Word against Arius and Sabellius

In the treatise “The Word against Arius and Sabellius” (14 chapters) St. Gregory of Nyssa defends the Divinity of the Son against the Arians, and His hypostatic existence and difference from the Father - against the Sabellians. *The title of the work in Greek is Κατὰ ᾿Αρείου καὶ Σαβελλίου. *The title of the work in Latin is Adversus Arium et Sabellium de Patre et Filio. 1. “My heart will vomit out a good word” (Ps. 44:2), the psalmist now said. The followers of Arius and Achilles, uttering the most wicked speeches, dared to declare this “Good Word” to be a creature, and led many into their error. And the Sabellians, arguing contrary to this, are trying to destroy the hypostasis of the Son, and believing that the same one Father is honored by two names, they call Him son-father (ὑιοπατορα). Both opinions are set by the mentioned heretics as if they were two traps; and between them there is a middle narrow one, “and lead the narrow way into the belly” (Matthew 7:14), according to the word of the Gospel. Many, evading one trap, become prey to another; but you, it seems, are afraid of falling into any of them, and you are running away from the very path of truth, thinking that you should not engage in reasoning about God. Take care that, fearing the errors of both heresies, you do not fall under punishment for lack of piety. The Savior Himself, having become the head of the true path, exclaimed saying: “I am the way and the truth” (John 14:6); do not deviate either to the right or to the left, so as not to end up on any of the (false) paths. And again: “I am the door to the sheep; ...do not enter by Me, but wander elsewhere, a thief and a robber” (John 10:1, 7), and those caught in the net will perish. So, those who are inclined in their thoughts to any of these errors, let them hear that our Savior Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is called so by nature, and is not called only the Son, in the improper sense of this word, as we are, being a creature; that He has no beginning, but is eternal; why, by His very hypostasis, He will reign with the Father for endless ages. 2. But perhaps someone will say: everything that is without beginning must also be unborn; How is it possible to correctly call the Son beginningless, whose very name indicates the beginning? For He is called Son because He is begotten; and that birth contains the concept of a beginning, no one will deny this. So, if He is the Son, then it is clear to us that He received a beginning at birth. And perhaps He will have an end, someone will say, reasoning philosophically. And the apostle says that He will “submit all things to Him who submits all things,” and “will hand over the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor. 15:28, 24); therefore, one can think that He, as not existing before birth, will again be resolved into non-existence. Climb with me into the stronghold of faith, so that you will not be carried away by the deception of such reasoning, as if by a strong gust of wind, just as dust from a narrow and open road is swept away by the wind into the abyss of destruction. If the Father of all is unbegotten and eternal, wise and omnipotent, and the apostle, preaching faith in Him, preaches to everyone that Christ is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24): then how do they dare to subject His birth to time and recognize it as neither eternal nor without beginning? For if the birth of our Savior, according to some, began in time: then not only the Son, but also the Father is deprived of honor, according to the word of the Son: “You know neither Me nor the Father” (John 8:19); “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father” (John 5:23); one is deprived of honor as not existing before birth, and the other as having neither power nor wisdom before the existence of the Son. Reasoning consistently, they must come to the conclusion that the Father, before the birth of the Son, was not God either; for what kind of God is He if He did not possess power and wisdom? If the Holy Scripture told us that He is God from all eternity, then we must believe that He eternally had Wisdom and Power with Himself, that is, Christ. 3. I remember that I previously promised to show you, as if in a mirror, the image of the relationship between the Father and the Son; for as far as the Divine nature itself is concerned, it is not subject to human word. And God Himself speaks to us not by the power of His greatness, but proportions His voice to human hearing so that we are able to receive the Divine voice with our hearing. He commensurates His unbearable and immense greatness with human gaze, and being God, He is a man; for “I have humbled myself, and have taken on the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), so that we, people, could see God. Therefore, we believe that, not being a man, He appeared as a man, although by nature He was and is God, who limited His immense greatness to the body, and in Himself, as if in a mirror, showed us all the greatness of the Divine, so that, using it as a viewing glass, we could see the Father (for “who,” according to the Apostle, is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) said: “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9): so also through what is said in Scripture in accordance with the measure of our hearing (although this, due to the weakness of the word, often does not fully correspond to the Divine), we contemplate His thoughts accordingly. For just as for the sake of our sight He appeared as God, described in the flesh, so also for the sake of our hearing He is proclaimed by a Word diminished in comparison with the greatness of the Divinity. 