Tertullian: On the Trinity – Part Three

CHAPTER 1

If I fail in resolving this article (of our faith) by passages which may admit of dispute¹⁷¹ out of the Old Testament, I will take out of the New Testament a confirmation of our view, that you may not straightway attribute to the Father every possible (relation and condition) which I ascribe to the Son. Behold, then, I find both in the Gospels and in the (writings of the) apostles a visible and an invisible God (revealed to us), under a manifest and personal distinction in the condition of both. There is a certain emphatic saying by John: “No man hath seen God at any time; “¹⁷² meaning, of course, at any previous time But he has indeed taken away all question of time, by saying that God had never been seen. The apostle confirms this statement; for, speaking of God, he says, “Whom no man hath seen, nor can see; “¹⁷³ because the man indeed would die who should see Him.¹⁷⁴ But the very same apostles testify that they had both seen and “handled” Christ.¹⁷⁵ Now, if Christ is Himself both the Father and the Son, how can He be both the Visible and the Invisible? In order, however, to reconcile this diversity between the Visible and the Invisible, will not some one on the other side argue that the two statements are quite correct: that He was visible indeed in the flesh, but was invisible before His appearance in the flesh; so that He who as the Father was invisible before the flesh, is the same as the Son who was visible in the flesh? If, however, He is the same who was invisible before the incarnation, how comes it that He was actually seen in ancient times before (coming in) the flesh? And by parity of reasoning, if He is the same who was visible after (coming in) the flesh, how happens it that He is now declared to be invisible by the apostles? How, I repeat, can all this be, unless it be that He is one, who anciently was visible only in mystery and enigma, and became more clearly visible by His incarnation, even the Word who was also made flesh; whilst He is another whom no man has seen at any time, being none else than the Father, even Him to whom the Word belongs? Let us, in short, examine who it is whom the apostles saw. “That,” says John, “which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”¹⁷⁶ Now the Word of life became flesh, and was heard, and was seen, and was handled, because He was flesh who, before He came in the flesh, was the “Word in the beginning with God” the Father,¹⁷⁷ and not the Father with the Word. For although the Word was God, yet was He with God, because He is God of God; and being joined to the Father, is with the Father.¹⁷⁸ “And we have seen His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father; “¹⁷⁹ that is, of course, (the glory) of the Son, even Him who was visible, and was glorified by the invisible Father. And therefore, inasmuch as he had said that the Word of God was God, in order that he might give no help to the presumption of the adversary, (which pretended) that he had seen the Father Himself and in order to draw a distinction between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he makes the additional assertion, ex abundanti as it were: “No man hath seen God at any time.”¹⁸⁰ What God does he mean? The Word? But he has already said: “Him we have seen and heard, and our hands have handled the Word of life.” Well, (I must again ask, ) what God does he mean? It is of course the Father, with whom was the Word, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has Himself declared Him.¹⁸¹ He was both heard and seen and, that He might not be supposed to be a phantom, was actually handled. Him, too, did Paul behold; but yet he saw not the Father. “Have I not,” he says, “seen Jesus Christ our Lord? “¹⁸² Moreover, he expressly called Christ God, saying: “Of whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.”¹⁸³ He shows us also that the Son of God, which is the Word of God, is visible, because He who became flesh was called Christ. Of the Father, however, he says to Timothy: “Whom none among men hath seen, nor indeed can see; “and he accumulates the description in still ampler terms: “Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto.”¹⁸⁴ It was of Him, too, that he had said in a previous passage: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to the only God; “¹⁸⁵ so that we might apply even the contrary qualities to the Son Himself-mortality, accessibility-of whom the apostle testifies that “He died according to the Scriptures,”¹⁸⁶ and that “He was seen by himself last of all,”¹⁸⁷ -by means, of course, of the light which was accessible, although it was not without imperilling his sight that he experienced that light.¹⁸⁸ A like danger to which also befell Peter, and John, and James, (who confronted not the same light) without risking the loss of their reason and mind; and if they, who were unable to endure the glory of the Son,¹⁸⁹ had only seen the Father, they must have died then and there: “For no man shall see God, and live.”¹⁹⁰ This being the case, it is evident that He was always seen from the beginning, who became visible in the end; and that He, (on the contrary, ) was not seen in the end who had never been visible from the beginning; and that accordingly there are two-the Visible and the Invisible. It was the Son, therefore, who was always seen, and the Son who always conversed with men, and the Son who has always worked by the authority and will of the Father; because “the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do”¹⁹¹ -“do” that is, in His mind and thought.¹⁹² For the Father acts by mind and thought; whilst the Son, who is in the Father’s mind and thought,¹⁹³ gives effect and form to what He sees. Thus all things were made by tile Son, and without Him was not anything made.¹⁹⁴

