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10. And since we are showing how we can say the Father alone,
because there is no Father in the Godhead except Himself, we must
consider also the opinion which holds that the only true God is not the
Father alone, but the leather and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
For if any one should ask whether the Father alone is God, how can
it be replied that He is not, unless perhaps we were to say that the
Father indeed is God, but that He is not God alone, but that the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God alone? But then what shall
we do with that testimony of the Lord? For He was speaking to the
Father, and had named the Father as Him to whom He was speaking,
when He says, "And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee
the one true God." And this the Arians indeed usually take, as if
the Son were not true God. Passing them by, however, we must see
whether, when it is said to the Father, "That they may know Thee
the one true God," we are forced to understand it as if He wished to
intimate that the Father alone is the true God; lest we should not
understand any to be God, except the three together, the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Are we therefore, from the testimony of the
Lord, both to call the Father the one true God, and the Son the
one true God, and the Holy Spirit the one true God, and the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together, that is, the
Trinity itself together, not three true Gods but one true God? Or
because He added, "And Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent," are
we to supply "the one true God;" so that the order of the words is
this, "That they may know Thee, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent, the one true God?" Why then did He omit to mention the Holy
Spirit? Is it because it follow's, that whenever we name One who
cleaves to One by a harmony so great that through this harmony both are
one, this harmony itself must be understood, although it is not
mentioned? For in that place, too, the apostle seems as it were to
pass over the Holy Spirit; and yet there, too, He is understood,
where he says, "All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ
is God's." And again, "The head of the woman is the man, the
head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God." But
again, if God is only all three together, how can God be the head of
Christ, that is, the Trinity the head of Christ, since Christ is
in the Trinity in order that it may be the Trinity? Is that which is
the Father with the Son, the head of that which is the Son alone?
For the Father with the Son is God, but the Son alone is Christ:
especially since it is the Word already made flesh that speaks; and
according to this His humiliation also, the Father is greater than
He, as He says, "for my Father is greater than I;" so that the
very being of God, which is one to Him with the Father, is itself
the head of the man who is mediator, which He is alone. For if we
rightly call the mind the chief thing of man, that is, as it were the
head of the human substance, although the man himself together with the
mind is man; why is not the Word with the Father, which together is
God, much more suitably and much more the head of Christ, although
Christ as man cannot be understood except with the Word which was made
flesh? But this, as we have already said, we shall consider somewhat
more carefully hereafter. At present the equality and one and the same
substance of the Trinity has been demonstrated as briefly as possible,
that in whatever way that other question be determined, the more
rigorous discussion of which we have deferred, nothing may hinder us
from confessing the absolute equality of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
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