Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (29).

On the distinction of the persons. Let us now turn to the distinction of the persons. «Let us hold, then, as Augustine teaches in De fide ad Petrum¹, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are naturally one God, and yet that the Father is not the one who is the Son, nor the Son the one who is the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the one who is the Father or the Son. For the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one essence, in which the Father is not one thing, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, although personally the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another».

Chapter 2 (30).

1. Here he treats the Son’s coeternity with the Father. The Son was begotten by the Father, and therefore is another; yet the Father did not exist before the Son, for the three persons are coeternal with one another.

2. The Arians’ argument. Against this, the heretic says, as Ambrose relates in Book I of De Trinitate²: «Everything that is born is a son, has a beginning, and began to exist; and therefore, because he is a son, he has a beginning; and because he is a son, he has a beginning and began to exist». «For Arius himself, as Augustine recalls in Book VI of De Trinitate³, is reported to have said: If he is a son, there was a time when he was not a son».

3. Augustine’s Catholic reply. Whoever says this «does not understand that being born can also be everlasting for God, so that the Son is coeternal with the Father, just as splendor generated and spread from a fire would be coeval and coeternal with it, if the fire were eternal».

⁴ ergo CLX. 12 Pater aliud om. BCOX, add. interl. PR, add. mg. MT.]

⁵

4. Augustine’s objection to the heretic. Again: «If the Son of God, as Augustine says⁶, is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never without power and wisdom, the Son is coeternal with God the Father. The Apostle says⁷ that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Therefore either there was a time when the Son did not exist, or God at some time lacked power and wisdom; to say this is madness». For it is certain that he always had wisdom; therefore he always had the Son.

5. Ambrose’s reply to the same, supported by authority. Ambrose⁸ also answers the same Arian question in this way: «I confess, I say, that the Son was born; I shudder at what remains of impiety». «For it is written in the Old Testament⁹, to cite just one among many passages: Before me no other God existed, and after me there will be none. Who says this, then, the Father or the Son? If the Son, he says, “Before me there was no other God”; if the Father, he says, “After me there will be none.” The former has no one before him, the latter no one after him».

6. Ambrose argues against the heretic. «Each is known in the other, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father¹⁰. For when you name the Father, you have also indicated his Son, since no one is father to himself; when you name the Son, you also confess the Father, since no one is son to himself. Thus neither can the Son be without the Father, nor the Father without the Son; therefore the Father always is, and so is the Son».

7. Ambrose denounces the heretic. Again: «Tell me, heretic, I ask: was there a time when God the Father was not almighty, though he was God? For if he began to be Father, then he was God first and afterward became Father. How, then, is God immutable? If he was God before and Father afterward, he was surely changed by the addition of generation. But may God avert this madness»¹¹.

Chapter 3 (31).

1. It is ineffable how the Son exists without the Father being prior, just as the mode of generation is intelligible yet ineffable. «But you ask me, says Ambrose¹², how, if he is the Son, the Father is not prior. I ask you in turn how you think the Son was generated. For it is impossible for me to know the secret of generation. The mind fails; the voice falls silent—not mine alone, but that of the angels too. It is above the Powers, above the Angels, above the Cherubim, above the Seraphim, and above all understanding, because it is written¹³: The peace of Christ is above all understanding. If the peace of Christ is above all understanding, how much more is such a generation above all understanding? Therefore put your hand to your mouth; it is not permitted to scrutinize heavenly mysteries¹⁴. We may know that he was born; we may not investigate how he was born. I may not deny the former; fear forbids me to ask the latter». For that generation is ineffable; hence Isaiah¹⁵: Who shall declare his generation?

2. Some presume to investigate the order of generation. Yet some, relying on their own ingenuity, say that this generation and the like can be understood, following that authority of Jerome’s commentary on Ecclesiastes¹⁶: «In Sacred Scripture “who” is very often used not for what is impossible, but for what is difficult, as in “Who shall declare his generation?”» Jerome did not say this because the Son’s eternal generation can be fully understood or explained by any mortal, but because something about it can be understood or said. Some, however, take this saying to refer to Christ’s temporal generation.

