But if sometimes at the appearance of the angel the seer heard the voice of God, as it was at the bush, for the angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire from the bush, and the Lord called to Moses out of the bush, saying, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:2, 4, 6), then the angel was not the God of Abraham, but in the angel was the God who spoke, and although we see that there was an angel, God spoke in him. For as God spoke to Moses in the Tabernacle in the pillar of cloud, so also in the angels He appears to speak. Thus also did He speak to Nun through the angel.

But what God says, as we know, He speaks through the Word, and not through someone else. And what the Word, Who is inseparable from the Father, who is not unlike 387 and is not alien to the Father's essence, does, is the work of the Father, and the Word is one with the Father. And what the Son gives, that is, the Father's giving. And whoever has seen the Son knows that he has seen Him, not an angel, nor a being higher than the angels, nor any creature, but the Father Himself. And whoever hears the Word knows that he hears the Father, just as he who is illumined by radiance knows that he is illuminated by the sun.

(15) And the Divine Scriptures, desiring that we should understand this, have presented to us, as we have said before, such likenesses as could both shame the traitors to the Jews, and repel the accusation of the Greeks, when they say and think that in the doctrine of the Trinity we also recognize many gods. For, as the similitudes themselves show, we do not introduce three principles or three fathers, as the followers of Marcion and Manichaeus did. We do not represent the image of the three suns, but the sun and radiance, and one light from the sun in radiance. Thus we know the one principle, and we say that the founding Word has no other image of the Godhead, but the Divinity of the One God, because it is born of God.

For this reason the Arians can be much more justly accused of polytheism or godlessness, because they say that the Son is a creature from without, and also the Spirit from nothing. For they say that the Word is not God, or by calling Him God, because of what is written, but not properly belonging to the Father's essence, because of the heterogeneity of the Father and the Son, they introduce many gods, unless they dare to assert that the Word is also called God by communion, in what sense everything can be so called. But even thinking in this way, they are equally dishonored, saying that the Word is one of all creatures. And it would never have occurred to us! For there is one kind of Godhead, which is also in the Word, and one 388 God is the Self-existent Father, because He is over all things (Romans 9:5), who appears in the Son, because He sees through all things (Wis 7:24), and in the Spirit, because He works for Him in all through the Word. Thus, in confessing the Trinity, we confess the One God, and we reason about God much more piously than the heretics, who acknowledge the multiform and many-partite Divinity, because we recognize the one Divinity in the Trinity.

(16) For if it is not so, on the contrary, that the Word of non-beings is a creature and a product, then either He is not the true God, because He is one of the creatures, or if the heretics, ashamed of the Scriptures, call Him God, then they must of necessity call Him two gods, one Creator, and the other created, and serve two masters: one Uncreated, and the other created and creatures, to have two faiths: one in the true God, and the other in the created one, invented by them and called God. And being blind in this way, they must of necessity, when they worship the Uncreated, despise the created, and when they approach the creature, turn away from the Creator. For it is impossible to see one in the other, because their natures and actions are alien and different from each other. And those who think in this way necessarily unite many gods into one, to this leads the undertaking of those who fall away from the One God.

Why then do the Arians, reasoning and imagining in this way, not count themselves among the pagans? For both they and they serve the creature more than God, Who created all things. Though they avoid being called pagans in order to deceive the foolish, yet they secretly contain a thought similar to that of the pagans. For this wise saying, which they usually use, "We do not name two uncreated," seems to be used to deceive the simple-minded. When we say, "We do not name two uncreated," they call two gods, and gods who have different natures: one having a created nature, and the other having an uncreated nature. If the pagans serve one Uncreated and many created, and they serve one Uncreated and one created, then even in this case they do not differ from the Gentiles, because the one they call created is one of many created, and also many pagan gods have the same nature with this one, and this one and these are creatures. The heretics are pitiful, all the more so since they harm themselves by philosophizing against Christ; they have fallen away from the truth and, denying Christ, have surpassed the Jews in betrayal, and these God-haters sink along with the pagans, serving the creature and various gods.

