Tertullian

Source Quotes:

"Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated: Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son�.Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy, whilst it at the same time guards the state of the Economy. Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said.

Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being�.Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another.

Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, "I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter...even the Spirit of truth," thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy." (Against Praxeus, Chapters 8-9) "I maintain that the substance existed always with its own name, which is God�. but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God.

For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father." (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 3) "For before all things God was alone - being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things.

Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call 'logos', by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God; although it would be more suitable to regard Reason as the more ancient; because God had not Word from the beginning, but He had Reason even before the beginning; because also Word itself consists of Reason, which it thus proves to have been the prior existence as being its own substance. Not that this distinction is of any practical moment. For although God had not yet sent out His Word, He still had Him within Himself, both in company with and included within His very Reason, as He silently planned and arranged within Himself everything which He was afterwards about to utter through His Word.

Now, whilst He was thus planning and arranging with His own Reason, He was actually causing that to become Word which He was dealing with in the way of Word or Discourse. And that you may the more readily understand this, consider first of all, from your own self, who are made 'in the image and likeness of God,' for what purpose it is that you also possess reason in yourself, who are a rational creature�.Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every impulse of your conception.

Whatever you think, there is a word; whatever you conceive, there is reason. You must needs speak it in your mind; and while you are speaking, you admit speech as an interlocutor with you, involved in which there is this very reason, whereby, while in thought you are holding converse with your word, you are (by reciprocal action) producing thought by means of that converse with your word. Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech, and through which also, (by reciprocity of process, ) in uttering speech you generate thought. The word is itself a different thing from yourself.

Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness even you are regarded as being, inasmuch as He has reason within Himself even while He is silent, and involved in that Reason His Word! I may therefore without rashness first lay this down (as a fixed principle) that even then before the creation of the universe God was not alone, since He had within Himself both Reason, and, inherent in Reason, His Word, which He made second to Himself by agitating it within Himself." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 5) Further Quotations from Tertullian: "We�believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation�that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her - being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 2) "�All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 2) "The Son�acknowledges the Father, speaking in His own person, under the name of Wisdom: 'The Lord formed Me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works; before all the hills did He beget Me.'

For if indeed Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a view to His works, and to accomplish His ways, yet proof is given in another Scripture that 'all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there nothing made;' as, again, in another place (it is said), 'By His word were the heavens established, and all the powers thereof by His Spirit' - that is to say, by the Spirit (or Divine Nature) which was in the Word: thus is it evident that it is one and the same power which is in one place described under the name of Wisdom, and in another passage under the appellation of the Word, which was initiated for the works of God which 'strengthened the heavens;' 'by which all things were made,' 'and without which nothing was made.' Nor need we dwell any longer on this point, as if it were not the very Word Himself, who is spoken of under the name both of Wisdom and of Reason, and of the entire Divine Soul and Spirit. He became also the Son of God, and was begotten when He proceeded forth from Him." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 7) "[The] Word of God, then�is called the Son, who Himself is designated God[.]

'The Word was with God, and the Word was God.' It is written, 'Thou shalt not take God's name in vain.' This for certain is He 'who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.'" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 7) "The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father, as He says, 'I am in the Father;' and is always with God, according to what is written, 'And the Word was with God;' and never separate from the Father, or other than the Father, since 'I and the Father are one.'" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 8) "�the Father and the Son are demonstrated to be distinct; I say distinct, but not separate�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 11) "�all the Scriptures attest the clear existence of, and distinction in (the Persons of) the Trinity, and indeed furnish us with our Rule of faith�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 11) "�the Word of God [is he] 'through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.' Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says) 'The Word was God,' then you have two Beings - One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates.

In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained: on the ground of Personality, not of Substance - in the way of distinction, not of division�.I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons)�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 12) "�listen to the psalm in which Two are described as God: 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee or made Thee His Christ.' Now, since He here speaks to God, and affirms that God is anointed by God, He must have affirmed that Two are God, by reason of the sceptre's royal power.

Accordingly, Isaiah also says to the Person of Christ: 'The Sab�ans, men of stature, shall pass over to Thee; and they shall follow after Thee, bound in fetters; and they shall worship Thee, because God is in Thee: for Thou art our God, yet we knew it not; Thou art the God of Israel.' For here too, by saying, 'God is in Thee', and 'Thou art God,' he sets forth Two who were God: (in the former expression in Thee, he means) in Christ, and (in the other he means) the Holy Ghost. That is a still grander statement which you will find expressly made in the Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

There was One 'who was,' and there was another 'with whom' He was. But I find in Scripture the name Lord also applied to them Both: 'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand.' And Isaiah says this: 'Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' Now he would most certainly have said Thine Arm, if he had not wished us to understand that the Father is Lord, and the Son also is Lord. A much more ancient testimony we have also in Genesis: 'Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.'