But you must not suppose that only the works which relate to the (creation of the) world were made by the Son, but also whatsoever since that time has been done by God. For “the Father who loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand,”¹⁹⁵ loves Him indeed from the beginning, and from the very first has handed all things over to Him. Whence it is written, “From the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God; “¹⁹⁶ to whom “is given by the Father all power in heaven and on earth.”¹⁹⁷ “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son”¹⁹⁸ -from the very beginning even. For when He speaks of all power and all judgment, and says that all things were made by Him, and all things have been delivered into His hand, He allows no exception (in respect) of time, because they would not be all things unless they were the things of all time. It is the Son, therefore, who has been from the beginning administering judgment, throwing down the haughty tower, and dividing the tongues, punishing the whole world by the violence of waters, raining upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone, as the Lord from the Lord. For He it was who at all times came down to hold converse with men, from Adam on to the patriarchs and the prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in dark saying; ever from the beginning laying the foundation of the course of His dispensations, which He meant to follow out to the very last. Thus was He ever learning even as God to converse with men upon earth, being no other than the Word which was to be made flesh. But He was thus learning (or rehearsing), in order to level for us the way of faith, that we might the more readily believe that the Son of God had come down into the world, if we knew that in times past also something similar had been done.¹⁹⁹ For as it was on our account and for our learning that these events are described in the Scriptures, so for our sakes also were they done-(even ours, I say), “upon whom the ends of the world are come.”²⁰⁰ In this way it was that even then He knew full well what human feelings and affections were, intending as He always did to take upon Him man’s actual component substances, body and soul, making inquiry of Adam (as if He were ignorant),²⁰¹ “Where art thou, Adam? “²⁰² -repenting that He had made man, as if He had lacked foresight;²⁰³ tempting Abraham, as if ignorant of what was in man; offended with persons, and then reconciled to them; and whatever other (weaknesses and imperfections) the heretics lay hold of (in their assumptions) as unworthy of God, in order to discredit the Creator, not considering that these circumstances are suitable enough for the Son, who was one day to experience even human sufferings-hunger and thirst, and tears, and actual birth and real death, and in respect of such a dispensation “made by the Father a little less than the angels.”²⁰⁴ But the heretics, you may be sure, will not allow that those things are suitable even to the Son of God, which you are imputing to the very Father Himself, when you pretend²⁰⁵ that He made Himself less (than the angels) on our account; whereas the Scripture informs us that He who was made less was so affected by another, and not Himself by Himself. What, again, if He was One who was “crowned with glory and honour,” and He Another by whom He was so crowned,²⁰⁶ -the Son, in fact, by the Father? Moreover, how comes it to pass, that the Almighty Invisible God, “whom no man hath seen nor can see; He who dwelleth in light unapproachable; “²⁰⁷ “He who dwelleth not in temples made with hands; “²⁰⁸ “from before whose sight the earth trembles, and the mountains melt like wax; “²⁰⁹ who holdeth the whole world in His hand “like a nest; “²¹⁰ “whose throne is heaven, and earth His footstool; “²¹¹ in whom is every place, but Himself is in no place; who is the utmost bound of the universe;-how happens it, I say, that He (who, though) the Most High, should yet have walked in paradise towards the cool of the evening, in quest of Adam; and should have shut up the ark after Noah had entered it; and at Abraham’s tent should have refreshed Himself under an oak; and have called to Moses out of the burning bush; and have appeared as “the fourth” in the furnace of the Babylonian monarch (although He is there called the Son of man),-unless all these events had happened as an image, as a mirror, as an enigma (of the future incarnation)? Surely even these things could not