One is God, and not many, and one is the Word of God, and not many. God is the Word. It alone has the Father's vision. Being a vision, the Saviour Himself puts the Jews to shame, saying: "The Father who sent Me, He bears witness to Me." Nor have you heard His voice anywhere, nor seen His vision: and His word dwelleth not in you, but His messenger, Whom ye have no faith in" (John 5:37-38). He beautifully added a vision to the Word, showing that the Word of God Himself is the image and image and vision of His Father, and that the Jews, who did not receive Him who spoke this, did not receive the Word, that is, God's vision. It was this vision that the patriarch Jacob saw, was blessed, and instead of Jacob he was called Israel by Him, as the Divine Scripture testifies, saying: "And the sun shone forth unto him, when the form of God shall pass away" (Gen. 32:31). But this form was He Who says: He who has seen Me is in the form of the Father, and I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me 390, and I and the Father are one. Thus, there is one God, and one faith in the Father and the Son. And since the Word is God, then again the Lord our God the Lord is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), because He is the Own and Indivisible Son of the One in nature and affinity of essence.

(17) But not ashamed of this, the Arians say: "Not as you speak, but as we wish. Since you have rejected our former inventions, we have found a new one, and affirm that in the same sense the Son and the Father are one, the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father, in which we also can be in Him. This is written in the Gospel of John, and this is what Christ wanted for us, saying: Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as we also are (17:11), and after a few more words: "I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in their words in Me: that they may all be one, as Thou wilt, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, and they also shall be one in Us: that the world also has faith, for Thou hast sent Me. And I have given them the glory which Thou hast given unto Me, that they may be one, as We are one. I am in them, and Thou art in Me, that they may be made one, and that the world may understand that Thou hast sent Me (vv. 20-23)." Then these cunning ones, as if having found a pretext, add this: "If as we are one in the Father, so He and the Father are one in the Father, so He is also in the Father, then why, according to what He said, I and the Father are one, and I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, call Him properly belonging to and similar to the Father's essence? It is necessary either for us to be properly belonging to the Father's essence, or to be alien to Him, just as we are strangers."

Such is the unreasonable superstition of heretics. And I do not see in such wickedness of theirs anything else but 391 irrational audacity and devilish arrogance, because they, too, like the devil, say: let us ascend to heaven, let us be like the Highest. What is distributed to people by grace, they want to equate with the Divinity of the Giver. Hearing that people are called sons, they think that they themselves are equal to the true Son by nature. And now, again, hearing from the Saviour: "Let them be one, as We also," deceive themselves, boldly dreaming that they too will be in God, as the Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son, not noticing that their father, the devil, fell from such conceit.

(18) If, as we have said many times, the Word of God is the same as we are, and does not differ from us in any way except in time, then let it be like us, let it have the same place with the Father as we have, let it not be called the only-begotten, nor the one Word, nor the Father's Wisdom, but let this name be common to Him with all of us, similar to each other. For among those who have one nature, it is just to have a common name, although they differ from each other in time. Adam is a man, and Paul is a man, and the one who is now being born is also a man, and time does not change the nature of the race. Therefore, if the Word differs from us only in time, then we must be the same as the Word. But we are not the Word or Wisdom, and it is not a creature or a work. For why are we all descended from one, and He alone is the Word? But if it is proper for heretics to speak such words, then it is unseemly for us to touch upon their blasphemy even in thought. And although it would not even be necessary to enter into any consideration of these sayings, given their clear and pious meaning and our true faith, nevertheless, in order that the heretics may prove to be wicked in this as well, by this very saying, 392 as we have learned from the Fathers, let us briefly denounce their unorthodoxy.

