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Book
IV.
1. The earlier
books of this treatise, written some time ago, contain, I think, an
invincible proof that we hold and profess the faith in Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, which is taught by the Evangelists and Apostles, and that
no commerce is possible between us and the heretics, inasmuch as they
deny unconditionally, irrationally, and recklessly, the Divinity of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Yet certain points remained which I have felt
myself bound to include in this and the following books, in order to
make our assurance of the faith even more certain by exposure of every
one of their falsehoods and blasphemies. Accordingly, we will
enquire first what are the dangers of their teaching, the risks
involved by such irreverence; next, what principles they hold, and what
arguments they advance against the apostolic faith to which we adhere,
and by what sleight of language they impose upon the candour of their
hearers; and lastly, by what method of comment they disarm the words of
Scripture of their force and meaning.
2. We are well aware that neither the speech
of men nor the analogy of human nature can give us a full insight into
the things of God. The ineffable cannot submit to the bounds and
limits of definition; that which is spiritual is distinct from every
class or instance of bodily things. Yet, since our subject is
that of heavenly natures, we must employ ordinary natures and ordinary
speech as our means of expressing what our mind apprehends; a means no
doubt unworthy of the majesty of God, but forced upon us by feebleness
of our intellect, which can use only our own circumstances and our own
words to convey to others our perceptions and our conclusions.
This truth has been enforced already in the first book656
, but is now repeated in order that, in any
analogies from human affairs which we adduce, we may not be supposed to
think of God as resembling embodied natures, or to compare spiritual
Beings with our passible selves, but rather be regarded as advancing
the outward appearance of visible things as a clue to the inward
meaning of things invisible.
3. For the heretics say that Christ is not from
God, that is, that the Son is not born from the Father, and is God not
by nature but by appointment; in other words, that He has received an
adoption which consists in the giving of a name, being God’s Son
in the sense in which many are sons of God; again, that Christ’s
majesty is an evidence of God’s widespread bounty, He being God
in the sense in which there are gods many; although they admit that in
His adoption and naming as God a more liberal affection than in other
cases was shewn, His adoption being the first in order of time, and He
greater than other adopted sons, and first in rank among the creatures
because of the greater splendour which accompanied His creation.
Some add, by way of confessing the omnipotence of God, that He was
created into God’s likeness, and that it was out of nothing that
He, like other creatures, was raised up to be the Image of the eternal
Creator, bidden at a word to spring from non-existence into being by
the power of God, Who can frame out of nothing the likeness of
Himself.
4. Moreover, they use their knowledge of the
historical fact that bishops of a former time have taught that Father
and Son are of one substance, to subvert the truth by the ingenious
plea that this is a heretical notion. They say that this term
‘of one substance,’ in the Greek homoousion, is used to mean and express that the
Father is the same as the Son; that is, that He extended Himself out of
infinity into the Virgin, and took a body from her, and gave to
Himself, in the body which He had taken, the name of Son. This is
their first lie concerning the homoousion. Their next lie is that this word
homoousion implies that
Father and Son participate in something antecedent to Either and
distinct from Both, and that a certain imaginary substance, or
ousia, anterior to all matter
whatsoever, has existed heretofore and been divided and wholly
distributed between the Two; which proves, they say, that Each of the
Two is of a nature pro-existent to Himself, and Each identical in
matter with the Other. And so they profess to condemn the
confession of the homoousion
on the ground that that term does not discriminate between Father and
Son, and makes the Father subsequent in time to that matter which He
has in common with the Son. And they have devised this third
objection to the word homoousion, that its meaning, as they
explain it, is that the Son derives His origin from a partition of the
Father’s substance, as though one object had been cut in two and
He were the severed portion. The meaning of ‘one
substance,’ they say, is that the part cut off from the whole
continues to share the nature of that from which it has been severed;
but God, being impassible, cannot be divided, for, if He must submit to
be lessened by division, He is subject to change, and will be rendered
imperfect if His perfect substance leave Him to reside in the severed
portion.
5. They think also that they have a compendious
refutation of Prophets, Evangelists and Apostles alike, in their
assertion that the Son was born within time. They pronounce us
illogical for saying that the Son has existed from everlasting; and,
since they reject the possibility of His eternity, they are forced to
believe that He was born at a point in time. For if He has not
always existed, there was a time when He was not; and if there be a
time when He was not, time was anterior to Him. He who has not
existed everlastingly began to exist within time, while He Who is free
from the limits of time is necessarily eternal. The reason they
give for their rejection of the eternity of the Son is that His
everlasting existence contradicts the faith in His birth; as though by
confessing that He has existed eternally, we made His birth
impossible.
