Does He not, beyond all doubt, point us to this very thing when He says, "This is the will of the Father, that I should lose nothing" of what has been brought to Him, "but should raise it up at the last day"?
For, as we have already said, the God and Father who loves mankind brings to Christ, as Life and Savior, everyone who needs life and salvation. Yet I feel again that I am saying something contrary to the enemy of truth.
He will not agree with what we have just said. He will cry out loudly and attack us with such words as these: "Where, my dear sir, are you dragging us again? You invent intricate diversions of thought and draw the discussion away from truth.
"Perhaps you are ashamed to confess the Son's unwilling subjection. Is it not clear to us from this also that He does not rule or govern the divine economy in these matters, but submits to the Father's desires?
"Thus He knew Himself to be beneath equality with Him. In some way He is even compelled to make what is unwilling willing, and to accomplish not what was pleasing to Him, but what was pleasing to the Father.
"And do not tell me again," the opponent says, "by referring the statement to the Incarnation, that He submits as man. For see, while He was still God and the pure Word, not yet united to flesh, He came down from heaven.
"Before He had wholly put on the form of a servant, He was subject to the Father, clearly as to One who has precedence and authority."
You attack us with words which you doubtless consider strong and persuasive, like cavalry easily set in motion, my dear sir. Yet they do not run straight, but turn aside from the royal and well-trodden road.
Leaving, as the Greeks say, the highway, you rush toward precipices and rocks. In truth, you labor in vain by always setting before us this subjection of the Son to the Father.
You speak as though anyone accustomed to think rightly supposed that the opposite view should be preferred, and not rather that agreement with you in this matter is necessary.
For we cannot imagine that the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity ever rises up against Itself. Nor is It divided into different opinions, as though anything could please the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit separately.
They agree in all things. Thus in the whole Holy Trinity, since It is of one Godhead, one and the same will always abides.
Therefore we should set aside detailed speech on this point and refrain from a wholly useless dispute. If no one is touched by this matter, it is needless for us to strain ourselves.
But since you, being accustomed to think and reason perversely, call the Son's agreement with the Father's desires a subjection arising from necessity, we shall set forth the proper argument against you.
If you presented this expression in simplicity, one could rightly leave the saying about the Son's "subjection" to the Father without any inquiry. But since we see it set forth by you with some special malice, we must oppose it.
We hope in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our own words. The Son did not state absolutely, in every respect, or concerning every matter, that He does not accomplish His own desires.
Rather, He says that He preserves the Father's will in a definite matter. I think He did this because of your evil devices, as God providing beforehand for our safety.
He suffers what is unwilling and makes it willing for our sake. I mean the Passion on the Cross, for such was the good pleasure of the Begetter, as we have already said.
Indeed, one can immediately see the reason set before us and the purpose clearly indicated. He says why He renounced His own desires and fulfills the Father's will.
For He says, "This is the will of the Father, that of all that He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day."
That the Passion on the Cross was truly unwilling for the Only-begotten, and at the same time willing, has already been clearly said. But now let us again examine this more precisely, revealing the truth to the readers.
First of all, I shall examine the "subjection" to which you point. It is evident, and is undisputedly admitted by you, that the desires of the Holy Trinity always come together into one will and one intent.
Let these terrible sophists tell us, then: is the name and condition of subjection the essence and nature of the Son, as humanity is in man?
Or, having existed beforehand, does He Himself in His own proper mode submit to the Father, as one might think of an angel or some other rational power?
For because such a power is and exists, it assumes the corresponding mode of subjection. If you say that the Son's essence consists in subjection to the Father, then this will be subjection, not a son.
And in that case, tell me, will you not be found babbling the greatest nonsense? Can subjection be conceived as existing by itself, without belonging to some being?
Things such as subjection always belong to those existing beings in which they are found, and not otherwise. They are observed as being with essences, not as constituting the essences themselves or existing by themselves.
For example, a desire that summons and draws toward some existing thing could not exist by itself. It is produced only in one inclined to receive it.
So also subjection, which reveals a certain inclination of desires toward submission to someone, cannot be conceived as existing in its own separate nature. Rather, as a condition, will, or desire, it exists in some other being.
Otherwise both the name and the condition of subjection, spoken indifferently and without an object, will properly belong to no one. It will even be impossible to know whether it is bad or good.
One must add whose subjection it is. For one can be subject to God, but also to the devil.
Just as the name "wise man" has a double sense, for some are "wise to do evil" (Jer 4:22), while "the wise shall inherit glory" (Prov 3:35), clearly those who have wisdom in good.
So also subjection contains a certain ambiguity, not a precisely determined relation. It remains wholly unclear whose subjection it will be.
