1) The Word is God from God, and God is the Word (John 1:1); and again, "Their fathers, and of whom is Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever, Amen" (Romans 9:5). And since Christ is God from God and the Word of God, Wisdom, Son and power, then in the Divine Scriptures the one God is proclaimed. For the Word, being the Son of the one God, is raised to Him Whose Word He is, so that the Father and the Son are two and together an indivisible and indestructible unit of the Godhead. It can also be said that there is one principle, and not two principles of the Godhead. Hence unity of command in the proper sense. From this principle there is the Word, the Son by nature, who did not come into existence by Himself, as the other principle, and who did not proceed outside of this principle (otherwise, this difference would produce dual beginnings and multiple beginnings), but of one principle his own Son, his own Wisdom, his own Word, existing from this principle. For, according to what John said, in this beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God. The beginning is God. And since the Word is from this Beginning, therefore God is the Word. But as there is one Principle, and therefore God is one, so truly, truly, and truly existent essence and hypostasis is one, namely, that which says: I am He (Exodus 3:14), and not two essences; otherwise there will be two principles. From the one essence there is the Word, Wisdom, its own and inseparable Power, by nature and truly the Son; but just as there is no other essence, so that there are not two principles, so from one essence there is not a word to be resolved, not just a significant voice, but an essential Word, an essential Wisdom, that is, truly the Son. And if the Word were not essential, then God would speak to the air, and would have had a body in no way superior to man's. Since God is not a man, then His Word cannot be like human weakness. As the beginning is one essence, so is the one essential and independent Word of this essence and one Wisdom. As from God is God, from the Most Wise is Wisdom, from the Verbal is the Word, from the Father is the Son, so from the Hypostasis is the Hypostatic, from the Essence is the Essential and Self-Existent, from the Eternal is the Existent.

2) If Wisdom is non-essential, the Word is not self-substantial, the Son is not being, but simply Wisdom, and the Word, and the Son in the Father, then the Father Himself will be composed of Wisdom and the Word. But if this is admitted, then the inconsistencies said before will follow: the Father will be the Father of Himself, the Son begetting Himself and being born of Himself. Or the name alone is the Word, Wisdom, and the Son, and He of Whom this is said is not independent, or rather, Who is all this. And if he is not independent, then the names are vain and devoid of meaning, unless anyone says that God is the source 456 Wisdom and the outflowing Word. In the same case, He is His Own Father and Son; and the Father, when He is all-wise, and the Son, when He is Wisdom. But this is not a quality in God. No, such a thought is indecent, because otherwise God will be composed of essence and quality, because every quality exists in essence. And as a consequence of this, the indivisible Divine unit will turn out to be complex, dissected into essence and accidental. Therefore it is necessary to ask these impudent ones: it is preached about the Son that He is the Wisdom of God and the Word of God. How is that? If as a quality, then the incongruity of this is shown. And if God is the source of Wisdom, then the resulting incongruity is expressed by Sabellius.

Consequently, the Son is preached as in the proper sense being born from the Father Himself, in the likeness of light. For as light comes from fire, so is the Word from God, Wisdom from the All-Wise, the Son from the Father. In this sense, the Unity is indivisible and whole, and Her Son is not non-self-existent, not independent, but truly essential Word. And if we imagine it in a different way, then everything that is predicated about the Son will be predicated by invention and unfounded. If, however, the inconsistencies arising from invention are to be avoided, it follows that the true Word is essential; as the Father is truly, so is Wisdom true. Wherefore, though there are two of them, for the Father and the Son are not one and the same, as Sabellius teaches, but the Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son; nevertheless, they are one, because the Son, according to the nature of the Father, is essence, the Father's own Word. This is what the Lord said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). The Word is inseparable from the Father, and the Father has never been and never is without the Word. Therefore the Word is God, 457 and the Father is not without the Word. That is why the Son said: "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (14:11).

