Chapter XXXI. Argument.—But that God, the Son of God, Born of God the Father from Everlasting, Who Was Always in the Father, is the Second Person to the Father, Who Does Nothing Without His Father’s Decree; And that He is Lord, and the Angel of God’s Great Counsel, to Whom the Father’s Godhead is Given by Community of Substance.

Thus God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who only knows no beginning, invisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, is one God; to whose greatness, or majesty, or power, I would not say nothing can be preferred, but nothing can be compared; of whom, when He willed it, the Son, the Word, was born, who is not received283    As the Word formed. [He expounds Ps. xliv. (xlv.), Sept.] in the sound of the stricken air, or in the tone of voice forced from the lungs, but is acknowledged in the substance of the power put forth by God, the mysteries of whose sacred and divine nativity neither an apostle has learnt, nor prophet has discovered, nor angel has known, nor creature has apprehended. To the Son alone they are known, who has known the secrets of the Father. He then, since He was begotten of the Father, is always in the Father. And I thus say always, that I may show Him not to be unborn, but born. But He who is before all time must be said to have been always in the Father; for no time can be assigned to Him who is before all time. And He is always in the Father, unless the Father be not always Father, only that the Father also precedes Him,—in a certain sense,—since it is necessary—in some degree—that He should be before He is Father. Because it is essential that He who knows no beginning must go before Him who has a beginning;284    [“In a sense;” i.e., in logic, not time.] even as He is the less as knowing that He is in Him, having an origin because He is born, and of like nature with the Father in some measure by His nativity, although He has a beginning in that He is born, inasmuch as He is born of that Father who alone has no beginning. He, then, when the Father willed it, proceeded from the Father, and He who was in the Father came forth from the Father; and He who was in the Father because He was of the Father, was subsequently with the Father, because He came forth from the Father,—that is to say, that divine substance whose name is the Word, whereby all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. For all things are after Him, because they are by Him. And reasonably, He is before all things, but after the Father, since all things were made by Him, and He proceeded from Him of whose will all things were made. Assuredly God proceeding from God, causing a person second to the Father as being the Son, but not taking from the Father that characteristic that He is one God.  For if He had not been born—compared with Him who was unborn, an equality being manifested in both—He would make two unborn beings, and thus would make two Gods. If He had not been begotten—compared with Him who was not begotten, and as being found equal—they not being begotten, would have reasonably given two Gods, and thus Christ would have been the cause of two Gods.  Had He been formed without beginning as the Father, and He Himself the beginning of all things as is the Father, this would have made two beginnings, and consequently would have shown to us two Gods also. Or if He also were not the Son, but the Father begetting from Himself another Son, reasonably, as compared with the Father, and designated as great as He, He would have caused two Fathers, and thus also He would have proved the existence of two Gods. Had He been invisible, as compared with the Invisible, and declared equal, He would have shown forth two Invisibles, and thus also He would have proved them to be two Gods. If incomprehensible,285    [Compare the Athanasian Confession.] if also whatever other attributes belong to the Father, reasonably we say, He would have given rise to the allegation of two Gods, as these people feign. But now, whatever He is, He is not of Himself, because He is not unborn; but He is of the Father, because He is begotten, whether as being the Word, whether as being the Power, or as being the Wisdom, or as being the Light, or as being the Son; and whatever of these He is, in that He is not from any other source, as we have already said before, than from the Father, owing His origin to His Father, He could not make a disagreement in the divinity by the number of two Gods, since He gathered His beginning by being born of Him who is one God. In which kind, being both as well only-begotten as first-begotten of Him who has no beginning, He is the only one, of all things both Source and Head. And therefore He declared that God is one, in that He proved Him to be from no source nor beginning, but rather the beginning and source of all things. Moreover, the Son does nothing of His own