Four Discourses Against the Arians

⁵⁸ (continued). But, as it seems, a heretic is a wicked thing in truth, and in every respect his heart is depraved and irreligious. For behold, though convicted on all points, and shown to be utterly bereft of understanding, they feel no shame; but as the hydra of Gentile fable, when its former serpents were destroyed, gave birth to fresh ones, contending against the slayer of the old by the production of new, so also they, hostile and hateful to God, as hydras, losing their life in the objections which they advance, invent for themselves other questions Judaic and foolish, and new expedients, as if Truth were their enemy, thereby to show the rather that they are Christ's opponents in all things.

59. After so many proofs against them, at which even the devil who is their father had himself been abashed and gone back, again as from their perverse heart they mutter forth other expedients, sometimes in whispers, sometimes with the drone of gnats; 'Be it so,' say they; 'interpret these places thus, and gain the victory in reasonings and proofs; still you must say that the Son has received being from the Father at His will and pleasure;' for thus they deceive many, putting forward the will and the pleasure of God. Now if any of those who believe aright were to say this in simplicity, there would be no cause to be suspicious of the expression, the right intention prevailing over that somewhat simple use of words. But since the phrase is from the heretics and the words of heretics are suspicious, and, as it is written, 'The wicked are deceitful,' and 'The words of the wicked are deceit,' even though they but make signs, for their heart is depraved, come let us examine this phrase also, lest, though convicted on all sides, still, as hydras, they invent a fresh word, and by such clever language and specious evasion, they sow again that irreligion of theirs in another way. For he who says, 'The Son came to be at the Divine will,' has the same meaning as another who says, 'Once He was not,' and 'The Son came to be out of nothing,' and 'He is a creature.' But since they are now ashamed of these phrases, these crafty ones have endeavoured to convey their meaning in another way, putting forth the word 'will,' as cuttlefish their blackness, thereby to blind the simple, and to keep in mind their peculiar heresy. For whence bring they 'by will and pleasure?' or from what Scripture? Let them say, who are so suspicious in their words and so inventive of irreligion. For the Father who revealed from heaven His own Word, declared, 'This is My beloved Son.' and by David He said, 'My heart uttered a good Word.' and John He bade say, 'In the beginning was the Word.' and David says in the Psalm, 'With You is the well of life, and in Your light shall we see light;' and the Apostle writes, 'Who being the Radiance of Glory,' and again, 'Who being in the form of God,' and, 'Who is the Image of the invisible God. '

60. All everywhere tell us of the being of the Word, but none of His being 'by will,' nor at all of His making; but they, where, I ask, did they find will or pleasure 'precedent ' to the Word of God, unless forsooth, leaving the Scriptures, they simulate the perverseness of Valentinus? For Ptolemy the Valentinian said that the Unoriginate had a pair of attributes, Thought and Will, and first He thought and then He willed; and what He thought, He could not put forth, unless when the power of the Will was added. Thence the Arians taking a lesson, wish will and pleasure to precede the Word. For them then, let them rival the doctrine of Valentinus; but we, when we read the divine discourses, found 'He was' applied to the Son, but of Him only did we hear as being in the Father and the Father's Image; while in the case of things originate only, since also by nature these things once were not, but afterwards came to be, did we recognise a precedent will and pleasure, David saying in the hundred and thirteenth Psalm, 'As for our God He is in heaven, He has done whatsoever pleased Him,' and in the hundred and tenth, 'The works of the Lord are great, sought out unto all His good pleasure;' and again, in the hundred and thirty-fourth, 'Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places. ' If then He be work and thing made, and one among others, let Him, as others, be said 'by will?' to have come to be, and Scripture shows that these are thus brought into being. And Asterius, the advocate for the heresy, acquiesces, when he thus writes, 'For if it be unworthy of the Framer of all, to make at pleasure, let His being pleased be removed equally in the case of all, that His Majesty be preserved unimpaired. Or if it be befitting God to will, then let this better way obtain in the case of the first Offspring. For it is not possible that it should be fitting for one and the same God to make things at His pleasure, and not at His will also.' In spite of the Sophist having introduced abundant irreligion in his words, namely, that the Offspring and the thing made are the same, and that the Son is one offspring out of all offsprings that are, He ends with the conclusion that it is fitting to say that the works are by will and pleasure.

61. Therefore if He be other than all things, as has been above shown, and through Him the works rather came to be, let not 'by will?' be applied to Him, or He has similarly come to be as the things consist which through Him come to be. For Paul, whereas he was not before, became afterwards an Apostle 'by the will of God;' and our own calling, as itself once not being, but now taking place afterwards, is preceded by will, and, as Paul himself says again, has been made 'according to the good pleasure of His will.' And what Moses relates, 'Let there be light,' and 'Let the earth appear,' and 'Let Us make man,' is, I think, according to what has gone before, significant of the will of the Agent. For things which once were not but happened afterwards from external causes, these the Framer counsels to make; but His own Word begotten from Him by nature, concerning Him He did not counsel beforehand; for in Him the Father makes, in Him frames, other things whatever He counsels; as also James the Apostle teaches, saying, 'Of His own will begot He us with the Word of truth.' Therefore the Will of God concerning all things, whether they be begotten again or are brought into being at the first, is in His Word, in whom He both makes and begets again what seems right to Him; as the Apostle again signifies, writing to Thessalonica; 'for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.' But if, in whom He makes, in Him also is the will, and in Christ is the pleasure of the Father, how can He, as others, come into being by will and pleasure? For if He too came to be as you maintain, by will, it follows that the will concerning Him consists in some other Word, through whom He in turn comes to be; for it has been shown that God's will is not in the things which He brings into being, but in Him through whom and in whom all things made are brought to be. Next, since it is all one to say 'By will?' and Once He was not,' let them make up their minds to say, 'Once He was not,' that, perceiving with shame that times are signified by the latter, they may understand that to say 'by will?' is to place times before the Son; for counselling goes before things which once were not, as in the case of all creatures. But if the Word is the Framer of the creatures, and He coexists with the Father, how can to counsel precede the Everlasting as if He were not? For if counsel precedes, how through Him are all things? For rather He too, as one among others is by will begotten to be a Son, as we too were made sons by the Word of Truth; and it rests, as was said, to seek another Word, through whom He too has come to be, and was begotten together with all things, which were according to God's pleasure.