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| Chapter XVIII.—God the Father and His Word have formed all created things (which They use) by Their own power and wisdom, not out of defect or ignorance. The Son of God, who received all power from the Father, would otherwise never have taken flesh upon Him.
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Chapter XVIII.—God the Father and His
Word have formed all created things (which They use) by Their own power and
wisdom, not out of defect or ignorance. The Son of God, who received all power
from the Father, would otherwise never have taken flesh upon Him.
1. And such or so important a
dispensation He did not bring about by means of the creations of others,
but by His own; neither by those things which were created out of
ignorance and defect, but by those which had their substance from the
wisdom and power of His Father. For He was neither unrighteous, so that
He should covet the property of another; nor needy, that He could not by
His own means impart life to His own, and make use of His own creation
for the salvation of man. For indeed the creation could not have
sustained Him [on the cross], if He had sent forth [simply by commission]
what was the fruit of ignorance and defect. Now we have repeatedly shown
that the incarnate Word of God was suspended upon a tree, and even the
very heretics do acknowledge that He was crucified. How, then, could the
fruit of ignorance and defect sustain Him who contains the knowledge of
all things, and is true and perfect? Or how could that creation which was
concealed from the Father, and far removed from Him, have sustained His
Word? And if this world were made by the angels (it matters not whether
we suppose their ignorance or their cognizance of the Supreme God), when
the Lord declared, “For I am in the Father, and the Father in
Me,”4604
how could this workmanship
of the angels have borne to be burdened at once with the Father and the
Son? How, again, could that creation which is beyond the Pleroma have
contained Him who contains the entire Pleroma? Inasmuch, then, as all
these things are impossible and incapable of proof, that preaching of the
Church is alone true [which proclaims] that His own creation bare Him,
which subsists by the power, the skill, and the wisdom of God; which is
sustained, indeed, after an invisible manner by the Father, but, on the
contrary, after a visible manner it bore His Word: and this is the true
[Word].
2. For the Father bears the creation and His own Word
simultaneously, and the Word borne by the Father grants the Spirit to all
as the Father wills.4605
| 4605
From this passage Harvey infers that Irenæus held the procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son,—a doctrine denied by the
Oriental Church in after times. [Here is nothing about the
“procession:” only the “mission” of the Spirit is
here concerned. And the Easterns object to the double procession itself
only in so far as any one means thereby to deny “quod solus Pater
est divinarum personarum, Principium et Fons,”—ρίζα καὶ πηγὴ. See Procopowicz,
De Processione, Gothæ, 1772]. | To some He gives after
the manner of creation what is made;4606
| 4606 Grabe and Harvey insert the words, “quod est
conditionis,” but on slender authority. | but to others
[He gives] after the manner of adoption, that is, what is from God,
namely generation. And thus one God the Father is declared, who is above
all, and through all, and in all. The Father is indeed above all, and He
is the Head of Christ; but the Word is through all things, and is Himself
the Head of the Church; while the Spirit is in us all, and He is the
living water,4607
which the Lord grants to
those who rightly believe in Him, and love Him, and who know that
“there is one Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us
all.”4608
And to these things does
John also, the disciple of the Lord, bear witness, when he speaks thus in
the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.”4609
And then he said of the Word Himself:
“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world
knew Him not. To His own things He came, and His own people received Him
not. However, as many as did receive Him, to these gave He power to
become the sons of God, to those that believe in His name.”4610
And again, showing the dispensation with
regard to His human nature, John said: “And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us.”4611
And in
continuation he says, “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
Only-begotten by the Father, full of grace and truth.” He thus
plainly points out to those willing to hear, that is, to those having
ears, that there is one God, the Father over all, and one Word of God,
who is through all, by whom all things have been made; and that this
world belongs to Him, and was made by Him, according to the
Father’s will, and not by angels; nor by apostasy, defect, and
ignorance; nor by any power of Prunicus, whom certain of them also call
“the Mother;” nor by any other maker of the world ignorant of
the Father.
3. For the Creator of the world is truly the
Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man,
existing in this world, and who in an invisible manner contains all
things created, and is inherent in the entire creation, since the Word of
God governs and arranges all
things; and therefore He came
to His own in a visible4612
| 4612
The text reads “invisiblilter,” which seems clearly an
error. | manner, and was made flesh, and hung upon the tree,
that He might sum up all things in Himself. “And His own peculiar
people did not receive Him,” as Moses declared this very thing
among the people: “And thy life shall be hanging before thine eyes,
and thou wilt not believe thy life.”4613
Those therefore who did not receive Him did
not receive life. “But to as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God.”4614
For it is
He who has power from the Father over all things, since He is the Word of
God, and very man, communicating with invisible beings after the manner
of the intellect, and appointing a law observable to the outward senses,
that all things should continue each in its own order; and He reigns
manifestly over things visible and pertaining to men; and brings in just
judgment and worthy upon all; as David also, clearly pointing to this,
says, “Our God shall openly come, and will not keep
silence.”4615
Then he shows also the
judgment which is brought in by Him, saying, “A fire shall burn in
His sight, and a strong tempest shall rage round about Him. He shall call
upon the heaven from above, and the earth, to judge His
people.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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