CHAPTER 1

That the Most Wise Solomon in the Proverbs knew of a Firstborn Power of God, which He calls the Wisdom and Offspring of God: just as we glorify It.

Passage quoted, Prov. viii. 12-31.]

THE divine and perfect essence existing before things begotten, the rational and Firstborn image of the Unbegotten nature, the true and Only-begotten Son of the God of the Universe, being One with many names, and One called God by many titles, is honoured in this passage under the style and name of Wisdom, and we have learned to call Him Word of God, Light, Life, Truth, and, to crown all, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Now, therefore, in the passage before us, He passes through the words of the wise Solomon, speaking of Himself as the living Wisdom of God and self-existent, saying: "I, Wisdom, have dwelt with counsel and knowledge, and I have called upon understanding," and that which follows. He also adds, as who has undertaken the government and providence of the Universe: "By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes become great." Then saying that He will record the things of ages past, He goes on to say: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works, he established me before time was." By which He teaches both that He Himself is begotten, and not the same as the Unbegotten, one called into being before all ages, set forth as a kind of foundation for all begotten things. And it is probable that the divine apostle started from this when he said of Him: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for all things were created in him, of things in heaven and things in earth." For He is called "Firstborn of every creature," in accordance with the words: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his road to his works." And He would naturally be considered the image of God, as being That which was begotten of the nature of the Unbegotten. And, therefore, the passage before - 232 - us agrees, when it says: "Before the mountains were established, and before all the hills, he begets me."

Hence we call Him Only-begotten Son, and the Firstborn Word of God, Who is the same as this Wisdom. In what sense we say that He is the Begotten of God would require a special study, for we do not understand this unspeakable generation of His as involving a projection, a separation, a division, a diminution, a scission, or anything (c) at all which is involved in human generation. For it is not lawful to compare His unspeakable and unnameable generation and coming into being with these things in the world of begotten things, nor to liken Him to anything transitory and mortal, since it is impious to say that in the way in which animals are produced on earth, as an essence coming from an essence by change and division, divided and separated, the Son came forth out of the Father. For the Divine is without parts, and indivisible, not to be cut, or (d) divided, or extended, or diminished, or contracted, It cannot become greater, or worse or better than Itself, nor has it within Itself anything different from Itself that it could send forth. For everything that is in anything is either in it as (1) accident, as white is in a body, or (2) as a thing in something different from it, as a child is in the womb of its mother, or (3) as the part is in the whole, as the hand, foot and finger exist in the body, being parts of the whole body, and if either of them undergo any maiming or cutting or division, the whole of the body is rendered useless and mutilated, as a part of it has been cut off. But surely it (214) would be very impious to employ a figure and comparison of this kind in the case of the Unbegotten nature of the God of the Universe, and of the generation of His Only-begotten and Firstborn (Son).

For the Son was certainly not Unbegotten for ages infinite and without beginning within the Father, as one thing within another that differs from itself, being a part of Him which afterwards was changed and cast out from Him; for such a being would be subject to change; and there would also be according to this two Unbegotten Beings, He that cast forth and He that was cast forth. And which condition would be the better? Would not that before the change which caused a division by the (b) sending forth? It is, then, impossible to conceive of the - 233 - Son coming from the Father as a part or a limb that had always previously been united to Him, afterwards separating and coming apart from the whole. For these are unspeakable and quite impious ideas, proper enough to the relations of material bodies, but foreign to a nature without body or matter. And, therefore, here again we had best say: Who shall declare His generation?

It is equally perilous to take the opposite road, and say thus without qualification that the Son was begotten of things that were not, similarly to the other begotten beings; for the generation of the Son differs from the Creation (c) through the Son. But yet as Holy Scripture first says that He is the Firstborn of every creature, speaking in His Person, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways," and then says that He is the Begotten of the Father in the words: "Before all the hills he begets me"; here we, too, may reasonably follow and confess that He is before all ages the Creative Word of God, One with the Father, (d) Only-begotten Son of the God of the Universe, and Minister and Fellow-worker with the Father, in the calling into being and constitution of the Universe.

