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| He Skilfully Replies to a Passage Which the Heretics Employed in Defence of Their Own Opinion.
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Chapter
XXVII.5227
| 5227
According to Pamelius, ch. xxii. |
Argument.—He Skilfully Replies to a Passage Which the
Heretics Employed in Defence of Their Own Opinion.
But since they frequently urge upon us the passage
where it is said, “I and the Father are one,”5228
in this
also we shall overcome them with equal facility. For if, as the
heretics think, Christ were the Father, He ought to have said, “I
and the Father are one.”5229
| 5229
Original, “unas.” Scil.
person. | But when He says I, and
afterwards introduces the Father by saying, “I and the
Father,” He severs and distinguishes the peculiarity of His, that
is, the Son’s person, from the paternal authority, not only in
respect of the sound of the name, but moreover in respect of the order
of the distribution of power, since He might have said, “I the
Father,” if He had had it in mind that He Himself was the
Father. And since He said “one” thing,
let the heretics understand that He did not say “one”
person. For one placed in the neuter, intimates the
social concord, not the personal unity. He is said to be one
neuter, not one masculine, because the expression is not
referred to the number, but it is declared with reference to the
association of another. Finally, He adds, and says, “We
are,” not “I am,” so as to show, by the fact of His
saying “I and the Father are,” that they are two
persons. Moreover, that He says one,5230
has reference to the agreement, and
to the identity of judgment, and to the loving association itself, as
reasonably the Father and Son are one in agreement, in love, and in
affection; and because He is of the Father, whatsoever He is, He is the
Son; the distinction however remaining, that He is not the Father who
is the Son, because He is not the Son who is the Father. For He
would not have added “We are,” if He had had it in
mind that He, the only and sole Father, had become the Son. In
fine, the Apostle Paul also apprehended this agreement of unity,
with the distinction of persons notwithstanding: for in writing
to the Corinthians he said, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but
God gave the increase. Therefore neither is he that planteth
anything, nor he that watereth, but God who gives the increase.
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one.”5231
And who
does not perceive that Apollos is one person and Paul another, and that
Apollos and Paul are not one and the same person? Moreover, also,
the offices mentioned of each one of them are different; for one is he
who plants, and another he who waters. The Apostle Paul, however,
put forward these two not as being one person, but as being
“one;” so that although Apollos indeed is one, and Paul
another, so far as respects the distinction of persons, yet as far as
respects their agreement both are “one.” For when two
persons have one judgment, one truth, one faith, one and the same
religion, one fear of God also, they are one even although they are two
persons: they are the same, in that they have the same
mind. Since those whom the consideration of person divides from
one another, these same again are brought together as one by the
consideration of religion. And although they are not actually the
self-same people, yet in feeling the same, they are the same; and
although they are two, are still one, as having an association in
faith, even although they bear diversity in persons. Besides,
when at these words of the Lord the Jewish ignorance had been aroused,
so that hastily they ran to take up stones, and said, “For a good
work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because thou, being a
man, makest thyself God,”5232
the Lord established the distinction,
in giving them the principle on which He had either said that He was
God, or wished it to be understood, and says, “Say ye of Him,
whom the Father sanctified, and sent into this world, Thou blasphemest;
because I said, I am the Son of God?”5233
Even here also He said that He
had the Father. He is therefore the Son, not the Father:
for He would have confessed that He was the Father had He considered
Himself to be the Father; and He declares that He was sanctified by His
Father. In receiving, then, sanctification from the Father, He is
inferior to the Father. Now, consequently, He who is inferior to
the Father, is not the Father, but the Son; for had He been the
Father, He would have given, and not received, sanctification.
Now, however, by declaring that He has received sanctification from the
Father, by the very fact of proving Himself to be less than the Father,
by receiving from Him sanctification, He has shown that He is the Son,
and not the Father. Besides, He says that He is sent: so
that by that obedience wherewith the Lord Christ came, being sent, He
might be proved to be not the Father, but the Son, who assuredly would
have sent had He been the Father; but being sent, He was not the
Father, lest the Father should be proved, in being sent, to be
subjected to another God. And still after this He added what
might dissolve all ambiguity, and quench all the controversy of
error: for He says, in the last portion of His discourse,
“Ye say, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of
God.” Therefore if He plainly testifies that He is the Son
of God, and not the Father, it is an instance of great temerity and
excessive madness to stir up a controversy of divinity and religion,
contrary to the testimony of the Lord Christ Himself, and to say that
Christ Jesus is the Father, when it is observed that He has proved
Himself to be, not the Father, but the Son.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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