6. What foolish and godless fears! What
impious anxiety on God’s behalf! The meaning which they
profess to detect in the word homoousion, and in the assertion of the eternity
of the Son, is detested, rejected, denounced by the Church. She
confesses one God from Whom are all things; she confesses one Jesus
Christ our Lord, through whom are all things; One from Whom, One
through Whom; One the Source of all, One the Agent through Whom all
were created. In the One from Whom are all things she recognises
the Majesty which has no beginning, and in the One through Whom are all
things she recognises a might coequal with His Source; for Both are
jointly supreme in the work of creation and in rule over created
things. In the Spirit she recognises God as Spirit, impassible
and indivisible, for she has learnt from the Lord that Spirit has
neither flesh nor bones657
; a warning to save
her from supposing that God, being Spirit, could be burdened with
bodily suffering and loss. She recognises one God, unborn from
everlasting; she recognises also one Only-begotten Son of God.
She confesses the Father eternal and without beginning; she confesses
also that the Son’s beginning is from eternity. Not that He
has no beginning, but that He is Son of the Father Who has none; not
that He is self-originated, but that He is from Him Who is unbegotten
from everlasting; born from eternity, receiving, that is, His birth
from the eternity of the Father. Thus our faith is free from the
guesswork of heretical perversity; it is expressed in fixed and
published terms, though as yet no reasoned defence of our confession
has been put forth. Still, lest any suspicion should linger
around the sense in which the Fathers have used the word
homoousion and round our
confession of the eternity of the Son, I have set down the proofs
whereby we may be assured that the Son abides ever in that substance
wherein He was begotten from the Father, and that the birth of His Son
has not diminished ought of that Substance wherein the Father was
abiding; that holy men, inspired by the teaching of God, when they said
that the Son is homoousios
with the Father pointed to no such flaws or defects as I have
mentioned658
. My purpose
has been to counteract the impression that this ousia, this assertion that He is
homoousios with the Father,
is a negation of the nativity of the Only-begotten Son.
7. To assure ourselves of the needfulness of these
two phrases, adopted and employed as the best of safeguards against the
heretical rabble of that day, I think it best to reply to the obstinate
misbelief of our present heretics, and refute their vain and pestilent
teaching by the witness of the evangelists and apostles. They
flatter themselves that they can furnish a proof for each of their
propositions; they have, in fact, appended to each some passages or
other from holy Writ; passages so grossly misinterpreted as to ensnare
none but the illiterate by the semblance of truth with which perverted
ingenuity has masked their explanation.
8. For they attempt, by praising the Godhead
of the Father only, to deprive the Son of His Divinity, pleading that
it is written, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One659
, and that the Lord repeats this in His
answer to the doctor of the Law who asked Him what was the greatest
commandment in the Law;—Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is
One660
. Again, they say that Paul proclaims,
For there is One God, and One Mediator between God and
men661
. And furthermore, they insist that
God alone is wise, in order to leave no wisdom for the Son, relying
upon the words of the Apostle, Now to Him that is able to
stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in
silence through age-long times, but now is manifested through the
scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal
God Who is made known unto all nations unto obedience of faith; to the
only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory for ever and
ever662
. They argue
also that He alone is true663
| 663 Omitting
solus innascibilis et, which are out of place here. | , for Isaiah says,
They shall bless Thee, the true God664
,
and the Lord Himself has borne witness in the Gospel, saying, And
this is life eternal that they should know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent665
. Again they reason that
He alone is good, to leave no goodness for the Son, because it has been
said through Him, There is none good save One, even God666
; and that He alone has power, because Paul
has said, Which in His own times He shall shew to us, Who is the
blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of
lords667
. And
further, they profess themselves certain that in the Father there is no
change nor turning, because He has said through the prophet, I am
the Lord your God, and I am not changed668
,
and the apostle James, With Whom there is no change669
; certain also that He is the righteous
Judge, for it is written, God is the righteous Judge, strong and
patient670
; that He cares for
all, because the Lord has said, speaking of the birds, And your
heavenly. Father feedeth them671
, and, Are
not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And not one of them falleth
upon the ground without the will of your Father; but the very hairs of
your head are numbered672
. They say
that the Father has prescience of all things, as the blessed Susanna
says, O eternal God, that knowest secrets, and knowest all things
before they be673
| 673 Susanna (Daniel xiii.) 42. | ; that He is
incomprehensible, as it is written, The heaven is My throne, and the
earth is the footstool of My feet. What house will ye build Me,
or what is the place of My rest? For these things hath My hand
made, and all these things are mine674
;
that He contains all things, as Paul bears witness, For in Him we
live and move and have our being675
, and the
psalmist, Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I
fly from Thy face? If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there; if
I go down to hell, Thou art present. If I take my wings before
the light and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even thither Thy
hand shall lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me676
; that He is without body, for it is
written, For God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship
in spirit and in truth677
; that He is
immortal and invisible, as Paul says, Who only hath immortality, and
dwelleth in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can
see678
, and the Evangelist, No one hath
seen God at any time, except the Only-begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father679
; that He alone
abides eternally unborn, for it is written, I Am That I Am, and
Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me
unto you680
, and through
Jeremiah, O Lord, Who art Lord681
.
