On the Trinity 15

If Christ is only man, how does he say: “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, because I know where I have come from and where I am going; you do not know where I have come from or where I am going; you judge according to the flesh”? See, here too he says that he will return to the place from which he testifies that he came before, sent, that is, from heaven. He came down, then, from where he came, just as he goes to the place from which he came down. Hence, if Christ were only man, he would not have come from there, and therefore would not be going away there either, since he would not have come from there. But by coming from where man cannot come, he showed that he had come as God. But the Jews, ignorant and unskilled regarding this very descent, have made these heretics their heirs, to whom it is said, “You do not know where I come from and where I am going; you judge according to the flesh.” These men, like the Jews, holding that Christ's birth was only fleshly, have believed Christ to be nothing other than a man, not considering this: that since man could not come from heaven so as rightly to be able to return there, he who came down from where man could not come is God.

If Christ is only man, how does he say, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world”? Now if every man is from this world, and Christ is therefore in this world, is he then only man? Far from it. But consider what he says: “I am not of this world.” Does he then lie when he says he is not of this world, if he is only man? Or if he does not lie, he is not of this world. He is not, then, only man, since he is not of this world. But lest it should be hidden who he was, he declared where he was from: “I,” he says, “am from above”; that is, from heaven, from where man cannot come, for he was not made in heaven. He who is from above, then, is God, and therefore is not of this world; although in a certain way he is also of this world, and so Christ is not only God, but also man. So that rightly, just as he is not of this world according to the divinity of the Word, so he is of this world according to the frailty of the body he took up: for he is man joined with God, and God united with man. But Christ here leaned now to one side, that of his divinity alone, because Jewish blindness looked only at the fleshly side in Christ; and so in the present passage, passing over in silence the frailty of the body, which is of the world, he spoke only of his divinity, which is not of the world: so that, as far as they had leaned toward believing him only a man, so far Christ might draw them to consider his divinity, that they might believe him God; wishing, leaving aside for the moment any mention of his human lot, to overcome their unbelief about his divinity by setting his divinity alone against it.

If Christ is only man, how does he say, “I came forth from God and have come”, when it is agreed that man was made by God, not that he proceeded from God? But as man did not proceed from God, so the Word of God did proceed, of whom it was said, “My heart has uttered a good Word.” And since it is from God, rightly it is also with God. And since it was not uttered to no purpose, rightly it makes all things. “For all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” But this Word, through whom all things were made, [is God]. “And the Word,” it says, “was God.” God, then, proceeded from God, since the Word who proceeded is God who proceeded from God. If Christ is only man, how does he say, “If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever”? What else is not seeing death forever than immortality? And immortality is the companion of divinity, because divinity is immortal and immortality is the fruit of divinity. But every man is mortal, and immortality cannot come from what is mortal. Therefore immortality cannot be born from Christ, if he is a mortal man. But “Whoever keeps my word,” he says, “will not see death forever.” Therefore the word of Christ grants immortality, and through immortality divinity. And if one who is himself mortal cannot make another immortal, but this word of Christ both shows and grants immortality, then surely he who grants immortality is not only man, for if he were only man he could not grant it; but by granting divinity through immortality, he proves himself God by offering divinity, which he could not grant unless he were God.

If Christ is only man, how does he say, “Before Abraham I am”? For no man can exist before him from whom he himself comes; nor can it be that anyone existed before him from whom he took his origin. But Christ, though he is from Abraham, says that he is before Abraham. Either, then, he lies and deceives, if he who was from Abraham did not exist before Abraham; or he does not deceive, if he is also God, since he existed before Abraham. And had he not been so, then, since he was from Abraham, he could not have been before Abraham. If Christ is only man, how does he say, “And I know them, and my own follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish forever”? But since every man is bound by the laws of mortality, and therefore cannot preserve himself forever, much less will he be able to preserve another forever. Yet Christ promises that he will give salvation forever; if he does not give it, he is a liar; if he gives it, he is God. But he does not deceive, for he gives what he promises. He is God, then, who offers everlasting salvation, which a man, who cannot preserve himself, will not be able to grant to another.

If Christ is only man, what does he mean by saying, “I and the Father are one”? For how are “I and the Father one”, unless he is both God and the Son? He can be called one with him because he is from him, and because he is his Son, and because he is born from him, since he is found to have proceeded from him, by which he is also God. When the Jews thought this offensive and believed it blasphemous, because by these words he had shown that he, Christ, was God, and therefore had run together for stones and were eager to hurl blows of rocks at him, he boldly refuted his opponents by the example and testimony of the Scriptures. “If,” he says, “he called them gods to whom the words of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” By these words he did not deny that he was God; on the contrary, he affirmed that he was God. For since those to whom the words of God came are without doubt said to be gods, much more is he God who is found better than all of them. And nonetheless he fittingly refuted the slanderous charge of blasphemy by a lawful distinction: for he wished to be understood as God in such a way that he would be understood as the Son of God, and not the Father himself. For he said that he had been sent, and showed that he had displayed many works from the Father; by which he wished to be understood not as the Father but as the Son; and in the last part of his defense he made mention of the Son, not the Father, saying, “You say, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” So as far as the charge of blasphemy is concerned, he says he is the Son, not the Father; but as far as concerns his divinity, by saying, “I and the Father are one”, he proved himself to be the Son and God. He is God, then; but God in such a way that he is the Son, not the Father.