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| The Fourth Theological Oration, Which is the Second Concerning the Son.
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Oration XXX.
The Fourth Theological Oration, Which
is the Second Concerning the Son.
I. Since I have by
the power of the Spirit sufficiently overthrown the subtleties and
intricacies of the arguments, and already solved in the mass the
objections and oppositions drawn from Holy Scripture, with which these
sacrilegious robbers of the Bible and thieves of the sense of its
contents draw over the multitude to their side, and confuse the way of
truth; and that not without clearness, as I believe all candid persons
will say; attributing to the Deity the higher and diviner expressions,
and the lower and more human to Him Who for us men was the Second Adam,
and was God made capable of suffering to strive against sin;
yet we have not yet gone through
the passages in detail, because of the haste of our argument. But
since you demand of us a brief explanation of each of them, that you
may not be carried away by the plausibilities of their arguments, we
will therefore state the explanations summarily, dividing them into
numbers for the sake of carrying them more easily in mind.
II. In their eyes the following is only too
ready to hand “The Lord created me at
the beginning of His ways with a view to His works.”3595
| 3595 Prov. viii. 22. The A.V. has in the place Possessed, and this has very high
authority: but the Hebrew word in almost every case signifies to
Acquire. It is used, says Bp. Wordsworth (ad h. l.), about eighty
times in the O.T., and in only five places is it rendered in our
Translation by Possess;—in two of which (Gen. xiv. 10, 22, and Ps. cxxxix.
13) it might well have the
sense of Creating, and in two (Jer. xxxii. 15; and
Zech. xi. 5) of
Getting. In some ancient Versions (LXX.
and Syr.) it is rendered by Create. S. Jerome in his Ep. ad Cypr.
(ii. 697) says that the word may here be understood of possession, but
in his Comm. on Ephes. ii. (p. 342) he adopts the rendering Create,
which he applies to the Incarnation, as in several places does S.
Athanasius. But Wordsworth thinks it better to apply the words to
the Eternal Generation, as S. Hilary expounds it (c. Arianos, who
argued from it that Christ was a creature); “quia Filius
Dei non corporalis parturitionis est genitus exemplo, sed ex perfecto
Deo perfectus Deus natus; et ideo ait creatam se esse Sapientia; omnem
in generatione sua notionem passionis corporalis excludens.” | How shall we meet this? Shall we
bring an accusation against Solomon, or reject his former words because
of his fall in after-life? Shall we say that the words are those
of Wisdom herself, as it were of Knowledge and the Creator-word, in
accordance with which all things were made? For Scripture often
personifies many even lifeless objects; as for instance, “The Sea
said”3596
so and so; and,
“The Depth saith, It is not in me;”3597
and “The Heavens declare the glory of God;”3598
and again a command is given to the
Sword;3599
and the Mountains
and Hills are asked the reason of their skipping.3600
We do not allege any of these, though
some of our predecessors used them as powerful arguments. But let
us grant that the expression is used of our Saviour Himself, the true
Wisdom. Let us consider one small point together. What
among all things that exist is unoriginate? The Godhead.
For no one can tell the origin of God, that otherwise would be older
than God. But what is the cause of the Manhood, which for our
sake God assumed? It was surely our Salvation. What else
could it be? Since then we find here clearly both the Created and
the Begetteth Me, the argument is simple. Whatever we find joined
with a cause we are to refer to the Manhood, but all that is absolute
and unoriginate we are to reckon to the account of His Godhead.
Well, then, is not this “Created” said in connection with a
cause? He created Me, it so says, as the beginning of His ways,
with a view to his works. Now, the Works of His Hands are verity
and judgment;3601
for whose sake He
was anointed with Godhead;3602
for this anointing
is of the Manhood; but the “He begetteth Me” is not
connected with a cause; or it is for you to shew the adjunct.
What argument then will disprove that Wisdom is called a creature, in
connection with the lower generation, but Begotten in respect of the
first and more incomprehensible?
III. Next is the fact of His being called
Servant3603
and serving many
well, and that it is a great thing for Him to be called the Child of
God. For in truth He was in servitude to flesh and to birth and
to the conditions of our life with a view to our liberation, and to
that of all those whom He has saved, who were in bondage under
sin. What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than
that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling
should be deified,3604
and that we should
be so visited by the Dayspring from on high,3605
that even that Holy Thing that should be born should be called the Son
of the Highest,3606
and that there
should be bestowed upon Him a Name which is above every name? And
what else can this be than God?—and that every knee should bow to
Him That was made of no reputation for us, and That mingled the Form of
God with the form of a servant, and that all the House of Israel should
know that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ?3607
For all this was done by the action of
the Begotten, and by the good pleasure of Him That begat
Him.
