Selection 3: Exegesis Of Prov 8: 22 (Or. Ar. 2: 2, 2: 3, 2: 18–82)

2

SELECTIONS FROM ORATIONS AGAINST THE ARIANS

Introduction

The first two of the Orations against the Arians were written in Rome, ca. 339– 340, during Athanasius's second exile. Pope Julius, who was extending hospitality to Athanasius at the time, was endeavoring to arrange for a council to deal anew with the charges brought against Athanasius at the Council of Tyre of 335. It is quite possible that Athanasius anticipated that such a council (which did not in fact occur) would include a showdown between pro-Nicene and anti- Nicene forces, and the Orations could have been composed in preparation for such an impending battle. It is also clear from the contents of this polemical treatise that Athanasius is anxious to thwart a growing acceptance of “Arianism,” or at least a lessening of the opposition to it. Such a development was perhaps associated with the adjustment and selective attenuation of some of Arius's doctrines by his supporter Asterius. In Rome, Athanasius had ready access to Asterius's writings through his companion in exile, Marcellus of Ancyra, who had recently composed a refutation of Asterius. While the figure of Eusebius of Nicomedia occasionally makes an appearance, the Orations show Athanasius in direct debate principally with Asterius and Arius, selectively exploiting both the similarities and the differences between the two in order to defend the Nicene doctrine of the full divinity of the Word as the only cogent and authentic version of Christianity. Athanasius veers eclectically from one “Arian” theology to the other, the various strands of his attack finding their center in the denunciation of the doctrine that the Son is not eternal and integral to the divine essence. Thus, he will mock Arius's teaching that the Son is “foreign” to or “other” than the divine essence, and then argue that the Son can only be “like” the Father as his “image” (as Asterius taught) only if he is actually divine by nature. He will ridicule Arius's assertion that God was not always Father, but then exploit Asterius's teaching that God is always generative by insisting that the generated “Son” of the Father must be identified with the eternal Word and Wisdom of God. By creating an amalgam of “Arian” doctrine, he is able to exploit one anti- Nicene teaching to counteract another as well as to create the impression, which he often explicitly states, that such anti-Nicene teaching is self-contradictory and willfully shifty. At the same time, Athanasius is occupied throughout these Orations with defending Nicene doctrine against the exegetical attacks of its opponents. His overarching goal is to show that the Scriptures, when properly read according to their “ecclesiastical sense,” reveal Christ to be nothing less than the eternal Word who is fully divine by nature, whose fullness of divinity is the ultimate “security” for human redemption and deification.

A critical edition of the text can be found in AW I/I.

Selection 1:Arianism must be distinguished from authentic Christianity (Or. Ar. 1:1)

The first selection offered here in translation, from the first book of the Orations, reveals Athanasius's perturbance at the fact that “Arianism” is making inroads in the Church. It is also indicative of the various layers of Athanasius's polemic. He is not simply engaged in a theological battle between what he considers to be the true faith in Christ's divinity and the “heresy of the Arians,” but addresses himself pointedly to the “simple” who are in danger of being deceived by the “Arians” and “the foolish” who do not see Arian doctrine as a threat. Consequently, Athanasius constructs his pastoral role in the composition of these Orations to be not merely that of a calm and rationally convincing debater but, perhaps even more, that of a shocked devotee of Christ who seeks to communicate his shock and dismay to his companions in “true piety.” The constant haranguing of the “Ariomaniacs” is deliberately part of this strategy to induce an esthetic disgust for anti-Nicene doctrine, a disgust at the disfiguring of the proper glory of Christ which Athanasius is all too ready to model for his supporters. The double effort to argue for the theological inadequacy of “Arian” doctrine and to induce an affective disgust at its “impiety” is summed up in Athanasius's stated goal in the treatment of anti-Nicene theology in these Orations: “to reveal the stink of its foolishness.”

Text

1:1. It has become evident that all the heresies which have turned aside from the truth were manufacturing madness, and their impiety (asebeia) has become manifest to all long ago. For the fact that the inventors of these heresies have “gone out from among us” (1 Jn 2:19) makes clear, as the blessed John has written, that their minds neither were nor are now with us. Therefore, as the Savior has said, “they do not gather with us but scatter” with the devil (Lk 11: 23), and they are on the lookout for those who are sleeping so that, by sowing their own poison of destruction, they may have companions to die with them. But this one heresy, called the Arian, which is the last and which has now emerged as forerunner of the Antichrist, being deceitful and cunning and seeing that the other heresies which are its elder siblings have been openly denounced, hypocritically shrouds itself in the language of the Scriptures, as did its father the devil (cf. Mt 4:1ff.), and forces itself again into the paradise of the Church, so that, by pretending to be Christian, it may deceive some to turn their minds against Christ by the persuasiveness of its false reasonings—for it lacks any good sense. And it has already deceived some of the foolish, so that they are not only corrupted by hearing, but they take and eat like Eve (Gen 3:6), and finally, in their ignorance, they come to consider the bitter as sweet (Isa 5:20) and they say of this disgusting heresy that it is good. Therefore, urged by you, I have considered it necessary to pierce through the “folds of the breastplate” (Job 41:5) of this loathsome heresy, and to reveal the stink of its foolishness, so that those who are far from it may continue to flee it, while those who have been deceived by it may repent and, opening the eyes of their hearts (Eph 1:18), may understand that just as light is not darkness, nor falsehood truth, so neither is the Arian heresy good. Indeed, those who call these people “Christians” are greatly and seriously deceived, as not having studied the Scriptures and not knowing at all what is Christianity and the Christian faith.

Selection 2:Against the doctrine that the word is changeable by nature (Or. Ar. 1:35–51)

The second selection (Oration against the Arians I:35–51) is concerned with the various scriptural texts that “Arian” theologians have used to argue the view that the Son is by nature changeable (treptos) and alterable (Phil 2:9–10 and Ps 45:7– 8). This appears to be among the original teachings of Arius. The Encyclical Letter of Alexander of Alexandria reports Arius as asserting that the Son “is changeable and alterable in his being like all rational beings,” while Arius's own Thalia clarifies that while the Son is “changeable by nature,” he freely chooses to be good and it was in anticipation of this consistent choice that God proleptically bestowed glory upon the Son. Alexander himself responded with an emphatic assertion that the Son is “unchangeable and inalterable like the Father,” an affirmation echoed by the Synod of Antioch of 325, while the Council of Nicaea anathematized those who held that the Son is “a creature or alterable or changeable” (ktistos ētreptos ēalloiōtos).

It has been argued that this emphasis on the changeability of the Son is part of a soteriological focus on the Son as an exemplary model for human salvation. While such a soteriological application might indeed have been derived from this teaching, it does not seem likely that a soteriological motive simply generated such a teaching. Its provenance, however, becomes intelligible once it is placed in the framework of Origen's theological system. Origen maintained that the Son/Word/Wisdom of God is “unalterable and unchangeable,” since “every nature which is alterable and changeable…cannot be said to possess a glory that is sincere and bright, by reason of the fact that its righteousness and wisdom are accidents, and whatever is accidental may also be separated and lost.” When he turns to the treatment of rational beings, however, Origen is strenuously concerned to maintain that the status and condition of each is not dictated by God's arbitrary will but is providentially arranged by God in accordance with the merits of each. In short, for Origen, “there is none among rational creatures who is not capable of both good and evil except the nature of God” (ibid, I, 8, 3). Moreover, Origen's Christology places considerable emphasis on Christ's human soul, which is conceived as one of the souls of the intelligible realm which surpassed all others in clinging to the Word with unbroken ardor. This soul was assumed by the Word in preparation for the Incarnation. Maintaining his stress on the correspondence between divine gift and human merit, Origen insists that “the taking up of his soul was not accidental or due to personal preference, but… a privilege conferred upon it as a reward for its virtues” (ibid, II, 6, 4). He gives scriptural proof for the rightness of his view by citing Ps 45:7: “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” Origen is careful, however, not baldly to characterize the soul of Christ as changeable. Although indeed changeable by nature, it consistently chose the good, and thus “what formerly depended upon the will was by the influence of long custom changed into nature” (ibid, II, 6, 4). Once these fundamental elements of Origen's system are seen in the background, the doctrine of the changeable nature of the Son becomes readily comprehensible. If the Son is created, his nature must be alterable, as is the case with all rational beings. The unparalleled prerogatives of the Son are therefore the proleptically bestowed reward for his merits. The phrases used by Origen to indicate the correspondence between the free acts of rational beings and divine providential design (i.e. “prize of virtue,” “reward for progress”) recur in the language reported by Athanasius to have been used by Arius and his supporters in reference to Christ. Yet Athanasius, for his part, also could draw on the Origenian legacy inasmuch as Origen clearly attributed immutability to the Word and the Spirit. Furthermore, Athanasius could draw on Origen's association of creaturely mutability with instability and insecurity to underline his own soteriological teaching that our salvation is definitively secured only if it is ultimately anchored in the immutability of the fully divine Word. But since the main terrain of battle are the Scriptures themselves, Athanasius's predominant mode of offensive is to reinsert “Arian” doctrinal statements into the language of Scripture: i.e. how can the changeable Son be completely in the unchangeable Father (cf. Jn 14:10)? Conversely, he labors to interpret the various scriptural texts in light of the overall Christological plot and goal (skopos) of Scripture, which is characterized by the divine condescension of the Word effecting human exaltation and not, as he construes the Arian version, by the promotion of the Word himself through humanity.

Text

1:35. As to their discussion about whether the Word is changeable (treptos), that is something which hardly requires investigation. It suffices for me merely to write down what they say in order to show the boldness of their impiety (asebeia). They vent their nonsense by asking these questions: “Does he have free will or not? Is he good by choosing to be good through his free will and so is able to change, if he wills it, as one who is changeable by nature? Or is he like a rock or a piece of wood, not having a choice that is free to be moved and to incline toward this or that?” Indeed, it is not inconsistent with their heresy to say and think these things. For once they have fashioned for themselves a god out of nothing and a created Son, it follows that they would compile for themselves these little phrases that are suitable for a creature. But since they fight against those who belong to the Church and even when they hear from them about the one true Word of the Father still dare to say these things about him, who can find anything more disgusting than their doctrine? Who would not be greatly disturbed merely to hear these things, even if one were unable to reply to them? Who would not shut his ears in astonishment at the vain things which they say, the very mention of which is blasphemy?

For if the Word is changeable and alterable (treptos kai alloioumenos) where will he end up and what kind of end will there be to his progress? Or how can the changeable be like (homoios) the unchangeable? And how can the one who has seen the changeable be considered to have seen the Unchangeable (cf. Jn 14: 9)? Or what level should he come to in order that one can see the Father in him? Clearly, one will not always see the Father in him, since the Son is always changing, and is changeable by nature. For the Father is unchangeable and inalterable, and is forever identical and the same. Whereas, if the Son is changeable, according to them, and is not always the same but rather is always alterable by nature, how can such a one be the “Image” of the Father, if he lacks the likeness of the Father's unchangeability? Or how can he be wholly “in the Father” (Jn 14:10) if he has a faculty of choice that is ambivalent in its inclination? Perhaps, since he is alterable and advances every day, he is not yet perfect! But let such madness of the Arians be banished; let the truth shine out and show that they are senseless. For how can what is not perfect be “equal to God” (Phil 2:6; cf. Jn 5:18)? Or how can he not be unchangeable who is “one with the Father” (Jn 10:30) and who is the Father's Son and belongs (idios) to his essence? For, since the Father's essence is unchangeable, the proper (idion) offspring from that essence would also be unchangeable. But if they falsely ascribe change to the truly existent Word and Reason (Logos) let them know that their own reason is in danger! For “the tree is recognized by its fruit” (Mt 12: 33), and so the one who “has seen the Son has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) and the knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father.

36. Therefore, the Image of the unchangeable God has to be unchangeable, “for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). David sings of him, saying “You, Lord, in the beginning established the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish but you remain. They will all grow old like a cloth; and like a garment you will fold them up and they will be changed. But you are the same and your years will not fade” (Ps 102:26–28, Heb 1:10–12). The Lord himself says of himself through the prophet: “Behold me; Behold that I am” (Deut 32:39), and “I do not change” (Mal 3:6). Even if it can be said that this passage signifies the Father, it still befits the Son to say these words, especially because when he became human, he showed his unvarying identity and his unchangeableness to those who considered him to have changed on account of his flesh, and to have become something else. So the saints, or rather the Lord, are more reliable than the perversity of the impious. For Scripture, according to what is said in the psalm above, declares all things that come to be and all of creation (for this is what is signified by “heaven and earth”) as having a nature that is changeable and alterable. But it excludes the Son from these and shows that he is not at all one of those that come to be (genēton), teaching rather that it is he who changes all things and is not himself changed, saying, “But You are the same and your years will not fade” (Ps 102:28, Heb 1:12). And this is aptly said; for things which are originated (genēta) and which are from non-being and do not exist at all before they come to be have a nature that is alterable—since they are not, then come to be. But the Son, being from the Father and belonging (idios) to his essence, is inalterable and unchangeable as the Father himself. For it is improper to say that from the essence of the Unchangeable there comes to be a changeable Word and an alterable Wisdom.

For how is he still the Word if he is changeable? Or how is that which is alterable still Wisdom? Unless, as they like to construe it, it is perhaps like an accident in a substance, as if it were a certain grace or habit of virtue which is accidental to a particular substance and which in this way is called word and son and wisdom, as if it could be subtracted and added. They conceive such things and have said them often! But this is not the faith of Christians. Nor does this conception proclaim him as the one who is truly Word and Son of the Father, nor the Wisdom which is true Wisdom. For how can that be true which changes and alters and does not stand in one and the same state? But the Lord says, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6). If then the Lord himself says this about himself and shows his inalterability, while the saints have learned it also and give witness to it— indeed, even our conceptions of God provide us with the knowledge that this is the pious course—from where did these impious people conceive such inventions? They have vomited them out of their hearts, as if from corruption itself (cf. 2 Pet 2: 12).

37. But since they make a pretext out of the divine sayings and violently distort them to accommodate their own minds, it has become necessary to respond to them to the extent of vindicating the sayings of Scripture and showing that these have a right sense, while it is they who understand them badly. They say that it is written by the apostle, “Therefore God has highly exalted him, and has given him a name above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil 2:9, 10). And it is written by David, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your partners” (Ps 45:8, Heb 1:9). Then they press their point, as if they were saying something clever: “If he was ‘therefore’ exalted and received grace and he was ‘therefore’ anointed, then he received a reward as a consequence of his deliberate choice. Thus, having acted through deliberate choice, his nature is altogether changeable.” Eusbeius and Arius have not only dared to say these things but also to write them, and their followers have not drawn back from saying them in the middle of the marketplace, oblivious of the insanity of what they are saying. For if he received what he had as a reward for his deliberate choice, and did not have possession of it except by showing forth the work of the one who gave to him, and thus came into the possession of it through virtue and advancement, then it follows that he is called Son and God on account of these things which he received, and is not true Son. For a true offspring is from another according to nature, as Isaac was in relation to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and as the radiance is to the sun. But those who attain to that status through virtue and grace are only called so; instead of nature, they have the grace of receiving and they are other than what is given to them. Such is the case with those who receive the Spirit by participation, of whom it is said, “I have begotten sons and exalted them but they have rebelled against me” (Isa 1:2). Of course, since these were not sons according to nature, when they changed, the Spirit was withdrawn from them and they were disowned. On the other hand, when they repent, God, who at the beginning had given them grace, will receive them again and grant them light and call them sons.

38. If, however, they speak in this way about the Savior also, it will turn out that he is not true God nor true Son, nor is he like the Father, nor does he have God in any way as the Father of his being, according to essence, but only by a grace given to him and thus, as far as essence, he would have God as the Creator of his being, as do all other things. If so, it will be apparent furthermore that he did not possess the name of “Son” from the beginning—if indeed he came into possession of that name as a reward for the works that he accomplished and as a consequence of that advance which he gained only when he became a human being and “took the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7). For it was when he “became obedient unto death” (Phil 2:8), that it says he was “highly exalted” (Phil 2:9) and received as a grace that name, “so that in the name of Jesus every knee may bend” (Phil 2:10). What then was he before this, if he was only exalted and began to be worshipped and to be called “Son” when he became a human being? It would seem that rather than having advanced the flesh, it was he himself who was advanced through the flesh, if indeed, according to their malicious thinking, it was only when he became human that he was exalted and called “Son.” But then what was he before this? It is necessary to address the question to them yet again, so that the final consequence of their impiety may be made evident. For if the Lord is God, Son, and Word—and yet he is none of these things prior to his becoming human—then either he was something else other than these things and later acquired participation in them on account of his virtue, as we have said, or else (may this fall back upon their own heads!) they must say that he did not exist before becoming human, but is simply human by nature and nothing more. But this is not the mind of the Church, but of the Samosatene and of the present-day Jews.

If they hold to these views, why do they not become circumcised like the Jews? Why do they make a pretense of Christianity, while in fact they are hostile to it? For if he did not exist prior to becoming human—or even if he did exist but was promoted later— how is it that “all things were made through Him,” and “in him” (cf. Col 1:16, Jn 1:3)? Or how is it that the Father delighted in him (cf. Prov 8:30), if he was not perfect? And if he has only been promoted now [that he has become human], how is it that before then he “rejoiced in the presence” of the Father (ibid)? If he received worship only after death, how is it that Abraham appears worshipping him in the tent (Gen 18:2) and Moses in the bush (Ex 3:6)? Indeed, as Daniel saw, “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands were ministering to him” (Dan 7:10). If, according to them, he only now attained advancement, how is it that he makes mention of his own glory that was before the world and transcends the world? For the Son himself said, “Glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you before the world was” (Jn 17:5). If, according to them, he is only now exalted, how is it that, before {his becoming human}, he “bowed the heavens and descended” (Ps 18:10) and, again, “The Most High bestowed his voice” (Ps 18:14)? Therefore, if even before the world came to be, the Son possessed glory, and was both “Lord of Glory” (1 Cor 2:8) and “Most High,” and descended from heaven, and is always to be worshipped, then he was not promoted on account of having descended but rather he himself promoted those things which were in need of advancement. And if he descended to accomplish the grace of their advancement, then he did not come to be called “Son” and “God” as a reward, but rather he himself made us sons for the Father and divinized human beings when he himself became a human being.

39. So he was not a human being and later became God. But, being God, he later became a human being in order that we may be divinized. For if he was called Son and God when he became a human being, and yet before he became human God called the ancient people “sons” and Moses referred to the Pharaoh as “God” (Ex 7:1) and Scripture says of many, “God is in the assembly of the gods” (Ps 82:1), then it is clear that he was called “Son” and “God” after all these. But how then were “all things through him” (Jn 1:3, Col 1:16) and “he was before all things” (Col 1:17)? Or how is he “the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1: 15) when there were others before him who were called “sons” and “gods”? And how is it that those who were first in their participation in divinity did not have participation in the Word? Such a supposition is not true; it is a false invention of these present-day Judaizers. For in that case, how could anyone at all have come to know God as Father, since there is no adoption apart from the true Son, who says himself, “No one knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son reveals him” (Mt 11:27).

How then can there be deification without the Word and before him, when he himself says to their brothers, the Jews: “If he calls these gods, to whom comes the Word of God…” (Jn 10:35). But if all who are called sons and gods, whether on earth or in the heavens, are adopted and deified through the Word, while the Son himself is the Word, then it is clear that all is through him, and he himself is before all. Or rather, he alone is the true Son and he alone is “true God from true God,” not by receiving these titles as a reward for virtue nor as being himself other than them, but as being these things by nature and essence. For he is the offspring of the Father's essence. Therefore, no one should doubt that, in accordance with his likeness to the unchangeable Father, the Word also is unchangeable.

40. Up to this point, we have countered their irrational fabrications by providing correct conceptions about the Son, as the Lord himself has granted us. But, for the remaining, it would be good to set before us the divine sayings, in order to demonstrate even more conclusively the unchangeableness of the Son and his inalterable nature, which is that of the Father—and, by contrast, their perversity.

The Apostle, writing to the Philippians, says, “Have this attitude among yourselves, which is in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant and came in the likeness of human beings. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and granted him a name which is above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:5–11). What can be clearer and more evident than this? He did not become greater, as one who was lesser; but, rather, being God, “he took the form of a servant” and in the taking of it, he was not advanced but rather humbled himself. So where then is their “reward of virtue,” or what kind of promotion and advance is there in humiliation? For if he is God, and became human, and, having descended from the heights, is said to be exalted, to where is he exalted, since he is God? For it is clear that if God is Most High, necessarily so is his Word the Most High. So where can he be exalted higher—he who is in the Father (Jn 10:38) and “like the Father in all things (homoios kata panta)”? Therefore he has no need for any gain and is not as the Arians presume him to be. For even if the Word descended in order to be exalted—and these things are written in the Scriptures—how was he in any need at all of humbling in order to seek to receive what he already had? Or, what kind of grace did he receive, who is the giver of grace? Or how did he, who is forever to be worshipped in his own name, receive the name to which worship is due? Indeed, before he became human, the holy ones called upon him, saying, “O God, in your name, save me” (Ps 54:3). And again, “Some exult in chariots and some in horses, but we in the name of the Lord our God” (Ps 20:8). And he was worshipped by the Patriarchs, while it is written of the angels, “Let all the angels of God worship Him” (Heb 1: 6).

41. And if, as David sings in the seventy-first psalm, “His name endures, before the sun and before the moon, from generation to generation” (Ps 72:17), how did he receive what he forever had, even before his receiving it now? Or, how is he exalted, being the Most High before he was exalted? Or how did he receive the prerogative of being worshipped? For before having received it now, he was forever worshipped. This is not a riddle but a divine mystery! “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1); but, later, for our sakes, “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). And to refer to him now as “highly exalted” is not to signify that the essence (ousia) of the Word is exalted. For he always was and is “equal to God” (Phil 2:6; cf. Jn 5: 18); but the exaltation pertains to the humanity. These things were not said of him before but only when the Word became flesh, so that it may be evident that “humbled” (Phil 2:8) and “exalted” (Phil 2:9) are spoken of the humanity. For it is the one of humble status who may undergo an exaltation. And if “humbled” is written of him on account of his taking flesh, it is clear also that “highly exalted” is on the same account. For humanity was in need of this exaltation because of the lowliness of the flesh and because of death. Therefore, since he is the Image of the Father and Immortal Word, “He took the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7) and, for our sakes, as a human being, he suffered death in his own flesh, so that through death, he may thus offer himself for our sakes to the Father. Therefore, as a human being, he is said to be “highly exalted” because of us and for our sakes, so that, as in his death “we all have died” in Christ (2 Cor 5:14), so also in this same Christ we again may be “highly exalted” and, being raised from the dead, we may ascend into heaven, “where Jesus has entered as a forerunner, for our sakes” (Heb 6:20), not “into the figures of true realities but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God, for our sakes” (Heb 9:24). But if now Jesus has entered into heaven itself for our sakes, even though, before this occurred, he is forever Lord and Creator of the heavens, then the “being exalted” is here written for our sakes. And, as he himself sanctifies all things and yet says to the Father that he sanctifies himself for our sake (Jn 17:19)—not in order that the Word may become holy but in order that he may make us all holy in himself— thus also it is now said that ”{God} highly exalted him,” not so that he himself may be exalted, for he is Most High, but in order that he may “become righteousness” for us (cf. 1 Cor 1:30), and so that we may be exalted in him and enter through the gates of the heavens, which he himself has reopened for us, as the forerunners have said, “Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, O everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall enter” (Ps 24:7). For in this case also, these gates were not shut on him who is the Lord and Maker of all things, but this too is written for our sakes, against whom the door of Paradise was closed shut. Therefore, it is with respect to the humanity, because of the flesh that he carried, that it is said of him, “Lift up {the gates}”; and it is said, “He shall enter,” referring to his entrance as a human being. On the other hand, with respect to the divinity, since “the Word is God” (Jn 1:1), it is said of him that he is the Lord and “King of glory” (Ps 24:7). In the eighty-eighth psalm, the Spirit proclaimed beforehand this same exaltation which has transpired for us, saying: “And in your righteousness they shall be exalted, for you are the boast of their strength” (Ps 89:17). But if the Son is righteousness, then it is not he himself who is exalted as being in need of exaltation, but it is we who are exalted in the righteousness which he is (cf. 1 Cor 1:30).

42. And also, “He gave to him” (Phil 2:9) is not written in reference to the Word himself. For, as we have said, even before he became human he was worshipped by the angels (cf. Heb 1:6) and by all creation, inasmuch as he belonged to the Father. But, again, this is written about him because of us and for our sakes. For just as Christ died and was exalted as a human being, so it is as a human being that he is said to “receive” what he possessed forever as God, in order that the giving of such grace may reach us. For the Word was not lessened by his taking a body, so that he would seek to receive grace, but rather he divinized what he put on, and, what's more, he gave this to the human race. For as he is worshipped forever, being Word and “in the form of God” (Phil 2:6), so also, being what he is, while becoming a human being and being called “Jesus,” he nevertheless has the whole creation “under his feet” (cf. 1 Cor 15:27), bending the knees to him in this name (cf. Phil 2:10) and “confessing” (Phil 2:11) that the Word has become flesh (Jn 1:14) and has undergone death in the flesh, not to the detriment of the glory of his divinity, but “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2: 11). For it is the Father's glory that humanity, made and then lost, should be found again, and having died, should be made to live again and to become “the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16). And this is the grace and the exaltation that has come to us: that even the angels and archangels who forever worship the Word, and who worship him now “in the name of Jesus” the Lord, continue to worship the Son of God who has become human, and the heavenly powers are not astonished to see all of us, who are joined to his body, enter into their realms. And this indeed could not have happened unless the one who was “in the form of God had taken the form of a servant and humbled himself to the point of death” (Phil 2:6–8) by yielding up his body to death.

43. See then that what people consider to be the “foolishness of God” (1 Cor 1: 25), through the cross has become more honorable than all things, for our resurrection is “stored up” (Col 1:5) in the cross. Henceforth, as the prophet had spoken beforehand, not only Israel but all the nations have abandoned their idols (cf. Tob 14:6), and acknowledge the true God, the Father of Christ, while the illusion of demons is dissipated and only the real God is worshipped in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, even when the Lord came to be in the body and was called Jesus, he was still worshipped and believed in as the Son of God, through whom the Father was known. This makes it clear, as has been said, that it is not the Word, as Word, who received the grace of exaltation, but us. For we have become “the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16) through kinship with his body and henceforth have been made into “sons of God” (Gal 3:26), so that already the Lord is worshipped even in us, and those who see us “proclaim,” as the apostle said, “that truly God is in their midst” (1 Cor 14:25). As John also says in the Gospel, “To as many as received him, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). And in the epistle, he writes, “By this we know that he remains in us, through his Spirit which he gave us” (1 Jn 3:24). It is a manifestation of the goodness that has come to us from him, that we ourselves are exalted on high through the Most High Lord being in us, and grace is given through us because the Lord who is the giver of grace has become a human being for our sakes. But, as for the Savior, he “humbled himself” (Phil 2:8) by taking “our lowly body” (Phil 3:21) and received “the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7), putting on the flesh that had become enslaved by sin (cf. Rom 8:3). It was not he who attained an advancement from us, for the Word of God is full and without need. Rather, it is we who were promoted through him. For he is “the light which enlightens every person who comes into the world” (Jn 1:9).

So it is useless for the Arians to lean upon that conjunction, “therefore,” just because Paul said, “Therefore God highly exalted Him” (Phil 2:9). When Paul said this, he was not alluding to any prize for virtue, nor to an advancement of progress, but he was signifying the cause of the exaltation that has come to us. And what is this cause, except that he who is “in the form of God” (Phil 2:6) and is the Son of the noble Father “humbled himself” (Phil 2:8) and became a servant on our behalf and for our sakes? For if the Lord had not become a human being, we would not have risen from the dead by being loosed from our sins but would have remained dead beneath the ground. We would not have been exalted to the heavens, but would be lying prostrate in Hades. So it is because of us and for our sakes that it is said, “He was highly exalted,” and “He was given…” (Phil 2:9).

44. This, therefore, is what I consider to be the meaning of the passage and it is a very ecclesiastical meaning. Nevertheless, there is also a second way in which one may render the sense of this passage, saying the same thing in a parallel way. This is to say that it indicates not that the Word, as Word, is exalted —for, as has just been said above, he, like the Father (homoios to patri), is Most High— but refers rather to his resurrection from the dead, on account of his becoming human. Thus, upon saying, “He humbled himself unto death” (Phil 2: 8), there immediately follows, “Therefore, he highly exalted him” (Phil 2:9), with the intention of showing that while he is said to have died as a human being, nevertheless, being Life, he was exalted in the resurrection. “For he who has descended is the same as he who has ascended” (Eph 4:10). For he descended bodily; but he ascended because he was God himself in the body. And it is again for this reason that he added the conjunction “therefore,” in keeping with the same sense, not to indicate a “reward for virtue” nor a progress, but to demonstrate the cause why the resurrection took place, and on account of which all other people from Adam until now have died and remained dead (cf. 1 Cor 15: 22), while he alone rose as whole from the dead. And this cause, as he previously said, is that, being God, he became human. For all other people who are merely from Adam have died and have had “death ruling” over them (Rom 5:14). But he is the “second human being from heaven” (1 Cor 15:47), for the “Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Such a one is said to be “a human being from heaven” (1 Cor 15: 47) and “heavenly” (1 Cor 15:48) because the Word “descended from heaven” (Jn 6:38), and so he was not “subject to the power of death” (Acts 2:24). And although he “humbled himself’ (Phil 2:8) by giving up his own (idion) body to death, since it was susceptible to death, nevertheless he was “highly exalted” (Phil 2:9) and raised up from the earth, since he was the Son of God in the body.

So what is said here, “Therefore God has highly exalted him,” is equivalent to what is said in the Acts by Peter, “He whom God raised, having loosed him from the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by its power” (Acts 2:24). As it is written by Paul, “Since, being in the form of God, he became human and humbled himself to death, therefore God has highly exalted him” (Phil 2:6, 8, 9), so it is said by Peter, “Since, being God, he became human, and signs and wonders proved him to eyewitnesses to be God, therefore ‘it was not possible for him to be held by the power of death’” (cf. Acts 2:22–24). But this achievement is not possible for a human being, for death is proper to human beings. Because of this, the Word, being God, became flesh, so that “having been put to death in the flesh” (1 Pet 3:18), he might “enliven all” (1 Cor 15:22) by his own power.

45. But, since it is said that he was “exalted” (cf. Phil 2:9, Jn 3:14), and that God “gave” to him (Phil 2:9), and so the heretics consider this to indicate a deficiency or passibility of the essence of the Word, it is necessary to say in what sense these things are spoken. He is said to be highly exalted “from the lower regions of the earth” (Eph 4:9) because the death is said to be his. Both events are spoken of as his, since the body that was highly exalted and raised up from among the dead and also taken up into heaven, was his and not another's. Since the body was his, and was not external to the Word, it is fitting that when the body was highly exalted, he himself, as a human being, is said to be highly exalted on account of the body. If he had not become human, these things would not have been said of him. But if “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), it is necessary that both the exaltation and the resurrection are referred to him, as a human being, so that the death which is said to be his may be a ransom for the sins of human beings and an abolishment of death, and so that the resurrection and exaltation may be rendered secure for us through him. He has said both these things of him, “God highly exalted Him,” and “God gave to him,” in order to show that it is not the Father who has become flesh, but it is his Word who has become a human being, “receiving” humanly from the Father, and “highly exalted” by him, as has been said. But it is clear, and no one would doubt it, that what the Father gives, he gives through the Son. And what is wonderful and truly astounding is that the Son himself is said to have received the grace which he gives from the Father, and to be himself “highly exalted” by the same exaltation which he effects and grants from the Father. For he who is the Son of God became himself the Son of Man. As Word, he gives from the Father, for all that the Father makes and gives he makes and grants through the Son. But, as Son of Man, he is said to receive humanly what is from himself, on account of the body being not another's but his own, and having the nature which receives grace, as has been said. For he received the humanity in such a way as to grant it exaltation and this exaltation was its deification. But the Word himself was forever in possession of this, according to his own divinity and perfection, which are of the Father.

46. This is the meaning of what is written by the apostle and it serves to refute the impious. On the other hand, what the psalmist says also has the same right meaning, which they distort, but which the psalmist shows to be pious (eusebē). For he says, “Your throne, O God, is for ages of ages. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of rectitude. You have loved righteousness and hated unrighteousness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your partners” (Ps 45:7–8). Look, you Arians, and acknowledge the truth that is found here. The psalmist says that we are all partners and partakers of the Lord. But if he were “from non-being” and was one of those who come into being, he himself would have been one of those who participate. But since the psalmist hymned him as Eternal God, saying, “Your throne, O Lord, is unto the age of ages,” whereas he has made it clear that all other things participate in him, what should one possibly think but that he is other than things that come to be, and is rather the One True Word, Radiance, and Wisdom of the Father, of which all things that come to be participate and are sanctified, in the Spirit? Therefore, he is here “anointed” not so as to become God, for he was God before this; nor in order to become king, for, as the verse shows, he was reigning forever, being the “Image” of God (2 Cor 4:4, Col 1:15). But again, this is written for our sakes. For, in the case of the Israelite kings, they became kings when they were anointed, as happened to David and Hezekiah and the others, and they were not kings before then. The Savior, on the contrary, being God, and forever ruling the kingdom of the Father, and being himself the supplier of the Spirit, is nevertheless now said to be anointed by the Spirit, so that, being said to be anointed as a human being by the Spirit, he may provide us human beings with the indwelling and intimacy of the Holy Spirit, just as he provides us with exaltation and resurrection.

The Lord himself provides this meaning when he says, in his own person, in the gospel according to John: “I have sent these into the world, and I sanctify myself for their sakes, that they may be sanctified by the truth” (Jn 17:18–19). By saying this he showed that he was not the one who is sanctified but the one who sanctifies. For he is not sanctified by another, but he sanctifies himself, in order that we may be sanctified in the truth. But the one who sanctifies himself is the Lord of sanctification. How does this happen? How does he speak the way he does, except as if to say, “I, being the Word of the Father, give the Spirit to myself, having become a human being. And, in the Spirit, I sanctify myself, having become human, so that henceforth all may be sanctified in me by the truth, ‘For your word is truth’ (Jn 17:17).”

47. But if it is for our sakes that he sanctifies himself, which he did when he became a human being, then it is quite clear that the descent of the Spirit upon him in the Jordan was a descent upon us, because of our body which he carried. This did not take place for the advancement of the Word but for our sanctification, so that we may share in his anointing and so that it may be said of us, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). For when the Lord was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, it was we who were made recipients of the Spirit by him. For this reason, he was not merely anointed with oil like Aaron and David and all the others. But altogether differently from “all his partners,” he was anointed with “the oil of gladness” (Ps 45:8, Heb 1:9), which he himself interprets to be the Holy Spirit, when he says, through the prophet: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” (Isa 61:1, Lk 4:18). Likewise, the apostle said, “As God anointed him with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 10:38). But when were these things said of him, except when he came in the flesh and was baptized in the Jordan and “the Spirit descended upon him” (Mt 3:17)? In fact, the Lord himself says to his disciples, “the Spirit will take from what is mine” (Jn 16:14), and “I will send him to you” (Jn 16:7) and “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22). And he who provides for others as Word and Radiance of the Father is nevertheless now said to be “sanctified” (Jn 17:19), because he has become human and the sanctified body is his own. Therefore we also have begun to receive from him the anointing and the seal, as John says: “You have an anointing from the Holy One” (1 Jn 2: 20); and the apostle says, “You were sealed by the Holy Spirit of the promise” (Eph 1:13). Therefore it is because of us and for our sakes that the Scriptures speak in this way.

So what kind of progress of advancement or “reward for virtue” or for any kind of conduct is indicated of the Lord here? For if he was not God and then came to be God; or if he was not king and was promoted to kingship, your talk would contain some semblance of persuasion. But if he is God, and “the throne of his kingdom is eternal” (Ps 45:7, Heb 1:9), then how can God have advancement? What was lacking to the one who was sitting on the Father's throne? But if, as the Lord himself has said, the Spirit is his and takes from him (Jn 16:14) and it is he who sends it (Jn 16:7), then it is not the Word, as Word and Wisdom, who is anointed by the Spirit which is given by him. But it is the flesh assumed by him that is anointed in him and by him, in order that the sanctification which came to be in the Lord as a human being may come to be in all human beings from him. For he says, “The Spirit does not speak on his own” (Jn 16:13); but it is the Word who gives the Spirit to those who are worthy. For this is like the passage mentioned above, in which the apostle has written: “Who being in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God something to grasp at, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6–7). Likewise, David hymns the Lord as the Eternal God and King who was sent to us and assumed our mortal body. He signifies this when he sings in the psalm: “Myrrh and aloes and cassia from your garments” (Ps 45:9); and this is indicated also by Nicodemus and the companions of Mary, when the one came carrying “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds” (Jn 19:39), and the others brought the spices which they had prepared for the burial of the Lord's body (Lk 24:1).

48. What kind of progress, then, is it for the Immortal to assume the mortal? Or what kind of advancement is it for the Eternal to put on the temporal? What kind of reward could be greater than being the Eternal God and King, who is in the bosom of the Father (Jn 1:18)? Do you not see that this also took place and is written because of us and for our sakes, so that the Lord, having become human, may grant immortality to us who are mortal and temporal and lead us into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? Do you not blush to lie and falsify the divine sayings? For when the Lord Jesus Christ came to dwell among us, it was we who were promoted, having been freed from sin (Rom 6:18). But he is the same and, to repeat again what I already said, he did not change because he became human. As it is written, “The Word of God remains forever” (Isa 40:8, 1 Pet 1:25). To be sure, just as before his becoming human, he was the Word who granted to the saints the Spirit as his own (idion), so also, upon his becoming human, he sanctifies all by the Spirit, and says to the disciples: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22). And he gave it also to Moses and to the seventy (Num 11:16). Through him, David also prayed to the Father, saying, “Do not take away your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps 51:13). And having become human, he said, “I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth” (Jn 15:26). And he did send it, for he is without falsehood, being the Word of God.

Therefore, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13: 8), remaining and not changing. And he is the same, both giving and receiving, giving as the Word of God, receiving as a human being. So it is not the Word, as Word, who is advanced. For he had all things and has all things forever. But it is human beings who now have the principle and origin of their receiving in him and through him. For now that he is said to be humanly anointed, it is we who are anointed in him. And because he is baptized, it is we who are baptized in him. The Savior makes clear all these things when he says to the Father: “And the glory which you have given to me, I have given to them, so that they may be one, as we are one” (Jn 17:22). So it is because of us that he is glorified (Jn 17:5) and because of us that it is said that “He took” (Phil 2:7) and “was anointed” (Ps 45:8) and “highly exalted” (Phil 2:9). It was so that we may receive, that we may be anointed, that we may be highly exalted in him, just as he sanctifies himself for our sakes, so that we may be sanctified in him (Jn 17:19).

49: But if, in order to suit their own wishes, they make a pretext for themselves because of the word “therefore,” when the psalm says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you” (Ps 45:8, Heb 1:9), let these amateurs in Scripture and experts in impiety understand that there also the word “therefore” does not signify any reward for the virtue or conduct of the Word. Rather, it again refers to the reason for his descent to us, and for the anointing of the Spirit which took place in him for our sakes. For he does not say, “Therefore he has anointed you to become God or King or Son or Word”; for he was this before then and is so forever, as has been shown. But rather, “Since you are God and King, ‘therefore’ you were anointed—since there was no other to join humanity to the Holy Spirit except you who are the Image of the Father, and according to whose image we were made in the beginning; for the Spirit also is yours.” The nature of things that come to be is not trustworthy for this task, for angels have transgressed, and human beings disobeyed. “Therefore” God was needed (and “the Word is God” (Jn 1:1)), so that he himself may free those who had come under the curse. If “he was from non-being,” he would not have been the Anointed “Christ” but would have been himself one among all the rest and himself “a partner”—one who participates. But since he is God, being the Son of God and Eternal King, and Radiance and Expression of the Father (Heb 1:3), “therefore” it is fitting that he is the awaited Christ whom the Father announces to humanity and reveals to the holy prophets, so that as we have come to be through him, so also there may come to be in him a redemption for all from sins, and so that all may be ruled by him. And this is the reason for the anointing which took place in him and for the incarnate presence of the Word, which the psalmist contemplates when he sings, on the one hand, of his divinity and paternal kingdom—crying out, “Your throne, O God, is unto the ages of ages. A scepter of rectitude is the scepter of your kingdom” (Ps 45:7, Heb 1:8)—and, on the other hand, he proclaims his descent to us when he says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your partners” (Ps 45: 8, Heb 1:9).

50. But what is so bewildering or unbelievable, if the Lord who gives the Spirit is now said himself to be anointed with the Spirit when, due to the pressing need, he did not shrink from speaking of himself as less than the Spirit, on account of his humanity? For when the Jews said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub” (Lk 8:15, Mt 12:24), he answered and said to them, in order to confute their blasphemy: “But if I cast out demons in the Spirit of God…” (Mt 12:28). Look, then, the Giver of the Spirit now says of himself that he casts out demons in the Spirit. But this was not said except on account of the flesh. Since the nature of human beings is not sufficient to cast out demons on its own but only by the power of the Spirit, therefore as a human being he said, “But if I cast out demons in the Spirit” (Lk 4:14, Mt 12:28). To be sure, he also signified that blasphemy directed at the Holy Spirit is worse than that directed against his humanity, saying, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man shall have pardon” (Mt 12:32)—like those who said, “Is he not the son of the carpenter?” (Mt 13:55). But those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and ascribe the works of the Word to the devil shall meet with inescapable retribution.

The Lord said such things to the Jews, as a human being. But to the disciples he showed his divinity and greatness; and no longer manifesting himself as less than the Spirit, he indicated rather that he was equal to the Spirit when he gave them the Spirit and said, “I will send him” (Jn 16:7) and “he will glorify me” (Jn 16:14) and “whatever he hears he will say” (Jn 16:13). As in that case, the Lord who is Giver of the Spirit did not shrink from saying, as a human being, that he “casts out demons in the Spirit” (Mt 12:28), so also in the same way, he who is the same Giver of the Spirit did not shrink from saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me” (Lk 4:18, Isa 61:1). He said this because of his having become flesh, as John says (Jn 1:14). In both cases, these things are said so that it may be shown that it is we who are both in need of the grace of the Spirit for sanctification, and who are powerless to cast out demons apart from the Spirit's power. But through whom and from whom should the Spirit have been given, if not through the Son whose Spirit it is? And, then again, when were we empowered to receive, if not when the Word became a human being? Just as the apostle's words indicate that we would not have been freed and “highly exalted” if it were not that “he who is in the form of God took the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6, 7), so also David shows that in no other way would we have partaken of the Spirit and been sanctified if it were not that the Giver of the Spirit, the Word himself, spoke of himself as anointed by the Spirit for our sakes. Therefore we have received securely (bebaiōs) in that he is said to be anointed in the flesh. The flesh was first sanctified in him and he is spoken of as having received through it, as a human being, and so we have the Spirit's grace that follows from his reception, receiving from his fullness (Jn 1:16).

51. As for the verse in the psalm that runs, “He has loved righteousness and hated injustice” (Ps 45:8), this does not show that the nature of the Word is changeable, as you think, but rather provides a direct indication of his unchangeableness. For the nature of things that come to be is changeable, and some have transgressed while others have disobeyed, as has been said, and their conduct is not stable (bebaia), but it is often possible that one who is now good changes later and becomes other than he was, so that one who was righteous up to now is found to be unrighteous a little later. Therefore there was a need for someone who was unchangeable, so that human beings might have that immutability as an image and archetype of virtue. This reasoning makes good sense for those who think rightly. For since Adam, “the first human being” (1 Cor 15:45) changed, and “through sin death entered into the world” (Rom 5:12), it was fitting that “the second” Adam (1 Cor 15:47) be unchangeable, so that even if the serpent were to attack again, it would be “the serpent's deceit” (cf. 2 Cor 11:3) itself which would be rendered ineffective. Since the Lord is unchangeable and unalterable, the serpent would become enfeebled in his attacks against all. For as when Adam transgressed, the deceit passed over “to all people” (Rom 5: 12), so when the Lord overpowered the serpent, such great power henceforth passed over to us to the point where each one of us can say, “We are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Cor 2:11). Therefore it is fitting that the Lord who is unchangeable forever and by nature, “loving righteousness and hating injustice” (Ps. 45:8), should be anointed and himself sent, so that, being and remaining the same while taking changeable flesh, “he may condemn sin in it” (Rom 8:3) and make it free henceforth to be able “to fulfill the righteousness of the law” in itself (Rom 8:4), so that we could say: “We are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God dwells in us” (Rom 8:9).

52. So in this case also, it is in vain, you Arians, that you conceive such a supposition and it is in vain that you use the words of the Scriptures as your pretext. For the Word of God is unchangeable and is forever the same; and not merely the same, but the same as the Father is. For otherwise how is he “like the Father”? Or how is it that all which belongs to the Father belongs to the Son (Jn 16:15, 17:10) if he does not have the Father's unchangeability and inalterability? But, in fact, he does not love one thing and hate the other by inclination to one side and as one who is subject to laws, as if he shuns the one out of fear of falling and so chooses the other, for in that case changeability would again be introduced. Rather, as God and Word of the Father, he is a just judge and lover of virtue; or rather, the giver of virtue. Therefore it is as being just and holy by nature that he is said to “love righteousness and hate injustice” (Ps 45:8), which is to say that he loves and chooses the virtuous, but hates and turns away the unjust. The divine Scriptures also say the same thing with regard to the Father: “The Lord is righteous and he has loved righteousness” (Ps 11:7) and “You have hated all those who work iniquity” (5:6) and “He loves the gates of Sion more than the dwellings of Jacob” (Ps 87:2) and “I have loved Jacob and hated Esau” (Mal 1:3), while in Isaiah the voice of the Lord again says, “I am the Lord who loves righteousness and hates the robbery of injustice” (Isa 61:8). Therefore, let them take the former words in the same sense as these latter, for the former also were written about the Image of God; or else, misunderstanding these latter words as well as those former, they will contrive the notion that the Father too is changeable. But if even to hear others say this is perilous, we think well if we understand that to speak of God as “loving righteousness and hating the robbery of injustice” is not to indicate that he inclines to the one side while being capable of the opposite, as if opting for the one and not choosing the other, for this is characteristic of things that come to be. Rather, it is as Judge that he loves and accepts the righteous and distances himself from the bad. Accordingly, we should think the same about the Image of God, that he loves and hates in this manner. For the nature of the image must be such as its Father, even if the blind Arians do not see this, nor anything else that is in the divine words. For when they are deprived of the conceptions, or rather misconceptions, of their hearts, they take refuge again in the words of the divine Scriptures, whose meaning they generally do not grasp in their insensibility. Rather, they place their own impiety (asebeia) as a kind of canon, according to which they subvert all the divine sayings. Upon the mere utterance of these things, they deserve to hear nothing but, “You are mistaken, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mk 12:24, Mt 22:29). And if they still persist, they should be shamed by hearing, “Render to human beings the things that are human and to God the things that are God's” (Lk 20:25, Mt 22:21).

Selection 3: Exegesis of Prov 8:22 (Or. Ar. 2:2, 2:3, 2:18–82)

The third selection from the Orations which is translated below provides Athanasius's treatment of the most controverted text of the Nicene controversy, Prov 8:22, where Wisdom says, “The Lord created (ektize) me as a beginning of his ways for his works.” The text had become a cornerstone of anti-Nicene theology and any defense of the doctrine of Nicaea had to contend with this biblical pronouncement that Wisdom was “created.” As one modern commentator puts it, “this text in Proverbs…was in the fourth century fought over by the theologians as in the Iliad the Greeks and Trojans fight over the body of Patroclus.” The same commentator goes on to point out that by the standards of contemporary biblical criticism, Athanasius would have been able “to dismiss the whole debate as a storm in a teacup because the text does not refer to Christ.” Of course, this option was not available to Athanasius or any of his contemporaries, who located the meaning of the text not so much in the conscious intention of the human author but in the objective reference to divine realities and to the economy of divine revelation that was placed in the biblical text by the Spirit. From the latter perspective, it was crucial for the early Christian understanding of the person of Christ to attend to the biblical identification of Jesus as divine Word, Wisdom, Power, etc. Indeed, for Athanasius's Alexandrian predecessor Origen, “Wisdom” was the most primary biblical designation for Christ. Once this identifica tion was accepted, it was to be applied consistently. So, if Wisdom says that she was “created,” this had to be somehow understood in reference to the (pre-existent) person of Christ. Athanasius's explication of this text again involves him in the work of attempting to show that the overall patterns of scriptural language identify the Word as God and not as a creature, and that the governing “plot” of Scripture involves “a double account of the Savior,” referring alternately to his divinity and humanity. Thus, he interprets Prov 8:22 in reference to the economy of the Incarnation, rather than to the divinity of the Word.

Text

2:2. If he is not Son, let him be called a work (poiēma). And let everything that is designated of works be applied also to him. And let it not be said of him alone that he is Son and Word and Wisdom. And let it not be said of God himself that he is Father, but merely maker and creator of the things which he brings into being. And let the creature be Image and Expression of his creative will. In accord with them, let not God be of a generative nature, so that there may be no Word nor Wisdom nor any Image at all of his own essence. For if he is not Son, then neither is he Image. But if there is no Son, how then do you say that God is Creator, if indeed it is through the Word and in Wisdom that everything that is made comes to be and without which nothing comes to be, and yet, according to you, God does not possess that in which and through which he makes all things (cf. Wis 9:2, Jn 1:3, Ps 104:20, 24)? But if, according to them, the divine essence itself is not fruitful but barren, like a light that does not shine and a fountain that is dry, how are they not ashamed to say that God has creative energy? Denying what is by nature, how can they not blush to wish to give precedence to what is by will? If God creates things that are external {to the divine essence} and at first were not, by willing them to be, and thus becomes their Maker, how much more is he first of all Father of an offspring from his own proper (idias) essence? For if they grant to God the willing of what is not, why do they not acknowledge of God what supersedes the willing? But what supersedes the willing is his bringing-forth and his being Father, by nature, of his own (idiou) Word. Therefore, if that which is first, which is according to nature, does not exist, according to their mindlessness, how can that which is second, which is according to will, come to be? But what is first is the Word, and the creation is second. Indeed the Word exists, whatever these impious ones dare to presume; for the creation “has come to be through him” (Jn 1:3).

It should be clear then that God, being Maker, has his creative Word not from outside but as proper (idion) to him—this must be repeated yet again. If, on the one hand, the willing belongs to him, and his will is productive and sufficient for constituting the things which come to be, and, on the other hand, his Word is producer and creator, then it is beyond doubt that this Word is the living will of the Father, and Essential Energy, and True Word, in whom also he constitutes and governs all things excellently. Indeed, no one should doubt at all that the One who arranges is prior to the arrangement and to the things that are arranged. So, as I have said, God's creating is second to his begetting. For the Son is proper to (idion) and truly from that blessed and everlastingly existent essence, whereas those things that are from the will have come to be constituted from outside {the divine essence}, and are made through his proper (idion) offspring, who is from {the essence}.

3. Now that our discourse has demonstrated the great absurdity of those who say that the Lord is not Son of God but a work, it is imperative that we should accordingly confess him to be Son. But if indeed he is Son, which he is, and it is acknowledged that a son is not from outside but from the one who begets him, let them not impose distinctions on the terms, as I have said before, even if the holy writers refer to the Word himself by saying “to the one who made him” (Heb 3:2), instead of “to the one who begot him.” The term is indifferent, in these cases, as long as the nature is confessed. For terms do not take anything away from the nature. Rather, the nature assimilates the terms to itself and transforms them. For terms do not precede essences, but the essences are first and terms are second to them. Therefore, when the essence is a work or a creature, then the words “he made” and “he became” and “he created” are spoken of it in a strict sense (kyriōs) and signify a work. But when the essence is an offspring and son, then the words “he made” and “he became” and “he created” are no longer applied to it in a strict sense and do not signify a work; in that case, the words “he made” are used indifferently from “he begot.” Thus, fathers often call the sons born of them “servants,” without thereby denying that they are their legitimate sons by nature. Often, too, they lovingly call their own servants “children,” without forgetting their original acquisition of them. In the first instance, they speak upon their authority as fathers; in the second, they lovingly name them so. Thus, Sarah calls Abraham “Lord” (1 Pet 3:6), although she is not a servant but a spouse. And the apostle adjoins Onesimus the servant to Philemon the Master as “brother” (Philem 16), while Bathsheeba, even though she is a mother, calls her son “servant,” saying to his father, “your servant Solomon” (1 Kings 1:19), after which Nathan the prophet entered and said the same thing to David: “Solomon, your servant” (1 Kings 1:26). But it was not an issue of any concern for them to speak of the son as a servant, for when David heard, he recognized the nature, just as those who were speaking were not ignorant of the legitimate sonship. Thus, they expected him whom they called “servant” to become his father 's heir; for he was David's son by nature.

18. Let us come next to an examination of the saying in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (Prov 8:22), even though once it has been shown that the Word is not made (poiēma), it is also shown that he is not a creature. For to say “made” and “creature” is the same thing; therefore, the proof of his not being made is the same as that regarding his not being a creature. So one may well be amazed at these people who invent pretexts for themselves, for the sake of impiety, and are not put to shame by the refutations marshaled against them on every side. First they contrived to trick those who are simple and guileless, enquiring of them: “Did the one-who-is make from non-being what existed or what did not exist?” and “Did you have a son before you begot him?” When that was shown to be fallacious, they invented this: “Is the Unbegotten one or two?” Then, being refuted in this also, they immediately concocted another: “Does he have free will and a changeable nature?” But being overcome on this score also, they again contrived to go around saying, “being made so much better than the angels” (Heb 1:4). Now that this also has been refuted by the truth, they have proceeded to gather all these things together, thinking to promote their heresy by “made” and “creature.” Yet they again mean all the other things that they said before and have not withdrawn from their perversities. They vary and alter the same things many times over so that if possible they can deceive some by this variety. Therefore, although what has been said before has amply demonstrated the foolishness of this invention of theirs, nevertheless, since they have created such a din everywhere with this saying from the Proverbs, and appear to be actually saying something to many who are ignorant of the Christian faith, it is necessary to examine the words, “being faithful to the one who made him” (Heb 3:2), as well as “he created” (Prov 8:22), in order to show that in this case, as in everything, they are in possession of nothing more than fantasy.

19. First, then, let us look at the responses they made to the blessed Alexander when they were devising their heresy in the beginning. They said in writing: “He is a creature, but not as one of the creatures. He is made, but as one of the things that are made. He is an offspring (gennēma) but not as one of the offsprings.” Let everyone see the villainy and deceit of this heresy! For, knowing the bitterness of its own malicious thinking, it strives to embellish itself with persuasive words. So, while it does in fact speak its mind in saying that he is a “creature,” it thinks that it can hide itself by saying, “but not as one of the creatures.” Nevertheless, in writing this, they have convicted themselves of their own impiety all the more. For if, according to you, he is altogether a creature like us, why do you say hypocritically, “but not as one of the creatures”? And if he is simply made, how is it that he is “not as one of the things that are made”?

In these phrases, one can see the poison of their heresy. For, in saying “offspring but not as one of the offsprings,” they conjure up many sons, and they assert that one of these is the Lord. So, according to them, he is no longer the only-begotten (monogenē) (cf. Jn 3:16, 1 Jn 4:9), but they call him “offspring” and “son” as one out of many brothers. What is the use of this pretense, then, of saying that he is a creature yet not a creature? Although you say, “not as one of the creatures,” this sophistry of yours will be shown to be without any sense. For you still say that he is one of the creatures and, as people who are truly “foolish and blind” (Mt 23:17), you attribute to the Son the things that one would say about the other creatures. For what kind of creature is there which is just what another is, that you can say this of the Son as if it made him exceptional? The whole visible creation came to be in six days: in the first, there was light, which he called day; in the second, the firmament; in the third, he gathered together the waters and displayed the dry land and brought out the various fruits in it; in the fourth, he made the sun and the moon and all the chorus of stars; in the fifth, he created the species of living things in the sea and of the birds in the air; in the sixth, he made the four-footed creatures which are upon the earth and finally, the human being (cf. Gen 1). “His invisible things are perceived through the creation of the world and understood by the things that are made” (Rom 1:20). Yet the light is not as the night, nor is the sun as the moon is, nor are irrational things as the rational human being. Neither are the angels as the thrones, nor are the thrones as the powers. Nevertheless all are creatures, though each of the things that have come to be exists and remains as it was made, “according to its kind” (Gen 1:11) and its proper being.

20. The Word, therefore, should be set apart from the things that are made. As creator, he should be restored to the Father and confessed to be Son by nature. Otherwise, if he is simply a creature, let it be confessed that he has the same rank which the other creatures share among themselves. Let it be said of each of these creatures also: “a creature but not as one of the creatures; an offspring or made but not as one of the offsprings and things that are made.” For you have said that an offspring and an object that is made (poiēma) are the same thing, writing, “begotten or made.” But even if the Son has a relative precedence over the others, he would still be none the less a creature, just as they are. For even among those who are creatures by nature, there is to be found those who have precedence over others; thus, “star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor 15:41) and everything else differs from the others when one makes comparisons. But that does not mean that some are lords and others do service to those who are superior; nor that some are efficient causes and others come to be through their agency. Rather, all have a nature which comes to be and is created, and they acknowledge, of themselves, their own creator. Thus David sings, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament proclaims the work of his hands” (Ps 19: 2). Likewise, Zorababel the wise man says, “All the earth calls on the truth, and the heaven blesses the truth, and all the works shake and tremble” (1 Esd 4:36). But if all the earth hymns and blesses and shakes before the Maker and the Truth, whereas its Maker is the Word, who says himself, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14: 6), then the Word is not a creature, but he alone belongs (idios) to the Father. In him all things are arranged in harmony, and it is he whose praises are sung by all things, as the Maker. As he himself says, “For I was arranging beside Him” (Prov 8:30); and “My father works until now and I work” (Jn 5:17). So the “until now” shows his eternal existence in the Father, as Word. For it belongs to the Word to work the works of the Father, and not to be external to him.

21. But if what the Father works, the Son also works, and what the Son creates is the creation of the Father, then if also the Son himself is a work and creature of the Father, it turns out that he makes himself and thus will be creator of himself (since the Father's works are also works of the Son), which is senseless and impossible. Otherwise, he is not a work nor a creature, being the Fashioner and Creator of the Father's creation. Or else, as an efficient cause {who is made}, he will cause it to come about that other things that are made are also {makers} like himself. But what is more to the point is that, in such a case, he would be incapable of causing anything. For if, according to you, “he has come to be from non-being,” how is he able to fashion into being what is not? But if, being a creature, he also fashions a creature, then the same conception will apply to every creature, that they are likewise able to create. If that is how you want it, what need is there for the Word, if inferior things come to be through the superior? Or else, each of the things which had come to be at the beginning would have been able to hear from God, “Become,” and “Be made,” and would be made in that way! But this is not what is written; neither was this possible. None of the things that have come to be is an efficient cause: “for all things have come to be through the Word” (Jn 1:3). The Word would not be maker of all things if he himself was one of the things created. For neither are angels able to create, being themselves creatures (even if Valentinus and Marcion and Basilides think such things and you have come to imitate them); nor will the sun, being a creature, ever make what is not into being; nor does a human being make a human being; nor does a stone conceive a stone; nor does a tree cause a tree to grow. But it is God who fashions the human being in the womb (Isa 44:24, Jer 1: 5) and fixes the mountain in place and gives growth to the tree (cf. 1 Cor 3:7). The human being, insofar as he is capable of knowledge, combines and remodels this material, according to his learning, and so makes things that already have being and is pleased to accomplish even that much. Recognizing his own nature, he knows how to ask God if he is in need of anything.

22. But if God is also considered to work and compose out of matter, that would be a Greek conception and in that case God would be called a craftsman and not a maker. But let us even suppose that the Word works upon matter, as one who is appointed to be at the service of God. It still remains the case that if God calls into existence what is not through his proper Word, then the Word is not one of the things that did not exist and were called. Otherwise, we would have to search for another Word, through whom this Word was called, for that which did not exist has come to be through the Word (cf. Jn 1:1). And if it is through the Word that God creates and makes, then the Word himself is not among the things that are created and made. Rather, he is the Word of the Creator God; and from the works of the Father, which the Word himself works, one recognizes that he is in the Father and the Father is in him (Jn 14:10–11) and that the one who has seen him has seen the Father (Jn 14:9) because of the identity of essence and the complete likeness of the Son to the Father. How, then, does the Father create through him if he were not his Word and Wisdom? And how can he be Word and Wisdom if he is not the proper offspring (idion gennēma) of the Father's essence but himself has come from non-being?

Indeed, since all things are created from nothing and, according to them, the Son is one of the created things that once were not, how is it that he alone reveals the Father and he alone and no one else knows the Father (Jn 6:46, 10:15)? If it is possible that he is made and yet knows the Father, then all things would know the Father, each according to their own measure; for all things are made, just as {you say that} he is. But if it is impossible for things that have come to be either to see or know the Father, since both his countenance and the knowledge concerning him transcend all things and God himself says, “No one will see my face and live” (Ex 33:20), whereas the Son has said, “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Mt 11:27), then the Word is other than those things which have come to be. He alone knows the Father and he alone sees the Father, as he has said, “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from the Father” (Jn 6: 46), and “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Mt 11:27), though Arius does not think so. So then how did he alone know the Father unless he alone properly belonged (idios) to the Father? And how did he belong to the Father as his very own if he was a creature and not true Son from the Father?

For the sake of piety, we cannot hesitate to say these things and to say them often. It is indeed impious to think that the Son is one among all. It is blasphemous and senseless to say, “a creature but not as one of the creatures; made but not as one of the things made; an offspring, but not as one of the offsprings.” How is he not one of them if, according to them, “he was not before he was generated”? For it is proper to things created and made not to be before they come to be and to come into subsistence from non-being, regardless of whether they surpass others in glory. For such distinctions will be found among all other creatures with respect to each other, as even visible things show.

23. However, if, according to the heretics, he was a creature or a work but “not as one of the creatures” because of his being distinguished from them in glory, then the Scriptures ought to have depicted and described him by favorable comparison to other works. They should have spoken of him, for example, as greater than the archangels and more honorable than the thrones and more radiant than the sun and moon, and greater than the heavens. Now, in fact, they do not depict him in this manner. Rather, the Father describes him as his own (idion) and only Son, saying: “You are my son” (Ps 2:7, Acts 13:33, Heb 1:5, 5: 5) and “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). Therefore the angels served him as one who is other than them. He is worshipped by them not as one who is greater in glory but as being other than them and other than all creatures and as the only one who is the Father's own (idios) Son by essence. If he was worshipped because he excelled in glory, then each of those who are inferior should worship the one who excels it. But it is not so. A creature does not worship a creature, but the servant worships the Master and the creature worships God. So Peter the apostle restrained Cornelius, who wished to worship him, saying “And I also am a man” (Acts 10:26). And, in the Apocalypse, the angel restrained John when he wished to worship him, saying “Do not! I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brothers the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God” (Rev 22:9). Therefore, only God is to be worshipped.

The angels themselves know this; they know that, even if they excel others in their glory, they are nevertheless all creatures and not to be worshipped but are among those who worship the Master. Thus the angel prevented Manoah, the father of Samson, when he wished to offer sacrifice to it, saying, “Do not make your offering to me but to God” (cf. Judg 13:16). But the Lord is worshipped even by the angels; for it is written: “And let all the angels of God worship Him” (Heb 1:6). And he is worshipped by all the nations, as Isaiah says: “The toil of Egypt, the gain of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, majestic men, will come over to you and will be your servants” (Isa 45:14), and then, “and they will bow down before you and say in prayer that God is in your midst and there is no other God” (ibid.). And he receives the disciples who worship him and assures them of who he is, saying, “Do you not call me ‘Lord and Teacher’? You speak well; for so I am” (Jn 13:13). And when Thomas calls him “my Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28), he lets him say it; instead of preventing him, he approves of him. For, as the other prophets say and as David sings, he is the “Lord of Hosts” (Ps 24:10) and “Lord of Sabaoth” (Isa 6:3), which means “Lord of the armies,” and “True God and Ruler of all” (3 Macc 6:18), even if this makes the Arians explode.

24. He would not be worshipped nor would these things be said of him if he were simply one of the creatures. But since in fact he is not a creature, but the proper (idion) offspring of the essence of the God who is worshipped and his Son by nature, he also, like the Father, is worshipped and believed in as God and is “Lord of the armies” and has authority and is ruler of all. For he has said: “All things that the Father has are mine” (Jn 16:15). Indeed, it is proper to the Son to have whatever belongs to the Father and to be such that the Father is seen in him (cf. Jn 12:45), and all things are made through him (cf. Jn 1:3) and in him the salvation of all things has both its genesis and content.

Moreover, in order that the refutation of their heresy may become still more apparent, it is good to ask them this also: If all things are creatures and all things have their subsistence from non-being, and the Son also, according to you, is a creature and a work and one of those that once were not, how is it that God has made all things through him alone and “without him not one thing came to be” (Jn 1:3)? Or why is it the case that when reference is made to “all things,” no one understands the Son as signified among the “all” but one restricts the reference to the things that have come into being? And why is it that when the Scriptures speak of the Word, they also do not conceive him as among the “all” but align him with the Father, as the one in whom the Father works the providence and salvation of all things? Yet surely all things were capable of coming into being through the same command by which he came into being “by God alone”! After all, God does not get tired when he commands nor is he weak in the face of the task of making all things, so that he “alone” would create the Son “alone” as if he is in need of the Son as an assistant and help in the making of others. Nor is there any delay when he wishes for something to come into being. He merely willed and all things existed and “no one has resisted his will” (Rom 9:19). So why is it that all things did not come into being by “God alone” through the command by which the Son came into being? Let them also say why it is that all things came to be through him, if he himself had an origin to his being. This is all just nonsense on their part.

Moreover, they say this about him: that God, wishing to create the nature of all the things that were to come into being, and seeing that such a nature would not be capable of withstanding his immediate hand and creative activity, first creates by himself only one, whom he calls “Son” and “Word,” so that the latter being thus a mediator, all things could finally be enabled to come into being through him. Eusebius and Arius and Asterius, the one who sacrificed, have not only said these things but have dared to write them.

25. When it comes to such conclusions, how could any of them fail to condemn the outcome of the impiety which they have concocted for themselves by mixing in a lot of nonsense and which they have now imbibed to the point where they do not blush to rail drunkenly against the truth? If it is because of the toil involved for God in the making of the other things that they say that he made only the Son, the whole creation will raise a protest against them for saying things that are unworthy of God, including Isaiah, who has written: “The Eternal God, who has fashioned the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary and his understanding is beyond scrutiny” (Isa 40:28). But if it is because of disdaining to make the others that God made only the Son, and handed over the {task of making the} others to the Son as to an assistant, then this also is unworthy of God; for there is no pride in God. The Lord shames them when he says: “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? And yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father who is in heaven?” (Mt 10:29). And again: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not better than they? Who among you by worrying can add to his life a single moment? And why do you worry about clothing? Learn from the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil or spin. But I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory dressed as one of those. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not do much more for you, you of little faith?” (Mt 6: 25–30). So if it is not unworthy of God to be provident even toward things so minor as the hair of the head and the sparrow and the grass of the field, neither is it unworthy of him to also make these things. Through his proper Word, he is the maker of those very things over which he exercises providence.

Moreover, an even greater absurdity presents itself to those who say these things. For they distinguish the things that are created from the creative activity and say that the creative activity is the work of the Father, while the creatures are the work of the Son. But either all things must be brought into being by the Father with the Son; or, if all the things that come into being come to be through the Son, then it must not be said of him also that he is one of the things that come into being.

26. Furthermore, one may refute their nonsense in this way: If the Word also is of an originated nature, and such a nature is incapable of withstanding the direct activity of God, how is it that the Word alone among all things was enabled to come into being by the uncreated and unmitigated essence of God, as you say? For it must be the case either that all were capable of this as he was capable of it; or all are incapable and so neither is the Word capable, since, according to you, he also is one of those whose being is originated. Yet again, if the nature of originated beings needs a mediator because it is not capable of partaking in the direct activity of God, then it is altogether necessary that the Word, as a creature whose being is also originated, also needs a mediator for his creation, for he too is one of those whose nature is originated and cannot partake of God's activity but has need of a mediator. And if a mediator is found for him, then there will again be need for another mediator. Thus one will extend and pursue the argument until one ends up with a great crowd of mediators pouring in from all sides. In this way the creation will be forever unable to exist because it needs a mediator and that mediator cannot come into being apart from another mediator, for all would be of that originated nature which, according to you, is incapable of partaking of the activity of God alone. How full of nonsense are these notions, through which they must arrive at the conclusion that the things which in fact did already come into being were incapable of coming into being! Or perhaps they imagine that these things have still not come into being because they are still seeking a mediator. According to their impious and foolish madness, the things which have come into being would not exist, since a mediator would always be lacking.

27. But they offer this pretense: “He led the people out of Egypt through Moses also and he gave the law through him, even though he was a human being. So then it is possible for things to come into being through what is like them.” It would have been proper for them to cover themselves when they say these things, so as not to bring upon themselves so much shame. Moses was not sent to create nor to call into being what was not and to fashion human beings like himself, but only to serve by speaking to the people and to Pharaoh. This is a very different matter. To serve is for those who have come into being; they are servants. But to make and create is for God alone and his own Word and Wisdom. Therefore, none other can be found for the work of creating than the Word of God alone, “for all things have come to be in wisdom” (Ps 104:24) and “apart from the Word not one thing came into being” (Jn 1:3). But for the work of service, there is not only one but many who are sent from among all and the Lord sends all those whom he wishes to send. So there are many archangels and many “thrones and powers and dominions” (Col 1:16), “thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads who stand and serve” (Dan 7:10), ready to be sent. There are also many prophets and twelve apostles and Paul. Even Moses himself was not alone but Aaron also was with him and with them the seventy others who were filled with the Holy Spirit (Num 11:25). And Moses was succeeded by Joshua the son of Nun; and Joshua was succeeded by the Judges; and they were succeeded by not one but many kings. Therefore, if the Son was a creature and among those who have come into being, then there should have been many such sons, so that God may have many such servants, just as there are many of those other servants. However, if this is not the case, but rather the creatures are many while the Word is one, who would not gather from this that the Son is set apart from all things and has no equality with creatures, but rather possesses identity (idiotēta) with the Father? Thus, there are not many words but only one Word of the one Father and one Image of the one God.

But “Look!” they say, “there is only one sun and one earth.” Senseless people! Let them say also that water is also one and fire is also one, and the response they will hear is that each of the things that come into being is one with respect to its own essence but none is of itself adequate and sufficient for the service and ministry entrusted to it: “For God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to illuminate the earth, and to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and days and years” (Gen 1:14). Then it says: “And God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. And he made the stars and placed them in the firmament of the heaven, that they may shed light upon the earth and govern the day and the night” (Gen 1:16–18).

28. So, you see, there are many lights and not the sun alone nor the moon alone. But while each is one insofar as each essence is one, they are all involved in a single and common service (leitourgia). The deficiency of one is fulfilled by the other, and the task of casting light is fulfilled by all. Thus the sun possesses the power of casting light only during the interval of the day, while the moon has such power during the night. Along with these the stars bring to completion the seasons and years, and each is “for a sign” (Gen 1:14) according to the requisite need. Thus also the earth is not for all things but only for plants and so as to be a ground for those who live upon it. And the firmament is for the division between water and water (Gen 1:7) and for the placing of stars therein. So also fire and water and all the other {elements} are for the constitution of bodies. In general, no one thing is simply alone; but all the things that have come to be are as “members of one another, so as to be one body” (cf. Rom 12:4–5), completing the universe. Therefore, if that is how they understand the Son to be, let them be smitten by all, since they consider the Word to be a part of “all things,” and thus a part that is not adequate to the service entrusted to it, apart from the others. But if this is obviously impious, let them recognize that the Word is not of those that come into being, but the only proper (idios) Word of the Father and maker of the things that come into being.

But they say: “Although he is a creature and of those that come into being, he has learned to create from the Master and Maker and thus has come to serve the God who taught him.” Asterius the Sophist, having himself learned to deny the Lord, has dared to write these things, incognizant of their absurdity. For if creating is something that is taught, let them watch out that they don't end up saying that God himself is Creator not by nature but by knowledge, so as to be capable of losing that knowledge. Then again, if the Wisdom of God has acquired the creative agency through teaching, how can it still be Wisdom if it is in need of learning? And what was it before this learning? For it was not Wisdom if it needed to be taught; it must have been something empty and void and not wisdom in its very essence. But then it would have acquired the name of Wisdom through progress and will be wisdom just to the extent that it retains what it has learned. For what does not pertain to one by nature but is added by learning is capable of being unlearned at some point. But to say such things about the Word of God is not for Christians but for Greeks.

29. Furthermore, if creating is something that is acquired through teaching, then these senseless people are attributing jealousy and weakness to God— jealousy, because he did not teach many others to be creators so that there may be many creators around him, just as there are many angels and archangels; and weakness, because he was not able to create on his own and needed a co-worker or assistant. However, it has been shown that the nature of things that come into being is in fact capable of being brought into being by God alone, since, by their own account, the Son also came into being and yet was able to be brought into being by God alone. God has no need of anyone; never! He himself said, “I am full” (Isa 1:11). The Word did not become creator through teaching, but being the image and wisdom of the Father, he does the works of the Father. Nor did the Father make the Son for the sake of making the things that come into being. Just look! After all, the Father is seen to be still working even while the Son exists, as the Lord himself says: “My Father is working until now and I also am working” (Jn 5:17). But if, according to you, the Son came into being for the sake of making the things that came into being after him, and yet it is shown that the Father is also working after the Son came into being, then the making of such a Son is superfluous according to you and your argument. Moreover, why is it that he seeks a mediator at all when he wishes to create us, as if his will is not sufficient to constitute whatever is pleasing to him? And yet the Scriptures say: “Whatever he wills is done” (Ps 115:3) and “Who has resisted His will?” (Rom 9: 19). But if his will alone is sufficient for the creating of all things, then the need for a mediator is again superfluous, according to your own terms; and your examples about Moses and about the sun and moon have been shown to be unsound. Moreover, this also will put you to shame: If, when he wishes to create the nature of originated things, God conceives and creates the Son for our sake in order to create us through him, see how great an impiety you have dared to utter.

30. In the first place, it appears that the Son has come into being for our sake, and not we for his, since we were not created on his account but he has been made for us. In that case, it is he who owes us gratitude, and not we him, just as in the case of the woman and the man: “The man was not created for the woman,” Scripture says, “but the woman for the man” (1 Cor 11:9). Therefore, as “the man is the image and glory of God, while the woman is the glory of the man” (1 Cor 11:7), so likewise it turns out that it is we who are the image of God and for his glory, while the Son is our image and for our glory. Moreover, we have come into being for the sake of our own existence, while the Word of God, according to you, has been made not for the sake of his own existence but in order to be an instrument for our need. But then it is not we who are “from him” but he who is constituted for the sake of our need.

Do not those who merely conceive such thoughts exceed all insanity? If the Word came to be on our account, then he is not prior to us in his relation to God. In that case, it is not that God, having the Word in himself, wills us; but it is as if, having us in himself, God wills his own Word. But if this is so, perhaps the Father did not even will the Son at all. For it seems that he did not willingly create him but rather fashioned him for our sake, in the course of willing us. In that case, he conceived him after conceiving us and, according to these impious people, this “Son” who has come into being as an instrument is now superfluous, insofar as those for the sake of which he was created have now come to be. But if the Son had the capacity to come to be by God alone while we, lacking that capacity, came to be by the Word, why does God not first will the one who has this capacity instead of us who do not? Or why does he not give priority to the one who is thus capable rather than to those who are weak? And why does he make him first and yet not will him first? Or why is it that he wills us first and yet does not make us first if indeed his will is sufficient for the constitution of all things? Why, instead, does he create him first and yet will us first, so that he wills us prior to the Mediator? Yet we, whom he wills and intends to create, he calls “creatures”; while the one whom he creates on our account he calls “Son” and “proper” (idion) to him and “heir.” But it should have been we who should be called “sons,” since he was made for our sake! Or, clearly, since he is the Son, it is he who is first intended and willed, and it is on his account that he makes us all. But this is simply the vomit and sickness of the heretics.

31. Yet the understanding of truth must not be silenced but given large voice to proclaim especially this point: The Word of God did not come to be on our account but rather it is we who have come into being for his sake and “in him all things were created” (Col 1:16). Nor was it because of our weakness that he was brought into being as one capable of direct creation by the Father alone, just so that the Father may create us by him as by an instrument. Never! This is not true! Even if it was the Father's conception not to make things that come into being, the Word would none the less still be “with God” (Jn 1:1) and the Father “in him” (Jn 10:38, 14:10). But the things that come into being are incapable of becoming apart from the Word. They came to be through him and this makes sense because the Word is the Son of God who belongs (idios) to the essence of God by nature and is from him and “in him” (Jn 10:38), as he himself said, and so created things cannot come to be except through him.

Just as the light enlightens all things by its radiance, and apart from the radiance nothing would be enlightened, so also the Father worked all things in the Word, as by a hand, and does nothing without him. So, as Moses tells us, “God said, ‘Let there be light’” (Gen 1:3) and “Let the waters be gathered together” (Gen 1:9) and “Let the earth bring forth” (Gen 1:24) and “Let us make man” (Gen 1:26). Likewise, the blessed David also sings in the psalm: “He spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created” (Ps 33:9). But “he spoke” not as in the case of human beings, when an assistant hears and learns the wish of the one speaking and goes out and does the work. This is what is proper for created things but to think or speak this about the Word is unsuitable, for the Word of God is Creator and Maker and is himself the Will of the Father. Therefore, Sacred Scripture does not say that the hearer heard and answered, enquiring how and in what manner the speaker wishes those things to come into being, but only that “God said, Let there be” (Gen 1:6) and then it adds, “and so it came to be” (ibid.). For that which was conceived and willed immediately came to be and was consummated by the Word. But when God commands angels or others, or converses with Moses, or announces to Abraham, the hearer answers back. One says, “How shall I know?” (Gen 15:8) and the other, “Choose another” (Ex 4:13) and again, “If they ask me what is his name, what shall I say to them?” (Ex 3:13); and the angel said to Zechariah, “thus speaks the Lord” (Zech 1:17), and he also enquired of the Lord, “Lord of hosts, for how long will you be without mercy for Jerusalem?” (Zech 1:12) and he waits to hear “good and comforting words” (Zech 1:13). Each of these receives the Mediator Word and the Wisdom of God which makes known the Father's will. But when the Word himself works and creates, then there is no question and answer, for the Father is in him and the Word is in the Father (cf. Jn 10:38). The willing suffices and the work comes to be; for “he said” is an indication of the willing that is for our sake; whereas “it came to be so” signifies the work which is through the Word and Wisdom, in whom is the will of the Father. And the phrase, “God said,” itself implies “in the Word”; for it says, “He made all things in Wisdom” (Ps 104:24), and “by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established” (Ps 33:6) and “one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6).

32. From all this one may conclude that the heretics are not waging the battle concerning this heresy against us; they pretend that we are their target but in fact they are waging war on the divinity itself. If it was our voice that uttered, “This is my son” (Mt 3:17), our censure of them would be a small matter. But if it is the Father's voice which the disciples heard, and the Son himself says about himself, “Before all the hills he begets me” (Prov 8:25), are they not now waging war against God like the giants of myth, wielding their tongues like sharp swords, as the psalmist said (Ps 57:5), for the sake of impiety? They were not afraid of the Father's voice, nor did they have reverence for the Savior's words, nor are they persuaded by the saints, among whom one writes: “He is the radiance of his glory and the expression of his subsistence (hypostaseōs)”(Heb 1: 3) and “Christ the power of God and wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24) and the psalmist says, “for with you is the fountain of life and in your light we shall see light” (Ps 36:10) and “You made all things in wisdom” (Ps 104:24), and the prophets say, “the Word of the Lord came to me” (e.g. Jer 1:11), while John says, “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1), and Luke, “Just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the Word have handed down to us” (Lk 1:2), and again David says, “He sent his Word and healed them” (Ps 107: 20). All these completely banish the Arian heresy, indicating the eternity of the Word and signifying that he is not foreign but proper (idios) to the essence of the Father. For when does anyone see light without radiance? Or who dares to say that the expression is alien to the subsistence? Is it not utter madness for someone to even think of God as ever without reason (alogos) or without wisdom?

Since human nature is not capable of the comprehension of God, Scripture has placed before us such symbols (paradeigmata) and such images (eikonas), so that we may understand from them, however slightly and obscurely, as much as is accessible to us. Indeed, the creation is sufficient for the knowledge of God's existence and providence, for “from the greatness and beauty” of the created world “its author, by analogy, is seen” (Wis 13:5). Moreover, we do not learn from creatures by demanding utterances but, upon hearing the Scriptures, we believe, and seeing the very order and harmony of everything, we acknowledge that there is a God and Master and Maker of all these and we apprehend his wonderful providence and governance of all. In the same way the words that have been recited above are sufficient concerning the divinity of the Son. It is superfluous— or rather, utter madness—to doubt and enquire heretically: “How can the Son be eternal?” or “How can he be from the being of the Father and not be a part of him, since what is said to be ‘from someone’ is a part of him, but what is partitioned is no longer whole?”

33. These are the malicious sophistries of the heterodox. Although we have already refuted the senselessness of their views in what has been said above, the exactness (akribeia) of these scriptural phrases and the meaning indicated by the scriptural symbols (paradeigmaton) further refute the ramblings of their defiled doctrine. For we see that reason (logos) is always from and belonging to (idion) the being of the one whose reason it is, without a “before” or “after.” We see also that the radiance is from the sun and belongs to it, while the being of the sun is not thereby divided or lessened, but while the sun's essence is whole, the radiance also is complete and whole and does not lessen the essence of the light but accompanies it as a true offspring from it. So we also see that the Son is not from outside but begotten from his Father; and while the Father remains whole, the expression of his subsistence (cf. Heb 1:3) always endures and preserves an unvarying likeness and image to the Father, so that one who sees him sees in him also the subsistence of which he is the expression. And so from the activity of the expression we perceive the true divinity of the subsistence. The Savior himself also teaches us this, saying: “The Father who abides in me is doing the works which I do” (Jn 14:10; cf. Jn 10:25), and “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30), and “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (Jn 14:10).

So let this Christ-fighters heresy first try to insinuate divisions into the examples that refer to created things and let it say: “there was once when the sun was without its radiance,” or “the radiance does not belong to the being of the light” or “it belongs to it but is a part of it by division.” Or, again, let it divide reason from mind and say that reason is alien to mind or that “it once was not” or that it does not belong to the being of mind or that it is a divisible part of mind. Let it thus make divisions concerning also the expression and the light and the power as it does concerning reason and radiance; and then let it fantasize about whatever it wishes. But if they cannot dare to say such things, are they not really crazy to extend their foolishness to what transcends the things that come into being and even their own nature, and to delve into the impossible?

34. Even with regard to the things that come into being and are corporeal, one finds offspring that are not parts of the essences from which they are and are not passible and do not lessen the beings of their progenitors. If this is so, are they not once again crazed to conjecture and enquire about parts and passibilities in reference to the incorporeal and true God and to ascribe divisions to the impassible and unalterable God—all in order to confound the ears of simpler folk and to turn them away from the truth? For who, upon hearing “Son,” does not infer that which belongs (idios) to the being of the Father? Who is there who has heard in his first catechism that God has a Son and has made all things by his proper Word and has not received this according to the sense by which we are now conceiving it? When the defilement of the Arian heresy occurred, who did not hear the things they say and immediately banish them as alien and as a sowing that overlies the word sown from the beginning? For it is sown in each soul from the beginning that God has a Son—the Word, Wisdom, and Power—who is his Image and Radiance. From these utterances flow directly the attributions of “always” and “from the Father” and “like” and “eternal offspring of the essence.” But there is no conception of “creature” or “work” involved in these utterances. It was when the people were sleeping and “the enemy” (Mt 13:25) went over the original sowing and sowed the seeds of “creature” and “there was once when he was not” and “how then can it be?” that the malicious heresy of the Christfighters, like a weed, finally came to be. Immediately thereafter, they invade like robbers destitute of all righteous and correct judgment and dare to say: “How can it be that the Son coexists eternally with the Father? It takes time for men to beget sons. The father may be thirty years old and then the son is begotten and at that time has a beginning. As a matter of fact, every son of man was not before he was begotten.” And they go on whispering: “How can the Son be Word or how can the Word be Image of God? For the word of human beings is composed of syllables and only signifies the will of the speaker and then straightaway it is finished and disappears.”

35. So they again castigate themselves (cf. 1 Tim 6:10) with chains of impiety and keep arguing, as if having forgotten the refutations with which they were rebuffed before. But the word of truth refutes them thus: If they were arguing about a man, then let them conceive of his word and his son in a human way. But if the argument is about God, the creator of humanity, then let them conceive of him not in a human way but otherwise, as being beyond the nature of human beings. For as is the begetter, then necessarily such is the offspring; and as is the father of the word, such will be his word. So the man who was begotten in time also begets a child in time. And it is because he has come to be from non-being that his word finishes and does not remain. But “God is not as human beings” (Jdt 8: 16); this is what Scripture says. Since “he is the existent one” (Ex 3:14) and exists forever, his Word also is existent and is forever with the Father, as the radiance of light (Wis 7:26).

Moreover, the word of human beings is composed of syllables and neither lives nor activates anything but only signifies the mind of the speaker. It merely comes and goes and then disappears, since it did not exist at all before it was uttered. So the word of human beings does not live or act, nor is it itself a human being at all. And it undergoes this {extinction}, as I said before, because the human being also who begets it has a nature that is from non-being. But the Word of God is not, as it were, a mere enunciation nor is it a sound of utterances nor is the Son God's command. As the radiance of the light, he is the perfect offspring of one who is perfect; therefore he is God and Image of God. For “the Word,” it says, “was God” (Jn 1:1). And the words of human beings do not act. Therefore it is not by words but by hands that a human being works, for human hands have subsistence while words do not. But the Word of God, as the apostle said, “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even between soul and spirit, joints and marrows, and discerns the thoughts and conceptions of the heart. There is no creature that is not manifest before it; all are naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we render account” (Heb 4:12–13). Therefore, he is Creator and “without him nothing came into being” (Jn 1:3), nor can anything come into being without him.

36. But one must not ask: “Why is God's Word not like ours?” For God is not like us, as has been said before. Nor is it appropriate to ask: “How is the Word from God?” and “How is it the radiance of God?” or “How does God beget and what is the manner of his begetting?” One would be crazed to presume to ask such questions and to demand that something ineffable and proper (idion) to the nature of God, which is known only to God and to the Son, be explained to him in words. One might as well ask: “Where is God and how does God exist and what sort of existence does the Father have?” Just as to ask such questions is impious and shows ignorance of God, so neither is it legitimate to presume to pose such questions with regard to the generation of the Son of God nor to measure God and his Wisdom by one's own nature and weakness. But neither should one depart from the truth because of this nor should one lose faith in what is written if one is at a loss in enquiring about these matters. It is better to be silent and believe when one is perplexed than to lose faith because of perplexity. The one who is puzzled can be pardoned insofar as he has been silent even while enquiring; but the one who invents what is unsuitable because of his perplexity and so utters things that are unworthy of God attains a most severe judgment for his presumption. For one can attain some consolation in the face of these perplexities from the divine Scriptures, so as to suitably receive what is written and to contemplate, by way of analogy (en paradeigmati), our own word. Just as our word belongs to us and is not a work that is effected from outside of us, so also the Word of God belongs to (idios) God, and is from him and not a work; yet it is not like the word of human beings, or else we would have to think that God is human. We see that the words of human beings are many and diverse and are produced every day because the ones before them do not remain but disappear. This happens because their “fathers” are human beings whose seasons pass away and whose thoughts succeed one another. So they speak what they have considered and reconsidered and many words come about and yet afterwards none of them is left; when the speaker stops, his word is immediately extinguished. But the Word of God is one and the same, as it is written, “the Word of God abides forever” (Ps 119:89) and does not alter (cf. Mal 3:6); nor is it antecedent or posterior to any other but exists forever the same. For it was fitting that, since God is one, his Image also is one and his Word is one and his Wisdom is one.

37. So I am amazed that, while God is one, these people introduce, according to their own conceptions, many Images and Wisdoms and Words and say that the proper and natural Word of the Father is something other than the Son. They say that in this Word God made even the Son, while the one who is truly Son is only called Word by way of the conceptions which are associated with him (kat’ epinoian), as he is called “vine” (Jn 15:1) and “way” (Jn 14:6) and “door” (Jn 10: 7) and “tree of life” (Rev 22:14). They say that he is nominally called Wisdom, while there is another Wisdom which is truly so and proper to the Father and which coexists unbegottenly with the Father, in whom also he made the Son and called him Wisdom on account of his participation in that Wisdom. These things have been uttered by them not only in speech but Arius inserted them into the composition of his Thalia and Asterius the Sophist wrote these very things which we have reported above, thus:

The blessed Paul did not say that he preaches the Power of God or the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), but omitted the adjoining article {saying}, “Power of God and Wisdom of God.” Thus he preaches that the proper Power of God, which is innate and natural to him and coexists unbegottenly with him, is other than Christ, and is of course generative of Christ and creates the whole world, concerning whom Paul speaks when he teaches in the epistle to the Romans: “His invisible things, his eternal power and divinity, are perceived from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made” (Rom 1:20). Just as no one would say that the “divinity” indicated here is Christ—it is the Father himself—so I think that “his eternal power and divinity” also is not the only-begotten Son but the Father who begot him. Thus he teaches that there is another power and wisdom of God which is manifested through Christ.

And a little later, the same Asterius says:

Although “his eternal power and wisdom,” which the logic of truth manifests as without beginning and unbegotten, is indeed one and the same, yet many are those which are individually created by it, of which Christ is firstborn and only-begotten. Yet all are equally dependent on the one who procures them. And all are justly called “powers” of the one who creates and makes use of them. Thus the prophet says that the locust, which comes to be as a divinely sent judgment for the sins of human beings, is called by God not only “power” but also “great power” (cf. Joel 2:25). Moreover, the blessed David, in most of the psalms, exhorts not only the angels but also the “powers” to praise God (cf. Ps 148:2).

38. Do they not deserve to be completely hated for merely saying this? For if, as they suppose, he is Son not because of generation from the Father and as proper (idion) to his being, but is called Word and Reason (Logos) because of his relation to rational beings; and Wisdom because of the things that are made to be wise; and Power, because of the things that are empowered, then surely he is called Son because of his relation to those who are made sons! And perhaps he even has his being merely by way of our conception of him, on account of his relation to the things that exist.

So then what finally is he? For he would not be any of these things if they were nothing but names. In that case, his possession of being is only phantasmal, since he is endowed with these names because of us. But this is just diabolical dementia or even worse, since they wish for themselves to truly exist but they consider the Word of God to exist only in name. Is it not quite beyond the pale to say that Wisdom coexists with the Father but to deny that this Wisdom is Christ, and to assert that there are many created powers and wisdoms and that one of these is the Lord, who is compared by them to a caterpillar and a locust? Is it not criminal that when they hear from us that the Word coexists with the Father they immediately complain and allege, “So you say there are two Unbegottens,” and yet when they say, “his unbegotten Wisdom,” they do not see that they have thus pre-empted us in becoming the object of the accusation that they foolishly alleged against us? And is it not utterly foolish for them to think that the Wisdom which coexists eternally with God is simply God himself? For what coexists does not coexist with itself but with another, as the evangelists say of the Lord that he “was with” (cf. Lk 9:18) the disciples—so he was not with himself but with the disciples. But perhaps they will say that God is composite and has Wisdom as something attached to and intertwined with his own essence, and that this Wisdom is also unbegotten, which they would substitute as creator of the world so as to deprive the Son of creating. For they will exert themselves to say whatever it takes to avoid thinking rightly about the Lord.

39. For where did they ever find it said by the holy Scripture or from whom have they heard that there is another word and another wisdom than this Son, so as to invent such things for themselves? It is indeed written: “Are not my words like fire?” (Jer 23:29). And in the proverbs: “I will teach you my words” (Prov 1: 23). But these are ordinances and commands, of which the psalmist says, “I kept my steps from every evil path, that I may guard your words” (Ps 119:101), and which God has spoken to the saints through his proper and only true Word. The Savior indicates that such words are other than himself when he says in his own person: “the words, which I have spoken to you” (Jn 6:63). Such words are not offsprings nor are they sons nor are there many creator-words nor images of the one God nor did those many words become human for our sake. Nor was it one of these many words which, according to John, “became flesh” (Jn 1:14), but it is as the only Word of God that he is preached by John: “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), and “everything came to be through Him” (Jn 1:3). Therefore it is about him alone, our only Lord Jesus Christ, and about his unity with the Father that the testimonies are written and that is what they make manifest—the testimonies of the Father which indicate that the Son is one, and those of the sacred {writers} who learned this and who say that the Word is one and that he is only-begotten. The works that are accomplished through him are also declared, for “all things visible and invisible” (Col 1:16) “came to be through him and apart from him not one thing came into being” (Jn 1:3). But the sacred writers do not indicate by name or deed any other Word or Wisdom, nor do they conjure up any such thing as that which is identified only by these people. Such an invention and conjecture, which is hostile to Christ, is simply their own. They abuse the name of Word and Wisdom and invent for themselves other words and wisdoms, thus denying the true Word of God and the only existent Wisdom of the Father.

These wretched people end up rivaling the Manichees. For, although they see the works of God, the Manichees deny the only existent and true God and invent another for themselves, of whom they can show neither any deed nor any witness from the sacred writings.

40. Therefore, since there is no other Wisdom to be found in the divine words than this Son, nor have we heard of any such thing from the fathers, while it is acknowledged and written by them that Wisdom's coexistence with the Father is without origin (agenetos) and that Wisdom is proper to the Father and is maker of the world, then it must be the Son himself who, even on their own terms, coexists eternally with the Father. For it is he who is Creator, as it is written: “He has made all things in Wisdom” (Ps 104:24). Even Asterius himself seems to have forgotten what he previously wrote when he comes to argue against the Greeks. Acting inadvertently, like Caiaphas (Jn 11:51), he refrains at this point from speaking of many wisdoms or the caterpillar, but ends up confessing only one. Thus he writes, “God the Word is one but rational beings are many; And the being and nature of Wisdom is one but the things that are wise and good are many.” A little later, he says again, “Who would those be whom they honor by naming ‘children of God’? For they will not say that these also are words nor that there are many wisdoms. For since the Word is one and Wisdom is manifested as one, it is not possible for the being of the Word to be distributed and for the title of Wisdom to be granted to many children.”

So it is not at all amazing that the Arians battle against the truth, since they even collide against their own tenets and stumblingly contradict each other, now saying that there are many wisdoms and now affirming only one. At one time, they compare Wisdom to a caterpillar while, at another time, they say that it coexists with the Father and is proper (idian) to him. On the one hand, they say that the Father alone is without origin; on the other hand, that his Wisdom and Power are also without origin. They wage battle against us for saying that the Word of God is eternal but then they forget their own words and say that Wisdom coexists with God without origin. So they end up in a complete fuddle about everything and deny the true Wisdom while they invent one that does not exist, just like the Manichees who deny the true God and make for themselves another one.

41. But let the Manichees and the other heresies hear that the Father of Christ is one, who, through his own Word, is also Lord of creation and its Maker. For their part, let the Arian fanatics also hear that there is one Word of God, who is the only proper and genuine Son from the Father's being and who possesses an indivisible unity with his Father, as we have said many times, having learned this from the Savior himself. Indeed if this were not the case, why does the Father create “through him” (Col 1:16) and why is he revealed in him to those whom he wills (Mt 11:27) and whom he enlightens? Why also is the Son named together with the Father in the performance of baptism? It would be impious to say that it is because the Father is not self-sufficient. But if he is self-sufficient (and that is what one should say), why is there any need for the Son, either for the sake of creating or for the holy washing? What partnership is there between the Creator and the creature? Or why is what is made counted together with the Maker in the act whereby we are all perfected (cf. Mt 28:19)? Or why is the faith handed down to us a faith in one Creator and one creature, as you would have it? If it is for the sake of joining us to divinity, what need is there for a creature? But if it is in order to unite us to the Son, while the Son is a creature, then the naming of the Son in baptism is superfluous, according to your account; for the God who made him a son is sufficient likewise to make us sons. Moreover, if the Son is a creature, and the nature of rational creatures is one, then there will be no help to creatures from a creature, since all are in need of grace from God.

We have previously spoken a little on how consistent it is that “all things came to be through him” (Jn 1:3). But since the flow of the argument has moved us to mention holy baptism, it is necessary for me to say what I understand and believe —namely, that the Son is named along with the Father not as if the Father were insufficient, nor as if haphazardly or by chance, but because he is the Word of God and his proper Wisdom and Radiance, who is always with the Father. Therefore it is not possible for the Father to bestow grace except in the Son. For the Son is in the Father as the radiance in the light; not as if God were inadequate, but as Father he “has established the earth in his own Wisdom” (Prov 3:19) and “has made all things by the Word” (Wis 9:1) which is from him, and has established the holy bath securely in the Son. Where the Father is, there is the Son; just as where the light is, there is the radiance. Just as the things that the Father does, he does through the Son and the Lord himself says, “the things that I see my Father doing, these things I also do” (Jn 5:19), so also when baptism is given, the one whom the Father baptizes the Son also baptizes, and the one whom the Son baptizes is perfected in the Holy Spirit. Again, just as when the sun shines one would say also that the radiance sheds light, for the light is one and cannot be broken or separated, so also where the Father is or is named, there also and absolutely is the Son. So it is because the Father is named in baptism that the Son must also be named along with him.

42. Thus, when he bestowed his promise to the saints, he said: “My Father and I will come and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23), and again, “that they may be one in us, as You and I are one” (Jn 17:21, 10:30). The grace that is given is one, which is given from the Father in the Son, as Paul writes in all his epistles, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (e.g. Rom 1:7). For the light must be with the ray and the radiance must be seen with its own light. Thus also the Jews, who, like them, “deny the Son do not have the Father either” (1 Jn 2:23). Having “forsaken the fountain of wisdom” (Bar 3:12), as Baruch chastised them, they said “We have no king but Caesar” (Jn 19:15) and thus they removed from their midst the wisdom which is from the fountain, our Lord Jesus Christ, for Christ, says the apostle, is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). The Jews have received the penalty for their denial; their reasoning was annulled along with their city. But these ones also end up endangering the very fullness of the mystery; I am speaking now of baptism. If the initiation is given into the name of the Father and the Son, and yet they are not speaking of a true Father since they deny what is from him and like his being and they deny also the true Son and invent for themselves another who is created from non-being, how is the baptism which they administer not completely empty and useless, a mere pretense which in fact is of no aid to piety? For the Arians do not give it “into the Father and the Son” (Mt 28:19) but into Creator and creature and into Maker and made. As a creature is other than the Son, so also what they purport to give is other than the truth, even if they make a pretense of naming the name of the Father and the Son, because this is what is written in the Scripture. But the one who gives the baptism is not simply the one who says, “Lord” (Mt 7: 21), but the one who joins calling on the name to holding the right faith. For this reason, therefore, the Lord did not merely command to baptize, but first he says to “teach” and then to “baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19), so that right faith may come about through teaching, and the initiation of baptism may be accompanied by faith.

43. There are also many other heresies which merely say the names, as I have said, but not in accordance with right understanding and sound faith. The water given by them is of no benefit and lacks piety, so that the one who is sprinkled by them is rather defiled by impiety than redeemed. Such is the case with the Greeks, who speak of God with their lips, but nevertheless warrant the accusation of godlessness because they do not acknowledge the really existent and true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the Manichees and the Phrygians and the disciples of the Samosatene speak the names but are none the less heretics. Thus, afterwards, come finally those who think the way of Arius, who although they read what is written and say the names, merely play games with those who receive baptism from them, and are even more impious than the other heresies and “in a short time, outdid them” (Ezek 16:47) and made them seem righteous in comparison with their own outbursts. For the other heresies falsified some element of the truth, either falling into error regarding the body of the Lord, saying that the Lord did not have flesh from Mary, or that he did not die at all or did not actually become human but that his appearance was not true and that he seemed to have a body but did not and seemed to appear as a human being but it was an illusion, as in a dream. But these ones openly cast their impiety on the Father himself. Having heard from the Scriptures that his divinity is manifested in the Son, as in an image, they yet blaspheme and say that this image is a creature and, like a currency of mud in their wallets, they carry around everywhere their little coined phrase of “was not” and spew it out like snakes spit out their poison. Then, since their doctrine nauseates everyone, they quickly support it with human patronage, like a prop against its downfall, so that those who are more simple may see it or even become frightened by it and ignore the harm caused by their evil thinking.

Are not those who are deceived by them worthy of pity? Is it not proper to weep over those, who through regard for the present, because of concern for pleasures, give up what is beneficial to themselves and fall away from the hope of what is to come? For by intending to receive baptism into what is not, they have received nothing at all; and being aligned with a creature they will have no help from the creation. And believing in what is unlike (anomoion) and other than the Father in being, they will not be conjoined with the Father, not having his proper Son who is from him by nature, who “is in the Father, and in whom the Father is” (Jn 14:10), as he himself said. But being deceived by them, they remain destitute and end up being stripped of divinity, the wretched ones. The apparitions that belong to this earth will not follow them when they die, nor will they be able to call to their aid any of those who now deceive them when they see the Lord whom they denied sitting upon the throne of his Father and judging the living and the dead. Indeed, they will see their deceivers also being judged and repenting for their unrighteousness and impiety.

44. We have taken up these points at such length and have countered the irrational fabrications which they have devised in their hearts before dealing with the passage of the Proverbs, so that they may recognize that it is not fitting to call the Son of God a creature and may thus learn to read correctly the passage in the Proverbs, according to its right sense. It is written: “The Lord created me as a beginning of His ways, for his works” (Prov 8:22). But since these are proverbs, and are spoken proverbially and by way of parable, one must not take the passage in question simply at face value but rather enquire as to the person (prosopon) and thus piously accommodate the sense to the person. For what is spoken in the Proverbs is not spoken plainly but proclaimed in a hidden manner, as the Lord himself taught in the Gospel according to John, saying: “I have spoken to you these things in parables (en paroimiais). The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in parables but plainly” (Jn 16:25). Therefore we must uncover the sense of the passage and enquire into it as something hidden and not simply take it as spoken plainly, lest we misinterpret it and be led astray from the truth. If what is written were in reference to an angel or to any other of the things that come into being or to one of us, who are made, then let it simply be said: “He created.” But if it is the Wisdom of God, in whom all the things that come into being are fashioned, who speaks about herself, how must this be understood except that in saying “he created” she is saying nothing contrary to “he begot”? It is not as if she is forgetting that she is Creator and Fashioner or as if she were ignorant of the difference between Creator and creatures that she counts herself among creatures, but she is signifying a certain hidden sense, not plainly, but as in a parable. She declares this sense in prophecy through the biblical saints, but a little later she also indicates the meaning of “He created” in a parallel way, using other words, when she says, “Wisdom has built herself a house” (Prov 9:1). Clearly, the house of Wisdom is our body, in the taking of which Wisdom became human. So it is fittingly said by John: “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), and through Solomon, Wisdom speaks about herself with precision inasmuch as she does not say, “I am a creature,” but only that “the Lord created me as a beginning of his ways, for his works” (Prov 8:22); not “He created me into being,” nor “I have the beginning and generation of a creature.”

45. In this passage, the Word spoke thus through Solomon not as signifying the essence of his divinity nor his eternal and genuine generation from the Father, but rather his humanity and accommodation (economia) for our sake. Therefore, as I mentioned, he did not say “I am a creature” or “I came into being as a creature” but only “He created.” For creatures come into being and have a created essence and are said to be created; and of course, a creature is simply created as such. But the phrase, “He created,” does not of itself simply signify the being or the generation, but can indicate that something else comes to be in reference to the one who is spoken of as “created” and not simply that such a one is a creature by nature and being.

The divine Scripture is aware of this difference, speaking of creatures thus: “The earth is filled with your creation” (Ps 104:24); and “creation laments together and is in travail” (Rom 8:22); while in the Apocalypse, it says: “A third of the creatures living in the sea died” (Rev 8:9). Likewise, Paul also says, “Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim 4:4). And it is written, in Wisdom: “And in your Wisdom you fashioned humanity to rule over the creatures which you made” (Wis 9:2). Since these are creatures, they are said to be created; thus we hear the Lord saying, “From the beginning the Creator made them male and female” (Mt 19:4, Gen 1:27, 5:2). And Moses writes in the song: “Ask of the days that have gone before you, since the day in which God created humanity upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other” (Deut 4:32). And Paul says in the epistle to the Colossians: “He is the Image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him all things were created both in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all” (Col 1:15– 17).

46. These examples suffice as a reminder of what is pervasive throughout the Scriptures, namely, that those who have a created essence by nature are called creatures and are said to be created. However, that the phrase, “He created,” does not of itself at all signify the essence and the generation, we have the example of David in the psalm: “Let this be written for another generation and the created people will praise the Lord” (Ps 102:19). And again: “A pure heart create in me, O God” (Ps 51:12). And Paul says in his epistle to the Ephesians: “Having abolished the law of commandments contained in decrees, so that he may create of the two one new human being in himself” (Eph 2:15). And again: “Put on the new human being, created in God's pattern, in holiness and in the righteousness of truth” (Eph 4:24). Now, David was not speaking of a people who are created, so far as their very being and essence are concerned, nor was he praying to receive another heart than the one he had, but he was indicating rather a godly renewal and renovation. Paul also was not indicating that the two are created {into one} in the Lord, as far as their being is concerned, nor was he counseling us to put on some other humanity. But in speaking of the human being who is “{created} in God's pattern” he was speaking of the virtuous life, and in speaking of those who are created in Christ, he meant the two peoples who are renewed in him. The same goes for the saying of Jeremiah: “The Lord created a new salvation for planting, in which humanity will walk” (Jer 38:22, LXX). In saying this, he is not referring to the very essence of a creature but is prophesying about the renewal of salvation among humanity that has come to be for us in Christ.

Such is the difference between the creatures and the mere saying of “He created”! So, if you do find anywhere in the divine Scripture that the Lord is called a creature, show it and fight on. But if it is not written anywhere that he is a creature, though he says about himself in the Proverbs, “He created me,” then let the distinction that has been indicated and the fact that the words were spoken proverbially both stand to your shame. In short, you are not to take the phrase, “He created,” as if it were equivalent to “creature” but as referring to his becoming human, for being created properly pertains to this humanity. Indeed, is it not unjust that when you hear “He created” from David and Paul you do not understand it to refer to being and generation but to renewal, yet when you hear it from the Lord you count his essence among the creatures? Again, when you hear, “Wisdom built herself a house and set up seven pillars” (Prov 9:1), you allegorize the “house” but you take “He created” as it is and change it into “creature.” The fact that he is the Creator does not shame you, nor does his being the only proper offspring of the Father intimidate you. But it is as if you are just set on enlisting in the ranks against him and you keep fighting on and thinking less of him than of human beings.

47. Even the passage itself shows that to say that the Lord is a creature is merely an invention of yours. For the Lord, knowing his own being as the only begotten Wisdom and offspring of the Father who is other than the things that come to be and other than those who are creatures by nature, here says in his love for humanity, “The Lord created me as a beginning of his ways.” This is the same as saying, “The Father ‘has prepared a body for me’ (Heb 10:5) and has created me for the sake of human beings and for their salvation.” Likewise, when we hear John saying, “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), we do not understand that the Word himself is wholly flesh but that he has put on flesh and become human; and when we hear that “Christ became a curse for us” (Gal 3:13), and that “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21), we do not understand that he himself has entirely come into being as a curse and sin but that he took upon himself the curse which was against us, as the apostle says, “having redeemed us from the curse” (Gal 3:13), and “carried” our sins, as Isaiah said (Isa 53:4) and as Peter wrote, “He bore them in his body on the wood” (1 Pet 2: 24). So also when we hear in the Proverbs, “He created,” we must not understand that the Word is wholly creature by nature, but that he put on the created body and that God created him for our sake, “having prepared” a created body for him, as it is written (Heb 10:5), so that we may be enabled to be renewed and deified in him.

What then has deceived you, you mindless people, to say that the Creator is a creature? Or from where did you procure for yourselves this cheap way of thinking that you put on parade? For the Proverbs do indeed say, “He created”; yet they do not say that the Son is a creature, but an offspring. And according to the aforementioned distinction, drawn from the Scriptures—I mean between “He created” and “creature”—the Scriptures acknowledge, on the one hand, what is proper to the Son by nature, that he is the only-begotten Wisdom and fashioner of creatures; and, on the other hand, they say “He created” not with reference to his being, but as signifying his becoming a beginning of many ways, so that “He created” (Prov 8:22) is contrasted with “offspring” (cf. Prov 8:25), and his being said to be “a beginning of ways” (Prov 8:22) is in contrast to his being the only-begotten Word (cf. Jn 1:1).

48. For if he is an offspring, how can you say that he is a creature? No one who creates something says that he begets it (cf. Prov 8:25), nor does anyone call his own offspring creatures. Yet again, if he is only-begotten, how does he come to be “beginning of the ways”? If he was created as the first of all things, then it necessarily follows that he is no longer unique since there are others created after him. So even though Reuben came to be the “first of the children” (Gen 49:3), he was not only-begotten. He was first with respect to time, but in nature and kinship he was simply one among those who came after him. Therefore, if the Word also is the “beginning of the ways,” then he must be just as the “ways” are and the “ways” must be the same as he is, even if he is created as the first of them with respect to time. For the origin and foundation of a city is like the other parts of a city which, in turn, are conjoined with the foundation to form one single whole city, as “one body of many members” (Rom 12:4). It is not that one part of the city is a maker, while another part comes to be and is subject to it, but the whole city is equally constituted by its maker and is equally the object of its maker's attention. Therefore, if it is in this way that the Lord is created as a beginning of all, then he, together with all the rest, form a single creation and he does not differ from the others, even if he is the beginning of all, nor is he their Lord, even if he is older in time. Along with all, he also would have one Lord and Word, who brings about his creation.

So if he is a creature, as you say, how is it at all possible for him to be created as unique and first, so as to be the beginning of all, since it is clear from what has been said that no one among the creatures is first and of itself unique, but everything has the same origination as all the rest, even if one “differs in glory” (cf. 1 Cor 15:41) from the others? For among the stars and great lights, one did not appear first and another second, but all were called into being in the same day and by the same command. The same goes for the origination of beasts and birds and fish and cattle and plants, and the race of human beings which is in God's image. For even if Adam was alone formed from the earth, nevertheless the seeds (logoi) of the whole succession of the race were contained in him.

49. “From the visible creation of the world, we perceive the invisible things that are understood by means of the things that are made” (Rom 1:20), and we perceive that among these invisible things also, none is altogether unique nor is one first and another second, but they were all constituted at once, each according to their kind. For the apostle did not count each individually, so as to say, “whether angel or throne or dominion or authority,” but all together, according to rank: “whether angels or archangels or principalities” (Col 1:16); for such is the origination of creatures. But, as I said, if the Word was a creature, then he must have come into being not first, but together with the other powers, even if he far exceeds the others in glory. Thus also among the other creatures one finds that while they have come to be at once and there is no first or second, they yet differ from each other in glory (cf. 1 Cor 15:41); some are on the right, some on the left, others all around, and all stand and chant together, ministering to the Lord. Therefore, if the Word is a creature, he would not be first, nor the beginning of the others. But if he is “before all things” (Col 1:17), which indeed he is, and is alone first and Son, then he is not, in his being, the “beginning of all things.” For the beginning of all things is counted together with all things. But if he is not a beginning nor a creature, then clearly, as far as his being and nature, he stands apart from creatures and is other than they are, being the likeness (homoiosis) and image of the only true God, and is himself unique and one.

For this reason, therefore, the Scriptures do not count him together with the creatures. Rather, David chastises those who would dare to even think such a thing, saying: “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?” (Ps 89:9) and “who will be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” (Ps 89:7). And Baruch: “This is our God; none other is to be counted with him” (Bar 3:36). For he creates, but they are created; he is proper Word and Wisdom of the Father's being, but the things that have come to be did not exist before they were made through this Word.

50. So your notorious statement that the Son is a creature is not true but only a fantasy of yours and Solomon denounces you for having falsified him so often. For he did not call the Son a creature but God's offspring and wisdom, saying, “God established the earth by wisdom” (Prov 3:19), and “Wisdom built herself a house” (Prov 9:1). Moreover, the passage in question itself refutes your impiety. It is written: “The Lord created me as a beginning of his ways for His works” (Prov 8:22). Therefore, if he is “before all things” (Col 1:17) and yet he says, “He created me”—not “in order that I may make the works” but “for the works”— then either the event signified in “he created” is posterior to him, or it will turn out that he is posterior to the works. According to the latter case, it is as if when he is created he finds these works already constituted before him, for the sake of which he then comes to be. But if the latter is the case, how is he still “before all things” (Col 1:17)? And how did all things come to be through him (Jn 1:3) and have their consistence in him (Col 1:17)? According to you, the works would have had their consistence before him and he is created and sent for their sake.

But it is not so; never! The thinking of the heretics is false. The Word of God is not a creature but Creator. It is when he puts on the created flesh that he says, in the manner of a proverb, “He created me.” Moreover, there is something else that can be understood from this very passage: Being Son, and having God as his Father—for he is his proper offspring—he nevertheless now calls the Father “Lord,” not because he was a servant but because he “took the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7). For it was fitting that just as in being the Word from the Father he calls God “Father”—for this is proper to a son in relation to a father—so in coming to “complete the work” (Jn 4:34) and taking the form of a servant he calls the Father “Lord.” He taught this difference himself in the gospels and made an apposite distinction when he said first: “I thank you, Father,” and then, “Lord of heaven and earth” (Mt 11:25, Lk 10:21). Thus he says that God is his Father but also calls him Lord of the creatures, in order to show clearly that it is when he puts on what is created that he calls the Father “Lord.” The Holy Spirit indicates the same distinction in the prayer of David when it says in the psalm: “Give your strength to your child and save the son of your handmaid” (Ps 86:16). For the one who is true child of God by nature is other than the children of the handmaid, which is the nature of the things that come into being. Therefore, as Son, he has the strength of the Father, whereas they are in need of salvation.

51. But if it is because he was called a child that they blabber so, let them know that Isaac too was called the child of Abraham (Gen 21:7) and the son of the Shunamite woman was called a little child (2 Kings 4:18). Since we are servants, it was fitting that when he became as we are, he also calls the Father “Lord,” just as we do. He did this out of his love for humanity, so that we who are servants by nature may receive the Spirit of the Son and so have the courage to call “Father” by grace the one who is our Lord by nature (cf. Gal 4:6). Just as when we call the Lord “Father,” we do not deny our servanthood according to nature—for we are his work and “he made us and not we ourselves” (Ps 100:3)— so also, when the Son takes the form of a servant (Phil 2:7) and says “the Lord created me,” let them not deny the eternity of his divinity and that “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1) and “all things came to be through him” (Jn 1: 3) and “in him all things were created” (Col 1:16).

So the passage in the Proverbs, as I said before, does not signify the essence but the humanity of the Word. In saying that he was created “for the works,” he clearly wishes to signify not his own essence but the economy that came to be for the sake of the works and which is secondary to being. For the things that come to be and are created are made primarily for the sake of being and existence, and only secondarily for doing, according to what the Word commands them. We see this with all things. Adam was created not in order to work but first of all in order that he may be a human being; after that he received the command to work. Noah was created not for the sake of the ark, but first of all in order that he may exist and be a human being; after that he received the command to build the ark. Anyone who looks into the matter will find that it is the same with all people. Even the great Moses first became a human being and then was entrusted with the government of the people. Therefore here too the same must be understood. You can see that the Word did not come into being by being created but “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1) and after this he was sent “for the works” and the economy pertaining to them. Before the works came to be, the Son forever was and there was no need yet of his being created. But when the works were created and when the need arose afterwards for the economy of their restoration, then it was that the Word gave himself to condescension (eis to sunkatabēnai) and to becoming like (homoiōthēnai) the works. This is what he indicates to us by the phrase, “He created.” Wishing to signify the same through the prophet Isaiah, he again says: “And now thus says the Lord, who formed me as his servant from the womb, to gather together to him Jacob and Israel. I will be gathered together and I will be glorified before the Lord” (Isa 49:5).

52. With reference to this last passage also, it is not that he enters into being by being “formed” but he comes to be formed for the sake of gathering together the tribes that were already in existence before he was formed. “He created” in that passage is like “He formed” in this one; “for the works” there is like “to gather together” here, so that on all accounts it is manifest that “He created” and “He formed” are spoken of him with reference to what is posterior to the Word's existence. Just as the tribes for the sake of which he was formed already existed before he was formed, so also the works for which he was created are shown to have been already in existence. When “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1), there was not yet any works, as I said before; but when the works came to be and the need demanded it, then it is said, “He created.” It is like a son who is sent by his father to retrieve and gather together some slaves who are being destroyed by enemies through their own carelessness, in a situation in which the need is pressing. He goes out, wearing the same clothes as the slaves and taking on the same appearance so that their captives may not recognize him as the master and then flee and prevent his descending to the servants whom they have hidden under the earth. Then if somebody were to enquire of him why he did this, he would say: “My father has formed me and prepared me in this way for his works.” In saying this, he is not signifying that he himself is a servant nor that he is one of the works nor is he speaking of the beginning of his coming to be, but of the task that was later given to him for the sake of the works. Likewise, when the Lord put on our flesh and “was found in human appearance” (Phil 2:7), if he were asked by those who saw him thus and became amazed, he would say: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (Prov 8:22), and “He formed me to gather together Israel” (Isa 49:5).

The Spirit also declared this beforehand in the psalms when it said, “You have appointed him over the works of your hands” (Ps 8:7). And the Lord himself indicates the same about himself when he says, “I have been appointed king by him over Zion, his holy mountain” (Ps 2:6). He did not have a beginning of his being nor a beginning of his kingdom when he shone bodily in Zion. But being the Word of God and eternal King, he resolved that his kingdom should shine in Zion in a human way, so that he may redeem them and us from “the reign of sin in them” (cf. Rom 5:21) and bring us under his Father's kingdom. Likewise, when he was appointed “for the works,” it was not for the sake of what did not yet exist but for what already existed and was in need of restoration.

53. Thus, his being “created,” “formed,” and “appointed” all have the same meaning. They indicate not the beginning of his being, nor that his essence is created, but the renewal that came to be for our sake through his bounty. Therefore, while he says those things, he nevertheless also taught that he existed before all that when he said: “Before Abraham came to be, I am” (Jn 8:58) and “When he prepared the heavens, I was with him” (Prov 8:27) and “I was arranging with him” (Prov 8:30). So he existed before Abraham came to be while Israel came to be after Abraham. It is clear then that he pre-existed and was later “formed,” so that his being formed does not signify the beginning of his being but his becoming human, in which he gathered together the tribes of Israel. Likewise, he is always with the Father as the fashioner of creation and it is clear that the works of creation are posterior to him, and “created” indicates not the beginning of his being but the economy which came about for the sake of the works and which he actualized in the flesh. For it was fitting that he who is other than the works of creation and rather their fashioner should take up their renewal in himself so that, in his being created for us, he may recreate all things in himself. So when he says “created,” he immediately adds the reason, which he says is “the works,” in order to clarify that his being created for the works is his becoming human for their renewal.

This then is the manner of Divine Scripture: When it refers to the origination of the Word according to the flesh, it points out also the reason why he became human. But when he speaks about his divinity and when his servants proclaim this divinity, then everything is said in simple terms and in an unqualified sense and without any reason added. For he is the radiance of the Father. Just as the Father does not exist for a certain reason, so also one must not seek a reason for his radiance. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1); so it is written and no “why” is given. But when “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), then the reason is given why he came, saying, “and he dwelt among us.” Again, when the apostle says, “who is in the form of God” (Phil 2:6) he does not give a reason; but when “he took the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7), then he provides a reason, saying, “He emptied himself unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). It was for this reason that he both became flesh and took the form of a servant.

54. The Lord himself has said many things in proverbs, but in referring to himself, he spoke without qualification: “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (Jn 14:10) and “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30) and “The one who sees me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) and “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12) and “I am the truth” (Jn 14:6). He does not append to each of these sayings the reason and the “what for,” lest it may seem that he is secondary to those for whose sake he came into being. Such a reason would then necessarily take precedence over him, and apart from this reason he would not even have come to be. Thus Paul, who “was set apart as an apostle for the sake of the gospel, which the Lord promised beforehand through the prophets” (Rom 1:1), was secondary to the gospel, of which he “became a minister” (Eph 3:7). And John, who was chosen to prepare the way of the Lord, was secondary to the Lord. But the Lord did not have any antecedent reason for his being Word, except only that he is the Father's offspring and only-begotten Wisdom. However, when he becomes a human being, then he offers the reason for which he intends to put on flesh. For what preceded his becoming human was humanity's need, apart from which he would not have put on flesh. What this need was, for the sake of which he became human, the Lord himself indicates, saying: “I have come down from heaven, not in order to do my will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I may not lose anything of what he has given me, but may raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:38–40). And again, “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness” (Jn 12: 46). Yet again he says: “For this I have been born and for this I have come into the world, to witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). And John has written: “The Son of God was manifested in order that he may destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3: 8).

55. The Savior came in order to give witness and submit to death for our sake and raise up humanity and “destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8). This is the reason for his incarnate presence. There would have been no resurrection if there was no death. But how could the death have taken place if he did not have a mortal body? Having learned this from him, Paul said: “Since the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also equally shared in them, so that by death he might abolish the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their life” (Heb 2:14– 15). And “since death came through a human being, the resurrection also came through a human being” (1 Cor 15:21), and again, “For what was impossible for the law, in that it had been weakened through the flesh, God has done; by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh that the decree of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:3–4). And John says, “God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world but so that the world may be saved through him” (Jn 3:17). Again, the Savior says himself: “I have come into the world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind” (Jn 9:39). So he did not come for his own sake but for our salvation and for the banishment of death and the condemnation of sin and for the renewal of sight to the blind and the raising of all from the dead. But if he came not for his own sake but for ours, then neither was he created for his own sake but for ours. And if he was not created for his own sake but for ours, then he is not a creature but says these things in reference to his putting on our flesh.

That this is the sense of the Scriptures one can learn from the apostle, who says in the epistle to the Ephesians: “Having broken down the dividing wall of enmity in his flesh, abolishing the law of commands set down in decrees, in order to create in himself the two into one new human being” (Eph 2:14–15). But if the two are created in him and in his body, then it follows that he himself is created insofar as he bears these two in himself. He united those who were created in him and he was in them and they in him. Because the two were thus created in him, it is appropriate that he says, “the Lord created me.” In the same way, when he takes upon himself our weakness he is said to be weak himself, although he is not himself weak, for he is “the power of God” (1 Cor 1:24). And he became sin for us and a curse, although he himself did not sin, because he bore our sins and our curse (cf. 2 Cor 5:21, Gal 3:13). So also when he creates us in himself, let him say, “He created me for the works,” although he is not himself a creature.

56. According to them, it is because the being of the Word is created that he, as a creature, says, “the Lord created me.” But in that case, he was not created for us and if he was not created for us, then we were not created in him. And if we were not created in him, then we do not have him in ourselves, but extrinsically (eksōthen), as having received instruction from him as from a teacher. But if that is the case with us, then the reign of sin in the flesh would remain internal to us and would not be expelled from the flesh (cf. Rom 5:21). However, the apostle opposes such thoughts shortly before when he asserts: “For we are his work, created in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:10). If we were created in Christ, then it is not he who is created, but we who are created in him. Therefore, the term “created” is on our account for it is because of our need that the Word, although he is Creator, submitted to the term which designates the creatures and which is not proper to him, insofar as he is Word, but is proper to us who are created in him. The Father is everlasting, and his Word is also everlasting and, being everlasting, he says: “I was his delight every day, rejoicing before him” (Prov 8:30) and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn 14:10). But when he became human because of our need, he, like we, fittingly says of himself what applies to us—“the Lord created me”—so that by his indwelling of the flesh, sin would be perfectly extricated from the flesh and we would have a free mind.

What, indeed, should he have said when he became human: “In the beginning I was human”? That would not be fitting for him nor would it be true. Just as it was not appropriate for him to say this, so it was fitting and proper to say of his humanity that it was “created,” and “He made him.” That is why the cause of his being “created” is added, which is the need of “the works.” When the cause is added, surely this addition itself provides a good explication of the text. So while in reference to “created,” he indicates the cause, which is “the works,” he signifies the generation from the Father without qualification, adding immediately: “Before all the hills, He begets me” (Prov 8:25). He does not add the reason why— as in regard to “created,” he said, “for the works”—but he says without qualification, “He begets me,” just as it says without qualification, “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1). For even if the works had not been created, the Word of God still was and the “Word was God” (Jn 1:1) but his becoming human would not have taken place if the need of humanity had not become a cause. So the Son is not a creature. If he were a creature, he would not have said, “He begets me” (Prov 8:25), for creatures are works of the maker and external to their maker, but the offspring is not from outside, like a work, but is from the Father and proper to his essence. Therefore, they are creatures but he is the Word of God, the only-begotten Son.

57. Moses certainly did not say about the creation that “in the beginning he begot” it nor that “in the beginning, it was,” but “in the beginning God made heaven and earth” (Gen 1:1). Nor did David say in the psalm, “Your hands begot me,” but he says “made me” (Ps 119:73) and he always says “made” when speaking of creatures. But in reference to the Son, it is the reverse. He did not say “I made” but “I begot” and “He begets me” (cf. Ps 2:7, 110:3, Prov 8:25) and “my heart has poured forth a good word” (Ps 45:2). In reference to creation, “in the beginning he made” (Gen 1:1), but in reference to the Son, “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1).

This is the difference: the creatures are made at the beginning and have a beginning to their being that is constituted by an interval, and so it is said of them, “in the beginning he made {them}.” That is the same as saying that “he made {them} from the beginning,” just as the Lord taught when he shamed the Pharisees, saying, “From the beginning the one who created them made them male and female” (Mt 19:4), and the Lord knows what he made. For it is from a certain beginning of non-being that the things that come to be were then brought into being and created. The Holy Spirit indicated this in the psalms, when it said: “Lord, you established the earth at the beginning” (Ps 102:26). And again: “Remember your flock, which you have acquired from the beginning” (Ps 74:2). It is clear that what came to be “at the beginning” has the beginning of being created, and that God acquired the flock at a certain beginning. Moses himself makes it clear that when he says “he made in the beginning” (Gen 1:1), the word “made” means “began to make.” He says that after the completion of all things “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his works, which God began to make” (Gen 2:3). As far as creatures are concerned, therefore, they “began” to be brought into being. But the Word of God, not having a beginning of being, accordingly did not begin to be and did not begin to come into being, but always was. The works of creation have a beginning in their being made and this beginning leads them forth in their coming into being. But the Word is not among those that come into being but rather becomes himself the fashioner of the things which have a beginning. Moreover, the being of things that come into being is measured out in becoming; and at a certain beginning God began to make them through the Word, so that it may be known that these things were not before their becoming. But the Word does not have his being in any other beginning but in the Father who, according to them also, is without beginning. Therefore, he also, as offspring of the Father, is in the Father, without beginning (anarchos), and is not the Father's creature.

58. That is how Holy Scripture conceives the difference between the offspring and the things that are made. It shows that the offspring is the Son, who did not begin at a certain beginning but is eternal. On the other hand, it indicates that what is made is a work which is extrinsic to its maker and has a beginning of its coming into being. Thus also John, theologizing about the Son and knowing the difference between the terms, did not say, “In the beginning he became” or “was made” but “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1), so that everyone may conceive the offspring in association with this term “was,” and no one may conceive of him in association with an interval, but rather believe that the Son exists forever and eternally.

In light of this evidence, how is it, you Arians, that you do not understand the words of Deuteronomy and here also you dare to be impious toward the Lord and to say that he is still a work or a creature even if he is an offspring? You allege that “offspring” and “work” signify the same thing. But in this also you will be shown to be no less ignorant than impious. The first passage is this: “Is he not your father who acquired you and made you and created you?” (Deut 32:6). And a little later in the same song, it says: “You abandoned the God who begot you and you forgot the God who fed you” (Deut 32:18). But in fact there is a very wonderful meaning contained here. For “begot” does not come first, as if it was undifferentiated from “made.” Had it been so, they would have had an excuse to say: “Though Moses tells us that God said at the beginning, ‘Let us make humanity’ (Gn 1:26), he also later says, ‘You abandoned the one who begot you’ (Deut 32:18). So the terms ‘make’ and ‘begot’ are not distinct, and an offspring is just the same as a work.” The actual passage, however, manifests its true meaning in the fact that it is only after “he acquired” and “he made” that Moses finally adds, “he begot.” By “made” he does in fact signify what pertains to the nature of human beings, namely that they are works and made. But by “begot” he indicates God's love for humanity that came to human beings after he created them. Because they became ungrateful for this, Moses rebukes them, at first saying, “Do you thus repay the Lord?” (Deut 32:6). Then, he adds: “Is he not your Father who acquired you and made you and created you?” (ibid.) . Following this, he says: “They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods they did not know. New gods, newcomers, rose up, whom their fathers did not know. You abandoned the God who begot you” (Deut 32:17–18).

59. For God did not only create them as human beings but he also begot them and called them “sons.” Here also, “begot” signifies “son,” as he says through the prophet, “I begot sons and exalted them” (Isa 1:2). In general, when Scripture wishes to signify “son,” it does so not by the word “created” but, of course, by the word “begot.” This is also apparent when John says: “He granted them authority to become children of God, begotten not from blood nor from the will of the flesh nor from the will of man, but from God” (Jn 1:12–13). There is great precision here also; he says “become” because they are called sons not by nature but by dispensation and he says “begotten” because they have also nevertheless received the name of “son,” even though, as the prophet says, the people “despised” their benefactor (Isa 1:2). Yet the love of God for humanity is such that by grace he becomes Father of those in relation to whom he had previously only been Maker. He becomes their Father when created human beings receive “into their hearts the Spirit of the Son, crying out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6), as the apostle says. These are the ones who, by receiving the Word, receive authority from him “to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). Being creatures by nature, they would not become “sons” except by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. So it was in order to bring this about and to make humanity receptive of divinity that “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14).

One can learn the same meaning from the prophet Malachai when he says, “Has not one God created us? Is there not one Father of us all?” (Mal 2:10). Here again, he puts “created” first and then “Father,” in order that he also may show that whereas from the beginning we were creatures by nature and God is our Creator through the Word, later we were made sons and from then on the Creator God becomes also our Father. Therefore the Father properly belongs to (idion) the Son and it is not the creature but the Son who properly belongs (idion) to the Father. So it is demonstrated here also that we are not sons by nature but the Son who is in us is. Likewise, God is not by nature our Father but Father of the Word who is in us, in whom and through whom we cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). Accordingly, the Father calls “sons” those in whom he sees his own Son and he says “I begot” since “begetting” signifies “son,” while “making” is indicative of the works. Therefore, we are not begotten first but made, for it is written, “Let us make humanity” (Gen 1:26). But when we later receive the grace of the Spirit, we are henceforth said to be also begotten. Therefore, the great Moses certainly speaks with aptness in his song when he first says “acquired” and then “begot” so that those who hear “begot” may not forget their original nature but may recognize that while they are creatures from the beginning, they are said to be begotten as sons by grace, even though human beings are still none the less made, as far as their nature is concerned.

60. In fact, in the Proverbs themselves the Lord himself shows that creature and offspring are not the same but differ from each other both in nature and in the signification of the terms. After he said “the Lord created me as a beginning of his ways” (Prov 8:22), he went on to add “But before all the hills, he begets me” (Prov 8:25). But if the Word was a creature by nature and being, and there was no difference between creature and offspring, he would not have added “He begets me.” The fact that he had said “created” would have been already sufficient if the meaning of that word was simply equivalent to “begot.” As it is, having said “He created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (Prov 8: 22), he did not merely add, “He begets me” (Prov 8:25), but also the adjoining conjunction “but,” as if thereby safeguarding the distinction of the term “created.” So he says, “But before all the hills He begets me.” The phrase “begets me,” closely following upon “created,” makes the meaning coherent and shows that, while “created” is said with a view to a cause, “begets me” precedes “created.” If conversely he had said first “the Lord begets me,” and then added “but before all things he created me,” then surely “created” would precede “begot.” So, having first said “created” and then added “before all the hills he begets me,” he indubitably shows that “begot” precedes “created.”

Moreover, in saying “Before all things be begets me,” he signifies that he is other than all things, since we have previously demonstrated the truth that among creatures none preceded another but all the things that come to be subsisted at once and all together by one and the same command. For this reason the words that come after “created” are not the same as those after “begets me.” After “created” comes “as a beginning of the ways,” but after “He begets me,” he does not say “He begets me as a way” but “before all things he begets me.” However, what is before all things is not the beginning of all things but other than all things. But if he is other than all things, and the beginning of all things is contained within the category of “all things,” then obviously he is other than creatures. It becomes quite clear therefore that the Word, being other than all things and before all things, is later created “a beginning of the ways for the works” through his humanization, so that, as the apostle says, “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he might be preeminent” (Col 1:18).

61. This then is the difference between “He created” and “He begets me” and between “the beginning of the ways” and “before all things.” Therefore, God, who is the Creator of human beings, as has been said, later becomes their Father because of his Word dwelling in them. But with the Word, it is the reverse. God, being his Father by nature, afterwards becomes his Creator and Maker when the Word puts on the flesh that is created and made and becomes a human being. Just as when human beings receive “the Spirit of the Son” (Gal 4:6) they “become children of God” (Jn 1:12) through him, so also the Word of God, when he puts on the flesh of human beings, is then said to be both created and made. So if we are sons by nature, then he is made and a creature by nature. But if we become sons by dispensation and grace, then clearly the Word said, “the Lord created me,” because of the bestowal of his grace to us in his becoming human. Moreover, since when he put on what is created he became like (homoios) us in a bodily way, he is fittingly called both our brother and “firstborn” (Rom 8:29, Heb 2:11). For, although it was after us (cf. Jn 1:15) that he became for us a human being and became our brother through the likeness of the body, nevertheless, even in that regard, he is still said to be and is the “first” (Jn 1:15). For, while all humanity was perishing because of the transgression of Adam, his flesh was the first to be saved and freed, as being the body of the Word himself. From then on, we are “incorporated” (sussōmoi; cf. Eph 3:6) with his body and saved through our accord with it. In this body the Lord becomes our guide into the kingdom of heaven and to his own Father, saying “I am the way” (Jn 14:6) and “the door” and all must “enter through me“(Jn 10:9). Therefore, he is also said to be “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18), not because he died before us—for it is we who died first—but because when he took upon himself death on our behalf, he “abolished” it (2 Tim 1:10) and was the first to rise as a human being, raising his own body for our sake. He has risen and henceforth we too, after him and from him and through him, are also raised from the dead.

62. Now, if he is also said to be “firstborn of creation” (Col 1:15), it is not as being equal to creatures and as the firstborn among them in regard to time (for how can this be, since he is “only-begotten”?) but it is because of the condescension (tēn sunkatabasin) of the Word toward creatures, through which he became the “brother of many” (Rom 8:29). For, of course, the one who is only-begotten is only-begotten because there are no other brothers; but the firstborn is so called because of other brothers. For this reason, then, it is nowhere said in the Scriptures that he is “the firstborn of God” or “creature of God.” Conversely, “only-begotten” and “Son” and “Word” and “Wisdom” are terms that refer back to the Father and indicate the fact that the Son belongs to the Father. So, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father” (Jn 1:14) and “God sent His only-begotten Son” (1 Jn 4:9) and “O Lord, your Word remains forever” (Ps 119:89), and “the Word was with God” (Jn 1:1) and “Christ the Power of God and Wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24) and “This is my beloved Son” (Mt 3:17) and “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). But “firstborn” connotes the condescension toward creation, for it is of creation that he is said to be the firstborn. And “created” (Prov 8:22) connotes the grace toward the works of creation; since he is created for the works (cf. Prov 8:22). So if he is only-begotten, which indeed he is, then his being “firstborn” needs to be interpreted accordingly. But if he is in fact “firstborn,” he cannot be only-begotten. For the same one cannot be both only-begotten and firstborn, unless it is in different respects, so that “only-begotten” is in reference to the generation from the Father, as has been said, while “firstborn” is in reference to the condescension (ten sunkatabasin) toward creation and taking many others to be his brothers. Indeed, since these two terms are antithetical with respect to each other, one may justly say that it is the attribute of being only-begotten which has the preeminence in reference to the Word since there is no other Word, nor any other Wisdom, but he alone is the true Son of the Father. For, again, as has been said above, it is without any adjoining explanation of cause and without qualification that he is said to be “the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father” (Jn 1:18). But to “firstborn” is adjoined the cause, which is creation, and this is added by Paul when he says, “for in him all things were created” (Col 1:16). But if all creatures were created in him, then he is other than creatures and is not a creature, being rather the Creator of all.

63. So he was not called “firstborn” because of his being from the Father, but because creation came to be in him. Just as before creation he was the Son, through whom creation came to be, so also before he was called “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15) he himself was none the less “the Word with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). But these impious ones, who do not understand this either, go around saying, “If he is firstborn of all creation, then clearly he is himself also one of the creation.” Thoughtless people! If he is absolutely the “firstborn of all creation,” then he is other than all creation! For he did not say, “firstborn of the other creatures,” lest he may be considered to be one of the creatures but “firstborn of all creation,” so that he may be shown to be other than creation. Thus, Reuben is not said to be the “firstborn” of all the children of Jacob, but of Jacob himself and of his brothers, so that he may not be thought to be other than the children of Jacob (Gen 46:8ff.). Even in referring to the Lord himself, the apostle did not say, “so that he may become the first born of all” (Rom 8:29), lest he may be thought to have put on a body other than ours, but “among many brothers” (ibid.), because of the likeness (homiotēta) of the flesh. Therefore, if the Word also was one of the creatures, Scripture would have said of him too that he is “firstborn of the other creatures.” But since what the sacred writers actually do say is that he is the “firstborn of all creation,” it is clearly shown that the Son of God is other than all creation and not a creature. For if he is a creature, then he would be his own firstborn. How, you Arians, can he be both prior to and after himself? Then again, if he is a creature and all creation “came to be through him” (Jn 1:3) and “had its consistence in him” (Col 1:17), how can he both create the creation and be one of things which have their consistence in him? Such a conception of theirs is manifestly absurd. The truth that refutes them is that he is called “firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8: 29) because of the kinship of the flesh, and “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18) because the resurrection of the dead comes from him and after him, and “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15) because of the Father's love for humanity, on account of which he not only gave consistence to all things in his own Word but brought it about that the creation itself, of which the apostle says that it “awaits the revelation of the children of God,” will at a certain point be delivered “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:19, 21). The Lord will be the firstborn of this creation which is delivered and of all those who are made children, so that by his being called “first,” that which is after him may abide, united to the Word as to a foundational origin and beginning.

64. But I think that these impious people themselves will be brought to shame by their own interpretation. For if it is not as we have said and they rather would have him be “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15) as being himself, by essence, a creature among creatures, then let them take note that in this way they consider him to be like things that are irrational and lifeless and their brother in being. For these also are parts of “all creation”; and the firstborn must be first only in point of time, but is the same as all the rest as far as kinship and likeness (homoiotēti). Do they not then surpass all impiety when they say this? Who will stand them when they say these things? Who would not hate their merely conceiving such thoughts? For it is clear to all that he was called the “firstborn” of creation not as being of himself a creature nor because of any kinship of essence with all creation, but because the Word condescended (sunkatabebēke) to the things coming into being when he was creating them at the beginning so that they may be enabled to come into being. For they would not have withstood his nature, being that of the unmitigated splendor of the Father, if he had not condescended (sunkatabas) by the Father's love for humanity and supported, strengthened, and carried them into being. Then, secondly, he was called “firstborn” because, by the Word's condescending (sunkatabantos), creation itself was made to be a “son” through him, so that he may become, as has been said, the firstborn of creation in every respect, both in creating it and in his being brought into this world itself for the sake of all. So it is written: “When he leads the firstborn into the world, he says: ‘Let all the angels of God worship him’” (Heb 1:6).

Let the enemies of Christ then hear this and tear themselves to pieces: It is his coming into the world that made him to be called the firstborn of all. The Son is “the only-begotten” from the Father because he alone is from the Father, but he is “the firstborn of creation” because of the adoption of all as sons. Just as he also rose “from the dead as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15: 20), so he “was created a beginning of the ways” (cf. Prov 8:22), because it was fitting that “he may be pre-eminent in all things” (Col 1:18). He “was created a beginning of the ways” so that we may walk on that way and enter through the one who says “I am the way” (Jn 14:6) and “the gate” (Jn 10:9), and so that we may share in the knowledge of the Father and hear it said of us, “Blessed are those who are blameless in the way” (Ps 119:1), and “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8).

65. Since truth thus reveals that the Word is not a creature according to nature, it remains to say how he is said to be “beginning of the ways.” The first way, which was through Adam, was destroyed, and instead of remaining in paradise we turned away into death and we heard it said to us, “You are earth, and to earth you will return” (Gen 3:19). Therefore the Word of God, who loves humanity, puts on the created flesh by the counsel of the Father, so that he himself may enliven and renew in the blood of his own body that which the first human had put to death through the transgression. In doing so, he forges “a new and living way for us,” as the apostle said, “through the veil which is his flesh” (Heb 10:20) and in another place the apostle articulates the same meaning, saying: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 5:17).

But if a new creation has come, there needed to be someone to be the first of this creation. It could not have been a mere human being, merely earthly, such as we had become after the transgres sion. For human beings had become unfaithful in the first creation, and through them, the first creation was destroyed. There was need for another to renew the first creation and maintain the new one. Therefore, in his love for humanity, none other than the Lord is created “a way,” as the beginning of the new creation. He fittingly says, “The Lord created me as the beginning of His way for His works” (Prov 8:22), so that humanity may no longer live according to the old creation. But since there is now the beginning of a new creation and we have Christ as the beginning of its ways, we may henceforth follow the one who says, “I am the way” (Jn 14:6). The blessed apostle teaches this in his epistle to the Colossians, saying: “He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself may be pre-eminent in all things” (Col 1:18).

66. For if, as has been said, he is called “first-fruits” because of the resurrection from the dead, and he is also “the beginning” because of it, and yet the resurrection came about when he carried our flesh and gave himself to death for our sake, then clearly his saying, “He created me as the beginning of the ways” does not signify his essence but his embodied presence. Death is proper (idios) to the body; and just as death is proper to the body, so also the saying, “He created me as the beginning of his ways,” is proper to the bodily presence. Because the Savior is created in the flesh and becomes a beginning of those who are recreated and because “the first-fruits”—which is to say, the human body that he put on— belongs to him, it is fitting that there be a people which is created after him. So David says: “Let this be written for another generation, and the people to be created will praise the Lord” (Ps 102:19). And, again, in the twenty-first psalm, “The generation to come will declare to the Lord and proclaim his righteousness to the people that shall be born, whom the Lord has made” (Ps 22:32). Accordingly we shall no longer hear it said to us, “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen 2:17), but rather, “where I am, there you shall be also” (Jn 14:3), so that we may say, “We are his works created” by him “for good works” (Eph 2:10).

Yet again, since the work of God, which is the human being who was created perfect, became deficient through the transgression and dead through sin and it would have been unfitting for the work of God to remain imperfect (and thus all the saints beseeched God, saying in the hundred-and-thirty-seventh psalm, “The Lord will answer me. Lord, do not despise the works of your hands” (Ps 138:8)), the perfect Word of God put on the imperfect body and is said to be “created for the works.” He did this so that he may repay the debt on our behalf and perfect through himself what was lacking to humanity, and what was lacking was immortality and the way to paradise. This is exactly what the Savior says, “I glorified you upon the earth. I perfected the work that you have given me to do“(Jn 17:4), and again, “The works which the Father has given me to perfect, these works which I do, bear witness to me” (Jn 5:36). The works which he here says that the Father has given him to perfect are those for which he is created, saying in the Proverbs, “the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (Prov 8:22). For it is the same thing to say, “The Father has given me the works” (cf. Jn 5:36), and “He created me for the works” (Prov 8:22).

67. So when was it that he received the works in order to perfect them, you enemies of God? The answer to that question will also reveal the sense in which he is “created.” If you say that he received the works at the beginning, when he made them from non-being into being, that would be false. For they had not yet come into being, while he seems to speak as if receiving what is already existing. Nor is it blameless to say that it was before the time of the Word's becoming flesh, for in that case his coming will turn out to be superfluous since this coming was for the sake of these works. So it remains finally to say that it is when he became a human being that he received the works, for it was then that he perfected them by healing our wounds and granting to all the resurrection from the dead.

But if it is when the Word became flesh that the works were given to him, then clearly it is when he became human that he was created “for the works.” Therefore, “created” does not signify his essence, as has been said many times, but his bodily generation. It was then that, because of the works having become imperfect and deficient as a result of the transgression, it is said of him, with reference to the body, that he is created, so that, by perfecting the works and making them whole, he may “present” the Church to the Father, as the apostle says, “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she may be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). Thus, the human race is perfected and restored in him, as it had been in the beginning, or rather, by an even greater grace. For, rising from the dead, we no longer fear death but will reign in Christ forever in heaven. This came about because the Word of God himself, who is proper to (idios) and from the Father, put on the flesh and became human. If he who became human was originally a creature himself, humanity would remain none the less as it was, not conjoined to God. For how can something that is made be united to the Creator by another thing that is made? Or what kind of help can come from like to like, since those that would help are themselves in need of help? And how, if the Word is a creature, was he able to absolve the sentence of God and forgive sin, since it is written in the prophets that this capacity belongs to God: “Who is like you, O God, removing sin and overlooking iniquity?” (Mic 7:18). For it was God who said, “You are earth and to earth you shall return” (Gen 3:19), and so human beings became mortal. So then how can sin be absolved by those who had an origin to their being? But it was the Lord himself who absolved it, as he himself said: “…unless the Son will set you free” (cf. Jn 8: 36). So the Son who has set us free has truly shown that he is neither a creature nor among those that came into being, but is the proper (idios) Word and Image of the Father's being. It was he who declared the sentence at the beginning and who “alone forgives sins” (Lk 5:21). Since it was in the Word that it was said, “You are earth and to earth you shall return” (Gen 3:19), it follows consistently that it was through the Word himself and in him that there came about freedom and the removal of condemnation.

68. “But,” they say, “even if the Savior were a creature, God was able to merely speak and undo the curse.” They may also hear from another what amounts to the same thing: “God was able, without even his coming, to merely speak and undo the curse.” But it is necessary to look into what is advantageous for humanity, rather than merely considering what is possible for God. In the time of Noah's ark, it was possible for God to destroy the transgressors before the ark but he did it after the ark. He also could have merely spoken and led the people out of Egypt without Moses, but it was expedient that this be done through Moses. God also could have saved the people without the judges, but it was advantageous to the people that he temporarily raise up judges for them. The Savior also was able to make his visitation at the beginning, or having come, not to be given over to Pilate, and yet he came “at the end of the ages” (Heb 9:26) and when sought after, he said, “I am he” (Jn 18:5). Whatever he does is advantageous to humanity and it was not fitting for it to have been otherwise and he makes provisions for exactly what is fitting and expedient. Therefore he did come, “not to be served but to serve” (Mt 20:28) and to work our salvation. He was certainly capable of speaking the law from heaven, but he knew that it was advantageous to humanity that he speak from Sinai. He did this so that Moses may be able to go up the mountain and the people may thus be further enabled to believe by hearing the word from nearby.

Moreover, one may see the fitting rationale of what happened in this: If he had spoken and undone the curse, merely in accordance with his capacity to do so, the power of he who thus issued the command would have been displayed but humanity would nevertheless have remained as Adam was before the transgression, receiving grace externally and not having it mingled with the body. For such was Adam when he was placed in paradise. In fact, perhaps humanity would have become worse because it had by now learned to transgress. So, this being the situation with humanity, if it were again deceived by the serpent, there would be again a need for God to command and undo the curse. The need would then become limitless, and humanity would remain none the less in slavery and liability to sin. Forever sinning, it would be forever in need of pardon and it would be never freed. Being, on its own, mere flesh, it would be forever defeated by the law through the weakness of the flesh.

69. Yet again, if the Son was a creature, humanity would have remained none the less mortal and not united to God. It was not a creature that united creatures to God, for in that case this creature would be itself in search of one to unite it to God. Nor would a part of creation be the salvation of creation, that part itself being in need of salvation. To prevent this, God sends his own Son who becomes the Son of Man by taking created flesh, so that he may offer his own body to death on behalf of all, since all were sentenced to death but he was other than all. Henceforth, the utterance of that sentence is fulfilled, insofar as all have died through him—for “all have died” in Christ (2 Cor 5:14)—and henceforth all can be freed through him from sin and the curse that comes from it and may truly remain forever as risen from the dead and as putting on immortality and incorruptibility. For, as has been often demonstrated, when the Word put on the flesh, he brought about the complete eradication from the flesh of every bite of the serpent and the repulsion of any evil that had sprung up from the movements of the flesh and the annihilation of the death which follows upon sin. So the Lord himself says: “The prince of this world is coming and he finds nothing in me” (Jn 14:30), and “He has been manifested for this reason,” as John writes, “so that he may destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8).

Therefore, since these works of the devil have been destroyed from the flesh, we have all been freed through the kinship (sungeneian) between his flesh and ours and we ourselves are henceforth united to the Word. As being united to God, we no longer remain upon the earth, but as he himself said, where he is, we will be also (Jn 14:3). Henceforth we shall no longer fear the serpent, for he has been nullified. He has been hunted down by the Savior from within the flesh, and has heard the words, “Depart from me, Satan” (Mk 8:33 and par.) and has been cast out of paradise into the everlasting fire. Nor shall we be on guard against the beguilement of woman, for “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels” (Mt 22:30), and there will be “in Christ Jesus a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17) and “neither male nor female” (Gal 3:28) but “Christ is all and in all” (Col 3:11). But where there is Christ, what kind of fear or what kind of danger can there still be?

70. But all this would not have happened if the Word was a creature. The devil, who is himself a creature, would persist in battle forever if he was contending against a creature. Humanity, stuck in the middle of this battle, would be always intimidated by death, not having one through whom and in whom it can be joined to God so that it may become entirely free from fear. Truth shows, therefore, that the Word is not one of the things that come to be, but rather their creator. He took to himself the body that was human and had a beginning so that he who is its creator may renew it and thus divinize it in himself and lead all of us into the kingdom of heaven, in accordance with his own likeness.

But humanity would not have been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son was true God. And humanity would not have come into the presence of the Father unless the one who put on the body was his true Word by nature. Just as we would not have been freed from sin and the curse unless the flesh which the Word put on was human by nature—for there would be no communion for us with what is other than human—so also humanity would not have been deified unless the Word who became flesh was by nature from the Father and true and proper (idios) to him. Therefore the conjoining that came about was such as to join what is human by nature to what is of the nature of divinity, so that humanity's salvation and deification might be secured. So let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and proper (idion) to his being deny also that he took true human flesh from the Ever-virgin Mary. For there would no longer be any benefit to us human beings if the Word was not the true Son of God by nature or if the flesh that he put on was not true and genuine. But he did take true flesh, even if the Valentinians go crazy; and the Word was true God by nature, even if the Arians go mad. In this flesh there has come about the beginning of our new creation because he has been created as a human being for our sake and has renewed the way for us, as has been said.

71. Therefore, the Word is not a creature or a work. For “creature” and “made” and “work” are the same. If he was a creature and something made, then he would also be a work. That is why he did not say: “He created me as a work,” nor “He made me along with the works,” so that he may not be thought to be a creature by nature and being. Nor did he say, “He created me to make works,” so that he may also not be considered to have come into being as an instrument for our sake, in keeping with the perversity of the impious. Nor did he proclaim that “He created me before the works,” lest he inculcate the notion that just as he is offspring before all things, so he is also created before all things, thereby making “offspring” and “created” to be equivalent. Rather, with a careful exactitude, he said “for (eis) the works,” which is the same as saying, “The Father has made me into (eis) flesh, in order to become a human being.” He said this to show that he is not a work but an offspring. For just as the one who comes into (eis) a house is not part of the house but is other than it, so also the one who is created for (eis) the works must be of another nature than the works.

But if, according to you Arians, the Word of God is a work, in what hand and wisdom did he himself come to be? For all the works that came into being came to be by the hand and wisdom of God, as God Himself says: “My hand has made all these” (Isa 66:2, Acts 7:50) and David sings, “You have established the earth in the beginning, Lord; and the heavens are the works of your hands” (Ps 102:26, Heb 1:10), and again in the one-hundred-and-forty-second psalm, “I remembered the days of old, I pondered on all your works, meditating on the works of your hands” (Ps 143:5). Therefore, if the things that were made were worked by the hand of God, while it is written that “all things came to be through the Word, and without him not one thing came to be” (Jn 1:3), and again, “one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things” (1 Cor 8:6), and “all things had their consistence in him” (Col 1:17), then clearly the Son must not be a work but is himself the hand and wisdom of God. Knowing this, those who became martyrs in Babylon—Ananias, Azarias, and Mishael—refute the impiety of the Arians when they say, “Bless the Lord, all the works of the Lord” (Dan 3:57). They counted the things in heaven and on the earth and the whole creation as works, but they did not name the Son so. They did not say, “Bless, O Word, and sing praise, O Wisdom,” because they wanted to show that while all other things praise and are works, the Word is not a work and not one of those who praise but is himself praised and worshipped and confessed as God, along with the Father, and is the Father's Word and Wisdom, but Creator of the works. Making an apt distinction, the Spirit has said this also in the psalms, “the word of the Lord is true and all his works are trustworthy” (Ps 33:4), while in another place it says, “How manifold are your works, O Lord; In Wisdom, you have made all things” (Ps 104:24).

72. If the Word was a work, then surely he himself would have come to be, and Scripture would not have distinguished him from the works, nor would it have named them “works” while proclaiming him to be the Word and proper (idian) Wisdom of God. But in fact Scripture does distinguish him from the works and shows that Wisdom is not a work but fashioner of the works. Paul also employs the same distinction when he writes to the Hebrews: “For the Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, discerner of the thoughts of the heart. There is no creature that is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we must render account” (Heb 4:12–13). Look how he calls the things that come into being, “creature,” but he recognizes that the Son is “Word of God,” as being other than the creatures. Also, when he says, “all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we must render account,” he again signifies that he is other than all things. Therefore, he is the one who judges, but among the things that come into being, each is obligated to give account to him.

Likewise, the whole creation's groaning with us to be freed from the slavery of corruption (cf. Rom 8:22) shows that the Son is other than creatures. For if he was a creature, he himself, along with all, would be one of those who groan and are in need of the one who grants sonship and freedom. But if “all creation groans” for freedom from “the slavery of corruption,” while the Son is not among those who groan and are in need of freedom but is himself the one who grants sonship and freedom to all (as he said to the Hebrews then: “The slave does not remain in the house forever, but the Son remains forever. Therefore if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed” (Jn 8:35–36)) then it is clearer than light that the Word of God is not a creature but the true and genuine Son of the Father by nature.

Thus, regarding “the Lord created me as the beginning of the ways” (Prov 8: 22), it seems to me that these words, even if they are meager, are sufficient to provide a basis for those who are more eloquent to prepare further refutation of the Arian heresy.

But since the heretics have also read the next verse in a bad sense, and think that because it is written, “He established me before the ages” (Prov 8:23), these words are spoken of the divinity of the Word and not of his incarnate presence, it is necessary to analyze this verse also, in order to show their error.

73. It is written, “God established the earth in Wisdom” (Prov 3:19). So if the earth is established through Wisdom, how can the one who establishes be the one who is established? But this also is said by way of a parable and a proverb. We must enquire into its meaning and then we will understand that while the Father fashions and establishes the earth by wisdom in order to make it abide and be steadfast, Wisdom itself is established for us in order to become a beginning and foundation of our renewal and our new creation. Therefore, here also he did not say, “Before all the ages, he made me son, or word,” as if he had a beginning of his being made. So the first thing is to enquire and search the Scriptures about whether in fact he is “Son.” This was what Peter said when the apostles were questioned and he replied: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). This was also among the first questions of the father of the Arian heresy, “If you are the Son of God…” (Mt 4:6). For he knew that this was the truth and the chief point of our faith and that, if he was the Son himself, the diabolical tyranny would come to its end, but if he was a creature, he would be one of those who derive from the same Adam who was deceived by him and there would be no reason to worry. Because of this also, the Jews of that time were angered because the Lord called himself the Son of God and “called God his own Father” (Jn 5:18). If he had said that he was one of the creatures or “I am made,” they would not have been astonished to hear this nor would they have called such words blasphemy, since they knew that even angels had visited their fathers. But since he called himself “Son,” they knew that this indicated not a creature but divinity and the Father's nature.

74. So the Arians should have really spent more effort on this point, if only in imitation of their father the devil. If indeed it had said, “He has established me as a foundation to be Word or Son,” then let them think the way they do. But if he did not say that, let them not dream up for themselves what is not real. For he did not say, “Before the ages, he has established me as a foundation, to be Word or Son,” but simply, “he has established me as a foundation” (Prov 8:23), in order to show, as I have said, that he speaks this not with a view to himself but proverbially, with a view to those who are built up on him. Knowing this, the apostle too writes: “No one can lay another foundation than that which already exists, which is Jesus Christ. But each must take care how he builds upon it” (1 Cor 3:11, 10). But the foundation must be the same as what is built upon it, so that they may be “fitted together” (Eph 2:20). Therefore, being Word, there is nothing which can be “fitted together” to him and is like him, insofar as he is Word. For he is only-begotten. But when he became human, then there were those who were like him, the likeness of whose flesh he put on. Thus he “was established as a foundation” according to his humanity, so that we also may be enabled to be built up as “precious stones” (1 Cor 3:12), and to become “the temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us” (1 Cor 3:16). Just as he is the foundation and we are stones built up upon him, so is he also the “vine,” while we are united to him as “branches” (Jn 15:5), not according to the essence of divinity (for that is impossible) but, once again, according to the humanity. For the branches must be like the vine, and we also are like him, according to the flesh.

Furthermore, since the heretics understand these matters according to human conceptions, it is fitting to refute them through their own reasonings, by using human illustrations. Thus, he did not say “He has made me as a foundation,” lest they may find in this a shameless pretext for impiety, so as to say that he is something made, something which has a beginning of its very coming to be. Rather, he says “He has established me as a foundation.” But a foundation is established on account of the stones that are to be set upon it. It does not simply come into being as a foundation, but only becomes a foundation when a stone is transported from the mountain and is placed into the depths of the earth. As long as it is simply a stone in the mountain, it is in no way a foundation. When, however, the need arises and it is transported and cast into the depths of the earth, then at last it would say (if stones could speak): “Now he has established me as a foundation, he who transported me here from the mountain.” Therefore also the Lord did not have a beginning of his existence when he was established as a foundation (for he was Word before this). But when he put on our body, which he excavated and took from Mary, then it was that he said, “He has established me as a foundation,” which is the same as saying: “I am the Word whom he has covered with an earthly body.” Thus he was established as a foundation for us by receiving what is ours so that we, fitted together into one body with him (sussōmoi) and bound together in him through the likeness of the flesh and thus attaining to “the perfect man” (Eph 4:13), may remain immortal and incorruptible.

75. But let no one be troubled when it says, “before the ages” and “before the earth was made” and “before the mountains were set in place” (Prov 8:23–25). These words in fact agree well with “He has established me as a foundation” and “He created {me},” for once again, this touches upon the economy according to the flesh. For while the grace of the Savior towards us has appeared now (cf. Titus 2:11), as the apostle said, and it came to pass when he journeyed among us, yet it was prepared beforehand even before we came into being, or rather, even before the foundation of the world. And how good and wonderful was the reason for this! For it was not fitting for God to determine his will for us later on, as if he were ignorant of what would happen to us. So when the God of the universe created us through his own Word, he knew what would happen to us better than we; he knew beforehand that while we were made to be good we would later transgress the commandment and be thrown out of paradise for our disobedience. Being himself good and the lover of humanity, he prepared beforehand the economy of our salvation in his own Word, through whom he also created us, so that despite our falling through being deceived by the serpent, we would not remain (me apomeinōmen) utterly dead. Rather, having recourse to the redemption and salvation prepared beforehand for us in the Word, we would rise again and remain (diamenōmen) immortal when he would be “created as the beginning of the ways” (Prov 8:22) for our sake, and so “the firstborn of creation” (Col 1:15) would become “the firstborn among brothers” (Rom 8:29) and himself rise as the “first-fruits of the dead” (cf. 1 Cor 15:20).

This is what the blessed apostle Paul teaches in his writing. He provides an interpretation of the words of the Proverbs, “before the ages” (Prov 8:23) and “before the earth was made” (Prov 8:24), when he says to Timothy: “Share in the burden of the gospel through the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not on account of our own works but according to his own design and grace, which he has given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages, but is now made manifest through the appearance of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and brought life to light” (2 Tim 1:8–10). And to the Ephesians, he says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3–5).

76. So then how did he choose us before we existed, if not, as the apostle himself said, we were prefigured “in him” (Eph 1:11)? How indeed did he “predestine us for adoption” (Eph 1:5) before humanity was even created, if not that the Son himself was “established as a foundation” (Prov 8:23) before the world, having taken upon himself the dispensation (oikonomian) for our sake? Or how is it that, as the apostle adds, “we were predestined for an inheritance” (Eph 1:11), if not that the Lord himself was “established as a foundation” (Prov 8:23) before the world, insofar as it was his purpose, for our sake, to take upon himself, through the flesh, the whole inheritance of judgment against us and thus henceforth to adopt us in himself? Or how did we receive grace before times and ages, when we who were created in time had not yet come into being, unless that antecedent grace was stored up for us in Christ? For in the judgment, when each will receive “according to his action” (Mt 16:27), he says, “Come, blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34). So how or in whom was it prepared before we came to be, if not in the Lord who was established as a foundation for this before the world was, so that we may be built up on him as “precious stones” (1 Cor 3:12) and may receive life and grace from him? As I have said before and as would seem fitting to one who thinks piously, this took place so that we may be capable of eternal life, rising from a short death. As human beings who are from earth, we would not have been capable of this had not the hope of life and salvation been prepared for us, in Christ, before the world was. Therefore it was fitting that the Word came into our flesh and “was created as a beginning of the ways for his works” (Prov 8:22) and thus was “established as a foundation,” insofar as the will of the Father resided in him, as has been said, “before the world was and before the earth was made and before the mountains were set in place, and before the springs of water gushed forth” (cf. Prov 8:23–25). This took place so that even if the earth and the mountains and the forms of visible things will “pass away” (1 Cor 7:31) in the consummation of the present age (Mt 13:40), and we also like them will “grow old” (Ps 102:27), yet we will still be enabled to have life even after all this and to attain to the life and spiritual blessing that were prepared for us and for the sake of our election before all these things in the Word himself. Thus we will be enabled to have a life that is not merely transitory, and to live after all these things in Christ, since before all these things our life was established and prepared in Christ.

77. For it would not have been at all fitting for our life to be established in any other foundation except in the Lord, so that insofar as this life is in the one who existed before the world and before the ages and through whom the world came to be (Heb 1:2), we also may be enabled to inherit eternal life. “God is good” (cf. Mk 10:17), and being good, he has eternally willed this, knowing that our weak nature was in need of his help and salvation. Just as a wise builder who sets out to build a house and at the same time makes plans for rebuilding it in case it is destroyed prepares a plan for its rebuilding and gives that to the builder—so that the plan for its rebuilding exists before the house itself—so in the same manner our salvific renewal was established in Christ before we existed, in order that we may be enabled to be created anew in him. The will and design for this was prepared before the world existed, though the act itself was accomplished only when the need arose and the Savior came. And when he receives us into eternal life in heaven, the Lord himself will stand for us in place of the world and everything else.

This is enough then for demonstrating that the Word of God is not a creature and that the passage does have a correct sense. Since a close examination of that passage yields an altogether proper sense, it is appropriate for us to state what this is so that these mindless ones may perhaps be brought to shame by our many words. But it is necessary here to recall what was previously said; for what we are about to say refers to the same proverb and the same Wisdom. The Word did not say of himself that he was a creature by nature, but was speaking in proverbs when he said, “the Lord created me” (Prov 8:22). It is clear that this signifies a meaning that is not overt but hidden, which we can find if we “lift the veil” of the parable. For who, upon hearing Creator-Wisdom say, “the Lord created me for the sake of his works” (Prov 8:22), would not immediately investigate the meaning and consider how it can be that the Creator is created? Who, when he hears the only-begotten Son of God saying that he was created as “a beginning of the ways” (Prov 8:22) would not enquire into the meaning and wonder how the only- begotten Son could become a beginning for many others? This indeed is an enigma. But it says, “The intelligent will understand a parable and a dark saying, the words of the wise and their riddles” (Prov 1:5–6).

78. Therefore, the only-begotten and true Wisdom of God is the creator and maker of all things. For it says: “In wisdom you have made all things” and “the earth is filled with your creation” (Ps 104:24). But in order that creatures may not only be but also thrive in well-being, it pleased God to have his own Wisdom condescend to creatures. Therefore, he placed in each and every creature and in the totality of creation a certain imprint (typon) and reflection of the Image of Wisdom, so that the things that come into being may prove to be works that are wise and worthy of God. Just as our word is an image of the Word who is the Son of God, so the wisdom that comes into being within us is an image of his Wisdom, in which we attain to knowledge and understanding. Thus, we become recipients of the Creator-Wisdom, and through her we are able to know her Father. For he says, “the one who has the Son also has the Father” (1 Jn 2:23) and “the one who receives me receives the one who sent me” (Mt 10:40). Since this imprint of Wisdom is created in us and in all created works, it is fitting that when the true Creator-Wisdom receives her own imprint into herself, she says: “the Lord created me for his works.” That which the wisdom within us says about herself, the Lord himself speaks as pertaining to him.

Since he is Creator, he is not created; but on account of his image that is in created works, he speaks of what pertains to them as applying to himself. Just as the Lord himself, on account of his imprint being in us, said, “the one who receives you receives me” (Mt 10:40), so he also says of himself, “the Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (Prov 8:22). He says this on account of the fact that his image and imprint (typos) is created in the works, although he himself is not one of the things that are created. Thus did the imprint of Wisdom come to be in created things, so that the world, as I have said, may come to know its Creator and Word, and through him, the Father. This is what Paul said, “For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rom 1:19– 20). Therefore, the Word is not a creature by essence, but the saying in the Proverbs refers to that within us which is called wisdom.

79. But if they do not believe what we are saying, let them say themselves whether there is any wisdom in creatures or not. If there is not, what about the apostle's censure, when he says, “since in the wisdom of God, the world did not come to know God through wisdom” (1 Cor 1:21). And if there is no such wisdom, how is it that we find in Scripture “many wise men” (Wis 6:24); and “the wise man is cautious and shuns evil” (Prov 14:16); and “a house is built by wisdom” (Prov 24:3). Moreover, Ecclesiastes says, “The wisdom of a man illumines his face” (Eccl 8:1), and he admonishes those who are too precipitate, saying, “Do not ask: Why were the former days better than these? For it is not in wisdom that you ask about this” (Eccl 7:10).

But if wisdom does exist {in the world}—as indeed Sirach says, “He has poured her forth upon all his works, upon all flesh according to his bounty, and he has lavished her upon those who love him” (Sir 1:8)—and yet such an outpouring does not indicate the being of Wisdom herself and of the only-begotten but of her extrapolated image in the world, why is it incredible if, as we have said, the true and Creator Wisdom herself, whose imprint (typos) is the wisdom and knowledge poured out into the world, should say about herself, “the Lord created me for his works” (Prov 8:22)? For the wisdom which is in the world does not create but is created in the works, and it is through this wisdom that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the stars proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps 19:2). If they bear this wisdom within themselves, human beings will also recognize the true Wisdom of God and will know that they are really made in God's image. It is just as in the case of a king's son, whose father wishes to build a city, and who inscribes his own name on each of the works within the city so that these works may be secured and preserved on account of the appearance of his name on each of them and so that the inhabitants of the city may be enabled by the inscription of the name to remember both him and his father. If, upon completion, someone were to ask him about how the city was made, he would say: “It was made securely, for by the will of my father, I was represented in each of the works, for the inscription of my name was created within the works.” In saying this, he would not be indicating that what is created is his own being, but rather his imprint (typos), which is represented by the name. In the same way as the example above, the true Wisdom responds to those who marvel at the wisdom in creatures by saying, “‘The Lord created me for the works.’ For my imprint (typos) is in them and thus have I condescended in the act of creating.”

80. So there is no reason to become bewildered if the Son speaks of his imprint in us as something that is his own, just as (for we do not hesitate to repeat ourselves) when Saul was persecuting the Church in which was his image and imprint (typos), he spoke as if he himself were being persecuted: “Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Therefore, as has been said, just as no one would think it strange if the imprint of Wisdom which is in the works should say, “He created me for his works” (Prov 8:22), so if the true Creator-Wisdom of God and his only-begotten Word ascribes to himself what belongs to his image and thus says “He created me for his works,” let no one bypass the wisdom that is created in the world and in the works and consider that the “created” is said of the very essence of Wisdom, lest such a person “mix wine with water” (Isa 1:22) and distort the truth.

For while Wisdom herself is Creator and Maker, her imprint is created in the works and is {made} according to the image of the Image. She says “beginning of the ways,” because such wisdom becomes a beginning and, as it were, a paradigm of the knowledge of God. When one embarks upon this primary path and guards it by the fear of God—as Solomon says, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God” (Prov 1:7)—and then ascends by intelligence and understanding and perceives in creation the Creator Wisdom, he will perceive in her also her Father, as the Lord himself has said, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) and John writes, “The one who confesses the Son also has the Father” (1 Jn 2:23). She says, “before the world he has established me as a foundation” (Prov 8:23), because it is in the imprint of Wisdom that the works find stability and always remain. Moreover, in order that no one, upon hearing these things said of the wisdom created in the works, may conclude that the true Wisdom and Son of God is by nature created, she necessarily adds, “before the mountain” and “before the earth” and “before the waters” and “before the hills he begot me” (Prov 8:24, 25). By saying, in effect, “before all creation”—for she clearly encompasses all creation in these things—she shows that she is not created along with the works, as far as essence. For if she is created “for the works” and yet exists before the works, it is clear that she exists before being “created.” Therefore Wisdom is not a creature by nature and being, but as he himself added, is an offspring (cf. Prov 8:25). As to the difference and variance in nature between a creature and an offspring, that has been shown in the preceding.

81. Now, since she goes on to say, “When he fashioned the heavens, I was there with him” (Prov 8:27), we must understand that she is saying that the Father did not fashion the heavens or “the clouds above” (Prov 8:28) except through her. For it is beyond doubt that all things were created in Wisdom, and apart from her not one thing was made (cf Jn 1:3). But this is what she is saying: “Everything came to be in me and through me. But there was need for wisdom to be created in the works. I was in the Father according to being, but as a condescension (te sunkatabasei) toward created beings, I concocted an imprint derived from myself for the sake of the works, so that the whole universe would be as one body, not discordant but in harmony with itself.” Therefore, all those who contemplate creatures with a right reason, according to this wisdom that is granted to them, would be enabled to say: “By your command all things stands firm” (Ps 119:91). But all those who neglect this wisdom will hear it said of them: “While claiming to be wise, they have become fools” (Rom 1:22). For “what can be known about God has been manifest to them, because God has manifested it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived through the creation of the world. So they have no excuse, for although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God” (Rom 1:19–21), but “have worshipped creatures instead of the creator of all things who is blessed forever, Amen” (Rom 1:25). And they will be ashamed when they hear: “Since the world did not know God through wisdom” (according to the manner that has just been described), “it pleased God to save those who believe through the foolishness of the proclamation” (1 Cor 1:21). For God willed to make himself known no longer as in previous times through the image and shadow of wisdom, which is in creatures, but has made the true Wisdom herself take flesh and become a mortal human being and endure the death of the cross, so that henceforth all those who put their faith in him may be saved. But it is the same Wisdom of God, who previously manifested herself, and her Father through herself, by means of her image in creatures—and thus is said to be “created”—but which later on, being Word, became flesh (Jn 1:14) as John said, and after “destroying death” (2 Tim 1: 10) and saving our race, both revealed himself and through himself his Father, saying, “Grant that they may know you the true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).

82. Therefore all the earth is filled with his knowledge. For one is the knowledge of the Father, through the Son, and of the Son, from the Father,¹⁷⁵ and the Father rejoices in the Son and in this same joy, the Son delights in the Father, saying, “I was beside him, his delight. Day by day, I rejoiced in his presence” (Prov 8:30). These words again show that the Son is not other (me allotrion), but belongs (idion) to the being of the Father. So, then, it is not for our sake that he came into being, as the impious say, nor is he in any way “from nothing.” Nor did God acquire for himself a cause for rejoicing from outside of himself. Rather, these words refer to what is his own and of his likeness (homoiou).

When was it then that the Father did not rejoice? But if he has always rejoiced, then there was always the one in whom he rejoiced. In whom, then, does the Father rejoice (cf. Prov 8:30), except by seeing himself in his own image (eikoni), which is his Word? Even though, as it is written in these same Proverbs, he also “delighted in the sons of people, having consummated the world” (Prov 8:31), yet this also has the same meaning. For he did not delight in this way by acquiring delight as an addition to himself, but it was upon seeing the works that were made according to his own image, so that the basis of this delight also is God's own Image. And how does the Son too rejoice, except by seeing himself in the Father? For to say this is the same as to say: “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9), and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn 14:10).

So now your boasting has been shown to be completely vacuous, you enemies of Christ, and your parading around and babbling everywhere about “He created me as the beginning of his ways” (Prov 8:22) is foolish. You distort the sense of the passage and proclaim your own ideas rather than the meaning of Solomon. But now your interpretation has been shown to be mere fantasy. For the passage in Proverbs and all that has been said about it make it evident that the Son is not a creature by nature and being (te physei kai te ousia), but the Father's own (idion) offspring who is true Wisdom and Word, “through whom everything came into being, and without him nothing came to be” (Jn 1:3).

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