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Chapter II.—On
Christ.
1. In the first place, we must note that the
nature of that deity which is in Christ in respect of His being the only-begotten Son of God
is one thing, and that human nature which He assumed in these last
times for the purposes of the dispensation (of grace) is another.
And therefore we have first to ascertain what the only-begotten Son of
God is, seeing He is called by many different names, according to the
circumstances and views of individuals. For He is termed Wisdom,
according to the expression of Solomon: “The Lord created
me—the beginning of His ways, and among His works, before He made
any other thing; He founded me before the ages. In the beginning,
before He formed the earth, before He brought forth the fountains of
waters, before the mountains were made strong, before all the hills, He
brought me forth.”1955
| 1955 Prov. viii. 22–25. The reading in the text differs
considerably from that of the Vulgate. | He is also
styled First-born, as the apostle has declared: “who is the
first-born of every creature.”1956
The
first-born, however, is not by nature a different person from the
Wisdom, but one and the same. Finally, the Apostle Paul says that
“Christ (is) the power of God and the wisdom of
God.”1957
2. Let no one, however, imagine that we mean
anything impersonal1958
| 1958 Aliquid
insubstantivum. | when we call Him
the wisdom of God; or suppose, for example, that we understand Him to
be, not a living being endowed with wisdom, but something which makes
men wise, giving itself to, and implanting itself in, the minds of
those who are made capable of receiving His virtues and
intelligence. If, then, it is once rightly understood that the
only-begotten Son of God is His wisdom hypostatically1959
existing, I know not whether our curiosity
ought to advance beyond this, or entertain any suspicion that
that ὑπόστασις
or substantia contains anything of a bodily nature, since
everything that is corporeal is distinguished either by form, or
colour, or magnitude. And who in his sound senses ever sought for
form, or colour, or size, in wisdom, in respect of its being
wisdom? And who that is capable of entertaining reverential
thoughts or feelings regarding God, can suppose or believe that God the
Father ever existed, even for a moment of time,1960
| 1960 Ad punctum alicujus
momenti. |
without having generated this Wisdom? For in that case he must
say either that God was unable to generate Wisdom before He produced
her, so that He afterwards called into being her who formerly did not
exist, or that He possessed the power indeed, but—what cannot be
said of God without impiety—was unwilling to use it; both of
which suppositions, it is patent to all, are alike absurd and
impious: for they amount to this, either that God advanced from a
condition of inability to one of ability, or that, although possessed
of the power, He concealed it, and delayed the generation of
Wisdom. Wherefore we have always held that God is the Father of
His only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of Him, and derives from Him
what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured
by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can
contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with the naked
powers of the understanding. And therefore we must believe that
Wisdom was generated before any beginning that can be either
comprehended or expressed. And since all the creative power of
the coming creation1961
| 1961 Omnis virtus ac
deformatio futuræ creaturæ. | was included in
this very existence of Wisdom (whether of those things which have an
original or of those which have a derived existence), having been
formed beforehand and arranged by the power of foreknowledge; on
account of these very creatures which had been described, as it were,
and prefigured in Wisdom herself, does Wisdom say, in the words of
Solomon, that she was created the beginning of the ways of God,
inasmuch as she contained within herself either the beginnings, or
forms, or species of all creation.
3. Now, in the same way in which we have
understood that Wisdom was the beginning of the ways of God, and is
said to be created, forming beforehand and containing within herself
the species and beginnings of all creatures, must we understand her to
be the Word of God, because of her disclosing to all other beings,
i.e., to universal creation, the nature of the mysteries and secrets
which are contained within the divine wisdom; and on this account she
is called the Word, because she is, as it were, the interpreter of the
secrets of the mind. And therefore that language which is found
in the Acts of Paul,1962
| 1962 This work is mentioned
by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., iii. c. 3 and 25, as among the
spurious writings current in the Church. The Acts of Paul and
Thecla was a different work from the Acts of Paul. The
words quoted, “Hic est verbum animal vivens,” seem
to be a corruption from Heb.
iv. 12, ζῶν γὰρ ὁ
λόγος τοῦ
Θεοῦ. [Jones on the
Canon, vol. ii. pp. 353–411, as to Paul and
Thecla. As to this quotation of our author, see
Lardner, Credib., ii. p. 539.] | where it is said
that “here is the Word a living being,” appears to me to be
rightly used. John, however, with more sublimity and propriety,
says in the beginning of his Gospel, when defining God by a special
definition to be the Word, “And God was the Word,1963
| 1963 Or, “and the
Word was God.” | and this was in the beginning with
God.” Let him, then, who assigns a beginning to the Word or
Wisdom of God, take care that he be not guilty of impiety against the
unbegotten Father Himself, seeing he denies that He had always been a
Father, and had generated the Word, and had possessed wisdom in all
preceding periods, whether they be called times or ages, or anything else that
can be so entitled.