IV. Well, what is the second of their great
irresistible passages? “He must reign,”3608
till such and such a time…and
“be received by heaven until the time of
restitution,”3609
and “have the
seat at the Right Hand until the overthrow of His
enemies.”3610
But after
this? Must He cease to be King, or be removed from Heaven?
Why, who shall make Him cease, or for what cause? What a bold and
very anarchical interpreter you are; and yet you have heard that Of His
Kingdom there shall be no end.3611
Your mistake arises from not
understanding that Until is not always exclusive of that which comes
after, but asserts up to that time, without denying what
comes after
it. To take a single instance—how else would you
understand, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world?”3612
Does it mean
that He will no longer be so afterwards. And for what
reason? But this is not the only cause of your error; you also
fail to distinguish between the things that are signified. He is
said to reign in one sense as the Almighty King, both of the willing
and the unwilling; but in another as producing in us submission, and
placing us under His Kingship as willingly acknowledging His
Sovereignty. Of His Kingdom, considered in the former sense,
there shall be no end. But in the second sense, what end will
there be? His taking us as His servants, on our entrance into a
state of salvation. For what need is there to Work Submission in
us when we have already submitted? After which He arises to judge
the earth, and to separate the saved from the lost. After that He
is to stand as God in the midst of gods,3613
that is, of the saved, distinguishing and deciding of what honour and
of what mansion each is worthy.
V. Take, in the next place, the subjection
by which you subject the Son to the Father. What, you say, is He
not now subject, or must He, if He is God, be subject to God?3614
| 3614 S. Gregory would here
shew that the subjection of Christ of which S. Paul speaks in the
passage quoted, is that of the Head of the Church, representing the
members of His body. Cf. S. Ambrose, de Fide V. vi., quoted by
Petavius, de Trin. III. v. 2. | You are fashioning your argument as if
it concerned some robber, or some hostile deity. But look at it
in this manner: that as for my sake He was called a
curse,3615
Who destroyed my
curse; and sin,3616
who taketh away the
sin of the world; and became a new Adam3617
to
take the place of the old, just so He makes my disobedience His own as
Head of the whole body. As long then as I am disobedient and
rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ
also is called disobedient on my account. But when all things
shall be subdued unto Him on the one hand by acknowledgment of Him, and
on the other by a reformation, then He Himself also will have fulfilled
His submission, bringing me whom He has saved to God. For this,
according to my view, is the subjection of Christ; namely, the
fulfilling of the Father’s Will. But as the Son subjects
all to the Father, so does the Father to the Son; the One by His Work,
the Other by His good pleasure, as we have already said. And thus
He Who subjects presents to God that which he has subjected, making our
condition His own. Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the
expression, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me?”3618
It was not He
who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead, as some
have thought, as if It were afraid of the Passion, and therefore
withdrew Itself from Him in His Sufferings (for who compelled Him
either to be born on earth at all, or to be lifted up on the
Cross?) But as I said, He was in His own Person representing
us. For we were the forsaken and despised before, but now by the
Sufferings of Him Who could not suffer, we were taken up and
saved. Similarly, He makes His own our folly and our
transgressions; and says what follows in the Psalm, for it is very
evident that the Twenty-first3619
Psalm refers to
Christ.
VI. The same consideration applies to
another passage, “He learnt obedience by the things which He
suffered,”3620
and to His
“strong crying and tears,” and His
“Entreaties,” and His “being heard,” and
His” Reverence,” all of which He wonderfully wrought out,
like a drama whose plot was devised on our behalf. For in His
character of the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient.
For such expressions belong to servants, and inferiors, and the one
applies to the better sort of them, while the other belongs to those
who deserve punishment. But, in the character of the Form of a
Servant, He condescends to His fellow servants, nay, to His servants,
and takes upon Him a strange form, bearing all me and mine in Himself,
that in Himself He may exhaust the bad, as fire does wax, or as the sun
does the mists of earth; and that I may partake of His nature by the
blending. Thus He honours obedience by His action, and proves it
experimentally by His Passion. For to possess the disposition is
not enough, just as it would not be enough for us, unless we also
proved it by our acts; for action is the proof of
disposition.