¹⁷ corr. interl. in inintelligibilis. 5 abs] ab OPR, a V. 9 supra] super LPX.]

¹⁸

Chapter 4 (32).

1. Whether one ought to say «the Son is always being begotten» or «the Son has always been begotten». Since the Son’s generation by the Father has neither beginning nor end, because it is eternal, one may ask whether one ought to say: the Son is always being begotten, has always been begotten, or will always be begotten.

2. Gregory says on Job¹⁹: «The Lord God Jesus, in that he is the power and wisdom of God²⁰, was born from the Father before times—or rather, since he neither began to be born nor ceased, let us say more truly: he was always born. We cannot say “he is always being born,” lest he seem imperfect. But so that he may be shown to be both eternal and perfect, let us say “always born,” since “born” pertains to perfection and “always” to eternity; although by calling him “perfect” we stray far from expressing that truth, since what was not made cannot properly be called perfect». We stammer, as best we can, in echoing God’s heights²¹, and «the Lord speaks in the words of our weakness: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”»²².

3. Commenting on the Psalm’s passage²³, I have begotten you today, Augustine speaks of this generation of the Son as follows²⁴: «Although “today” can also be understood as the day on which Christ was born according to his humanity, yet because “today” signifies the present, and in eternity nothing is past, as though it had ceased to be, nor future, as though it were not yet, but only present—because whatever is eternal always is—it is more divinely understood of the everlasting generation of God’s Wisdom». Behold, Augustine shows here that the Son’s generation is always, neither past nor future, because it is eternal. He said I have begotten so that it would not be thought new, that is, as though it had begun; he said today so that the generation would not seem past. — From the Prophet’s words, then, as John Chrysostom says²⁵, «nothing else is made clear except that the Son has always been begotten from the very essence of the Father».

²⁶ imperfectus PT. 17 locum etiam trp. Gregorius.]

²⁷

4. Origen seems to say the contrary, for he says that the Son is always being generated by the Father. Origen says in his commentary on Jeremiah²⁸ that the Son is always generated by the Father, in these words: «Our Savior is the wisdom of God; wisdom is the splendor of eternal light; our Savior, therefore, is the splendor of glory. Splendor is not born once and then ceases; whenever the light from which splendor arises comes forth, the splendor of glory also comes forth. Thus the Savior is always being born. Hence he says in the Book of Wisdom²⁹: Before all the hills he begets me; not, as some wrongly read, he begot me». Origen plainly shows in these words that one can and should rightly say, The Son is always being born. This seems contrary to Gregory’s foregoing statement³⁰, namely, «We cannot say: he is always being born».

5. Augustine, discussing one who is always born in Book 84 of the Questions, says³¹: «“Always born” is better than “always being born,” because one who is always being born has not yet been born and will never be born if he is always being born. For to be born is one thing, to have been born another; and thus the Son never exists if he was never born. But he is the Son because he was born, and he is always the Son; therefore he has always been born».

6. He explains Gregory’s foregoing words, lest the teachers appear to contradict one another. So that such great authorities do not seem to contradict each other in so important a matter, let us interpret Gregory’s words kindly. «The Lord», he says³², «Jesus was born from the Father before times—or rather, since he neither began to be born nor ceased, let us say more truly: he was always born».

³³ dominus add. 14–18 Notula om. MP. 19 inter] in BCOP. 21 interpretemur] interpretemus OPR, quod corr. R.]

³⁴

Question about Gregory’s own words. But why is this said more truly—that the Son has always been born—than that he was born from the Father before times? — He resolves this. Why, then, did Gregory say this, since both are equally true? Only because he wished the former to be understood as expressing the truth more clearly and fully than the latter. For these words close every avenue of attack to cunning heretics, showing that Christ’s generation according to his divinity is without beginning or end and is perfect. But the truth is not made so clear when one says, «The Son was begotten from the Father before times». For that reason, Gregory says «he is always being born»—not, I say, so appropriately as «his birth is eternal»; yet it can be said if you understand, as Origen says, that the Son is born from the Father because that generation always is. And because it always is, his birth is eternal.