4. This Son, accordingly, is also the truth and
life of all things which exist. And with reason. For how
could those things which were created live, unless they derived their
being from life? or how could those things which are, truly exist,
unless they came down from the truth? or how could rational beings
exist, unless the Word or reason had previously existed? or how could
they be wise, unless there were wisdom? But since it was to come
to pass that some also should fall away from life, and bring death upon
themselves by their declension—for death is nothing else than a
departure from life—and as it was not to follow that those beings
which had once been created by God for the enjoyment of life should
utterly perish, it was necessary that, before death, there should be in
existence such a power as would destroy the coming death, and that
there should be a resurrection, the type of which was in our Lord and
Saviour, and that this resurrection should have its ground in the
wisdom and word and life of God. And then, in the next place,
since some of those who were created were not to be always willing to
remain unchangeable and unalterable in the calm and moderate enjoyment
of the blessings which they possessed, but, in consequence of the good
which was in them being theirs not by nature or essence, but by
accident, were to be perverted and changed, and to fall away from their
position, therefore was the Word and Wisdom of God made the Way.
And it was so termed because it leads to the Father those who walk
along it.
Whatever, therefore, we have predicated of the
wisdom of God, will be appropriately applied and understood of the Son
of God, in virtue of His being the Life, and the Word, and the Truth
and the Resurrection: for all these titles are derived from His
power and operations, and in none of them is there the slightest ground
for understanding anything of a corporeal nature which might seem to
denote either size, or form, or colour; for those children of men which
appear among us, or those descendants of other living beings,
correspond to the seed of those by whom they were begotten, or derive
from those mothers, in whose wombs they are formed and nourished,
whatever that is, which they bring into this life, and carry with them
when they are born.1964
| 1964 “Quoniam hi qui
videntur apud nos hominum filii, vel ceterorum animalium, semini eorum
a quibus seminati sunt respondent, vel earum quarum in utero formantur
ac nutriuntur, habent ex his quidquid illud est quod in lucem hanc
assumunt, ac deferunt processuri.” Probably the last two
words should be “deferunt processuris”—“and
hand it over to those who are destined to come forth from them,”
i.e., to their descendants. | But it is
monstrous and unlawful to compare God the Father, in the generation of
His only-begotten Son, and in the substance1965
| 1965 Subsistentia.
Some would read here, “substantia.” | of
the same, to any man or other living thing engaged in such an act; for
we must of necessity hold that there is something exceptional and
worthy of God which does not admit of any comparison at all, not merely
in things, but which cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered
by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the
unbegotten God is made the Father of the only-begotten Son.
Because His generation is as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancy
which is produced from the sun. For it is not by receiving
the1966
| 1966 Per adoptionem
Spiritus. The original words here were probably εἰσποίησις
τοῦ
πνεύματος, and
Rufinus seems to have mistaken the allusion to Gen. ii. 7. To “adoption,”
in the technical theological sense, the words in the text cannot have
any reference.—Schnitzer. | breath of life that He is made a Son, by
any outward act, but by His own nature.
5. Let us now ascertain how those statements
which we have advanced are supported by the authority of holy
Scripture. The Apostle Paul says, that the only-begotten Son is
the “image of the invisible God,” and “the first-born
of every creature.”1967
And when
writing to the Hebrews, he says of Him that He is “the brightness
of His glory, and the express image of His person.”1968
Now, we find in the treatise called
the Wisdom of Solomon the following description of the wisdom of
God: “For she is the breath of the power of God, and the
purest efflux1969
of the glory of the
Almighty.”1970
Nothing that
is polluted can therefore come upon her. For she is the splendour
of the eternal light, and the stainless mirror of God’s working,
and the image of His goodness. Now we say, as before, that Wisdom
has her existence nowhere else save in Him who is the beginning of all
things: from whom also is derived everything that is wise,
because He Himself is the only one who is by nature a Son, and is
therefore termed the Only-begotten.