have been believed even of the Son of God, unless they had been given us in the Scriptures; possibly also they could not have been believed of the Father, even if they had been given in the Scriptures, since these men bring Him down into Mary’s womb, and set Him before Pilate’s judgment-seat, and bury Him in the sepulchre of Joseph. Hence, therefore, their error becomes manifest; for, being ignorant that the entire order of the divine administration has from the very first had its course through the agency of the Son, they believe that the Father Himself was actually seen, and held converse with men. and worked, and was athirst, and suffered hunger (in spite of the prophet who says: “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, shall never thirst at all, nor be hungry; “²¹² much more, shall neither die at any time, nor be buried!), and therefore that it was uniformly one God, even the Father, who at all times did Himself the things which were really done by Him through the agency of the Son.

They more readily supposed that the Father acted in the Son’s name, than that the Son acted in the Father’s; although the Lord says Himself, “I am come in my Father’s name; “²¹³ and even to the Father He declares, “I have manifested Thy name unto these men; “²¹⁴ whilst the Scripture likewise says, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,”²¹⁵ that is to say, the Son in the Father’s name. And as for the Father’s names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the “One that is,” we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. “All things,” says He, “which the Father hath are mine.”²¹⁶ Then why not His names also? When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel the “One that is,” consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is “exalted at the right hand of God,” as Peter declares in the Acts;²¹⁷ is the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the destiny of that nation; and is likewise “the One that is,” because there are many who are called Sons, but are not. As to the point maintained by them, that the name of Christ belongs also to the Father, they shall hear (what I have to say) in the proper place. Meanwhile, let this be my immediate answer to the argument which they adduce from the Revelation of John: “I am the Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty; “²¹⁸ and from all other passages which in their opinion make the designation of Almighty God unsuitable to the Son. As if, indeed, He which is to come were not almighty; whereas even the Son of the Almighty is as much almighty as the Son of God is God.

But what hinders them from readily perceiving this community of the Father’s titles in the Son, is the statement of Scripture, whenever it determines God to be but One; as if the selfsame Scripture had not also set forth Two both as God and Lord, as we have shown above.²¹⁹ Their argument is: Since we find Two and One, therefore Both are One and the Same, both Father and Son. Now the Scripture is not in danger of requiring the aid of any one’s argument, lest it should seem to be self-contradictory. It has a method of its own, both when it sets forth one only God, and also when it shows that there are Two, Father and Son; and is consistent with itself. It is clear that the Son is mentioned by it. For, without any detriment to the Son, it is quite possible for it to have rightly determined that God is only One, to whom the Son belongs; since He who has a Son ceases not on that account to exist,-Himself being One only, that is, on His own account, whenever He is named without the Son. And He is named without the Son whensoever He is defined as the principle (of Deity)in the character of “its first Person,” which had to be mentioned before the name of the Son; because it is the Father who is acknowledged in the first place, and after the Father the Son is named. Therefore “there is one God,” the Father, “and without Him there is none else.”²²⁰ And when He Himself makes this declaration, He denies not the Son, but says that there is no other God; and the Son is not different from the Father. Indeed, if you only look carefully at the contexts which follow such statements as this, you will find that they nearly always have distinct reference to the makers of idols and the worshippers thereof, with a view to the multitude of false gods being expelled by the unity of the Godhead, which nevertheless has a Son; and inasmuch as this Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, so is He to be reckoned as being in the Father, even when He is not named. The fact is, if He had named Him expressly, He would have separated Him, saying in so many words: “Beside me there is none else, except my Son.” In short He would have made His Son actually another, after excepting Him from others. Suppose the sun to say, “I am the Sun, and there is none other besides me, except my ray,” would you not have remarked how useless was such a statement, as if the ray were not itself reckoned in the sun? He says, then, that there is no God’ besides Himself in respect of the idolatry both of the Gentiles as well as of Israel; nay, even on account of our heretics also, who fabricate idols with their words, just as the heathen do with their hands; that is to say, they make another God and another Christ. When, therefore, He attested His own unity, the Father took care of the Son’s interests, that Christ should not be supposed to have come from another God, but from Him who had already said, “I am God and there is none other beside me,”²²¹ who shows us that He is the only God, but in company with His Son, with whom “He stretcheth out the heavens alone.”²²²

