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Letter to Euphration

1 To my master I give thanks in all things. For we do not say that the Son co-exists with the Father, but that the Father pre-exists the Son. For if they co-exist, how will the Father be Father and the Son, Son? Or how will one be first, and the other second? And one unbegotten, and the other begotten? For two things co-existing equally and similarly with each other would be conceived as of equal honor, and either both, as I said, would be unbegotten, or each would be begotten. But neither of these is true; for it could not be both unbegotten and begotten. But the one is considered both first and greater than the second in rank and honor, as having become the cause for the second of both its being and its being of such a kind.

2 Moreover, the Son of God himself, knowing most accurately of all, knowing himself to be other than the Father, and lesser, and subordinate, very piously teaches this to us also, saying: “The Father who sent me is greater than I.”

3 And he teaches that the same is the only true one through what he says: “that they may know you, the only true God,” not as there being only one God, but as there being only one true God, with the most necessary addition of “true”. Since the Son himself is indeed God, but not true God. For there is one and only one true God because he has no one before him. But if the Son himself is also true, he would be God as an image of the true God, since “the Word was also God,” but not, however, as the only true God.

4 Surely the image and that of which it is the image are not conceived as one and the same, but two substances and two things and two powers, as there are also that many appellations.

5 Wherefore also the divine apostle, delivering to us the ineffable and mystical theology, most clearly shouts and cries out, “one God,” then after the one God he says, “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

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Epistula ad Euphrationem

1 Τῷ δεσπότῃ μου κατὰ πάντα χάριν ὁμολογῶ. Οὐ γὰρ συνυπάρχειν φαμὲν τὸν υἱὸν τῷ πατρί, προϋπάρχειν δὲ τὸν πατέρα τοῦ υἱοῦ. ἐὰν γὰρ συνυπάρχωσι, πῶς ἔσται ὁ πατὴρ πατὴρ καὶ ὁ υἱός; ἢ πῶς ὁ μὲν πρῶτος, ὁ δὲ δεύτερος; καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀγέννητος, ὁ δὲ γεννητός; δύο γὰρ ἐξ ἴσου ὁμοίως ἀλλήλοις συνυπάρχοντα ἰσότιμα ἂν νοοῖντο καὶ ἤτοι ἄμφω, ὡς ἔφην, ἀγέννητα ἢ ἑκάτερα γεννητά. ἀλλ' οὐδέτερον τούτων ἀληθές· οὔτε γὰρ τὸ ἀγέννητον οὔτε τὸ γεννητὸν ἀμφότερον ἂν εἴη. ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν καὶ πρῶτον καὶ κρεῖττον καὶ τάξει καὶ τιμῇ τοῦ δευτέρου ἡγεῖται, ὡς ἂν καὶ τοῦ εἶναι καὶ τοῦ τοιῶσδε εἶναι τῷ δευτέρῳ αἴτιον γεγενημένον.

2 Πλὴν αὐτὸς ὁ πάντων μᾶλλον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστάμενος υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ἕτερον ἑαυτὸν εἰδὼς τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μείω καὶ ὑποβεβηκότα, εὖ μάλα εὐσεβῶς τοῦτο καὶ ἡμᾶς διδάσκει λέγων· «ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με μείζων μού ἐστι».

3 Τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ καὶ μόνον ἀληθινὸν εἶναι διδάσκει δι' ὧν φησιν· «ἵνα γινώσκωσί σε τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεόν», οὐχὶ ὡς ἑνὸς ὄντος μόνου τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀλλ' ὡς ἑνὸς ὄντος μόνου ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ μετὰ προσθήκης ἀναγκαιοτάτης τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ. ἐπεὶ καὶ αὐτὸς θεὸς μὲν ὁ υἱός, ἀλλ' οὐκ ἀληθινὸς θεός. εἷς γάρ ἐστι καὶ μόνος ἀληθινὸς θεὸς διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν πρὸ αὐτοῦ τινα. εἰ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς ἀληθινός, ἀλλ' ὡς εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ θεοῦ εἴη ἂν καὶ θεός, ἐπεὶ «καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος», οὐ μὴν ὡς ὁ μόνος ἀληθινὸς θεός.

4 Οὐ δήπου δὲ ἡ εἰκὼν καὶ τὸ οὗ ἐστιν ἡ εἰκὼν ἓν καὶ ταὐτὸν ἐπινοεῖται, ἀλλὰ δύο μὲν οὐσίαι καὶ δύο πράγματα καὶ δύο δυνάμεις, ὡς καὶ τοσαῦται προσηγορίαι.

5 ∆ιὸ σαφέστατα καὶ ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος τὴν ἀπόρρητον ἡμῖν καὶ μυστικὴν παραδιδοὺς θεολογίαν βοᾷ καὶ κέκραγεν «εἷς ὁ θεός», εἶτα μετὰ τὸν ἕνα θεόν φησιν «εἷς μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς».