Chapter V: The true deity of Christ is proved, § 42: (1) From His divine 42 names, § 45. (2) From His essential divine a

CHAPTER V: ON THE DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST

§ 42. Thesis: There is in Christ a true and perfect divine nature; as a consequence, Christ also is true, natural, and eternal God.

Exposition: We say that there are in Christ not only divine gifts but also a true and perfect divine nature. We are not saying that He simply is and is called God, but that He is true, natural, and eternal God, that we may the more clearly separate our confession from the blasphemies of the Photinians and all the enemies of God.

After the custom of all heretics, the Photinians say one thing but understand something else when they say that they, too, believe and confess the true deity of Christ. Ostorodus and Voidovius, Apologia Belgice, published at Racovia in 1600, p. 22: “What is the source of that audacity of your theologians by which the most illustrious orders are eager to impose upon you and persuade you that we deny the deity of the Son of God? By the grace of God, we deny not the true but only the false and spurious deity of the Son of God.” Socinus, Contra Bellarmin. et Wiekum, p. 51: “It is clearly absolutely false that we openly affirm that Christ is not true God. In fact, we publicly profess the contrary and assert that Christ is true God in not a few of our published writings both in the Latin and in the Polish languages.” Page 374: “None of us denies that Christ is true God, that is, that He is God not merely in name but actually.” In Defens. animadv., p. 131, Socinus writes very audaciously: “I and my people fight for the true, not the fictitious, divinity of Christ.” Catech. Racov., p. 48: “One can show very clearly that the Lord Jesus cannot be considered as a pure man.” Page 64: “I do not deny that Christ is true God.” Theophilus Nicolaides, Defens. Socini adv. Miedzibozium, p. 23: “Along with St. Thomas they believe with all their heart that the crucified Jesus is their Lord and God. With St. Paul they acknowledge that Christ, who would arise from the fathers according to the flesh, is God, blessed over all.” Schmaltz, Exam. 157 errorum, p. 4, calls Christ “the natural Son of God.”

§ 43. All these, however, are pure tricks designed to deceive the more naive and incautious minds of men. Against them we briefly set forth the following: (1) That is not defined which the definition does not fit. But according to the hypothesis of the Photinians, the definition of true deity or of the divine nature (which is that it is an utterly simple spiritual essence, eternal, uncreated, etc.) does not fit Christ. Therefore it is not a definition.

(2) It is one thing for someone to be truly called God, but it is another to say that he is true, natural, and eternal God. The Photinians concede the first to Christ, but they take the latter away from Him. A magistrate is truly called “god,” for the praise of the Holy Spirit is not false: “I have said, you are gods” [Ps. 82:6]. Yet the magistrate is not true, natural, and eternal God.

(3) Divine gifts do not yet cause someone to be the true, natural, and eternal God. For this, a true and perfect divine nature is also required, something that the Photinians wickedly deny to Christ.

(4) The Photinians themselves disclose to us these tricks of theirs. Catech. Racov., p. 64: “Although Christ may be true God, He nevertheless is not of Himself the one God who is God of Himself and in the most perfect manner, because this God is only the Father; that is, He is ‘a true God’ but He is not ‘the true God.’ He is the true God who by nature is God.” According to them, there are many “true gods,” namely, as many as have been “made gods” [], but as far as they are concerned, the true God is only the Father of Christ. Socinus, Contra Wiekum p. 51: “If perhaps someone of our people has written otherwise somewhere, there he will surely signify the name of the true God in the most perfect manner, just as the circumstances of the passage will easily make clear.” Ostorodus, Institut., p. 132: “When someone is presented merely as a pure man, one can understand this in two ways, both with regard to essence and with regard to qualities. If this is taken with regard to essence, then we confess that the essence of Christ, inasmuch as He is true man, is nothing other than human; but if it is taken with regard to qualities and one considers what sort of man He is, we say that Christ is not merely, purely, and only a man, but something more.”

** Ostorodus again, Instit., ch. 6, t. 7: “We think that the essence of the Son of God was nothing other than the essence of a man; that is, He is true man. And we know of no other nature or essence in Him.” Chapter 10, t. 1: “In Scripture, Christ is called ‘God’ not because He is by nature the God on high, but because He has received from God divine power and glory according to Phil. 2[:9]: ‘He has given Him a name.’ “ **

(5) Schmaltzius calls Christ “the natural Son of God,” not because he acknowledges Him to have been born from eternity of the essence of the Father and to be God by nature, but because according to His human nature He was conceived in a divine way, that is, by the Holy Spirit.

(6) So, then, the Photinians call Christ “true God” merely with regard to the name; but we call Him that also with regard to the thing itself, namely, the divine essence. They call Him “God” with regard to the divine gifts given Him in time; we, with regard to His divine nature. They call Him “God made in time”; we call Him “eternal God.”

(7) Therefore we set against the Photinians the prophetic words of Jer. 10:11: “May the gods who did not make heaven and earth perish from the earth.” But the Photinians concede that Christ is God and yet deny that He is the Creator of heaven and earth. Therefore they state that Christ must be destroyed.

§ 44. The classes of arguments from which the true deity of Christ is proved are distributed in various ways. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 7, claims that one can prove the divinity of Christ in five ways: (1) By name, because He is called “God” simply and precisely. (2) By His birth and begetting, because He is called the “Son of God.” (3) By nature, because He said, “I and the Father are one [unum]” [John 10:30]; not unus, which designates a person, but unum, which denotes substance. However, this substance is one and the same for the Father and the Son; otherwise there would not be only one God. (4) By power, because He said, “All power has been given to Me” [Matt. 28:18]. (5) By confession, because Christ Himself confessed that God is His Father and that He is consubstantial with Him and equal to Him.

Some reduce all the arguments into two classes, the first of which contains the express testimonies of Holy Writ; and the second, other arguments taken from the Scriptures, for example: (1) From the generating cause, because He is the proper and natural Son of God. (2) From form, because He is in the form of God [Phil. 2:6]. (3) From the proper works of God, because He created heaven and earth, governs all things by His providence, searches mind and heart, forgives sins, grants the Holy Spirit and eternal life, etc. (4) From His attributes, because He is eternal, omnipotent, everywhere present, omniscient, in whom we are to believe, in whose name we are baptized, whom everyone must invoke, to whom the Church belongs, etc.

We proceed in this way: The deity of the Son is proved: (1) From His name. (2) From the thing itself and, indeed: (a) A priori, that is, from His attributes, both essential and personal. (b) A posteriori, that is, on the basis of His divine works and divine worship. From this we have these verses: “His words, worship, work, confession, gifts—these five—will soon prove to you the divine nature of Christ.”

Christ Himself shows this method of proof in John 5. Although the Jews were drawing the correct conclusion that by calling the true God His Father He was teaching that He is equal to God and is the true and eternal God, they were drawing the false conclusion that He was committing blasphemy with this assertion. Therefore Christ proves His true deity against their false accusations: (1) From His divine works, because He accomplishes the same effects as the Father and indeed in the same way, so that there is sameness [] in the works and likeness [] in the manner of acting, and thus He proves that He is of the same nature and equal power with the Father (John 5:19). (2) From divine worship, because “everyone should honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (John 5:23). Where there is sameness of honor and worship, there is also equality of glory and majesty. (3) From the divine attributes and properties, because the Father “has granted the Son also to have life in Himself, just as He has life in

Himself,” etc. (John 5:26).

First, from the divine names.

§ 45. The first class of arguments for asserting the true divinity of Christ is taken from the divine names. (There are three kinds of divine names from which the deity of Christ is proved: 1. Natural, such as “God” and “Jehovah.” 2. Personal, such as “Son of God,” “Only-Begotten,” “His own,” and “Firstborn.” 3. Official, such as “Jesus” and “Savior.”)

To this class belong: (I) The express statements of Scripture in which Christ is called [“God”] with the article (John 1:1, Acts 20:28, 1 Tim. 3:16); “great God” (Titus 2:13); “true God” (1 John 5:20); “God who is blessed over all [super omnia vel super omnes]” (Rom. 9:5); “the Most High” (Luke 1:76); and “the Lord” [], with which name the Septuagint translators expressed the name “Jehovah,” which is proper to God alone; “my Lord” (John 20:28); “our only Master and Lord” (Jude 4); “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36); “Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:48); “Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8; cf. Acts 7:2);

“Lord of heaven and earth” to whom “all power on heaven and earth has been given” (Matt. 28:18); “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16).

(II) A comparison of passages of the Old and New Testaments in which those things that were said of Jehovah in the Old Testament are applied to the Son of God in the New. (See Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 175.) Thus He who delivered the people of Israel from Egypt is true Jehovah (Exod. 20:2). Deut. 32:12: “Jehovah alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him.” But it was Christ who led the people of Israel out of Egypt. Jude 5: “I want to remind you, though you once knew it, that the Lord” (in the Vulgate translation the name “Jesus” is added), “though He freed His people from Egypt, destroyed those who did not believe.” In v. 4, he affirms that “the Lord” is “Jesus Christ.” Therefore.

He who spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai in the publication of the Law is the true God (Exod. 20:1), for it is sealed with titles that befit the true God alone. But He who spoke with Moses at that time was the Son of God (Acts 7:36–[38]). Therefore.

He whom the Israelites tempted in the wilderness was the true God and Jehovah on high (Exod. 17:2, 7; Num. 11:1; 14:3; 21:5; Deut. 6:16; Ps. 78:18; 105:32; Heb. 3:8). They spoke against Moses, but the “temptation” everywhere has God as its object. However, it is Christ whom the Israelites tempted in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:9). Therefore.

Hilary, toward the end of De Trinit., bk. 5, cites a passage from Baruch 3:[37]: “God came into the world to converse with us. He is our God, and no other shall be accounted of in comparison to Him. Afterward, He was seen on earth and conversed with men.”

(III) The oracles of the Old Testament, which, when they speak about the true and eternal God, are applied to the Messiah in the Chaldaic paraphrase. Isa. 41:14: “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel” (or “you who are from Israel”)! “I have helped you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.” The Chaldean explains this as follows: “God said, My Word is your help.” Isa. 45:17: “Israel shall be saved [“in Jehovah”] with everlasting salvation.” The Targum Jonathae renders it in this way: “Israel shall be saved in the Word” or “through the Word of God with eternal salvation.” Hosea 1:7: “I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them in Jehovah their God.” The Chaldean translates it in this way: “I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them in the Word of the Lord their God.” Hosea 9:17: “My God will cast them off because they did not obey Him.” The Targum Jonathae explains that in this way: “My God will cast them off because they did not accept His Word.”

It is right for us to cite these and similar passages of the Chaldaic paraphrase against the Jews, since among them it is no less authentic than the Hebrew text itself, and to these the statements of the ancient Hebrews can be joined, in which they attribute the name “Jehovah” to the Messiah. In the Talmud in Midrash Echa, ch. 1, various statements are made about the name of the Messiah, and finally there is this addition: “Master Abba said: ‘His name will be God.’ “ The same thing is in the Talmud in the tractate called Bava Bathra, the chapter that begins “He who sees a ship,” namely, that the Messiah must be called with the four-letter name of God. And to those very many Jews who were asking there in Bava Mithia with what name the Messiah was going to be called, Rabbi Abba, the most learned man among the Hebrews, responded that the Messiah was going to be called with the four-letter name , as it is thought. That rabbi says (Jeremiah 23): “And this is the name with which they will call Him, the Lord our righteous one.” Buxtorf, on the root , p. 187, cites the passage from the Spanish Rabbi Joseph Albo in the book Ikkarim, orat. 2, ch. 28: “Scripture calls the name of the Messiah ‘Jehovah our Righteousness’ because the mediator will be God, through whose hand we will receive righteousness from God Himself. Therefore He calls Him with the proper name of God Himself, ‘Jehovah.’ “ (Cf. Galatinus; Weidner, Loc. fid. praecip., treatise 2, p. 190; and Helvicus, Disp. contraJudaeos.)

§ 46. Furthermore, that the argument drawn from the divine names may stand firm against the scoffing of the Photinians, we should note: (1) The name “Jehovah” is proper to the true God alone and is nowhere attributed to any creature, as we have confirmed with clear arguments in its own place and as we have refuted the contrary arguments of the Photinians.¹ Therefore when the Tetragrammaton is attributed to the Son of God, we conclude solidly from this that He is the true, eternal, and uncreated God.

(2) Christ is called “God” in the singular number absolutely and simply. The so-called “gods,” whether they are so called with regard to their title or with regard to their exercise or with respect to both, are so called with an appendix and restriction. However, nowhere is such a limitation used about Christ. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 175: “When Scripture names ‘gods’ those who are not gods, it is not showing that they are gods completely, but rather with an addition and signification through which it shows that they are not gods.” Page 176: “Moses, being a man of God, was given as ‘God’ before Pharaoh, but he was not truly called ‘God.’ He was not called ‘God’ by the prophets, but Moses is called ‘the faithful servant and slave of God’ by Scripture, and that is what he was.” Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 7: “Moses is called ‘God’ not absolutely but was given to Pharaoh as God when he was feared, when he was beseeched, when he punished, when he healed.” The Chaldean explains: “I placed you as the master of Pharaoh.” Rabbi Abraham: “I destined you as messenger to Pharaoh.” We pass the same judgment about the rest who in the clear text itself are called “gods” not properly and absolutely but figuratively, because of a likeness, and limitedly in a certain respect. Justin, . et resp. ad orthod., q. 142, p. 378: “Angels and judges are said to be gods because of their order, honor, appellation, and calling.” However, Christ is called “God” in a far different and more sublime manner, namely, not merely nominally and in a limited way but essentially and absolutely. Irenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 5, p. 174: “Not the Lord nor the Holy Spirit nor the apostles would have sometimes called him who was not God ‘God,’ definitely and absolutely, unless he was true God, nor would they have called someone ‘Lord’ on the basis of his own person except the one who is Lord of all: God the Father and His Son, who received the lordship from His Father over all creation.”

(3) Christ is called “God” with a further specification or addition, but that addition is not limiting nor restrictive but rather explanatory, expressive of His divine essence, because in that addition such adjectives and statements are added to the word “God” that fit no one but the true and eternal God alone. Thus Christ is called “great God,” “true God,” “God blessed over all.” (Gregory, on Ezekiel, homily 8: “He who is called God nominally is among all things. But He who is called God absolutely is over all things. Therefore in order to show that Christ is God materially, He is mentioned not only as ‘God’ but also as ‘God over all things.’ “) He is also called “mighty God” (Isa. 9:6), “God with us” (Isa. 7:14), and “our only Master and Lord” (Jude 4).

(4) Christ is called “God” in such a way that something is being attributed to Him absolutely² in the subject of the declaration, as to God. Acts 20:28: “God has redeemed the Church with His own blood.” 1 Tim. 3:16: “God was revealed in the flesh.” (We could add 1 John 3:16: “By this we know the love of God, that He laid down His life for us.” However, here the Greek does not have the word [“of God”].) But now, Socinus proposes the following rule in Contra Bellarmin. et Wiekum, ch. 6, class. 4, arg. 1, p. 370: “The name ‘God’ is by its own nature an absolute name and, therefore, befits many. Nevertheless it is preeminently and uniquely attributed to that one greatest Creator and Author of all things in such a way that in the New Testament, when it holds the place of the subject absolutely, whether it appear with or without the article, or when it has the nature of the predicate, if it has the article simply or it appears without such an adjunct or construction that would weaken the force of the article, it is never found attributed to anyone except to God alone, and not even Christ Himself is excepted.” In Defens. animadv., ch. 4, p. 130: “When the name ‘God,’ given simply, holds the place of the subject, it means God the Father, which is nothing other than that the Father alone is that one true God.”

(5) Christ is called “God” with the prepositive article, (Matt. 1:23; Luke 1:16; Acts 20:28; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8). But now, the Photinians have the rule that the word [“God”] stated with the article denotes only the true and eternal God. Socinus, Tract. de Deo Christo et Spiritu s., p. 55: “The passage in John 1 can indicate well enough that Jesus Christ is not equally true God as is His Father, because there His Father is named , that is, the one God. But Jesus Himself is one God; He is ; He is called ‘God’ simply.” Earlier we brought out more things from the Photinians about the name with the article. So, then, it is clear that Christ is properly called God from the way of speaking absolutely, comparatively, and hypothetically.

(6) Christ is called “God” in such a way that the name is stated about Him and the heavenly Father not only rightly [aeque] but also equally [equaliter]. Col. 2:2: “for the knowledge of the mystery of God []: of the Father and of Christ.” 1 Thess. 3:11 “God [] Himself: both our Father and Jesus Christ.” But if the Father is by nature true God, as the Photinians acknowledge, surely Christ must also be by nature true God. If Christ is called “God” merely nominally and improperly, surely the Father must also be such. One and the same word in one and the same proposition cannot have two meanings. But if the name “God,” when attributed to the Father, is taken properly and denotes Him who is by nature true and eternal God, surely it is also taken in the same way when it is attributed to Christ, because it is attributed to both the Father and Christ in one and the same proposition. If the Photinians should urge the passages of Scripture in which the name of God is attributed first to the Father and then later the name “Christ” is connected to it, the passages just cited can be applied, to which we should add 1 Thess. 1:3: “before God [] and our Father.”

(7) Christ is called “God” in such a way that He is directly opposed to the false and spurious so-called gods. Gal. 4:8–9: “When you did not know God, you were serving those who by nature are not gods. But now you have known God.” But now, after the Galatians were converted to Christ through the preaching of the Gospel, they began to serve and call upon Christ. Therefore Christ is God , not , that is, by nature, not by grace. He is not to be placed among the so-called gods who by nature are not gods; rather, He is truly and essentially God. So, too, in 1 Thess. 1:9 the Thessalonians are said to have turned away from idols “to serve the living and true God.” But they had been converted to Christ, whom they were serving. Therefore Christ is the true and living God. (See Matt. 16:16; 1 John 5:20.) If Christ were called “God” merely because of divine majesty and power communicated to Him in time, then He would not be God by nature; He would have become God. But Scripture sets Him before us as true God by nature, and nowhere does it say that He became or was made God. “He was made Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36) because of the lordship and anointing of the Holy Spirit conferred upon Him according to His human nature, as is explained in Acts 10:38, but nowhere is He said to have become God. If Christ were not God by nature, it would follow that those who call upon Him are idolaters, for on this basis he accuses the Galatians of idolatry, who were still clinging to their heathenism because they served those who were not God by nature.

(8) Christ, even in the midst of His state of humiliation, is called “God” (Matt. 1:23; 21:12–13; 1 Tim. 3:16; etc.). Yet if He were called “God” merely because of His exaltation and glorification in which divine power and glory were conferred upon Him, so noble a name could not have been attributed to Him in His state of humiliation.

(9) Christ is called “the God of Israel,” a name by which the Photinians concede that no one is indicated except the true and eternal God alone. In Luke 1:16–17, from Mal. 4:5, the angel says about John the Baptist: “He will turn many of the sons [of Israel] to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah.” He before whom John the Baptist went is the true God of Israel, as is apparent from the connection of the verses cited. But John the Baptist went before Christ. Compare Isa. 35:4: “Your God Himself will come.” Hosea 1:7: “I shall deliver them in the Lord their God.” Mal. 3:1: “The Lord will come to His temple.” But now, He to whom the temple belonged is the true God of Israel. Compare also Luke 1:17: “He will go before Him … to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children … to make ready for the Lord a people prepared,” and v. 76: “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways.” He whose way John prepared has the people as His property and hence is the true God of Israel. But it was for Christ that John prepared the way (Acts 13:24). Therefore. Finally, compare Luke 1:68: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited () and redeemed His people”; and v. 78: “through the tender mercies of our God in which the Dawn from on high has visited () us,” that is, Christ, the sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2; Zech. 3:9; 6:12). He who has visited us and offered us redemption is the true God and Lord of Israel. But it is Christ who has visited us. Therefore.

(10) David (Ps. 110:1) and Thomas (John 20:28) call Christ emphatically “my Lord and God,” an emphasis that Christ urges (Matt. 22:44). For just as no one is understood but the true and eternal God alone when David says: “Save me, O my God” (Ps. 3:7); “You are my King and my God” (Ps. 5:[2]); “From my mother’s womb, You are my God” (Ps. 22:[10]); and when Paul says: “our God and Father” (2 Thess. and “my God” (Phil. 4:19), so also no one else is understood but Him who is true God by nature when David and Thomas call Christ “my Lord and God.” The possessive adjective “my” is a word of faith and denotes a specific trust of the heart by which they rely upon this Lord and God as upon an unmoving rock of salvation.

Socinus claims, Contra Bellarm., p. 380: “The added word ‘my’ causes the article to lose its force.” Yet the word “my” confirms both the strength of the article and our argument, unless we do not want³ the eternal God to be understood as the one who says in Exod. 20:2: “I am the Lord your God”; Ps. 50:7: “I am your God.” Therefore just as Christ correctly makes the inferential argument that since Abraham is said to have “seen the day of Christ,” thus Christ was before Abraham (John 8:58), so also since David calls the Messiah his Lord, one can correctly infer from this that the Messiah existed before the time of David. For that reason He is also called the “root of David” (Rev. 5:5). If the Messiah was the Lord of David already at the time of David, surely He already existed at that time and, indeed, was true God, in whom alone one must place every confidence of his heart. But now, Christ, who was promised in the Old Testament and revealed in the New as the Messiah, was the Lord of David already at the time of David. Therefore.

In regard to the major premise, we must note that David was king of the people of Israel and that he acknowledged no one as his superior and Lord except God alone. Surely, then, when he acknowledges the Messiah as his Lord, he is confessing that the Messiah is the true God. If ⁴ David were speaking about some king who finally would have the beginning of his existence from his descendants after many centuries, the Pharisees would have had something to complain about. After all, it can happen easily that one of his descendants might be elevated to a more sublime dignity and more noble kingdom than his father had.

(Eniedinus, with extraordinary and diabolical shamelessness, dares to refute the argument that Christ used against the Pharisees in Matt. 22:41 by producing examples of sons who became masters of their parents, [such] as Joseph, etc. However, this is blatantly contradicting Christ. Meanwhile, note that Christ here attributes to the Messiah a far more sublime lordship that is connected with His sitting at the right hand of God.)

(11) Christ is called “God” in such a way that not only is the divine power and glory attributed to Him but also the divine essence.⁵ “Paul … not from men nor through man but through Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:1). Surely, then, Christ is not a mere man, otherwise the contrast would be destroyed. Christ is “without father or mother” (Heb. 7:3), without father according to His humanity, without mother according to His deity. With respect to His human nature, Christ is not without mother; surely, then, there is something hypostatic in Him with respect to which He can truly be said to be without mother. Irenaeus (bk. 4, ch. 59) shapes an argument from Matt. 12:41: “Just as He had something more than Solomon or more than Jonah, He was also the Lord of David, who was of the same substance as they.”

(12) Christ is arguing in John 10:35 not from compared equals but from compared unequals. The Photinians themselves are forced to admit that Christ is not God nor is He called God in the same rank and sense as magistrates are said to be “gods”; such magistrates are not gods before God’s commanding but begin to be “gods” at the time they take office, “when the Word of God comes to them,” that is, when the office of magistrate is committed to them by a divine calling. However, Christ is the natural-born Son of God and, in fact, is called this by the angel before His conception by the Virgin. Chrysostom notes on this passage that Christ first satisfied the offense of the Jews by speaking these words: “If the prophets whom God sent are called ‘gods,’ why are you offended that I am called ‘God’?” Then, after the offense was removed, He said that He was not only God by name, as the prophets were, but also was God in works and in reality. Therefore He adds: “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe in Me.”

Some people respond that we should not proceed from the inclusion of the one to the exclusion of the other. Therefore the consequence is not: “Because Christ is God with regard to His office” (inasmuch as He was sanctified and sent by God to redeem the human race), “therefore He is not God with regard to His nature,” because the office of redemption presupposes true deity, because the human race could not have been freed by a mere creature. However, the prior explanation better fits the text and more strongly shatters the tricks of our adversaries.

Second, from the essential divine attributes.

§ 47. The second class of arguments is taken from the essential attributes that belong to the true God alone. Because these are really one with the divine essence itself, we are correct in inferring the true deity of Christ from them.

To Christ is attributed: (I) Eternity. He was born of the Father from eternity (Ps. 2:7, Mic. 5:2). He existed before the creation of the world (Prov. 8:22). In the beginning He already was (John 1:1; 1 John 1:1). “He had glory with the Father before the world was created” (John 17:[5]). He is called “eternal Father” (Isa. 9:6). To Him is attributed the “eternal Spirit,” that is, eternal deity (Heb. 9:14). He is called “eternal life” (1 John 5:20). He is the “firstborn (not first-created) of all creation” (Col. 1:15). “He has neither beginning nor end of days” (Heb. 7:[3]). He is “yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He is “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last” (Rev. 1:[8]; 2:8). To show His eternity, hair as white as wool is attributed to Him (Rev. 1:14). Compare Dan. 7:9, where it is said of the Father, “the Ancient of days,” that “the hair of His head was like pure wool.” For this reason, Rupert comments very beautifully on Revelation 1: “The hairs of the head of both the former and the latter were equally white. Both are shown through the whiteness of their hair to be old men with no difference, because the Son is no younger than His Father, the old man, not by a year, not by a month, not by a day, not by an hour, not by a single moment of time.”

(II) Immutability is attributed to Christ in His nature as well as in His decrees, promises, words, and deeds. Heb. 1:11–12, from Ps. 102:[27]: “You Yourself are the same.” Heb. 13:8: “Christ is the same forever.”

(III) Immortality is attributed to Christ, because “in Him is life” (John 1:4), not accidentally, as life is in us, but essentially, because “as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to Him to have life in Himself.” The Syriac reads , “in His essence” (John 5:26). For this reason He is called “the Prince of life” (Acts 3:15), and, in fact, “life” itself (John 14:6; 1 John 5:20); “the Word of life” (1 John 1:2).

(IV) Infinity and omnipresence are attributed to Christ, because He is “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). The Father “sent Him out” (or “sent Him as an ambassador,” ) (Gal. 4:4) and “sent Him into the world” (John 10:36; 17:8). He “came down from heaven” (John 6:38); “He came out from the Father” (John 8:42; 16:28). Therefore He existed before His birth from Mary, and for this reason His incarnation is called His “manifestation in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), the “assumption of the seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16), “coming in the flesh” (1 John 4:2), “entry into the world” (Heb. 10:5). In this way, His infinity is demonstrated a priori, that is, from the time preceding His incarnation. Also, the same thing can be demonstrated a posteriori, that is, from the time following His incarnation, because He promises His presence to those who have gathered in His name (Matt. 18:20). He promises that He will be with us until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). He “walks in the midst of the lampstands” (Rev. 1:13). Although He was dwelling on earth, He was in heaven (John 3:13).

(V) Omnipotence is attributed to Christ, because He is called “the Lord Almighty” (Rev. 1:8; 11:17). He is called “the power of God” (Luke 1:35; 1 Cor. 1:24) and “mighty God” (Isa. 9:6). To Him is attributed an effectual power by which He can subject all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20). The Father is said to have handed over all things to Him (Matt. 11:[27]). “All things have been put under His feet” (Ps. 8:[6]). “All things have been given into His hands” (John 3:35).

(VI) Omniscience and omnisapience⁶ are attributed to Christ, because He is called Wisdom itself (Prov. 8:22; Matt. 11:19; Luke 11:49; 1 Cor. 1:24). He “knows all things” (John 16:30; 21:17). He “knows what is within a man” (John 2:25). “He searches the mind and heart” (Rev. 2:23). “In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). (In Dan. 8:23 He is called [“certain”], because He has within Himself all the secret and hidden things of the Father as reckoned and known most perfectly.)

(VII) The greatest freedom to act is attributed to Christ. He “gives life to whom He will” (John 5:21). “I have the power to give up My soul of Myself []” (John 10:18), and for this reason He says to the leper autocratically: “I will. Be cleansed” (Matt. 8:3). This is just as it is said of the true God: “Whatever He willed, that did He in heaven and on earth” (Ps. 115:3).

(VIII) Divine majesty and glory are attributed to Christ. Compare Exod. 16:7 with 1 Cor. 10:9, and Isa. 6:3 with John 12:41. He is called “God, blessed over all things” (Rom. 9:5); “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8); “the King of kings and Lord of lords”(Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

(IX) And in order for it not to be necessary to list all the remaining attributes, there is attributed to Him equality with the Father (John 5:18; Phil. 2:6), because of which He is said to “have all things that the Father has” (John 16:15; 17:10). In fact, “He is one with the Father” (John 10:30; 1 John 5:7), and it says that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him (Col. 2:9).

§ 48. With regard to this class of arguments, observe in general that one must distinguish prudently between the statements that speak about the communication of the divine essence to Christ, which happened through eternal generation according to the divine nature, and between the statements that speak about the truly divine and infinite gifts communicated to Him personally according to the human nature. In the meantime, however, the true divinity of Christ can be proved secondarily and consequently from the latter type of statements no less than from the prior ones. You see, if the human nature had not been personally united with the Word—that is, if Christ had not been true God and true man in the unity of the person—the human nature could not have become a partaker of His dignity through the communication of properties. (Cf. our De gloria Dei, disput. 9, thesis 13.)

In particular, (I) regarding His eternity, note that: (1) Our adversaries themselves, the Photinians, acknowledge that the divinity of the Son is proved immovably from His eternity. Ostorodus, Instit. Germ., ch. 8: “If one could prove that Christ had existed from eternity, one could conclude simply from this that he had a divine nature, that is, that he was the one true God.”

(2) It is right for us to urge against the Photinians those statements in which Christ is said to have been before the Virgin Mary, before John the Baptist, before Abraham, etc. True, one cannot infer so nakedly and crudely: “Christ existed before John the Baptist and Abraham; therefore He existed from eternity.” Nevertheless, against the Photinians, who assert that Christ’s existence began with His birth from the Virgin Mary and who acknowledge that there is nothing intermediate between generation from eternity and His conception of the Virgin Mary, it is right to conclude: Christ existed before His birth from His mother. Therefore He was begotten of the Father from eternity and is God eternal.

(3) Although Vorstius may deny (Tract. de Deo, p. 224) that these are things of equal force—”being before the creation of the world” and “existing from eternity”—all Scripture nevertheless opposes him, because it constantly uses this description of eternity. (See Ps. 90:[2]; Prov. 8:24; John 17:[5]; etc. Cf. Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9.) Before the world existed, there was nothing except the eternal God, because there is nothing intermediate between God the Creator and the world or creatures created in time. Compare the statements cited earlier in our article On the Divine Nature and Attributes, ch. “On Eternity” [1625 Exegesis, Commonplace II, §§ 137–49].

(4) Although the word may mean the beginning of time, nevertheless from the expression of John, “In the beginning was the Word,” we are correct in inferring the eternity of the Son. John does not say, “In the beginning was the Word created,” just as Moses says, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). Rather, he says that the Word already existed in that beginning, and thereby he indicates that the Word was not created and given a beginning of time along with the rest of created things but has an eternal existence. Augustine, Letter 66: “God did not create the Word in the beginning just as He created heaven and earth in the beginning, but in the beginning was the Word.” Some of the ancients take the word “beginning” [principium] as a principle outside of God, a principle that one can consider or posit before the creation that Moses describes. No matter what you may assume as “the beginning,” John responds that the Word already was, and did not begin in that beginning. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 2, p. 17: “What is this ‘He was in the beginning’? Times pass, the centuries roll along, ages are removed. Set whatever beginning you wish in your opinion. You do not have [Him] at that time, for He was.” Some understand the word “beginning” formally and directly as eternity itself, which is a beginning without beginning. For this reason, the phrase or at times denotes eternity (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 John 2:13; etc.) Basil, Contra Eunom., bk. 2: “It is not possible to think of anything older than the beginning, because if something has anything before it earlier, it is not a beginning.” However, a comparison shows that John took his phrase from Moses. Therefore we think that the first explanation is more in harmony with the text, though the later ones, too, do fit the analogy of faith very correctly.

(5) From the eternity of the Father, according as He is such, the eternity of the Son is rightly inferred, for “whatever pertains to an individual pertains at the same time to the nature,” as Aristotle says, Categ., ch. 7. For this reason Damascenus writes (Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 8): “There was never a ‘when’ when the Father was but the Son was not, but always both were. Always the Father and always the Son, who was begotten of the Father, were together. He could not have had the name ‘Father’ apart from the Son, for were He without the Son, He could not be the Father.” If the Father had begun to beget the Son in time, He would not be the eternal Father nor the immutable God. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 12: “Either He is not always the Father if there is not always the Son, or if He is always the Father, there is also always the Son, because as much time as will be denied to the Son, so that He is not always the Son, so much time will the Father be lacking when He is not always the Father.” Isidore of Pelusium, bk. 1, Letter 241, p. 56: “If God is always similar to Himself and nothing ever is added to Him, He must always be the Father. If He is always the Father, however, it follows that He has always had a Son, and from this it happens that He has the same eternity with the Father.”

§ 49. (II) Regarding His immutability, note that the apostle [in Heb. 1:11–12] applies Ps. 102:[27] to Christ not partially, merely with regard to the following words about the destruction of the world, but totally; not merely as occasions arise, but directly. That is because it is evident from the aim of the psalm that it is speaking about Christ. Also, the apostle adds the copulative “and” ([Heb. 1:]10), which shows that the prior words apply to Christ just as do the ones that follow, and in v. 8 the apostle had begun to prove this, namely, that Christ is the true God. This he proves, among the other things, from His being unchangeable and His having created heaven and earth. With each argument, Christ’s true deity is proved very powerfully. I also add this argument: If Christ will someday change the heavens and destroy the earth, He surely also created the heavens and the earth from the beginning. The reason for this is that David clearly teaches that both of these fit no one except the eternal and immutable God. But the former is true. Therefore the latter is true as well.

(III) Regarding His immortality, note: (1) When the “Father alone” is said to “have immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), the adjective “alone” does not exclude the Son, who has the same deity with the Father; instead, it excludes creatures and spurious gods, for God the Father is being compared with earthly kings, all of whom are mortal, but not with the other persons of the Godhead, as Chrysostom notes correctly. (2) The Son died not according to His deity but in the assumed human nature, not of necessity but of His own free will. (3) Finally, the Son is said “to have life in Himself” (John 5:26), though it is said of creatures that they “exist and live in God” (Acts 17:28).

(IV) Regarding His infinity, note that essential infinity and immensity [or immea-surableness] is not omnipresence, as we showed in detail in our treatise On the Divine Attributes, Section VIII [1625 Exegesis, Commonplace II, §§ 171–89]. Meanwhile, it is correct for us to apply the passages that speak about omnipresence to the proof of His infinity and immensity because Christ, as God, is omnipresent by the immensity of His essence, and is omnipresent as man not because His human nature is essentially infinite, nor because it became infinite and immense through the union, but because it was raised to the infinite hypostasis of the Word through the personal union and through His exaltation was placed at the nonlocal right hand of God.

§ 50. (V) Regarding His omniscience, note: (1) One must distinguish the habitual gifts of knowledge, with respect to which Christ is said to have “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52), from infinite wisdom that lacks every increase and decrease, with which wisdom He was filled already from the first moment of His conception (Luke 2:40). (2) What Christ says He heard from His Father, what He says in John 8:[26], must be referred either to His human nature—so that it was said in human fashion that He was bringing out nothing new in His ministry but only that very thing that His heavenly Father had demanded that He preach—or we must respond with Cyril, Chrysostom, and Augustine that Christ “hears from His Father” not by learning what He did not know, but by receiving the same nature with the Father through eternal begetting, just as it is said about the Holy Spirit: “He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak” (John 16:13). Augustine comments in this way on that passage, on John, tractate 99: “He will not speak from Himself because He is not from Himself. He will hear from Him from whom He proceeds. For Him to be heard is to know, but to know is to be.” (3) Christ alone is said to know the Father (Matt. 11:27). Therefore in the Old Testament either no one knew God or they received the knowledge of God from this Word. As a consequence, this Word was a hypostasis before He became flesh.

(VI) Regarding His freedom to act, note that acting of His own will is attributed and denied to Christ in diverse ways. On the one hand, we have: “I give up My life of Myself” (John 10:18); and, on the other: “The Son cannot do anything of Himself” (John 5:19). One is said to “act of himself” if he acts with the power that is proper and natural to him in such a way that he does not receive it from someone else. In this sense, Christ denies that He acts of Himself, because He received His power through natural generation from the Father. One is also said to “act of himself” if he acts with his own natural power, though he has received that power from someone else. In this way, the Son is said to act of Himself or through Himself. Therefore when the Son denies that He can do anything of Himself, this refers: to the consubstantiality and identity of essence in the Father and the Son; to His generation from the Father and personal order; and to the equality of honor. Thomas, [ST,] p. 1, q. 42, art. 6, ad 1: “This is the unity of the divine nature, that the Son acts through Himself in such a way that He does not act of Himself.” One cannot conclude a diversity of essence from the distinct personal properties. Christ does not have the power to act from Himself but from the Father through eternal begetting; nevertheless He does the same things that the Father does because through His begetting He has received from the Father identically the same essence.

§ 51. (VII) Regarding His equality, note: (1) Although equality, narrowly and properly speaking, is not an essential attribute of God (because it is not something absolute nor is it predicated in the abstract about God), nevertheless we put it in this class of arguments by reason of its foundation. Equality, after all, is the relationship between two or more equal things. The foundation of this relationship—namely, of equality—in the Father and the Son is the unity of power, of wisdom, and of the very divine essence, for the Son is equal to the Father because He is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father and has all things that the Father has. (2) Because the divine essence is infinite, utterly simple, indivisible, etc., therefore one must say that the Son of God is equal to the Father either totally or in no way, but one cannot say that He is partly equal and partly not equal. You see, if He is unequal in the least bit, He is in no way equal, because the divine essence is indivisible and because the attributes are not accidents in God but are His very essence. (3) When Christ is said to be equal to God, the name “God” is taken hypostatically for the person of the Father. Therefore the Photinians infer in vain: “Whoever is equal to God is not God Himself. Christ is equal to God. Therefore He is not God Himself” (Socinus, Contra Bell., ch. 5, class 3, arg. 3, p. 253). The only valid conclusion from this is: “therefore He is not the Father.” Nevertheless He is the one true God along with the Father; otherwise He would not be equal to His Father. The Photinians object against John 5:18 that the “evangelist is relating the opinion of the Jews.” We respond. Socinus himself acknowledges, Contra Bellarminum et Wiekum, ch. 5, class. 3, arg. 3, p. 259: “The evangelist believed the same thing as the Jews, that with these words Christ was making Himself equal to God,” and he says that “this is clear from the sound of His words.” We add the comments of Chrysostom, Cyril, and Augustine on this passage. Had the opinion of the Jews been false, Christ or the evangelist surely would have warned about this, lest we make a mistake in so important a matter (John 2:21; 21:23). Instead of correcting this, much rather, Christ confirms it. Regarding the words: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), see our Disput. 2. ex loco 1 Johann. 5. Tres sunt, etc., § 22.

Third, from the personal property of the Son.

§ 52. The third class of arguments is taken from the personal property of the Son, which, with respect for the First Person of the Godhead, the Father, is passive generation, as they call it, namely, that He has been begotten of the Father from eternity; and with respect to the Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, is active spiration, as they call it, namely, that He breathes the Holy Spirit together with the Father from eternity.

Here we draw the following conclusion: Whoever has been begotten of the Father from eternity and breathes the Holy Spirit together with the Father from eternity is the true God. The reason for the former is that “it is not right to suppose that the Son of God is lowborn; rather, it is necessary to confess that He is of absolutely the same loftiness and dignity.” Justin, , p. 294: “In common practice, we see that things begotten are of the same essence as those that beget them, for who does not know that the sons of princes are princes and that the sons of kings are kings?” Bernard, Sermon 1 de adv., col. 1: “The begetting of God would have been defective and monstrous if a different nature came forth from the womb.” (See also Augustine, Contra Maxim., bk. 3, ch. 18.) The reason for the latter is that the Holy Spirit is the power of God, as the Photinians concede, and He is a divine person, as we proved in its own place. If, then, the true God proceeds from the Son, surely the Son also has to be the true God. Yet the Son is begotten of the Father from eternity, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. Therefore.

§ 53. We proved the latter part of the minor premise in detail in our treatise On the Holy Spirit [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 6], § 73. He is called “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:10); “the Spirit of the Son” (Gal. 4:6); “the Spirit of Elohim,” that is, of the Father and the Son (Gen. 1:2); “the breath of the lips and mouth of Christ” (Isa. 11:4; [2] Thess. 2:8) who receives what is His from Christ, namely, through eternal procession (John 16:14), whom Christ sends and communicates by breathing or by breathing upon (John

15:26; 20:22).

The former stands firm for these reasons: (1) Scripture testifies with express words that He was begotten from eternity: “Today have I begotten you” (Ps. 2:7; Heb. 1:5). “His name was engendered before the sun” (Ps. 72:17). “The depths did not yet exist, and I was begotten” (Prov. 8:24). “His going out is from the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2).

(2) He is called “the Son of God” (Ps. 2:7; Prov. 30:4). In many places of the New Testament He is called “the only-begotten of the Father” (John 1:14; 3:16); “His own” (John 5:18; Rom. 8:32); “the firstborn” (Heb. 1:6); “the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15).

(3) He is called [“the Word”] in John 1:1, 14; 1 John 1:1, 3; 5:7; Rev. 19:13. (Some add Luke 1:2; Heb. 4:12; 11:3.) He is called (“Word”) in Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6. (Some add 1 Sam. 3:21: “Jehovah spoke to Samuel at Shiloh, in the Word of Jehovah,” as the Chaldean translates it, that is, through the ambassador and speaker of the Father.) “Because of Your Word You provide very great things” (2 Sam. 7:[21]) is rendered in 1 Chron. 17:19 “because of Your Servant,” that is, the Messiah, Your ambassador; “You provide a very great thing” (Isa. 53:11). In 2 Sam. 23:2 and Dan. 8:13 He is called (“the Speaking One”), because He is the interpreter of His Father’s will. Here we can place all the passages of the Old Testament in which the Chaldaic paraphrase calls the Son of God “Memerahh” (Gen. 24:3; 48:21; Isa. 8:5; 26:4; Hosea 1:7; etc.), which Selnecker explained in a singular book published in 1576. He is the Word—not the spoken or uttered word; nor the conceptual, internal, or implanted word, which befits the angels or the human mind but not God; nor is He the innate word of the same character as is our intellect in and of itself; but He is the essential, substantial, subsisting, and hypostatic Word, because “the Word was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1). (Cf. Athanasius, Contra Arian., orat. 5, and Tractat. de definitionibus, vol. 2, p. 59.) He is called “the Word” with respect not only to His office but also to His person, not only outwardly but also inwardly, because “He came forth from the mind” through the eternal begetting from the Father.

(4) He is called the “substantial image of the Father” (Wisdom [7]:26; 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). “He is the character of His hypostasis, the radiance⁷ of His glory” (Heb. 1:3). “He who sees the Son sees also the Father” (John 14:9). Both of these have to do with the eternal begetting from the Father. You see, “image” denotes the relationship of that which has been produced and the producer; it is founded in the divine essence not absolutely but according as the Son receives the image through His eternal begetting from the Father. Furthermore, as the radiance of the sun is born from the sun, comes out at the same time with the sun, and exactly expresses the light of the sun, so also the Son, begotten of the Father, is coeternal and consubstantial with Him.

§ 54. In regard to this class of arguments, observe: (1) Christ is called “the Son of God” absolutely, perpetually, and simply. Therefore He is not the adoptive Son of God, because those who are children merely by the grace of adoption are not called this perpetually and absolutely. Athanasius presses this argument, Contra Arian., orat. 3: Christ is called “the Son of God” in such a way that He is placed ahead of adoptive sons and is distinguished from them by a great distance. “You are the Christ, the Son [] of the living God” (Matt. 16:[16]). Here the demonstrative article⁸ is added by which He is distinguished from Elijah, Jeremiah, the Baptist, and other adoptive sons, an argument that Hilary presses in De Trinit., bk. 6, and Theophylact, on Matthew 16. Thus “God sent His Son into the world that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:4[-5]). Here, Christ is very carefully distinguished as the natural Son of God from adoptive sons.

Observe that Christ is called the Son of God “because of the operation of the nature,” as Ambrose says (De fid., bk. 4, ch. 4), that is, because of His eternal begetting from the Father. “You are My Son; today I have begotten You” (Ps. 2:7). For this reason He is also called “only-begotten.” Yet there are many adoptive sons. Because He is only-begotten and indeed the only-begotten [] with the article, surely He is Son not by adoption but by nature.

Observe that Christ is called such a Son as is “in the bosom of the Father,” that is, of the same essence and nature with the Father, as Augustine explains it (John, tractate 3) and as Cyril explains it (bk. 1, on John, ch. 22). It does not say that He once “was” but that He “is in the bosom of the Father” because, when He was dwelling on earth with regard to His divine nature, He had not left His Father.

Finally, observe that Christ is not only called “the only” and “only-begotten” and “very own” Son, but is also said to be “equal to the Father” (John 5:18; Phil. 2:6). However, He could not have been equal to the Father if He were merely His Son by adoption and not by nature. (How the natural and proper Son of God is distinguished from adoptive children is discussed very well by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, in Socrates, Hist. Eccles., bk. 1, ch. 6.)

Therefore the subterfuge of the Photinians falls by which they say that Christ “is an adoptive son,” something that the Arians also used to do, as is evident from the letter of Arius in Eusebius. Socinus (De Script. auctor., ch. 6, § Jam quod attinet.) asserts that “the man Christ received a divine adoption.” Schmaltzius, Ex. 157 error., p. 8: “We say that Christ can also be called an adoptive son, namely, because He was not always such a son of God as He was when He was doing His duty on earth and as He now is when He is ruling in the heavens. Instead, He was made such a son by the singular grace of God.” The same Schmaltzius (Exam. 157 error., p. 27) denies that “believers are properly the adoptive children of God because ‘adoptive’ properly signifies him who, though previously he was not someone’s son, was afterward adopted, and one who has been adopted is considered and treated as a son though he is not in reality the son of the one who adopted him nor can he be called literally his son.” He says that neither of these befits believers because they are born of God and will become partakers of the divine nature.

(2) In the Scriptures, only four kinds of filiation are described: one is through communication of essence; the second, through union; the third, through creation; the fourth, through adoption. Filiation through communication of essence is double, for it is either through communication of the entire essence and identically the same essence, or through a communication of part of the essence and of an essence that is the same only according to species.⁹ The former is possible only in the infinite essence and, therefore, takes place only in the begetting of the Son of God, because the Father communicates His entire essence and identically the same essence to the Word through the eternal begetting, and He reserves the same entirely for Himself. The latter is possible in the finite essence. Therefore by it man is born, because among humans a father communicates to his son not his entire essence but only part of the essence, and not identically the same essence but the same according to species. Filiation through union befits Christ according to His human nature. Filiation through creation is also double: (a) Through immediate creation it befits angels, who for this reason are said to be the sons of God (Job 1:6; 38:7), and, as some wish, Adam before the fall (Luke 3:38). (b) Through mediate creation it befits all creatures. Mal. 2:10: “Is there not one Father of all?” Job 38:28: “And who is the Father of the rain?” Filiation through adoption befits those who believe in Christ (John 1:[12]; Eph. 1:5; Gal. 4:5).

You would seek in vain for other modes of filiation beyond these. Therefore those various and different modes because of which the Photinians dream that Christ is called the Son of God fall to ruin. Vorstius, who is close to the Photinians, claims that there is a threefold filiation in Christ. The first pertains to the birth [ortus] of Christ; the second, to His sanctification or anointing; and the third, to His resurrection. Socinus, Contra Bell., p. 208, sets forth: (a) the excellence of His love, (b) the inheritance of all things given to Christ, (c) the naming of the children of God from Christ, (d) the prerogative of Christ, (e) His birth from the Virgin Mary, (f) His resurrection and exaltation. However, all these are said without scriptural support.

(3) One must distinguish between the actual filiation of the Word and the declaration or manifestation of the filiation. His filiation consists uniquely in the eternal begetting of the Father, as is clear from the fact that He is called “the Son of God,” because He is “the only-begotten of the Father.” You see, as one is properly said to have been begotten from his father who is begotten of the substance of his father, so also He alone, and no one else, is called “the only-begotten of the Father” who was begotten uniquely of the Father. The declaration or manifestation of the filiation, however, is various and multiple because His conception by the Holy Spirit, His resurrection from the dead, and His glorious exaltation prove the divinity and consequently the eternal begetting of the Son from the Father. Therefore the sophism of the Photinians—that Christ is called “the Son of God” because of His conception by the Holy Spirit and His resurrection from the dead—crumbles.

(4) Psalm 2:7 describes an eternal begetting, properly speaking. You see, it has to do with the sort of begetting that preceded the creation of the world (as we gather from Prov. 8:24), a begetting that exceeds the creation of the angels by the greatest distance and that has nothing in common with it (as we gather from Heb. 1:5). Through it, the essential and eternal Son of God is produced (as we conclude from the last verse of the psalm that teaches that we must hope in Him). This begetting is the internal action of the eternal and immutable God; hence this, too, is eternal, as is evident from the definition of begetting taken in its proper sense, that it is the production of a living being born from the substance of the begetter. Therefore the madness of the Photinians falls—the madness by which they claim that Ps. 2:7 describes a temporal begetting.

(5) In Acts 13:33, the cause and formal principle of filiation is by no means established in His resurrection from the dead, but the words of the psalmist can be applied to the resurrection of Christ either because of its declaration and manifestation (Rom. 1:4) or (what agrees better with the text) because the sending of the Son of God into the flesh and His true divinity is being demonstrated by the apostle’s citing of that passage. We prove this opinion: (a) From a consideration of the aim, which is twofold, as is evident from [Acts 13:]23, 26, and 30; namely, that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Son of God, the Messiah divinely revealed in the New Testament, and that the heavenly Father raised Him from the dead after the Jews had killed Him. Therefore when the apostle cites three prophecies of the Old Testament as proof, the first—taken from Ps. 2:7—is used to prove the first part of this aim, and the two latter ones—from Isa. 55:3 and Ps. 16:10—are used to prove the latter part of this aim.

(b) From the connection of [Acts 13:]32 and 33: “We announce to you,” says the apostle, “the promise that was made to our fathers, because () He has fulfilled this to us, His sons, by raising Him from the dead for us—Jesus—just as it is written in Psalm 2.” Now, what that promise is, is clear from [Acts 13:]23: “From the seed of David, according to His promise, God has raised up () for Israel the Savior, Jesus.”

(c) From opposition. In v. 34 the adversative particle is added—”But as for the fact that He raised Him from the dead ….” Surely, then, in v. 33 the apostle had not yet dealt with His resurrection from the dead, for who would use an adversative particle to prove one and the same thing?

(d) From the meaning of the diction. In v. 22 he uses for “removal”; therefore he is using in v. 33 in the contrary sense for “sending” or “raising.” Furthermore, resurrection from the dead in v. 34 is not simply called [“rising, resurrection”], but [“from the dead”] is added as a limitation.

(e) From a comparison with other passages, both as concerns the thing, because the apostle especially urges this primary point of Christian doctrine—that Christ is the Son of God and the promised Messiah whom God revealed—upon all his hearers (Acts 2:22; 3:13; 9:20); and as concerns the diction, because also in other passages of Scripture the participle placed absolutely¹⁰ signifies “raised up, sent, established.” Acts 3:[22]: “He established () a prophet.” Verse 26: “God, raising up His Son, sent Him first to you.” Acts 7:37: “God will raise up for you a prophet.” Rom. 15:12: “He who rises () to rule the Gentiles.”

(f) From the arrangement of the words. By no means is the apostle saying that God raised up Christ—namely, from the dead—but that He raised up, revealed, sent “Jesus,” that is, His Son, into the flesh to be “Jesus” or “Savior,” the promised Messiah, just as He had said in [Acts 13:]23: “God raised up for Israel from the seed of David a Savior, Jesus.”

(g) From a summing up of the reasons. What Christ had before the resurrection He did not receive through the resurrection. But before the resurrection, Christ was the Son of God. Therefore.

Whatever does not¹¹ cause Christ to be the Son cannot be understood by the word “begetting.” But resurrection from the dead does not cause Christ to be the Son of God. Therefore.

If begetting is the same thing as raising up, it follows that the Son of God begot Himself, because He raised Himself from the dead. Therefore the hypothesis of the Photinians falls, the hypothesis by which they claim “the Son is said to have been begotten from the Father because of His resurrection from the dead,” as Ostorodus writes (Inst. Germ., ch. 7, p. 54). On this point, they have some of the Calvinists in agreement with them. Tilenus, Not. ad Bellarm. de Christo, bk. 1, ch. 5: “Because we cannot deny that that interpretation seems to many of both the ancients and the more recent to have been forced, we can grant to our adversaries that it is taken more aptly as a reference to the resurrection.”

(6) “Therefore the child who will be born of you will be holy, and He will be called ‘the Son of God’ “ (Luke 1:35). This is the conclusion of the entire preceding statement of the angel. It is gathered together, presented, and proposed in this sense: Because the Son whom you will conceive and to whom you will give birth will be Jesus, the promised Messiah to whom the heavenly Father will give the throne of David, therefore He will be called and will be the Son of God,¹² for it is evident from all the prophecies of the Old Testament (which speak of the Messiah) that the Messiah is foretold as such a one who is God and man in the unity of His person. Now, if we wanted to refer this to the immediately preceding words, it will have to do with the union of the divine and human natures, which belongs no less to the operation of the Holy Spirit in the conception of Christ than to His immediate operation and wonderful sanctification, that is, that the Holy Spirit gave the power and ability to conceive without a man’s seed and that He cleansed from the stain of sin the mass, or those drops of blood, from which the Son of God constructed the dwelling place of His body. (See Gregory, Moral., bk. 18, ch. 12.) Bede, on Luke 1: “The power of the Most High is the Word of God that put on the flesh; therefore the Son of Mary is called ‘the Son of the Most High.’ “ Therefore the insult of the Photinians goes up in smoke—that the angel places the proper and immediate cause of filiation in the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit. (See Franciscus Davidis, Coll. Transsylv., act. diei 9, letter F.) Socinus, Contra Bellar. et Wiek., p. 217: “Christ is the natural Son of God because the Son of God is born of the Virgin Mary.” Schmaltzius, Exam. 157 errorum, error 8, p. 6: “Christ is the Son of God not only because of His unique and great similiarity with God, which has never belonged to any creature, but also because of the manner by which He came into being, that is, His miraculous conception.” Pisecius, Not. ad append. Vilkovian., p. 20: “Because Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that is, by the working of divine power, He is truly and properly called ‘the Son of God,’ and even ‘the natural Son of God.’ “ Vorstius and some of the Calvinists agree. Yet if Christ were the natural Son of God because of His conception by the Holy Spirit, the consequence would be: (a) That the Holy Spirit is the natural Father of Christ because of their mutual relationship. (b) That the human nature of Christ is the Deity, because the begotten is produced from the substance of the begetter and it is of the same nature with the begetter, all of which are absurd. (c) Surely because of that conception by the Holy Spirit, Christ cannot yet be called the natural and only-begotten Son of God, for God did not beget Him in the womb of the Virgin of His own substance but solely from the substance of the Virgin.

(7) One must distinguish between the material and the manner of the begetting. According to His human nature, Christ had a different begetting from ours not with respect to material but only with respect to manner. Therefore His begetting is not of a wholly different species from ours, and as a consequence, the fact that He is called “the only-begotten” cannot be taken with regard to His humanity—that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit (which cause the Photinians assert)—but with regard to His divinity, according to which He was begotten of the Father from eternity.

(8) The cause and formal principle of filiation, because of which Christ would be called “the Son of God,” is referred in the Scriptures to His begetting (Ps. 2:7; John 1:14; etc.). The name “Son of God” is attributed to Christ in such a way that it cannot be attributed to angels nor men in this way (Heb. 1:5). Therefore in vain do they think up out of their own judgment those reasons for which Christ would be called “the Son of God” and foolishly seek the cause of filiation in love, in the giving of an inheritance, in the naming of the other children of God from Christ, in His resurrection, in His exaltation, etc. You see, all these things, though on a lower level, are common to the devout and faithful with Christ. Also, before those things, Christ was called “the beloved Son” by the heavenly Father (Matthew 3, last verse). Therefore with respect to those, Christ is not and cannot be called the “only-begotten of the Father” and “His own¹³ Son.”

Fourth, from His divine works.

§ 55. The fourth class of arguments is taken from the works that are proper to God alone. When these are attributed in the Scriptures to Christ, surely the true deity of Christ is proved powerfully. The passages that have to do with this class can be divided into two parts: (I) Some speak about the divine works in general. “My Father is working up till now, and I am working” (John 5:17). “Whatever the Father does, this the Son also does likewise ()” (v. 19). “All things that the Father is doing He shows to the Son” (v. 20). “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever He wishes” (v. 21). “Whatever you ask the Father in My name, that I will do” (John 14:13).

(II) Some speak about certain works specifically. They attribute to the Son: (1) Creation. See Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6; 102:[25]; with regard to these, see also Heb. 1:[10]; Prov. 8:30; John 1:1, 3; Col. 1:16; Rev. 3:14; etc. (Cf. our locus [On God the Father and His Eternal Son, 1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § 83.) (2) The preservation of all things and governance (John 5:17; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3). Here we can also mention the passage “in Him was life” (John 1:4). You see, to the Son of God life is attributed: (a) Essentially, because He is Life itself, having the same essence and thus also the same life with the Father. (b) Personally, because He has received from the Father through His eternal begetting the life that “He has in Himself” (John 5:26). (c) Effectively, because He confers natural life to all living creatures and preserves it for them, and also communicates spiritual life to believers, etc. (3) The working of divine miracles, as the entire account of the Gospels shows. Among all these, His having raised Himself from the dead by His own power is especially prominent (John 2:19; 10:18). (4) The redemption of the human race, Luke 1:68; Matt. 20:28; etc. (5) The sending of the Holy Spirit, Luke 24:49; John 14:16; etc. (6) The sending of the angels, Matt. 13:41; Rev. 1:1. (7) The foretelling of future things on the basis of His infinite knowledge, as the Gospel account proves. (8) The works of grace in the Church, including election to salvation, calling, the gathering of the Church, the establishing of the ministry, the institution of the Sacraments, enlightenment, regeneration, justification, the forgiveness of sins, renewal, the amazing defense of the Church, consolation in the cross, the hearing of prayers, resurrection to eternal life, salvation, and glorification, all of which are attributed in the Scriptures to Christ.

§ 56. Regarding this class of arguments, note in general: (1) To Christ is attributed an identicalness of works, a likeness of acting, and an equality of honor (John 5:19). Therefore no thought should be conceived here about an inequality of power or a diversity in acting. Nazianzen, Orat. 4 de Theol.: “He does not say ‘similarly’ () because there is a similarity of works, but because the ability and majesty of both is equal.”

(2) Christ says that He does nothing except what He has seen the Father doing (John 5:19), and the Father shows Him all the things that He is doing (v. 20). This does not signify any weakness or inequality of working, but rather the greatest and most intimate unity in working. The Son sees the Father working and the Father shows the Son His works, not by an external vision and demonstration but by an inner communion of the power to act, that is, because the Father has all works in common with the Son and communicates to the Son His power to act, just as He communicates His own essence through the eternal begetting. Nazianzen, loc. cit., and Ambrose, De fide, bk. 4, ch. 3: “The Son is said to see the Father working and to learn from the Father as the Father works because the knowledge of the Son comes from the Father not through teaching but through begetting. To God, knowing is the same thing as being. Hence for the Son it is the same thing to receive the wisdom and the essence of the Father.” (Acts 9:16: “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name.” Exod. 33[:19]: “I will show you all My goodness.” Ps. [60:3]: “You have shown hard things to Your people.”) Damascenus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 9: “Just as we say that fire shines through the light that comes forth from it and do not consider the fire’s light as an instrument that serves the fire but rather as its natural power, so we say that the Father creates all the things He creates through His only-begotten Son, not as if the Son were merely a servile instrument but as His natural and hypostatic [] power.” For this reason also He says that He cannot do anything of Himself, namely, because He is not of Himself but is working with the power that He has received from the Father through His eternal begetting.

(3) The Father works with and through the Son not as His instrument but as a divine person consubstantial with Himself, as the only-begotten Son and His own essential power personally distinct from Himself.

(4) Those works that are predicated of God are of two kinds. Some are in His own person and without instrument, in which He Himself works without means. Such a work is the creation of the world. However, some are in a different person and instrumental, for which He uses the service of His creatures. But now, works are attributed to Christ that are not only in a different person and instrumental but also those done in His own person and without instrument, and, in fact, the essential works that signify His existence, such as that He is “the first and the last” [Rev. 22:13], that He is “life and truth” [John 14:6], that He is “the true light” [John 1:9], etc.

(5) The instrumental works of God are attributed to Christ and to creatures in far different manners. They are attributed to Christ as to the principal efficient cause—for otherwise He would not be doing “these things” and doing them “in like manner” [] [John 5:19]—but to creatures as to an instrumental cause.

§ 57. In particular, note: (I) Regarding creation: (1) The work of creation is described everywhere in Scripture as being proper to God alone. Job 9:8; Isa. 44:24: “who alone stretched out the heavens”; Jer. 10:11; Acts 4:24; Heb. 3:4; etc. Therefore that idea of Vorstius, who is close to the Photinians, crashes to the ground (De Deo, p. 225): “One cannot conclude someone’s eternity and divinity from the fact that creation is attributed to Him.”

(2) Not only are all things said to have been made “through the Son,” but creation is attributed to Him in the nominative case, Ps. 102:[25]; Heb. 1:[10]: “You, O Lord, founded the earth”; Prov. 8:[29–]30: “When He placed the foundations of the earth, I was a master workman beside Him.” (Cf. Isa. 45:23 with Rom. 14:11.) We press the general statement: “Whatever things the Father does, the Son does these things and in the same manner []” (John 5:19). Therefore the exception of the Photinians goes up in smoke—that the particle “through” indicates not the first cause but an instrumental cause. They borrowed that exception from the old Arians, as is evident from Athanasius, Contra Arian., sermon 3. Chrysostom once responded beautifully to them (Homily 2 on Hebrews 1): “The Son does not—as the heretics foolishly suspect—exist as some instrument of the Father, nor is the Father said to have acted through Him as if He Himself did not have the power to act. Rather, just as the Father is said to pass judgment through the Son because He begot the Judge, so also He is said to work through the Son because it is evident that He begot the Worker.” Cyril, Thesaur., bk. 6, ch. 3, presses the argument that in the creation He said, “Let Us make man,” which is not the form for one commanding an inferior. Otherwise He would have used the imperative, “Make!” But His words are of one who is inviting an equal to participate.

(3) The work of creation that is attributed to Christ is described in such a way that it cannot refer to anything except the original creation of heaven and earth. This is because: (a) It is called “creation” in the absolute and unlimited sense without an appendix (Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:15–16; Rev. 3:14). But when it is taken as a reference to the second creation, or redemption and renewal, then as an appendix the word [“new”] or something similar is added (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Col. 2:10; Eph. 4:24; etc.). (b) The universal particles and [“all”] are added (John 1:3; Col. 1:16–17; Eph. 3:9; Heb. 1:3). Here the article added in some passages has a unique emphasis, as is concluded from 2 Maccabees 7:28 and Rom. 11:36. When a passage deals with the second creation, then those universal particles are not added because the work of creation is simply universal, but the work of redemption and regeneration is not the same. Otherwise it would follow that even the devils have been redeemed and wicked men are reborn. (c) Through division, the effect of creation is distributed into visible creatures and invisible creatures, which are the angels (Col. 1:16). However, this distribution is not possible in the second creation because the angels were not redeemed through Christ.

(d) In John 1:3 an exclusive word is added clearly: “All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made.” This is something that cannot be referred to the second creation. You see, on the basis of the hypothesis of the Photinians, Christ did not yet exist in the Old Testament, yet many people in it were renewed.

(e) By way of explanation, there is added what “all things” made through Christ are called: “The world made through Him” (v. 10). Yet nowhere is “world” taken to mean only the devout.

(f) To the work of creation, the preservation and governance of the entire system of the world is connected. This preservation and governance is nothing else but a sort of continuation of creation (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3). This very thing is a clear indication that the original creation, too, is attributed to Christ. Therefore the opinion of the Photinians falls—namely, that the topic in those passages is the new creation. (See Socinus, Contra Bellarm., p. 339; and Defens. animadv., p. 74; Catech. Racov., pp. 87, 139; Eniedinus, p. 161; Schmaltzius, Exam. 157 error., p. 12.)

(4) Christ is said to be “the beginning of God’s creation” (Rev. 3:14), not a material beginning, as if He Himself were in the category of creatures, but an effective beginning, because every created thing receives its beginning of being from Him, just as an architect is said to be the beginning of a house. For this reason, too, because the apostle had called Him “the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15), he immediately adds the reason: “because through Him were made all things visible and invisible.” Therefore He Himself is not a creature but the Creator. He also adds, “He is before all things.” Yet if Christ were the first creature and had been created in time, the apostle would have had to say: “And He Himself was made ahead of all things.” Basil is right to press this argument, Contra Eunom., bk. 4, p. 349. Therefore Schmaltzius’s objection falls, Exam. 157 error., p. 12: “Because Christ is the firstborn of every creature, it follows that He is a creature.”

§ 58. (II) With regard to preservation, note that Christ is said to “uphold [portare] all things” (Heb. 1:3), that is, to foster, sustain, and preserve them. The force of this word is made clear: “The Lord, your God, carried [portavit] you in the wilderness” (Deut. 1:31); “As an eagle bears [portat] its chicks upon its wings …” (Deut. 32:11); “You are being carried [portamini] by Me in the womb” (Isa. 46:3). In fact, He upholds not some things but “all things by the word of His power,” that is, by His most powerful word and command. Theophylact observes that a metaphor has been taken from those people who move something with a finger and transfer it to another place, so that the apostle meant that such and so great a weight of creatures was borne by Christ in such a way that He seems to have carried nothing at all. Indeed, He holds up all things with His word alone. For this reason, also, He can “command the wind and the sea” with His word (Matt. 8:26), something that is a work of infinite power, by which power—His own intrinsic power and not someone else’s power as instrumental—Christ works. You see, “whatever the Father does, He Himself does these things in the same manner []” (John 5:19). Therefore Socinus’s attempt to escape fails (Cont. Bellarm. et Wiek., ch. 8, p. 460), namely, “that [“to uphold”] has the meaning of ‘to move’ and ‘to control’ rather than ‘to carry,’ that the topic concerns things endowed with intelligence according as they have been reformed through Christ, that Christ does not have that power of Himself.”

§ 59. (III) With regard to miracles, note: (1) Christ does His miracles with utterly free choice, when and where He wills. Matt. 8:2: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” John 5:21: “The Son gives life to whomever He wills.” But this belongs to the true God alone: that He can “do whatsoever He wills in heaven and on earth” (Ps. 115:3; 135:6). Regarding one who does miracles not of himself and with an intrinsic power proper to himself but from a foreign grace granted to him by a superior, we cannot say about him that he heals miraculously “if he wills,” but rather it would be “if He from whom he has received that power by grace wills,” because the ability to act depends not so much on the will of the receiver but on that of the Giver.

(2) Christ does the sort of things that no man did nor can do, because it befits Him alone to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, to be born of the Virgin, and to rise by His own power. John 9:32: “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.” We also use this comparison: “Christ does all things that the Father does” (John 5:19–20). Yet the Father does some things that no man has done or can do, as is clear from the creation of the world or from the sending of the Holy Spirit.

(3) Christ not only does “the same things” as the Father but even (“in the same way as”) the Father does them, with one and equal power. Those who believe do “these things” in some of their works and, in fact, even “greater ones” (John 14:12), but not (“in the same way as”) the Father and the Son work. For this reason, John 5:17 uniquely connects the manner of working by which the Son acts with the manner of working by which the Father acts, and separates them completely from the manner by which the rest operate.

(4) Christ in His miracles acts with His own might and power, and for this reason He performs His miracles by commanding. He tells the sea: “Be quiet” [Mark 4:39]. He tells the possessed man: “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you to depart from him” [Mark 9:25]. In Matt. 9:28, He says to the blind man: “Do you believe that I can do this?” He does not say: “I can obtain that for you from My heavenly Father.” Acts 3:12, 16: “Why do you wonder at this … as though by our own power or piety we made him walk? … In the faith of the name of Christ, His name has made him strong.” Acts 10:38: “God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing.” But that anointing with the Spirit did not happen to Christ according to His divine nature out of grace; rather, according to that nature, He has the power to give the Holy Spirit. Therefore the power to do miracles according to His divine nature also belongs to Him through nature, that is, through His eternal begetting from the Father.

Therefore when the Photinians press the argument that “Christ received the power to perform miracles from another source,” we must respond through a distinction. To receive the might and power to act from another source can be understood in two ways: either it is the same thing as to use a foreign power, which one receives within himself and which he does not have intrinsic to his own nature—and thus he receives something out of the grace of the giver from a different source. In this sense, the apostles performed miracles with a power received from elsewhere, that is, with a foreign power. Or it signifies the use of one’s own intrinsic power, which he has received not by being given it but by being born from another. In this sense, Christ did His miracles by the power received from the Father through His eternal begetting, but in such a way that He had that power within Himself. But if the Photinians wish to infer from the latter sense of the phrase that Christ did not act in His miracles with His own intrinsic power and is [thus] not true God, I shall be able to infer with the same logic that in human affairs a son does not act with his own intrinsic power and is [thus] not a true man because he does not have his human nature from himself but from his father. It is also apparent from this that there is a great difference between these two: the apostles performing miracles by a power received from God and Christ doing miracles by a power received from the Father. The apostles receive that power out of grace from a source essentially distinct from themselves, and before they received it they did not have it, nor did they have it within themselves. But the Son of God receives that power through His eternal begetting, and consequently by birth He receives it from the Father, with whom He is essentially one, and consequently He receives it not from a source extrinsic to His own essence. Hence there is no time in which He did not have it; in fact, He has it “in Himself” (John 5:26). “The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father” (John 14:11). “The Father dwells in the Son and does the works Himself” (v. 12). “The Father and the Son are one” (John 10:30). Surely, then, as far as Christ is concerned, that power is not extrinsic, foreign, and alien, but intrinsic, natural, and His own. Therefore it remains firmly established that in His miracles Christ acts with a might and power natural and proper to Himself. But now, that befits God alone uniquely. “This is the changing of the right hand of the Most High” (Ps. 77:[10]). “The right hand of the Lord acts powerfully” (Ps. 118:[15]).

(5) Christ performs His miracles for His own glory, something that likewise befits God alone. Isa. 42:8; 48:11: “I will not give My glory to another.” Thus in the miracle of the wine changed into water (John 2:11), He “reveals His own glory.” In Mark 7:37 He allows Himself to be honored with a doxology proper to God: “He has done all things well.” John 5:[19,] 23: “What the Father does, the Son does in the same manner [], that all may honor the Son just as [] they honor the Father.” After the miracle of healing the crippled man in the name of Christ (Acts [3]:13), Peter says, “The God of our fathers has glorified His Son.” That is, “the glory of Christ Himself—not our glory—has been revealed through this miracle.” In Acts 14:13, the apostle forbids them to offer him a sacrifice because of the miracle, but Christ allows a spiritual sacrifice of praise and invocation to be given to Himself.

(6) Christ not only performed miracles Himself but even conferred on others the power to perform miracles that they are said to have done in His name (Matt. 10:1; Mark 3:15; Luke 9:1; 10:17; Acts 3:6; 9:34; etc.). Yet only God can grant to others the power to do miracles.

(7) With His divine miracles, Christ confirmed what He set forth in His teaching: that He is the only-begotten Son of God and equal to the Father.

On the basis of all this we can easily resolve the exceptions of the Photinians. Christ has the power to do miracles according to nature; holy men of God, according to grace. Christ performs His miracles omnipotently and principally; holy men of God, ministerially. Christ acts with His own infinite power; the apostles, with a foreign, finite power.

§ 60. (IV) With regard to redemption, note: (1) The things required for redemption were the satisfaction that had to be offered to infinite divine justice and the full expiation for the sins of the whole world. These were required because the infinite justice of God had been offended by the sins of men, and this could not have been satisfied with a ransom offered through a finite creature. Ambrose, De gent. vocat., bk. 1, ch. 3: “What perished in nature is not restored except by the Author of nature.” Compare the deliberation of the Father with the Son at the creation of man (Gen. 1:26) and the decree and counsel of the same regarding the redemption of men (Ps. 2:7; 110:1).

(2) Christ is said to have “made purification for our sins through Himself []” (Heb. 1:3). It is clear from Isa. 43:25 that this belongs to God alone: “I, I am He who wipes out.” For this reason, it is also said explicitly that “God has redeemed the Church with His own blood” (Acts 20:28) and that the blood that cleanses us from sins is “the blood of the Son of God Himself” (1 John 1:7). Therefore through Himself, that is, by His own power and through His own blood, Christ was able to make a purging of sins, because in the unity of His person He is true God, to whom that blood which was shed on the altar of the cross belonged personally.

§ 61. (V) Regarding the gathering of the Church, note: (1) In Heb. 3:3, Paul proves that Christ is more excellent than Moses from the fact that “he who builds the house is more excellent than the house.” Therefore Christ alone is the supreme builder of the Church, who builds His own house, that is, He calls the Church from the human race, gathers it, constructs it upon Himself, and saves it. In 1 Cor. 3:10, Paul and the ministers of the Church indeed are called “builders,” but only instrumentally: through the preaching of the Word they build themselves and others upon Christ, the only Cornerstone (Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:[6ff.]).

(2) The sending of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, is ascribed in the same manner to both the heavenly Father (Matt. 11:10; Mark 1:2) and to Christ Himself (Mal. 3:1). Therefore ministers are sent by Christ and by the Father in no different nor inferior manner, for which reason not only the heavenly Father but also Christ Himself is said to send them as “the master of the house [pater familias]” (Matt. 10:25), as “the Bridegroom of the Church,” etc. (2 Cor. 11:2).

§ 62. (VI) Regarding salvation, note that Christ saves us: as God (Isa. 35:[4]; Hosea 1:7); as the only foundation of salvation (1 Cor. 3:11); as “the author of life” (Acts 3:[15]); as He outside of and without whom there is salvation in no other (Acts 4:12); as the “author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2); “through Himself” (Heb. 1:3); as far more excellent than all angels and men (Heb. 1:[4]); “not as a minister” (as Socinus confesses, Contra Bell. et Wiek., p. 462), but as the Lord (Acts [2?]:36). Therefore that escape of the Photinians—that “Christ saves us as a minister and instrument of God” (Socinus, De Christo Servat., p. 1, ch. 6) and that “He effects our salvation not as the first but as the second cause” (Schmaltz, Exam. 157, error 79, p. 24)—is wicked.

Fifth, from divine worship.

§ 63. We take our fifth class of arguments from the divine worship and honor that belong to God alone and that are commanded in the Scriptures to be given to Christ. This we prove: (I) In general. “All people should honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (John 5:23). Socinus, Misc., p. 268: “You hear that God wants Christ to be honored just as He Himself is honored. From this we understand clearly that we must present to Christ the same honor that we present to God.”

(II) Specifically, because we are ordered: (1) To believe in Christ and to trust in Him (John 14:1). (2) To place our hope in Him (Isa. 11:10). (3) To worship Him religiously (Isa. 45:23). (Cf. Rom. 14:9.) (4) We are baptized in His name (Matt. 28:[19]). (5) We swear by Him (Rom. 9:1). (6) We glorify Him in equal manner with the Father (Rom. 9:5; Rev. 5:13).

§ 64. In regard to this class, note in general: (1) Christ cannot be presented with divine honor unless the divine nature be attributed to Him. (Those who concede that we must present Christ with truly divine honor while denying that He is by nature the true God are actually claiming that several gods exist and are to be worshiped. Franciscus Davidis proves this in detail, Contra Socin.) You see, as God is God only by reason of His divine nature, so also He is worshiped with divine honor only by reason of His divine nature. To worship God is nothing other than to acknowledge the divine nature in Him. Consequently, truly divine honor does not befit whomever the divine nature does not befit. For this reason, Basil, Contra Eunom., bk. 4, is correct in urging that the Galatians are being accused of idolatry because before their conversion to Christ they served those who were not gods by nature. Therefore he who is not God by nature and essence must not be worshiped with divine honor nor served with divine worship.

(2) The argument draws its conclusion not so much from the act of divine worship as from the foundation and duty of divine worship. After all, he is not immediately true God who is given divine honor; after all, idolaters present creatures and fictitious gods with divine honor. However, He is true God by nature if divine honor befits Him because of His divine nature and if God Himself in the divine Word commands us to present divine honor to Him.

(3) The Most High says that He does not wish to give His divine glory to another—not only to one who is contrary to God and the foe of God but also to one who is outside of God, that is, who is not true God by nature (Isa. 42:8). In Hebrew this is , which indicates “anyone else.” Therefore the exception of the Socinians fails, that “only he who is contrary to God is excluded, but not he who is subordinate to Him.” (See Theophilus Nicolaides, Contra Borcov., p. 80; and Schmaltzius, Contra Smiglec.)

(4) God is speaking in the future, “I will not give My glory to another,” and is prophesying about the times of the New Testament, when He says that He is not going to give His glory to someone else. (Cf. Isa. 42:8; 43:10–11; 46:9; 48:11.) Therefore the dream of the Photinians falls, that the topic is merely about the times of the Old Testament. (See Socinus, Resp. ad defens. Franc. David., ch. 71, p. 144; Ostorodus, Cont. Tradel., p. 154; Theophilus Nicolaides, Contra Borcov., p. 80.)

(5) The same glory, honor, and worship are attributed to Christ as are attributed to the Father. Therefore the blasphemy of the Photinians falls, that only similar glory is attributed to Christ. The “similar glory” that is given to him who is not God by nature, who is not the infinite good, will be more unlike divine glory (that is, infinitely distant from it with regard to its object and foundation) than like it. As we have said, the foundation of divine glory is the divine essence and majesty. But as far as essence and majesty are concerned, none of the created and fictitious gods are like God (Ps. 86:8; 89:[6]). Therefore no glory, however great it may finally be, can be like divine glory. Therefore that which Socinus argues falls, that “Christ is honored as God’s commander” (Miscell., p. 267) and “as subordinate to God” (p. 269).

§ 65. Regarding worship in particular, note: (1) The assumed human nature is worshiped not separately and solitarily nor on the basis of its essential principles and affections, but according as it subsists in the Word Himself. Therefore, on the basis of the worship of it, nothing departs from the axiom. Whoever is worshiped religiously is the true and eternal God.

(2) We are commanded not only to worship but also to invoke Christ because we are commanded to place in Him the confidence of our heart and, in fact, to do this in the same way as we believe in the Father (John 14:1); this is the foundation for invocation. We are commanded to implore His help and kindness; this is the form of invocation. In invoking Christ religiously, we follow the examples of Stephen (Acts 7:59), of Ananias (Acts 9:14), of the apostle (2 Cor. 12:8), etc. Therefore this distinction of Socinus falls, Contra Franc. David., ch. 24, p. 226: “To worship is not the same thing as to invoke. He invokes who, having come into necessity, confidently implores the help and kindness of another; but he worships who inclines his body and soul reverently to someone and prostrates himself before the other, expressing religious awe, even if he asks nothing of him.” Page 21: “There is no mandate regarding the invocation of Christ, but we do not deny that Christ is to be worshiped.” (Blandrata himself rejects this distinction because worship necessarily requires invocation, according to Socinus, Resp. ad Franc. David., p. 142.) Against this error we set forth the following brief aphorism: When the discussion involves religious worship, then it has the same object, form, foundation, and indeed all the same causes as invocation has (John 4:23; Acts 8:27; Rev. 14:7; etc.).

(3) A worship is attributed to Christ that is opposed to the worship of graven images (Ps. 97:7; Heb. 1:6) and that the very angels give to Christ (Heb. 1:6). However, this is not and cannot be other than the religious worship due to God alone.

(4) The apostles pray for grace and peace for their churches equally from the Father and from Christ (2 John 3), and in the apostolic doxologies they connect Christ with the Father with an equal level of honor, as has been demonstrated in our Disp. ex bened. eccles.

(5) “To be invoked through a mediator” can have a double meaning. On one hand, an invocation is understood that happens through a mediator as a distinct person, and in this respect we concede that the Son is not invoked through a mediator as through a person distinct from Himself. But we deny that as a result of this the true divinity of the Son and the religious invocation of Him is undermined, because the foundation of religious invocation consists in the divine nature. Since this truly and really befits the Son, surely, then, religious invocation is owed to Him. On the other hand, an invocation is understood that has to do with the satisfaction and merit through which the human race is reconciled to God. In this respect we say that it is false that the Son is not invoked through a mediator, because in the invocation of the Son one has regard for the satisfaction and merit that He Himself rendered in His own person, and which reconciled the human race to Him (2 Cor. 5:19). The divine justice to which Christ offered satisfaction through His death is common to the entire Trinity. Therefore, in His assumed nature, Christ also made satisfaction to Himself through Himself. Therefore this argument of Blandrata is frivolous: “Christ is not invoked through a mediator. Therefore He is not true God” (Colloq. Trans., 1568).

(Some people make a distinction between absolute and related invocation. They call “absolute” that which is directed to the entire Trinity absolutely, and this certainly befits the Son and Holy Spirit as well as the Father, in which manner all three persons are invoked through a mediator. They call that “related” which is directed to some certain person of the Deity, and thus to be invoked in a certain order befits, first, the Father, who is like the beginning of counsel and order in reconciling the human race; afterward, also, it befits the Son, who carries out that counsel; and, finally, it befits the Holy Spirit, according as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have the same will about redeeming the human race. However, the former response is the more simple: as the divine essence has no levels, neither does religious invocation.)

Antithesis.

§ 66. Some people divide those who attack the divine nature of Christ into old and more recent heretics. However, because the more recent heretics raise from hell the heresies stirred up by the old, and because the consideration of time by no means creates a proper and essential difference between heresies, therefore we should prefer that division by which the , those who directly deny the divinity of Christ, are divided into three classes.

(I) Some are [“without a hypostasis”], who claim that Christ did not exist at all before His birth from Mary. Such were Cerinthus and Ebion (about whom see our locus On God the Father and His Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], §§ 185–86); Paul of Samosata and Photinus (about whom see our locus On the Three Elohim [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 4], §§ 80–81). Artemon taught: “Christ was merely born of a virgin and is a man; He was not also born of God, because He is not God” (Eusebius, bk. 5, ch. 27). In our day, the Muhammadans and Photinians walk in their steps. Muhammad claimed: “Christ is a great prophet and lawgiver upon whom God breathed His spirit, but nevertheless He is not truly the Son of God.”

(II) Some are [“of a different essence”], who acknowledge in Christ a nature more sublime than the human but who nevertheless deny that He is [“of the same essence”] and consubstantial with the Father. Such were the Carpocratians, the Basilidians, and the Arians. (See our commonplace On God the Father and the Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § [188].) Arius taught three things especially about the Son: (1) That He is not coeternal with the Father. This is found in a letter of Arius to Eusebius, which Epiphanius recites (Haeres. 69); Theodoret, [Histor.,] bk. 1, ch. 3. (2) That He is a creature and less than the Father. (3) That He is not the natural but the adoptive Son of God, and thus is not consubstantial with the Father. (See the letter of Arius to Alexander and the symbol of his faith in Epiphanius; the hypotheses of Arian teaching in Histor. Magdeb., cent. 4, ch. 5.) The followers of Arius used to change the doxology of the Church in this way: “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” according to Epiphanius (Haeres. 76). Because of this, the Council of Nicaea removed this perversion and commanded that they retain the form of this hymn that had been handed down to the faithful since apostolic times, as Basil asserts in his book De Spiritu s., ch. 7 and 27: “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.” Because the Arians always had on their lips: (“There was a ‘when’ when the Son did not exist”), it pleased the council, in favor of asserting the eternity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, to add in the doxology the following words: “As it was in the beginning, and now, [and] ever.” (Cf. the Synodus Vasensis, which was celebrated shortly after that of Nicaea.)

(III) Some are [“unlike”], who used to say that Christ “was of the same substance with the Father but was not of equal power with Him.” Such were Aetius and his pupil Eunomius. (See our commonplace On God the Father and the Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § 189.) After the death of Arius, his sect was divided into two heresies. Some said that Christ was consubstantial with the Father; others denied this. The prior group was, again, of two classes. Some thought that He is consubstantial with the Father according to nature and essence, and they were, as a consequence, called “Semi-Arians.” Others asserted that He is consubstantial according to will, and they were called [“of a different essence”]. The latter group claimed that the Son was not equal to the Father in essence or in will. These were called “Aetians” and “Eunomians.”

In De fund. cons., disput. 3, § 61, and in De gloria Dei, disput. 7, §§ 3ff., we showed how the Calvinists indirectly undermine the purity of the doctrine regarding the true deity of the Son through their various hypotheses. In our locus On God the Father and the Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], §§ 146ff., and in our treatise On the Nature and Attributes of God, ch. 7 [1625 Exegesis, Commonplace II, §§ 104–12], we showed how one must respond to the arguments of the Photinians with which they attack the true divinity of Christ.

Questions: First, regarding the divine nature of Christ

§ 67. Here some questions arise: (I) About the divine nature of the Son. (1) Is the Son God Himself []? The term is ambiguous. It is either opposed to the communication of the divine essence (and thus we deny that Christ is “God Himself,” because He has received His essence through His eternal begetting from the Father), or it is opposed to an inequality of the divine essence (and thus we concede that Christ is “God Himself”).

** Gregorius de Valentia, De Trin., bk. 1, ch. 22: “As the Son is a person, He is of another; as utterly simple being, He is not of another.” **

Christ is truly and in Himself God, but He is not God of Himself. (See our De gloria Dei, disp. 9, § 15, and our locus On God the Father and the Son [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5], § 179.)

§ 68. (2) Can the Son correctly be called “the instrument of the Father”? Among the hypotheses of Arius there is also this one: “The Father made the Son for Himself as His instrument that through Him He might create all things.” To be sure, even before Arius stirred up his controversy, the devout ancients spoke in this way, as is apparent from Irenaeus (bk. 3, ch. 8; bk. 4, ch. 13), Tertullian (Adv. Prax., ch. 12), and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles., bk. 1, ch. 1), in whose footsteps Luther walks in his commentary on Genesis 1, p. 3. He says, “Here Moses first posits the means and instrument that God the Father used in His working, namely, the Word.” Bellarmine (De Christo, bk. 1, ch. 9) reports that the Transylvanians appeal to this passage. Paraeus reproaches us with this in Iren., ch. 24, art. 14, p. 146, as does also Tanner (Anat. August. Confess., demonstr. 2, § 24). [Crocius] (Convers. Pruten., part 2, p. 541) reproaches us with Heerbrand, who called the Son “the instrument of creation.” But we respond to this by noting that Aretius calls Him this in his commentary on Romans 11. One can and should respond in favor of the pious ancients and of Luther that the Arians called Christ the instrument of the Father in a far different sense from the orthodox. The Arians understood Him as a separated instrument, in which sense in the common way of speaking a hammer, a knife, and similar external and separate means of action are called “instruments.” The orthodox, on the other hand, understand Him as a connected and essentially united instrument in a modified way of speaking, as the hands are said to be the instrument of a man. In this way, Christ calls the Holy Spirit “the finger of God” [Luke 11:20; cf. Matt. 12:28], yet the Spirit does not cease being the essential power of God and the principal cause of acting. Luther declares very clearly that he was calling Christ an instrument in this sense, for he says, “The Word is not material nor created but is of one essence with the Father,” and he shows this from a comparison of Genesis 1 with John 1. In vol. 3 of the German edition of Jena, he says, f. 352: “God creates nothing except through His Word, and this truly is the power of God. The power of God is not an ax, a saw, or a file by which He works, but God Himself.”¹⁴

Meanwhile, because of the deceits and corruptions of the Photinians, it is preferable for us to abstain from using this phrase: (a) True God with the Father does not act instrumentally. (b) Christ is distinguished from the angels as a master from his ministers (Heb. 1:14). (c) Christ says, “I do this for My own sake” (Isa. 48:11); but one who acts for his own sake is not an instrument. (d) Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the omnipotent (Rev. 1:[8]). (e) The power to create is infinite and cannot exist in an instrument but only in the supreme and infinite craftsman. The Council of Sirmium calls the Son a “minister.” In his book on that council, Hilary explains it in this way: “He ministered not as a slave to his master but as the Son to the Father. Although between them there is no inequality of nature or dignity, nevertheless there is in the Father an authority of origin that is not in the Son.”

§ 69. (3) The question arises: Was the divinity of Christ known also to the heathen? Bellarmine affirms this. In fact, in De Christo, bk. 1, ch. 11, he tries to prove this from the sibyls and adds: “The sibyls foretold many things more clearly than any of the prophets.” However, we judge that this mystery was revealed only to the Church in the prophetic and apostolic Word. Casaubonus (Contra Baronium) explains what we should decide about the sibylline oracles, which Lactantius, Augustine, and others set forth in so great a number.

§ 70. (4) The question arises: Can the Father be called the cause of the Son? The Greek fathers indiscriminately use the terms and [“beginning” and “cause”] in this mystery, as is clear from Damascenus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 9 and 11: “The Son is not without beginning, that is, not without cause, for He is from the Father.” However, the Latin doctors of the Church reject the word “cause” [causa] and use only the word “beginning” [principium], saying, “The Father is the beginning without beginning; the Son is the beginning from the beginning.” For this reason, the Scholastics (Sent., 1, dist. 12, q. 2) declare with common approval that “the Father is not the cause of the Son but the beginning; the Son is not the cause of the Holy Spirit but the beginning.” The word “beginning,” you see, extends more broadly than “cause,” to which it is related as genus to species, for every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause.

Second, regarding His eternal begetting from the Father.

§ 71. (II) With regard to the begetting of the Son: (1) The question arises: Is the Son after the Father because He was begotten of the Father? According to Athanasius, Contra Arian., orat. 2, the Arians would philosophize with foolish women in this way: “Tell me, did you have a son before you gave birth? In no way! Therefore who would doubt that you are greater by birth than your son? But they” (the orthodox) “say that the Father had the Son before He begot Him and that He is not greater in age than the Son whom He begot.” The Photinians take delight in the same sophism.

But we respond briefly: The begotten is not after the begetter when the begetting is eternal. Justin, . et resp., q. 16, p. 313: “For us, existence precedes begetting, while generation is subsequent to existence. But God, along with that which is, begot; therefore with God there is not a postexistence of the begotten because there also is no preexistence of the begetter.” Athanasius poses this question against the sophism of the Arians: “Can you build a house without material? Therefore God could not have created the world without material? O degenerate scoundrels! You are comparing foolish women with God! God created the world, but as God, not as a human builder. He begot the Son, not like foolish women do, but as God, that is, in a far different manner from them.” And later: “Just as they questioned the woman about the reckoning of time, so also they should be asked to question the sun about its radiance and the spring about its water, in order that they may learn that, though these have been begotten and are their offspring, nevertheless they coexist along with them, from which they draw their origin and nature.” Thomas proceeds in this way, [ST,] p. 1, q. 42, art. 2: “There are three reasons why something produced is later than that which produces it: (a) Because the producer produces freely, namely, whenever it wishes. (b) Or because though the producer may be acting naturally, nevertheless it does not have its entire perfection to act right away as it is but acquires this gradually, and then finally acts. (c) Or because it produces by successive action, for which reason it happens that the product is later in duration than the producer.” However, in the production of the Son none of these is found. (Cf. Damascenus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 8.)