But this very declaration of His they will hastily pervert into an argument of His singleness. “I have,” says He, “stretched out the heaven alone.” Undoubtedly alone as regards all other powers; and He thus gives a premonitory evidence against the conjectures of the heretics, who maintain that the world was constructed by various angels and powers, who also make the Creator Himself to have been either an angel or some subordinate agent sent to form external things, such as the constituent parts of the world, but who was at the same time ignorant of the divine purpose. If, now, it is in this sense that He stretches out the heavens alone, how is it that these heretics assume their position so perversely, as to render inadmissible the singleness of that Wisdom which says, “When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him? “²²³ -even though the apostle asks, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor? “²²⁴ meaning, of course, to except that wisdom which was present with Him.²²⁵ In Him, at any rate, and with Him, did (Wisdom) construct the universe, He not being ignorant of what she was making. “Except Wisdom,” however, is a phrase of the same sense exactly as “except the Son,” who is Christ, “the Wisdom and Power of God,”²²⁶ according to the apostle, who only knows the mind of the Father. “For who knoweth the things that be in God, except the Spirit which is in Him? “²²⁷ Not, observe, without Him. There was therefore One who caused God to be not alone, except “alone” from all other gods. But (if we are to follow the heretics), the Gospel itself will have to be rejected, because it tells us that all things were made by God through the Word, without whom nothing was made.²²⁸ And if I am not mistaken, there is also another passage in which it is written: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by His Spirit.”²²⁹ Now this Word, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, must be the very Son of God. So that, if (He did) all things by the Son, He must have stretched out the heavens by the Son, and so not have stretched them out alone, except in the sense in which He is “alone” (and apart) from all other gods. Accordingly He says, concerning the Son, immediately afterwards: “Who else is it that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad, turning wise men backward, and making their knowledge foolish, and confirming the words²³⁰ of His Son? “²³¹ -as, for instance, when He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.”²³² By thus attaching the Son to Himself, He becomes His own interpreter in what sense He stretched out the heavens alone, meaning alone with His Son, even as He is one with His Son. The utterance, therefore, will be in like manner the Son’s, “I have stretched out the heavens alone,”²³³ because by the Word were the heavens established.²³⁴ Inasmuch, then, as the heaven was prepared when Wisdom was present in the Word, and since all things were made by the Word, it is quite correct to say that even the Son stretched out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the Father’s work. It must also be He who says, “I am the First, and to all futurity I AM.”²³⁵ The Word, no doubt, was before all things. “In the beginning was the Word; “²³⁶ and in that beginning He was sent forth²³⁷ by the Father. The Father, however, has no beginning, as proceeding from none; nor can He be seen, since He was not begotten. He who has always been alone could never have had order or rank. Therefore, if they have determined that the Father and the Son must be regarded as one and the same, for the express purpose of vindicating the unity of God, that unity of His is preserved intact; for He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally with Himself comprehended in the same Scriptures. Since they are unwilling to allow that the Son is a distinct Person, second from the Father, lest, being thus second, He should cause two Gods to be spoken of, we have shown above²³⁸ that Two are actually described in Scripture as God and Lord. And to prevent their being offended at this fact, we give a reason why they are not said to be two Gods and two Lords, but that they are two as Father and Son; and this not by severance of their substance, but from the dispensation wherein we declare the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father,-distinct in degree, not in state. And although, when named apart, He is called God, He does not thereby constitute two Gods, but one; and that from the very circumstance that He is entitled to be called God, from His union with the Father.