4. So, on the basis of Scripture, it is proven, as we said, that the human word does not embrace God and His properties. since no part of speech is sufficient to comprehend the eternity of the Son: then Scripture mysteriously signifies the co-eternity of the Son with the Father with the help of the preposition (“before”), saying: “before the virgin I begat Thee” (Ps. 109:3); also: “Before all the hills and every creature she gives birth to me” (Proverbs 8:25). By adding this particle, Scripture indicates that He is without beginning; for by calling Him existing before all things, and especially before the ages, it turns our thought to eternity and beginninglessness. And how he who is eternally seated with the Father can be called Son and begotten, I will show you an example of this in a ray of sunshine, although in this case the word will not touch the very nature. Why not say that light was born from the luminary? But just as the sun was not first, and then the ray, but together with the being or origin of the sun there was and the ray came into existence, and together with the existence of the luminary, light began to exist, and as what is born from the luminary is born not according to some time, but together with it: so not first God, and then His Wisdom, but together with the existence of the God of all, Who has always existed, Wisdom, that is, Christ, has always existed, although wisdom is rightly called born of God and the offspring of the one who reveals it, the words: “Before all the hills he gives birth to me,” undoubtedly point to the Savior of people, born of the Father. And the expression: “today I gave birth to you” (Ps. 2:7) means the one who was born before and exists eternally with Him: and by introducing the meaning of time: “today,” Scripture shows that, while everything passes before Him successively, He is born forever, as long as it is called: “today.” And when this “today” ceases along with this world, then He is no longer born, having forever become fully born, and having been seated as judge and giver of the living and the dead, He will reign forever with the Father. 5. And so that the saying: “The Lord has made me the beginning of His ways for His works” ( Proverbs 8:22 ) is not the cause of (false) thoughts among those who have a damaged mind, it should not pass in silence. The translators, not entirely accurately translating from Hebrew into Greek, said: “she created me” (ἔκτισέ με), but after research you will find here: “she made me” (ἐποίησέ με). However, the expression “created me,” if you carefully delve into it, does not express anything inconsistent with the words: “made me.” If (the writer) had only said: “The Lord created me,” then some might have had a misunderstanding. But since he added: “the beginning of his ways into his own works,” it is obvious that what was said should be understood this way: the Lord made me to rule over His affairs and entrusted the beginning of his ways to me. When did the Father begin his ways? Or when He was not active? Or from whom did he receive strength and action? For if He did not have everything with Him from eternity, then this means that He received this from someone else, so one must imagine some other God, older than Him. But “whoever gives first to Him, it will be repaid to him” (Rom. 11:35), says Scripture. If everything is from Him, then the beginning of His ways and His works will never be found, but from eternity He acted. And if “all things were by the Son, and without Him were nothing” (John 1:3); then it is quite obvious that the Father has had active Wisdom from eternity. If the Father has acted from eternity, and without the Son there is no action: then the word: “to be created” cannot be understood in such a way that (the Son) was subsequently created in order (to the Father) to act. But the expression: “having created me the beginning of his ways” means: he entrusted the ways to me His own, so that they were under My command; it is said about the beginning that does not mean time, but power. For the apostles also say that “He created Him” (Acts 2:36). If the expression “He created” meant creation and creation, then there would be two whom He created, one Lord, and the other Christ. The Father entrusted Him with two powers—dominant and royal, or, better to say, one power, but honorable by two or more names. Therefore, let both of them, carried away by this and that error, be convinced that the Son, eternally existing with the Father, was born and at the same time without beginning; without beginning because of his eternal presence with the Father, but was born because he received being from the Father; as we said about the luminary, that it is the originator of light, but not before the light, but contemporaneously with it. Therefore He will remain forever and never cease to reign; for He did not begin to be, but calls Himself eternally active with the Father, saying: “My Father works hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17). The word: “hitherto” leads the thought to the question: “break away.” And since He omitted this: “from off,” referring to time, and said only: “until now,” this meant that He eternally does everything with the Father. He works “hitherto”, producing, life-giving, increasing, managing everything, and will never cease to do, because inaction does not become God, and by doing He will not get tired so as to need rest. 6. I think that those who were carried away by the Aryan delusion used the following Gospel saying in their defense: “He who sent Me is in pain” (John 14:28); on the basis of this they assumed that the Son is a creature and a creature. And the answer to those who called Him a good teacher: “no one is good, only one God” (Matthew 19:17), gave rise to their assumption that He is a man, and has the name Son in an improper sense. In my opinion, their assumption that