9. Who can fail to observe that these
statements are full of fraud and fallacy? Cleverly as issues have
been confused and texts combined, malice and folly is the character
indelibly imprinted upon this laborious effort of cunning and
clumsiness. For instance, among their points of faith they have
included this, that they confess the Father only to be unborn; as
though any one on our side could suppose that He, Who begot Him through
Whom are all things, derived His being from any external source.
The very fact that He bears the name of Father reveals Him as
the cause of His Son’s existence. That name of
Father gives no hint that He who bears it is Himself descended
from another, while it tells us plainly from Whom it is that the Son is
begotten. Let us therefore leave to the Father His own special
and incommunicable property, confessing that in Him reside the eternal
powers of an omnipotence without beginning. None, I am sure, can
doubt that the reason why, in their confession of God the Father,
certain attributes are dwelt upon as peculiarly and inalienably His
own, is that He may be left in isolated possession of them. For
when they say that He alone is true, alone is righteous, alone is wise,
alone is invisible, alone is good, alone is mighty, alone is immortal,
they are raising up this word alone as a barrier to cut off the
Son from His share in these attributes. He Who is alone, they
say, has no partner in His properties. But if we suppose that
these attributes reside in the Father only, and not in the Son also,
then we must believe that God the Son has neither truth nor wisdom;
that He is a bodily being compact of visible and material elements,
ill-disposed and feeble and void of immortality; for we exclude Him
from all these attributes of which we make the Father the solitary
Possessor.
10. We,
however, who propose to discourse of that most perfect majesty and
fullest Divinity which appertains to the Only-begotten Son of God, have
no fear lest our readers should imagine that amplitude of phrase in
speaking of the Son is a detraction from the glory of God the Father,
as though every praise assigned to the Son had first been withdrawn
from Him. For, on the contrary, the majesty of the Son is glory
to the Father; the Source must be glorious from which He Who is worthy
of such glory comes. The Son has nothing but by virtue of His
birth; the Father shares all veneration received by that
birthright. Thus the suggestion that we diminish the
Father’s honour is put to silence, for all the glory which, as we
shall teach, is inherent in the Son will be reflected back, to the
increased glory of Him who has begotten a Son so great.
11. Now that we have exposed their plan of
belittling the Son under cover of magnifying the Father, the next step
is to listen to the exact terms in which they express their own belief
concerning the Son. For, since we have to answer in succession
each of their allegations and to display on the evidence of Holy
Scripture the impiety of their doctrines, we must append, to what they
say of the Father, the decisions which they have put on record
concerning the Son, that by a comparison of their confession of the
Father with their confession of the Son we may follow a uniform order
in our solution of the questions as they arise. They state as
their verdict that the Son is not derived from any pre-existent matter,
for through Him all things were created, nor yet begotten from God, for
nothing can be withdrawn from God; but that He was made out of what was
nonexistent, that is, that He is a perfect creature of God, though
different from His other creatures. They argue that He is a
creature, because it is written, The Lord hath created Me for a
beginning of His ways682
; that He is the
perfect handiwork of God, though different from His other works, they
prove, as to the first point, by what Paul writes to the Hebrews,
Being made so much better than the angels, as He possesseth a more
excellent name than they683
, and again,
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,
consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus Christ,
who is faithful to Him that made Him684
. For their depreciation of the
might and majesty and Godhead of the Son they rely chiefly on His own
words, The Father is greater than I685
. But they admit that He is not one
of the common herd of creatures on the evidence of All things were
made through Him686
. And so
they sum up the whole of their blasphemous teaching in these words
which follow:—
12. “We confess One God, alone unmade,
alone eternal, alone unoriginate, alone true, alone possessing
immortality, alone good, alone mighty, Creator, Ordainer and Disposer
of all things, unchangeable and unalterable, righteous and good, of the
Law and the Prophets and the New Testament. We believe that this
God gave birth to the Only-begotten Son before all worlds, through Whom
He made the world and all things; that He gave birth to Him not in
semblance, but in truth, following His own Will, so that He is
unchangeable and unalterable, God’s perfect creature but not as
one of His other creatures, His handiwork, but not as His other works;
not, as Valentinus maintained, that the Son is a development of the
Father; nor, as Manichæus has declared of the Son, a
consubstantial part of the Father; nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out
of one, Son and Father at once; nor, as Hieracas, a light from a light,
or a lamp with two flames; nor as if He was previously in being and
afterwards born or created afresh to be a Son, a notion often condemned
by thyself, blessed Pope687
, publicly in
the Church and in the assembly of the brethren. But, as we have
affirmed, we believe that He was created by the will of God before
times and worlds, and has His life and existence from the Father, Who
gave Him to share His own glorious perfections. For, when the
Father gave to Him the inheritance of all things, He did not thereby
deprive Himself of attributes which are His without origination, He
being the source of all things.