6. Let us now see how we are to understand the
expression “invisible image,” that we may in this way
perceive how God is rightly called the Father of His Son; and let us,
in the first place, draw our conclusions from what are customarily
called images among men. That is sometimes called an image which
is painted or sculptured on some material substance, such as wood or
stone; and sometimes a child is called the image of his parent, when
the features of the child in no respect belie their resemblance to the
father. I think, therefore, that that man who was formed after
the image and likeness of God may be fittingly compared to the first
illustration. Respecting him, however, we shall see more
precisely, God willing, when we come to expound the passage in
Genesis. But the image of the Son of God, of whom we are now
speaking, may be compared to the second of the above examples, even in
respect of this, that He is the invisible image of the invisible God,
in the same manner as we say, according to the sacred history, that the
image of Adam is his son Seth. The words are, “And Adam
begat Seth in his own likeness, and after his own
image.”1971
Now this
image contains the unity of nature and substance belonging to Father
and Son. For if the Son do, in like manner, all those things
which the Father doth, then, in virtue of the Son doing all things like
the Father, is the image of the Father formed in the Son, who is born
of Him, like an act of His will proceeding from the mind. And I
am therefore of opinion that the will of the Father ought alone to be
sufficient for the existence of that which He wishes to exist.
For in the exercise of His will He employs no other way than that which
is made known by the counsel of His will. And thus also the
existence1972
of the Son is
generated by Him. For this point must above all others be
maintained by those who allow nothing to be unbegotten, i.e., unborn,
save God the Father only. And we must be careful not to fall into
the absurdities of those who picture to themselves certain emanations,
so as to divide the divine nature into parts, and who divide God the
Father as far as they can, since even to entertain the remotest
suspicion of such a thing regarding an incorporeal being is not only
the height of impiety, but a mark of the greatest folly, it being most
remote from any intelligent conception that there should be any
physical division of any incorporeal nature. Rather, therefore,
as an act of the will proceeds from the understanding, and neither cuts
off any part nor is separated or divided from it, so after some such
fashion is the Father to be supposed as having begotten the Son, His
own image; namely, so that, as He is Himself invisible by nature, He
also begat an image that was invisible. For the Son is the Word,
and therefore we are not to understand that anything in Him is
cognisable by the senses. He is wisdom, and in wisdom there can
be no suspicion of anything corporeal. He is the true light,
which enlightens every man that cometh into this world; but He has
nothing in common with the light of this sun. Our Saviour,
therefore, is the image of the invisible God, inasmuch as compared with
the Father Himself He is the truth: and as compared with us, to
whom He reveals the Father, He is the image by which we come to the
knowledge of the Father, whom no one knows save the Son, and he to whom
the Son is pleased to reveal Him. And the method of revealing Him
is through the understanding. For He by whom the Son Himself is
understood, understands, as a consequence, the Father also, according
to His own words: “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the
Father also.”1973
7. But since we quoted the language of Paul
regarding Christ, where He says of Him that He is “the brightness
of the glory of God, and the express figure of His
person,”1974
let us see what
idea we are to form of this. According to John, “God is
light.” The only-begotten Son, therefore, is the glory of
this light, proceeding inseparably from (God) Himself, as brightness
does from light, and illuminating the whole of creation. For,
agreeably to what we have already explained as to the manner in which
He is the Way, and conducts to the Father; and in which He is the Word,
interpreting the secrets of wisdom, and the mysteries of knowledge,
making them known to the rational creation; and is also the Truth, and
the Life, and the Resurrection,—in the same way ought we to
understand also the meaning of His being the brightness: for it
is by its splendour that we understand and feel what light itself
is. And this splendour, presenting itself gently and softly to
the frail and weak eyes of mortals, and gradually training, as it were,
and accustoming them to bear the brightness of the light, when it has
put away from them every hindrance and obstruction to vision, according
to the Lord’s own precept, “Cast forth the beam out of
thine eye,”1975
renders them
capable of enduring the splendour of the light, being made in this
respect also a sort of mediator between men and the light.
