or doeth the Son anything which the Father doeth not?” Let us first speak of the Father and the Son. And when He to Whom we say, “Be Thou my helper, leave me not,” 1837 shall have given good success to this essay of ours, then shall we understand how that the Holy Spirit also is in no way separated from the operation of the Father and the Son. As concerning the Father and the Son, then, brethren, give ear. Doeth the Father anything without the Son? We answer, No. Do you doubt it? For what doeth He without Him “by Whom all things were made? All things,” saith the Scripture, “were made by Him.”1838 And to inculcate it fully1839 upon the slow, and hard, and disputatious it added, And without Him was not anything made.” 5. What then, brethren? “All things were made by Him.” We understand then by this that the whole creation which was made by the Son, the Father made by His Word—God, by His Power and Wisdom. Shall we then say, “All things” indeed when they were created, “were made by Him,” but now the Father doeth not all things by Him? God forbid! Be such a thought as this far from the hearts of believers; be it driven away from the mind of the devout; from the understanding of the godly! It cannot be that He created by Him, and doth not govern by Him. God forbid that what existeth should be governed without Him, when by Him it was made, that it might have existence! But let us show by the testimony of the same Scripture that not only were all things created and made by Him as we have quoted from the Gospel, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made,” but that the things which were made are also governed and ordered by Him. You acknowledge Christ then to be the Power and Wisdom of God; acknowledge too what is said of Wisdom, “She reacheth from one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things.”1840 Let us not then doubt that by Him are all things ruled, by whom all things were made. So then the Father doeth nothing without the Son, nor the Son without the Father. 6. But so a difficulty meets us, which we have undertaken to solve in the Name of the Lord, and by His will. If the Father doeth nothing without the Son, nor the Son without the Father, will it not follow, that we must say that the Father also was born of the Virgin Mary, the Father suffered under Pontius Pilate, the Father rose again and ascended into heaven? God forbid! We do not say this, because we do not believe it. “For I believed, therefore have I spoken: we also believe, and therefore speak.”1841 What1842 is in the Creed? That the Son was born of a Virgin, not the Father. What is in the Creed? That the Son suffered under 1837 Ps. xxvi. 9, Sept. (xxvii. English version). 1838 John i. 3. 1839 Satiate. 1840 Wisd. viii. 1. 1841 Ps. cxvi. 10. 1842 Fide, i.e. Symb. fidei (Ben.). 557 Of the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. iii. 13, 'Then Jesus cometh…