On the Incarnation and against the Arians

1Those who want to understand the divine Scriptures with evil craft try to drag the human words of the Son of God's poverty into service to establish their own blasphemy. Yet all the precision of Christianity is found in these lowly words and deeds. If they had been able to hear the blessed Paul writing to the Corinthians—"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9)—they would never have dared to say that the Son is unlike the Father, if they had understood what the manner of his poverty is and what the power of his cross is. That is why the same Paul says elsewhere: "So that you may have strength to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:18-19). For this reason he speaks boldly in writing about his poverty and his sufferings, saying: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). And again: "I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). And: "If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8). And now these people, if they had known the divine Scriptures, would not have dared to blaspheme the Creator of all things as a creature or a thing made.

They bring forward, saying: How can he be like the Father, or from the Father's being, when it is written, "Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26)? There is a superiority, they say, of the one who gives over the one who receives. And: "Why do you call me good?" he says. "No one is good except one, God" (Mark 10:18). And again: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). And again: "Concerning the last day no one knows, not even the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). And again: "The one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world" (John 10:36). And again: "The one whom the Father raised from the dead." How then, they say, can the one who is raised from the dead be like or consubstantial with the one who raised him? We have set out these few from among many, so that when these are resolved, the rest may also be readily understood. We ought therefore to explain their force as far as we are able.

When the blessed Paul says that the Father raised his Son from the dead, John explains to us that Jesus said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). But he was speaking, it says, about the temple of his body (John 2:21). It is clear, then, to those who pay attention, that when the body is raised, the Son is said by Paul to have been raised from the dead; for the things of his body are said with reference to his person. So also when he says, "The Father gave life to the Son," the life must be understood as given to the flesh.

2For if he himself is the life, how does the life receive life? And if he himself promises, saying, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish into the age" (John 10:27-28), and if he himself is the wisdom of God, and if he himself made every stage of growth, how is it said, "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age" (Luke 2:52)? And if the Father made all things through his own Word and Son, it is clear that he also accomplished the raising of his flesh through him. Through him, then, he raised him, and through him he gives him life. He is raised according to the flesh as a human being, and he receives life as a human being, having been found in appearance as a human being. And he himself is the one who raises his own temple as God, and who gives life to his own flesh.

When, then, he again says, "The one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world" (John 10:36), he says elsewhere, "For their sake I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth" (John 17:19). And when he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), he speaks from our own person, because having taken the form of a servant and having become in the likeness of human beings, and having been found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8), and so on. And as Isaiah says, "He bears our weaknesses and suffers pain for us" (Isaiah 53:4), so that he does not suffer pain for himself but for us. And he was not forsaken by God, but we were; and for us who had been forsaken he came into the world.

And when he says, "Therefore God highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9), he speaks about the temple, which is his body. For the Most High is not exalted, but the flesh of the Most High is exalted; and to the flesh of the Most High he granted the name that is above every name. And the Word of God did not receive by grace to be called God, but his flesh together with him was declared God. For he did not say that the Word became God, but "the Word was God" (John 1:1). He was always, it says, God the Word, and this same God became flesh, so that his flesh might become God the Word (John 1:14). Just as Thomas, having touched his flesh, cried out, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28), declaring the whole together as God. In the same way John also wrote: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at, and our hands have touched concerning the Word of life" (1 John 1:1). It is clear, then, that the Son and Word of the Father was touched in the flesh, and the divine Scripture has handed down that the whole together—the Word of life—was touched.

And when he says, "The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39), he means that his flesh was not yet glorified. For the Lord of glory is not glorified, but the flesh of the Lord of glory is; this flesh receives glory as it ascends with him into heaven. Therefore the Spirit of adoption was not yet among human beings, because the firstfruits taken from us had not yet gone up into heaven.