Therefore the Son's nature must remain unknown to us if you conceive it as subjection. Whose subjection it is could not be answered without error when the term "subjection" lacks all determination.
That subjection can never exist by itself in its own special mode may be seen somewhat more plainly and visibly if we now direct our speech to created things and use a certain inference.
For example, if we define the essence of man as consisting in subjection, then we must undoubtedly conclude that he cannot be in a state of non-subjection.
But how, then, did the Psalmist speak to someone already being and existing, yet not yet subject: "Be subject to the Lord, and entreat Him" (Ps 36:7)?
Do you not see how senseless it is to present subjection as existing by itself? Therefore one must also acknowledge that the Son first is and exists in His own nature.
Only then, as such, already existing as Son, does He say that He is subject to the Father. Tell me, then, what compels Him who appeared from the essence of the Begetter, the exact imprint of His nature, to fall away from equality with Him because of His obedience?
But we, thinking and speaking rightly, confess Him consubstantial with the Begetter. We ascribe to Him equal honor in all things, and in no way allow Him to be inferior to the dignity proper to the Godhead.
But consider how, through what you call subjection, you remove from equal honor with the Father Him who shines with the same qualities as the Father, because of identity of essence.
"Yet this very thing," the opponent will say, "must confirm our position. The Son obeys the Father and is not concerned with His own desires, but follows the Father's desires, clearly as those of One higher and greater."
But this very thing, according to your own words, my dear sir, which you think confirms your argument, you will find to be nothing other than the fruit of the ignorance belonging to you.
For if we were arguing about who is higher in dignity and has precedence in glory, even then your chatter would scarcely have any real force.
But since the mode of consubstantiality is being examined, must you not appear immeasurably foolish when you allot to God the Father a greater degree of it than to His own Offspring?
Greater or lesser, or anything like these, we certainly cannot regard as belonging to essence itself, just as we maintained concerning subjection. All these are outside essence and belong to what occurs around or with essences.
Only what has already appeared and exists can admit greater or lesser, for instance in comparison with another. If nothing already exists and has appeared beforehand, in which such a thing usually occurs, how could it exist by itself?
It is conceived and defined only as something accidental in relation to essence. Therefore when you name "greater" or "lesser," you do not touch the essence either of the Only-begotten or of the Father.
By external advantages or diminishment alone you think you honor the Father and insult the Son. Yet you clearly hear His cry: "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father."
You also hear that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father (Jn 5:23). Christ taught for a good purpose that beings not separable from each other as different in kind, but possessing one and the same essence, must be clothed in equal glory.
He did not allow testimony about Himself to be received from men, as He said. Rather, He Himself appeared as witness concerning Himself, most trustworthy and worthier than all (Jn 5:34).
Being Truth by nature, He doubtless speaks only what is true. We can prove this even from the very quality of the matters involved.
For greater and lesser do not belong to the essence itself of anything, but to what exists with essences. Thus man, insofar as he is conceived and called man, cannot have anything greater or lesser than another man.
Man as man is neither less than man nor greater than man, again as man. The nature is found equal in all.
The same reasoning remains valid with respect to angels, and to everything created and numbered among creatures. Such determinations, then, are wholly inadmissible with respect to the essences themselves.
They are accidental phenomena in essences, or something existing with essences, as we have shown above. How, then, will the Father be greater than the Son, God by nature greater than God by nature?
The Son's generation from Him must, beyond doubt, compel you, even against your will, to ascribe consubstantiality to Him.
Having accepted as certain that the Son is God by nature, let us resolve the question, if you please. If we give Him honor equal to Him from whom He is, do we thereby ascribe proper glory to the Begetter?
Or shall we do the opposite, by degrading the Begotten with lower and lesser dignities? This latter is more truly what the opponents actually do.
For it is the Father's glory to beget One such as He Himself is by nature. But the very opposite will occur, from which may God deliver us, if the Son does not preserve the nobility proper to Him.
This would be so if He had less in glory, or in anything else that must undoubtedly belong to Him, so that He might appear in all things perfect and true God.
Yet being of such a nature, equal to the Father, He honors the Father. Do not laugh at this, O man, and do not bring punishment upon yourself by ignorantly degrading what ought least of all to be degraded.
Indeed, He must surely be marveled at even because He honors and loves the Begetter. Every form of virtue has, as its source and root, the Supreme Essence over all.
The good first manifested in It flows also into us, who have been created according to Its image. Therefore the Lawgiver also proclaimed to us that father and mother must be honored.
He also set a most beautiful reward for this. He regarded it, I think, as a very great deed, and so free from every reproach that it even becomes the cause of long life.
THEOSIS