§ 72. (2) The question arises: Did the Father beget the Son by will or by necessity? This is one of those trifling questions of the Arians with which they have kept the orthodox busy. In De civ. Dei, bk. 15, ch. 20, Augustine reports that a catholic responded to this heresy by saying: “If the Father is God, He is God either willingly or unwillingly. If willingly, therefore He is God by His free will, not by nature; thus He could not have been God. If unwillingly, then He is wretched, because He is unwilling to be what He is.” Properly and formally speaking, the Father begot neither by will nor by necessity, but by nature. God willingly begot the Son because He was not forced to do so; nevertheless He did not beget Him because He wanted to. You see, if He had begotten because He wanted, He also could have not begotten, and in this way the Son could have not been. As a consequence, He would not have been equal to the Father, because He who could have not been cannot be equal to Him who necessarily always is. Therefore in the necessity of begetting, there is not any coercion, nor in the will do we think up any freedom or mutability of judgment. Rather, let us take both for the nature that is both necessity and will in God. Damascenus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 8: “Begetting is a work of nature; creation is a work of the will.” God the Father was not compelled, and He did not beget by the counsel of preceding free will. Rather, He begot the Son by a necessity of nature that was completely removed from all coercion, with an utterly perfect, utterly simple, eternal begetting. Thomas, loc. cit: “The Father did not beget the Son by will but by nature, which was perfect from eternity.” In regard to our spiritual regeneration and adoption, the word [“of His own will”] is used (James 1:18). But concerning the eternal begetting of the Son of God, He says absolutely and simply, “This day have I begotten you” (Ps. 2:7).

§ 73. (3) The question arises: Is the begetting of the Son of God proper or metaphoric? We respond: Maximally proper: (a) Because He is truly and properly the Son of God, therefore His begetting is maximally proper. (b) Because His begetting is perfect, containing fully and perfectly whatever perfection there is in begetting, properly speaking. In regard to this subject I shall note an exceptional passage from Granatensis, on the feast of Trinity, conc. 2:

The name “Son” is attributed to the Son of God more properly than to the common sons of parents. We gather this from three differences between the sons of men and the Son of God. The first difference is that the sons of men retain the truth of this name because their substance and that of their fathers is weakened, for the sons draw from their fathers not their full substance but only a particle of it. However, the eternal Father poured over into His Son not a part of His substance (because the nature of the divinity is indivisible) but His entire substance. The second difference is that though it is common for sons to show not only the appearance of their parents but even the shape of their mouth, their behavior, and their abilities, nevertheless it is not rare that we see them degenerate from their parents and be born far different from them. But in this most lofty begetting, the Son is like and equal to the Father in all things, for both have the same glory, the same majesty, the same eternity, the same will, etc. The third difference is that a carnal father by no means begets a son according as he is a man and a rational creature but according as he is an animal. When a man understands and knows himself in his mind and when he shapes in his mind an image of himself, if this image were to subsist and live of itself, this truly would be called the son of that man, since the image that is proper to the man would have been begotten by the force of reason and by action, something that nevertheless does not happen in the begetting of sons. Such a son is begotten not with an intellectual but with a physical operation of the vegetative soul, which is the lowest part of our soul. However, because in the Most High God there is no composition of unlike parts, the Son who is born of Him is truly God of God, Light of Light, by spiritual action; that is, by the spiritual contemplation of Himself, which is maximally proper to God, He proceeds and is begotten.

 

(However, we must read this third difference with some caution.)

(c) Because, as Damascenus teaches (De orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 9), the words “fatherhood,” “sonship,” and “procession” have not been transferred from us to that blessed divinity but, on the contrary, have been transferred from there to us. This is proved both from the fact that the begetting of God is eternal and precedes every generation in humans, and from the apostle’s words: “From the heavenly Father all fatherhood on earth and in heaven is named” (Eph. 3:[15]). God truly begets, but not in a human way, just as He truly lives, and indeed He alone lives, properly speaking, but He does not live in the human fashion, by breathing in and out, but by understanding and being. As He lives by understanding, so He begets by understanding. Thomas, [ST,] p. 1, q. 33, art. 2:

Begetting is said about God more primarily than about creatures, because begetting receives its species from its terminus, which is the form of what is begotten. As much closer as this is to the form of the begetter, so much the more true and perfect is the begetting, just as a univocal begetting is more perfect than an equivocal one. You see, part of the definition of a begetter is that he begets something similar to himself according to form. From this it is clear that, in the divine begetting, the form of the Begetter and Begotten is the same, but in created things it is not identically the same but only of the same species; this shows that begetting is in the Godhead primarily.

 

We do not approve of what Thomas adds, that “begetting is said about God more primarily than about creatures as far as the thing signified is concerned, though not as far as the manner of signifying is concerned,” because the mode of signifying corresponds to the mode of being.

(d) To claim metaphorical and limited begetting in the case of the Son favors the opinion of the Arians and Photinians.

§ 74. (4) The question arises: Can the begetting of the Son also be called “creation”? Because of their ignorance of the sacred language, the devout ancients were unable to respond otherwise to the passage “The Lord created Me []” (Prov. 8:22), upon which the Arians used to establish the fortress of their case. Therefore they reached this opinion: that in a certain respect, the begetting of the Son of God could be called “creation.” Athanasius, at the beginning of Contra Arian., orat. 3, argues: “Begetting sometimes is called ‘creation,’ and creation ‘begetting,’ just as we sometimes attribute to slaves the title ‘children’ and to our children the name ‘slaves.’ “ In 1 Kings 1:19, Solomon is called “the servant” of David. Job 38:28: “Who has begotten the drops of dew?” Hilary, not far from the beginning of his book De synodis: “In the Scriptures, the Son is sometimes said to have been begotten, sometimes to have been created, that His procession from the Father might be better explained with both words, for that procession can barely be described with a single word. That procession is called ‘begetting,’ which is the communication of a nature, because through it the Father communicates to the Son the same essence that He Himself has. Again, because in that procession no material is used, which our begettings use, for that reason it is called ‘creation.’ “

Bellarmine (De Christo, bk. 1, ch. 18) commends this statement of Hilary, but not wisely. (a) You see, Scripture nowhere calls the begetting of the Son a “creation.”

(b) If the begetting of the Son is and can be called a “creation,” surely even the Son, as God, will be able to be called a creature, something for which the Arians contend with all their might.

(c) There is an essential and perpetual difference between creation and begetting, properly speaking. “Begetting means that something is brought forth from the substance of the begetter which is begotten similar according to essence.” (Here “similar” is taken in a looser sense to denote also an agreement in the substantial being.) “But creation and making are extrinsic, and what is created and made does not come from the substance of the one creating and making, and it is completely unlike according to essence” (Damascenus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, ch. 8). From this he infers (ch. 9) that the Son is , [“unoriginated, uncreated”], but not [“unbegotten”]. Athanasius explains the reason, De Trinit., dial. 1, p. 152: “What is begotten¹⁵ is that which is being begotten from the hypostasis, but what is created¹⁶ is from the power of the maker.”¹⁷

(d) Begetting among humans presupposes material, and this has no place in divine begetting. This does not prove that it is not properly called “begetting” because one must distinguish between natural begetting, which happens in time, and supernatural or eternal begetting. The former is an essential change and requires material as a prerequisite; the latter excludes all change, all succession, all material, and consists solely in the communication of essence.

§ 75. (5) The question arises: Does the Father beget the Son of His own essence? The Photinians are extremely hostile to this expression. Schmaltzius, Exam. 157, error 22, p. 9: “For one God to beget from His own substance is from the realm of impossibilities.” Error 37, p. 13: “For God to beget of His own substance is absurd and almost blasphemy. For in the judgment of all theologians, the substance of God is one in an absolutely perfect way, namely, in number. For a substance to be one in number and to beget something from itself involves a contradiction that is so certain that it is utterly certain.” Vorstius agrees, De Deo, p. 24: “The nature of God cannot at all be communicated to others either totally or in part. Not totally, because it is indivisible; not in part, because it cannot be torn in pieces.” Also in agreement are Junius (Contra Gratian.), Sohnius (Exeg., p. 87), Keckermann (Syst., p. 63). Tilenus, Not. ad Bell. 1. de Christo, ch. 9: “The wording is more suitable when we say that the Father begot or produced the Son in substance or essence than from His substance, lest someone imagine that there are two essences,” etc. However, we urge a definition of begetting in the proper sense: “To beget is to produce from one’s own substance something similar according to its essence.” For this reason we say in the Athanasian Creed that Christ “is God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the ages.”

Observe that: (a) The Father is said to have begotten the Son of His own substance, not by an alienation or division of essence.¹⁸ After all, He did not deprive Himself of His essence, nor give part of His essence to the Son, but gave by the communication of His entire essence, because He communicated to the Son His entire and perfect essence through the begetting and also kept the same entire thing for Himself because it is infinite.

(b) This expression is opposed to creation out of nothing and to formation out of preexisting matter that is of a diverse genus from the producer. Athanasius, vol. 1, in his Letter de decret. synodi Nicenae against the Arian heresy, p. 420, cites a passage from Theognostus, whom he calls an “admirable” man, in his second sketch: “The substance of the Son does not consist on the outside or from extraneous things, nor is He produced from nonbeings; but He is begotten from the substance of the Father like a ray from the light.” Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 3, p. 23: “Before all time, the Unbegotten begot the Son from Himself, not from any preexisting material, because all things are through the Son; not out of nothing, because the Son is of Him; not as the Father, because there is nothing changeable or empty in God.”

(c) The Father is not said to have begotten the Son of His own essence as from matter but as from a source that produces, so that, instead, with this expression all matter is excluded. For this reason, some people prefer to say, “In the unity of essence the Father begot the Son,” lest we appear to be introducing two essences. However, both expressions can be used suitably.

§ 76. (6) The question arises: Was the Son begotten of the Father by thinking? Flacius (Clav., p. 1, col. 1249) disapproves of this expression in Philip and Osiander. Philip [Melanchthon], Refut. Serveti: “The eternal Father is like the mind. He looks into Himself, understands perfectly, and with that thinking produces His own image. We form images that gradually vanish, but He produces an image that does not vanish but rather subsists and is of the same essence [].”

Some attack this with the following arguments: (a) It is not written in Scripture.

(b) If the Son is begotten by the looking of the Father, we shall also have to concede that the Holy Spirit has a son, or we must deny that the Holy Spirit looks upon the Son.

(c) Irenaeus attributes this fiction to the ancient heretics.

However, all antiquity uses this comparison. As a concept of the mind is begotten in the mind and remains in the mind from which it flows, so also the Son is begotten of the Father and always remains in the Father. As thinking proceeds from the mind without passion, so the begetting of the Son occurs without passion []. Therefore we must distinguish between illustrations of any kind for this mystery—which the devout ancients had set before them in this way of speaking as they walked in the footsteps of Scripture, which calls the Son “the Word” already before creation and even from the ends of eternity—and between the perfect and full determination of the manner of begetting, which no one has said can be expressed by this way of speaking. Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 3, p. 29: “As the Father is indescribable in being unbegotten, so the Son cannot be described in being only-begotten, because He who was begotten is the image of the Unbegotten.” Athanasius, Contra Arian., sermon 3: “It is unseemly to ask how the Word is from God or how the splendor of God exists or how God begets or what the manner of the begetting of God is. He who would dare such things is crazy because with words he is trying to explain something indescribable, something proper to the divine nature and known only to God and His Son.”

Practical use.

§ 77. The practical use is consoling. Christ is true God. (1) Therefore He is a suitable mediator because of His kinship to God and man (Irenaeus, bk. 3, ch. 20). (2) Therefore He is the perfect Redeemer because of the infinite efficacy of His obedience and satisfaction that derives from the infinity of His person. (3) Therefore He is our utterly sufficient defender because of His divine power. (4) Therefore He is our utterly effectual intercessor because of His consubstantiality with the Father. John 11:42: “You always hear Me.” (5) Therefore He is the utterly complete Savior because of the salvation and life that belong to Him essentially. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 4, ch. 59. p. 291: “How can the Ebionites be saved if the God who has worked their salvation on earth does not exist?” In that life, from that life, “from His fullness we can all receive” [cf. John 1:16], just as waters are drawn from a spring but in such a way that the spring always overflows with its waters. Our salvation has been set in His hands more firmly and more securely than the heavens and the earth that those hands created (Isa. 45:[12]). We have been written down in those hands from eternity (Isa. 49:16), and from them no one can snatch us or our salvation (John 10:29).

1  See On the Nature of God (1625 Exegesis, Commonplace II), §§ 28–46.

2  That is, unconditionally.

3  Read nolimus instead of velimus.

4  Read ac si with Cotta instead of ac sic.

5  This sentence is truncated in Preuss’s edition but whole in the Cotta and Frankfurt/Hamburg editions.

6  That is, the attribute of having all wisdom.

7  Read instead of ; 5. .

8  That is to say, the definite article (“the”).

9  Things are identically the same (or the same according to number) if they are the exact same thing, though place, size, and the like may differ. But things are the same according to species if they have the same species but are not identically the same. For example, Peter and Paul (two human beings) are the same according to species but are not identically the same.

10  That is, a circumstantial participle, without an article.

11  Read non with Cotta instead of nomen.

12  Read Dei Filius with Cotta instead of Dei.

13  Read with Cotta instead of .

14  That These Words of Christ, ‘This Is My Body,’ Etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics (1527); cf. AE 37:61; WA 23:139.

15  Read with Cotta instead of .

16  Read with Cotta instead of .

17  Read with Cotta instead of .

18  Read essentiae with Cotta instead of essentia.

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