For if there is anything in the nature of the Universe left unexplained and inconceivable for us, and we know that there are many, such things as are promised to the godly — which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man—according to the holy apostle, much further beyond our conception, unexplained and unnamed, inconceivable and unimaginable must be that which concerned the generation of the Only-begotten of God, since we have nothing else to say or to think of Him, except, "Who shall declare his generation?" And if one, greatly (215) daring, were led to compare things in all ways inconceivable with visible and physical likenesses, one perchance might say that, like a fragrance or a ray of light, the Son underlay from infinite ages or rather before all ages the Father's Unbegotten Nature and ineffable Essence, and was one with Him, and was always united to the Father, as fragrance to an ointment and the ray to the light, but not (b) analogously in all senses to such likenesses, as was said before. For lifeless bodies hold their accidents in qualities; and the ray being of one origin with the nature of light, and being in essence the same as light, could not exist - 234 - outside that in which it is. Whereas the Word of God has Its own essence and existence in Itself, and is not identical with the Father in being Unbegotten, but was begotten of the Father as His Only-begotten Son before all ages; while the fragrance being a kind of physical effluence of that from which it comes, and not filling the air around it by itself apart from its primary cause, is seen to be itself also a physical thing. We will not, then, conceive thus about the theory of our Saviour's coming-into-being. For neither was He brought into being from the Unbegotten Being by way of any event, or by division, nor was He eternally coexistent with the Father, since the One is Unbegotten and the other Begotten, and one is Father and the other Son. And all would agree that a father must exist before and precede his son. Thus also would the image of God be a kind of living image of the living God, in a mode once more that is beyond our words and reasoning, and existing in Itself immaterially and unembodied, and unmixed with anything opposite to Itself, but not such an image as we connote by the term, which differs in its essential substance and its species, but one which itself contains the whole of its species, and is like in its own essence to the Father, and so is seen to be the liveliest fragrance of the Father, in a mode once again beyond our words and reasoning. For everything that is true about Him could not be spoken in human words, and could not be reasoned with the reasoning of men according to strict logic. But the Scriptures give us such instruction as it is good for us to hear. Has not the holy apostle described himself and those like him as "a fragrance of Christ," by their participation in the Spirit of Christ; and is not the heavenly Bridegroom in the Canticles addressed as "Ointment poured forth"? Wherefore all things visible and invisible, embodied and unembodied, rational and irrational participating in that outpouring of Him in due proportion are thought worthy of His presence, and have their lot in the communion of the divine Word. Yes, the whole universe imparts a share of His divine breath to those whose rational perception is not - 235 - maimed, so that bodies by nature earthy and corruptible give forth an immaterial and uncorrupted fragrance; for as the God of the Universe wells down from above, Who, being Father of the Only-begotten Word, Himself must be the first and chief and only true good begetting good, so taking the second place the Son draws His supplies from the primary and original Essence, Who also is alone called the fragrance of His Father's Essence by us who use the Scripture that teaches us concerning Him, that He is "a breath of the power of God, and a pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty, and a radiance of the everlasting light, and an unsullied mirror of the action of God, and an image of his goodness."

But with regard to these questions, let men decide them as they will. It is enough for me to repeat again that true and blessed saying, and so conclude my quest, the saying which I have often repeated: "Who shall describe His generation? "For of a truth the generation of the Only-begotten of God is seen to be beyond the reach not only of men, but of the powers that are beyond every being, as also our Lord and Saviour Himself says in mystic language this very thing to His own disciples. "No one knows the Father save the Son." To which he adds "and no one knows the Son save the Father." Since then the theology both of the Father and of the Son is equally unknown to all but Themselves, let us heed Wisdom speaking as it were in secrets in the passage of Solomon set before us: "Before the mountains were established, and the earth formed, and before all the hills he begets me." And also He says that He was present with the Father when He formed the Heaven. "For when he formed the heaven, I was present with him." And He reveals the eternity from endless ages of His presence with the Father, where He adds: "I was by him in harmony, I was that in which he delighted, and I daily delighted in his presence." And we must either understand the abysses and founts of waters, the mountains and hills, and the other things which in this place are designated by common words, to refer to the constitution of the Universe, referring to the whole by - 236 - its part, or interpreting more metaphorically, we must transfer the meaning to spiritual essences and divine powers, all of whom the Firstborn Wisdom and the Only-begotten and First-begotten Word of the Father, Whom we call Christ, preceded; so the apostle teaches us, who says, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." And He is called hero probably by the Name of Wisdom, as He Who —— the all-wise and prudent plans of the only wise Father . . . .

[There is a long lacuna at the end of this chapter, noted in the Paris MS., "e0llei/pei polla&"]