the Son is alien to the being of the Father is also generated by the following words spoken in the Gospel of Mark: about the last “days and hour, no one knows, not even the angels who are in heaven, not the Son, but the Father” alone (Mark 13:32). And the Sabellians, without careful consideration, read the words: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30); “having seen Me in the form of the Father” (John 14:9): and again: “when he gives up the kingdom to God and the Father” (1 Cor. 15:24), they fell into the greatest delusion of wickedness, thinking that the Son temporarily departed from the Father as a result of man’s falling away from God, and after the correction of man’s fall, he again hid himself, and, having been resolved, merged with the Father. Or have you, wise Sabellian, not read the following passage of the Apostolic Epistle, which contradicts your opinion, where, among other things, it is said: “according to the working of the might of His might, what He did in Christ, raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in heaven, above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in coming" (Eph. 1:19-21)? Or does the voice of the Gospel not convince you that the Son is not temporary, but that in the next century the judgment of all has been entrusted to the Son? “The Father,” it is said, “does not judge anyone, but gives all judgment to the Sons: that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father” (John 5:22–23). And in another place the apostle says: “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of His power, in flaming fires, giving vengeance to those who do not know God and to those who do not listen to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” ( 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 See how those who do not listen, according to the apostle, will suffer punishment - eternal destruction, when He comes to be glorified in His saints; they will suffer punishment from the Son, who, in your opinion, no longer exists. 7. If you want to know what the expression means: “when he gives up the kingdom to God and the Father”; then even this “will not be hidden” from you, although you turned out to be little receptive to the truth, and although this will apparently contradict the commandment of Christ: “Do not cast your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). But, imitating God, I will hold on to good hope, not hiding the truth from the wicked; for He “rains alike and sheds daylight alike on the righteous and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Will you really not seek the truth after experiencing such love? Will you not turn your mental ear to us in order to make sure that in the words of Scripture there is no contradiction of one place with another, but everything is consistent and in agreement with everything else? Therefore, the words: “Then the Son Himself will submit all things to Him who submits all things” (1 Cor. 15:28) and also: “When He gives up the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor. 15:24), cannot be understood in accordance with your thoughts. For He became in every way like man and suffered with him, according to the word of the prophet: “This one bears our sins, and suffers for us” (Is. 53:4). and: “He accepted our illnesses and bore our illnesses” (Matthew 8:17), because he put on the flesh accessible to them, and “for us,” as it is said, “created sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), not having committed sin, but as if he had done it, “being cursed for us,” so that he could redeem us from the curse (Gal.3:13), and was called cursed, having favored, out of compassion, to be called by the same name as us; in all this He became like a man, taking the very form of a servant, as if He Himself were a transgressor of the law, and, offering (as a sacrifice) His own Face for the human race, bowed down the Father, calling Him to propitiation. But since not the entire human race submitted to the Son, He Himself, being submissive, appears and appears to Himself in the face of the Father for the disobedience of people. To the Son (and now “we do not see all things subjected to Him” - Heb. 2:8), then He will say: all things have been submitted to Him, then He Himself will appear to those who have submitted all things to Him (1 Cor. 15:28). about us. So, when we are all Christ’s, then Christ will also be God’s, having through Himself subjected to the Father all whom He first received from Him, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). He appears in a certain way to have not submitted to the Father, when those who were entrusted to Him, the image of which He took, have not yet submitted to Him. When everything submits to Him, then He will appear to those who have betrayed the kingdom to God and the Father. By kingdom we should not mean the dignity of holding a sceptre, for the Father does not need royal dignity in order to receive back from the Son what he had previously condescendingly placed at His disposal. Your secret thought seems to be just that. You are dishonest not only in relation to the Son, destroying His hypostasis, but also in relation to the Father, expressing the idea that He was not a king at the time He ceded the kingdom to the Son, and then will again receive it from Him, as if needing this dignity. The Son will not transfer to Him the dignity of a king, as I said before, but to those who have entered His kingdom and submitted to Him. Having presented and handed over such a kingdom, He will say: this is “the royal priesthood, the holy tongue, the people of My renewal” (1 Pet. 2:9) and again: “Behold I, and the children whom God hath given Me” (Heb. 2:13); for He gave them to Him, subjecting all nations to Him: “I will give Thee the tongues of Thy heritage, and Thy possession the ends of the earth” (Ps. 2:8). 