7. He confirms from Hilary’s words that the Son is always being generated. Hilary too says that the Son is born from the Father, in Book VII of De Trinitate³⁵, in these words: «The living God is the power of an eternal living nature; and what was born with the mystery of his knowledge could be nothing other than God. For you are to understand that both the Father and the Son have in themselves every living life: “I live through the Father,” and the one who sent me lives, so that the Father is known to be in the Son, and likewise the Son in the Father». Behold, you have here that the Son is generated as living from the living.

Likewise in the same work³⁶: «When Christ says, As the Father has life in himself, so he gave the Son to have life in himself³⁷, he attested that all his life comes from the living one. What is born living from the living has the perfection of birth without novelty of nature. For what is born from the living into the living is not new, since it is not from nothing; and life that receives birth from life must, through the unity of nature and the mystery of perfect birth, live in the living one and have in itself living life». Here too you have that the Son is generated as living from the living. (Observe: everything that is in God lives.) Again, in the same work³⁸: «In God everything that exists lives: for God is life, and from life nothing can be except what lives; birth is not by derivation but by power. Thus, since everything that exists lives and everything born from him is power, the Son has birth, not alteration». Here too he says that the Son is born.

Again, in Book IX³⁹: «The Father grants the Son to be as much as he himself is, imparting to him through the mystery of birth the image of being unbegotten». Here he says that the Father begets the Son.

8. He briefly teaches what should be conceded on this matter. Let us therefore say that the Son was born from the Father before times and is always being born from the Father, but more fittingly that he has always been born; and let us confess that he exists from eternity and is coeternal with the Father, that is, with his source. For by generation the Father is the Son’s source, as he is in himself; the Son too is eternal, but the Father is without a source whereas the Son is not, because the Father is unbegotten and the Son born. — As Hilary says in Book XII of De Trinitate⁴⁰: «It is one thing to be eternal always without a source, another to be coeternal with the Father, that is, with one’s source. Where the Father is the source, there is birth; where the source is eternal, there is also the eternity of birth. For just as birth from an eternal source is eternal, so it is from an eternal source. Everything that is from eternity is also eternal; yet not everything eternal is unbegotten. Since what was born from eternity cannot be in doubt as having been absent: if begetting is without limit for the begetter, being born is also without limit for the one born. The mind admits no interval between the birth of God the Son and the generation of God the Father; for generation includes birth and birth includes generation, since neither exists without the other. Therefore both are without any interval between them».

Chapter 5 (33).

1. The heretic’s argument. «But the heretic will object⁴¹: Everything that was born did not always exist, since it was born in order to exist».

2. Hilary’s reply. «No one doubts that things born among human beings once did not exist. But it is one thing to be born from one who did not exist— to be born from one who did not exist, another to be born from one who always exists. In the former case, the one who is father did not always exist, nor was he always father; and one who was not always father did not always beget. But where he is always Father, the Son is always. If it is proper to God the Father always to be Father, then it must be proper to the Son always to be Son. How, then, can it enter our understanding that he was not always, whose property is always to be what he was born as?» — «We therefore confess⁴² that God the Only-begotten was born, but born before times; neither did he exist before he was born, nor was he born before he existed. For to be born as what one already was is no longer to be born, but to alter oneself by being born. This exceeds human sense and the understanding of the world; human reason cannot grasp it, but it is a confession of faithful wisdom».

⁴³ de mutatione BCL. 10 semper] aperte LNRTVWX. 14–15 at... est? suppl. ex Hil. 18 etiam] et OP. 25 et? om. MOPVX. 31 add. interl. L², add. mg. O²T². 32 non?] semper add. NVWX.]