BOOK I CHAPTER VIII
Concerning the Holy Trinity.
We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can, creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying all essences intact and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness: determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect subsistences anti adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation, united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also we have been baptized. For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize, saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(We
believe) in one Father, the beginning, and cause of all: begotten of no
one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father
of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour
Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of
God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before
all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made,
consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we
say He was before all the ages we shew that His birth is without time or
beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing, He
that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the Father's
subsistence, the living wisdom and power, the Word possessing interior
subsistence, the essential and perfect and living images of the unseen God.
But always He was with the Father and in Him, everlastingly and without
beginning begotten of Him. For there never was a time when the Father was and
the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of
Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart
from the Son: for if He were without the Son, He could not be the Father:
and if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having
been the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the
Father and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy. For we
may not speak of God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative
power means, the power of producing from one's self, that is to say, from one's
own proper essence, that which is like in nature to one's self.
In treating,
then, of the generation of the Son, it is an act of impiety to say that
time comes into play and that the existence of the Son is of later origin than
the Father. For we hold that it is from Him, that is, from the Father's nature,
that the Son is generated. And unless we grant that the Son co-existed from the
beginning with the Father, by Whom He was begotten, we introduce change into
the Father's subsistence, because, not being the Father, He subsequently became
the Father. For the creation, even though it originated later, is
nevertheless not derived from the essence of God, but is brought into existence
out of nothing by His will and power, and change does not touch God's nature.
For generation means that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring
similar in essence. But creation and making mean that the creator and maker
produces from that which is external, and not out of his own essence, a
creation of an absolutely dissimilar nature.
Wherefore in
God, Who alone is passionless and unalterable, and immutable, and ever so
continueth, both begetting and creating are passionless. For being by nature
passionless and not liable to flux, since He is simple and uncompound, He is
not subject to passion or flux either in begetting or in creating, nor has He
need of any co-operation. But generation in Him is without beginning and
everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence,
that the Begetter may not undergo change, and that He may not be God first and
God last, nor receive any accession: while creation in the case of God,
being the work of will, is not co-eternal with God. For it is not natural that
that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with
what is without beginning and everlasting. There is this difference in fact
between man's making and God's. Man can bring nothing into existence out of
nothing, but all that he makes requires pre-existing matter for its
basis, and he does not create it by will only, but thinks out first what it
is to be and pictures it in his mind, and only then fashions it with his hands,
undergoing labour and troubles, and often missing the mark and failing to
produce to his satisfaction that after which he strives. But God, through the
exercise of will alone, has brought all things into existence out of nothing.
Now there is the same difference between God and man in begetting and
generating. For in God, Who is without time and beginning, passionless, not
liable to flux, incorporeal, alone and without end, generation is without
time and beginning, passionless and not liable to flux, nor dependent on the
union of two: nor has His own incomprehensible generation beginning or end.
And it is without beginning because He is immutable: without flux because He is
passionless and incorporeal: independent of the union of two again because He
is incorporeal but also because He is the one and only God, and stands in need
of no co-operation: and without end or cessation because He is without
beginning, or time, or end, and ever continues the same. For that which has no
beginning has no end: but that which through grace is endless is assuredly not
without beginning, as, witness, the angels.
Accordingly
the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect, without beginning
and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence are above time, may not
engender in time. But with man clearly it is otherwise, for generation is with
him a matter of sex, and destruction and flux and increase and body clothe him
round about, and he possesses a nature which is male or female. For the male
requires the assistance of the female. But may He Who surpasses all, and
transcends all thought and comprehension, be gracious to us.
The holy
catholic and apostolic Church,
then,
teaches the existence at once of a Father: and of His Only-begotten Son, born
of Him without time and flux and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and
perceived by the God of the universe alone: just as we recognise the existence
at once of fire and the light which proceeds from it: for there is not first
fire and thereafter light, but they exist together. And just as light is ever
the product of fire, and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so
in like manner also the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any ways
separate from Him, but ever is in Him. But whereas the light which is
produced from fire without separation, and abideth ever in it, has no proper
subsistence of its own distinct from that of fire (for it is a natural
quality of fire), the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without
separation and difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper subsistence of
its own distinct froth that of the Father.
The terms,
'Word' and 'effulgence,' then, are used because He is begotten of the Father
without the union of two, or passion, or time, or flux, or separation: and
the terms 'Son' and 'impress of the Father's subsistence,' because He is
perfect and has subsistence s and is in all respects similar to the Father,
save that the Father is not begotten: and the term 'Only-begotten' because
He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone. For no other generation is
like to the generation of the Son of God, since no other is Son of God. For
though the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father, yet this is not generative
in character but processional. This is a different mode of existence, alike
incomprehensible and unknown, just as is the generation of the Son. Wherefore
all the qualities the Father has are the Son's, save that the Father is
unbegotten, and this exception involves no difference in essence nor
dignity, but only a different mode of coming into existence. We have an
analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God Himself moulded him), and
Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son), and Eve, who proceeded out of
Adam's rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from each other
in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of coming
into existence.