8. Know also that the saying: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) does not destroy the hypostasis of the Son; for they are one in essence, one in dignity, one in reason, one in wisdom, but not one in hypostasis. For from the words of the apostle it can be proven that “one” does not mean one and the same person, as can be seen from many places, such as from the words about the planter and the one who feeds (1 Cor. 3:8); for the person is distinguished here by a dividing name: “each,” it is said, “will receive his reward according to his labor.” So the word “one” should not be recognized as destroying another person. Therefore, when it is proven that none of these expressions contradict each other, and when they agree in the affirmation of the right faith: stop philosophizing the Sabellian, turn away from evil wisdom and do good, having become convinced of the truth. Enough from you and this to prove that you are speaking evilly. 9. Get an idea about the Arian-furious Achilles. Why did you, having departed from the faith and abandoned the right path, fell into the depths of wickedness against the Son, assuming that He is a creature and alien to the Divine being? Is it really not enough for you to prove His birth from the Father, His names alone - that He is called the Wisdom and Power of God? And of course, you too will agree that wisdom and power are not made by hands and cannot be created, but are the properties of the spirit and, as it were, manifestations of the mind, which serves as the root for the offspring of wisdom. If wisdom, as you say, was created and arranged at some time - that Wisdom that is older than any time and creation, that is, the Son: then be careful that you do not find yourself with your opinion, disagreeing with the words of Scripture: “Without Him nothing was made” (John 1:3). Or if you say that this wisdom is acquired later, then try to clearly prove to us that there was some other wisdom; this is the oldest, by which this second one was created; for without wisdom it is impossible for anything to be created. Therefore, with the Father, Wisdom was the firstborn of all creation, so that through Her everything would be orderly. The Son is also called the Word, as evidence that He was born, and so that they would not recognize Him as created. For the word is born, not created, spoken by the lips, but set in motion by the heart. The Father is my witness, who says: “My heart will vomit out the good word” (Ps. 44:2). The Son also testifies: “I breathed out from the mouth of the Most High” (Sir.24:3). How can your thought lift such a burden of insolence, recognizing His creation? 10. You have heard before what was said about the Son; Listen now to what follows, namely, that “be” placed in transitory time means eternity. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). The beginning of God is incomprehensible to human thought. Therefore, as we said before, when Scripture used this figure of speech: “in the beginning,” then understand the eternal Divine beginning. It is also expressed by the word “be”; “Word” means one hypostasis with the Father. And so that we do not think that the Son was once not revealed, hiding in the Father, and so that we do not imagine the Word as unspoken and internal (for this kind of Word, which does not have a hypostasis in Himself, in what mind or in what writing should it have had its existence?): then John said: “and the Word was” not in God, but “with God,” meaning thereby a special hypostasis that exists in the Word from the essence Desperately. In the same way, so that we would not understand artistic wisdom, which has its existence either in man or in any work, he said: “with God,” so that we understand God, who exists from God. In addition to this, he also added the name: “and God is the Word.” God has no beginning; otherwise He would not be God; This is not only said by us, but also by the disciples of philosophers, to whom you should not yield in the matter of acquiring knowledge about God. 11. And in order for us to believe that He exists as God, having being from Himself, the Father gave Him a human form, clothing Him with flesh, in order to reveal the Son to human eyes. And knowing that He is the real God, do not imagine, on the basis of the words: “He who sent Me is I” (John 14:28), that the Son is lower or less (than the Father). For He, who became man, had to reveal His greatness in humble words. He Himself said: “Let the sincere praise you, and not your mouth” (Prov. 27:2). For how could He not humbly show Himself less than the infinite Father who fills everything, when He was limited by the flesh and measured by human eyes? But besides this, it is not alien to the truth to call Him the Author of being greater than Himself. For if there were no God, where would Wisdom come from? If there were no Father, then where did the Son come from? Look how the Son is humble everywhere and in every way and at the same time reveals Divine greatness, and first of all, when He says to the young man who called Him good: “Why do you say that I am good? no one is good except one God” (Mark 10:18). And he rightly answered like this. He seemed to say this: young man, I appeared to you as a man, and you, calling Me, as one of the scribes, a teacher, added: “good.” None of the people are good; this name is characteristic of the one God. So you foolishly called the one good who hitherto appeared to you as a man. Having answered this way, He showed this man his humility, saying: none of those whom you have in mind is good. And having added: “only there is one God” (and He and the Father are one), He, mysteriously and at the same time humbly revealing the truth, revealed Himself to be involved in goodness with the Father. So the words: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and: “I am in the Father and the Father in Me” (John 10:38) show that He is equal to the Father; for it is necessary for the Son of a perfect Father to be perfect. 12. But perhaps you will say something else: if the Father, being perfect, fills everything, then what remains for the perfect Son to fill? I say that They mutually accept and contain one another. For it is said: “I am in the Father and the Father in Me.” And those who mutually contain each other will be equal in greatness to each other. And how They are one in the other, try to listen to this. One must embrace the other; therefore, the encompassed is contained in the encompassing, and the encompassing will not be embraced by the encompassed. Do not think that God has in Himself any kind of emptiness into which what is contained is received. You should think about people this way; for we are unable to contain others, and we do not fit into others, and even if we did, we would be contained in the emptiness and be enveloped by it. One should think about God like this: how in the human soul, when two or more sciences are combined, for example, medicine and philosophy, or some others, they do not crowd one another in the mind and spiritual container, and with their multiplicity, finding space for themselves and combining with each other; filling the soul, they do not stand out from one another, so that for discerning people they represent the appearance of a single essence, because they are in one and the same mind, but they differ from each other, for medical science is another matter, and philosophical science is another: so the Father and the Son, occupying the same place, mutually perceiving each other and making up one, as we said a little earlier, differ from one another in hypostasis and name, existing however one in friend. So, when the smell of ointment spreads in the air, both air and smell exist in the same space; Apparently, they merged here, but in fact it will be revealed that one is air, and another is smell. Likewise, the light of the sun and the blowing winds, mutually merging, and, apparently, being in a completely mixed state, have a great difference between themselves; for light and wind are not a little different from one another. Liken the Divinity to these objects, and, imagining in thought something higher than what is expressed in words, you will find that Both are one in essence and unity of powers, and that this one God is divided by hypostasis and name into the Father and the Son. 13. Perhaps you will object to me as follows: if the Father, as well as the Son, fills everything, then what place is left for hostile power? For it does not become God to have an enemy with you. And if there is no God where the prince of evil is, then God will turn out to be limited and embrace only part of everything. I answer that He is omnipresent, and there is no place where God is not, although in some place the prince of evil is located. For the rays of the sun are not desecrated by falling on dirt and impurity, but even destroy them, drying them out with their heat: so our God is called “a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29); and again: “a fire will burn before Him” (Ps. 49:3), so that it may serve as a lamp and light for the beloved, and as a consuming flame for the enemy; for “He will burn,” it is said, “His enemies around” (Ps. 97:3). Therefore, the prince of wickedness, wanting to avoid the fiery arrows of God, runs through all places. Finding God everywhere, he passes through all people; when he finds those on fire with the Spirit, he flees from their flame. And having found in someone who does not have the Spirit of God a refuge swept and put away (Matthew 13:44), he, after a short rest, will perish along with those who cordially received him; for the one who accepted him will equally turn out to be an enemy, having made the enemy of God his friend. 14. I think that these arguments are sufficient to establish the truth. But let it not be abandoned by me out of oblivion or like a swimmer carried away to other places by a strong wind, to consider why, together with everyone else, the Son (Mark 13:32), who has the Father in Himself and Himself existing in the Father, does not know the (last) day. And this means the excess of His humility. For the Son of God had to primarily humble Himself, because He primarily completely accepted the whole image of human existence. By saying that He did not know, He showed His humility to the listeners. And so as not to be found telling a lie, He added: “Only the Father is one” message; according to the letter, He renounced knowledge, but according to the power of the mysterious expression, He confessed it, for when the Father alone knows, then the Son also knows, since He and the Father are one. From this came two benefits for the human race - a lesson in humility and ignorance of the end of the world, which is useful for life. What would be more difficult to know, the day of death, or God and the Father himself? If He knew the Father and said, “Yes, you know Me, as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father” (John 10:15): then how can He not know the day of which He Himself was the Creator? For “without Him there was nothing” (John 1:3). Let our word, in which these proofs are briefly offered, no matter what it may be in itself, serve as an obstacle for anyone to (acquiring) the right faith! So you, followers of Sabellius and Arius, who differ so much from each other, having learned from what has been said the whole truth, come into agreement with me, and walk between one and the other network; you will find the path of truth, following which you will see eternal life. You might be interested in: