from God ( John 8:42). – It should be noted that although He said: I came forth, by this He is not separated [from the Father], as those who find fault with these words would like. After all, He came from the Father like a ray from the sun, like a river from a spring or a bush from a seed. – And further: There is no demon in Me; but I honor My Father (John 8:49), and if I glorify Myself, then My glory is nothing. My Father glorifies me, of whom you say that He is your God. And you did not know Him, but I know Him and keep His word (John 8:54–55). When He added: Abraham (...) saw [My day] and rejoiced (John 8:56), by this He showed that the Son, and not the Father, appeared to Abraham again. He also said that He had to do the works of the Father on the man born blind, to whom He said after he received his sight: Do you believe in the Son of God? (John 9:35). And when he asked: Who is He? – He Himself made it clear that He is the Son, in Whom, as He said, one should believe (cf. John 9:36-37). And further He affirms that just as the Father knows Him, so He knows the Father, and He lays down His soul [for the sheep], because He received this commandment from the Father (cf. John 10:15, 18). And when the Jews asked Him if He was not the Christ - that is, [the Christ] of God, because even now the Jews are waiting for the Christ of God, and not the Father Himself, for it was never written that Christ is the coming Father Himself - Jesus answered them: I told you, and you do not believe; The works that I do in the name of My Father, they testify of Me (John 10:25). What do they indicate? - Of course, that He Himself is the One about whom they asked, that is, the Christ of God. Also about His sheep, which no one will snatch out of His hand, He said: My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all; and I and the Father are one 80 (unum sumus) (John 10:27–30). But here, too, those fools, or rather blind people, want to defend their positions, who do not see that, firstly, the words Az and Father designate Two, and, secondly, the word Esma (sumus) is not spoken from one Person, since it is said in the plural, for then (He said) there is one Esma (unum sumus), and not one Esma (unus sumus). If He had said unus sumus, then this could have supported their assertion, since the word unus indicates a singular number. Here, when He designates the unity (unum) of two masculine Persons with a word of the neuter gender (which indicates not individuality, but unity (ad unitatem), similarity, union, the love of the Father Who loves the Son, and the obedience of the Son Who submits to the will of the Father), and says: I and the Father are one (unum sumus), then by this He shows that Those whom He equalizes and unites are Two. To this Jesus added that He showed many good works from the Father, for none of which He was worthy to be stoned (John 10:32). [He said this] so that for this reason the Jews would not consider that they should stone Him for the fact that He allegedly wanted to be considered God Himself, that is, the Father, on the basis that He said: I and the Father are one. Thus, in order to show that He is the Son of God, and not God Himself, He said: Is it not written in your law: I said: you are gods (...) and the Scripture cannot be broken - do you say to him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world: you are blaspheming, because I said: I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of My Father, do not believe Me; and if I do, then if you do not believe Me, believe My works, so that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him (John 10:34-38). Therefore, the Father abides in the Son and the Son in the Father through works (per opera). So, by works we know that the Father (and the Son) are one. And He tirelessly repeats all this, so that the Two are considered to be in one power (in una virtute), since one cannot believe in the Son except by recognizing the Two. 23. And further, when Martha confessed Him as the Son of God (John 11:27), she was “wrong” no more than Peter and Nathanael, and if she had been mistaken, she would have immediately recognized [the truth]. After all, when the Lord raised her brother [Lazarus] from the dead, He lifted His eyes to heaven to the Father and said: Father! I thank You that You heard Me. I knew that You would always hear Me; but I said this for the people standing here, so that they might believe that You sent Me (John 41:41-42). Also [another time], when His soul was indignant, He said: And what should I say? Father! deliver Me from this hour! But this is the hour I have come. Father! glorify Your name (John 12:27–28), about which He spoke as the Son, for [previously] He said: I have come in the name of the Father (John 5:43). Since the one word of the Son was enough for the Father, the Father responded abundantly from heaven, testifying about the Son: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; Listen to Him (Matthew 17:5) and: And I have glorified and will glorify again (John 12:28). So don’t you think, most perverse Praxeus, that there are as many faces as there are voices? You see the Son on earth and the Father in heaven. But this is not division, but Divine Economy. After all, we know that God dwells in the abyss and is present everywhere, but [not Himself], but by His strength and power (vi et potestate), and the Son, as inseparable from Him, is everywhere present with Him. However, according to the very Economy (οικονομια), the Father wished that the Son should be on earth, and He Himself in heaven, - to which the Son, lifting up his eyes, prayed and asked the Father, to whom he also taught us, standing up, to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, etc. (Matthew 6:9), although He is present everywhere. The Father wanted this heaven to become His throne 81 . And although He did not make the Son much less than the Angels, sending Him to earth, He crowned Him with glory and honor (Ps. 8:6), taking Him back to heaven. This is exactly what the Father promised Him in the words: And I have glorified and will glorify again (John 12:28). So the Son asks from earth, and the Father promises from heaven. So why do you make both the Father and the Son liars? After all, if the Father spoke from heaven to the Son, although He Himself was the Son on earth, or the Son prayed to the Father, although He Himself was the Father in heaven, then does this really mean that the Son asked the Father, asking Himself, if the Son was the Father, or the Father promised Himself, promising the Son, if He was the Father? And even if we nevertheless teach about the Two divided, as you want to attribute to us, it would still be more tolerant to recognize the Two divided than one God as a pretender. So, it was to them that the Lord then announced: This voice was not for Me, but for you (John 12:30), so that they too might believe in the Father and the Son in Their own names, Persons and locations (locis). Jesus cried out and said: He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me, for through the Son they believe in the Father, and the ground of faith in the Son is the Father, and he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me (John 12:44-45). How? - For I did not speak from Myself; but the Father who sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what to say and what to say - for the Lord will give Me a language of teaching, that I may know when I ought to speak (Isa. 50:4), - therefore, whatever I say, I say, as the Father told Me (John 12:50). The evangelist and beloved disciple [of Christ] John probably knew better than Praxeas what these words meant, and he himself said in his own understanding: Before the feast of Easter, Jesus (...) knowing that the Father had given everything into His hands and that He came from God and is going to God (John 13:1, 3). But Praxeus wants the Father Himself to come out from Himself and go to Himself, so that the devil puts it in Judas’ heart to betray not the Son, but the Father Himself. But even in this case, it is not good for either the devil or the heretic, because the devil did not commit such betrayal [at the hands of] his devoted son [Judas] 82 . Indeed, the Son of God was betrayed, who was present in the Son of Man, 83 as the Holy Scripture says: Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him (John 13:31). What God? – Of course, not the Father, but the Father’s Word (Sermo Patris), who dwelt in the Son of Man, that is, in the flesh, in which He had previously been glorified by power and word. And God, says Jesus, will glorify Him in Himself (John 13:32), that is, the Father of the Son, whom He [always] has in Himself, even though He came down to earth. And He will soon (glorify Him) (John 13:32) through resurrection and victory over death. 24. Truly, even then there were those who did not understand this, because the Apostle Thomas did not believe for quite a long time. After all, he said: Lord! we don’t know where you’re going; and how can we know the way? (John 14:5). Jesus said to him: I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would also know My Father. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him (John 14:6–7). But let's move on to the Apostle Philip, who, inspired by the hope of seeing the Father and not realizing that it was he who heard, that he had already seen the Father, said: Lord! show us the Father, and it is enough for us (John 14:8). The Lord answered him: I have been with you for so long, and you have not known Me, Philip? (John 14:9). So, Who did He say they should know? “That’s the only thing that requires discussion.” Father or Son? If the Father, then let Praxeus teach that Christ, who communicated with his disciples for such a long time, once really could, I don’t say be known, but be considered the Father. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments command us to consider Him the Christ of God and the Son of God. This was preached before, and was foretold by Christ Himself, and even by the Father Himself, who from heaven openly proclaimed Him as the Son and glorified the Son, [saying]: This is My Son (Matt. 17:5) and I have glorified and will glorify again (John 12:28). The disciples believed this, but the Jews did not believe it. And He (Christ) Himself, wanting them to believe in Him this way, every time called, proclaimed and honored the Father. If this is so, then they (the Jews) did not know the Father, but the Son, who had communicated with them for such a long time. And the Lord, reproaching them for not recognizing Him Whom they did not know [before], wanted them to finally recognize Him Whom (for which He reproached them) they had not recognized for so long - that is, the Son. And then it can already become clear how it is said: He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9), as well as what was said above: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). Why? Because I came from God and came (John 8:42) and I am the way (...) no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6) and No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him (John 6:44) and All things were delivered to Me by My Father (Matthew 11:27), and As the Father (...) gives life, so also does the Son (John 5:21), and If you knew Me, you would also know the Father (John 14:6–7). According to all these testimonies, He showed that He was the Father's Substitute, through whom the Father was seen in works, heard in words, and known in the Son, who carried out the works and words of the Father. The Father himself is invisible, which Philip knew from the law, for he had to remember the words: No one can see God and live (Ex. 33:20). That is why he was reproached for wanting to see the Father as if He were visible, and was taught that the Father becomes visible in the Son from His wonderful works, and not through personal presence. Finally, if the Lord wanted the words of the One who saw Me to see the Father too, that the Father and the Son are One and the Same, then why did He add: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? (John 14:10). After all, one should have said: “Do you not believe that I am the Father”? And why else did He place such emphasis on this, if not in order to reveal [to people] what He wanted to make [for them] understandable, that is, that He is the Son? And then He emphasized this again by saying: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? - so that they do not consider Him the Father on the basis of His words: He who has seen Me has seen the Father also. After all, He never wanted the One who always confessed Himself to be the Son who came from the Father to be considered [Father]. So, He made manifest the unity (conjunctionem) of the Two Persons, so that neither the Father would be considered separate from [the Son] as invisible to sight, nor [the Son would be considered separated from the Father] as the Representative (representator) of the Father. And He Himself explained no less how the Father abides in the Son and the Son in the Father, saying: The words that I speak to you are not Mine, - of course, because [they are the words] of the Father, - the Father abiding in Me, He does the works (John 14:10). So, the Father abides in the Son through wonderful works and words of teaching and becomes visible through that through which he abides and through Him in whom he abides. And from this very thing the own properties of both Persons are revealed when the Lord says: I am in the Father and the Father in Me (John 14:10). To this He added: Believe (John 14:11). Why? The fact that supposedly “I am the Father”? But I believe that this is not what is written, but the following: [Believe] that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; and if not so, then believe Me by the very works (John 14:11), that is, by those works through which the Father was visible in the Son, not by sight, but by mind. 25. After Philip's question and [the revelation of] his whole essence, which continues until the very end of the Gospel [of John], in the same reasoning 84 where the Lord [showed that] the Father and the Son differ in Their own properties, 85 He also promised to entreat the Father to give Another Comforter and to send Him after He Himself had ascended to the Father (cf. John 14:16). (Earlier we have already shown in what sense He is Other.) And further He said: He (...) will take from Mine (John 16:14), just as the Son Himself [took] from the Father. Thus, the connection of the Father with the Son and the Son with the Comforter presupposes Three connected, Which, thereby, [already differ] One from the Other 86. And these Three are one (unum) 87, and not one (unus), just as it is said: I and the Father are one (unum), by unity of essence, and not by numerical singularity. Run your eyes and you will find that He Whom you consider to be the Father is called the Father’s vine, and the Father is the vinedresser (John 15:1), so that the Son knew in heaven the One who, in your opinion, was on earth when He (that is, the Son), caring for His disciples here, handed