By Water & Blood

Book 1, Chapter 9: That the Son did not come into being as the many creatures do

Hence one might fairly find fault with those who have dared to say that he is a creature (κτίσμα), having come into being from things that are not, like the rest of the creatures. For how will he still be Son? And how will he be the Only-begotten of God who is inscribed with the same nature as the rest of the creatures? For in this way he would rather become their brother, and not the Son of God, and he will be one of the many things that have come into being, since he would share with them alike in the fellowship of creation from nothing.

But the divine oracles do not teach so concerning him. Rather, when they give instruction about the existence of created things, they testify all at once that all things came into being through him: for “all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made,” and “by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,” and “all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist,” according to the apostolic teachings.

But when they introduce the theology concerning him, they set him apart from all the rest; they know him as Lord and Master and Creator and God and Saviour of the universe; they declare him alone, and no other, to be the only-begotten Son of God; they call him alone Wisdom and Word and Life and Light, the “image of the invisible God” and “brightness of everlasting light”; and they teach us to hold of him countless other things akin to these, thereby somehow displaying the relation (σχέσις) of the Father’s Godhead which is peculiar to him alone, as to an only-begotten Son.

Therefore also the Father’s voice, beside the streams of the Jordan, proclaimed him alone as beloved Son, bearing witness with a great cry: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And it repeated the testimony at the transfiguration on the mountain also, setting its seal upon the same word.

Since, therefore, the God of the universe himself has furnished him with this testimony, and the Evangelist expressly teaches that he is the only-begotten Son, in the words, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son (or, ‘only-begotten God’), which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”; and since the Saviour himself also seals these things in his teachings concerning himself, when he said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life”—

whoever, after these utterances, defines the Son as something that came into being from things that are not, and as a creature brought forth from non-being, is unaware that he grants him only the name, while denying that he is truly Son. For what has come into being from things that are not could not truly be Son of God, any more than any other of the things that have come into being.