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| It Is, Moreover, Proved by Moses in the Beginning of the Holy Scriptures.
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Chapter XVII.5136
| 5136
According to Pamelius, ch. xxv. |
Argument.—It Is, Moreover, Proved by Moses in the
Beginning of the Holy Scriptures.
What if Moses pursues this same rule of truth, and
delivers to us in the beginning of his sacred writings, this principle
by which we may learn that all things were created and founded by the
Son of God, that is, by the Word of God? For He says the same
that John and the rest say; nay, both John and the others are perceived
to have received from Him what they say. For if John says,
“All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing
made,”5137
the prophet
David too says, “I tell my works to the
King.”5138
Moses, moreover, introduces God commanding that there should be light
at the first, that the heaven should be established, that the
waters should be
gathered into one place, that the dry land should appear, that the
fruit should be brought forth according to its seed, that the animals
should be produced, that lights should be established in heaven, and
stars. He shows that none other was then present to God—by
whom these works were commanded that they should be made—than He
by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.
And if He is the Word of God—“for my heart has uttered
forth a good Word”5139
| 5139
Ps. xlv. 1. [As understood by the Father
passim. See Justin, vol. i. p. 213; Theophilus, ii.
98; Tertullian, iv. 365; Origen, iv. 352, 421; and Cyprian, v. p. 516,
supra.] | —He shows that in the
beginning the Word was, and that this Word was with the Father, and
besides that the Word was God, and that all things were made by
Him. Moreover, this “Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us,”5140
—to
wit, Christ the Son of God; whom both on receiving subsequently as man
according to the flesh, and seeing before the foundation of the world
to be the Word of God, and God, we reasonably, according to the
instruction of the Old and New Testament, believe and hold to be as
well God as man, Christ Jesus. What if the same Moses introduces
God saying, “Let us make man after our image and
likeness;”5141
and below,
“And God made man; in the image of God made He him, male and
female made He them?”5142
If, as we have already shown, it
is the Son of God by whom all things were made, certainly it was the
Son of God by whom also man was ordained, on whose account all things
were made. Moreover, when God commands that man should be made,
He is said to be God who makes man; but the Son of God makes man, that
is to say, the Word of God, “by whom all things were made, and
without whom nothing was made.” And this Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us: therefore Christ is God; therefore man
was made by Christ as by the Son of God. But God made man in the
image of God; He is therefore God who made man in the image of God;
therefore Christ is God: so that with reason neither does the
testimony of the Old Testament waver concerning the person of Christ,
being supported by the manifestation of the New Testament; nor is the
power of the New Testament detracted from, while its truth is resting
on the roots of the same Old Testament. Whence they who presume
Christ the Son of God and man to be only man, and not God also, do so
in opposition to both Old and New Testaments, in that they corrupt the
authority and the truth both of the Old and New Testaments. What
if the same Moses everywhere introduces God the Father infinite and
without end, not as being enclosed in any place, but as one who
includes every place; nor as one who is in a place, but rather one in
whom every place is, containing all things and embracing all things, so
that with reason He can neither descend nor ascend, because He Himself
both contains and fills all things, and yet nevertheless introduces God
descending to consider the tower which the sons of men were building,
asking and saying, “Come;” and then, “Let us go down
and there confound their tongues, that each one may not understand the
words of his neighbour.”5143
Whom do they pretend here to
have been the God who descended to that tower, and asking to visit
those men at that time? God the Father? Then thus He is
enclosed in a place; and how does He embrace all things? Or does
He say that it is an angel descending with angels, and saying,
“Come;” and subsequently, “Let us go down and there
confound their tongues?” And yet in Deuteronomy we observe
that God told these things, and that God said, where it is written,
“When He scattered abroad the children of Adam, He determined the
bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of
God.”5144
| 5144
Deut. xxxii. 8. [ἔστησεν ὀρια
ἐθνῶν κατὰ
ἀριθμὸν
ἀλλέλων
Θεοῦ, Sept.] |
Neither, therefore, did the Father descend, as the subject itself
indicates; nor did an angel command these things, as the fact
shows. Then it remains that He must have descended, of whom the
Apostle Paul says, “He who descended is the same who ascended
above all the heavens, that He might fill all things,”5145
that is, the
Son of God, the Word of God. But the Word of God was made flesh,
and dwelt among us. This must be Christ. Therefore Christ
must be declared to be God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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