And perhaps it would not be wrong to assume this
also, that by the art3621
| 3621 Leuvenclavius
translates “The art of this lovingkindness gauges,”
etc. | of His love for man
He gauges our obedience, and measures all by comparison with His own
Sufferings, so that He may know our condition by His own, and how much
is demanded of us, and how much we yield, taking into the account,
along with our environment, our weakness also. For if the Light
shining through the veil3622
| 3622 The Benedictines
render, “In darkness, that is, in this life, because of the veil
of the body.” | upon the darkness,
that is upon this life, was persecuted by the other darkness (I mean,
the Evil One and the
Tempter), how much more will the darkness be persecuted, as being
weaker than it? And what marvel is it, that though He entirely
escaped, we have been, at any rate in part, overtaken? For it is
a more wonderful thing that He should have been chased than that we
should have been captured;—at least to the minds of all who
reason aright on the subject. I will add yet another passage to
those I have mentioned, because I think that it clearly tends to the
same sense. I mean “In that He hath suffered being tempted,
He is able to succour them that are tempted.”3623
But God will be all in all in the time
of restitution; not in the sense that the Father alone will Be; and the
Son be wholly resolved into Him, like a torch into a great pyre, from
which it was reft away for a little space, and then put back (for I
would not have even the Sabellians injured3624
| 3624 The Benedictines take
παρα
φθειρέσθωσαν
in an active sense: “I would not let even the Sabellians
wrest such an expression.” | by
such an expression); but the entire Godhead…when we shall be no
longer divided (as we now are by movements and passions), and
containing nothing at all of God, or very little, but shall be entirely
like.
VII. As your third point you count the Word
Greater;3625
and as your fourth,
To My God and your God.3626
And indeed,
if He had been called greater, and the word equal had not occurred,
this might perhaps have been a point in their favour. But if we
find both words clearly used what will these gentlemen have to
say? How will it strengthen their argument? How will they
reconcile the irreconcilable? For that the same thing should be
at once greater than and equal to the same thing is an impossibility;
and the evident solution is that the Greater refers to origination,
while the Equal belongs to the Nature; and this we acknowledge with
much good will. But perhaps some one else will back up our attack
on your argument, and assert, that That which is from such a Cause is
not inferior to that which has no Cause; for it would share the glory
of the Unoriginate, because it is from the Unoriginate. And there
is, besides, the Generation, which is to all men a matter so marvellous
and of such Majesty. For to say that he is greater than the Son
considered as man, is true indeed, but is no great thing. For
what marvel is it if God is greater than man? Surely that is
enough to say in answer to their talk about Greater.
VIII. As to the other passages, My God would
be used in respect, not of the Word, but of the Visible Word. For
how could there be a God of Him Who is properly God? In the same
way He is Father, not of the Visible, but of the Word; for our Lord was
of two Natures; so that one expression is used properly, the other
improperly in each of the two cases; but exactly the opposite way to
their use in respect of us. For with respect to us God is
properly our God, but not properly our Father. And this is the
cause of the error of the Heretics, namely the joining of these two
Names, which are interchanged because of the Union of the
Natures. And an indication of this is found in the fact that
wherever the Natures are distinguished in our thoughts from one
another, the Names are also distinguished; as you hear in Paul’s
words, “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
Glory.”3627
The God of
Christ, but the Father of glory. For although these two terms
express but one Person, yet this is not by a Unity of Nature, but by a
Union of the two. What could be clearer?
IX. Fifthly, let it be alleged that it is
said of Him that He receives life,3628
judgment,3629
inheritance of the
Gentiles,3630
or power over all
flesh,3631
or glory,3632
or disciples, or whatever else is
mentioned. This also belongs to the Manhood; and yet if you were
to ascribe it to the Godhead, it would be no absurdity. For you
would not so ascribe it as if it were newly acquired, but as belonging
to Him from the beginning by reason of nature, and not as an act of
favour.
X. Sixthly, let it be asserted that it is
written, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the
Father do.3633
The solution
of this is as follows:—Can and Cannot are not words with only one
meaning, but have many meanings. On the one hand they are used
sometimes in respect of deficiency of strength, sometimes in respect of
time, and sometimes relatively to a certain object; as for instance, A
Child cannot be an Athlete, or, A Puppy cannot see, or fight with so
and so. Perhaps some day the child will be an athlete, the puppy
will see, will fight with that other, though it may still be unable to
fight with Any other. Or again, they may be used of that which is
Generally true. For instance,—A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid;3634
while yet it might
possibly be hidden by another higher hill being in a line with
it. Or in another sense they are used of a thing which is not
reasonable; as, Can the Children of the Bridechamber fast while
the Bridegroom is with
them;3635
whether He be considered as visible in
bodily form (for the time of His sojourning among us was not one of
mourning, but of gladness), or, as the Word. For why should they
keep a bodily fast who are cleansed by the Word?3636
Or, again, they are used of that which
is contrary to the will; as in, He could do no mighty works there
because of their unbelief,3637
—i.e. of those
who should receive them. For since in order to healing there is
need of both faith in the patient and power in the Healer,3638
| 3638 Note with the
Benedictines that S. Gregory is here speaking of our Lord alone, not of
ordinary Physicians; hence he uses the singular. | when one of the two failed the other was
impossible. But probably this sense also is to be referred to the
head of the unreasonable. For healing is not reasonable in the
case of those who would afterwards be injured by unbelief. The
sentence The world cannot hate you,3639
comes under
the same head, as does also How can ye, being evil, speak good
things?3640
For in what
sense is either impossible, except that it is contrary to the
will? There is a somewhat similar meaning in the expressions
which imply that a thing impossible by nature is possible to God if He
so wills;3641
as that a man
cannot be born a second time,3642
or that a needle
will not let a camel through it.3643
For what
could prevent either of these things happening, if God so
willed?
XI. And besides all this, there is the
absolutely impossible and inadmissible, as that which we are now
examining. For as we assert that it is impossible for God to be
evil, or not to exist—for this would be indicative of weakness in
God rather than of strength—or for the non-existent to exist, or
for two and two to make both four and ten,3644
| 3644 One ms. reads “to be fourteen.” | so
it is impossible and inconceivable that the Son should do anything that
the Father doeth not.3645
For all
things that the Father hath are the Son’s;3646
and on the other hand, all that belongs to
the Son is the Father’s. Nothing then is peculiar, because
all things are in common. For Their Being itself is common and
equal, even though the Son receive it from the Father. It is in
respect of this that it is said I live by the Father;3647
not as though His Life and Being were kept
together by the Father, but because He has His Being from Him beyond
all time, and beyond all cause. But how does He see the Father
doing, and do likewise? Is it like those who copy pictures and
letters, because they cannot attain the truth unless by looking at the
original, and being led by the hand by it? But how shall Wisdom
stand in need of a teacher, or be incapable of acting unless
taught? And in what sense does the Father “Do” in the
present or in the past? Did He make another world before this
one, or is He going to make a world to come? And did the Son look
at that and make this? Or will He look at the other, and make one
like it? According to this argument there must be Four worlds,
two made by the Father, and two by the Son. What an
absurdity! He cleanses lepers, and delivers men from evil
spirits, and diseases, and quickens the dead, and walks upon the sea,
and does all His other works; but in what case, or when did the Father
do these acts before Him? Is it not clear that the Father
impressed the ideas of these same actions, and the Word brings them to
pass, yet not in slavish or unskilful fashion, but with full knowledge
and in a masterly way, or, to speak more properly, like the
Father? For in this sense I understand the words that whatsoever
is done by the Father, these things doeth the Son likewise; not, that
is, because of the likeness of the things done, but in respect of the
Authority. This might well also be the meaning of the passage
which says that the Father worketh hitherto and the Son also;3648
and not only so but it refers also to the
government and preservation of the things which He has made; as is
shewn by the passage which says that He maketh His Angels
Spirits,3649
and that the earth
is founded upon its steadfastness (though once for all these things
were fixed and made) and that the thunder is made firm and the wind
created.3650
Of all these
things the Word was given once, but the Action is continuous even
now.
XII. Let them quote in the seventh place
that The Son came down from Heaven, not to do His own Will, but the
Will of Him That sent Him.3651
Well, if this
had not been said by Himself Who came down, we should say that the
phrase was modelled as issuing from the Human Nature, not from Him who
is conceived of in His character as the Saviour, for His Human Will
cannot be opposed to God, seeing it is altogether taken into God; but
conceived of simply as in our nature, inasmuch as the human will does
not completely follow the Divine, but for the most part struggles
against and resists it. For we understand in the same way the
words, Father, if it
be possible, let this cup pass from Me; Nevertheless let not what I
will but Thy Will prevail.3652
For it is not
likely that He did not know whether it was possible or not, or that He
would oppose will to will. But since, as this is the language of
Him Who assumed our Nature (for He it was Who came down), and not of
the Nature which He assumed, we must meet the objection in this way,
that the passage does not mean that the Son has a special will of His
own, besides that of the Father, but that He has not; so that the
meaning would be, “not to do Mine own Will, for there is none of
Mine apart from, but that which is common to, Me and Thee; for as We
have one Godhead, so We have one Will.”3653
| 3653 Observe that S.