3) And again: Christ is the Word of God. And so, did He come forth from Himself, and, having been established, cleaved to the Father? Or did God create Him and call Him His Word? If the first, that is, Christ by Himself and is God, then there will be two principles, and it is unjust to call the Son properly belonging to the Father, because He is not of the Father, but of Himself. But if he was created by himself, then there will be a creature. Therefore, it remains, of course, to say that He is from God Himself. And if so, then he who is of someone will be different, and he from whom he is will be different; and as a consequence of this there will be two. And if it is not two, but it is said of one and the same thing, then one and the same thing will be both the cause and the effect of the cause, and the begotten and the begetter; the incongruity of this is proved by the teaching of Sabellius. If Christ is of the Father, and not anything else of Him, He will be both begetting and not begetting; to those who give birth, because He produces Himself from the Father, and to those who do not beget, because there is no other thing from Him. If this is so, then one and the same thing is said by the imagination of the Father and the Son. But if this is unseemly, then there will be two, the Father and the Son, but together and one, because the Son is not born of God, but of God.

But if anyone avoids this saying, "birth," and says only that the Word exists with God, let him fear it, lest, by avoiding what is used in the Scriptures, he fall into incongruity and introduce some dual God. For by not agreeing that the Word is from One, but simply by joining the Word to the Father, he introduces two essences, neither of which is the Father of the other. The same must be said of the Force. But everyone will see this more clearly if he applies it to the Father. The Father is one, 458 and not two Fathers, but of this one is the Son. And just as there are not two Fathers, but one, so not two principles, but one, and from this one principle is the essential Son. But when speaking to the Arians, questions must be perverted, because the Sabellians must be refuted from the concept of the Son, and the Arians from the concept of the Father.

(4) Therefore it must be asked: Is God all-wise and has the Word, or, on the contrary, is He not all-wise and has no Word? If we admit the latter, then the incongruity is self-evident. And if the former, then it must be asked: How is He all-wise and has the Word? Does He have the Word and Wisdom by Himself or by Himself? If so, then there will be someone who communicated to Him initially, but He Himself, before receiving what was communicated, was not all-wise, and without the Word. But if the Word is from Him, then it is evident that He is not of those who do not exist, and did not exist when He did not exist. There has always been a Word, because there is always One Whose image He is.

And if it is said that, although God is all-wise and not without the Word, yet in Himself He has His own wisdom and His own word, namely, not Christ, but the Word by which He also created Christ, then it must be said to this: If Christ was brought into being by this word, then it is evident that everything was brought into being by Him. And He will be the Word of Whom John says, "All things were there" (John 1:3); and the Psalmist: "Thou hast created all things in Wisdom" (Psalm 103:24). At the same time, Christ will be found to have falsely said: I am in the Father, because the other is in the Father. Unjustly, according to the heretics, will be this: the Word was made flesh. For if He Who was all things became flesh Himself, and Christ is not the Word in the Father in Whom all things were, then it follows that Christ was not made flesh, unless Christ is called the Word. 459 And if we accept this, then, in the first place, Christ will not be what His name shows, and secondly, "Not by Him was all things, but by the word by which Christ also came into being." But if it is said that Wisdom in the Father is a quality, or that the Father is the original Wisdom, then the inconsistencies mentioned above will follow from this. The Father will be composed, having become Himself both the Son and the Father.

Moreover, in order to rebuke and shame the heretics, it will be necessary to say that the Word that is in God will not be a creature, and He is not of those who are not. As soon as the Word is in God, He is Christ, Who says: I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; and therefore also the only-begotten Son, for no one else is begotten of the Father. This son is alone; He is the Word, the Wisdom, and the Power, because God is not made of these things, but begets them. As He creates creatures by the Word, so by nature He has the birth of His own essence — the Word, by Whom He builds, creates, rules all things, because all things are brought into being by the Word and Wisdom, and by the creation of the Word all things abide (Psalm 118:91). The same must be said of the Son. If God does not beget, then He does not work; for the Son is His begotten, and through Him God works. Otherwise, shameless heretics will be followed by the same questions and the same inconsistencies.

5) In Deuteronomy it is said: "But ye who are attached to the Lord your God, live all to this day" (4:4). From this we can see the difference and understand that the Son of God is not a creature. For the Son says: I and the Father are one (John 10:30), and I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (14:11). And created beings, when they prosper, are attached to the Lord. The Word, as His own, dwells in the Father; and 460 created beings, being consensual, are applied as alien by nature and diligent by will. And the Son by nature is one with Him who begets, and he who is adopted will be added to the generation. Wherefore it is soon added: Which tongue is so great, which is God, draw nigh (Deuteronomy 4:7)? And in another place, "God draweth nigh, I am" (Jeremiah 23:3). For He draws near to the created as to strangers; but he does not draw near to the Son as his own, but abides in Him. And the Son is not diligent, but co-existent with the Father. For this reason Moses also says in the same Deuteronomy: "Listen to His voice, and cleave unto Him" (13:4). And that which clings adheres to it.

