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| Chapter XII
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Chapter XII.
In what follows, some may imagine that he says
something plausible against us. “If,” says he,
“these people worshipped one God alone, and no other, they would
perhaps have some valid argument against the worship of others.
But they pay excessive reverence to one who has but lately appeared
among men, and they think it no offence against God if they worship
also His servant.” To this we reply, that if Celsus had
known that saying, “I and My Father are one,”4860
and the words used in prayer by the Son of
God, “As Thou and I are one,”4861
he
would not have supposed that we worship any other besides Him who is
the Supreme God. “For,” says He, “My Father is
in Me, and I in Him.”4862
And if any
should from these words be afraid of our going over to the side of
those who deny that the Father and the Son are two persons, let him
weigh that passage, “And the multitude of them that believed were
of one heart and of one soul,”4863
that he may
understand the meaning of the saying, “I and My Father are
one.” We worship one God, the Father and the Son,
therefore, as we have explained; and our argument against the worship
of other gods still continues valid. And we do not
“reverence beyond measure one who has but lately appeared,”
as though He did not exist before;4864
| 4864 [See note
infra, cap. xxvi. S.] | for we believe
Himself when He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.”4865
Again He says, “I am the
truth;”4866
and surely none of
us is so simple as to suppose that truth did not exist before the time
when Christ appeared.4867
| 4867 [ἡ τῆς
ἀληθείας
οὐσία: see
Neander’s History of the Church, vol. ii. pp. 282, 283;
also note supra, book vi. cap. lxiv. p. 603.
S.] | We worship,
therefore, the Father of truth, and the Son, who is the truth; and
these, while they are two, considered as persons or subsistences, are
one in unity of thought, in harmony and in identity of will. So
entirely are they one, that he who has seen the Son, “who is the
brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His
person,”4868
has seen in Him who
is the image of God, God Himself.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
