The prophets say, And the Word of the Lord came to me. . . . All these messages proscribe in every light the Arian heresy and signify the eternity of the Word, and that he is not foreign but proper to the Father’s essence.

Consider by how many testimonies the Word of the Lord urges us to recite the Holy Scriptures in order that we may possess through faith what we have repeated with our mouth. . . . And elsewhere it is written, I remembered the mercy of your youth.

Again, elsewhere he says, What fault have your fathers found in me? That which is said is great and marvelous, because what he says means, What wrong have I done? God tells human beings, What sin have I committed?—something that not even slaves tolerate that their master utter.

What transgression have your fathers found in me? . . . showing their thankless disposition, and that when in the enjoyment of all things, they requited it by the contraries; but here God expresses it with yet greater force.

Jeremiah was known before he was formed, and sanctified from the womb.^[1]. . . He longs for water over his head and a fountain of tears for his eyes that he may adequately weep for Israel.^[2] No less does he lament the depravity of its rulers. God speaks to him to rebuke the priests: The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me. Again he says to him, The shepherds are stupid, and do not inquire of the LORD; therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.^[3] Again, Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trampled down my portion, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.^[4] He further attacks the pastors again: ‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: ‘You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD.’ ^[5]

God has also entrusted a deposit to us: the brothers’ way of life. While laboring on their behalf, we look forward to future rewards, lest this be said of us as well, Let this people go,^[1] and lest, if we forsake the traditions of our ancestors, this be hurled at us: Those who have my law do not know me; the shepherds have rebelled against me.

For since you are not persuaded by the Scriptures, I am compelled to shame you by those who are outside your company. God also did this to the Jews when he said, Go to the Isles of Kittim and send to Kedar and find out if the nations will change their gods which are no gods.^[1]

This alone among all evils is without comparison. This is a new act of shamelessness in life. Go over to the islands of Kittim and see, the Lord says. Send to Kedar and consider carefully whether anything like this has ever been done—if a nation has changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.). But the virgin has changed her glory, and her glory is in her shame.

The same erroneous notion by which they used to worship devils formed in the figure of people they use even now in thinking that the incomprehensible and ineffable glory of the true Deity should be worshiped under the limitations of some figure. They think they are unable to grasp and hold anything if they do not have some image set before them that they can continually address while they are at their devotion and that they can carry about in their mind and have always fixed before their eyes. . . . Jeremiah also says, My people have changed their glory for an idol.

God actually permitted erroneous and unworthy opinions of himself to prevail—opinions such as that he was formerly a body and that he was visible. . . . For he nowhere considers his own dignity but always what will be profitable to us. . . . Even in reproving he stoops down, as when he speaks by the prophet, Has a nation changed their gods? And in every part of Scripture there are instances of his humility both in words and actions.

Those who are not saved always are taking care of those things that do not profit or benefit them in any way. So what kind of excuse is there for a Christian who withdraws from the assembly of the church? Such a person does not even imitate the Gentiles but by reason of his absence grows indifferent and careless. He stands aloof and does evil. The Lord said, . . . You have not walked in my statutes or kept my ordinances, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you,^[1] you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.^[2] How, then, shall the indifferent excuse himself, since he has no zeal for the assembly of the church? If anyone takes the occasion of worldly business to withdraw, let him know this: the trades of the faithful are called works of surplus, for their true work is religion. Pursue your trades, therefore, as a work of surplus, for your sustenance, but let your true work be religion.

Who that witnessed these things, or that has merely heard of them, will not be greatly appalled and cry aloud to the Lord, saying, Will you make a full end of Israel?^[1] Who that is acquainted with these proceedings will not with good reason cry out and say, A wonderful and horrible thing is done in the land, and, The heavens are astonished at this, and the earth is even more horribly afraid. The ancestors of the people and the teachers of the faith are taken away, and the impious are brought in to lead the churches? Who that saw when Liberius, bishop of Rome, was banished, and when the great Hosius, the father of the bishops, suffered these things, or who that saw so many bishops banished out of Spain and the other parts could fail to perceive—however little sense he might possess—that the charges against Athanasius also and the rest were false, and altogether mere calumny? This is also why others endured the suffering they did, because they saw plainly that the conspiracies laid against these men were founded in falsehood.

Here too let the prophet Jeremiah say of the race of Israel, Who will grant for my head to be waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I may weep for this people day and night?^[1] For what lamentation can suffice for those who fell into the pit of destruction because of their wicked conduct to Christ, and for guilt so great, that not with words only did they grieve him, and mock him with blasphemous cries, but even laid sinful hands upon him and prepared the snare of death for him? . . . The heavens themselves were astonished, and shuddered very greatly, says the Lord. For the Lord of earth and heaven, the Creator and Maker of all, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, he who is of such surpassing greatness in glory and majesty, the foundation of everything, and that in which all things exist and abide—for all things exist in him^[2]—he who is the breath of all the holy spirits in heaven is scorned like one of us and patiently endures beatings.

Not only Paul, but generally all those to whom is committed any ministry of the word, never cease from testifying but call heaven and earth to witness on the ground that now every deed that is done is done within them, and that in the examination of all the actions of life they will be present with the judged. So it is said, He shall call to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people.^[1] And so Moses when about to deliver his oracles to the people says, I call heaven and earth to witness this day,^[2] and again in his song he says, Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.^[3] Isaiah invokes: Hear, O heavens. Listen, O earth.^[4] Jeremiah describes astonishment in heaven at the tidings of the unholy deeds of the people: The heaven was astonished at this and was horribly afraid, because my people committed two evils.

Let us inquire whether the Lord took care to foreshadow the water and the cross. Now concerning the water, it is written with reference to Israel that they would never accept the baptism that brings forgiveness of sins but would create a substitute for themselves. For the prophet says, Be astonished, heaven, and let the earth shudder greatly at this, because this people has done two evil things: they have abandoned me, the fountain of life, and they have dug for themselves a pit of death.

Reproof is the bringing forward of sin, laying it before one. This form of instruction God employs as necessary in the highest degree by reason of the feebleness of the faith of many. For he says by Isaiah, You have forsaken the Lord and have provoked the holy One of Israel to anger.^[1] He says also by Jeremiah: Heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered exceedingly. My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns that will not be able to hold water.

For where the church is, there is the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit of God is, there is the church and every kind of grace. The Spirit is truth. Those, therefore, who do not partake of him are neither nourished into life from the mother’s breasts, nor do they enjoy that most clear fountain that issues from the body of Christ. Instead, they dig for themselves broken cisterns out of earthly trenches and drink putrid water out of the mire, fleeing from the faith of the church lest they be convicted. They reject the Spirit with the result that they are not instructed.

This tree is a mystery. In ancient times, Moses sweetened the bitter water with it. The people who were perishing of thirst in the desert drank and were revived because of it.^[1] We do this, too. We were drawn out from the calamities of the world in which we were lingering, perishing with thirst (that is, deprived of the divine Word). We drank by the faith which is on him,^[2] the baptismal water of the tree of the passion of Christ. We have revived the faith from which Israel has fallen away, as foretold through Jeremiah, who says, Send, and continue to ask whether such things have been done, whether nations will change their gods (and these are not gods!). But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled at this, O heavens!—and when were they appalled? Undoubtedly when Christ suffered—and be shocked, he says, utterly desolate.^[3]

Our hearts are thus circumcised from evil so that we are happy to die for the name of causes living water to burst forth for the hearts of those who by him have loved the Father of all and that allows those who are willing to drink of the water of life. But you do not comprehend what I am saying when I speak these things. You have not understood what has been prophesied about what Christ would do. You do not believe us when we draw your attention to what has been written. For Jeremiah thus cries, Woe to you! You have forsaken the living fountain and have dug for yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. Shall there be a wilderness where Mount Zion is, because I gave Jerusalem a bill of divorce in your sight?

Jacob, as I have remarked before, being himself a type of Christ, had married the two handmaids of his two free wives and had sons by them. He did this to indicate ahead of time that Christ would receive even all those who among Japheth’s race are descendants of Canaan equally with the free and would have their children be heirs with them. This is what we are. But you cannot comprehend this because you cannot drink of the living fountain of God but of broken cisterns that can hold no water, as the Scripture says.

We do not receive that useless baptism of cisterns, for it has nothing to do with this baptism of life. This is why God also announced that you have forsaken him, the living fountain, and dug for yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.

By reason, therefore, of this bath of repentance and knowledge of God, which has been ordained on account of the transgression of God’s people, as Isaiah cries, we have believed and testify that that very baptism that he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented. This is the water of life. But the cisterns that you have dug for yourselves are broken and profitless to you.

And so the church of the soul went down to the fountain of wisdom to fill its own vessel and drew up the teachings of pure wisdom that the Jews did not wish to draw from the flowing fountain. Listen to him as he says who that fountain is: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water.

Doubtless the heretics, who follow the teachings of demons,^[1] who think up false systems under the impulse of their spirit, who let it be known that they have seen visions that they have not seen and by their deadly arguments sow their seed in foolish and credulous hearts—doubtless these are the ones who do not hold the head, namely, Christ, the source of truth. Whatever is opposed to his teaching is without sense, and these are the blind, leaders of the blind,^[2] of whom I think it is said, They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Now, here he clearly reveals to us the mystery of the holy Trinity: he called the only-begotten Word of God a fountain of life. This is the name, too, remember, God personally gave himself through the prophet Jeremiah: They have forsaken me, a fountain of living water, taken their leave and dug for themselves cracked cisterns incapable of holding water.

Is it right to say that what is God’s offspring and proper to him exists out of nothing? Or, is it reasonable in the very idea that what is from God has accrued to him, that someone should dare to say that the Son does not always exist? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends human thoughts, that we become parents of our own children in time, since we ourselves first did not exist and then came into being. But God, in that he always exists, is always Father of the Son.^[1] And the origination of humankind is brought home to us from parallel experiences. However, since no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal him,^[2] therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed him have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, Who is the brightness of his glory and the expression of his person^[3]; and again, For with you is the well of life, and in your light shall we see lights.^[4] And when the Word chides Israel, he says, You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom,^[5] and this is the fountain that says, They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.^[6] Although the illustration is rather ordinary and vague^[7] compared with what we would like, it is still nonetheless possible from it to understand something above humanity’s nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation is on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever did not exist so that he should dare to say that the Son has not always existed or that the Son did not exist before his generation? Or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun or to conceive of the fountain as always void of life that he should madly say, The Son exists from nothing, when it is the Son who says, I am the life?^[8] Or, who can conceive of him as alien to the Father’s essence, who says, He that has seen me, has seen the Father?^[9] For the sacred writers, wishing us to understand things in this way, have given these illustrations. It is unseemly and truly irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others that are neither in Scripture nor have any religious bearing.

In fact, with us is the living water, the very water that gushes from Christ. But you, separated from the everlasting fountain, from where do you receive your birth? And likewise had the Holy Spirit not departed from the original mother; from which did it come to you? Of course, perhaps the Spirit has followed one who engages in strife and, having abandoned so many priests and not content with its consecrated dwelling place, has truly loved the broken cistern of an impure fountain? From where do your people possess the Spirit, those whom an anointed priest has not sealed? From where do they possess the water, those who have withdrawn from their mother’s womb? From where do they possess spiritual renewal, those who have lost the cradle of nuptial peace?

Iniquity lies to itself^[1] either by corrupting the nature you have made and ordained or by perverting it. It lies to itself when it practices an immoderate use of things permitted or when it burns for things forbidden to that use which is against nature. It lies to itself when convicted, raging with heart and voice against you as it kicks against the goads,^[2] or when—breaking through the pale of human society—they audaciously rejoice in private cliques or divisions on the basis of whether they have been pleased or offended. These things happen whenever you are abandoned and whenever, from a self-willed pride, they choose to align themselves instead with something false that they cherish instead of you, O Fountain of life, the one, true Creator and Ruler of the universe.

The arrogance of pride, the pleasure of lust and the poison of curiosity are the motions of a dead soul. It is not that it is dead in such a way as to lack all movement; rather, it dies by abandoning the fountain of life and thus is taken up by the transitory world and is conformed to it.

Still the Anomoeans have another well-rehearsed argument. What is that? Scripture says, God is spirit.^[1] Tell me, then, does that bring his essence to light? Will anyone accept that argument if he has even drawn a little way near to the doors of the divine Scriptures? According to that argument, God will also be fire, just as it has been written that God is spirit, so has it been written, Our God is a consuming fire,^[2] and again, a fountain of living water. Not only will God be a spirit and a fountain and a fire; he will also be a soul, a wind, a human mind, and other things far more absurd than these.

But since many heresies have existed and the people of God have been torn apart at the instigation of demons, the truth must be briefly exposed by us and placed in its own peculiar dwelling place, so that if any one shall desire to draw the water of life, he may not be born to broken cisterns that hold no water but may know the abundant fountain of God. Watered by this fountain, he may enjoy perpetual light.

We read the letter you wrote concerning those who seem baptized among heretics and schismatics, as to whether they ought to be baptized when they come to the church catholic, which is one. On this matter, although you yourselves hold the truth and certainty of the catholic rule, yet since you have thought that of our mutual love we ought to be consulted, we put forward our opinion, not as a new one though. Rather, we join with you in equal agreement, in an opinion long since decreed by our predecessors and observed by us—judging and holding it for certain that no one can be baptized outside the church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy church. And it is written in the words of the Lord, They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

O blessed change! Once the body wept, but now laughs forevermore. Once it desired the broken cisterns of which the prophet speaks, but now it has been satisfied in the Lord, the fountain of life.^[1]

Let him possess his vessel in sanctification and honor,^[1] let him drink of his own wells, not out of the dissolute cisterns of the harlots that cannot hold within them the pure waters of chastity.^[2]

Is he not one who bewitches the sheep of our patriarch, that they may not drink from the pure water that springs up unto life everlasting^[1] but may draw down on themselves the saying of the prophet: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water? Because they should confess that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, as the divine Word teaches and as they who have pondered it more deeply have taught.

He has opened a pit and dug it.^[1] We do not find the name of pit ever assigned in the divine Scriptures to something good or a well of water to something bad. That into which Joseph was thrown by his brothers is a pit.^[2] There is a slaughter from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the captive woman that was in prison.^[3] In the Psalms, I am counted among those who go down to the pit.^[4] In Jeremiah it is said, They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

So when the whole world was parched with the drought of Gentile superstition, then came that dew of the heavenly visits on the fleece. But after that the lost sheep of the house of Israel^[1] (whom I think that the figure of the Jewish fleece foreshadowed), after that those sheep, I say, had refused the fountain of living water, the dew of moistening faith dried up in the breasts of the Jews and that divine Fountain turned away its course to the hearts of the Gentiles.

Truly, I fear that our parents according to the flesh will be found to condemn us and to quote the words of Scripture, How have you become wretched, greatly put to shame? Great is your affliction; a fire is kindled on you; your branches have become useless. For this cause they have become a prey. The lions have roared at it and have given out their voice against it.^[1] For this reason, the beloved are like the abhorred and the crown of your head is taken away. Cities that face the south, how are you shut off? There is nobody to give access to you. Let indeed the wicked be removed, that he may not see the glory of the Lord.

If we are not false servants of God, if there is in us a spark of that fire whereby charity seeks not its own,^[1] we certainly should make our good works appear, not only before God but even before people, for fear that, while drinking of quiet waters in our own conscience, we should be constrained by careless feet to drive the sheep of the Lord to drink the troubled waters.

My child, flee to God, for it is he who created you. It was for you that he underwent these sufferings. For he said, I gave my back to the whips and my cheek to the slaps. I did not turn my face away from the shame of spittle.^[1] O mortal, what is the good of your going to Egypt, to drink the water of the Geon that is churned up?

The intellect especially strays when the eyes wander and the belly is at ease. . . . If you patiently endure in the desert, you will not be tempted, for there you will see no women, nor [will you encounter] anything harmful to your mode of life, nor will you hear unseemly cries. And what hast thou to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Geon?^[1] Understand what I say. Show the enemy your patience and experience in small matters so that he does not seek great things from you. Let these small matters be a pattern for you, that through your struggles in small things you may lay a trap for him and give him no leisure to contrive great snares for you.

For the fool does not know that those who depart far from God shall perish. And besides, there is the restraint of the prophetic admonition that says, ‘What have you to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Gihon? And what have you to do in the way of Ashur, to drink the waters of the rivers?

When he does not convince with his word, God many times permits the experience of things to be the teaching, something that he also said to the Jews. When he expended myriads of words though the prophets, he neither persuaded nor embraced the Jews. Allowing them to be educated through punishment, he said to them, Your apostasy shall correct you, and wickedness shall reprove you.

So also that unwearied goodness of God and his unchanging nature hurt no one indeed, but we ourselves by falling from on high and tending to the depths are the authors of our own death, or rather the very fall becomes death to the one who falls. . . . For your own wickedness shall reprove you, and your apostasy shall rebuke you. Know and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for you to have left the Lord your God; for everyone is bound by the cords of his sins.^[1]

This then is that body of death from which we cannot escape, confined in those who are perfect, who have tested how gracious the Lord is,^[1] daily feel with the prophet how bad for himself and bitter it is for a man to depart from the Lord his God.

The Lord has therefore endured all these things on our behalf, in order that we, having been instructed by means of them all, may be in all respects judicious for the time to come. He endured that, having been rationally taught to love God, we may continue in his perfect love. God has displayed patience in the case of humankind’s apostasy. While humankind has been instructed by means of it, as also the prophet says, Your own apostasy shall heal you. God thus determined all things beforehand in order to bring people to perfection, to edify them and to reveal God’s dispensations, that goodness may both be made apparent, and that righteousness be perfected, and that the church may be fashioned after the image of his Son and that humankind may finally be brought to maturity at some future time, becoming mature through such privileges to see and comprehend God.