11. What follows is this:—“Nor,
as Sabellius, who makes two out of One, Son and Father at
once.” Sabellius holds this in wilful blindness to the
revelation of the Evangelists and Apostles. But what we see here
is not one heretic honestly denouncing another. It is the wish to
leave no point of union between Father and Son that prompts them to
reproach Sabellius with his division of an indivisible Person; a
division which does not result in the birth of a second Person, but
cuts the One Person into two parts, one of which enters the
Virgin’s womb Reading
virginem.. But we
confess a birth; we reject this confusion of two Persons in One, while
yet we cleave to the Divine unity. That is, we hold that God
from God means unity of nature; for that Being, Who, by a true
birth from God, became God, can draw His substance from no other source
than the Divine. And since He continues to draw His being, as He
drew it at first, from God, He must remain true God for ever; and hence
They Two are One, for He, Who is God from God, has no other than the
Divine nature, and no other than the Divine origin. But the
reason why this blasphemous Sabellian confusion of two Persons into One
is here condemned is that they wish to rob the Church of her true faith
in Two Persons in One God. But now I must examine the remaining
instances of this perverted ingenuity, to save myself from the
reputation of a censorious judge of sincere enquirers, moved rather by
dislike than genuine fear. I shall shew, by the terms with which
they wind up their confession, what is the deadly conclusion which they
have skilfully contrived shall be its inevitable issue.