17. We are still waiting, Fisherman, for your full description of the Word. He was in the beginning, it may be said, but perhaps He was not before the beginning. To this also I will furnish a reply on my Fisherman's behalf. The Word could not be other than He was; that was is unconditional and unlimited. But what says the Fisherman for himself? All things were made through Him. Thus, since nothing exists apart from Him through Whom the universe came into being, He, the Author of all things, must have an immeasurable existence. For time is a cognisable and divisible measure of extension, not in space, but in duration. All things are from Him, without exception; time then itself is His creature.
18. But, my Fisherman, the objection will be raised that you are reckless and extravagant in your language; that All things were made through Him needs qualification. There is the Unbegotten, made of none; there is also the Son, begotten of the Unborn Father. This All things is an unguarded statement, admitting no exceptions. While we are silent, not daring to answer or trying to think of some reply, do you break in with, And without Him was nothing made. You have restored the Author of the Godhead to His place, while proclaiming that He has a Companion. From your saying that nothing was made without Him, I learn that He was not alone. He through Whom the work was done is One; He without Whom it was not done is Another: a distinction is drawn between Creator and Companion.
19. Reverence for the One Unbegotten Creator distressed me, lest in your sweeping assertion that all things were made by the Word you had included Him. You have banished my fears by your Without Him was nothing made. Yet this same Without Him was nothing made brings trouble and distraction. There was, then, something made by that Other; not made, it is true, without Him. If the Other did make anything, even though the Word were present at the making, then it is untrue that through Him all things were made. It is one thing to be the Creator's Companion, quite another to be the Creator's Self. I could find answers of my own to the previous objections; in this case, Fisherman, I can only turn at once to your words, All things were made through Him. And now I understand, for the Apostle has enlightened me:--Things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all are through Him and in Him [587] .
20. Since, then, all things were made through Him, come to our help and tell us what it was that was made not without Him. That which was made in Him is life. That which was made in Him was certainly not made without Him; for that which was made in Him was also made through Him. All things were created in Him and through Him [588] . They were created in Him [589] , for He was born as God the Creator. Again, nothing that was made in Him was made without Him, for the reason that God the Begotten was life, and was born as Life, not made life after His birth; for there are not two elements in Him, one inborn and one afterwards conferred. There is no interval in His case between birth and maturity. None of the things that were created in Him was made without Him, for He is the Life which made their creation possible. Moreover God, the Son of God, became God by virtue of His birth, not after He was born. Being born the Living from the Living, the True from the True, the Perfect from the Perfect, He was born in full possession of His powers. He needed not to learn in after time what His birth was, but was conscious of His Godhead by the very fact that He was born as God of God. I and the Father are One [590] , are the words of the Only-begotten Son of the Unbegotten. It is the voice of the One God proclaiming Himself to be Father and Son; Father speaking in the Son and Son in the Father. Hence also He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also [591] ; hence All that the Father hath, He hath given to the Son [592] ; hence As the Father hath life in Himself so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself [593] ; hence No one knoweth the Father save the Son, nor the Son save the Father [594] ; hence In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily [595] .
21. This Life is the Light of men, the Light which lightens the darkness. To comfort us for that powerlessness to describe His generation of which the prophet speaks [596] , the Fisherman adds, And the darkness comprehended Him not [597] . The language of unaided reason was baffled and silenced; the Fisherman who lay on the bosom of the Lord was taught to express the mystery. His language is not the world's language, for He deals with things that are not of the world. Let us know what it is, if there be any teaching that you can extract from his words, more than their plain sense conveys; if you can translate into other terms the truth we have elicited, publish them abroad. If there be none--indeed, because there are none--let us accept with reverence this teaching of the fisherman, and recognise in his words the oracles of God. Let us cling in adoration to the true confession of Father and Son, Unbegotten and Only-begotten ineffably, Whose majesty defies all expression and all perception. Let us, like John, lie on the bosom of the Lord Jesus, that we too may understand and proclaim the mystery.
22. This faith, and every part of it, is impressed upon us by the evidence of the Gospels, by the teaching of the Apostles, by the futility of the treacherous attacks which heretics make on every side. The foundation stands firm and unshaken in face of winds and rains and torrents; storms cannot overthrow it, nor dripping waters hollow it, nor floods sweep it away. Its excellence is proved by the failure of countless assaults to impair it. Certain remedies are so compounded as to be of value not merely against some single disease but against all; they are of universal efficacy. So it is with the Catholic faith. It is not a medicine for some special malady, but for every ill; virulence cannot master, nor numbers defeat, nor complexity baffle it. One and unchanging it faces and conquers all its foes. Marvellous it is that one form of words should contain a remedy for every disease, a statement of truth to confront every contrivance of falsehood. Let heresy muster its forces and every sect come forth to battle. Let our answer to their challenge be that there is One Unbegotten God the Father, and One Only-begotten Son of God, perfect Offspring of perfect Parent; that the Sun was begotten by no lessening of the Father or subtraction from His Substance, but that He Who possesses all things begot an all-possessing Son; a Son not emanating nor proceeding from the Father, but compact of, and inherent in, the whole Divinity, of Him Who wherever He is present is present eternally; One free from time, unlimited in duration, since by Him all things were made [598] , and, indeed, He could not be confined within a limit created by Himself. Such is the Catholic and Apostolic Faith which the Gospel has taught us and we avow.
23. Let Sabellius, if he dare, confound Father and Son as two names with one meaning, making of them not Unity but One Person. He shall have a prompt answer from the Gospels, not once or twice, but often repeated, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased [599] . He shall hear the words, The Father is greater than I [600] , and I go to the Father [601] , and Father, I thank Thee [602] , and Glorify Me, Father [603] , and Thou art the Son of the living God [604] . Let Hebion try to sap the faith, who allows the Son of God no life before the Virgin's womb, and sees in Him the Word only after His life as flesh had begun. We will bid him read again, Father, glorify Me with Thine own Self with that glory which I had with Thee before the world was [605] , and In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [606] , and All things were made through Him [607] , and He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not [608] . Let the preachers whose apostleship is of the newest fashion--an apostleship of Antichrist--come forward and pour their mockery and insult upon the Son of God. They must hear, I came out from the Father [609] and The Son in the Father's bosom [610] , and I and the Father are One [611] , and I in the Father, and the Father in Me [612] . And lastly, if they be wrath, as the Jews were, that Christ should claim God for His own Father, making Himself equal with God, they must take the answer which He gave the Jews, Believe My works, that the Father is in Me and I in the Father [613] . Thus our one immovable foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God [614] . On it we can base an answer to every objection with which perverted ingenuity or embittered treachery may assail the truth.
24. In what remains we have the appointment of the Father's will. The Virgin, the birth, the Body, then the Cross, the death, the visit to the lower world; these things are our salvation. For the sake of mankind the Son of God was born of the Virgin and of the Holy Ghost. In this process He ministered to Himself; by His own power--the power of God--which overshadowed her He sowed the beginning of His Body, and entered on the first stage of His life in the flesh. He did it that by His Incarnation He might take to Himself from the Virgin the fleshly nature, and that through this commingling there might come into being a hallowed Body of all humanity; that so through that Body which He was pleased to assume all mankind might be hid in Him, and He in return, through His unseen existence, be reproduced in all. Thus the invisible Image of God scorned not the shame which marks the beginnings of human life. He passed through every stage; through conception, birth, wailing, cradle and each successive humiliation.
25. What worthy return can we make for so great a condescension? The One Only-begotten God, ineffably born of God, entered the Virgin's womb and grew and took the frame of poor humanity. He Who upholds the universe, within Whom and through Whom are all things, was brought forth by common childbirth; He at Whose voice Archangels and Angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted, was heard in childish wailing. The Invisible and Incomprehensible, Whom sight and feeling and touch cannot gauge, was wrapped in a cradle. If any man deem all this unworthy of God, the greater must he own his debt for the benefit conferred the less such condescension befits the majesty of God. He by Whom man was made had nothing to gain by becoming Man; it was our gain that God was incarnate and dwelt among us, making all flesh His home by taking upon Him the flesh of One. We were raised because He was lowered; shame to Him was glory to us. He, being God, made flesh His residence, and we in return are lifted anew from the flesh to God.
26. But lest perchance fastidious minds be exercised by cradle and wailing, birth and conception, we must render to God the glory which each of these contains, that we may approach His self-abasement with souls duly filled with His claim to reign, and not forget His majesty in His condescension. Let us note, therefore, who were attendant on His conception. An Angel speaks to Zacharias; fertility is given to the barren; the priest comes forth dumb from the place of incense; John bursts forth into speech while yet confined within his mother's womb; an Angel blesses Mary and promises that she, a virgin, shall be the mother of the Son of God. Conscious of her virginity, she is distressed at this hard thing; the Angel explains to her the mighty working of God, saying, The Holy Ghost shall come from above into thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee [615] . The Holy Ghost, descending from above, hallowed the Virgin's womb, and breathing therein (for The Spirit bloweth where it listeth [616] ), mingled Himself with the fleshly nature of man, and annexed by force and might that foreign domain. And, lest through weakness of the human structure failure should ensue, the power of the Most High overshadowed the Virgin, strengthening her feebleness in semblance of a cloud cast round her, that the shadow, which was the might of God, might fortify her bodily frame to receive the procreative power of the Spirit. Such is the glory of the conception.