3So whenever Scripture says that the Son received something, or that the Son was glorified, it says this because of his humanity, not because of his divinity. And when he says, "My Father who sent me is greater than I" (John 14:28), he calls the Father greater than himself because he has become human. But as the Word of the Father, he is equal to him. "I and the Father are one," he says (John 10:30), and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). He does not possess equality with the Father as something seized, but he is equal by nature and consubstantial with the Father, because he has been begotten from the Father's substance. And when the apostle says that "in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9), we must understand that all the fullness of deity dwells in his flesh. And when he says, "He did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all" (Romans 8:32), he says elsewhere, "Just as Christ also loved the Church and handed himself over for her" (Ephesians 5:25). For the immortal God did not come to save himself, but those who had been put to death; and he did not suffer for himself, but for us. For this reason he took on our lowliness and our poverty, so that he might grant us his riches. His suffering is our freedom from suffering; his death is our immortality; his tears are our joy; his burial is our resurrection; his baptism is our sanctification. "For their sake I sanctify myself," he says, "so that they also may be sanctified in truth" (John 17:19). And his bruise is our healing: "By his bruise we have been healed" (Isaiah 53:5). And his discipline is our peace: "The discipline of our peace was upon him" (Isaiah 53:5)—that is, for the sake of our peace he is disciplined. And his dishonor is our glory. That is why he asks for glory on our behalf, saying, "Glorify me, Father, with yourself, with the glory I had before the world existed, with you" (John 17:5). For we are the ones glorified in him. And his descent is our ascent, as it is written: "He raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6), and "so that in the coming ages he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7). And when he says on the cross, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46), he commits all human beings to the Father through himself—all who are made alive in him. For they are his members, and the many members are one body, which is the Church. As the blessed Paul writes to the Galatians: "You are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Therefore he commits all people in himself. In the same way, when he says, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways" (Proverbs 8:22), he says this about the Church, which is being created in him. For the maker of all things is not a creature or a thing made; rather, the thing made is being renewed in the maker, as Paul says: "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:10). And as he says again: "So that now through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him" (Ephesians 3:10-12).

4And again he says: "Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself" (Ephesians 1:4-5). And again he speaks about the two peoples: "That he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the enmity in him" (Ephesians 2:15-16). And when he says, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God" (Matthew 19:17), God, having numbered himself with human beings, said this according to his flesh, and in response to the mind of the one who approached him. For that man considered him only a man and not God, and the answer has this sense: "If you consider me a man," he says, "and not God, do not call me good; for no one is good." For goodness does not belong to human nature, but to God. And he adds: "Do you know the commandments?" (Matthew 19:17). When the man said, "Which ones?" he said: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder," and so on (Matthew 19:18-19). He answered, saying: "All these I have kept from my youth; what do I still lack?" (Matthew 19:20). He said to him: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and take up your cross and follow me" (Matthew 19:21). Through these words, then, he showed that goodness belongs to him as well. For how can the one who does not follow the good inherit eternal life? And when he says about the last day, that "No one knows, not even the Son, but only the Father" (Matthew 24:36), he speaks in a human way. For if he knows the Father, how does he not know the last day? "No one knows the Father," he says, "except the Son, and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). And if the Holy Spirit knows all the things of God, how does the Son not know the day which he created? And if the ages came into being through him, and the times, it is clear that the last day is also found among the ages and times, and it is impossible for him to be ignorant of it. Therefore, all the lowly words spoken by the Lord belong to his poverty, so that we might become rich in him, not so that we might blaspheme against the Son of God through them. And for this reason the Son of God became a son of man, so that the sons of man—that is, of Adam—might become sons of God. For the Word begotten from above from the Father ineffably, unspeakably, incomprehensibly, eternally—this same one is begotten in time from below from the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, so that those who were first born from below might be born a second time from above, that is, from God. He therefore has a mother only on earth, and we have a Father only in heaven. And for this reason he calls himself Son of man, so that human beings might call God Father in the heavens: "Our Father," he says, "who is in the heavens" (Matthew 6:9). Just as we, the servants of God, have become sons of God, so the Master of the servants became the son of his own servant, mortal, that is, of Adam—so that the sons of Adam, being mortal, might become sons of God, according to what is said: "He gave them authority to become children of God" (John 1:12).