will, nor does anything of His own determination; nor does He come from Himself, but obeys all His Father’s commands and precepts; so that, although birth proves Him to be a Son, yet obedience even to death declares Him the minister of the will of His Father, of whom He is. Thus making Himself obedient to His Father in all things, although He also is God, yet He shows the one God the Father by His obedience, from whom also He drew His beginning. And thus He could not make two Gods, because He did not make two beginnings, seeing that from Him who has no beginning He received the source of His nativity before all time.286    [As in the Athanasian Confession.] For since that is the beginning to other creatures which is unborn,—which God the Father only is, being beyond a beginning of whom He is who was born,—while He who is born of Him reasonably comes from Him who has no beginning, proving that to be the beginning from which He Himself is, even although He is God who is born, yet He shows Him to be one God whom He who was born proved to be without a beginning. He therefore is God, but begotten for this special result, that He should be God. He is also the Lord, but born for this very purpose of the Father, that He might be Lord. He is also an Angel, but He was destined of the Father as an Angel to announce the Great Counsel of God. And His divinity is thus declared, that it may not appear by any dissonance or inequality of divinity to have caused two Gods. For all things being subjected to Him as the Son by the Father, while He Himself, with those things which are subjected to Him, is subjected to His Father, He is indeed proved to be Son of His Father; but He is found to be both Lord and God of all else. Whence, while all things put under Him are delivered to Him who is God, and all things are subjected to Him, the Son refers all that He has received to the Father, remits again to the Father the whole authority of His divinity. The true and eternal Father is manifested as the one God, from whom alone this power of divinity is sent forth, and also given and directed upon the Son, and is again returned by the communion of substance to the Father. God indeed is shown as the Son, to whom the divinity is beheld to be given and extended. And still, nevertheless, the Father is proved to be one God; while by degrees in reciprocal transfer that majesty and divinity are again returned and reflected as sent by the Son Himself to the Father, who had given them; so that reasonably God the Father is God of all, and the source also of His Son Himself whom He begot as Lord. Moreover, the Son is God of all else, because God the Father put before all Him whom He begot. Thus the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, having the power of every creature subjected to Him by His own Father, inasmuch as He is God; with every creature subdued to Him, found at one with His Father God, has, by abiding in that condition that He moreover “was heard,”287    There is apparently some indistinct reference here to the passage in Heb. v. 7, “and was heard in that He feared”—ἀπὸ τῆς εὐλυβείας.  [For the Angel of Great Counsel, see p. 629, supra.] briefly proved God His Father to be one and only and true God.

CAPUT XXXI. Sed Dei Filium Deum, ex Deo Patre ab aeterno natum, qui semper in Patre fuerit, secundam personam esse a Patre, qui nihil agat sine Patris arbitrio; eumdem et Dominum, et Angelum magni Dei consilii; in quem Patris divinitas per substantiae communionem sit tradita.

Est ergo Deus Pater omnium institutor et creator, solus originem nesciens, invisibilis, immensus, immortalis, aeternus, unus Deus; cujus neque magnitudini, neque majestati, neque virtuti quidquam non dixerim 0949B praeferri, sed nec comparari potest . Ex quo, quando ipse voluit, Sermo Filius natus est: qui non in sono percussi aeris, aut tono coactae de visceribus vocis accipitur; sed in substantia prolatae a Deo virtutis agnoscitur: cujus sacrae et divinae nativitatis arcana nec Apostolus didicit, nec Prophetes comperit, nec Angelus scivit, nec creatura cognovit; Filio soli nota sunt qui Patris secreta cognovit. Hic ergo, cum sit genitus a Patre, semper est in Patre. Semper autem sic dico, ut non innatum, sed natum probem. Sed qui ante omne tempus est, semper in Patre fuisse dicendus est: nec enim tempus illi assignari potest, qui ante tempus est. Semper enim in Patre; ne Pater non semper sit Pater: quin et Pater illum etiam (quadam ratione) praecedit, quod necesse est 0949C (quodammodo) prior sit qua Pater sit. Quoniam (aliquo pacto) antecedat necesse est eum qui habet originem, ille qui originem nescit. Simul ut hic minor sit, dum in illo esse se scit, habens originem, quia nascitur; et per Patrem quodammodo (quamvis 0950A originem habet qua nascitur) vicinus in nativitate, dum ex eo Patre qui originem solus non habet, nascitur. Hic ergo quando Pater voluit, processit ex Patre: et qui in Patre fuit, processit ex Patre: et qui in Patre fuit, quia ex Patre fuit, cum Patre postmodum fuit, quia ex Patre processit: substantia scilicet illa divina, cujus nomen est Verbum, per quod facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil. Omnia enim post ipsum sunt, quia per ipsum sunt. Et merito ipse est ante omnia, sed post Patrem, quando per illum facta sunt omnia, qui processit ex eo, ex cujus voluntate facta sunt omnia. Deus utique procedens ex Deo, secundam personam efficiens post Patrem qua Filius; sed non eripiens illud Patri, quod unus est Deus. Si enim natus non fuisset; innatus 0950B comparatus cum eo qui esset innatus, aequatione in utroque ostensa, duos faceret innatos, et ideo duos faceret Deos. Si non genitus esset; collatus cum eo qui genitus non esset, et aequales inventi, duos Deos merito reddidissent non geniti; atque ideo duos Christus reddidisset Deos. Si sine origine esset ut Pater, inventus, et ipse principium omnium ut Pater, duo faciens principia; duos ostendisset nobis consequenter et Deos. Aut si et ipse Filius non esset, sed Pater generans de se alterum Filium; merito collatus cum Patre et tantus denotatus, duos Patres effecisset: et ideo duos approbasset etiam Deos. Si invisibilis fuisset, cum invisibili collatus par expressus, duos invisibiles ostendisset; et ideo duos comprobasset et Deos. Si incomprehensibilis, 0950C si et caetera quaecumque sunt Patris; merito, dicimus, duorum Deorum quam isti confingunt, controversiam suscitasset. Nunc autem quidquid est, non ex se est, quia nec innatus est; sed ex Patre est, quia genitus est: sive dum Verbum est, sive dum Virtus 0951A est, sive dum Sapientia est, sive dum Lux est, sive dum Filius est, et quidquid horum est, dum non aliunde est, quam, sicut diximus jam superius, ex Patre; Patri suo originem suam debens, discordiam divinitatis de numero duorum Deorum facere non potuit, qui ex illo qui est unus Deus, originem nascendo contraxit. Quo genere dum et unigenitus est, et primogenitus ex illo est qui originem non habet, unus est omnium rerum et principium et caput. Idcirco unum Deum asseruit, quem non sub ullo principio aut initio, sed initium potius et principium rerum omnium comprobavit. Filius autem nihil ex arbitrio suo gerit, nec ex consilio suo facit, nec a se venit, sed imperiis paternis omnibus et praeceptis obedit: ut quamvis probet illum nativitas Filium 0951B (Hebr. V, 8); tamen morigera obedientia asserat illum paternae voluntatis, ex quo est, ministrum: ita dum se Patri in omnibus obtemperantem reddit, quamvis sit et Deus: unum tamen Deum Patrem de obedientia sua ostendit, ex quo et originem traxit. Et ideo duos Deos facere non potuit, quia nec duas origines fecit, qui ex eo qui originem non habet, principium nativitatis ante omne tempus accepit. Nam cum id sit principium caeteris quod innatum est (quod Deus solus Pater est qui extra originem est; ex quo hic est qui natus est), dum qui ex illo nascitur, merito ex eo venit qui originem non habet, principium probans illud esse ex quo ipse est: etiamsi Deus est qui natus est, unum tamen Deum ostendit, quem hic qui natus est, esse sine origine comprobavit. Est ergo Deus, sed in hoc ipsum genitus, ut 0951C esset Deus. Est et Dominus, sed in hoc ipsum natus 0952A ex Patre, ut esset Dominus. Est et (Isa. IX, 6) Angelus, sed ad annuntiandum magnum Dei consilium, ex Patre suo Angelus destinatus. Cujus sic divinitas traditur, ut non aut dissonantia aut inaequalitate divinitatis duos Deos reddidisse videatur. Subjectis enim ei quasi Filio omnibus rebus a Patre, dum (I Cor. XV, 28) ipse cum his quae illi subjecta sunt, Patri suo subjicitur, Patris quidem sui Filius probatur; caeterorum autem et Dominus et Deus esse reperitur. Ex quo dum huic qui est Deus omnia substrata traduntur, et cuncta sibi subjecta Filius accepta refert Patri; totam divinitatis auctoritatem rursus Patri remittit; unus Deus ostenditur verus et aeternus Pater; a quo solo haec vis divinitatis emissa, etiam in Filium tradita et directa, rursum 0952B per substantiae communionem ad Patrem revolvitur. Deus quidem ostenditur Filius, cui divinitas tradita et porrecta conspicitur; et tamen nihilominus unus Deus Pater probatur, dum gradatim reciproco meatu illa majestas atque divinitas ad Patrem qui dederat eam, rursum ab illo ipso Filio missa revertitur et retorquetur; ut merito Deus Pater omnium Deus sit, et principium ipsius quoque Filii sui, quem Dominum genuit: Filius autem caeterorum omnium Deus sit, quoniam omnibus illum Deus Pater praeposuit quem genuit (I Tim. II, 5): ita Mediator Dei et hominum Christus Jesus omnis creaturae subjectam sibi habens a Patre proprio potestatem qua Deus est; eum tota creatura subdita sibi, concors Patri suo Deo inventus, unum et solum et verum 0952C Deum Patrem suum, manente in illo quod etiam auditus est (Hebr., V, 7), breviter approbavit.