Chapter 9 — Explanation of the texts quoted by Photinus and Sabellius

In sequence to the foregoing consideration, it is clear that the texts of Sacred Scripture quoted by Photinus and Sabellius also fail to support their errors.

For our Lord’s words after his Resurrection: All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matt 28:18), do not imply that he received this power then for the first time, but that the power which the Son of God had received from eternity began to be manifested in him after he had become man, through his victory over death in his Resurrection.

When the Apostle says in reference to the Son: who was descended from David (Rom 1:3), the sense is clear from the words that follow, according to the flesh. For he did not say that the Son of God was made absolutely, but that he was made from David according to the flesh by taking human nature. Even so it is said: The Word became flesh (John 1:14). Hence it is plain that the words that follow: predestined the Son of God in power (Rom 1:4), refer to the Son in his human nature. For it was not of human merits, but of the grace of God predestinating, that human nature was united to the Son of God, so that a man could be called the Son of God.

Likewise, when the Apostle says that God exalted Christ on account of the merits of his Passion (Phil 2:8), we must refer this to his human nature, in which was the abasement of his Passion. Consequently, the subsequent words: He bestowed on him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:9), refer to the fact that the name appropriate to the Son from his eternal birth was to be manifested in the faith of the multitude, as appropriate to the Son incarnate.

Hence again it is evident that Peter’s statement that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) must be referred to the human nature, where in the course of time Christ began to have that which he had from eternity in his divine nature.

Again, the passages invoked by Sabellius in support of the unity of the divinity: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one God (Deut 6:4), and: See now that I am alone, and there is no god beside me (Deut 32:39), are not opposed to the view of the Catholic faith, which declares that Father and Son are not two gods, but one God, as we have said.

Likewise the words: The Father who dwells in me does his works, and: I am in the Father and the Father in me (John 14:10), do not prove unity of person, as Sabellius was wanting, but of essence, which Arius denied. For if Father and Son were one person, it would not be right to say that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, since, properly speaking, a suppositum is not said to be in itself, but only by reason of its parts. For as the parts are in the whole, and that which is proper to the parts may be ascribed to the whole, sometimes a whole is spoken of as being in itself. But this manner of speaking does not apply to things appertaining to God, in whom there are no parts, as we have proved. (Bk. 1, ch. 20.) Consequently, since the Father is said to be in the Son, and the Son in the Father, the Father and Son are not one in person; but it follows that they are one in nature. For this being once granted, it is quite evident how the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. For as the Father is his own essence, since in God there is no distinction between the essence and the one who has the essence, as proved above, (Bk. 1, ch. 22.) it follows that whoever has the essence of the Father is the Father, and in like manner, that whoever has the essence of the Son is the Son. Hence, as the essence of the Father is in the Son, and the essence of the Son is in the Father, since both have the same essence, as the Catholic faith teaches, it clearly follows that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. Thus the same text refutes the errors of both Sabellius and Arius.