did not think that the true flesh of man had been assumed by Christ. Also Paul of Samosata' and Basilides are numbered in the same kind of opinion.

(9) Similarly, also, by the authority of the same opinion they are condemned who have denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. For certain others are either Arian Jews or Jewish Arians, for just as the former separate the Son from the Father, so the latter also separate the Spirit from God the Father and the Son of God.

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(10) Also to Novatus1o and Donatus11 and all who strove to divide the body of the Church, it is said individually: 'If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned.” For that is a sacrifice of the Church which is offered to God, to which Paul said: 'I exhort you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God.'13 Badly, then, did they divide the sacrifice by tearing asunder the members of the Church.

(11) That opinion also smites those who separate the

7 Paul, born at Samosata, succeeded Demetrianus as Bishop of Antioch in 260. His teachings were essentially Monarchianism.

8 Basilides was born in the latter part of the first century, the place of his birth being unknown. He was one of the leading Gnostics of the second century.

9 The Pneumatomachi, the heretics who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost. Ambrose wrote his treatise on the Holy Spirit against these. 10 Novatus, a priest of the Roman church, in the middle of the third century refuted Modalism and Adoptionism by affirming the divinity of Christ, but in doing so he fell into error. He never speaks of the human soul of Christ, although he affirms that other men are composed of body and soul. He also denies that the Son is equal to the Father, and considers the divine attributes as personal qualities. His teachings resulted in a schismatic church and the doctrine of Novatianism. 11 Donatus was the heretical bishop of Carthage in 315, and the founder of Donatism, a schism which arose ostensibly over the question of rebaptizing the lapsed.

12 Cf. Gen. 4.7.

rational soul from the sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation14 by desiring to separate the nature of man from man.15 And perhaps these do offer rightly to the Trinity, but they do not know how to distinguish the character of human from that of divine nature; for God's is a simple nature, man consists of a rational soul and a body. If you take away one, you have destroyed the entire nature of man.

(12) Thus that sentence is against all heresies, which under the name of brotherhood in an unbrotherly fashion persecute the Church, since under the option of the Christian name and a kind of nominal brotherhood of faith they desire to wound us with parricidal swords. For our conversion is to them,16 and sinners rule over us in the world for the sinner dominates in the world but the just man rules in the kingdom of God.

(13) Therefore, let us beware lest anyone attempt to separate us from the abode of the eternal King and from the bosom of Mother Church, to which that soul in the Canticle of Canticles17 indicates that she had led the Word of God. Let us beware lest we separate the substance of the hidden nature of the only begotten Son from the bosom of the Father and from, as it were, His paternal womb. And by these words on which is based the truth of the Incarnation which was assumed, let us strive to bring decisions for the divine generation, lest it be said, also, to someone of us: 'If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be still,' that is, if we do not know how to distinguish

14 A reference to Apollinaris of Laodicea and his followers. He joined Athanasius in combating Arianism but fell into the opposite heresy. He denied that Christ had a rational human soul, saying that it was replaced by His divinity. He thus founded Apollinarism.

15 That is, the Man-God.

16 An allusion to Gen. 3.16 (Septuagint).

the things that are characteristic of eternal divinity and the Incarnation, if we confuse the Creator with His works; if we say that the Author of time began after time. For it cannot be that He, through whom all things are, is one of all things.

Chapter 3

(14) I do not wish that credence be given us; let the Scripture be quoted. Not of myself do I say: 'In the beginning was the Word," but I hear it; I do not feign but I read what we all read, but do not all understand. And when it is read, we all hear, and all do not hear [i.e., understand]. 'For the heart of some has been hardened, and their ears have heard heavily," that is, the ears of interior disposition. For the flesh does not err, which performs its function and receives what is heard, but the mind is a perverse interpreter of good hearing, which refuses to hear what is said, and to understand what is read. Why do you stop your ears as with wax and lead, and yet you cannot shut out the benefits of the Lord and the functions of nature? You hear unwillingly, you hear disdainfully, you hear, so that you cannot make an excuse for what you have not heard.

(15) So you hear when this is read: 'In the beginning was the Word.' Who says this? Surely, John the fisherman, but he does not say this as a fisherman, but as a fisher of man's disposition. For already he was not catching fish but was quickening men.3 These words are not his, but His who granted him the power of quickening. For the fisherman was more silent than the fish which he formerly used to catch, and with respect to the divine mysteries he was more dumb who 1 John 1.1.

2 Cf. Acts 28.27.

did not know the author of his own voice; but he who is quickened by Christ has heard the voice in John, has recognized the Word in Christ.

(16) Accordingly, full of the Holy Spirit, since he knew that the beginning was not of time, but above time, he left the world, and ascending in spirit above all beginning, he says: 'In the beginning was the Word,' that is, let the heavens remain, for they were not yet, since 'in the beginning was the Word.' For, although the heavens have a beginning, God does not have one. Finally, 'in the beginning God made heaven and earth.' 'Made' is one thing; 'was' another. What is made has a beginning; what was, does not receive a beginning, but comes before. Let time also remain, because time is after the heavens. Let also the angels and the archangels remain. And if I do not discover their beginning, yet there was a time when they were not. For they were not who at some time began. If, then, I cannot discover the beginning of those who certainly had a beginning, how can I discover the beginning of the Word, from whom all beginning, not only of creatures, but also of all our thoughts springs.

(17) Thus had John clearly declared the everlasting divinity of the Word, but yet, lest anyone might separate the eternity of the Word from the Father, that we might believe that it is the same for the Word as for the Father, the good fisherman added: 'And the Word was with God'. This that he said is to be understood thus: "The Word was just as was the Father; since He was together with the Father, He was also in the Father, and He was always with the Father. Surely, just as we read 'He was' of the Father, thus also we read 'He was' of the Word.

(18) Why do you discern what is understood, who does

not discern what is heard? It is. of the Word to be with the Father; it is of the Father to be with the Word, for we read that 'the Word was with God.' So, if, according to your opinion, there was a time when He was not, then, according to your opinion, He too was not in the beginning with whom was the Word. For through the Word I hear, through the Word I understand that God was. For, if I shall believe that the Word is eternal, which I do believe, I cannot doubt about the eternity of the Father, whose Son is eternal. If I think His generation to be temporal, He begins to have fellowship with us, so that the Father seems to have begun to be; but if you do not doubt about the Father, because it is not of God to begin to be, you do not doubt about the Father, because it is of God to have eternal perfection. Lest, perchance, you slip in the use of human speech, when you say 'Word' and 'Son,' he accordingly added: 'And the Word was God.'

(19) Surely He has what the Father has, because He was God. How do you deny the eternity of Him who together with the Father has the one name of God? Let not the sound and the similarity of the expression deceive you. The word which is temporal, which is put together with syllables and is composed of letters, is one thing; the Son is not such a Word, because the Father of the Word is not such.

(20) We must be on our guard lest here also we seem to bring in the question of corporeal speech. God is incorporeal; surely, one who is incorporeal does not have corporeal speech. If corporeal speech is not in the Father, neither is the Son corporeal word. If body is not in the Father, neither is time in the Father. If time is not in the Father, surely it is not in the Word. But, if there is no time of beginning in the Word, surely there is neither number nor degree of the Word. For if there is number in the Word, then there are many