13. “So there are three Persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God, for His part, is the cause of
all things, utterly unoriginate and separate from all; while the Son,
put forth by the Father outside time, and created and established
before the worlds, did not exist before He was born, but, being born
outside time before the worlds, came into being as the Only Son of the
Only Father. For He is neither eternal, nor co-eternal, nor
co-uncreate with the Father, nor has He an existence collateral with
the Father, as some say, who688
postulate two
unborn principles. But God is before all things, as being
indivisible and the beginning of all. Wherefore He is before the
Son also, as indeed we have learnt from thee in thy public
preaching. Inasmuch then as He hath His being from God, and His
glorious perfections, and His life, and is entrusted with all things, for
this reason God is His source, and hath rule over Him, as being His
God, since He is before Him. As to such phrases as from
Him, and from the womb, and I went out from the Father
and am come, if they be understood to denote that the Father
extends a part and, as it were, a development of that one substance,
then the Father will be of a compound nature and divisible and
changeable and corporeal, according to them; and thus, as far as their
words go, the incorporeal God will be subjected to the properties of
matter689
| 689 This Epistle
of Arius to Alexander is translated substantially as in Newman’s
Arians of the Fourth Century, ch. II., § 5, though there
are differences of some importance between Hilary’s Latin version
and the Greek in Athanasius de Synodis, § 16, from which
Newman’s version is made. | .”
14. Such is their error, such their pestilent
teaching; to support it they borrow the words of Scripture, perverting
its meaning and using the ignorance of men as their opportunity of
gaining credence for their lies. Yet it is certainly by these
same words of God that we must come to understand the things of
God. For human feebleness cannot by any strength of its own
attain to the knowledge of heavenly things; the faculties which deal
with bodily matters can form no notion of the unseen world.
Neither our created bodily substance, nor the reason given by God for
the purposes of ordinary life, is capable of ascertaining and
pronouncing upon the nature and work of God. Our wits cannot rise
to the level of heavenly knowledge, our powers of perception lack the
strength to apprehend that limitless might. We must believe
God’s word concerning Himself, and humbly accept such insight as
He vouchsafes to give. We must make our choice between rejecting
His witness, as the heathen do, or else believing in Him as He is, and
this in the only possible way, by thinking of Him in the aspect in
which He presents Himself to us. Therefore let private judgment
cease; let human reason refrain from passing barriers divinely
set. In this spirit we eschew all blasphemous and reckless
assertion concerning God, and cleave to the very letter of
revelation. Each point in our enquiry shall be considered in the
light of His instruction, Who is our theme; there shall be no stringing
together of isolated phrases whose context is suppressed, to trick and
misinform the unpractised listener. The meaning of words shall be
ascertained by considering the circumstances under which they were
spoken; words must be explained by circumstances not circumstances
forced into conformity with words. We, at any rate, will treat
our subject completely; we will state both the circumstances under
which words were spoken, and the true purport of the words. Each
point shall be considered in orderly sequence.
15. Their starting-point is this; We
confess, they say, One only God, because Moses says, Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is One690
. But is this a
truth which anyone has ever dared to doubt? Or was any believer
ever known to confess otherwise than that there is One God from Whom
are all things, One Majesty which has no birth, and that He is that
unoriginated Power? Yet this fact of the Unity of God offers no
chance for denying the Divinity of His Son. For Moses, or rather
God through Moses, laid it down as His first commandment to that
people, devoted both in Egypt and in the Desert to idols and the
worship of imaginary gods, that they must believe in One God.