5So the Son of God also tastes death because of his fleshly father, so that the sons of man might share in the life of God because of their Father according to the Spirit, God. He is therefore Son of God by nature, but we are sons by grace. And again, he became a son of Adam by the plan of salvation and for our sake, while we are sons of Adam by nature. Therefore he says, “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). For God is his Father, as I said before, by nature, but ours by grace; and God became his God by the plan of salvation, because he is man, but for us he is by nature Master and God. And for this reason the Word and Son of the Father, united to flesh, became flesh, a complete man, so that human beings, united to the Spirit, might become one Spirit. He therefore is God bearing flesh, and we are human beings bearing Spirit. For he took firstfruits from the substance of human beings, that is, from the seed of Adam—which is the form of a servant—and having come in the likeness of a human being, he gave us from the substance of the Father a firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, so that we might all become sons of God in the likeness of the Son of God. He therefore, the true and natural Son of God, bears all of us, so that all of us might carry the one God. It is therefore impious to call the Spirit of God a creature or something made, when all Scripture, both Old and New, numbers and glorifies it together with the Father and the Son, because it is of the same divinity and the same authority. As the Lord himself says, “Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from his belly” (John 7:38). He said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were about to receive (John 7:39). As he also says in Joel, in the person of the Father, “I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy” (Joel 2:28). And for this reason he breathes it into the face of the apostles, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), so that we might learn that the Spirit given to the disciples is from the fullness of deity. For in Christ, he says—that is, in his flesh—all the fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9). As John the Baptist also says, “We have all received from his fullness” (John 1:16). For the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily form, that is, as a dove, descending and remaining on him. In us dwells a firstfruits and guarantee of deity, but in Christ all the fullness of deity. And let no one suppose that he received it though he did not have it; for he himself sent it from above, as God, and he himself received it below, as man. From himself, therefore, it descended into himself—from his divinity into his humanity. And Isaiah cries out in the person of the Father, saying, “Thus says the Lord your God, who made you and formed you from the womb: Do not fear, my servant Jacob, and beloved Israel, whom I have chosen; for I will give water in thirst to those who walk in a waterless land; I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children” (Isaiah 44:2-3).

6In the Gospel the Son promises to give water to those who walk in thirst, saying to the Samaritan woman about the Holy Spirit: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). And after a little while he says to her: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water leaping up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). And for this reason David, singing to God, says: “For with you is the spring of life; in your light we will see light” (Psalm 36:9). For he knows that the Son, who is with God the Father, is the spring of the Holy Spirit. And through Jeremiah the Son says: “My people have done two evil things: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). And when the seraphim glorify God, saying for the third time, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts,” they glorify Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And for this reason, just as we are baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son, so also into the name of the Holy Spirit, and we become sons of God, not of gods. For Father and Son and Holy Spirit is Lord of hosts. For the deity is one, and one God in three persons. And for this reason, what the Father said in Isaiah, John says that the Son said; and in Acts Paul says that the Holy Spirit said. For Isaiah says this: “I saw the Lord of hosts sitting on a high and exalted throne, and the house was full of his glory, and the seraphim stood around him; each had six wings, and each had six wings; with two they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And one cried to the other, saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; heaven and all the earth are full of his glory’” (Isaiah 6:1-3). And after a little while the same prophet says: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?’ And I said: ‘Here am I; send me.’ And he said to me: ‘Go to this people, and say to them: With hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown thick, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them’” (Isaiah 6:8-10). But the evangelist John says: “For this reason the Jews could not believe in Jesus, because Isaiah said: ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them’” (John 12:39-40).

7Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory—that is, the glory of the Son. So the Son is also Lord of hosts. For “Lord of hosts” means “Lord of the powers.” And the Lord of the powers is himself the King of glory, as David said. And the Lord of glory is the crucified Christ, according to Paul. And as David said: “The Lord shepherds me, and nothing will be lacking to me” (Psalm 23:1). And elsewhere: “O Shepherd of Israel, give heed, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit upon the cherubim, appear” (Psalm 80:1). In the Gospels the Son says: “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). So he himself is the one who sits upon the cherubim, the Shepherd of Israel.

Paul says in Acts that the Holy Spirit said through Isaiah the very things Isaiah said, that the Lord of hosts said to me. So the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are Lord of hosts. And when Scripture says about the Father that he created all things, visible and invisible, elsewhere Scripture teaches us that they were created through the Son. The Father did not create some things separately and the Son other things. Rather, whatever the Father does, he does through his own power, which is the Son. For “all things came into being through him” (John 1:3).

So also when the Son says: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”—and he was speaking, it says, about his own body—another Scripture says that the Father raised his Son from the dead. And it says this rightly. For he raised the flesh of his Son through his own Word and Son. And we do not say that the body is by nature the Son of God, but that it is the body of the Son of God. So when the body is raised, the Son is understood to have been raised from the dead.

