11. In the third place, wisdom is called the splendour of eternal light. The force of this expression we have explained in the preceding pages, when we introduced the similitude of the sun and the splendour of its rays, and showed to the best of our power how this should be understood. To what we then said we shall add only the following remark. That is properly termed everlasting or eternal which neither had a beginning of existence, nor can ever cease to be what it is. And this is the idea conveyed by John when he says that "God is light." Now His wisdom is the splendour of that light, not only in respect of its being light, but also of being everlasting light, so that His wisdom is eternal and everlasting splendour. If this be fully understood, it clearly shows that the existence of the Son is derived from the Father but not in time, nor from any other beginning, except, as we have said, from God Himself.
12. But wisdom is also called the stainless mirror of the energeia or working of God. We must first understand, then, what the working of the power of God is. It is a sort of vigour, so to speak, by which God operates either in creation, or in providence, or in judgment, or in the disposal and arrangement of individual things, each in its season. For as the image formed in a mirror unerringly reflects all the acts and movements of him who gazes on it, so would Wisdom have herself to be understood when she is called the stainless mirror of the power and working of the Father: as the Lord Jesus Christ also, who is the Wisdom of God, declares of Himself when He says, "The works which the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." [1985] And again He says, that the Son cannot do anything of Himself, save what He sees the Father do. As therefore the Son in no respect differs from the Father in the power of His works, and the work of the Son is not a different thing from that of the Father, but one and the same movement, so to speak, is in all things, He therefore named Him a stainless mirror, that by such an expression it might be understood that them is no dissimilarity whatever between the Son and the Father. How, indeed, can those things which are said by some to be done after the manner in which a disciple resembles or imitates his master, or according to the view that those things are made by the Son in bodily material which were first formed by the Father in their spiritual essence, agree with the declarations of Scripture, seeing in the Gospel the Son is said to do not similar things, but the same things in a similar manner?
13. It remains that we inquire what is the "image of His goodness;" and here, I think, we must understand the same thing which we expressed a little ago, in speaking of the image formed by the mirror. For He is the primal goodness, doubtless, out of which the Son is born, who, being in all respects the image of the Father, may certainly also be called with propriety the image of His goodness. For there is no other second goodness existing in the Son, save that which is in the Father. And therefore also the Saviour Himself rightly says in the Gospel, "There is none good save one only, God the Father," [1986] that by such an expression it may be understood that the Son is not of a different goodness, but of that only which exists in the Father, of whom He is rightly termed the image, because He proceeds from no other source but from that primal goodness, lest there might appear to be in the Son a different goodness from that which is in the Father. Nor is there any dissimilarity or difference of goodness in the Son. And therefore it is not to be imagined that there is a kind of blasphemy, as it were, in the words, "There is none good save one only, God the Father," as if thereby it may be supposed to be denied that either Christ or the Holy Spirit was good. But, as we have already said, the primal goodness is to be understood as residing in God the Father, from whom both the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds, retaining within them, without any doubt, the nature of that goodness which is in the source whence they are derived. And if there be any other things which in Scripture are called good, whether angel, or man, or servant, or treasure, or a good heart, or a good tree, all these are so termed catachrestically, [1987] having in them an accidental, not an essential goodness. But it would require both much time and labour to collect together all the titles of the Son of God, such, e.g., as the true light, or the door, or the righteousness, or the sanctification, or the redemption, and countless others; and to show for what reasons each one of them is so given. Satisfied, therefore, with what we have already advanced, we go on with our inquiries into those other matters which follow.
[1955] Prov. viii. 22-25. The reading in the text differs considerably from that of the Vulgate.
[1956] Col. i. 15.
[1957] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[1958] Aliquid insubstantivum.
[1959] Substantialiter.
[1960] Ad punctum alicujus momenti.
[1961] Omnis virtus ac deformatio futuræ creaturæ.
[1962] This work is mentioned by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., iii. c. 3 and 25, as among the spurious writings current in the Church. The Acts of Paul and Thecla was a different work from the Acts of Paul. The words quoted, "Hic est verbum animal vivens," seem to be a corruption from Heb. iv. 12, zon gar ho logos tou Theou. [Jones on the Canon, vol. ii. pp. 353-411, as to Paul and Thecla. As to this quotation of our author, see Lardner, Credib., ii. p. 539.]
[1963] Or, "and the Word was God."
[1964] "Quoniam hi qui videntur apud nos hominum filii, vel ceterorum animalium, semini eorum a quibus seminati sunt respondent, vel earum quarum in utero formantur ac nutriuntur, habent ex his quidquid illud est quod in lucem hanc assumunt, ac deferunt processuri." Probably the last two words should be "deferunt processuris"--"and hand it over to those who are destined to come forth from them," i.e., to their descendants.
[1965] Subsistentia. Some would read here, "substantia."
[1966] Per adoptionem Spiritus. The original words here were probably eispoiesis tou pneumatos, and Rufinus seems to have mistaken the allusion to Gen. ii. 7. To "adoption," in the technical theological sense, the words in the text cannot have any reference.--Schnitzer.
[1967] Col. i. 15.
[1968] Heb. i. 3.
[1969] aporrhoia.
[1970] Wisd. vii. 25.
[1971] Gen. v. 3.
[1972] Subsistentia.
[1973] John xiv. 9.
[1974] Heb. i. 3.
[1975] Luke vi. 42.
[1976] Heb. i. 3. Substantiæ vel subsistentiæ.
[1977] Wisd. vii. 25, 26.
[1978] "Hujus ergo totius virtutis tantæ et tam immensæ vapor, et, ut ita dicam, vigor ipse in propriâ subsistentiâ effectus, quamvis ex ipsa virtute velut voluntas ex mente procedat, tamen et ipsa voluntas Dei nihilominus Dei virtus efficitur."
[1979] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[1980] Ps. civ. 24.
[1981] John i. 3.
[1982] Rev. i. 8.
[1983] John xvii. 10.
[1984] Phil. ii. 10, 11.
[1985] John v. 19.
[1986] [Luke xviii. 19.]
[1987] Abusive [= improperly used. S.]