Now, either deny that this is Scripture; or else (let me ask) what sort of man you are, that you do not think words ought to be taken and understood in the sense in which they are written, especially when they are not expressed in allegories and parables, but in determinate and simple declarations?" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "�we, who by the grace of God possess an insight into both the times and the occasions of the Sacred Writings, especially we who are followers of the Paraclete, not of human teachers, do indeed definitively declare that Two Beings are God, the Father and the Son, and, with the addition of the Holy Spirit, even Three, according to the principle of the divine economy, which introduces number�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "That there are, however, two Gods or two Lords, is a statement which at no time proceeds out of our mouth: not as if it were untrue that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God; but because in earlier times Two were actually spoken of as God, and two as Lord, that when Christ should come He might be both acknowledged as God and designated as Lord, being the Son of Him who is both God and Lord.

Now, if there were found in the Scriptures but one Personality of Him who is God and Lord, Christ would justly enough be inadmissible to the title of God and Lord: for (in the Scriptures) there was declared to be none other than One God and One Lord, and it must have followed that the Father should Himself seem to have come down (to earth), inasmuch as only One God and One Lord was ever read of (in the Scriptures)�.As soon, however, as Christ came, and was recognised by us as the very Being who had from the beginning caused plurality (in the Divine Economy), being the second from the Father, and with the Spirit the third, and Himself declaring and manifesting the Father more fully (than He had ever been before), the title of Him who is God and Lord was at once restored to the Unity (of the Divine Nature)�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "�the title of God and Lord is suitable both to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost�." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "I will therefore not speak of gods at all, nor of lords, but I shall follow the apostle; so that if the Father and the Son, are alike to be invoked, I shall call the Father 'God,' and invoke Jesus Christ as 'Lord.' But when Christ alone (is mentioned), I shall be able to call Him "God," as the same apostle says: 'Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever.'" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "I shall reckon [that] two things and two forms of one undivided substance [are] God and His Word, as the Father and the Son." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 13) "�although the Word was God, yet was He with God, because He is God of God; and being joined to the Father, is with the Father." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 15) "[Paul] expressly called Christ God, saying: 'Of whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.'" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 15)"

And as for the Father's names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the 'One that is,' we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. 'All things,' says He, 'which the Father hath are mine.' Then why not His names also?

When, therefore, you read of Almighty God, and the Most High, and the God of hosts, and the King of Israel, the 'One that is,' consider whether the Son also be not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God, and has received power over all; is the Most High, in that He is 'exalted at the right hand of God,' as Peter declares in the Acts; is the Lord of hosts, because all things are by the Father made subject to Him; is the King of Israel because to Him has especially been committed the destiny of that nation; and is likewise 'the One that is,' because there are many who are called Sons, but are not�.even the Son of the Almighty is as much almighty as the Son of God is God." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 17) "

Now the Scripture is not in danger of requiring the aid of any one's argument, lest it should seem to be self-contradictory. It has a method of its own, both when it sets forth one only God, and also when it shows that there are Two, Father and Son; and is consistent with itself�.Therefore 'there is one God,' the Father, 'and without Him there is none else.'

And when He Himself makes this declaration, He denies not the Son, but says that there is no other God; and the Son is not different from the Father. Indeed, if you only look carefully at the contexts which follow such statements as this, you will find that they nearly always have distinct reference to the makers of idols and the worshippers thereof, with a view to the multitude of false gods being expelled by the unity of the Godhead, which nevertheless has a Son; and inasmuch as this Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, so is He to be reckoned as being in the Father, even when He is not named�.He says, then, that there is no God besides Himself in respect of the idolatry both of the Gentiles as well as of Israel�.When, therefore, He attested His own unity, the Father took care of the Son's interests, that Christ should not be supposed to have come from another God, but from Him who had already said, 'I am God and there is none other beside me,' who shows us that He is the only God, but in company with His Son, with whom 'He stretcheth out the heavens alone.'�By thus attaching the Son to Himself, He becomes His own interpreter in what sense He stretched out the heavens alone, meaning alone with His Son, even as He is one with His Son." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 18-19) "�the unity of God, that unity of His is preserved intact; for He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally with Himself comprehended in the same Scriptures�.we have shown above that Two are actually described in Scripture as God and Lord�.they are not said to be two Gods and two Lords, but that they are two as Father and Son; and this not by severance of their substance, but from the dispensation wherein we declare the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father - distinct in degree, not in state. And although, when named apart, He is called God, He does not thereby constitute two Gods, but one; and that from the very circumstance that He is entitled to be called God, from His union with the Father." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 19) "