8. But since He is called by the apostle not
only the brightness of His glory, but also the express figure of His
person or subsistence,1976
it does not seem
idle to inquire how there can be said to be another figure of that
person besides the person of God Himself, whatever be the meaning of
person and subsistence. Consider, then, whether the Son of God,
seeing He is His Word and Wisdom, and alone knows the Father, and
reveals Him to whom He will (i.e., to those who are capable of
receiving His word and wisdom), may not, in regard of this very point
of making God to be understood and acknowledged, be called the figure
of His person and subsistence; that is, when that Wisdom, which desires
to make known to others the means by which God is acknowledged and
understood by them, describes Himself first of all, it may by so doing
be called the express figure of the person of God. In order,
however, to arrive at a fuller understanding of the manner in which the
Saviour is the figure of the person or subsistence of God, let us take an instance, which,
although it does not describe the subject of which we are treating
either fully or appropriately, may nevertheless be seen to be employed
for this purpose only, to show that the Son of God, who was in the form
of God, divesting Himself (of His glory), makes it His object, by this
very divesting of Himself, to demonstrate to us the fulness of His
deity. For instance, suppose that there were a statue of so
enormous a size as to fill the whole world, and which on that account
could be seen by no one; and that another statue were formed altogether
resembling it in the shape of the limbs, and in the features of the
countenance, and in form and material, but without the same immensity
of size, so that those who were unable to behold the one of enormous
proportions, should, on seeing the latter, acknowledge that they had
seen the former, because it preserved all the features of its limbs and
countenance, and even the very form and material, so closely, as to be
altogether undistinguishable from it; by some such similitude, the Son
of God, divesting Himself of His equality with the Father, and showing
to us the way to the knowledge of Him, is made the express image of His
person: so that we, who were unable to look upon the glory of
that marvellous light when placed in the greatness of His Godhead, may,
by His being made to us brightness, obtain the means of beholding the
divine light by looking upon the brightness. This comparison, of
course, of statues, as belonging to material things, is employed for no
other purpose than to show that the Son of God, though placed in the
very insignificant form of a human body, in consequence of the
resemblance of His works and power to the Father, showed that there was
in Him an immense and invisible greatness, inasmuch as He said to His
disciples, “He who sees Me, sees the Father also;” and,
“I and the Father are one.” And to these belong also
the similar expression, “The Father is in Me, and I in the
Father.”
9. Let us see now what is the meaning of the
expression which is found in the Wisdom of Solomon, where it is said of
Wisdom that “it is a kind of breath of the power of God, and the
purest efflux of the glory of the Omnipotent, and the splendour of
eternal light, and the spotless mirror of the working or power of God,
and the image of His goodness.”1977
These, then, are the definitions which
he gives of God, pointing out by each one of them certain attributes
which belong to the Wisdom of God, calling wisdom the power, and the
glory, and the everlasting light, and the working, and the goodness of
God. He does not say, however, that wisdom is the breath of the
glory of the Almighty, nor of the everlasting light, nor of the working
of the Father, nor of His goodness, for it was not appropriate that
breath should be ascribed to any one of these; but, with all propriety,
he says that wisdom is the breath of the power of God. Now, by
the power of God is to be understood that by which He is strong; by
which He appoints, restrains, and governs all things visible and
invisible; which is sufficient for all those things which He rules over
in His providence; among all which He is present, as if one
individual. And although the breath of all this mighty and
immeasurable power, and the vigour itself produced, so to speak, by its
own existence, proceed from the power itself, as the will does from the
mind, yet even this will of God is nevertheless made to become the
power of God.1978
| 1978 “Hujus ergo
totius virtutis tantæ et tam immensæ vapor, et, ut ita dicam,
vigor ipse in propriâ subsistentiâ effectus, quamvis ex ipsa
virtute velut voluntas ex mente procedat, tamen et ipsa voluntas Dei
nihilominus Dei virtus efficitur.” |
Another power accordingly is produced, which
exists with properties of its own,—a kind of breath, as Scripture
says, of the primal and unbegotten power of God, deriving from Him its
being, and never at any time non-existent. For if any one were to
assert that it did not formerly exist, but came afterwards into
existence, let him explain the reason why the Father, who gave it
being, did not do so before. And if he shall grant that there was
once a beginning, when that breath proceeded from the power of God, we
shall ask him again, why not even before the beginning, which he has
allowed; and in this way, ever demanding an earlier date, and going
upwards with our interrogations, we shall arrive at this conclusion,
that as God was always possessed of power and will, there never was any
reason of propriety or otherwise, why He may not have always possessed
that blessing which He desired. By which it is shown that that
breath of God’s power always existed, having no beginning save
God Himself. Nor was it fitting that there should be any other
beginning save God Himself, from whom it derives its birth. And
according to the expression of the apostle, that Christ “is the
power of God,”1979
it ought to be
termed not only the breath of the power of God, but power out of
power.
10. Let us now examine the expression,
“Wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty;”
and let us first consider what the glory of the omnipotent God is, and
then we shall also understand what is its efflux. As no one can
be a father without having a son, nor a master without possessing a
servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent unless there exist
those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore, that God may
be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things should
exist. For if any one would have some ages or portions of time,
or whatever else he likes to call them, to have passed away, while
those things which were afterwards made did not yet exist, he would
undoubtedly show that during those ages or periods God was not
omnipotent, but became so afterwards, viz., from the time that He began
to have persons over whom to exercise power; and in this way He will
appear to have received a certain increase, and to have risen from a
lower to a higher condition; since there can be no doubt that it is
better for Him to be omnipotent than not to be so. And now how
can it appear otherwise than absurd, that when God possessed none of
those things which it was befitting for Him to possess, He should
afterwards, by a kind of progress, come into the possession of
them? But if there never was a time when He was not omnipotent,
of necessity those things by which He receives that title must also
exist; and He must always have had those over whom He exercised power,
and which were governed by Him either as king or prince, of which we
shall speak more fully in the proper place, when we come to discuss the
subject of the creatures. But even now I think it necessary to
drop a word, although cursorily, of warning, since the question before
us is, how wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty,
lest any one should think that the title of Omnipotent was anterior in
God to the birth of Wisdom, through whom He is called Father, seeing
that Wisdom, which is the Son of God, is the purest efflux of the glory
of the Almighty. Let him who is inclined to entertain this
suspicion hear the undoubted declaration of Scripture pronouncing,
“In wisdom hast Thou made them all,”1980
and the teaching of the Gospel, that
“by Him were all things made, and without Him nothing was
made;”1981
and let him
understand from this that the title of Omnipotent in God cannot be
older than that of Father; for it is through the Son that the Father is
almighty. But from the expression “glory of the
Almighty,” of which glory Wisdom is the efflux, this is to be
understood, that Wisdom, through which God is called omnipotent, has a
share in the glory of the Almighty. For through Wisdom, which is
Christ, God has power over all things, not only by the authority of a
ruler, but also by the voluntary obedience of subjects. And that
you may understand that the omnipotence of Father and Son is one and
the same, as God and the Lord are one and the same with the Father,
listen to the manner in which John speaks in the Apocalypse:
“Thus saith the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is
to come, the Almighty.”1982
For who else
was “He which is to come” than Christ? And as no one
ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Saviour is
also God; so also, since the Father is called omnipotent, no one ought
to be offended that the Son of God is also called omnipotent. For
in this way will that saying be true which He utters to the Father,
“All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in
them.”1983
Now, if all
things which are the Father’s are also Christ’s, certainly
among those things which exist is the omnipotence of the Father; and
doubtless the only-begotten Son ought to be omnipotent, that the Son
also may have all things which the Father possesses. “And I
am glorified in them,” He declares. For “at the name
of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess that
the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.”1984
Therefore He is the efflux of the
glory of God in this respect, that He is omnipotent—the pure and
limpid Wisdom herself—glorified as the efflux of omnipotence or
of glory. And that it may be more clearly understood what the glory of
omnipotence is, we shall add the following. God the Father is
omnipotent, because He has power over all things, i.e., over heaven and
earth, sun, moon, and stars, and all things in them. And He
exercises His power over them by means of His Word, because at the name
of Jesus every knee shall bow, both of things in heaven, and things on
earth, and things under the earth. And if every knee is bent to
Jesus, then, without doubt, it is Jesus to whom all things are subject,
and He it is who exercises power over all things, and through whom all
things are subject to the Father; for through wisdom, i.e., by word and
reason, not by force and necessity, are all things subject. And
therefore His glory consists in this very thing, that He possesses all
things, and this is the purest and most limpid glory of omnipotence,
that by reason and wisdom, not by force and necessity, all things are
subject. Now the purest and most limpid glory of wisdom is a
convenient expression to distinguish it from that glory which cannot be
called pure and sincere. But every nature which is convertible
and changeable, although glorified in the works of righteousness or
wisdom, yet by the fact that righteousness or wisdom are accidental
qualities, and because that which is accidental may also fall away, its
glory cannot be called sincere and pure. But the Wisdom of God,
which is His only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of
change or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential, and such as cannot be changed
and converted, His glory is therefore declared to be pure and
sincere.
11. In the third place, wisdom is called the
splendour of eternal light. The force of this expression we have
explained in the preceding pages, when we introduced the similitude of
the sun and the splendour of its rays, and showed to the best of our
power how this should be understood. To what we then said we
shall add only the following remark. That is properly termed
everlasting or eternal which neither had a beginning of existence, nor
can ever cease to be what it is. And this is the idea conveyed by
John when he says that “God is light.” Now His wisdom
is the splendour of that light, not only in respect of its being light,
but also of being everlasting light, so that His wisdom is eternal and
everlasting splendour. If this be fully understood, it clearly
shows that the existence of the Son is derived from the Father but not
in time, nor from any other beginning, except, as we have said, from
God Himself.
12. But wisdom is also called the stainless mirror
of the ἐνέργεια or
working of God. We must first understand, then, what the working
of the power of God is. It is a sort of vigour, so to speak, by
which God operates either in creation, or in providence, or in
judgment, or in the disposal and arrangement of individual things, each
in its season. For as the image formed in a mirror unerringly
reflects all the acts and movements of him who gazes on it, so would
Wisdom have herself to be understood when she is called the stainless
mirror of the power and working of the Father: as the Lord Jesus
Christ also, who is the Wisdom of God, declares of Himself when He
says, “The works which the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise.”1985
And again He
says, that the Son cannot do anything of Himself, save what He sees the
Father do. As therefore the Son in no respect differs from the
Father in the power of His works, and the work of the Son is not a
different thing from that of the Father, but one and the same movement,
so to speak, is in all things, He therefore named Him a stainless
mirror, that by such an expression it might be understood that them is
no dissimilarity whatever between the Son and the Father. How,
indeed, can those things which are said by some to be done after the
manner in which a disciple resembles or imitates his master, or
according to the view that those things are made by the Son in bodily
material which were first formed by the Father in their spiritual
essence, agree with the declarations of Scripture, seeing in the Gospel
the Son is said to do not similar things, but the same things in
a similar manner?
13. It remains that we inquire what is the
“image of His goodness;” and here, I think, we must
understand the same thing which we expressed a little ago, in speaking
of the image formed by the mirror. For He is the primal goodness,
doubtless, out of which the Son is born, who, being in all respects the
image of the Father, may certainly also be called with propriety the
image of His goodness. For there is no other second goodness
existing in the Son, save that which is in the Father. And
therefore also the Saviour Himself rightly says in the Gospel,
“There is none good save one only, God the
Father,”1986
that by such an
expression it may be understood that the Son is not of a different
goodness, but of that only which exists in the Father, of whom He is
rightly termed the image, because He proceeds from no other source but
from that primal goodness, lest there might appear to be in the Son a
different goodness from that which is in the Father. Nor is there
any dissimilarity or difference of goodness in the Son. And
therefore it is not to be imagined that there is a kind of blasphemy,
as it were, in the words, “There is none good save one only, God
the Father,” as if thereby it may be supposed to be denied that
either Christ or the Holy Spirit was good. But, as we have
already said, the primal goodness is to be understood as residing in
God the Father, from whom both the Son is born and the Holy Spirit
proceeds, retaining within them, without any doubt, the nature of that
goodness which is in the source whence they are derived. And if
there be any other things which in Scripture are called good, whether
angel, or man, or servant, or treasure, or a good heart, or a good
tree, all these are so termed catachrestically,1987
| 1987 Abusive [= improperly
used. S.] |
having in them an accidental, not an essential goodness. But it
would require both much time and labour to collect together all the
titles of the Son of God, such, e.g., as the true light, or the door,
or the righteousness, or the sanctification, or the redemption, and
countless others; and to show for what reasons each one of them is so
given. Satisfied, therefore, with what we have already advanced,
we go on with our inquiries into those other matters which
follow.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