Gregory expressly limits this paraphrase to the Divine Nature of our
Lord, and is not in any way denying to Him a Human Will
also;—indeed in the preceding sentence he distinctly asserts
it. The whole passage makes very strongly against the heresy of
Apollinarius, which adopted the Arian tenet that in our Lord the Divine
Logos supplied the place of the human soul. | For many such expressions are used in
relation to this Community, and are expressed not positively but
negatively; as, e.g., God giveth not the Spirit by measure,3654
for as a matter of fact He does not give the
Spirit to the Son, nor does He measure It, for God is not
measured by God; or again, Not my transgression nor my sin.3655
The words are not used because He has
these things, but because He has them not. And again, Not for our
righteousness which we have done,3656
for we have
not done any. And this meaning is evident also in the clauses
which follow. For what, says He, is the Will of My Father?
That everyone that believeth on the Son should be saved,3657
and obtain the final Resurrection.3658
Now is this the Will of the Father,
but not of the Son? Or does He preach the Gospel, and receive
men’s faith against His will? Who could believe that?
Moreover, that passage, too, which says that the Word which is heard is
not the Son’s3659
but the
Father’s has the same force. For I cannot see how that
which is common to two can be said to belong to one alone, however much
I consider it, and I do not think any one else can. If then you
hold this opinion concerning the Will, you will be right and reverent
in your opinion, as I think, and as every right-minded person
thinks.
XIII. The eighth passage is, That they may
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast
sent;3660
and There is none good save one, that is,
God.3661
The solution of this appears to me
very easy. For if you attribute this only to the Father, where
will you place the Very Truth? For if you conceive in this manner
of the meaning of To the only wise God,3662
or
Who only hath Immortality, Dwelling in the light which no man can
approach unto,3663
or of to the king
of the Ages, immortal, invisible, and only wise God,3664
then the Son has vanished under sentence of
death, or of darkness, or at any rate condemned to be neither wise nor
king, nor invisible, nor God at all, which sums up all these
points. And how will you prevent His Goodness, which especially
belongs to God alone, from perishing with the rest? I, however,
think that the passage That they may know Thee the only true God, was
said to overthrow those gods which are falsely so called, for He would
not have added and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent, if The Only True
God were contrasted with Him, and the sentence did not proceed upon the
basis of a common Godhead. The “None is Good” meets
the tempting Lawyer, who was testifying to His Goodness viewed as
Man. For perfect goodness, He says, is God’s alone, even if
a man is called perfectly good. As for instance, A good man out
of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.3665
And, I will give the kingdom to one
who is good above Thee.3666
…Words of God, speaking to
Saul about David. Or again, Do good, O Lord, unto the
good3667
…and all other like
expressions concerning those of us who are praised, upon whom it is a
kind of effluence from the Supreme Good, and has come to them in a
secondary degree. It will be best of all if we can persuade you
of this. But if not, what will you say to the suggestion on the
other side, that on your hypothesis the Son has been called the only
God. In what passage? Why, in this:—This is your God;
no other shall be accounted of in comparison with Him, and a little
further on, after this did He shew Himself upon earth, and conversed
with men.3668
This addition
proves clearly that the words are not used of the Father, but of the
Son; for it was He Who in bodily form companied with us, and was in
this lower world. Now, if we should determine to take these words
as said in contrast with the Father, and not with the imaginary gods,
we lose the Father by the very terms which we were pressing against the
Son. And what could be more disastrous than such a
victory?
XIV. Ninthly, they allege, seeing He ever
liveth to make intercession
for us.3669
O, how
beautiful and mystical and kind. For to intercede does not imply
to seek for vengeance, as is most men’s way (for in that there
would be something of humiliation), but it is to plead for us by reason
of His Mediatorship, just as the Spirit also is said to make
intercession for us.3670
For there is
One God, and One Mediator between God and Man, the Man Christ
Jesus.3671
For He still
pleads even now as Man for my salvation; for He continues to wear the
Body which He assumed, until He make me God by the power of His
Incarnation; although He is no longer known after the flesh3672
—I mean, the passions of the flesh, the
same, except sin, as ours. Thus too, we have an
Advocate,3673
Jesus Christ, not
indeed prostrating Himself for us before the Father, and falling down
before Him in slavish fashion…Away with a suspicion so truly
slavish and unworthy of the Spirit! For neither is it seemly for
the Father to require this, nor for the Son to submit to it; nor is it
just to think it of God. But by what He suffered as Man, He as
the Word and the Counsellor persuades Him to be patient. I think
this is the meaning of His Advocacy.
XV. Their tenth objection is the ignorance,
and the statement that Of the last day and hour knoweth no man, not
even the Son Himself, but the Father.3674
And yet how can Wisdom be ignorant of
anything—that is, Wisdom Who made the worlds, Who perfects them,
Who remodels them, Who is the Limit of all things that were made, Who
knoweth the things of God as the spirit of a man knows the things that
are in him?3675
For what can
be more perfect than this knowledge? How then can you say that
all things before that hour He knows accurately, and all things that
are to happen about the time of the end, but of the hour itself He is
ignorant? For such a thing would be like a riddle; as if one were
to say that he knew accurately all that was in front of the wall, but
did not know the wall itself; or that, knowing the end of the day, he
did not know the beginning of the night—where knowledge of the
one necessarily brings in the other. Thus everyone must see that
He knows as God, and knows not as Man;—if one may separate the
visible from that which is discerned by thought alone. For the
absolute and unconditioned use of the Name “The Son” in
this passage, without the addition of whose Son, gives us this thought,
that we are to understand the ignorance in the most reverent sense, by
attributing it to the Manhood, and not to the Godhead.
XVI. If then this argument is sufficient,
let us stop here, and not enquire further. But if not, our second
argument is as follows:—Just as we do in all other instances, so
let us refer His knowledge of the greatest events, in honour of the
Father, to The Cause. And I think that anyone, even if he did not
read it in the way that one of our own Students3676
| 3676 Elias thinks that the
great S. Basil is here referred to. Petavius thinks the first
argument of c. xvi. forced and unsatisfactory. |
did, would soon perceive that not even the Son knows the day or hour
otherwise than as the Father does. For what do we conclude from
this? That since the Father knows, therefore also does the Son,
as it is evident that this cannot be known or comprehended by any but
the First Nature. There remains for us to interpret the passage
about His receiving commandment,3677
and having
kept His Commandments, and done always those things that please Him;
and further concerning His being made perfect,3678
and His exaltation,3679
and His learning
obedience by the things which He suffered; and also His High
Priesthood, and His Oblation, and His Betrayal, and His prayer to Him
That was able to save Him from death, and His Agony and Bloody Sweat
and Prayer,3680
and such like
things; if it were not evident to every one that such words are
concerned, not with That Nature Which is unchangeable and above all
capacity of suffering, but with the passible Humanity. This,
then, is the argument concerning these objections, so far as to be a
sort of foundation and memorandum for the use of those who are better
able to conduct the enquiry to a more complete working out. It
may, however, be worth while, and will be consistent with what has been
already said, instead of passing over without remark the actual Titles
of the Son (there are many of them, and they are concerned with many of
His Attributes), to set before you the meaning of each of them, and to
point out the mystical meaning of the names.
XVII. We will begin thus. The Deity cannot
be expressed in words. And this is proved to us, not only by
argument, but by the wisest and most ancient of the Hebrews, so far as
they have given us reason for conjecture. For they appropriated
certain characters to the honour of the Deity, and would not even allow
the name of anything inferior to God to be written with the same
letters as that of God, because to
their minds it was improper that the Deity should even to that extent
admit any of His creatures to a share with Himself. How then
could they have admitted that the invisible and separate Nature can be
explained by divisible words? For neither has any one yet
breathed the whole air, nor has any mind entirely comprehended, or
speech exhaustively contained the Being of God. But we sketch Him
by His Attributes, and so obtain a certain faint and feeble and partial
idea concerning Him, and our best Theologian is he who has, not indeed
discovered the whole, for our present chain does not allow of our
seeing the whole, but conceived of Him to a greater extent than
another, and gathered in himself more of the Likeness or adumbration of
the Truth, or whatever we may call it.
XVIII. As far then as we can reach, He Who
Is, and God, are the special names of His Essence; and of these
especially He Who Is, not only because when He spake to Moses in the
mount, and Moses asked what His Name was, this was what He called
Himself, bidding him say to the people “I Am hath sent
me,”3681
but also because we
find that this Name is the more strictly appropriate. For the
Name Θεός (God), even if, as those who are
skilful in these matters say, it were derived from Θέειν3682
| 3682 The derivation of
Θεός from
Θέειν (to
run) is given by Plato (Crat., 397c). That from Αἴθειν (to blaze) is
found also in S. John Damascene (De Fide Orth., I., 12), who however
may have borrowed it from S. Gregory, or from the source whence the
latter took it. S. Athanasius also admits it (De Defin.,
11). Other definitions are, according to Suicer, (1) Θεᾶσθαι (to
see), e.g. Greg. Nyss. in Cant. Hom., V. (2) Θεωρεῖν (to
contemplate), Athan. Quæst Misc., Qu. XI. Θεὸς
λέγεται ἀπὸ
τὸ θεωρεῖν τὰ
πάντα, οἱονεὶ
θεωρὸς καὶ
θεος, ἤγουν
θεάτης
πάντων. (3) Τιθέναι (to
place), Clem., Al. Strom., l. s. fin., θεὸς παρὰ
τὴν θέσιν
εἴρηται. | (to run) or from Αἴθειν (to blaze),
from continual motion, and because He consumes evil conditions of
things (from which fact He is also called A Consuming Fire),3683
would still be one of the Relative Names,
and not an Absolute one; as again is the case with Lord,3684
| 3684 Lord (Κύριος) is
simply the LXX. rendering of the word which in
reading Hebrew is substituted for the Ineffable Name. Thus in the
passages quoted, had the original language been used, the Four-Lettered
Name would have appeared. | which also is called a name of God. I
am the Lord Thy God, He says, that is My name;3685
and, The Lord is His name.3686
But we are
enquiring into a Nature Whose Being is absolute and not into Being
bound up with something else. But Being is in its proper sense
peculiar to God, and belongs to Him entirely, and is not limited or cut
short by any Before or After, for indeed in him there is no past or
future.
XIX. Of the other titles, some are evidently names
of His Authority, others of His Government of the world, and of this
viewed under a twofold aspect, the one before the other in the
Incarnation. For instance the Almighty, the King of Glory, or of
The Ages, or of The Powers, or of The Beloved, or of Kings. Or
again the Lord of Sabaoth, that is of Hosts, or of Powers, or of Lords;
these are clearly titles belonging to His Authority. But the God
either of Salvation or of Vengeance, or of Peace, or of Righteousness;
or of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all the spiritual Israel that
seeth God,—these belong to His Government. For since we are
governed by these three things, the fear of punishment, the hope of
salvation and of glory besides, and the practice of the virtues by
which these are attained, the Name of the God of Vengeance governs
fear, and that of the God of Salvation our hope, and that of the God of
Virtues our practice; that whoever attains to any of these may, as
carrying God in himself, press on yet more unto perfection, and to that
affinity which arises out of virtues. Now these are Names common
to the Godhead, but the Proper Name of the Unoriginate is Father, and
that of the unoriginately Begotten is Son, and that of the unbegottenly
Proceeding or going forth is The Holy Ghost. Let us proceed then
to the Names of the Son, which were our starting point in this part of
our argument.
XX. In my opinion He is called Son because
He is identical with the Father in Essence; and not only for this
reason, but also because He is Of Him. And He is called
Only-Begotten, not because He is the only Son and of the Father alone,
and only a Son; but also because the manner of His Sonship is peculiar
to Himself and not shared by bodies. And He is called the Word,
because He is related to the Father as Word to Mind; not only on
account of His passionless Generation, but also because of the Union,
and of His declaratory function. Perhaps too this relation might
be compared to that between the Definition and the Thing
defined3687
| 3687 Of the oration on
Christmas Day, where He is called ὁ τοῦ
Πατρὸς ὅρος
καὶ λόγος, and see
Note there. | since this also is
called Λόγος.3688
| 3688 Ratio (relation;
sometimes reason) Sermo (discourse) and Verbum (Word) are all
renderings of Λόγος. | For, it says, he that hath mental
perception of the Son (for this is the meaning of Hath Seen) hath also
perceived the Father;3689
and the Son is a
concise demonstration and easy setting forth of the Father’s
Nature. For every thing that is begotten is a silent word of him
that begat it. And if any one should say that this Name was given
Him because He exists
in all things that are, he would not be wrong. For what is there
that consists but by the word? He is also called Wisdom, as the
Knowledge of things divine and human. For how is it possible that
He Who made all things should be ignorant of the reasons of what He has
made? And Power, as the Sustainer of all created things, and the
Furnisher to them of power to keep themselves together. And
Truth, as being in nature One and not many (for truth is one and
falsehood is manifold), and as the pure Seal of the Father and His most
unerring Impress. And the Image as of one substance with Him, and
because He is of the Father, and not the Father of Him. For this
is of the Nature of an Image, to be the reproduction of its Archetype,
and of that whose name it bears; only that there is more here.
For in ordinary language an image is a motionless representation of
that which has motion; but in this case it is the living reproduction
of the Living One, and is more exactly like than was Seth to
Adam,3690
or any son to his father. For such is
the nature of simple Existences, that it is not correct to say of them
that they are Like in one particular and Unlike in another; but they
are a complete resemblance, and should rather be called Identical than
Like. Moreover he is called Light as being the Brightness of
souls cleansed by word and life. For if ignorance and sin be
darkness, knowledge and a godly life will be Light.…And He is
called Life, because He is Light, and is the constituting and creating
Power of every reasonable soul. For in Him we live and move and
have our being,3691
according to the
double power of that Breathing into us; for we were all inspired by Him
with breath,3692
and as many of us
as were capable of it, and in so far as we open the mouth of our mind,
with God the Holy Ghost. He is Righteousness, because He
distributes according to that which we deserve, and is a righteous
Arbiter both for those who are under the Law and for those who are
under Grace, for soul and body, so that the former should rule, and the
latter obey, and the higher have supremacy over the lower; that the
worse may not rise in rebellion against the better. He is
Sanctification, as being Purity, that the Pure may be contained by
Purity. And Redemption, because He sets us free, who were held
captive under sin, giving Himself a Ransom for us, the Sacrifice to
make expiation for the world. And Resurrection, because He raises
up from hence, and brings to life again us, who were slain by
sin.
XXI. These names however are still common to
Him Who is above us, and to Him Who came for our sake. But others
are peculiarly our own, and belong to that nature which He
assumed. So He is called Man, not only that through His Body He
may be apprehended by embodied creatures, whereas otherwise this would
be impossible because of His incomprehensible nature; but also that by
Himself He may sanctify humanity, and be as it were a leaven to the
whole lump; and by uniting to Himself that which was condemned may
release it from all condemnation, becoming for all men all things that
we are, except sin;—body, soul, mind and all through which death
reaches—and thus He became Man, who is the combination of all
these; God in visible form, because He retained that which is perceived
by mind alone. He is Son of Man, both on account of Adam, and of
the Virgin from Whom He came; from the one as a forefather, from the
other as His Mother, both in accordance with the law of generation, and
apart from it. He is Christ, because of His Godhead. For
this is the Anointing of His Manhood, and does not, as is the case with
all other Anointed Ones, sanctify by its action, but by the Presence in
His Fulness of the Anointing One; the effect of which is that That
which anoints is called Man, and makes that which is anointed
God. He is The Way, because He leads us through Himself; The
Door, as letting us in; the Shepherd, as making us dwell in a place of
green pastures,3693
and bringing us up
by waters of rest, and leading us there, and protecting us from wild
beasts, converting the erring, bringing back that which was lost,
binding up that which was broken, guarding the strong, and bringing
them together in the Fold beyond, with words of pastoral
knowledge. The Sheep, as the Victim: The Lamb, as being
perfect: the Highpriest, as the Offerer; Melchisedec, as without
Mother in that Nature which is above us, and without Father in ours;
and without genealogy above (for who, it says, shall declare His
generation?) and moreover, as King of Salem, which means Peace, and
King of Righteousness, and as receiving tithes from Patriarchs, when
they prevail over powers of evil. They are the titles of the
Son. Walk through them, those that are lofty in a godlike manner;
those that belong to the body in a manner suitable to them; or rather,
altogether in a godlike manner, that thou mayest become a god,
ascending from below, for
His sake Who came down from on high for ours. In all and above
all keep to this, and thou shalt never err, either in the loftier or
the lowlier names; Jesus Christ is the Same yesterday and to-day in the
Incarnation, and in the Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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