There was truth and reason in the commandment, for God, from Whom are
all things, is One. But let us see whether this Moses have not
confessed that He, through Whom are all things, is also God. God
is not robbed, He is still God, if His Son share the Godhead. For
the case is that of God from God, of One from One, of God Who is One
because God is from Him. And conversely the Son is not less God
because God the Father is One, for He is the Only-begotten Son of God;
not eternally unborn, so as to deprive the Father of His Oneness, nor
yet different from God, for He is born from Him. We must not
doubt that He is God by virtue of that birth from God which proves to
us who believe that God is One; yet let us see whether Moses, who
announced to Israel, The Lord thy God is One, has also
proclaimed the Godhead of the Son. To make good our confession of
the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ we must employ the evidence of
that same witness on whom the heretics rely for the confession of One
Only God, which they imagine to involve the denial of the Godhead of
the Son.
16. Since, therefore, the words of the
Apostle, One God the Father, from Whom are all things, and one Jesus
Christ, our Lord, through Whom are all things691
, form an accurate and complete confession
concerning God, let us see what Moses has to say of the beginning of
the world. His words are, And God said, Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide the water from
the water. And it was so, and God made the firmament and God
divided the water through the midst692
. Here, then, you have the God from
Whom, and the God through Whom. If you deny it, you must tell us
through whom it was that God’s work in creation was done, or
else point for your
explanation to an obedience in things yet uncreated, which, when God
said Let there be a firmament, impelled the firmament to
establish itself. Such suggestions are inconsistent with the
clear sense of Scripture. For all things, as the Prophet
says693
, were made out of nothing; it was no
transformation of existing things, but the creation into a perfect form
of the non-existent. Through whom? Hear the Evangelist:
All things were made through Him. If you ask Who this is,
the same Evangelist will tell you: In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in
the beginning with God. All things were made through
Him694
. If you are minded to combat the
view that it was the Father Who said, Let there be a firmament,
the prophet will answer you: He spake, and they were made; He
commanded, and they were created695
. The
recorded words, Let there be a firmament, reveal to us that the
Father spoke. But in the words which follow, And it was
so, in the statement that God did this thing, we must recognise the
Person of the Agent. He spake, and they were made; the
Scripture does not say that He willed it, and did it. He
commanded, and they were created; you observe that it does not say
they came into existence, because it was His pleasure. In that
case there would be no office for a Mediator between God and the world
which was awaiting its creation. God, from Whom are all things,
gives the order for creation which God, through Whom are all things,
executes. Under one and the same Name we confess Him Who gave and
Him Who fulfilled the command. If you dare to deny that God
made is spoken of the Son, how do you explain All things were
made through Him? Or the Apostle’s words, One Jesus
Christ, our Lord, through Whom are all things? Or, He
spake, and they were made? If these inspired words succeed in
convincing your stubborn mind, you will cease to regard that text,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One, as a refusal of
Divinity to the Son of God, since at the very foundation of the world
He Who spoke it proclaimed that His Son also is God. But let us
see what increase of profit we may draw from this distinction of God
Who commands and God Who executes. For though it is repugnant
even to our natural reason to suppose that in the words, He
commanded, and they were made, one single and isolated Person is
intended, yet, for the avoidance of all doubts, we must expound the
events which followed upon the creation of the world.
17. When the world was complete and its
inhabitant was to be created, the words spoken concerning him were,
Let Us make man after Our image and likeness696
. I ask you, Do you suppose that God
spoke those words to Himself? Is it not obvious that He was
addressing not Himself, but Another? If you reply that He was
alone, then out of His own mouth He confutes you, for He says, Let
Us make man after Our image and likeness. God has spoken to
us through the Lawgiver in the way which is intelligible to us; that
is, He makes us acquainted with His action by means of language, the
faculty with which He has been pleased to endow us. There is,
indeed, an indication of the Son of God697
,
through Whom all things were made, in the words, And God said, Let
there be a firmament, and in, And God made the firmament,
which follows: but lest we should think these words of God were
wasted and meaningless, supposing that He issued to Himself the command
of creation, and Himself obeyed it,—for what notion could be
further from the thought of a solitary God than that of giving a verbal
order to Himself, when nothing was necessary except an exertion of His
will?—He determined to give us a more perfect assurance that
these words refer to Another beside Himself. When He said, Let
Us make man after Our image and likeness, His indication of a
Partner demolishes the theory of His isolation. For an isolated
being cannot be partner to himself; and again, the words, Let Us
make, are inconsistent with solitude, while Our cannot be
used except to a companion. Both words, Us and Our
are inconsistent with the notion of a solitary God speaking to Himself,
and equally inconsistent with that of the address being made to a
stranger who has nothing in common with the Speaker. If you
interpret the passage to mean that He is isolated, I ask you whether
you suppose that He was speaking with Himself? If you do not
understand that He was speaking with Himself, how can you assume that
He was isolated? If He were isolated, we should find Him
described as isolated; if He had a companion, then as not
isolated. I and Mine would describe the former
state; the latter is indicated by Us and Our.
18. Thus, when we read, Let Us make man
after Our image and likeness, these two words Us and
Our reveal that there is neither one isolated God, nor yet one
God in two dissimilar Persons; and our confession must be framed in
harmony with the second as well as with the first truth. For the
words our image—not our images—prove that
there is one nature
possessed by Both. But an argument from words is an insufficient
proof, unless its result be confirmed by the evidence of facts; and
accordingly it is written, And God made man; after the image of God
made He him698
. If the
words He spoke, I ask, were the soliloquy of an isolated God, what
meaning shall we assign to this last statement? For in it I see a
triple allusion, to the Maker, to the being made, and to the
image. The being made is man; God made him, and made him in the
image of God. If Genesis were speaking of an isolated God, it
would certainly have been And made him after His own
image. But since the book was foreshowing the Mystery of the
Gospel, it spoke not of two Gods, but of God and God, for it speaks of
man made through God in the image of God. Thus we find that God
wrought man after an image and likeness common to Himself and to God;
that the mention of an Agent forbids us to assume that He was isolated;
and that the work, done after an image and likeness which was that of
Both, proves that there is no difference in kind between the Godhead of
the One and of the Other.
19. It may seem waste of time to bring
forward further arguments, for truths concerning God gain no strength
by repetition; a single statement suffices to establish them. Yet
it is well for us to know all that has been revealed upon the subject,
for though we are not responsible for the words of Scripture, yet we
shall have to render an account for the sense we have assigned to
them. One of the many commandments which God gave to Noah is,
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, for his blood shall his life be
shed, for after the image of God made I man699
. Here again is the distinction
between likeness, creature, and Creator. God bears witness that
He made man after the image of God. When He was about to make
man, because He was speaking of Himself, yet not to Himself, God said,
After our image; and again, after man was made, God made man
after the image of God. It would have been no inaccuracy of
language, had He said, addressing Himself, I have made man after My
image, for He had shewn that the Persons are one in nature by,
Let us make man after Our image700
| 700 I.e. by the word
Our. | . But for the more perfect removal of
all doubt as to whether God be, or be not, a solitary Being, when He
made man He made him, we are told, After the image of
God.
20. If you still wish to assert that God the
Father in solitude said these words to Himself, I can go with you as
far as to admit the possibility that He might in solitude have spoken
to Himself as if He were conversing with a companion, and that it is
credible that He wished the words I have made man after the image of
God to be equivalent to I have made man after My own
image. But your own confession of faith will refute
you. For you have confessed that all things are from the Father,
but all through the Son; and the words, Let Us make man, shew
that the Source from Whom are all things is He Who spoke thus, while
God made him after the image of God clearly points to Him
through Whom the work was done.
21. And furthermore, to make all
self-deception unlawful, that Wisdom, which you have yourself confessed
to be Christ, shall confront you with the words, When He was
establishing the fountains under the heaven, when He was making strong
the foundations of the earth, I was with Him, setting them in
order. It was I, over Whom He rejoiced. Moreover, I was
daily rejoicing in His sight, all the while that He was rejoicing in
the world that He had made, and in the sons of men701
. Every difficulty is removed; error
itself must recognise the truth. There is with God Wisdom,
begotten before the worlds; and not only present with Him, but setting
in order, for She was with Him, setting them in order.
Mark this work of setting in order, or arranging. The Father, by
His commands, is the Cause; the Son, by His execution of the things
commanded, sets in order. The distinction between the Persons is
marked by the work assigned to Each. When it says Let us
make, creation is identified with the word of command; but when it
is written, I was with Him, setting them in order, God reveals
that He did not do the work in isolation. For He was rejoicing
before Him, Who, He tells us, rejoiced in return; Moreover, I was
daily rejoicing in His sight, all the while that He was rejoicing in
the world that He had made, and in the sons of men. Wisdom
has taught us the reason of Her joy. She rejoiced because of the
joy of the Father, Who rejoices over the completion of the world and
over the sons of men. For it is written, And God saw that they
were good. She rejoices that God is well pleased with His
work, which has been made through Her, at His command. She avows
that Her joy results from the Father’s gladness over the finished
world and over the sons of men; over the sons of men, because in the
one man Adam the whole human race had begun its course. Thus in
the creation of the world there is no mere soliloquy of an isolated
Father; His Wisdom is His partner in the work, and rejoices with Him when their
conjoint labour ends.
22. I am aware that the full explanation of these
words involves the discussion of many and weighty problems. I do
not shirk them, but postpone them for the present, reserving their
consideration for later stages of the enquiry. For the present I
devote myself to that article of the blasphemers’ faith, or
rather faithlessness, which asserts that Moses proclaims the solitude
of God. We do not forget that the assertion is true in the sense
that there is One God, from Whom are all things; but neither do we
forget that this truth is no excuse for denying the Godhead of the Son,
since Moses throughout the course of his writings clearly indicates the
existence of God and God. We must examine how the history of
God’s choice, and of the giving of the Law, proclaims God
co-ordinate with God.
23. After God had often spoken with Abraham,
Sarah was moved to wrath against Hagar, being jealous that she, the
mistress, was barren, while her handmaid had conceived a son.
Then, when Hagar had departed from her sight, the Spirit speaks thus
concerning her, And the angel of the Lord said unto Hagar, Return to
thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel
of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it
shall not be numbered for multitude, and again, And she called the Name
of the Lord that spake with her, Thou art God, Who hast seen
me702
. It is the Angel of God Who
speaks703
| 703 The parenthesis
which follows: “Now angel of God has two senses,
that of Him Who is, and that of Him Whose He is” interrupts the
sense and seems quite out of place. The same distinction in the
case of the word Spirit, in Book II. § 32 may be
compared. | , and speaks of things far beyond the
powers which a messenger, for that is the meaning of the word, could
have. He says, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it
shall not be numbered for multitude. The power of multiplying
nations lies outside the ministry of an angel. Yet what says the
Scripture of Him Who is called the Angel of God, yet speaks words which
belong to God alone? And she called the Name of the Lord that
spake with her, Thou art God, Who hast seen me. First He is
the Angel of God; then He is the Lord, for She called the Name of
the Lord; then, thirdly, He is God, for Thou art God, Who hast
seen me. He Who is called the Angel of God is also Lord and
God. The Son of God is also, according to the prophet, the
Angel of great counsel704
. To
discriminate clearly between the Persons, He is called the Angel of
God; He Who is God from God is also the Angel of God, but, that He may
have the honour which is His due, He is entitled also Lord and
God.
24. In this passage the one Deity is first
the Angel of God, and then, successively, Lord and God. But to
Abraham He is God only. For when the distinction of Persons had
first been made, as a safeguard against the delusion that God is a
solitary Being, then His true and unqualified name could safely be
uttered. And so it is written. And God said to Abraham,
Behold Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his
name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an
everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as far
Ishmael, behold. I have heard thee and have blessed him, and will
multiply him exceedingly; twelve nations shall he beget, and I will
make him a great nation705
. Is it
possible to doubt that He Who was previously called the Angel of God is
here, in the sequel, spoken of as God? In both instances He is
speaking of Ishmael; in both it is the same Person Who shall multiply
him. To save us from supposing that this was a different Speaker
from Him who had addressed Hagar, the Divine words expressly attest the
identity, saying, And I have blessed him, and will multiply
him. The blessing is repeated from a former occasion, for
Hagar had already been addressed; the multiplication is promised for a
future day, for this is God’s first word to Abraham concerning
Ishmael. Now it is God Who speaks to Abraham; to Hagar the Angel
of God had spoken. Thus God and the Angel of God are One; He Who
is the Angel of God is also God the Son of God. He is called the
Angel because He is the Angel of great counsel; but afterwards
He is spoken of as God, lest we should suppose that He Who is God is
only an angel. Let us now repeat the facts in order. The
Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar; He spoke also to Abraham as
God. One Speaker addressed both. The blessing was given to
Ishmael, and the promise that he should grow into a great
people.
25. In another instance the Scripture
reveals through Abraham that it was God Who spoke. He receives
the further promise of a son, Isaac. Afterwards there appear to
him three men. Abraham, though he sees three, worships One, and
acknowledges Him as Lord. Three were standing before him,
Scripture says, but he knew well Which it was that he must worship and
confess. There was nothing in outward appearance to distinguish
them, but by the eye of faith, the vision of the soul, he knew his
Lord. Then the Scripture goes on, And He said unto him, I
will certainly return
unto thee at this time hereafter, and Sarah thy wife shall have a
son706
; and afterwards the Lord said to Him,
I will not conceal from Abraham My servant the things that I will
do707
; and again, Moreover the Lord said, The
cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is filled up, and their sins are exceeding
great708
. Then after
long discourse, which for the sake of brevity shall be omitted,
Abraham, distressed at the destruction which awaited the innocent as
well as the guilty, said, In no wise wilt Thou, Who judgest the
earth, execute this judgment. And the Lord said, If I find in
Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place
for their sakes709
. Afterwards,
when the warning to Lot, Abraham’s brother, was ended, the
Scripture says, And the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven710
; and, after a while, And the Lord visited
Sarah as He had said, and did unto Sarah as He had spoken, and Sarah
conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of
which God had spoken to him711
. And
afterwards, when the handmaid with her son had been driven from
Abraham’s house, and was dreading lest her child should die in
the wilderness for want of water, the same Scripture says And the
Lord God heard the voice of the lad, where he was, and the Angel of God
called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What is it,
Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad from the
place where he is. Arise, and take the lad and hold his hand, for
I will make him a great nation712
.