them over to the Father. And although in the Gospel [of John] there are no words: My God! Why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46), as well as the words: Father! I commend My spirit into Your hands (Luke 23:46), however, after His resurrection and glorious victory over death, after all the need for [further] humiliation had disappeared and He could openly declare Himself the Father to a believing woman who, out of love, and not out of curiosity and not out of unbelief, like Thomas, came to touch Him, He said: Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; But go to My brothers - even in these words He showed Himself to be the Son, because if He were the Father, He should have called them sons [and not brothers] - and say to them: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God (John 20:17). What then? Father to Father, and God to God? Or rather, the Son to the Father, and the Word to God? Indeed, at the very end of the Gospel [of John] it is explained why it was written: So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31) 88. The conclusion, therefore, must be that whichever of these evidences you consider sufficient to prove that the Father is identical with the Son, you will stand in conflict with the clear purpose of the Gospel. For all this was written not so that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Father, but that [He is] the Son (cf. John 20:31). Chapter 11. Evidence of the same from other Gospels. Substantiality of the Son as the Spirit of God 89 (§26) 26. It seems that we have gone through [the entire] Gospel of John because of only one question of Philip and the answer of the Lord to him, so that one phrase, which is understood contrary to its meaning, would not refute what was so clearly foreshadowed both before and after [it], but would be understood rather in accordance with everything else than contrary to it. However, even if I do not cite [evidence] of other Gospels that confirm [our] faith with the Lord's Nativity, it is enough [it will already be] that He who was to be born of the Virgin was announced by the Angel himself and called (determinatus) the Son of God: The Spirit of God will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You; therefore the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Although [the heretics] will want to prove [theirs] here too, the truth will prevail. “Indeed,” they say, “the Spirit of God is [Him] God, and the power of the Most High is [Him] the Most High.” And are they not ashamed to declare (inicere) what, if it had happened, would have been written? For who was [this Angel] embarrassed that he did not openly proclaim: “God will find” and “The Most High will overshadow You”? Saying: the Spirit of God (although the Spirit [of God] is God), and yet not directly calling Him God, he wanted [in these words] to mean a part of the whole, which was to be ceded to the name of the Son 90. The Spirit of God [here] will be the same as the Word. In fact, just as in the Apostle John, who says: The Word became flesh (John 1:14), the Word also means the Spirit, so here in the name of the Spirit we also recognize the Word. For the Spirit is the essence (substantia) of the Word, and the Word is the action of the Spirit, and the Two are one 91 . But if [we assume that] the Spirit is not the Word and the Word is not the Spirit, then the Apostle John should have spoken about One as having become flesh, and the Angel should have announced the Other as having become [flesh]. Consequently, just as the Word of God is not Himself Whose It is, just as the Spirit [is not Himself Whose It is the Spirit]. And if He is called God, then nevertheless He is not the One Whose He is called. No thing, no matter whose it is, is the one whose it is. However, when something comes from someone and thus belongs to him because it came from him, then it can become like the one from whom it is and whose it is. And therefore the Spirit is God, and the Word is God, since They are from God; nevertheless [they are not] He Himself from Whom They are. And if the Spirit of God as an independent essence will not be God Himself, but [will be] God to the extent that it comes from the essence of God Himself and to the extent that He is an independent essence and some part of the whole, then much more the power of the Most High will not be the Most High Himself, since it is not an independent essence, which is the Spirit, just as neither Wisdom nor Providence are [independent essences] 92. For they are not essences (substantiae), but incidental properties (accidentia) of any essence. [After all] power comes to the Spirit, and it itself will no longer be the Spirit. Therefore, whatever these realities may be - the Spirit of God, the Word or the Power - after they have descended on the Virgin, that which is born of Her is the Son of God. From childhood, the Lord Himself testified about this in the famous Gospels: Or did you not know that I should be concerned with what belongs to My Father? (Luke 2:49). Satan also knew this about Him when he tempted Him [and said]: If You are the Son of God (Matthew 4:3). The evil spirits also recognized this, [saying]: We know who You are, the Son of God (Luke 4:34). And He Himself worshiped the Father and did not deny that He was the Christ of God, whom Peter recognized (Luke 9:20). And rejoicing in spirit about the Father, He said: I praise You, Father (...) that You have hidden these things from the wise (Luke 10:12; Matt. 11:25). He also confirmed that no one knows the Father except the Son (Matthew 11:27), and the Son confesses the one who confesses the Father and denies those who deny Him before the Father (cf. Matthew 10:32–33). He gave a parable about a son, and not about a father, - [about a son] who was sent into a vineyard after several slaves, and was killed by evil vinedressers, and was avenged by the father (Matthew 21:33-46). He did not know the day and hour of the last, which is known only to the Father (Mark 13:32). He bequeathed the Kingdom to the disciples, just as it was bequeathed to Him by the Father (Luke 22:29). He could have asked the Father for legions of Angels to help Him, if only He wanted (Matt. 26:53). He cried out that God had forsaken Him (Matthew 27:46), and gave His spirit into the hands of the Father (Luke 23:46). After the resurrection, He promised to send the Father’s promise to the disciples (Luke 24:49). Finally, He commanded them to baptize in [the name of] the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), and not in [the name of] Someone Alone. After all, not once, but three times we are baptized into each Name and each Person separately 93 . Chapter 12. Christology: the unity of the Person of Jesus Christ and the duality of His natures and natural actions (§27–30) 27. But why should I linger on such clear things while I must move on to those positions where heretics seek to obscure the obvious? After all, they are mistaken regarding the difference between the Father and the Son, which we recognize along with the preservation of Their unity, like [the difference and unity] of the sun and the ray, the source and the stream, with the numerical inseparability of two and three. Nevertheless, they try to interpret it (that is, the difference) in accordance with their understanding differently, so that even in one Person [Jesus Christ] they distinguish Two - the Father and the Son, claiming that the Son is flesh, that is, man, that is, Jesus; The Father is the Spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And