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| The Son Alone Knows How to Praise the Father Worthily. In Christ and by Christ Our Thanksgivings Ought to Be Rendered to the Father. Gregory Also Gives Thanks to His Guardian Angel, Because He Was Conducted by Him to Origen.
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Argument
IV.—The Son Alone Knows How to Praise the Father Worthily.
In Christ and by Christ Our Thanksgivings Ought to Be Rendered to the
Father. Gregory Also Gives Thanks to His Guardian Angel, Because
He Was Conducted by Him to Origen.
But let us commit the praises and hymns in honour
of the King and Superintendent of all things, the perennial Fount of
all blessings, to the hand of Him who, in this matter as in all others,
is the Healer of our infirmity, and who alone is able to supply that
which is lacking; to the Champion and Saviour of our souls, His
first-born Word, the Maker and Ruler of all things, with whom also
alone it is possible, both for Himself and for all, whether privately
and individually, or publicly and collectively, to send up to the
Father uninterrupted and ceaseless thanksgivings. For as He is
Himself the Truth, and the Wisdom, and the Power of the Father of the
universe, and He is besides in Him, and is truly and entirely made one
with Him, it cannot be that, either through forgetfulness or unwisdom,
or any manner of infirmity, such as marks one dissociated from Him, He
shall either fail in the power to praise Him, or, while having the
power, shall willingly neglect (a supposition which it is not lawful,
surely, to indulge) to praise the Father. For He alone is able
most perfectly to fulfil the whole meed of honour which is proper to
Him, inasmuch as the Father of all things has made Him one with
Himself, and through Him all but completes the circle of His own being
objectively,174
| 174
ἐκπεριών in the text,
for which Bengel gives ἐκπεριϊών, a
word used frequently by this author. In Dorner it is explained as
= going out of Himself in order to embrace and encompass
Himself. See the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, A.
II. p. 173 (Clark). | and honours Him
with a power in all respects equal to His own, even as also He is
honoured; which position He first and alone of all creatures that exist
has had assigned Him, this Only-begotten of the Father, who is in Him,
and who is God the Word; while all others of us are able to express our
thanksgiving and our piety only if, in return for all the blessings
which proceed to us from the Father, we bring our offerings in simple
dependence on Him alone, and thus present the meet oblation of
thanksgiving to Him who is the Author of all things, acknowledging also
that the only way of piety is in this manner to offer our memorials
through Him. Wherefore, in acknowledgment of that ceaseless
providence which watches over all of us, alike in the greatest and in
the smallest concerns, and which has been sustained even thus far, let
this Word175
be accepted as the
worthy and perpetual expression for all thanksgivings and
praises,—I mean the altogether perfect and living and verily
animate Word of the First Mind Himself. But let this word of ours
be taken primarily as an eucharistic address in honour of this sacred
personage, who stands alone among all men;176
and if I may seek to discourse177
| 177 The
text gives μεληγορείν,
for which others read μεγαληγορεῖν. | of aught beyond this, and, in particular,
of any of those beings who are not seen, but yet are more godlike, and
who have a special care for men, it shall be addressed to that being
who, by some momentous decision, had me allotted to him from my boyhood
to rule, and rear, and train,—I mean that holy angel of God who
fed me from my youth,178
as says the saint dear to God, meaning thereby his own peculiar
one. Though he, indeed, as being himself illustrious, did in
these terms designate some angel exalted enough to befit his own
dignity (and whether it was some other one, or whether it was perchance
the Angel of the Mighty Counsel Himself, the Common Saviour of all,
that he received as his own peculiar guardian through his perfection, I
do not clearly know),—he, I say, did recognise and praise some
superior angel as his own, whosoever that was. But we, in
addition to the homage we offer to the Common Ruler of all men,
acknowledge and praise that being, whosoever he is, who has been the
wonderful guide of our childhood, who in all other matters has been in
time past my beneficent tutor and guardian. For this office of
tutor and guardian is one which evidently can suit179
| 179 The text
gives ἐμοὶ, etc.,…συμφερον
ειναι
καταφαίνεται. Bengel’s idea of the sense is followed
in the translation. | neither me nor any of my friends and kindred; for
we are all blind, and see nothing of what is before us, so as to be
able to judge of what is right and fitting; but it can suit only him
who sees beforehand all that is for the good of our soul: that
angel, I say, who still at this present time sustains, and
instructs, and conducts me; and who, in addition to all these other
benefits, has brought me into connection with this man, which, in
truth, is the most important of all the services done me. And
this, too, he has effected for me, although between myself and that man
of whom I discourse there was no kinship of race or blood, nor any
other tie, nor any relationship in neighbourhood or country whatsoever;
things which are made the ground of friendship and union among the
majority of men. But to speak in brief, in the exercise of a
truly divine and wise forethought he brought us together, who were
unknown to each other, and strangers, and foreigners, separated as
thoroughly from each other as intervening nations, and mountains, and
rivers can divide man from man, and thus he made good this meeting
which has been full of profit to me, having, as I judge, provided
beforehand this blessing for me from above from my very birth and
earliest upbringing. And in what manner this has been realized it
would take long to recount fully, not merely if I were to enter
minutely into the whole subject, and were to attempt to omit nothing,
but even if, passing many things by, I should purpose simply to mention
in a summary way a few of the most important points.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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