And first of all there comes at once to hand the preamble of John to his Gospel, which shows us what He previously was who had to become flesh. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.' Now, since these words may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, there is without doubt shown to be One who was from the beginning, and also One with whom He always was: one the Word of God, the other God although the Word is also God (but God regarded as the Son of God, not as the Father); One through whom were all things, Another by whom were all things. But in what sense we call Him Another we have already often described. In that we called Him Another, we must needs imply that He is not identical - not identical indeed, yet not as if separate; Other by dispensation, not by division." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 21) "Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also�.'He shall receive of mine,' says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father's.

Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, 'I and my Father are One,' in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 25) "[Jesus] commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the Three Persons, at each several mention of Their names." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 26) "The Word is God�.the Word became flesh�.the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man; the very psalm which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that 'God became Man in the midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father' - certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own especial property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else but God, and the flesh nothing else but Man.

Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two substances, saying, 'who was made of the seed of David;' in which words He will be Man and Son of Man. 'Who was declared to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit;' in which words He will be God, and the Word - the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person - Jesus, God and Man." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 27) "'God is a Spirit,' [so] also�there is 'the Spirit of God;' in the same manner as we find that as 'the Word was God,' so also there is 'the Word of God.'" (Against Praxeus, Chapter 27) "[The Son] will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as He appeared when He ascended into heaven. Meanwhile He has received from the Father the promised gift, and has shed it forth, even the Holy Spirit - the Third Name in the Godhead, and the Third Degree of the Divine Majesty; the Declarer of the One Monarchy of God, but at the same time the Interpreter of the Economy, to every one who hears and receives the words of the new prophecy; and 'the Leader into all truth,' such as is in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, according to the mystery of the doctrine of Christ." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 30) "

God was pleased to renew His covenant with man in such a way as that His Unity might be believed in, after a new manner, through the Son and the Spirit, in order that God might now be known openly, in His proper Names and Persons, who in ancient times was not plainly understood, though declared through the Son and the Spirit." (Against Praxeus, Chapter 31) "[Hermogenes] does not appear to acknowledge any other Christ as Lord, though he holds Him in a different way; but by this difference in his faith he really makes Him another being - nay, he takes from Him everything which is God, since he will not have it that He made all things of nothing. For, turning away from Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Porch, he learned there from the Stoics how to place Matter (on the same level) with the Lord, just as if it too had existed ever both unborn and unmade, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which, according to him, the Lord afterwards created all things." (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 1) "�the very Wisdom of God�.from its being inherent in the Lord was of Him and in Him�.this same Wisdom is the Word of God�." (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 18) "�the Son is the Word, and 'the Word is God,' and 'I and my Father are one.'" (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 18) "

We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power�.We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun-there is no division of substance, but merely an extension.

Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence - in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united." (Apology, Chapter 21) "�you must needs allow that those who have not acknowledged the Father have failed likewise to acknowledge the Son through the identity of their natural substance�." (Against Marcion, Book 3, Chapter 6) "[Marcion's] Christ, therefore, in order to avoid all such deceits and fallacies, and the imputation, if possible, of belonging to the Creator, was not what he appeared to be, and reigned himself to be what he was not - incarnate without being flesh, human without being man, and likewise a divine Christ without being God!" (Against Marcion, Book 3, Chapter 8) "

And surely I might venture to claim the Very Word also as of the Creator's substance." (Against Marcion, Book 4, Chapter 9) "�the Jews, who looked at Him as merely man, and were not yet sure that He was God also, as being likewise the Son of God, rightly enough said that a man could not forgive sins, but God alone�. He who remitted sins was God and man�." (Against Marcion, Book 4, Chapter 10) "There come to Him from Tyre, and from other districts even, a transmarine multitude. This fact the psalm had in view: 'And behold tribes of foreign people, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians; they were there. Sion is my mother, shall a man say; and in her was born a man' (forasmuch as the God-man was born), and He built her by the Father's will; that you may know how Gentiles then flocked to Him, because He was born the God-man who was to build the church according to the Father's will - even of other races also." (Against Marcion, Book 4, Chapter 13) "

Now, what is that 'foolishness of God which is wiser than men,' but the cross and death of Christ? What is that 'weakness of God which is stronger than men,' but the nativity and incarnation of God? (Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 5) "Of course the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ's substance - that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, 'being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant,' not the reality, 'and was made in the likeness of man,' not a man, 'and was found in fashion as a man,' not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ 'the image of the invisible God.'

