Against Praxeas

But they will quickly twist this very statement of His into an argument for His singleness. He says, "I have stretched out the heaven alone." Certainly, alone in relation to all other powers. In this way He gives a warning beforehand against the guesses of the heretics. They say that the world was made by different angels and powers. They also make the Creator Himself either an angel or some lower agent sent to form outward things, such as the parts of the world, while at the same time being ignorant of the divine purpose. If, then, this is the sense in which He stretched out the heavens alone, how is it that these heretics take their position so perversely as to make the singleness of that Wisdom unacceptable, the Wisdom that says, "When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him"? Proverbs 8:27 Even though the apostle asks, "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?" Romans 11:34 He means, of course, not including that Wisdom which was present with Him. Proverbs 8:30 At any rate, in Him and with Him, Wisdom built the universe, and He was not ignorant of what she was making. Now "except Wisdom" has exactly the same sense as "except the Son," who is Christ, the Wisdom and Power of God, according to the apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:24, and who alone knows the mind of the Father. For "who knows the things that are in God, except the Spirit which is in Him?" 1 Corinthians 2:11 Notice, not without Him. Therefore there was One who caused God not to be alone, though He was alone from all other gods. But if we are to follow the heretics, then the Gospel itself must be rejected, because it tells us that all things were made by God through the Word, and without Him nothing was made. John 1:3 And if I am not mistaken, there is also another passage where it is written, "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their host by His Spirit." Now this Word, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, must be the very Son of God. So if He did all things by the Son, then He must have stretched out the heavens by the Son, and so not have stretched them out alone, except in the sense in which He is alone, apart from all other gods. Accordingly He says, concerning the Son, immediately afterwards: "Who else is it that frustrates the tokens of the liars, and makes diviners mad, turning wise men backward, and making their knowledge foolish, and confirming the words of His Son?" Isaiah 44:25 As for example, when He said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him." Matthew 3:17 By thus attaching the Son to Himself, He explains His own meaning in saying that He stretched out the heavens alone. He means alone with His Son, just as He is one with His Son. Therefore, in the same way, the statement, "I have stretched out the heavens alone," Isaiah 44:24 will also be the Son's statement, because by the Word the heavens were established. Since, then, the heaven was prepared when Wisdom was present in the Word, and since all things were made by the Word, it is quite correct to say that the Son also stretched out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the Father's work. He must also be the One who says, "I am the First, and to all futurity I AM." The Word, no doubt, was before all things. "In the beginning was the Word," John 1:1 and in that beginning He was sent forth by the Father. The Father, however, has no beginning, since He proceeds from none. Nor can He be seen, since He was not begotten. He who had always been alone could never have had order or rank. Therefore, if they have decided that the Father and the Son must be regarded as one and the same, for the express purpose of defending the unity of God, that unity is still kept whole. For He is one, and yet He has a Son, who is equally included with Him in the same Scriptures. Since they are unwilling to allow that the Son is a distinct Person, second from the Father, lest, being thus second, He should cause two Gods to be spoken of, we have shown above that Scripture actually describes Two as God and Lord. And to keep them from being offended at this, we give the reason why they are not called two Gods and two Lords, but are two as Father and Son. This is not by a severing of their substance, but from the divine arrangement itself, by which we declare that the Son is undivided and inseparable from the Father, distinct in degree, not in state. And although, when named separately, He is called God, He does not thereby make two Gods, but one. And this is from the very fact that He is entitled to be called God through His union with the Father.