For this reason we say that according to the flesh he died, and was buried, and was raised from the dead. But according to the Spirit he was in heaven and on earth and everywhere. Since he was first rich—that is, God—and afterward became poor—that is, man—and was made like us in all things apart from sin, for this reason as man he receives life, he who has life, for he himself is the life. He receives it for our sake. And as man the eternal power and wisdom of God advanced in wisdom and stature. And as man he is sanctified, he who is holy and has no need of sanctification. For he says: “For their sake I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:19). And as man he is exalted, receiving the name that is above every name, which he always possesses by nature. For “the Word was God” (John 1:1).

So whatever Scripture says the Son received, it says because of his body, which body is the firstfruits of the Church. For “Christ is the firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20). So when the firstfruits received the name that is above every name, the lump was also raised with him by power and seated together with him, according to what is said: “And he raised us together and seated us together” (Ephesians 2:6).

8And this is why human beings received the grace to be called gods and sons of God. First, then, the Lord raised his own body from the dead and exalted it in himself. After this he will also raise the members of his body, so that as God he may grant them all things—everything that he himself received as a human being. So he grants life to himself, he sanctifies himself, and he exalts himself. When Scripture says that the Father sanctified him, raised him, granted him the name above every name, and gave him life, it is clear that the Father does all things through him. Through him, then, he raises him; through him he sanctifies him; through him he exalts him; and through him he gives him life. And when he entrusts his spirit into the Father's hands, as a human being he entrusts himself to God, so that he may entrust all human beings to God. For he himself is the hand and the hands of the Father. And when he says, "Before all the hills he begets me" (Proverbs 8:25), he speaks from the person of the Church, which was created first and afterward is begotten from God. This is why in Proverbs the words "The Lord created me" (Proverbs 8:22) come first, and "he begot me" comes later. And when Scripture says about the Father, "Did not one God create us?" (Malachi 2:10), it says the same about the Son—that all things were created through him. And the same is said about the Holy Spirit: "You take away their spirit, and they perish and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, and they are created, and you renew the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:29-30). And when the Son says to Peter about the Father, "Blessed are you, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17), he says the same things about himself: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). Likewise Paul says about the Holy Spirit: "God has revealed to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among human beings knows the things of a human being except the spirit of the human being within him? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). Just as the spirit of a human being is not separated from his humanity and his substance, so the Spirit of God is not alien to his divinity and his substance. And when the Lord says in Isaiah, "I begot sons and raised them, but they rejected me" (Isaiah 1:2), he says in the Gospel: "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). And again: "The Spirit blows where it wills, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). And at the beginning of the Gospel John says: "But to all who received him, he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name—who were born not of blood, nor of the will of a man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God" (John 1:12-13).

9So all who have been born of the Holy Spirit have been born of God. And all who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into the Father and the Holy Spirit. Again, when Peter says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back from the price of the field? You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3–4), it follows that the one who lied to the Holy Spirit lied to God, who dwells in human beings through his Spirit. For where the Spirit of God is, there God is. “By this,” he says, “we know that God abides in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13).

And when Scripture says that the Holy Spirit spoke in the prophets, elsewhere the blessed Paul says that the Father spoke in the prophets: “In many parts and in many ways God spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in a Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). And elsewhere he says that the Son speaks: “If you seek proof,” he says, “of Christ speaking in me” (2 Corinthians 13:3). But the Son said that the Spirit is the one speaking in the apostles: “When they hand you over to councils, do not be anxious how or what you will say; for what you will say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you” (Matthew 10:19–20).

And at one time the Apostle says that the bodies of believers are a temple of the Holy Spirit, at another that their members are members of Christ, and at another that they are a temple of the Father: “For you are the temple of the living God, as God said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16); and, “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” (1 Corinthians 3:17). And again: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). For if anyone is a temple of the Spirit, he is a temple of the Son and of the Father; for where the Spirit of God dwells, there God dwells.

And, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills” (John 5:21). Likewise he says about the Spirit, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63). And Paul writes to the Corinthians, “The Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Do you see that the works which are the Father’s, Scripture says are also the Son’s and the Holy Spirit’s? So also the Apostle taught when he said, “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are varieties of workings, but the same God who works all things in all” (1 Corinthians 12:4–6). Having said, then, that the Father is the one who works all things in all, a little later he says that the Holy Spirit is the one who works all things in all.