they, claiming that the Father and the Son are One and the Same, rather begin to separate Them than to unite Them. For if one is Jesus, and the other Christ, then one will be the Son, and the other the Father, for [in their opinion] the Son is Jesus, and the Father is Christ. Perhaps it was from Valentine that they learned such unity of command (monarchy) through the separation of two - Jesus and Christ. But this statement of theirs has already been refuted by [our] previous reasoning, since the Word of God or the Spirit of God is called the Power of the Most High, Whom they consider the Father: after all, They (the Word of God and the Spirit of God) are not the same as Whose they are called, but come from Him and belong to Him. However, they are refuted in another way in the same chapter [of the Gospel]. “This,” they say, “is what was announced by the Angel: Therefore the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). So the flesh is born and it will thus be the Son of God.” However, this was said about the Spirit of God. After all, the Virgin, without a doubt, conceived from the Holy Spirit, and what she conceived, she gave birth to. Consequently, That was to be born, That which was conceived and was about to be born, that is, the Spirit, Whose name will be called Immanuel, which means: God is with us (Matthew 1:23). The flesh is not God, since it is said about it: The Holy One will be called the Son of God. But the One who was born in her is God, about whom the psalm [says]: For God was born in her as a man and created her according to the will of the Father (Ps. 87:5) 94. What kind of God was born in her? – [It is clear that] the Word and the Spirit, who together with the Word was born according to the will of the Father (de voluntate Patris) 95. Therefore, the Word in the flesh. Then this too must be examined, how the Word became flesh: how was it turned into flesh or clothed in it? Of course, It clothed itself, because it is necessary to believe that God is unchangeable and does not change His form, for He is eternal. Transformation is the destruction of the former, because everything that turns into something else ceases to be what it was and begins to be what it was not. However, God does not cease to be [God] and cannot become different. The Word is God and the Word of the Lord 96 endures forever (Ps. 116:2), and precisely because of the preservation of Its form. If It does not allow transformation, therefore, we must understand that [the Word] “became flesh” in such a way that It existed, appeared and was visible in the flesh and touched through the flesh, since everything else is perceived in this way. After all, if the Word became flesh due to transformation and change of essence, then Jesus would already be one essence out of two - from flesh and Spirit; and would be a kind of mixture, like electrum, which consists of gold and silver, and would be neither “gold,” that is, Spirit, nor “silver,” that is, flesh, since one, having passed into the other, forms something third. Consequently, Jesus will not be God, since He who became flesh ceased to be the Word, but He did not become a man, that is, flesh; for the flesh would cease to be itself if it became the Word. Thus, from both comes something in between, something third rather than both. But we find that He is directly called God and Man, as the psalm itself confirms: For God was born in her as a man and created her according to the will of the Father (Ps. 87:5). It is clear that He is in every respect the Son of God and the Son of Man, since, without a doubt, He is God and Man according to His two essences, which differ in their special properties, because the Word is nothing other than God, and the flesh is nothing other than Man. So the Apostle speaks of both of His essences: Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh (this will be Man and the Son of Man) and was revealed to be the Son of God according to the Spirit (this will be God and the Word of God) (Rom. 1:3-4). We see a dual state, which was formed not due to confusion, but due to the union [of two natures] in one Person; [we see simultaneously] God and the Man Jesus (I distinguish this [name] from [the name] Christ). Thus, the characteristics of both essences are preserved, so that the Spirit manifested His works in Him, that is, powers (virtutes), actions (opera) and signs (signa), and the flesh endured its sufferings, that is, it experienced hunger in the presence of the devil, thirsted in the presence of the Samaritan woman, mourned Lazarus, feared death, and finally died 97. And if there were something third, mixed from both, like [for example] electr, then the difference in the actions of both essences would not be so obvious, but either the Spirit would produce bodily actions, and the flesh would produce spiritual actions by transferring [properties], or neither carnal nor spiritual, but characteristic of some third form, which is obtained due to the fusion of [both]. In this case, if the Word were turned into flesh, then either the Word would die, or the flesh would not die; either the flesh would be immortal, or the Word [would become] mortal. But due to the fact that both entities, each in its own state, acted differently, corresponding deeds and results followed. Therefore, learn with Nicodemus that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). And the flesh is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the flesh. [So] it is clear that they can coexist in One. And Jesus consists of this - of flesh as Man, of Spirit as God. And then the Angel declared Him to be the Son of God according to the nature by which He is Spirit, preserving for the flesh the title of Son of Man. So the Apostle, calling [Him] a mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5), confirmed [the presence in Him] of two essences. And you, the newly-minted one, who believes that the flesh [means] the Son of God, show me who the Son of Man would be then? Unless He were the Spirit? But you want the Father Himself to be the Spirit, because God is the Spirit (John 4:24), as if [He is not called in Holy Scripture] the Spirit of God, just as the Word is God, being the Word of God. 28. So, O fool, you make Christ the Father, not understanding the very essence of His name, unless Christ is a proper name, and not just a title, for it means the anointed one. In fact, “anointed” is no more a proper name than “clothed” or “shod,” for it only accompanies a proper name. Imagine now that for some reason Jesus is called clothed, just as He is called Christ from the sacrament of anointing. Would you equally call Jesus the Son of God and at the same time consider the Father to be clothed? Now about Christ. If Christ is the Father, then the Father was anointed, which means [anointed] by someone else. If by yourself, then prove it. But this is not what the Acts of the Apostles teach, when the Church cried out to God: For Herod and Pilate with the Gentiles were gathered together in this city against Your Holy Son, whom You anointed (Acts 4:27). So they testified that Jesus is the Son of God, who is anointed by the Father. Therefore, Jesus was the Christ Whom the Father anointed, and not the Father Who anointed the Son. Likewise, the Apostle Peter [said]: Know therefore, all the house of Israel, that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Apostle John denounces the lies of those who deny that Jesus is the Christ, and, on the contrary, [affirms] that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God (1 John 5:1). For this reason, he calls us to believe in the name of the Son of God Jesus Christ, so that we may be in unity with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. In the same way, the Apostle Paul speaks everywhere about God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. For example, when he writes to the Romans and thanks God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:7, 8). Or when he writes to the Galatians, calling himself an Apostle, [chosen] not by men or through man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal. 1:1). You have all his Scripture 98, which preaches and affirms exactly the two - God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, and also [says] that Jesus is the Christ Himself; [in both] and in another name He is still the Son of God. From here it is clear that on the same basis on which both names belong to One, that is, the Son of God, and one [name] without the other also belongs to One and the Same. And where the name Jesus is mentioned, Christ is also understood, for it was Jesus who was anointed. And where [the name is called] Christ, He is also Jesus, for Jesus was precisely the anointed one. And of these names, one is a proper name, which was given by an Angel, and the other is improper, accidental, which comes from anointing, therefore Christ [that is, the anointed one] is the Son, and not the Father. How blind is he who does not understand that if he ascribes the name Christ to the Father, then together with the name Christ he thereby preaches another God. After all, if Christ is God the Father, then by saying: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God (John 20:17), He thereby reveals another Father and God above Himself. Also, if the Father is Christ, then there is another, who gives power to thunder and creates wind and proclaims His Christ to people (Am. 4:13) 99. And if the kings of the earth rebelled, and the princes took counsel together against [the Lord and against] His Christ (Ps. 2:2), then there was another Lord, against Whom the kings and rulers gathered together. And if this is what the Lord says to my Lord Christ (Ps. 109:1), then there was another Lord who spoke to the Father Christ. And if the Apostle writes: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ (...) might give you the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge (Eph. 1:17) 100, then the God of Jesus Christ, the generous Giver of spiritual gifts, will be different. But so that we don’t have to list everything, [let’s say briefly]: He who raised Christ will also resurrect our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11); and He, as the Resurrected One, must, of course, be someone other than the dead and risen Father, if [we assume that] Christ, Who died, is the Father. But let this blasphemy be silent, let it be silent! 29. Therefore, it will be enough to call Christ, the Son of God, dead, because so it is written. In fact, the Apostle [Paul], not without difficulty saying that Christ died, immediately adds: according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3), in order thus, with the help of the authority of the Scriptures, to soften the harshness of expression and eliminate the temptation of the listener. Although two essences are recognized in Jesus Christ - Divine and human, it is certain that the Divine is immortal and the human is mortal. Thus it is clear that the Apostle calls Him dead because he means the flesh, Man and Son of Man, and not the Spirit, Word and Son of God. Finally, with the words: Christ (that is, the anointed one) died, he indicates that what was anointed, that is, the flesh, died. “So,” you say, “we call (the Father dead) with the same reason that you call the Son, and at the same time we do not blaspheme the Lord God, because we call Him dead not because of His Divine, but because of His human essence.” No, you still blaspheme, not so much because you call the Father dead, but because you call Him crucified. After all, you turn the Son into the Father, attributing to Him the curse of the crucifixion (Deut. 21:23), which according to the law befits the Son - for the Son became a curse for us ( Gal. 3:13), and not the Father - and thereby blaspheme the Father. But we, asserting that Christ was crucified, do not blaspheme Him, but attribute the curse to the law (cf. Gal. 3:13), just as the Apostle, having said this, did not blaspheme. And just as what is allowed to be said about someone will not be blasphemy, so what is not allowed to be said will be blasphemy if it is said. So, the Father did not suffer with the Son. However, they, fearing to utter direct blasphemy against the Father, hope to soften it by recognizing the Two - the Father and the Son, but only if the Son suffered and the Father had compassion for Him. But even in this case they speak nonsense. For what is compassion if not suffering together with another? Moreover, if the Father is impassive, then he cannot have compassion; or if he sympathizes, then he must suffer. Of course, you won’t add anything to Him with your fear. You are afraid to call the one who you call compassionate suffering. However, the Father cannot sympathize just as much as the Son cannot suffer, due to His nature by which He is God. But how did the Son suffer if the Father did not suffer with Him? – And such that the Father is separated from the Son, and not from God. After all, even if a river becomes clouded by some stormy current, although one essence [of water] flows from the source and is not separated from it, the clouding of the river does not affect the source. It is clear that the water flowing from the source changes in the river, and while the water changes not in the source, but in the river, it is not the source that changes, but the river that flows from this source. Likewise, will not the Spirit of God 101 seem [to you] to be the Father who suffered, if He can suffer in the Son, since He suffers not in the Father, but in the Son? But it is enough that the Spirit of God did not suffer anything in His name, because if He suffered something in the Son, it would be possible for the Father to suffer together with the Son in the flesh. And no one will deny this evidence [of the Holy Scriptures]. For we cannot suffer for God unless the Spirit of God abides in us and pronounces a confession of faith on our behalf 102 . However, the Spirit of God Himself will not suffer in us, but will only make us capable of suffering. 30. However, if you continue further, I can answer you more sharply and compare your statement with the statement of the Lord Himself, saying: “Why are you asking about this? After all, you have Him Himself crying out in suffering: My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).” So, either the Son suffered when he was abandoned by the Father, but the Father who abandoned Him did not suffer; or, if the Father suffered, then to what God did He cry? But this is the voice of the flesh and soul, that is, of Man, and not of the Word and not of the Spirit, that is, not of God, therefore it sounded to show that God is impassive, Who so abandoned the Son that He gave over the Man [received by] Him to death. The Apostle also understood this when he wrote: if the Father did not spare [His] Son (Rom. 8:32). Isaiah also foretold this earlier: And the Lord gave Him up for our sins (cf. Is. 53:5). He left Him so much that he did not even spare Him, he left Him so much that he even betrayed Him. However, the Father, into whose hands the Son gave His spirit, did not abandon the Son. Finally, the Son betrayed [the spirit] and died immediately, since when the spirit is still in the body, the body cannot be considered dead. So, to be abandoned by the Father meant for the Son to die. Consequently, it is the Son who dies and is resurrected by the Father according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3), the Son ascends above all the heavens, and He descends to the lowest places of the earth (Eph. 4:9–10). He sits at the right hand of the Father, and not the Father near Himself. He, already seated at the right hand of the Father, was seen by Stephen when he was stoned (Acts 7:55-56), and He will sit until the Father makes all His enemies His footstool (Ps. 109:1). And He will come again on the clouds of heaven in the same way as He ascended (Matthew 24:39; Acts 1:11). After all, He received from the Father and poured out That Gift 103, that is, the Holy Spirit,” the Third Name of the Godhead and the Third Degree of Majesty, the Herald of the Oneness of Command and the Interpreter of the Economy (if anyone accepts the words of His new prophecy), the Teacher of all truth that abides in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Christian teaching says. Chapter 13. Heresy of Praxeus (modalism) - a type of Judaism (§31) 31. However, you fall into the Jewish faith when you believe so much in one God that you do not want to number the Son with Him and after the Son the Holy Spirit. Indeed, what is the difference between us and them if not this? What is the work of the Gospel, what is the essence of the New Testament, establishing the law and the prophets down to John, if not [to show] that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are considered Three, are One God? God so desires to renew the sacrament so that in a new way He is considered One through the Son and the Spirit, and so that God Himself, Who was previously preached through the Son and the Spirit, but was not yet known, is now openly known in [all] His names and Persons. So, let these antichrists see that they deny the Father and the Son. For they deny the Father when they consider Him to be identical with the Son, and they deny the Son when they believe that He is identical to the Father, thereby attributing to Them what They are not, and taking from Them what They are. After all, everyone who confesses Christ is the Son of God, and not the Father, God abides in him, and he in God (1 John 4:15). We believe the testimony of God, who testified about His Son: He who does not have the Son [of God] does not have life (1 John 5:12). However, he who considers Him to be someone other than the Son does not have the Son. The translation was carried out (according to the publication: Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina II / Ed. E. Kroymann, E. Evans. Brepols, 1954. P. 1159–1205) by a group of students of the Russian Orthodox University consisting of: V. Baskakova, V. Bychkova, Y. Kozlov, I. Mozharova, M. Monakhova, E. Neganova, A. Odaisky, A. Ponomarev, A. Selezneva with the participation and editing of A. Fokin. The text is corrupted. Another translation option: “After all, Praxeus was the first from Asia to bring this type of error and other concerns to Roman soil.” In all likelihood, this refers to Bishop Eleuther (175–189) or Victor (189–199). Spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. Most likely, this means Carthage. Option: “discovered since that time.” That is, among Catholic Christians, as Tertullian began to call them after his fall into Montanism. Another translation option: “Finally, Praxeus cautiously returns to his former [true] point of view, teaching this after his renunciation of error, [of which] his own written testimony remains among the “psychics” among whom this happened” (in English translation). However, it is unlikely that by that time Praxeus had already repented, which would have given Tertullian a new argument in his polemic with the modalists. However, this is not mentioned further in the treatise. This is a clear indication that Tertullian has deviated into Montanism. Greek ‘house building’. This key concept of Tertullian’s triadology is at the same time its weak side. It is obvious that Tertullian understands the Divine essence (substance) as completely concrete and individual, and considers the category of Person as a property or type of this essence. Subsequently, the same teaching would be developed by Mari Victorinus, St. Augustine, Boethius and most medieval Latin theologians. See, for example, Fokin A. From the history of Western theology: Triadology Maria Victorina // Alpha and Omega, 2000. No. 1 (23); It's him. From the history of Western theology: Blessed Augustine of Ippona // Alpha and Omega, 2000. No. 2 (24); Boethius. "Consolation of Philosophy" and other treatises. M., 1990. S. 149:154–156. It is easy to see that this teaching contradicts the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Trinity, formulated by St. Basil the Great and two other Cappadocian Fathers. This refers to those simple believers who succumbed to the tricks of the heretics. An expression identical to the concept of consubstantiality. See the symbol of the Council of Nicaea (Acts of the Ecumenical Councils. Vol. 1. I, II, III Councils. St. Petersburg, 1996. P. 69) and St. Athanasius the Great (Saint Athanasius the Great. Works in four volumes. Vol. IV. M., 1994. P. 479). The anthropological analogy of the Holy Trinity is one of the most widespread in patristic theology. Using it, Tertullian also relies on the philosophical ideas of that time (primarily Stoic). In his treatise On the Soul (chapter 9:11), Tertullian, based on Genesis 2, says that the soul is the breath of God, originating from the Spirit of God, while the body is formed from earth. Most likely, we are talking about the same thing here. In any case, Tertullian does not assert here the same nature of the human soul and God. Here Tertullian asserts the inextricable connection between the ideas in the mind and the words that express these ideas. Thus, Tertullian affirms the co-essence of the Father and the Son and the eternal Birth of the Son. Being as the mind of God is the first moment in the existence of the Son, not directly related to the creation of the world. Among the early Greek Fathers this moment was called λογος ενδιαθετος (inner, intended Word). See: Saint Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, II, 22 // Early Church Fathers. Brussels, 1988. St. Theophilus did influence Tertullian's views. In addition to triadology, one can also note the criticism of the ancient doctrine of the eternity of matter, found in St. Theophilus and Tertullian (Against Hermogenes). This does not mean that Tertullian considered the Son of God to be created. For him, the verb to create (condere, creare) in this case is equal to the verb to give birth (generare), ‘to produce’, ‘to give a beginning’. In addition, this usage is based on the Holy Scriptures in the LXX translation. Below Tertullian refers to the book of Proverbs (8:22). In LXX the quotation looks like this: κυριος εκτισεν με αρχην οδων αυτου εις εργα αυτου - “The Lord made Me the beginning of His ways for His works.” Below, in verse 8:25, the verb γενναω (‘to give birth’) is used to convey the same idea in the LXX: προ του ορη εδρασθηναι προ δε παντων βουνων γεννα με - “Before the mountains were raised, before all the hills He gave birth to Me.” It is noteworthy that many fighters against Arianism paid attention to this, such as St. Athanasius the Great; see his Homily on the Arians, II, 3–4 (St. Athanasius the Great. Op. cit. T. II. pp. 264–267). However, in fairness, it should be noted that most of the Holy Fathers understood this expression of the book of Proverbs as referring to the human nature of the Lord. See, for example, St. Athanasius's Homily on the Arians, II, 47 (Ibid. pp. 323–324), etc. Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. trans.: “The Lord had me as the beginning of His path, before His creatures, from time immemorial; I have been anointed from everlasting, from the beginning, before the existence of the earth. I was born when there were no abysses, when there were no springs abundant with water. I was born before the mountains were built up, before the hills” (Proverbs 8:22-25). Tertullian's text is close to LXX: In the Synod. trans.: “When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He drew a circular line across the face of the deep, when He established the clouds at the top, when He strengthened the sources of the deep, when He gave the sea a charter so that the waters would not exceed its borders, when He laid the foundations of the earth: then I was an artist with Him, and I was a joy every day, rejoicing before Him all the time” (Proverbs 8:27-30). This refers to the original ideal plan of the world. This is the second moment of the Son’s existence, when He assisted the Father in the creation of the world. This moment was called by the Greek Holy Fathers λογος προφορικος (‘the spoken word’). See Saint Theophilus. Decree. Op. In general, this doctrine of the dual word has more disadvantages than advantages, for it brings the existence of the Son too close to the creation of the world. This assessment can be attributed to the very principle of the distinction of Divine Persons - to the concept of Economy, which Tertullian uses. After all, the Divine Economy presupposes God’s relationship to something other than He Himself in Himself, in His eternal and unchangeable existence, that is, a relationship to creation. And on the contrary, the Economy cannot in any way help us understand the existence of God in Himself, the fullness of the intra-Trinity relations of the Divine Hypostases. However, this was a general flaw in the teachings about the Holy Trinity of that time, which was corrected only in the 4th century. Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “A good word has poured out from my heart.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “From the womb before the morning star, your birth was like dew.” Synod. Transl.: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.” The confusion of the features of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity (even to the point of binitarianism for some) is a characteristic feature of many early Latin theologians. However, Tertullian himself in this treatise precisely opposes any confusion of the Hypostases of not only the Father and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit (see below §9). Therefore, here the word “Spirit” means the spiritual nature of the Word of God. Actually, it is also ‘empty’, ‘meaningless’, ‘vain’. These are the usual provisions of Stoic ontology. This is also the position of Stoic ontology, in which everything that exists is corporeal, and only non-existent is incorporeal. Greek “origin”, “flowing out”, “performance”. Close to the Greek προφορικος. That is, essence (substance). These are one of the most commonly used created analogies of the Holy Trinity among the Holy Fathers (along with the anthropological analogy). It is noteworthy that the image of the sun and ray (radiance) is often used by St. Athanasius the Great, without fear of distorting the dogmatic truth. See his Word on Arian, I, 14; II, 33; III, 15. – St. Athanasius the Great. Decree. Op. T. II. pp. 195:305–301:388–389. Possible translation: “since One differs from the Other in the way of His being.” Another translation option: “since One differs from the Other in measure” (see below contrast: ‘part’ – ‘whole’). Another translation option: “He was afraid of one thing - to lie, [He was also afraid of] Himself as the Creator of truth and Truth Itself.” Another option: “He was afraid of one thing - to lie that He Himself is at the same time the Author of the Truth (that is, the Father) and His Truth Itself (that is, the Son).” This passage in Tertullian does not coincide with the LXX, but is closer to the Masoretic text. To the Synod. Transl.: “Here is My servant, Whom I hold by the hand, My chosen one, in Whom My soul delights. I will put My spirit on Him, and He will proclaim judgment to the nations.” Tertullian's text is close to LXX: In the Synod. Transl.: “Not only will you be My servant for the restoration of the tribes of Jacob and for the restoration of the remnant of Israel; but I will make You the light of the nations, so that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” This passage in Tertullian does not coincide with either the LXX or the Masoretic text. To the Synod. Translation: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, for the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor.” Tertullian's text is close to LXX: In the Synod. Transl.: “Even to old age and to gray hair, do not forsake me, O God, until I proclaim Your power to this generation and to all those who are to come.” To the Synod. Translation: “Thus says the Lord to His anointed Cyrus.” Tertullian reads "Lord" (κυριος) instead of "Cyrus" (Κυρος). Tertullian's text is close to LXX: In the Synod. trans.: “Lord! who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? For He rose up before Him as an offspring and as a sprout from dry ground; there is neither form nor majesty in Him; and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him that would attract us to Him.” These two places (Gen. 1:26, 3:22) were always considered by the majority of the Holy Fathers to be a clear indication of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, although some wanted to understand these words in a different sense. This is the second and more original understanding of the image of God in man found in Tertullian. The same idea is found in his work On the Resurrection of the Flesh, §6. - Quintus Septimius Florent Tertullian. Selected works. M., 1994. P. 193. Theologumen of Tertullian. In fact, in Genesis 1:3 we are talking, of course, about the creation of the world light. Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. trans.: “And the Saveians, tall people, will come over to you and will be yours; they will follow you, they will come in chains and prostrate themselves before you, and they will beg you, saying: you have only God, and there is no other God. Truly You are the hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior.” This is where the name Patripassians comes from, denoting the Monarchians who preached that the Father Himself suffered for us. In fact, Tertullian is referring to the events of the Exodus and the appearance of God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. trans.: “If I have found favor in Your sight, then I pray: open Your way to me, so that I may know You.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Translation: “You cannot see My face, because man cannot see Me and live.” Likewise in the Vulgate. Option: “based on the distribution of His borrowed being” (English translation). Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, then I reveal myself to him in a vision, I speak to him in a dream; But not so with My servant Moses - he is faithful in all My house: I speak to him mouth to mouth, and openly, and not in fortune telling, and he sees the image of the Lord.” See Matthew 17:3: This understanding is very interesting, considering that at Sinai Moses saw God not face to face, but only the back of God and the glory of God (Ex. 33:18–19, 23). Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “The breath of our life, the Lord’s Anointed.” Literally: "By reason of a clear and personal difference in the conditions of both." So in some early Greek manuscripts. To the Synod. Transl.: “To the King of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only wise God, honor and glory forever and ever.” This statement does not mean at all that Tertullian, like his contemporary Origen later, assumed the eternity of creation. He believed that for God to be the Creator is an accidental property, so to speak, an accident, so that God was not always the Creator and the Lord (see Against Hermogenes, §3. - Quintus Septimius Florent Tertullian. Op. cit. pp. 131–132). This refers to the Incarnation of God. This refers to involuntary human affects (the so-called irreproachable passions). Another translation option: “the very two-part being of man.” For Tertullian's Stoic anthropology, see his treatise On the Soul. This refers to the Gnostics, primarily the Marcionites. In LXX and in the Synod. lane (Dan.3:92): “And the appearance of the fourth was like the Son of God.” The expression “Son of Man” is also found in the book of the prophet Daniel (Dan.7:13). The text is corrupted. The translation is approximate. Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “The eternal Lord God, who created the ends of the earth, does not grow weary and does not faint.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. trans.: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me." Wed. also Isaiah 46:9. Aut ad alia quae extrinsecus ad opera mundi, ignorantem quoque subordinatum. The phrase appears to be corrupted. Another translation option: “Or by some subordinate agent sent from the extreme limits, such as the constituent parts of the world, but at the same time not knowing the Divine plan.” Sensum. In LXX: νουν. To the Synod. trans.: spirit. To the Synod. Transl.: “So no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “Who makes void the signs of false prophets and reveals the madness of magicians, drives away the wise men and makes their knowledge foolish, Who establishes the word of His servant.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Translation: “I am the first Lord, and in the last I am the same.” Option: ‘degrees’, ‘order’. Literally ‘precede’. Tertullian's annoying inaccuracy. Compare: “Simon Peter answered and said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). To the Synod. trans.: “I know Him, because I am from Him (παρ αυτου ειμι), and He sent Me.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the wise, that I might be able to strengthen with a word the one who is weary” (Is. 50:4). Likewise in the Vulgate. Art. 30 is given in our translation, which more closely matches the Greek original. Hanc sedem simm uoluit pater [mihi thronus]. The text is corrupted. Possible translation: “The Father willed that this throne of His should become [the throne of the Son].” Nec diabolo bene nec haeretico, quia nee in filio bono suo diabolus operatus est traditionem. Translation options for this confusing phrase: “because even the devil did not commit such a betrayal of the Beloved Son of God,” “even such a betrayal of the Son, which the devil committed, would not have brought him any benefit.” Filius enim traditus est dei, qui erat in filio hominis. The example is unsuccessful, because it implies a difference in the persons of the Son of God and the Son of Man, an idea not characteristic of Tertullian. See further paragraphs 27–28. In eodem genere sermonis, quo Pater et Filius in sua proprietate distinguuntur. Other translations of this phrase: “The Lord [continues] the same reasoning, distinguishing between the Father and the Son and Their own properties. He also promised to pray to the Father"; in the same sense in which “the Father and the Son differ in Their own properties, the Lord promised to entreat the Father to give another Comforter,” that is, the Holy Spirit also differs from the Father and the Son and has His own properties. Alterum ex altero. Option: "Which [come] One from the Other." Wed. 1 John 5:7. If this is indeed a quotation, it is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for the authenticity of this verse, which is considered a late interpolation in modern biblical scholarship. From these words, it apparently follows that Tertullian had at his disposal copies of the Gospel of John that did not include the 21st chapter. In this chapter, Tertullian substantiates the hypostasis (substantiality) of the Son of God and His difference from the Father, erroneously attributing to Him some passages of Holy Scripture that actually speak of the Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. Tertullian mistakenly transfers to God the bodily concepts of totality and divisibility and calls the Hypostasis a part of the whole. Tertullian erroneously believes that in this case the names 'Spirit' and 'Word' designate the same Person of the Son of God, with the only difference that He is called the 'Spirit of God', since He is the Divine Mind or Wisdom, a Spiritual Being, and 'the Word of God' - since He comes from God as the active Power for the organization of the world. See above, ch. 4:7. This polemical statement of Tertullian contradicts his statement in §6 about the substantiality of God's Wisdom. Providence is included in Wisdom as a part of the whole. The baptismal formula has always been one of the main arguments confirming the equal Divinity of all Persons of the Holy Trinity. Tertullian's text does not coincide with either the LXX or the Masoretic Text. To the Synod. Translation: “Of Zion they will say: Such and such a man was born in it, and the Most High Himself strengthened it.” This quote eloquently testifies that Tertullian saw in the Lord Jesus Christ the Person of the eternal God of the Word. In this place, the word ‘Spirit’ can probably mean a) the spiritual nature of the Son of God, b) the own Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. To the Synod. trans.: ‘the truth of the Lord’. This phrase shows that Tertullian already clearly understood the unity of the Person and the duality of the natures of our Savior, moreover, natures that fully retained their properties (diphysitism and dienergism), but he did not yet sufficiently imagine the interaction of these natures and their properties (communicatio idiomatum). Totum instmmentum eius. Another translation option: “all his (the Apostle Paul’s) writings.” Tertullian's text is close to the LXX. To the Synod. Transl.: “Who forms the mountains, and makes the wind, and declares to man his intentions.” To the Synod. Transl.: “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation to the knowledge of Him.” Tertullian may be referring to the Divine nature. Wed. Mark 13:11: “When they lead you to betray you, do not worry in advance what you will say, and do not deliberate; but whatever is given to you in that hour, then speak, for it is not you who will speak, but the Holy Spirit.” Munus. See Acts 2:38. Later, in Latin theology, the epithet Gift was assigned to the Holy Spirit, not only as the Gift of God to people, but also as the Gift of the Father to the Son. You might be interested in: