Introduction. Reason for writing; certain persons indifferent about Arianism; Arians not Christians, because sectaries always take the name of their founder (part 1 of 2)

1. Of all other heresies which have departed from the truth it is acknowledged that they have but devised¹⁸²¹ a madness, and their irreligiousness has long since become notorious to all men. For that¹⁸²² their authors went out from us, it plainly follows, as the blessed John has written, that they never thought nor now think with us. Wherefore, as saith the Saviour, in that they gather not with us, they scatter with the devil, and keep an eye on those who slumber, that, by this second sowing of their own mortal poison, they may have companions in death. But, whereas one heresy, and that the last, which has now risen as harbinger¹⁸²³ of Antichrist, the Arian, as it is called, considering that other heresies, her elder sisters, have been openly proscribed, in her craft and cunning, affects to array herself in Scripture language¹⁸²⁴ , like her father the devil, and is forcing her way back into the Church's paradise,—that with the pretence of Christianity, her smooth sophistry (for reason she has none) may deceive men into wrong thoughts of Christ,—nay, since she has already seduced certain of the foolish, not only to corrupt their ears, but even to take and eat with Eve, till in their ignorance which ensues they think bitter sweet, and admire this loathsome heresy, on this account I have thought it necessary, at your request, to unrip the folds of its breast-plate¹⁸²⁵ ,' and to shew the ill savour of its folly. So while those who are far from it may continue to shun it, those whom it has deceived may repent; and, opening the eyes of their heart, may understand that darkness is not light, nor falsehood truth, nor Arianism good; nay, that those¹⁸²⁶ who call these men Christians are in great and grievous error, as neither having studied Scripture, nor understanding Christianity at all, and the faith which it contains.

2. For what have they discovered in this heresy like to the religious Faith, that they vainly talk as if its supporters said no evil? This in truth is to call even Caiaphas¹⁸²⁷ a Christian, and to reckon the traitor Judas still among the Apostles, and to say that they who asked Barabbas instead of the Saviour did no evil, and to recommend Hymenæus and Alexander as right-minded men, and as if the Apostle slandered them. But neither can a Christian bear to hear this, nor can he consider the man who dared to say it sane in his understanding. For with them for Christ is Arius, as with the Manichees Manichæus; and for Moses and the other saints they have made the discovery of one Sotades¹⁸²⁸ , a man whom even Gentiles laugh at, and of the daughter of Herodias. For of the one has Arius imitated the dissolute and effeminate tone, in writing Thaliæ on his model; and the other he has rivalled in her dance, reeling and frolicking in his blasphemies against the Saviour; till the victims of his heresy lose their wits and go foolish, and change the Name of the Lord of glory into the likeness of the image of corruptible man¹⁸²⁹ ,' and for Christians come to be called Arians, bearing this badge of their irreligion. For let them not excuse themselves; nor retort their disgrace on those who are not as they, calling Christians after the names of their teachers¹⁸³⁰ , that they themselves may appear to have that Name in the same way. Nor let them make a jest of it, when they feel shame at their disgraceful appellation; rather, if they be ashamed, let them hide their faces, or let them recoil from their own irreligion. For never at any time did Christian people take their title from the Bishops among them, but from the Lord, on whom we rest our faith. Thus, though the blessed Apostles have become our teachers, and have ministered the Saviour's Gospel, yet not from them have we our title, but from Christ we are and are named Christians. But for those who derive the faith which they profess from others, good reason is it they should bear their name, whose property they have become¹⁸³¹ .

3. Yes surely; while all of us are and are called Christians after Christ, Marcion broached a heresy a long time since and was cast out; and those who continued with him who ejected him remained Christians; but those who followed Marcion were called Christians no more, but henceforth Marcionites. Thus Valentinus also, and Basilides, and Manichæus, and Simon Magus, have imparted their own name to their followers; and some are accosted as Valentinians, or as Basilidians, or as Manichees, or as Simonians; and other, Cataphrygians from Phrygia, and from Novatus Novatians. So too Meletius, when ejected by Peter the Bishop and Martyr, called his party no longer Christians, but Meletians¹⁸³² , and so in consequence when Alexander of blessed memory had cast out Arius, those who remained with Alexander, remained Christians; but those who went out with Arius, left the Saviour's Name to us who were with Alexander, and as to them they were hence-forward denominated Arians. Behold then, after Alexander's death too, those who communicate with his successor Athanasius, and those with whom the said Athanasius communicates, are instances of the same rule; none of them bear his name, nor is he named from them, but all in like manner, and as is usual, are called Christians. For though we have a succession of teachers and become their disciples, yet, because we are taught by them the things of Christ, we both are, and are called, Christians all the same. But those who follow the heretics, though they have innumerable successors in their heresy, yet anyhow bear the name of him who devised it. Thus, though Arius be dead, and many of his party have succeeded him, yet those who think with him, as being known from Arius, are called Arians. And, what is a remarkable evidence of this, those of the Greeks who even at this time come into the Church, on giving up the superstition of idols, take the name, not of their catechists, but of the Saviour, and begin to be called Christians instead of Greeks: while those of them who go off to the heretics, and again all who from the Church change to this heresy, abandon Christ's name, and henceforth are called Arians, as no longer holding Christ's faith, but having inherited Arius's madness.

4. How then can they be Christians, who for Christians are Ario-maniacs¹⁸³³ ? or how are they of the Catholic Church, who have shaken off the Apostolical faith, and become authors of fresh evils? who, after abandoning the oracles of divine Scripture, call Arius's Thaliæ a new wisdom? and with reason too, for they are announcing a new heresy. And hence a man may marvel, that, whereas many have written many treatises and abundant homilies upon the Old Testament and the New, yet in none of them is a Thalia found; nay nor among the more respectable of the Gentiles, but among those only who sing such strains over their cups, amid cheers and jokes, when men are merry, that the rest may laugh; till this marvellous Arius, taking no grave pattern, and ignorant even of what is respectable, while he stole largely from other heresies, would be original in the ludicrous, with none but Sotades for his rival. For what beseemed him more, when he would dance forth against the Saviour, than to throw his wretched words of irreligion into dissolute and loose metres? that, while a man,' as Wisdom says, is known from the utterance of his word¹⁸³⁴ ,' so from those numbers should be seen the writer's effeminate soul and corruption of thought¹⁸³⁵ . In truth, that crafty one did not escape detection; but, for all his many writhings to and fro, like the serpent, he did but fall into the error of the Pharisees. They, that they might transgress the Law, pretended to be anxious for the words of the Law, and that they might deny the expected and then present Lord, were hypocritical with God's name, and were convicted of blaspheming when they said, Why dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God,' and sayest, I and the Father are one¹⁸³⁶ ?' And so too, this counterfeit and Sotadean Arius, feigns to speak of God, introducing Scripture language¹⁸³⁷ , but is on all sides recognised as godless¹⁸³⁸ Arius, denying the Son, and reckoning Him among the creatures.

Chapter II.—Extracts from the Thalia of Arius. Arius maintains that God became a Father, and the Son was not always; the Son out of nothing; once He was not; He was not before his generation; He was created; named Wisdom and Word after God's attributes; made that He might make us; one out of many powers of God; alterable; exalted on God's foreknowledge of what He was to be; not very God; but called so as others by participation; foreign in essence from the Father; does not know or see the Father; does not know Himself.

5. Now the commencement of Arius's Thalia and flippancy, effeminate in tune and nature, runs thus:—

According to faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones,

Holy children, rightly dividing, God's Holy Spirit receiving,

Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom,

Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things.

Along their track, have I been walking, with like opinions.

I the very famous, the much suffering for God's glory;

And taught of God, I have acquired wisdom and knowledge.'

And the mockeries which he utters in it, repulsive and most irreligious, are such as these¹⁸³⁹ :—God was not always a Father;' but once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterwards He became a Father.' The Son was not always;' for, whereas all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was made out of nothing,' and once He was not,' and He was not before His origination,' but He as others had an origin of creation.' For God,' he says, was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named Him Word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of Him.' Accordingly, he says that there are two wisdoms, first, the attribute co-existent with God, and next, that in this wisdom the Son was originated, and was only named Wisdom and Word as partaking of it. For Wisdom,' saith he, by the will of the wise God, had its existence in Wisdom.' In like manner, he says, that there is another Word in God besides the Son, and that the Son again, as partaking of it, is named Word and Son according to grace. And this too is an idea proper to their heresy, as shewn in other works of theirs, that there are many powers; one of which is God's own by nature and eternal; but that Christ, on the other hand, is not the true power of God; but, as others, one of the so-called powers, one of which, namely, the locust and the caterpillar¹⁸⁴⁰ , is called in Scripture, not merely the power, but the great power.' The others are many and are like the Son, and of them David speaks in the Psalms, when he says, The Lord of hosts' or powers¹⁸⁴¹ .' And by nature, as all others, so the Word Himself is alterable, and remains good by His own free will, while He chooseth; when, however, He wills, He can alter as we can, as being of an alterable nature. For therefore,' saith he, as foreknowing that He would be good, did God by anticipation bestow on Him this glory, which afterwards, as man, He attained from virtue. Thus in consequence of His works fore-known¹⁸⁴² , did God bring it to pass that He being such, should come to be.'

6. Moreover he has dared to say, that the Word is not the very God;' though He is called God, yet He is not very God,' but by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.' And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and propriety,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these. Afterwards, as though he had succeeded to the devil's recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia, that even to the Son the Father is invisible,' and the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father;' but even what He knows and what He sees, He knows and sees in proportion to His own measure,' as we also know according to our own power. For the Son, too, he says, not only knows not the Father exactly, for He fails in comprehension¹⁸⁴³ , but He knows not even His own essence;'—and that the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien¹⁸⁴⁴ , and without participation of each other¹⁸⁴⁵ ;' and, in his own words, utterly unlike from each other in essence and glory, unto infinity.' Thus as to likeness of glory and essence,' he says that the Word is entirely diverse from both the Father and the Holy Ghost. With such words hath the irreligious spoken; maintaining that the Son is distinct by Himself, and in no respect partaker of the Father. These are portions of Arius's fables as they occur in that jocose composition.

7. Who is there that hears all this, nay, the tune of the Thalia, but must hate, and justly hate, this Arius jesting on such matters as on a stage¹⁸⁴⁶ ? who but must regard him, when he pretends to name God and speak of God, but as the serpent counselling the woman? who, on reading what follows in his work, but must discern in his irreligious doctrine that error, into which by his sophistries the serpent in the sequel seduced the woman? who at such blasphemies is not transported? The heaven,' as the Prophet says, was astonished, and the earth shuddered¹⁸⁴⁷ ' at the transgression of the Law. But the sun, with greater horror, impatient of the bodily contumelies, which the common Lord of all voluntarily endured for us, turned away, and recalling his rays made that day sunless. And shall not all human kind at Arius's blasphemies be struck speechless, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, to escape hearing them or seeing their author? Rather, will not the Lord Himself have reason to denounce men so irreligious, nay, so unthankful, in the words which He has already uttered by the prophet Hosea, Woe unto them, for they have fled from Me; destruction upon them, for they have transgressed against Me; though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me¹⁸⁴⁸ .' And soon after, They imagine mischief against Me; they turn away to nothing¹⁸⁴⁹ .' For to turn away from the Word of God, which is, and to fashion to themselves one that is not, is to fall to what is nothing. For this was why the Ecumenical¹⁸⁵⁰ Council, when Arius thus spoke, cast him from the Church, and anathematized him, as impatient of such irreligion. And ever since has Arius's error been reckoned for a heresy more than ordinary, being known as Christ's foe, and harbinger¹⁸⁵¹ of Antichrist. Though then so great a condemnation be itself of special weight to make men flee from that irreligious heresy¹⁸⁵² , as I said above, yet since certain persons called Christian, either in ignorance or pretence, think it, as I then said, little different from the Truth, and call its professors Christians; proceed we to put some questions to them, according to our powers, thereby to expose the unscrupulousness of the heresy. Perhaps, when thus caught, they will be silenced, and flee from it, as from the sight of a serpent.

Chapter III.—The Importance of the Subject. The Arians affect Scripture language, but their doctrine new, as well as unscriptural. Statement of the Catholic doctrine, that the Son is proper to the Father's substance, and eternal. Restatement of Arianism in contrast, that He is a creature with a beginning: the controversy comes to this issue, whether one whom we are to believe in as God, can be so in name only, and is merely a creature. What pretence then for being indifferent in the controversy? The Arians rely on state patronage, and dare not avow their tenets.

8. If then the use of certain phrases of divine Scripture changes, in their opinion, the blasphemy of the Thalia into reverent language, of course they ought also to deny Christ with the present Jews, when they see how they study the Law and the Prophets; perhaps too they will deny the Law¹⁸⁵³ and the Prophets like Manichees¹⁸⁵⁴ , because the latter read some portions of the Gospels. If such bewilderment and empty speaking be from ignorance, Scripture will teach them, that the devil, the author of heresies, because of the ill savour which attaches to evil, borrows Scripture language, as a cloak wherewith to sow the ground with his own poison also, and to seduce the simple. Thus he deceived Eve; thus he framed former heresies; thus he persuaded Arius at this time to make a show of speaking against those former ones, that he might introduce his own without observation. And yet, after all, the man of craft did not escape. For being irreligious towards the Word of God, he lost his all at once¹⁸⁵⁵ , and betrayed to all men his ignorance of other heresies too¹⁸⁵⁶ ; and having not a particle of truth in his belief, does but pretend to it. For how can he speak truth concerning the Father, who denies the Son, that reveals concerning Him? or how can he be orthodox concerning the Spirit, while he speaks profanely of the Word that supplies the Spirit? and who will trust him concerning the Resurrection, denying, as he does, Christ for us the first-begotten from the dead? and how shall he not err in respect to His incarnate presence, who is simply ignorant of the Son's genuine and true generation from the Father? For thus, the former Jews also, denying the Word, and saying, We have no king but Cæsar¹⁸⁵⁷ ,' were forthwith stripped of all they had, and forfeited the light of the Lamp, the odour of ointment, knowledge of prophecy, and the Truth itself; till now they understand nothing, but are walking as in darkness. For who was ever yet a hearer of such a doctrine¹⁸⁵⁸ ? or whence or from whom did the abettors and hirelings¹⁸⁵⁹ of the heresy gain it? who thus expounded to them when they were at school¹⁸⁶⁰ ? who told them, Abandon the worship of the creation, and then draw near and worship a creature and a work¹⁸⁶¹ ?' But if they themselves own that they have heard it now for the first time, how can they deny that this heresy is foreign, and not from our fathers¹⁸⁶² ? But what is not from our fathers, but has come to light in this day, how can it be but that of which the blessed Paul¹⁸⁶³ has foretold, that in the latter times some shall depart from the sound faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, in the hypocrisy of liars; cauterized in their own conscience, and turning from the truth¹⁸⁶⁴ ?'

9. For, behold, we take divine Scripture, and thence discourse with freedom of the religious Faith, and set it up as a light upon its candlestick, saying:—Very Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to His essence, Wisdom Only-begotten, and Very and Only Word of God is He; not a creature or work, but an offspring proper to the Father's essence. Wherefore He is very God, existing one¹⁸⁶⁵ in essence with the very Father; while other beings, to whom He said, I said ye are Gods¹⁸⁶⁶ ,' had this grace from the Father, only by participation¹⁸⁶⁷ of the Word, through the Spirit. For He is the expression of the Father's Person, and Light from Light, and Power, and very Image of the Father's essence. For this too the Lord has said, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father¹⁸⁶⁸ .' And He ever was and is and never was not. For the Father being everlasting, His Word and His Wisdom must be everlasting¹⁸⁶⁹ . On the other hand, what have these persons to shew us from the infamous Thalia? Or, first of all, let them read it themselves, and copy the tone of the writer; at least the mockery which they will encounter from others may instruct them how low they have fallen; and then let them proceed to explain themselves. For what can they say from it, but that God was not always a Father, but became so afterwards; the Son was not always, for He was not before His generation; He is not from the Father, but He, as others, has come into subsistence out of nothing; He is not proper to the Father's essence, for He is a creature and work?' And Christ is not very God, but He, as others, was made God by participation; the Son has not exact knowledge of the Father, nor does the Word see the Father perfectly; and neither exactly understands nor knows the Father. He is not the very and only Word of the Father, but is in name only called Word and Wisdom, and is called by grace Son and Power. He is not unalterable, as the Father is, but alterable in nature, as the creatures, and He comes short of apprehending the perfect knowledge of the Father.' Wonderful this heresy, not plausible even, but making speculations against Him that is, that He be not, and everywhere putting forward blasphemy for reverent language! Were any one, after inquiring into both sides, to be asked, whether of the two he would follow in faith, or whether of the two spoke fitly of God,—or rather let them say themselves, these abettors of irreligion, what, if a man be asked concerning God (for the Word was God'), it were fit to answer¹⁸⁷⁰ . For from this one question the whole case on both sides may be determined, what is fitting to say,—He was, or He was not; always, or before His birth; eternal, or from this and from then; true, or by adoption, and from participation and in idea¹⁸⁷¹ ; to call Him one of things originated, or to unite Him to the Father; to consider Him unlike the Father in essence, or like and proper to Him; a creature, or Him through whom the creatures were originated; that He is the Father's Word, or that there is another word beside Him, and that by this other He was originated, and by another wisdom; and that He is only named Wisdom and Word, and is become a partaker of this wisdom, and second to it?

10. Which of the two theologies sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father, this which you vomited forth, or that which we have spoken and maintain from the Scriptures? If the Saviour be not God, nor Word, nor Son, you shall have leave to say what you will, and so shall the Gentiles, and the present Jews. But if He be Word of the Father and true Son, and God from God, and over all blessed for ever¹⁸⁷² ,' is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out those other phrases and that Arian Thalia, as but a pattern of evil, a store of all irreligion, into which, whoso falls, knoweth not that giants perish with her, and reacheth the depths of Hades¹⁸⁷³ ?' This they know themselves, and in their craft they conceal it, not having the courage to speak out, but uttering something else¹⁸⁷⁴ . For if they speak, a condemnation will follow; and if they be suspected, proofs from Scripture will be cast¹⁸⁷⁵ at them from every side. Wherefore, in their craft, as children of this world, after feeding their so-called lamp from the wild olive, and fearing lest it should soon be quenched (for it is said, the light of the wicked shall be put out¹⁸⁷⁶ ,') they hide it under the bushel¹⁸⁷⁷ of their hypocrisy, and make a different profession, and boast of patronage of friends and authority of Constantius, that what with their hypocrisy and their professions, those who come to them may be kept from seeing how foul their heresy is. Is it not detestable even in this, that it dares not speak out, but is kept hid by its own friends, and fostered as serpents are? for from what sources have they got together these words? or from whom have they received what they venture to say¹⁸⁷⁸ ? Not any one man can they specify who has supplied it. For who is there in all mankind, Greek or Barbarian, who ventures to rank among creatures One whom he confesses the while to be God and says, that He was not till He was made? or who is there, who to the God in whom he has put faith, refuses to give credit, when He says, This is My beloved Son¹⁸⁷⁹ ,' on the pretence that He is not a Son, but a creature? rather, such madness would rouse an universal indignation. Nor does Scripture afford them any pretext; for it has been often shewn, and it shall be shewn now, that their doctrine is alien to the divine oracles. Therefore, since all that remains is to say that from the devil came their mania (for of such opinions he alone is sower¹⁸⁸⁰ ), proceed we to resist him—for with him is our real conflict, and they are but instruments;—that, the Lord aiding us, and the enemy, as he is wont, being overcome with arguments, they may be put to shame, when they see him without resource who sowed this heresy in them, and may learn, though late, that, as being Arians, they are not Christians.

Chapter IV.—That the Son is Eternal and Increate. These attributes, being the points in dispute, are first proved by direct texts of Scripture. Concerning the eternal power' of God in Rom. i. 20, which is shewn to mean the Son. Remarks on the Arian formula, Once the Son was not,' its supporters not daring to speak of a time when the Son was not.'

11. At his suggestion then ye have maintained and ye think, that there was once when the Son was not;' this is the first cloke of your views of doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men¹⁸⁸¹ ? If ye say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is impious to say that He was once,' or to signify Him by the word once.' For He is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if ye say that the Son was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty, you can but answer, that there was a time when the Word was not; for your very adverb once' naturally signifies this. And your other, The Son was not before His generation,' is equivalent to saying, There was once when He was not,' for both the one and the other signify that there is a time before the Word. Whence then this your discovery? Why do ye, as the heathen, rage, and imagine vain phrases against the Lord¹⁸⁸² and against His Christ?' for no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but rather always' and eternal' and coexistent always with the Father.' For, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God¹⁸⁸³ .' And in the Apocalypse he thus speaks¹⁸⁸⁴ ; Who is and who was and who is to come.' Now who can rob who is' and who was' of eternity? This too in confutation of the Jews hath Paul written in his Epistle to the Romans, Of whom as concerning the flesh is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever¹⁸⁸⁵ ;' while silencing the Greeks, he has said, The visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead¹⁸⁸⁶ ;' and what the Power of God is, he teaches us elsewhere himself, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God¹⁸⁸⁷ .' Surely in these words he does not designate the Father, as ye often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father is His eternal power.' This is not so; for he says not, God Himself is the power,' but His is the power.' Very plain is it to all that His' is not He;' yet not something alien but rather proper to Him. Study too the context and turn to the Lord;' now the Lord is that Spirit¹⁸⁸⁸ ;'and you will see that it is the Son who is signified.

12. For after making mention of the creation, he naturally speaks of the Framer's Power as seen in it, which Power, I say, is the Word of God, by whom all things have been made. If indeed the creation is sufficient of itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, see that you fall not, from thinking that without the Son it has come to be. But if through the Son it has come to be, and in Him all things consist¹⁸⁸⁹ ,' it must follow that he who contemplates the creation rightly, is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through Him begins to apprehend the Father¹⁸⁹⁰ . And if, as the Saviour also says, No one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him¹⁸⁹¹ ,' and if on Philip's asking, Shew us the Father,' He said not, Behold the creation,' but, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father¹⁸⁹² ,' reasonably doth Paul,—while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the harmony and order of the creation without reflecting on the Framing Word within it (for the creatures witness to their own Framer) so as through the creation to apprehend the true God, and abandon their worship of it,—reasonably hath he said, His Eternal Power and Godhead¹⁸⁹³ ,' thereby signifying the Son. And where the sacred writers say, Who exists before the ages,' and By whom He made the ages¹⁸⁹⁴ ,' they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and everlasting being of the Son, even while they are designating God Himself. Thus, if Isaiah says, The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth¹⁸⁹⁵ ;' and Susanna said, O Everlasting God¹⁸⁹⁶ ;' and Baruch wrote, I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days,' and shortly after, My hope is in the Everlasting, that He will save you, and joy is come unto me from the Holy One¹⁸⁹⁷ ;' yet forasmuch as the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, Who being the radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Person¹⁸⁹⁸ ;' and David too in the eighty-ninth Psalm, And the brightness of the Lord be upon us,' and, In Thy Light shall we see Light¹⁸⁹⁹ ,' who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity of the Son¹⁹⁰⁰ ? for when did man see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, There was once, when He was not,' or Before His generation He was not.' And the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages¹⁹⁰¹ ,' forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval in the ages is measured, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him¹⁹⁰² , it were madness to say, There was once when the Everlasting was not,' and From nothing is the Son.' And whereas the Lord Himself says, I am the Truth¹⁹⁰³ ,' not I became the Truth;' but always, I am,—I am the Shepherd,—I am the Light,'—and again, Call ye Me not, Lord and Master? and ye call Me well, for so I am,' who, hearing such language from God, and the Wisdom, and Word of the Father, speaking of Himself, will any longer hesitate about the truth, and not forthwith believe that in the phrase I am,' is signified that the Son is eternal and without beginning?

13. It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases He was not,' and before' and when,' are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our system, says, And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground¹⁹⁰⁴ .' And in Deuteronomy, When the Most High divided to the nations¹⁹⁰⁵ .' And the Lord said in His own Person, If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father, for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe¹⁹⁰⁶ .' And concerning the creation He says by Solomon, Or ever the earth was, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth¹⁹⁰⁷ .' And, Before Abraham was, I am¹⁹⁰⁸ .' And concerning Jeremiah He says, Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee¹⁹⁰⁹ .' And David in the Psalm says, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art, God from everlasting and world without end¹⁹¹⁰ .' And in Daniel, Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be¹⁹¹¹ .' Thus it appears that the phrases once was not,' and before it came to be,' and when,' and the like, belong to things originate and creatures, which come out of nothing, but are alien to the Word. But if such terms are used in Scripture of things originate, but ever' of the Word, it follows, O ye enemies of God, that the Son did not come out of nothing, nor is in the number of originated things at all, but is the Father's Image and Word eternal, never having not been, but being ever, as the eternal Radiance¹⁹¹² of a Light which is eternal. Why imagine then times before the Son? or wherefore blaspheme the Word as after times, by whom even the ages were made? for how did time or age at all subsist when the Word, as you say, had not appeared, through' whom all things have been made and without' whom not one thing was made¹⁹¹³ ?' Or why, when you mean time, do you not plainly say, a time was when the Word was not?' But while you drop the word time' to deceive the simple, you do not at all conceal your own feeling, nor, even if you did, could you escape discovery. For you still simply mean times, when you say, There was when He was not,' and He was not before His generation.'

Chapter V.—Subject Continued. Objection, that the Son's eternity makes Him coordinate with the Father, introduces the subject of His Divine Sonship, as a second proof of His eternity. The word Son is introduced in a secondary, but is to be understood in real sense. Since all things partake of the Father in partaking of the Son, He is the whole participation of the Father, that is, He is the Son by nature; for to be wholly participated is to beget.

14. When these points are thus proved, their profaneness goes further. If there never was, when the Son was not,' say they, but He is eternal, and coexists with the Father, you call Him no more the Father's Son, but brother¹⁹¹⁴ .' O insensate and contentious! For if we said only that He was eternally with the Father, and not His Son, their pretended scruple would have some plausibility; but if, while we say that He is eternal, we also confess Him to be Son from the Father, how can He that is begotten be considered brother of Him who begets? And if our faith is in Father and Son, what brotherhood is there between them? and how can the Word be called brother of Him whose Word He is? This is not an objection of men really ignorant, for they comprehend how the truth lies; but it is a Jewish pretence, and that from those who, in Solomon's words, through desire separate themselves¹⁹¹⁵ ' from the truth. For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin¹⁹¹⁶ , that we may account Them brothers, but the Father is the Origin of the Son and begat Him; and the Father is Father, and not born the Son of any; and the Son is Son, and not brother. Further, if He is called the eternal offspring¹⁹¹⁷ of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the essence of the Father imperfect, that what is proper to it should be added afterwards¹⁹¹⁸ ; nor, as man from man, has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than His Father's existence, but He is God's offspring, and as being proper Son of God, who is ever, He exists eternally. For, whereas it is proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature¹⁹¹⁹ , God's offspring is eternal, for His nature is ever perfect¹⁹²⁰ . If then He is not a Son, but a work made out of nothing, they have but to prove it; and then they are at liberty, as if imagining about a creature, to cry out, There was once when He was not;' for things which are originated were not, and have come to be. But if He is Son, as the Father says, and the Scriptures proclaim, and Son' is nothing else than what is generated from the Father; and what is generated from the Father is His Word, and Wisdom, and Radiance; what is to be said but that, in maintaining Once the Son was not,' they rob God of His Word, like plunderers, and openly predicate of Him that He was once without His proper Word and Wisdom, and that the Light was once without radiance, and the Fountain was once barren and dry¹⁹²¹ ? For though they pretend alarm at the name of time, because of those who reproach them with it, and say, that He was before times, yet whereas they assign certain intervals, in which they imagine He was not, they are most irreligious still, as equally suggesting times, and imputing to God an absence of Reason¹⁹²² .

15. But if on the other hand, while they acknowledge with us the name of Son,' from an unwillingness to be publicly and generally condemned, they deny that the Son is the proper offspring of the Father's essence, on the ground that this must imply parts and divisions¹⁹²³ ; what is this but to deny that He is very Son, and only in name to call Him Son at all? And is it not a grievous error, to have material thoughts about what is immaterial, and because of the weakness of their proper nature to deny what is natural and proper to the Father? It does but remain, that they should deny Him also, because they understand not how God is¹⁹²⁴ , and what the Father is, now that, foolish men, they measure by themselves the Offspring of the Father. And persons in such a state of mind as to consider that there cannot be a Son of God, demand our pity; but they must be interrogated and exposed for the chance of bringing them to their senses. If then, as you say, the Son is from nothing,' and was not before His generation,' He, of course, as well as others, must be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation; for thus all other creatures consist, and by sanctification are glorified. You have to tell us then, of what He is partaker¹⁹²⁵ . All other things partake of the Spirit, but He, according to you, of what is He partaker? of the Spirit? Nay, rather the Spirit Himself takes from the Son, as He Himself says; and it is not reasonable to say that the latter is sanctified by the former. Therefore it is the Father that He partakes; for this only remains to say. But this, which is participated, what is it or whence¹⁹²⁶ ? If it be something external provided by the Father, He will not now be partaker of the Father, but of what is external to Him; and no longer will He be even second after the Father, since He has before Him this other; nor can He be called Son of the Father, but of that, as partaking which He has been called Son and God. And if this be unseemly and irreligious, when the Father says, This is My Beloved Son¹⁹²⁷ ,' and when the Son says that God is His own Father, it follows that what is partaken is not external, but from the essence of the Father. And as to this again, if it be other than the essence of the Son, an equal extravagance will meet us; there being in that case something between this that is from the Father and the essence of the Son, whatever that be¹⁹²⁸ .