For one must recognise that the word agenhGon with only one ' n ' signifies "uncreate" or "not having been made," while agennhGon written with double ' n ' means "unbegotten." According to the first significance essence differs from essence: for one essence is uncreate, or agenhGon with one ' n ,' and another is create or genhGh . But in the second significance there is no difference between essence and essence. For the first subsistence of all kinds of living creatures is agennhGos but not agenhGos . For they were created by the Creator, being brought into being by His Word, but they were not begotten, for there was no pre-existing form like themselves from which they might have been born.
So then in
the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine subsistences of the
Holy Godhead agree: for they exist as one in essence and uncreate. But
with the second signification it is quite otherwise. For the Father alone is
ingenerate, no other subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone
is generate, for He was begotten of the Father's essence without beginning and
without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father's essence,
not having been generated but simply proceeding. For this is the doctrine of
Holy Scripture. But the nature of the generation and the procession is quite
beyond comprehension.
And this also
it behoves us to know, that the names Fatherhood, Sonship and
Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the contrary, they
were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine apostle says, Wherefore I
bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every family in heaven and on
earth. But if we say that the Father is the origin of the Son and
greater than the
Son, we do
not suggest any precedence in time or superiority in nature of the Father over
the Son (for through His agency He made the ages), or superiority in
any other respect save causation. And we mean by this, that the Son is begotten
of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is
the cause of the Son: just as we say in the same way not that fire proceedeth
from light, but rather light from fire. So then, whenever we hear it said that
the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, let us understand
it to mean in respect of causation. And just as we do not say that fire is of
one essence and light of another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one
essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence.
And just as we say that fire has brightness through the light
proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument
ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the
Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though
the Son were a mere instrument serving the Father's ends, but as His
natural and subsistential force. And just as we say both that the fire
shines and again that the light of the fire shines, So all things whatsoever
the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. But whereas light
possesses no proper subsistence of its own, distinct from that of the fire, the
Son is a perfect subsistence, inseparable from the Father's subsistence, as
we have shewn above. For it is quite impossible to find in creation an image
that will illustrate in itself exactly in all details the nature of the Holy
Trinity. For how could that which is create and compound, subject to flux and
change, circumscribed, formed and corruptible, clearly shew forth the
super-essential divine essence, unaffected as it is in any of these ways? Now
it is evident that all creation is liable to most of these affections, and all
from its very nature is subject to corruption.
Likewise we
believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life: Who proceedeth
from the Father and resteth in the Son: the object of equal adoration and
glorification with the Father and Son, since He is co-essential and
co-eternal: the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of
wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with Father
and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of
infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord: deifying, not
deified: filling, not filled: shared in, not sharing in: sanctifying, not
sanctified: the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all: in all things
like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and communicated through
the Son, and participated in by all creation, through Himself creating, and
investing with essence and sanctifying, and maintaining the universe: having
subsistence, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, inseparable
and indivisible from Father and Son, and possessing all the qualities that the
Father and Son possess, save that of not being begotten or born. For the Father
is without canst and unborn: for He is derived from nothing, but derives from
Himself His being, nor does He derive a single quality from another. Rather
He is Himself the beginning and cause of the existence of all things in a
definite and natural manner. But the Son is derived from the Father after the
manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father,
yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession. And we
have learned that there is a difference between generation and
procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand.
Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the
Holy Spirit are simultaneous.
All then
that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being:
and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless the
Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses
it: and through the Father, that is, because of the Father's existence,
the Son and the Spirit exist, and through the Father, that is, because of
the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all their
qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession being excepted.
For in these hypo-
static or
personal properties alone do the three holy subsistences differ from
each other, being indivisibly divided not by essence but by the distinguishing
mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence.
Further we
say that each of the three has a perfect subsistence, that we may
understand not one compound perfect nature made up of three imperfect elements,
but one simple essence, surpassing and preceding perfection, existing in three
perfect subsistences. For all that is composed of imperfect elements must
necessarily be compound. But from perfect subsistences no compound can arise.
Wherefore we do not speak of the form as from subsistences, but as in
subsistences. But we speak of those things as imperfect which do not
preserve the form of that which is completed out of them. For stone and wood
and iron are each perfect in its own nature, but with reference to the building
that is completed out of them each is imperfect: for none of them is in itself
a house.
The
subsistences then we say are perfect, that we may not conceive of the divine
nature as compound. For compoundness is the beginning of separation. And again
we speak of the three subsistences as being in each other, that we may not
introduce a crowd and multitude of Gods. Owing to the three subsistences,
there is no compoundness or confusion: while, owing to their having the same
essence and dwelling in one another, and being the same in will, and energy,
and power, and authority, and movement, so to speak, we recognise the
indivisibility and the unity of God. For verily there is one God, and His word
and Spirit.
Marg. MS.
Concerning the distinction of the three subsistences: and concerning the thing
itself and our reason and thought in relation to it.
One ought,
moreover, to recognise that it is one thing to look at a matter as it is, and
another thing to look at it in the light of reason and thought. In the case of
all created things, the distinction of the subsistences is observed in actual
fact. For in actual fact Peter is seen to be separate from Paul. But the
community and connection and unity are apprehended by reason and thought. For
it is by the mind that we perceive that Peter and Paul are of the same nature
and have one common nature. For both are living creatures, rational and
mortal: and both are flesh, endowed with the spirit of reason and
understanding. It is, then, by reason that this community of nature is
observed. For here indeed the subsistences do not exist one within the other.
But each privately and individually, that is to say, in itself, stands quite
separate, having very many points that divide it from the other. For they are
both separated in space and differ in time, and are divided in thought, and
power, and shape, or form, and habit, and temperament and dignity, and
pursuits, and all differentiating properties, but above all, in the fact that
they do not dwell in one another but are separated. Hence it comes that we can
speak of two, three, or many men.
And this may
be perceived throughout the whole of creation, but in the case of the holy and
superessential and incomprehensible Trinity, far removed from everything, it is
quite the reverse. For there the community and unity are observed in fact,
through the co-eternity of the subsistences, and through their having the same
essence and energy and will and concord of mind, and then being identical in
authority and power and goodness--I do not say similar but identical--and then
movement by one impulse. For there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one
will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three
resembling each other. But the three subsistences have one and the same
movement. For each one of them is related as closely to the other as to itself:
that is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all
respects, save those of not being begotten, of birth and of procession. But it
is by thought that the difference is perceived. For we recognise one God:
but only in the attributes of Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession, both in
respect of cause and effect and perfection of subsistence, that is, manner of
existence, do we perceive difference. For with reference to the
uncircumscribed Deity we cannot speak of separation in space, as we can in our
own case. For the subsistences dwell in one another, in no wise confused but
cleaving together, according to the word of the Lord,
I am in the
father, and the father in Me: nor can one admit difference in will or
judgment or energy or power or anything else whatsoever which may produce
actual and absolute separation in our case. Wherefore we do not speak of three
Gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but rather of one God, the holy
Trinity, the Son and Spirit being referred to one cause, and not compounded
or coalesced according to the synaeresis of Sabellius. For, as we said, they
are made one not so as to commingle, but so as to cleave to each other, and
they have their being in each other without any coalescence or
commingling. Nor do the Son and the Spirit stand apart, nor are they sundered
in essence according to the diaeresis of Arias. For the Deity is undivided
amongst things divided, to put it concisely: and it is just like three suns
cleaving to each other without separation and giving out light mingled and
conjoined into one. When, then, we turn our eyes to the Divinity, and the first
cause and the sovereignty and the oneness anti sameness, so to speak, of the
movement and will of the Divinity, and the identity in essence and power and energy
and lordship, what is seen by us is unity. But when we look to those things
in which the Divinity is, or, to put it more accurately, which are the
Divinity, and those things which are in it through the first cause without time
or distinction in glory or separation, that is to say, the subsistences of the
Son and the Spirit, it seems to us a Trinity that we adore. The Father is
one Father, and without beginning, that is, without cause: for He is not
derived from anything. The Son is one Son, but not without beginning, that is,
not without cause: for He is derived from the Father. But if you eliminate the
idea of a beginning from time, He is also without beginning: for the creator of
times cannot be subject to time. The Holy Spirit is one Spirit, going forth
from the Father, not in the manner of Sonship but of procession; so that
neither has the Father lost His property of being unbegotten because He hath
begotten, nor has the Son lost His property of being begotten because He was
begotten of that which was unbegotten (for how could that be so?), nor
does the Spirit change either into the Father or into the Son because He hath
proceeded and is God. For a property is quite constant. For how could a
property persist if it were variable, moveable, and could change into something
else? For if the Father is the Son, He is not strictly the Father: for there is
strictly one Father. And if the Son is the Father, He is not strictly the Son:
for there is strictly one Son and one Holy Spirit.
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