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like ours, at one time quiescent in those who are silent, and at another time active in those who are speaking, he would clearly be running along with a certain Judaic and human way of thinking, denying the true Son of God. 1.1.16 For if one of the Jews should ask someone if God has a word (logos), he would certainly say so; since every one of the Jews would confess that he has both a word and many words. But that he also has a Son, he would no longer confess 1.1.17 if asked. But if not one of the Jews but one of the bishops were to introduce this opinion, presenting him as only a word united with God, and that this is eternal and unbegotten and is one and the same with God, though called by the different names of Father and Son, but being one in substance and hypostasis, how would he not be shown to be playing the part of Sabellius, and alienated from the knowledge and grace in Christ? For the rule of the church would not permit them either to seek or to doubt or to ask if the only-begotten Son of God was and pre-existed; but with confessed and indubitable faith, with much courage and boldness, it teaches to confess that God is the Father of the only-begotten Son, and to think neither that the Father is the Son nor that the Son is the Father; but to revere the one Father as unbegotten and eternal and without beginning and first and alone, and to believe that the one born of the Father and subsisting is the only, only-begotten Son, and to know him as God, 1.1.18 being truly the Son of God. If, then, someone were seen to contradict these things, and defined this Word of God as similar to the one in humans, how would he not be convicted of not understanding nor reasoning that one must not attribute anything mortal or human to the God who is beyond all things, nor indeed anything at all of those things that come into our mind, even if the divine scriptures, as if instructing certain infants who encounter them, speak of him in a rather human way, attributing to him hands and feet and eyes and voices and words and a mouth and a face and countless other such things; which indeed it is fitting to transfer to God-befitting concepts, imagining that nothing mortal or human is in God; for 'God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth,' the Savior himself taught. 1.1.19 And if he is spirit, it is clear that he is divine, better than every perceptible and composite body, so that he has neither a perceptible word, sounded by a tongue and heard through utterance by mortal ears, nor a tongue nor a voice nor a face nor anything else comparable to mortal and 1.1.20 human reasoning. For if anything else, 'what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man,' such are 'the things which God has prepared for those who love him,' the divine apostle taught, the giver of all these things would himself be more ineffable than these ineffable things, so that one might say with much more truth in the theology concerning him that eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has the knowledge of the comprehension concerning him entered 'into the heart of men'. 1.1.21 And the same argument would apply also concerning the generation of the Son. Of these things the Savior himself would be a worthy hierophant for us, saying somewhere thus: 'All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son.' 1.1.22 If, then, anyone should speak against these things and not dare to say that the Son, to whom the Father has delivered all things, has subsistence, but should define him as only a word similar to that in humans, at one time quiescent in God, similarly to our being silent, at another time active, similarly to our speaking when we talk, and then should say that this very one, at some time not even four hundred full years ago, took on flesh, I know not how, and through it completed the economy as a man, and then became Son of God and was called Jesus Christ and was proclaimed king and 'image of the invisible God', and

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ἡμετέρῳ ἐν σιωπῶσιν μὲν ἡσυχάζοντι ἐν δὲ φθεγγομένοις ἐνεργοῦντι, δῆλος ἂν εἴη Ἰουδαϊκῷ τινι καὶ ἀνθρωπίνῳ συντρέχων φρονήματι τὸν δ' ἀληθῶς υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ 1.1.16 ἀρνούμενος. εἰ γοῦν τις Ἰουδαίων ἔροιτό τινα, εἰ λόγον ἔχει ὁ θεός, πάντως που φήσει· ἐπεὶ καὶ λόγον καὶ λόγους πλείους ἔχειν αὐτὸν ὁμολογήσειεν ἂν Ἰουδαίων ἅπας. ὅτι δὲ καὶ υἱὸν ἔχει, οὐκέτ' ἂν ὁμο1.1.17 λογήσειεν ἐρωτηθείς. εἰ δὲ μὴ Ἰουδαίων ἀλλ' ἐπισκόπων τις ταύτην εἰσαγάγοι τὴν δόξαν, λόγον αὐτὸν μόνον διδοὺς ἡνωμένον τῷ θεῷ καὶ τοῦτον εἶναι ἀίδιον καὶ ἀγέννητον ἕν τε εἶναι καὶ ταὐτὸν τῷ θεῷ, ὀνόμασιν μὲν διαφόροις πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ χρηματίζοντα οὐσίᾳ δὲ καὶ ὑποστάσει ἓν ὄντα, πῶς οὐ δῆλος ἂν γένοιτο τὸν μὲν Σαβέλλιον ὑποδυόμενος, τῆς δ' ἐν Χριστῷ γνώσεώς τε καὶ χάριτος ἠλλοτριωμένος; οὐδὲ γὰρ ζητεῖν οὐδ' ἀμφιβάλλειν οὐδ' ἐρωτᾶν αὐτοῖς, εἰ ἦν καὶ προῆν ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ὁ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐπιτρέποι ἂν θεσμός· ὁμολογουμένῃ δὲ καὶ ἀναμφιβόλῳ πίστει σὺν πολλῷ θάρρει καὶ παρρησίᾳ διδάσκει τὸν θεὸν πατέρα εἶναι υἱοῦ τοῦ μονογενοῦς ὁμολογεῖν, καὶ μήτε τὸν πατέρα υἱὸν εἶναι ἢ τὸν υἱὸν πατέρα νομίζειν· ἀλλὰ τὸν μὲν ἀγένητον καὶ ἀίδιον καὶ ἄναρχον καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μόνον πατέρα σέβειν, τὸν δὲ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς γεννη θῆναι καὶ ὑποστῆναι καὶ μόνον υἱὸν μονογενῆ εἶναι πιστεύειν, θεόν 1.1.18 τε αὐτὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς υἱὸν ὄντα θεοῦ γνωρίζειν. εἰ δὴ οὖν τούτοις μὲν ἀντιλέγων τις φαίνοιτο, λόγον δὲ θεοῦ ὁμοίως τῷ ἐν ἀνθρώποις τοῦτον ὁρίζοιτο, πῶς οὐκ ἂν ἐλέγχοιτο οὐκ ἐννοῶν οὐδὲ λογιζόμενος ὡς οὐδὲν χρὴ θνητὸν οὐδὲ ἀνθρώπινον τῷ ἐπέκεινα τῶν ὅλων ἀνατιθέναι θεῷ, οὐδ' ὅλως τι τῶν εἰς ἡμετέραν ἐνθύμησιν ἀνιόντων, κἂν αἱ θεῖαι γραφαί, ὥσπερ τινὰς νηπίους παιδαγωγοῦσαι τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας, ἀνθρωπικώτερον περὶ αὐτοῦ διαλέγωνται, χεῖρας αὐτῷ καὶ πόδας καὶ ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ φωνὰς καὶ λόγους καὶ στόμα καὶ πρόσωπον καὶ μυρία ἄλλα τοιαῦτα περιάπτουσαι· ἃ δὴ προσήκει μεταφέρειν ἐπὶ θεοπρεπεῖς ἐννοίας, οὐδὲν θνητὸν οὐδ' ἀνθρώπινον ἐν τῷ θεῷ εἶναι φανταζομένους· «πνεῦμα» γὰρ «ὁ θεός, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας αὐτὸν ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ δεῖ προσκυνεῖν», αὐτὸς ἐδίδαξεν ὁ 1.1.19 σωτήρ. εἰ δὲ πνεῦμα, δῆλον ὅτι θεῖον, κρεῖττον παντὸς αἰσθητοῦ καὶ συνθέτου σώματος, ὡς μήτε λόγον αἰσθητὸν ἔχειν, ὑπὸ γλώττης ἐξηχούμενον καὶ διὰ προφορᾶς θνητοῖς ὠσὶν ἐξακουόμενον, μήτε γλῶτταν μήτε φωνὴν μήτε πρόσωπον μήτε τι ἄλλο θνητῷ καὶ 1.1.20 ἀνθρωπίνῳ λογισμῷ παραβαλλόμενον. εἰ γάρ τι ἄλλο «ὃ ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδεν οὐδὲ οὖς ἤκουσεν, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη» τοιαῦτ' εἶναι «ἃ ἡτοίμασεν ὁ θεὸς τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτὸν» ὁ θεῖος ἐδίδαξεν ἀπόστολος, τούτων ἁπάντων αὐτὸς ὁ τούτων δοτὴρ ἀρρήτων ἂν εἴη ἀρρητότερος, ὡς πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἀληθέστερον φάναι ἂν ἐν τῇ περὶ αὐτοῦ θεολογίᾳ ὀφθαλμὸν μὴ ἑωρακέναι μηδὲ οὖς ἀκηκοέναι μηδὲ «ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπων» ἀναβεβηκέναι τῆς περὶ αὐτοῦ 1.1.21 καταλήψεως τὴν γνῶσιν. ὁ δ' αὐτὸς ἂν εἴη λόγος καὶ περὶ τῆς τοῦ υἱοῦ γενεσιουργίας. τούτων δ' αὐτὸς ὁ σωτὴρ ἀξιόχρεως γένοιτ' ἂν ἡμῖν ἱεροφάντης, ὧδέ πη φάσκων «πάντα μοι παρεδόθη ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπιγινώσκει τὸν υἱὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ πατήρ, οὐδὲ 1.1.22 τὸν πατέρα τις ἐπιγινώσκει εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱός». εἰ δὴ οὖν τούτοις μὲν ἀντιφθέγγοιτό τις καὶ μὴ τὸν υἱόν, ᾧ πάντα παρέδωκεν ὁ πατήρ, ὑφεστάναι λέγειν τολμῴη, λόγον δὲ αὐτὸν ὁρίζοιτο μόνον ὅμοιον τῷ ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ποτὲ μὲν ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἡσυχάζοντα ὁμοίως τῷ παρ' ἡμῖν σιωπῶντι, ποτὲ δὲ ἐνεργοῦντα τῷ παρ' ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ λαλεῖν φθεγγομένῳ παραπλησίως, εἶτα τοῦτον αὐτὸν καιρῷ τινι οὐδ' ὅλων ἐτῶν ἔμπροσθεν τετρακοσίων σάρκα φήσαι οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως ἀνειληφέναι καὶ δι' αὐτῆς τὴν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον οἰκονομίαν τετελεκέναι, καὶ τότε υἱὸν θεοῦ γεγονέναι καὶ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν χρηματίσαι βασιλέα τε ἀνηγορεῦσθαι εἰκόνα τε «θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου», καὶ