Wisdom 7:26

9. Let us see now what is the meaning of the expression which is found in the Wisdom of Solomon, where it is said of Wisdom that “it is a kind of breath of the power of God, and the purest efflux of the glory of the Omnipotent, and the splendour of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of the working or power of God, and the image of His goodness.” These, then, are the definitions which he gives of God, pointing out by each one of them certain attributes which belong to the Wisdom of God, calling wisdom the power, and the glory, and the everlasting light, and the working, and the goodness of God. …

Again Celsus proceeds: “If you should tell them that Jesus is not the Son of God, but that God is the Father of all, and that He alone ought to be truly worshipped, they would not consent to discontinue their worship of him who is their leader in the sedition. And they call him Son of God, not out of any extreme reverence for God, but from an extreme desire to extol Jesus Christ.” We, however, have learned who the Son of God is, and know that He is “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person,” and “the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty;” moreover, “the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness.” We know, therefore, that He is the Son of God, and that God is His father. …

We shall require to apply our mind with far greater intensity to the present question than was requisite in the solution and unfolding of the questions handled in the preceding books; for it is not with ordinary men, but with philosophers that we must confer concerning the theology which they call natural. For it is not like the fabulous, that is, the theatrical; nor the civil, that is, the urban theology: the one of which displays the crimes of the gods, whilst the other manifests their criminal desires, which demonstrate them to be rather malign demons than gods. It is, we say, with philosophers we have to confer with respect to this theology, men whose very name, if rendered into Latin, signifies those who profess the love of wisdom. Now, if wisdom is God, who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, then the philosopher is a lover of God. …

27. But if the Son is said to be sent by the Father on this account, that the one is the Father, and the other the Son, this does not in any manner hinder us from believing the Son to be equal, and consubstantial, and co-eternal with the Father, and yet to have been sent as Son by the Father. Not because the one is greater, the other less; but because the one is Father, the other Son; the one begetter, the other begotten; the one, He from whom He is who is sent; the other, He who is from Him who sends. For the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son. …

8. How shall I make those whose minds are full of vanity understand that the actions of the prophets were also mystical and prophetic? The vanity of their minds is shown in their thinking that we believe God to have once existed in darkness, because it is written, "Darkness was over the deep." As if we called the deep God, where there was darkness, because the light did not exist there before God made it by His word. From their not distinguishing between the light which is God, and the light which God made, they imagine that God must have been in darkness before He made light, because darkness was over the deep before God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." In the New Testament both these things are ascribed to God. …

79. But when He calls us to this by the Only-begotten Himself, He calls us to His own likeness. For He, as is said in what follows, “maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Whether you are to understand His sun as being not that which is visible to the fleshly eyes, but that wisdom of which it is said, “She is the brightness of the everlasting light;” of which it is also said, “The Sun of righteousness has arisen upon me;” and again, “But unto you that fear the name of the Lord shall the Sun of righteousness arise:” so that you would also understand the rain as being the watering with the doctrine of truth, because Christ hath appeared to the good and the evil, and is preached to the good and the evil. …

11. I suppose that your holiness has understood already what I am saying, that temporal things cannot be compared to eternal; but that by some slight and small resemblance, things coeval may be with things coeternal. Let us find accordingly two coeval things; and let us get our hints as to these resemblances from the Scriptures. We read in the Scriptures of Wisdom, “For she is the Brightness of the Everlasting Light.” Again we read, “The unspotted Mirror of the Majesty of God.” Wisdom Herself is called, “The Brightness of the Everlasting Light,” is called, “The Image of the Father;” from hence let us take a resemblance, that we may find two coeval things, from which we may understand things coeternal. …

2. But you will say, “The Father both ‘was,’ and was before the Word.” What are you looking for? “In the beginning was the Word.” What you find, understand; seek not for what you are not able to find. Nothing is before the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Son is the Brightness of the Father. Of the Wisdom of the Father, which is the Son, it is said, “For He is the brightness of the Everlasting Light.” Are you seeking for a Son without a Father? Give me a light without brightness. If there was a time when the Son was not, the Father was a light obscure. For how was He not an obscure Light, if It had no brightness? So then the Father always, the Son always. If the Father always, the Son always. Do you ask of me, whether the Son were born? I answer, “born.” For He would not be a Son if not born. So when I say, the Son always was, I say in fact was always born. …

13. Do not imagine that thou art to do something beyond a man’s ability. The Evangelist John himself did this. He soared beyond the flesh, beyond the earth which he trod, beyond the seas which he looked upon, beyond the air in which the fowls fly, beyond the sun, the moon, the stars, beyond all the spirits unseen, beyond his own mind, by the very reason of his rational soul. Soaring beyond all these, pouring out his soul above him, whither did he arrive? What did he see? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” If, therefore, thou seest no separation in the light, why seekest thou a separation in the work? See God, see His Word inhering to the Word speaking, that the speaker speaks not by syllables, but this his speaking is a shining out in the brightness of wisdom. …

2. He had said, “The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He seeth the Father doing.” We, however, understood it not that the Father doeth something separately, which when the Son seeth, Himself also doeth something of the same kind, after seeing His Father’s work; but when He said, “The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He seeth the Father doing,” we understood it that the Son is wholly of the Father, that His whole substance and His whole power are of the Father that begat Him. …

10. I may perhaps declare that matter more plainly still. One lights a candle: that candle, for example, so far as regards the little flame which shines there, that fire has light in itself; but thine eyes, which lay idle and saw nothing, in the absence of the candle, now have light also, but not in themselves. Further, if they turn away from the candle, they are made dark; if they turn to it, they are illumined. But certainly that fire shines so long as it exists: if thou wouldst take the light from it, thou dost also at the same time extinguish it; for without the light it cannot remain. …

XVII. For we have learnt to believe in and to teach the Deity of the Son from their great and lofty utterances. And what utterances are these? These: God, The Word, He That Was In The Beginning and With The Beginning, and The Beginning. “In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “With Thee is the Beginning,” and “He who calleth her The Beginning from generations.” Then the Son is Only-begotten: The only “begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, it says, He hath declared Him.” The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light. …