Chapter 4 — The opinion of Photinus concerning the Son of God, and its refutation

Certain perverse men have presumed to measure the truth of the above doctrine according to their own ideas, and have devised various inept opinions about the aforesaid matter.

Some of these observed that Scripture is wont to call sons of God those who are sanctified by grace, according to the words of John 1:12: To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; and of Romans 8:16: It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God; and of 1 John 3:1: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. Moreover, Scripture declares the like to be born of God, for it is said: Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth (Jas 1:18); and: No one born of God commits sin; for God’s seed abides in him (1 John 3:9). Again, what is more remarkable still, the divine name is ascribed to them: thus the Lord said to Moses: See, I make you as God to Pharaoh (Exod 7:1); and: I say: ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you’ (Ps 82[81]:6); and as the Lord said: He called them gods to whom the word of God came (John 10:35).

Thus in their opinion, Jesus Christ was a mere man born of the Virgin Mary, and through the merits of his holy life was accorded, above all others, the honor of the divinity. And they reckoned that he was a son of God by the spirit of adoption like other men, and begotten of him by grace. The Scriptures call him God by reason of his being in some way like to God, not by nature, but by a kind of fellowship in the divine goodness, even as it is said of the saints: Through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4).

They strove to strengthen their position by the authority of Sacred Scripture.

For the Lord said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matt 28:18). For if he had been God before time, he would not have received power in time.

Again, it is said of the Son that he was made to him (i.e., to God) of the seed of David according to the flesh; and that he was predestined the Son of God in power (Rom 1:3–4); and that which is predestined and made is seemingly not eternal.

Again, the Apostle says: He became (Vulgate: becoming.) obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:8–9). From which it would seem to follow that it was through the merit of his obedience and Passion that he was crowned with divine honor and exalted above all things.

Again, Peter says: Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36). Seemingly, therefore, he was made God in time, and not born so, before time.

Moreover, in confirmation of their opinion they quote those passages of Scripture which would seem to imply defects in Christ; for instance, that he was borne in a woman’s womb, that he advanced in age, that he suffered from hunger and was overcome with fatigue, and subject to death, that he was ever making progress, that he confessed his ignorance of the day of judgment, and was stricken with the fear of death, and the like, all of which are incompatible in one who is God by nature. Hence they conclude that he was graced with the divine honor through his merits, and that he was not God by nature.

This position was taken up first by certain of the early heretics, Cerinthus and Ebion, was renewed by Paul of Samosata, and later on adopted by Photinus; hence those who followed his teaching were called Photinians.

Nevertheless, it is clear to those who weigh carefully these passages of Sacred Scripture that they do not admit of the interpretation favored by the opinion of these men. For Solomon, by saying: The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived (Prov 8:24), clearly shows that this conception took place before the existence of anything corporeal. Hence, it follows that the Son begotten of God did not receive from Mary the beginning of his existence. And though they endeavored to distort these and other like passages with a false interpretation, by saying that they should be referred to predestination—namely, that before the creation of the world it was decreed that the Son of God should be born of the Virgin Mary, but that he was not the Son of God before the creation of the world—yet it is clear from what follows that he was before Mary not only in predestination but also in reality. For after the words of Solomon quoted above it is added: When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him in all things (Prov 8:29–30); but had he existed merely as predestined, he could not have been doing anything.

The same is to be gathered from the words of the evangelist John, for after saying: In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1)—by which we are to understand the Son of God, as we have shown—lest anyone should take this in the sense of predestination, he adds: All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3); which could not be true had he not existed in reality before the world. Again, it is said of the Son of God: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13); and again: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38). It is therefore clear that he existed before he came down from heaven.

Moreover, according to the above opinion, he advanced by merit from a man to God. But the Apostle shows on the contrary that, being already God, he became man, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form (Phil 2:6–7). The above opinion, therefore, is irreconcilable with the words of the Apostle.

Again. Among those who received the grace of God, Moses was copiously endowed: for it is said of him that the Lord used to speak to him face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exod 33:11). If, then, Jesus Christ is to be called God merely on account of the grace of adoption, like other saints, Moses might be called the son of God for the same reason as Christ, although Christ was endowed with more abundant grace, since even among the other saints one is filled with greater grace than another, and yet all are equally to be called sons of God. But Moses is not called son of God for the same reason as Christ, since the Apostle distinguishes Christ from Moses as son from servant: Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son (Heb 3:5–6). It is therefore clear that Christ is not called the Son of God by the grace of adoption, as other saints are.

The same may be gathered from several other passages of Scripture which call Christ the Son of God in a special way above others: sometimes indeed by singling him out from others and calling him son, as when the voice of the Father was heard from heaven: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matt 3:17); sometimes by calling him the only-begotten; for instance: We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father (John 1:14); and again: The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known (John 1:18). But if he were called son in common with the others, he could not be called the only-begotten. Sometimes he is called the first-born, so as to imply a sonship derived by others from him, according to Romans 8:29: Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren; and: God sent forth his Son . . . so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4:4–5). Therefore, he is a son in a different way from those who are called sons through a likeness to his sonship.

Moreover. Certain works in Sacred Scripture are ascribed to God so exclusively that they are inapplicable to another, such as the sanctification of souls and the remission of sins. For it is said: I am the Lord who sanctify you (Lev 20:8), and: I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake (Isa 43:25). Now Scripture ascribes both of these to Christ, for it is said: He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin (Heb 2:11); and: Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood (Heb 13:12). Moreover, our Lord himself declared that he had the power to forgive sins, and confirmed his assertion with a miracle (Matt 9:6), and the angel foretold this of him, saying: He will save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21). Therefore, Christ, who both sanctifies us and forgives us our sins, is called God not as those are called gods who are sanctified and forgiven their sins, but as having both the power and the nature of divinity.

Those passages of Scripture by which they endeavored to show that Christ is not God by nature are of no avail to prove their contention. For we confess that in Christ the Son of God, after the mystery of the Incarnation, there were two natures, namely, the human and the divine. Hence both those things that are proper to God are said of him by reason of his divine nature, and those things that would seem to savor of imperfection are said of him by reason of his human nature, as we shall more fully explain further on. (Ch. 27. seqq.) In the matter of the divine generation, for the present let it suffice that we have shown that, according to the Scriptures, Christ is called the Son of God, and God, not only as a mere man by the grace of adoption, but also on account of his divine nature.