In the Holy Scriptures, natural objects are often presented to people as an image and an example. And this is so that voluntary movements in people can be seen more clearly from the natural. And in this way, either a bad or a truthful human disposition is shown. Thus, he has bad morals in mind if he commands: "Do not be like a horse and a horse, which have no understanding" (Psalm 31:9), or when, reproaching those who have become such, he says: "A man in honor has no understanding, be joined to senseless cattle and be like them" (48:13); and again, "The horses of womanhood were made" (Jeremiah 5:8). And the Saviour, showing what Herod was, said: "Speak to that fox" (Luke 13:32), and commanded the disciples: "Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves: for be wise as a serpent, and as a dove as a dove" (Matthew 10:16). He did not say this so that by nature we would become like cattle, become serpents or doves (He did not create us like this, therefore nature does not allow this), but so that we would avoid irrational pursuits; but knowing the wisdom of the serpent, they did not go into his deception and appropriated to themselves the meekness of the dove.

19) In the Divine discourse, presenting images to people again, the Saviour says: "Be merciful, as your Father who is in heaven is merciful" (Luke 6:36), and "Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). And he did not say this again in order that we might become like the Father, because it is impossible for us, creatures, brought into existence from nothing, to become like the Father, on the contrary, as He commanded, "Do not be like a horse," not lest we become beasts, but 393 imitate their foolishness. not that we might become like God, but that, looking at His good deeds, when we do good, we should do not for the sake of men, but for His sake, expecting rewards from Him, and not from men. As though one is the Son by nature, true and only-begotten, yet we also are made sons, not like Him, not by nature, nor in reality, but by the grace of Him who called, and being earthly men, we are called gods, not such as God is, and what is His true Word, but as God who gave these things willed, so like God we are made merciful, not coming through this to equality with God, not becoming true benefactors by nature, because to do good is not ours, but God's invention, but insofar as it is done by grace for us by God Himself, we make common to others, not reasoning, but simply extending charity to all. Only in this way, and in no other way, can we also become somewhat imitators of God, because we serve one another with what is given by Him.

But just as we understand this well and correctly, so the passage read in the Gospel of John has the same meaning. For it is not said, "As the Son is in the Father, so let us also be." And is this possible, when He is the Word of God and the Wisdom of God, and we are created from the earth, He is by nature and essence the Word and the true God (thus says John: "We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and that we may be in truth, in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:19-20), but we, by adoption and grace through Him, are made sons, partaking of His Spirit, 394 for it is said, "Who received Him, gave them the region to be children of God, believing in His name" (John 1:12)? Therefore He is the truth, testifying of Himself: "I am the truth" (14:6), which He confirmed and conversed with His Father: "Sanctify them in Thy truth: Thy Word is truth" (17:17), and we are made virtuous and sons by imitation.

(20) Therefore the Saviour said, "That they may be one, as we also are" (v. 22), not that we might be made like Him, but that as He, being the Word, abides in His Father, so we, looking to Him and borrowing from Him a certain image, may become one with one another in unanimity and unity of Spirit, and not disagree, like the Corinthians, but they reasoned the same way, like the five thousand mentioned in Acts, who were all as one man (4:32). Let us be like sons, and not like the Son, and gods, but not as He Himself, and merciful as the Father, but not as the Father, but as it is said, having become one, as the Father and the Son; not in the sense in which by nature the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, but in what sense it is in accordance with our nature, in which it is possible for us to conform ourselves to this and learn how we must become one, just as we have learned to be merciful, because in union there are like with like, and all flesh enters into union according to kind. The Word is not like us, but like the Father, so that He is by nature and in reality one with His Father, and we, being of the same kind with one another, because all are descended from one, and all men have one nature, become one with one another in disposition, having for ourselves as a model 395 the natural union of the Son with the Father. As He taught meekness by His example, saying, "Learn from Me, that I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29), not that we might be compared to Him (this is impossible), but that, looking to Him, we might always remain meek, so here, desiring that we should have true, firm, and indissoluble goodwill toward one another, He takes His example and says: "That they may be one, even as We are. And our unity is indivisible, wherefore they, too, having come to know in us the indivisible nature, should also preserve mutual agreement with each other." People, as it has been said, are safer to imitate what? it is borrowed from nature, because it remains the same and never changes, while human temper is changeable, and only by looking at what is unchangeable by nature, can it avoid evil and conform itself to the best. And thus it is said, "That they also shall be one in Us." (John 17:21), has the correct meaning.