But I must take some further pains to rebut their arguments, when they make selections from the Scriptures in support of their opinion, and refuse to consider the other points, which obviously maintain the rule of faith without any infraction of the unity of the Godhead, and with the full admission²³⁹ of the Monarchy. For as in the Old Testament Scriptures they lay hold of nothing else than, “I am God, and beside me there is no God ; “²⁴⁰ so in the Gospel they simply keep in view the Lord’s answer to Philip, “I and my Father are one; “²⁴¹ and, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me.”²⁴² They would have the entire revelation of both Testaments yield to these three passages, whereas the only proper course is to understand the few statements in the light of the many. But in their contention they only act on the principle of all heretics. For, inasmuch as only a few testimonies are to be found (making for them) in the general mass, they pertinaciously set off the few against the many, and assume the later against the earlier. The rule, however, which has been from the beginning established for every case, gives its prescription against the later assumptions, as indeed it also does against the fewer.

Consider, therefore, how many passages present their prescriptive authority to you in, this very Gospel before this inquiry of Philip, and previous to any discussion on your part. And first of all there comes at once to hand the preamble of John to his Gospel, which shows us what He previously was who had to become flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.”²⁴³ Now, since these words may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, there is without doubt shown to be One who was from the beginning, and also One with whom He always was: one the Word of God, the other God although the Word is also God, but God regarded as the Son of God, not as the Father); One through whom were all things, Another by whom were all things. But in what sense we call Him Another we have already often described. In that we called Him Another, we must needs imply that He is not identical-not identical indeed, yet not as if separate; Other by dispensation, not by division. He, therefore, who became flesh was not the very same as He from whom the Word came. “His glory was beheld-the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father;”²⁴⁴ not, (observe, ) as of the Father. He “declared” (what was in) “the bosom of the Father alone; “²⁴⁵ the Father did not divulge the secrets of His own bosom. For this is preceded by another statement: “No man hath seen God at any time.”²⁴⁶ Then, again, when He is designated by John (the Baptist) as “the Lamb of God,”²⁴⁷ He is not described as Himself the same with Him of whom He is the beloved Son. He is, no doubt, ever the Son of God, but yet not He Himself of whom He is the Son. This (divine relationship) Nathanµl at once recognised in Him,²⁴⁸ even as Peter did on another occasion: “Thou art the Son of God.”²⁴⁹ And He affirmed Himself that they were quite right in their convictions; for He answered Nathanµl: “Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, therefore dose thou believe?”²⁵⁰ And in the same manner He pronounced Peter to be “blessed,” inasmuch as “flesh and blood had not revealed it to him”-that he had perceived the Father-“but the Father which is in heaven.”²⁵¹ By asserting all this, He determined the distinction which is between the two Persons: that is, the Son then on earth, whom Peter had confessed to be the Son of God; and the Father in heaven, who had revealed to Peter the discovery which he had made, that Christ was the Son of God. When He entered the temple, He called it “His Father’s house,”²⁵² speaking as the Son. In His address to Nicodemus He says: “So God loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”²⁵³ And again: “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.”²⁵⁴ Moreover, when John (the Baptist) was asked what he happened to know of Jesus, he said: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”²⁵⁵ Whom, indeed, did He reveal to the woman of Samaria? Was it not “the Messias which is called Christ? “²⁵⁶ And so lie showed, of course, that He was not the Father, but the Son; and elsewhere He is expressly called “the Christ, the Son of God,”²⁵⁷ and not the Father. He says, therefore,” My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work; “²⁵⁸ whilst to the Jews He remarks respecting the cure of the impotent man, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”²⁵⁹ “My Father and I”-these are the Son’s words. And it was on this very account that “the Jews sought the more intently to kill Him, not only because He broke the Sabbath, but also because He said that God was His Father, thus making Himself equal with God. Then indeed did He answer and say unto them, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that He Himself doeth; and He will also show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, who hath sent the Son. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Verily I say unto you, that the hour is coming, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and when they have heard it, they shall live. For as the Father hath eternal life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have eternal life in Himself; and He hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man”²⁶⁰ -that is, according to the flesh, even as He is also the Son of God through His Spirit.²⁶¹ Afterwards He goes on to say: “But I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father hath given me to finish-those very works bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me. And the Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath also borne witness of me.”²⁶² But He at once adds, “Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape; “²⁶³ thus affirming that in former times it was not the Father, but the Son, who used to be seen and heard. Then He says at last: “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye have not received me.”²⁶⁴ It was therefore always the Son (of whom we read) under the designation of the Almighty and Most High God, and King, and Lord. To those also who inquired “what they should do to work the works of God,”²⁶⁵ He answered, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.”²⁶⁶ He also declares Himself to be “the bread which the Father sent from heaven; “²⁶⁷ and adds, that “all that the Father gave Him should come to Him, and that He Himself would not reject them,²⁶⁸ because He had come down from heaven not to do His own will, but the will of the Father; and that the will of the Father was that every one who saw the Son, and believed on Him, should obtain the life (everlasting, ) and the resurrection at the last day. No man indeed was able to come to Him, except the Father attracted him; whereas every one who had heard and learnt of the Father came to Him.”²⁶⁹ He goes on then expressly to say, “Not that any man hath seen the Father; “²⁷⁰ thus showing us that it was through the Word of the Father that men were instructed and taught. Then, when many departed from Him,²⁷¹ and He turned to the apostles with the inquiry whether “they also would go away,”²⁷² what was Simon Peter’s answer? “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe that Thou art the Christ.”²⁷³ (Tell me now, did they believe) Him to be the Father, or the Christ of the Father?

Again, whose doctrine does He announce, at which all were astonished?²⁷⁴ Was it His own or the Father’s? So, when they were in doubt among themselves whether He were the Christ (not as being the Father, of course but as the Son), He says to them “You are not ignorant whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not; but I know Him, because I am from Him.”²⁷⁵ He did not say, Because I myself am He; and, I have sent mine own self: but His words are, “He hath sent me.” When, likewise, the Pharisees sent men to apprehend Him, He says: “Yet a little while am I with you, and (then) I go unto Him that sent me.”²⁷⁶ When, however, He declares that He is not alone, and uses these words, “but I and the Father that sent me,”²⁷⁷ does He not show that there are Two-Two, and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the sum: and substance of what He was teaching them, that they were inseparably Two; since, after citing the law when it affirms the truth of two men’s testimony,²⁷⁸ He adds at once: “I am one who am bearing witness of myself; and the Father (is another, ) who hath sent me, and beareth witness of me.”²⁷⁹ Now, if He were one-being at once both the Son and the Father-He certainly would not have quoted the sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one, but of two. Likewise, when they asked Him where His Father was,²⁸⁰ He answered them, that they had known neither Himself nor the Father; and in this answer He plainly told them of Two, whom they were ignorant of. Granted that “if they had known Him, they would have known the Father also,”²⁸¹ this certainly does not imply that He was Himself both Father and Son; but that, by reason of the inseparability of the Two, it was impossible for one of them to be either acknowledged or unknown without the other. “He that sent me,” says He, “is true; and I am telling the world those things which I have heard of Him.”²⁸² And the Scripture narrative goes on to explain in an exoteric manner, that “they understood not that He spake to them concerning the Father,”²⁸³ although they ought certainly to have known that the Father’s words were uttered in the Son, because they read in Jeremiah, “And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth; “²⁸⁴ and again in Isaiah, “The Lord hath given to me the tongue of learning that I should understand when to speak a word in season.”