Catechesis 11: For The Candidates For Baptism On ‘The Only-Begotten Son Of God Who Was Born Of The Father As True God Be
CATECHESIS 11: For the candidates for baptism On ‘The Only-begotten Son of God who was born of the Father as true God before all ages, through whom all things were made’
Reading: Heb 1.1ff: ‘In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers through the prophets, but in these the last days he has spoken to us through his Son…’
1 In our instruction yesterday we gave to the best of our ability sufficient explanation of the meaning of hope in Jesus Christ. But we are not required simply to believe in Jesus Christ, or accept him as if he were one of the many who are given the name of ‘christs’ in the loose sense. For these were ‘christs’ as prefigurations; he is the true Christ. He did not attain priesthood from among men by promotion; he possessed the priestly dignity from his Father from all eternity. This is why the Creed prevents us from taking him to be one of these ordinary ‘christs’ by expanding the clause in the Creed so that it states that we believe ‘in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God’.
2 Again, when you hear him described as ‘Son’, do not conceive him to be adopted, for he is the Son by nature, the Only-begotten Son, without any brother. The reason why he is called ‘Only-begotten’ is that he has no brother in his divine rank or in his birth from the Father. We do not call him Son of God on our own authority, but because the Father himself named him Christ his Son. The name which parents give their children is the true one.
3 Our Lord Jesus Christ became man then, though most people did not recognize him. The disciples did not understand this truth; so, wishing to teach it to them, he gathered them together and asked them: ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ (Mt 16.13). He asked this, not out of vainglory, but out of the desire to show them the truth, in case their familiarity with God's divine and Only-begotten Son might lead them to belittle him as an ordinary man. When they told him that some said he was Elijah, others Jeremiah, he replied: ‘They can be excused, for they know no better; but you are the apostles, who in my name cleansed lepers, cast out demons and raised the dead. You ought not to be ignorant about the one through whom you work these miracles.’ When all the rest remained silent, because the teaching was beyond human understanding, it was Peter, the leader of the apostles and the chief herald of the Church, who answered, not out of fluency of speech or conviction based on human reason, but because his understanding had been enlightened by his Father. ‘You are the Christ’, he answered, and added: ‘the Son of the living God’ (Mt 16.16). This declaration led to a blessing—for it truly was beyond human reason—and to seal his affirmation he was told that it had been revealed by the Father. For the Saviour declared: ‘You are blessed, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven’ (Mt 16.17). It follows that anyone who recognizes our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God shares in this blessing, but anyone who denies the Son of God is wretched and unfortunate.
4 Once more, when I tell you that he is the Son, do not take this statement to be a mere figure of speech, but understand that he is the Son truly, Son by nature, without beginning, not promoted from the state of slave to that of son, but eternally begotten as Son by an inscrutable and incomprehensible birth. Similarly when I tell you that he is the Firstborn, do not understand this to mean he was the firstborn among men. For in human families the firstborn have brothers. Thus the Bible somewhere speaks of ‘Israel my firstborn Son’ (Exod 4.22). However, like Reuben, Israel forfeited his position as firstborn: Reuben for getting into his father's bed, Israel for driving the Father's Son out of the vineyard and crucifying him (Gen 49.4; Mt 21.39). Scripture says also with regard to other men: ‘You are sons of the Lord your God.’ And in another place: ‘I said, “You are all gods and sons of the Most High”’ (Gen 49.4; Mt 21.39). ‘I said’, not ‘I begot’. They received adoption when God spoke, and did not enjoy it before. But Christ did not first exist in one form before being begotten in another, but he was begotten as Son from the beginning, Son of the Father in every way like his Begetter, Light begotten from Light, Truth from Truth, Wisdom from Wisdom, King from the King, God from God, and Power from Power.
5 So when you hear the Gospel saying: ‘the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham’ (Mt 1.1), you must understand that this is said about his humanity. For though he became Son of David ‘at the end of the ages’ (Heb 9.26), he was Son of God before all ages. The former title he assumed as something not previously possessed; the latter he possessed eternally, being begotten by the Father. He has two fathers: the first is David according to the flesh, the second God the Father according to his divinity. His Davidic sonship was subject to time, was ‘touched by hand’ (cf. 1 Jn 1.1) and its ‘genealogy traced’ (cf. Heb 7.3); his divine sonship, however, was not subject to time or place or genealogy, for ‘who will recount his genealogy?’ (Is 53.8 (LXX)). ‘God is Spirit’ (Jn 4.24), and being Spirit and incorporeal, he begot spiritually, by an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation. The Son himself says of the Father: ‘The Lord said to me, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”’ (Ps 2.7). This ‘today’ is not recent but eternal; this ‘today’ is timeless, before all ages. ‘From the womb before the morning star I begot you’ (Ps 109 (110).3 (LXX)).
