The Nature of Mind
The mind requires magnitude of an intellectual kind. It is not enlarged by means of corporal additions, but is sharpened by exercises of learning. The powers implanted within it are called forth, and it is rendered capable of greater intellectual efforts, being polished by learned exercises. But these it cannot receive immediately from birth, because the framework of limbs which the mind employs as organs for exercising itself is weak, and unable to bear the weight of its own operations.
There underlies every bodily sense a certain peculiar sensible substance, on which the bodily sense exerts itself. For example, colours, form, size, underlie vision. Similarly, under this power of an intellectual nature, which is far better than any other, i.e., the sense of mind, something of the nature of a substance should be placed, and a power of an intellectual nature should not be an accident, nor consequent upon bodies.
The mind bears a certain relationship to God, of whom it is an intellectual image, and that by means of this it may come to some knowledge of the nature of divinity, especially if it be purified and separated from bodily matter.
The Wisdom of God
God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate within itself, or behold with the naked powers of the understanding.
Since all the creative power of the coming creation was included in this very existence of Wisdom (whether of those things which have an original or of those which have a derived existence), having been formed beforehand and arranged by the power of foreknowledge; on account of these very creatures which had been described, as it were, and prefigured in Wisdom herself, does Wisdom say, in the words of Solomon, that she was created the beginning of the ways of God, inasmuch as she contained within herself either the beginnings, or forms, or species of all creation.
Similarly, we understand Wisdom to be the Word of God, because of her disclosing to all other beings, i.e., to universal creation, the nature of the mysteries and secrets which are contained within the divine wisdom; and on this account she is called the Word, because she is, as it were, the interpreter of the secrets of the mind.
This Son, accordingly, is also the truth and life of all things which exist. For how could those things which were created live, unless they derived their being from life? or how could those things which are, truly exist, unless they came down from the truth? or how could rational beings exist, unless the Word or reason had previously existed? or how could they be wise, unless there were wisdom? But since it was to come to pass that some also should fall away from life, and bring death upon themselves by their declension—for death is nothing else than a departure from life—and as it was not to follow that those beings which had once been created by God for the enjoyment of life should utterly perish, it was necessary that, before death, there should be in existence such a power as would destroy the coming death, and that there should be a resurrection, the type of which was in our Lord and Saviour, and that this resurrection should have its ground in the wisdom and word and life of God.
The Son of God
He is the invisible image of the invisible God, …[which] image contains the unity of nature and substance belonging to Father and Son. For if the Son do, in like manner, all those things which the Father doth, then, in virtue of the Son doing all things like the Father, is the image of the Father formed in the Son, who is born of Him, like an act of His will proceeding from the mind…The will of the Father alone is sufficient for the existence of that which He wishes to exist…As an act of the will proceeds from the understanding, and neither cuts off any part nor is separated or divided from it, so after some such fashion is the Father to be supposed as having begotten the Son, His own image.
Our Saviour is the image of the invisible God, inasmuch as compared with the Father Himself He is the truth: and as compared with us, to whom He reveals the Father, He is the image by which we come to the knowledge of the Father, whom no one knows save the Son, and he to whom the Son is pleased to reveal Him. And the method of revealing Him is through the understanding… “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also.”
The only-begotten Son, therefore, is the glory of this light, proceeding inseparably from (God) Himself, as brightness does from light, and illuminating the whole of creation. For, agreeably to the manner in which He is the Way, and conducts to the Father; and in which He is the Word, interpreting the secrets of wisdom, and the mysteries of knowledge, making them known to the rational creation; and is also the Truth, and the Life, and the Resurrection,—in the same way [He is] the brightness: for it is by its splendour that we understand and feel what light itself is…the splendour of the light being made in this respect also a sort of mediator between men and the light.
The Power of God
As no one can be a father without having a son, nor a master without possessing a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent unless there exist those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore, that God may be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things should exist.
“By Him were all things made, and without Him nothing was made;”(John 1:3) The title of Omnipotent in God cannot be older than that of Father; for it is through the Son that the Father is almighty. But from the expression “glory of the Almighty,”(Wisdom 7:25) of which glory Wisdom is the efflux, this is to be understood, that Wisdom, through which God is called omnipotent, has a share in the glory of the Almighty. For through Wisdom, which is Christ, God has power over all things, not only by the authority of a ruler, but also by the voluntary obedience of subjects.
The omnipotence of Father and Son is one and the same, as God and the Lord are one and the same with the Father,…“All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them.”(John 17:10) Now, if all things which are the Father’s are also Christ’s, certainly among those things which exist is the omnipotence of the Father; “And I am glorified in them,” He declares. For “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:10,11)
Goodness
“There is none good save one only, God the Father,” 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… 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, having in them an accidental, not an essential goodness.
The Holy Spirit
For all knowledge of the Father is obtained by revelation of the Son through the Holy Spirit, so that both of these…exist as the ground of the knowledge of God the Father. For as it is said of the Son, that “no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him,” the same also is said of the Holy Spirit, “God hath revealed them to us by His Holy Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God;” and “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now; but when the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is come, He will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” We must understand, therefore, that as the Son, who alone knows the Father, reveals Him to whom He will, so the Holy Spirit, who alone searches the deep things of God, reveals God to whom He will.
God the Father bestows upon all, existence; and participation in Christ, in respect of His being the word of reason, renders them rational beings. From which it follows that they are deserving either of praise or blame, because capable of virtue and vice. On this account is the grace of the Holy Ghost present, that those beings which are not holy in their essence may be rendered holy by participating in it. Seeing, then, that firstly, they derive their existence from God the Father; secondly, their rational nature from the Word; thirdly, their holiness from the Holy Spirit,—those who have been previously sanctified by the Holy Spirit are again made capable of receiving Christ, in respect that He is the righteousness of God; and those who have earned advancement to this grade by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, will nevertheless obtain the gift of wisdom according to the power and working of the Spirit of God. “There are diversities of operations, but one God who worketh all in all.”