²⁸⁵ In accordance with which, Christ Himself says: “Then shall ye know that I am He and that I am saying nothing of my own self; but that, as my Father hath taught me, so I speak, because He that sent me is with me.”²⁸⁶ This also amounts to a proof that they were Two, (although) undivided. Likewise, when upbraiding the Jews in His discussion with them, because they wished to kill Him, He said, “I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father; “²⁸⁷ “but now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God; “²⁸⁸ and again, “If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God “²⁸⁹ (still they are not hereby separated, although He declares that He proceeded forth from the Father. Some persons indeed seize the opportunity afforded them in these words to propound their heresy of His separation; but His coming out from God is like the ray’s procession from the sun, and the river’s from the fountain, and the tree’s from the seed); “I have not a devil, but I honour my Father; “²⁹⁰ again, “If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me, of whom ye say, that He is your God: yet ye have not known Him, but I know Him; and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you; but I know Him, and keep His saying.”²⁹¹ But when He goes on to say, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad,”²⁹² He certainly proves that it was not the Father that appeared to Abraham, but the Son. In like manner He declares, in the case of the man born blind, “that He must do the works of the Father which had sent Him; “²⁹³ and after He had given the man sight, He said to him, “Dost thou believe in the Son of God? “Then, upon the man’s inquiring who He was, He proceeded to reveal Himself to him, as that Son of God whom He had announced to him as the right object of his faith.²⁹⁴ In a later passage He declares that He is known by the Father, and the Father by Him;²⁹⁵ adding that He was so wholly loved by the Father, that He was laying down His life, because He had received this commandment from the Father.²⁹⁶ When He was asked by the Jews if He were the very Christ²⁹⁷ (meaning, of course, the Christ of God; for to this day the Jews expect not the Father Himself, but the Christ of God, it being nowhere said that the Father will come as the Christ), He said to them, “I am telling you, and yet ye do not believe: the works which I am doing, in my Father’s name, they actually bear witness of me.”²⁹⁸ Witness of what? Of that very thing, to be sure, of which they were making inquiry-whether He were the Christ of God. Then, again, concerning His sheep, and (the assurance) that no man should pluck them out of His hand,²⁹⁹ He says, “My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all; “³⁰⁰ adding immediately, “I am and my Father are one.”³⁰¹ Here, then, they take their stand, too infatuated, nay, too blind, to see in the first place that there is in this passage an intimation of Two Beings-“I and my Father; “then that there is a plural predicate, “are,” inapplicable to one person only; and lastly, that (the predicate terminates in an abstract, not a personal noun)-“we are one thing” Unum, not “one person” Unus. For if He had said “one Person,” He might have rendered some assistance to their opinion. Unus, no doubt, indicates the singular number; but (here we have a case where) “Two” are still the subject in the masculine gender. He accordingly says Unum, a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of number, but unity of essence, likeness, conjunction, affection on the Father’s part, who loves the Son, and submission on the Son’s, who obeys the Father’s will. When He says, “I and my Father are one” in essence–Unum-He shows that there are Two, whom He puts on an equality and unites in one. He therefore adds to this very statement, that He “had showed them many works from the Father,” for none of which did He deserve to be stoned.³⁰² And to prevent their thinking Him deserving of this fate, as if He had claimed to be considered as God Himself, that is, the Father, by having said, “I and my Father are One,” representing Himself as the Father’s divine Son, and not as God Himself, He says, “If it is written in your law, I said, Ye are gods; and if the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, that He blasphemeth, because He said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, even if ye will not believe me, still believe the works; and know that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.”³⁰³ It must therefore be by the works that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and so it is by the works that we understand that the Father is one with the Son. All along did He therefore strenuously aim at this conclusion, that while they were of one power and essence, they should still be believed to be Two; for otherwise, unless they were believed to be Two, the Son could not possibly be believed to have any existence at all.