10“All these things,” Paul says, “are worked by the one and the same Spirit, distributing to each one individually as he wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11). And when the blessed Paul teaches about the Holy Spirit, saying that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of the inheritance, David says that the Lord is the inheritance. “The Lord,” he says, “is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup” (Psalm 16:5). And elsewhere he says, “I cried to you, Lord; I said, ‘You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living’” (Psalm 142:5). Jeremiah says, “He who formed all things is himself the inheritance of Jacob; the Lord is his name” (Jeremiah 10:16). So while the prophets say that the Lord is the inheritance of the saints, Paul says that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance: “In him,” he says, “when you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13–14). In the same way Moses’ face was sealed with the Holy Spirit when he received the law from God, and none of the sons of Israel could look directly at him, for the light of the Lord’s countenance was marked upon him. As it is also written in the Gospel, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). For God is light, and likewise the Son is light, because he is of the same substance as the true light. As Isaiah says, “And the light of Israel will be like fire, and it will sanctify him with a burning flame” (Isaiah 10:17). And in the Gospel John the Baptist says about the Lord, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). Elsewhere Scripture says that the Lord is the one who sanctifies: “I am the Lord who sanctifies them” (Leviticus 20:8). And when Scripture calls God fire—“Our God is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24)—it says the same about the Holy Spirit: “Divided tongues as of fire appeared to the apostles and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3–4). For all who bear the Spirit of God bear light, and those who bear light have put on Christ, and those who have put on Christ have put on the Father. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53). Those who bear the Spirit of God bear incorruption, and God is incorruption. And when David says, “Many say, ‘Who will show us good things?’” (Psalm 4:6), he is speaking about the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere he has said, “The Lord will not withhold good things from those who walk in innocence” (Psalm 84:11). And Matthew speaks this way about the Father: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7:11). But Luke, recording the same saying, interprets what the good things are: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:13). For if the Holy Spirit were not of the substance of the only good one, he would not be called good, since the Lord declines to be called good insofar as he became man, saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God” (Mark 10:18).

11But the Scripture does not decline to call the Holy Spirit good, as David says: “Your good Spirit will guide me on level ground” (Psalm 143:10). And again, when the Lord says of himself, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:51), elsewhere Scripture calls the Holy Spirit heavenly bread, saying, “Our daily bread give us today” (Matthew 6:11). For in the prayer he taught us to ask in this present age for the daily bread—that is, the bread of the age to come—of which we have the firstfruits in this present life by partaking of the flesh of the Lord, as he himself said: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (John 6:51). For the flesh of the Lord is life-giving spirit, because it was conceived from the life-giving Spirit. For what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).

And when Jeremiah says about God that he guided Israel in the wilderness—“And you did not say, Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness?” (Jeremiah 2:6)—Isaiah says that the Holy Spirit guided Israel in the wilderness. You can hear him say: “He led them through the deep as a horse through the wilderness, and they did not grow weary, and like cattle through the plain. And the Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them” (Isaiah 63:13-14). But to the Corinthians the apostle writes that Christ was the one guiding: “For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed, and the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).

And when Paul says that he was called by God—“God,” he says, “who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15-16)—he says that the Romans were called by Christ, writing to them: “Among whom you also are called of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6). But the Holy Spirit, it says, called Paul and Barnabas to preach Christ to the Gentiles. And what is remarkable: Jesus said to Paul in the temple, “Go, for I am sending you far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21), and Paul writes to the Galatians, “Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead” (Galatians 1:1), and a little later, “I make known to you, brothers, this gospel, that it is not according to man; for I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-12). Yet the Holy Spirit is the one who appears sending Paul and Barnabas to preach Christ to the Gentiles.

And sometimes the prophets speak from the person of the Father, as when God says in the Psalms: “Once I swore in my holy one, I will not lie to David: his seed will remain forever, and his throne as the sun before me” (Psalm 89:35-36); and again: “From the fruit of your body I will set one on your throne” (Psalm 132:11). And as Peter said: “Therefore David, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that from the fruit of his body he would seat the Christ on his throne according to the flesh” (Acts 2:30). But sometimes they speak from the person of the Son, as when Isaiah says: “Thus says the Lord: Because of you my name is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles” (Isaiah 52:5).

12Therefore my people will know my name in that day, because I myself am the one who speaks; I am present (Isaiah 52:6). But sometimes it speaks from the person of the Holy Spirit, as when the prophet Agabus says: “Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man to whom this belt belongs” (Acts 21:11). And again Paul writes to Timothy: “The Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1). And again: “The Spirit said to Philip: Go over and join yourself to this chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch” (Acts 8:29). And the prophet Ezekiel, accusing the old people, said: “And they grieved me in all these things, says the Lord” (Ezekiel 16:43). But Paul writes to the new people: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). And David says about the Jews: “And they provoked God in the wilderness” (Psalm 78:40). But Isaiah says about them: “But they disobeyed and provoked the Holy Spirit, and he was turned to them into enmity” (Isaiah 63:10). And Stephen says in Acts: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did” (Acts 7:51). And when Paul says about the Father: “God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?” (Romans 8:33-34), he says the same things also about the Son and about the Holy Spirit in the same way: “But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). And the Lord says to Satan about himself: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7). But Peter said to Sapphira: “Why is it that you agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?” (Acts 5:9). And God is the one who contains and fills all things, as he also says through Isaiah: “I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24). In the same way Paul also writes about the Son: “The one who descended is himself also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). And David says the same things also about the Holy Spirit: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face where shall I flee?” (Psalm 139:7). And by saying: “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” he showed us that the Holy Spirit also is the one who fills all things. “And from your face where shall I flee? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I descend to Hades, you are present” (Psalm 139:7-8). And who has gone down to Hades except the Son, who rose from the dead? And when Stephen says in Acts: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2), Paul says the same things also about the Son: “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). And in the same way David also says: “The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory” (Psalm 24:10). For there is one glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. “My glory,” Scripture says, “I will not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8). For the Son is not a second God, but the Word of the one and only God, confessed as God in the Father, just as the Father is confessed as God in the Son. As Isaiah also says, confessing the Son as God together with the Father: “And they will worship you, and to you they will pray, because God is in you, and besides you there is no God” (Isaiah 45:14).

13For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior (Isaiah 45:15). All who oppose him will be put to shame and disgraced. Those oppose him who do not confess that he and his Spirit are of the same being as the Father, and that besides him there is no God, and those who are ashamed of his suffering and his poverty. For no one can know God unless he confesses with the apostle Thomas the one who was crucified and risen from the dead as Lord and God—the one who says to his apostles: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; from now on you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:7). Philip says to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us” (John 14:8). Jesus says to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen my Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak I do not speak on my own. The Father who remains in me does his works. Believe me that I am in my Father and the Father is in me; or else believe because of the works themselves” (John 14:9-11). Now it was the work of God the Father to cast out demons, and he said by the Holy Spirit that he cast out demons: “But if I,” he says, “cast out demons by the Spirit of God” (Matthew 12:28). About this Luke says, “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God.” For when Scripture names Christ the arm of the Father, it calls the Holy Spirit the finger of God; and when it names the Son the Word of God, it calls the Holy Spirit the breath of God. And again the apostle says: “When he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he abolishes every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says, ‘All things are put in subjection,’ it is clear that this excludes the one who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). He is speaking about the subjection of the world, the subjection accomplished in his flesh. For about his divine kingdom Daniel declared: “And of his kingdom there will be no end” (Daniel 7:14). Just as Luke says that the angel Gabriel said to the Virgin about the Lord: “And he will reign forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33). But the apostle says his kingdom has an end. “For he must reign,” he says, “until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). In the same way David also says: “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (Psalm 110:1).

14So when he says “Sit,” that marks a beginning, and when he says “until your enemies are made a footstool for your feet,” that shows an end. But when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). This is what it means: when we all are subjected to the Son, we are found to be his members, and we become sons of God in him. “For you,” he says, “are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Then he himself will be subjected to the Father on our behalf, as head for his own members. For as long as all his members have not yet been subjected, he, their head, has not yet been subjected to the Father, but is awaiting his own members. If he were one of those who are subjected, he would have been subjected to the Father from the beginning, and would not be doing this at the end. For we are the ones who are subjected to the Father in him, and we are the ones who reign in him, until our enemies are placed under our feet. For because of our enemies the Master of the heavens came in our likeness, and took the human throne of David, his father according to the flesh, in order to rebuild it and set it upright. So that when it is set upright, we all might reign in him, and he might hand over the human kingdom, set upright, to the Father, so that God may be all in all, reigning through him as through the Word of God, after he has reigned through him as through a human savior. And when Peter says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), he is not speaking about his divinity when he says that God made him Lord and Christ, but about his humanity, which is the whole Church, which reigns and rules in him after he was crucified, and is anointed for the kingdom of heaven, so that it may reign with him, who emptied himself for her sake and took her up through the form of a servant. For the Word and Son of God was always Lord and God, and did not become Lord and Christ after being crucified. Rather, as I said before, his divinity made his humanity Lord and Christ. And when he says, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will but yours be done” (Matthew 26:39), and “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41), he shows two wills here: one human, which belongs to the flesh, and one divine, which belongs to God. For the human will, because of the weakness of the flesh, declines the suffering; but his divine will is ready. And just as Peter, when he heard about the suffering, was afraid and said, “Far be it from you, Lord!” and the Lord rebuked him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not thinking the things of God but the things of men” (Matthew 16:22-23), so it is understood here as well. For having come in the likeness of men, he declines the suffering as a man; but being God, and being without suffering according to his divine substance, he willingly accepted the suffering and death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death. For he was God, having come in the likeness of men, dying willingly and rising by his own authority as God, as David also said: “Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered” (Psalm 68:1), and again: “Awake, Lord my God, in the command which you commanded, and a congregation of peoples will surround you” (Psalm 7:6-7).

15And for her sake turn again to the height: “The Lord will judge the peoples” (Psalm 7:9). The Apostle also says elsewhere: “He suffered out of weakness, but lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4). Now the Son is the power of God, who suffered out of weakness—that is, out of the fleshly entanglement—and begged off the suffering as a man, yet lives through his own power. And when the Lord says in the Gospel according to John, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3), the same John elsewhere calls the Son the true God. For he says, “We know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we may know the true God, and we are in the true one, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). So the Son is true God both before he became man and after he became mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ. For this is what “Jesus Christ whom he sent” means: the one united to the Father according to the Spirit, but to us according to the flesh, and in this way mediating between God and men—the one who is not only man but also God, as Jeremiah also says: “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him. He discovered the whole way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. After these things he appeared on the earth and lived together with men” (Baruch 3:36-38). And when did he live together with men, except when he was born together with them from a woman, and grew up together with them, and grew, and ate together with them? And elsewhere he says: “His heart is deep beyond all, and he is a man, and who will know him?” And Isaiah likewise says: “A child was born to us, and a Son was given to us, whose rule came to be upon his shoulder. And his name is called Angel of Great Counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come” (Isaiah 9:6). And elsewhere he says: “Behold, the Virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). So the one born from the Virgin is God, and became man from Mary the Mother of God. And again elsewhere he says: “And we saw him, and he had no form or beauty” (Isaiah 53:2). For before this he had seen him in his divine and glorious form, seated on a high and exalted throne, when the seraphim glorified him, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3). And after these things he sees him having taken the form of a servant and having come to be in the likeness of men. Therefore he says: “We saw him, and he had no form or beauty, but his form was dishonored and failing beyond all the sons of men. A man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness. For his face was turned away; he was dishonored and not esteemed. He bears our weaknesses and suffers pain for us. And we considered him to be in toil and affliction and mistreatment. But he was wounded for our sins, and he was weakened for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:2-5). And elsewhere he says about him: “Behold, our God renders judgment and will repay. He himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will be clear” (Isaiah 35:4-6). And again elsewhere he says: “Not an angel, not a messenger, but the Lord himself saved us” (Isaiah 63:9). And David says: “Mother Zion will say: Man and man was born in her, and the Most High himself founded her” (Psalm 87:5). For this man who was born in her is himself the Most High, as he says in another psalm: “And let them know that your name is Lord; you alone are Most High over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18). We have written these things in part so that, as the Apostle said, “we may no longer be infants, tossed about and carried around by every wind of teaching in the craftiness of men, in their cunning toward the scheming of error” (Ephesians 4:14).