For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends, ) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or 'fashion') and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, 'found in the fashion' and image 'of a man.' For when he propounded Him as thus 'found' in the manner of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence.

Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have 'become obedient unto death,' if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance." (Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 20) "�we ask the reason why you have formed the opinion that Christ was not born. Since you think that this lay within the competency of your own arbitrary choice, you must needs have supposed that being born was either impossible for God, or unbecoming to Him. With God, however, nothing is impossible but what He does not will�.You cannot express any apprehension that, if He had been born and truly clothed Himself with man's nature, He would have ceased to be God, losing what He was, while becoming what He was not. For God is in no danger of losing His own state and condition." (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 2-3) "You have sometimes read and believed that the Creator's angels have been changed into human form�.Has it, then, been permitted to angels, which are inferior to God, after they have been changed into human bodily form, nevertheless to remain angels? And will you deprive God, their superior, of this faculty, as if Christ could not continue to be God, after His real assumption of the nature of man?" (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 3) "

There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and sufferings of God�.For which is more unworthy of God, which is more likely to raise a blush of shame, that God should be born, or that He should die? That He should bear the flesh, or the cross? Be circumcised, or be crucified? Be cradled, or be coffined? Be laid in a manger, or in a tomb?�Have you, then, cut away all sufferings from Christ, on the ground that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them?�answer me at once, you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again?�O thou most infamous of men, who acquittest of all guilt the murderers of God!" (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 5) "�Christ could not be described as being�Son of man without any human parent�nor the Son of God without having God for His father.

Thus the nature of the two substances displayed Him as man and God - in one respect born, in the other unborn�.This property of the two states - the divine and the human - is distinctly asserted with equal truth of both natures alike�." (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 5) "Christ, then, was actuated by the motive which led Him to take human nature. Man's salvation was the motive, the restoration of that which had perished. Man had perished; his recovery had become necessary. No such cause, however, existed for Christ's taking on Him the nature of angels.

For although there is assigned to angels also perdition in 'the fire prepared for the devil and his angels,' yet a restoration is never promised to them. No charge about the salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father; and that which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have undertaken�.But was it His object indeed to deliver man by an angel? Why, then, come down to do that which He was about to expedite with an angel's help? If by an angel's aid, why come Himself also? If He meant to do all by Himself, why have an angel too? He has been, it is true, called 'the Angel of great counsel,' that is, a messenger, by a term expressive of official function, not of nature. For He had to announce to the world the mighty purpose of the Father, even that which ordained the restoration of man. But He is not on this account to be regarded as an angel, as a Gabriel or a Michael�.He�is verily God, and the Son of God[.]" (On the Flesh of Christ, Chapter 14) "Neither, indeed, was ever used by Christ that familiar phrase of all the prophets, 'Thus saith the Lord.' For He was Himself the Lord, who openly spake by His own authority, prefacing His words with the formula, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you.' What need is there of further argument?

Hear what Isaiah says in emphatic words, 'It was no angel, nor deputy, but the Lord Himself who saved them.'" (On the Flesh of Christ, Paragraph 14) "And God made man, that is to say, the creature which He moulded and fashioned; after the image of God (in other words, of Christ) did He make him. And the Word was God also, who being in the image of God, 'thought it not robbery to be equal to God.'" (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Chapter 6) "Jesus is still sitting there at the right hand of the Father, man, yet God - the last Adam, yet the primary Word - flesh and blood, yet purer than ours - who 'shall descend in like manner as He ascended into heaven' the same both in substance and form, as the angels affirmed, so as even to be recognised by those who pierced Him. Designated, as He is, 'the Mediator between God and man,' He keeps in His own self the deposit of the flesh which has been committed to Him by both parties - the pledge and security of its entire perfection.

For as 'He has given to us the earnest of the Spirit,' so has He received from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it with Him into heaven as a pledge of that complete entirety which is one day to be restored to it." (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Chapter 51) "God suffers Himself to be conceived in a mother's womb�." (On Patience, Chapter 3) "�righteousness�was first in a rudimentary state, having a natural fear of God: from that stage it advanced�now, through the Paraclete, it is settling into maturity. He will be, after Christ, the only one to be called and revered as Master; for He speaks not from Himself, but what is commanded by Christ. He is the only prelate, because He alone succeeds Christ. They who have received Him set truth before custom. They who have heard Him prophesying even to the present time, not of old, bid virgins be wholly covered." (On the Veiling of Virgins, Chapter 1)

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