6 So believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. He is the ‘Only-begotten Son’, according to the words of the Gospel: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his Only-begotten Son, so that they who believe in him may not perish, but may have eternal life’ (Jn 3.16). Again: ‘Whoever believes in the Son is not judged’ (Jn 3.18), ‘but has passed from death to life’ (Jn 5.24). ‘Whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him’ (Jn 3.36), because he has not believed in the Only-begotten Son of God (cf. Jn 3.18). John witnessed to this saying: ‘And we saw his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (Jn 1.14). Trembling before him the demons said: ‘Leave us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of the living God?’ (cf. Lk 4.34; Mk 5.7).
7 So he is the Son of God by nature and not by adoption, being begotten of the Father. ‘Those who love the Begetter also love the One he begot’ (1 Jn 5.1); and those who despise the Begotten direct their pride against the Begetter. However, when you hear me speak of God as the Begetter, do not lower your thoughts to bodily things or conceive of corruptible generation; to do so would be blasphemous. Since ‘God is Spirit’ (Jn 4.24), his begetting is spiritual, for bodies beget bodies; moreover the generation of bodies requires the intervention of time, and no time intervenes for the generation of the Son from the Father. In this world a being is begotten in an imperfect state; but the Son was already perfect when begotten by the Father. He was begotten from the beginning, just as he is now. In our begetting, we change from the ignorance of a child to rationality. Your own generation was imperfect, my friend, for your development requires gradual advance. But do not imagine that it was the same with the Son, or attribute any weakness to his Begetter. If he had begotten something imperfect which acquired perfection only in the course of time, you might well attribute weakness to the Begetter, in so far as the Begetter did not grant from the beginning what according to you he granted only at a later time.
8 So do not conceive the begetting anthropomorphically, as for example Abraham begot Isaac. For when Abraham begot Isaac, he did not beget what he chose but what was granted him by another. But when God the Father is the Begetter, there is neither uncertainty nor intervening deliberation. To say that he did not know what was being begotten would be the greatest blasphemy; and to say that he became Father only after spending time in deliberation is equally blasphemous. For God was not originally childless before becoming a father. He always had his Son, for he begot him not after the human fashion, but in a unique way before all ages, begetting him as ‘true God’.
9 For the Father, who is ‘true God’, begot a Son who is ‘true God’ like himself—not as teachers beget pupils, in the way Paul writes to certain people: ‘I begot you in Christ Jesus through the Gospel’ (1 Cor 4.15). For in Paul's case one who is not a son by nature became a son through being a pupil; but Christ is Son by nature, a true son. This is not the sense in which you candidates for baptism are now in the process of becoming sons of God; for you are becoming sons by grace and adoption, according to the scriptural statement: ‘As many as received him, he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were begotten not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God’ (Jn 1.12–13); we are begotten of water and Spirit (cf. Jn 3.5). But the begetting of Christ by the Father was not like this. For when the Father addressed him at the moment of his baptism, saying: ‘This is my Son’, he did not say, ‘This has now become my Son’, but ‘This is my Son’, because he wanted to show that he was already the Son before he had received the effect of his baptism.
10 The Father did not beget the Son in the way that the human mind begets speech. For the mind has a substantial reality within us, but our speech once uttered is scattered on the air and expires. We know that Christ was begotten not as an uttered word but as the substantial, living Word, not a word spoken by the lips and scattered, but begotten by the Father eternally, indefinably and substantially. For in the beginning the Word existed, seated at the Father's right hand, the Word who knew the Father's will and made all things by the Father's decree. The Word descended and ascended, but the uttered word in being spoken neither descends or ascends. The Word speaks and says: ‘What I have seen with my Father, these things I speak’ (Jn 8.38). The Word is endowed with authority and universal rule, for the Father has entrusted all things to the Son (cf. Jn 13.3).
11 Thus the Father did not beget the Son in a way a human being can comprehend, but in a way known to himself alone. For we do not undertake to tell you how he was begotten, but we will explain how he was not. We are not the only ones who don't understand the Son's begetting by the Father; no created nature of any kind understands it. ‘Speak to the earth to see if it will teach you’ (Job 12.8 (LXX)); but even if you question every creature on the earth, they will not be able to tell you. For the earth cannot explain the being of its own potter who fashioned it. If the earth does not know, neither does the sun. For the sun was created on the fourth day, and so does not know what happened on the three days before it existed. So if the sun does not know what happened on the three days before it existed, it will not be able to explain its maker. The sky will not give an explanation, for ‘the heaven was solidified like vapour’ (Is 51.6 (LXX)) by Christ at the Father's decree. Nor will the ‘heaven of heavens’ (cf. Ps 148.4) give an explanation, or the waters above the heavens. Why then does it distress you, my friend, not to know what even the heavens do not know? And it is not only the heavens which do not know the begetting, but even the whole angelic nature. For if you were to ascend to the first heaven (were that possible) and behold the angels arrayed there, and if you approached them and asked how God begot his own Son, they would probably say: ‘We have greater beings above us; ask them.’ So ascend to the second or the third heaven, make your way if you can to the Thrones and Dominations, the Principalities and Powers. Even if you were to reach them (which is impossible), they too would deny you an explanation, for they do not know the answer.
12 I never cease to be amazed at the presumption of those bold thinkers who in their reputed reverence decline into profanity. For although they have no knowledge of Thrones and Dominations, or of Principalities and Powers, which were created by Christ, they embark on speculations concerning the Creator. Tell me first, my brave friend, the difference between a Throne and a Domination, before you speculate about Christ. Tell me what a Principality is, or a Power or a Virtue or an Angel, before you speculate about their Maker, for everything was made through him. Nor will you wish to question Thrones or Dominations; indeed, you could not. What else is there which knows ‘God's depths’ except the Holy Spirit who spoke the sacred Scriptures (cf. 1 Cor 2.10)? But even the Holy Spirit has not spoken in the Scriptures about the Son's generation from the Father. So why do you speculate about matters which even the Holy Spirit has not written of in the Scriptures? If you are ignorant of what is written there, will you speculate about what is not written? The sacred Scriptures raise many questions; so if we do not understand what is written, why do we meddle with matters which are not? It is enough for us to know that God begot the one Son alone.
13 Do not be afraid to admit your ignorance, since you share it with the angels. It is only the Begetter who knows the Begotten, and only the one he begot who knows his Begetter (cf. Mt 11.27). The Begetter knows why he begot, and the Scriptures bear witness that the Begotten is God. ‘For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself’ (Jn 5.26), ‘so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father’ (Jn 5.23). ‘Just as the Father gives life to those whom he chooses, so the Son also gives life to those whom he chooses’ (cf. Jn 5.21). There is no defect in the Begetter, and nothing lacking to the Begotten. (I know I have said this often, but I have done so for your own protection.) The Begetter has no father, and the Begotten has no brother. The Begetter was not transformed into the Son, nor did the Begotten become the Father. There is one Only-begotten Son of the one and only Father. There are not two Unbegotten or two Only-begotten: there is one unbegotten Father (for to be unbegotten is to have no father), and one Son eternally begotten by the Father, not begotten in time but begotten before all ages, not one who grew and developed, but begotten as he is now.
14 So we believe ‘in the Only-begotten Son of God, who was begotten from the Father, true God’. For, as we have explained, the true God does not beget a false one, nor did he deliberate before begetting. He begot from eternity, much more rapidly than our words or our thoughts. For we speak in time, and our words take time to utter, but where God's power is concerned, the begetting is outside time. As I have often said, he did not lead the Son from non-being to being, or bring a non-existent being to adoption. The eternal Father eternally and ineffably begot his one and only Son who has no brother. Nor are there two principles; the Father is the Head of the Son, a single principle. For the Father begot his Son as the ‘true God’, who was given the name Emmanuel, and Emmanuel means ‘God with us’.
15 Do you want proof that the one who was begotten of the Father and subsequently incarnate is God? Listen to the words of the prophet: ‘He is our God, no other will be numbered beside him. He has discovered every way of knowledge and given it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and consorted with mankind’ (Baruch 3.36–8 (LXX)). Do you notice that God became man after Moses gave the law? Listen to a second testimony concerning Christ's deity, which we have just heard read: ‘Your throne, O God, lasts for ever and ever.’ To prevent his bodily presence in the world leading us to think that he advanced to deity later, the psalm says explicitly: ‘Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your fellows.’ Do you notice that Christ is God, anointed by God his Father?
16 Would you like to hear a third piece of evidence in support of Christ's deity? Listen to Isaiah's words: ‘Egypt and the stores of the Ethiopians toiled’; and a little later: ‘They will make their petitions in your name because God is in you, and there is no other god but you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God, the Saviour of Israel’ (Is 45.14–15 (LXX)). Did you notice God the Son, with God the Father within him, saying in effect what he says in the Gospels: ‘The Father in me and I in the Father’ (cf. Jn 14.11; 17.21)? He did not say: ‘I am the Father’, but ‘The Father in me and I in the Father.’ Again, he did not say: ‘I and the Father am one’, but: ‘I and the Father are one’ (Jn 10.30), to prevent us either separating them or constructing a compound Son-Father. They are one in respect of the dignity of godhead, since God begot God. They are one in respect of kingship, since the Father and the Son do not have different subjects, as if the Son, like Absalom, was his Father's rival; the Father's subjects are the same as the Son's. They are one because there is no disharmony or disagreement between them, for the Father's wishes are not different from the Son's. They are one because Christ's creations are not distinct from the Father's, because there is a single act of creation of all things, performed by the Father through the Son, according to the Psalmist's words: ‘he spoke, and they were made; he gave the command, and they were created’ (Ps 148.5 (LXX)). For to speak implies a hearer, and to command implies a partner.
17 So the Son is true God, and has the Father within himself without being changed into the Father; for it was not the Father but the Son who became man, as we can declare with confidence. The Father did not suffer for us; he sent the one who suffered for us. We should not say: ‘There was when the Son was not’, or accept a Son-Father; let us walk along the royal road without straying either to left or to right. We should never imagine that we honour the Son if we proclaim him as the Father, or imagine that we honour the Father by suspecting that the Son is numbered among created things. The one Father should be worshipped through the one Son, and the worship should not be divided. The one Son should be proclaimed, who has been seated before all ages at the Father's right hand; that he is seated with his Father is not something he acquired in time by advancement, but an eternal possession.
18 ‘He who has seen the Son has seen the Father’ (Jn 14.9). For the Son is in everything like the Father. He was begotten as life from life, light from light, power from power, God from God. The characteristics of the godhead are unchanged in the Son. Anyone who is allowed to see the Son's godhead enters into the enjoyment of the Begetter. These are not my words but the Only-begotten Son's: ‘Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father’ (Jn 14.9). To make the point more precisely, we must not separate, we must not make a compound. Nor should you say that the Son was ever alien to the Father, or listen to those who say that the Father is at one time Father, at another Son. These teachings are outlandish and blasphemous, and not the teachings of the Church. When the Father begot the Son, he remained the Father and was not changed. In begetting Wisdom, he did not cease to be wise himself; in begetting Power, he did not himself become weak; in begetting God, he did not forfeit godhead himself. He lost nothing; he was in no way diminished or changed. Nor is the Begotten in any way deficient. The Begetter is perfect, the Begotten is perfect; the Begetter is God, the Begotten is also God: God of all things, yet describing his Father as his God. For he is not ashamed to say: ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (Jn 20.17).
19 Lest you might imagine that he is Father of the Son and of creatures in the same sense, Christ went on to draw a distinction. He didn't say: ‘I am ascending to our Father’, in case creatures might seem to have something in common with the Only-begotten. Instead, he said; ‘My Father and your Father’. He is my Father in one way, by nature; he is your Father in a different way, by adoption. Again: ‘To my God and your God’. He is my God in one way, in so far as I am the true and Only-begotten Son; he is your God in a different way, in so far as you are creatures. The Son of God, then, is true God, ineffably begotten before all ages; I tell you this repeatedly, in order to impress it upon your minds. That God has a Son, you must believe, but do not speculate how, for however much you look for an answer, you will not find one. Don't climb too high, lest you fall. What you are required to believe, keep in mind—that but no more. First tell me who the Begetter is, and then learn what he begot. If you can't grasp the nature of the Begetter, don't speculate about the mode of the Begotten.