(6) In the reasoning of this feeble and human conception of the Arians, by which it is supposed that the Lord was lacking, when He said, "I will be given unto me" (Matthew 28:18), and "I will receive" (John 10:18), and when Paul says, "By the same God shall exalt Him" (Phil 2:9), and sit at the right hand (Ephesians 1:20), and the like, it must be said that our Lord, being the Word and Son of God, bore a body upon Himself, and became the Son of man, so that, having become an Advocate for God and of men, the things of God, we may serve us, and those things that are ours may serve God. Therefore, when it is said that he hungers, weeps, wears, cries: Eloi, Eloi, then He receives from us the infirmities of human beings and our own infirmities, and offers them to the Father, interceding for us, that these infirmities may be destroyed in Him. But when it is said, "Thou hast given Me power," and "I have received," and "By the same God hath exalted Him," these are the gifts communicated to us through Him from God. The Word was not insufficient, It was never brought into being. Likewise, people were not able to serve themselves with this; and this is granted to us through the Word. 461 Wherefore that which is given to us is communicated as it were to Him. For this reason the Word became man, so that what is given to Him, as it were, would pass on to us. The common man could not have been vouchsafed this, nor would the Word alone have need of it. Wherefore the Word joined with us, and then gave us authority, and exalted us. The word that is in man has exalted man. And because the Word is in man, man has received it. Therefore, since the Word is in the flesh, man is exalted and has taken power. Therefore this is written to the Word, because it was given for His sake. For the sake of the Word that is in man, these gifts are given; and as the Word was made flesh, so man received that which was received by the Word. For all that man has received is spoken to those who have received the Word, so that it may be seen that He as a man, as far as it is in accordance with His nature, was not worthy to receive, yet He received it for the sake of the Word, which was made flesh. Therefore, if it is said that something is given to the Lord, or something like that, then it must be imagined that it is not given to Him as one who has need, but is given to man through the Word. And everyone who intercedes for another accepts mercy, not having need of it himself, but for the sake of him for whom he intercedes.

7) Just as He accepts our infirmities without Himself being weak, and hungers without hungering, but prays for our infirmities so that they may be blotted out, so He Himself again accepts gifts from God instead of infirmities, so that a person who has entered into union with Him may partake of them. Thus, the Lord says: "All that thou hast given unto me, thou hast given unto them" (John 17:7-8); and again: I pray for these. He prayed for us, taking upon Himself our things, and gave us what He received. Since the Word was united to man, the Father, looking at the Word, gave man the opportunity to ascend, to have all power, and so on. Therefore it is written to the Word Himself, and as it were to Him is given all that through Him we accept. As the Word was made man for our sake, so through Him do we ascend. Wherefore there is nothing incongruous in the fact that, just as for our sake He humbled Himself, so for our sake He is said to be exalted. Thus, a gift to Him means: He gave it to us for His sake; and to exalt Him means to exalt us in Him. The Word Himself, when we are exalted, and receive, and receive help, as if He were lifted up, received, and received help, gives thanks to the Father, writing to Himself what is ours and saying: "All that Thou hast given Me, I have given unto them."

(8) The Arians, who follow Eusebius, by attributing to the Son the beginning of being, pretend not to agree that the Son has the beginning of kingship. But this is ridiculous. For he who ascribes to the Son the beginning of being, evidently ascribes to Him also the beginning of kingship; and therefore, recognizing what they themselves reject, they become blind. And also those who assert that the Son is one name, that the Son of God, that is, the Word of the Father, is neither self-existent nor independent, pretend to be indignant at those who assert that it was when the Son did not exist. And it's also funny. For those who do not ascribe existence to the Son are indignant at those who ascribe at least temporary existence. And what they themselves deny, they admit as a reproach to others. And the followers of Eusebius, recognizing the Son, deny that He is the Word by nature, and want the Son to be called the Word by invention. Others, while acknowledging the Word, deny that He is the Son, and, relying on absolutely nothing, want the Word to be called the Son by invention.