are unable to know the substance even of the visible: they reply, that it is not on account of
44 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. (Book II.
Word also has immortality, by which all things were made. For He did not therefore lose His immortality, because He took mortal flesh; seeing that it could not happen even to the human soul, that it should die with the body, when the Lord Himself says, '' Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.''5 Or, forsooth, also the Holy Spirit took flesh: concerning whom certainly they will, without doubt, be troubled to say—if the Son is mortal on account of taking our flesh—in what manner they understand that the Father only has immortality without the Son and the Holy Spirit, since, indeed, the Holy Spirit did not take our flesh; and if He has not immortality, then the Son is not mortal on account of taking our flesh; but if the Holy Spirit has immortality, then it is not said only of the Father, ''Who only hath immortality.'' And therefore they think they are able to prove that the Son in Himself was mortal also before the incarnation, because changeableness itself is not unfitly called mortality, according to which the soul also is said to die; not because it is changed and turned into body, or into some substance other than itself, but because, wnatever in its own selfsame substance is now after another mode than it once was, is discovered to be mortal, in so far as it has ceased to be what it was. Because then, say they, before the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary, He Himself appeared to our fathers, not in one and the same form only, but in many forms; first in one form, tnen in another; He is both visible in Himself, because His substance was visible to mortal eyes, when He had not yet taken our flesh, and mortal, inasmuch as He is changeable. And so also the Holy Spirit, who appeared at one time as a dove, and another time as fire. Whence, they say, the following texts do not belong to the Trinity, but singularly and properly to the Father only: by any other than by Him by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing is made,* it, although changeable, is yet "not visible; and this they have believed to be the case with the Word Himself and with the Wisdom of God itself, by which the soul was made; whereas this Wisdom is not only invisible, as the soul also is, but likewise unchangeable, which the soul is not. It is in truth the same unchangeableness - in it, which is referred to when it was said, 'Remaining in herself she maketh all things HEWSe MeL these people, endeavoring, as it were, to prop up their error in its fall by testimonies of the divine Scriptures, adduce the words of the Apostle Paul; and take that, whichis said of the one only God, in whom the Trinity itself is understood, to be said only of the Father, and neither of the Son nor of the Holy Spirit:
unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever;''? and that other passage, '' The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see.''3 How these passages are to be understood, I think we have already discoursed sufficiently.4
CHAP. 9.—AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVED THE
FATHER ONLY TO BE IMMORTAL AND INVISIBLE. THE TRUTH TO BE SOUGHT BY PEACEFUL STUDY.
15. But they who will have these texts understood only of the Father, and not of the Son or the Holy Spirit, declare the Son to be visible, not by having taken flesh of the Virgin, but aforetime also in Himself. For He Himself, they say, appeared to the eyes of the Fathers. And if you say to them, In whatever manner, then, the Son is visible in Himself, in that manner also He is mortal in Himself; so that it plainly follows that you would have this saying also understood only of the Father, vzz., '' Who only hath immortality;'' for if the Son is mortal from having taken upon Him our flesh, then allow that it is On account of this flesh that He is also visible: they reply, that it is not on account of this flesh that they say that the Son is mortal; but that, just as He was also before visible, so He was also before mortal. For if they say the Son is mortal from having taken our flesh, then it is not the Father alone without the Son who hath immortality; because His
''Now unto the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, the only wise God;" and, '' Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see."'
16. Passing by, then, these reasoners, who are unable to know the substance even of the soul, which is invisible, and therefore are very far indeed from knowing that the substance of the one and only God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, remains ever not only invisible, but also unchangeable, and that hence it possesses true and real immortality; let us, who deny that God, whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy okn i. 3. 21 Tim. i. 17. 31 Tim. vi. 15, 16. For an example of the manner in which the patristic writers real the doctrine of the divine invisibility, see Ireneus, Adv. @reses, IV, xx.—W.G.T.S.]
5 Matt. x. 28.