20 For piety it is enough for you to know, as we have said, that God has one only Son, one begotten by nature. His existence does not begin with his birth in Bethlehem but was ‘before all ages’. Listen to the words of the prophet Micah: ‘And you, Bethlehem, home of Ephrathah, are very small to be among the thousands of Judah. From you will come my leader who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel. His origin is from the beginning, from the days of eternity’ (Micah 5.2 (LXX) adjusted). So don't think of the one who is now from Bethlehem, but adore the one begotten by the Father from all eternity. Don't attend to anyone who says that the Son's origin was in time; understand that his origin in the Father was outside time. For the Son's origin is timeless, incomprehensible, itself without origin, namely the Father. For the Father is the source of the Only-begotten who is the river of righteousness, and he alone knows how he begot him. Do you want proof that our Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal King? Hear once more what he says: ‘Abraham delighted to see my day; he saw it and rejoiced’ (Jn 8.56). When the Jews found this saying hard to accept, he then added words which they found even harder: ‘Before Abraham came to be, I am’ (Jn 8.58). Again, he said to the Father: ‘And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory which I had in your presence before the world existed’ (Jn 17.5). For he was clearly implying: ‘Before the world came into existence, I had glory in your presence.’ Again, when he said: ‘You loved me before the foundation of the world’ (Jn 17.24), he was clearly implying: ‘The glory I have in your presence is eternal.’
21 So let us believe ‘in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, true God, before all ages, through whom all things were made’. Whether Thrones or Dominations, whether Principalities or Powers, all things were made through him; nothing that is made is excluded from his power. Let every heresy which introduces different creators and makers of the universe be silent; silent every heresy which blasphemes against Christ the Son of God; silent those who say Christ is the sun, for he is the sun's maker, not the visible sun itself; silent those who say that the world is the work of angels, wishing to rob the Only-begotten of his prerogative. For whether visible or invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations, or anything that can be named, everything was made through Christ (cf. Col 1.16; Eph 1.21). He reigns over the things he made; he did not capture them as booty from another; he reigns over what his own work produced. As John the Evangelist said: ‘All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made’ (Jn 1.3). All things were made through him, as the Father worked through the Son.
22 I would like to put before you an illustration of what I am saying, but I realize it is feeble; for what visible thing can provide an illustration of the divine power? Nevertheless, allow me to propose it, feeble though it is—the feeble speaking to the feeble. Imagine a king, with a king for a son, desiring to found a city and proposing a plan for its foundation to the son who shares his royal authority; the son accepts the plan and puts his father's intention into effect. In some such way, when the Father decided to create the universe, the Son made everything according to his Father's decree. In this way the Father's decree maintained his proper authority, while the Son retained authority over his own workmanship; thus the Father was not excluded from lordship over his own creation, nor did the Son rule over beings made by another but over those he had made himself. For, as we have said, the world was not made by angels, but by the Only-begotten Son who was begotten before all ages, according to the text: ‘all things were made through him’, without exception. By the grace of Christ this concludes what I have to say on this subject.
23 However, to return to the Creed, let us stop at this point. Christ has made all things, whether you speak of Angels and Archangels, or Dominations and Thrones. Not that the Father was too weak to create by his own action; rather he intended the Son to rule over creatures which the Son himself had made, according to the plan of creation given by the Father. For out of respect for his Father the Only-begotten said: ‘The Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing; for what the Father does, the Son does also’ (Jn 5.19). Again: ‘My Father has been working until now, and I work’ (Jn 5.17); for there is no lack of harmony between the workers. For ‘all mine are yours, and yours are mine’, the Lord says in the Gospels (Jn 17.10). We can discover this clearly in the Old and New Testaments. For the words ‘Let us make man in our own image and likeness’ (Gen 1.26) were evidently spoken to someone present. Even more explicitly the Psalmist says: ‘He spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created’ (Ps 32 (33).9). This implies that the Father commanded and spoke, while the Son made all things by his Father's decree. Job too said figuratively: ‘He who alone spread the heavens and walks on the sea as on the dry land’, showing us, if we reflect, that the one who in his incarnate life walked on the sea was also the one who before had made the heavens. Again, the Lord says: ‘Have you taken clay from the earth and made a living creature?’ (Job 38.14 (LXX)). And later: ‘And the gates of death open for you in terror’ (Job 38.17 (LXX)), showing that the one who out of love for mankind descended to the underworld was also the one who in the beginning formed the man from clay.
24 Thus Christ is the Only-begotten Son of God and the maker of the world. For ‘he was in the world, and the world was made through him’; and ‘he came to his own’ (Jn 1.10, 11), as the Gospel teaches us. By his Father's decree Christ is the maker of things both seen and unseen. For, as the Apostle says, ‘In him were all things created in the heavens and on earth, things visible and invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations, whether Principalities or Powers; all things were created through him and for him’ (Col 1.16). Even if you speak of the very ages, Jesus Christ is their maker too by the Father's decree. For ‘in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the ages’ (Heb 1.2). To him are glory, honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.