26. What blind faithlessness it is, what dulness
of an unbelieving heart, what headstrong impiety, to abide in ignorance
of all this, or else to know and yet neglect it! Assuredly it is
written for the very purpose that error or oblivion may not hinder the
recognition of the truth. If, as we shall prove, it is impossible
to escape knowledge of the facts, then it must be nothing less than
blasphemy to deny them. This record begins with the speech of the
Angel to Hagar, His promise to multiply Ishmael into a great nation and
to give him a countless offspring. She listens, and by her
confession reveals that He is Lord and God. The story begins with
His appearance as the Angel of God; at its termination He stands
confessed as God Himself. Thus He Who, while He executes the
ministry of declaring the great counsel is God’s Angel, is
Himself in name and nature God. The name corresponds to the
nature; the nature is not falsified to make it conform to the
name. Again, God speaks to Abraham of this same matter; he is
told that Ishmael has already received a blessing, and shall be
increased into a nation; I have blessed him, God says. This is no
change from the Person indicated before; He shews that it was He Who
had already given the blessing. The Scripture has obviously been
consistent throughout in its progress from mystery to clear revelation;
it began with the Angel of God, and proceeds to reveal that it was God
Himself Who had spoken in this same matter.
27. The course of the Divine narrative is
accompanied by a progressive development of doctrine. In the
passage which we have discussed God speaks to Abraham, and promises
that Sarah shall bear a son. Afterwards three men stand by him;
he worships One and acknowledges Him as Lord. After this worship
and acknowledgment by Abraham, the One promises that He will return
hereafter at the same season, and that then Sarah shall have her
son. This One again is seen by Abraham in the guise of a man, and
salutes him with the same promise. The change is one of name
only; Abraham’s acknowledgment in each case is the same. It
was a Man whom he saw, yet Abraham worshipped Him as Lord; he beheld,
no doubt, in a mystery the coming Incarnation. Faith so strong
has not missed its recognition; the Lord says in the Gospel, Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was
glad713
. To
continue the history; the Man Whom he saw promised that He would return
at the same season. Mark the fulfilment of the promise,
remembering meanwhile that it was a Man Who made it. What says
the Scripture? And the Lord visited Sarah. So this
Man is the Lord, fulfilling His own promise. What follows
next? And God did unto Sarah as He had said. The
narrative calls His words those of a Man, relates that Sarah was
visited by the Lord, proclaims that the result was the work of
God. You are sure that it was a Man who spoke, for Abraham not
only heard, but saw Him. Can you be less certain that He was God,
when the same Scripture, which had called Him Man, confesses Him
God? For its words are, And Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham
a son in his old age, and at the set time of which God had spoken to
him. But it was the Man who had promised that He would
come. Believe that He was nothing more than man; unless, in fact,
He Who came was God and Lord. Connect the incidents. It
was, confessedly, the Man who promised that He would come that Sarah
might conceive and
bear a son. And now accept instruction, and confess the faith; it
was the Lord God Who came that she might conceive and bear. The
Man made the promise in the power of God; by the same power God
fulfilled the promise. Thus God reveals Himself both in word and
deed. Next, two of the three men whom Abraham saw depart; He Who
remains behind is Lord and God. And not only Lord and God, but
also Judge, for Abraham stood before the Lord and said, In no wise
shalt Thou do this things, to slay the righteous with the wicked, for
then the righteous shall be as the wicked. In no wise wilt Thou
Who judgest the whole earth, execute this judgment714
. Thus by all his words Abraham
instructs us in that faith, for which he was justified; he recognises
the Lord from among the three, he worships Him only, and confesses that
He is Lord and Judge.
28. Lest you fall into the error of
supposing that this acknowledgment of the One was a payment of honor to
all the three whom Abraham saw in company, mark the words of Lot when
he saw the two who had departed; And when Lot saw them, he rose up
to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; and
he said, Behold, my lords, turn in to your servant’s
house715
. Here the
plural lords shews that this was nothing more than a vision of
angels; in the other case the faithful patriarch pays the honour due to
One only. Thus the sacred narrative makes it clear that two of
the three were mere angels; it had previously proclaimed the One as
Lord and God by the words, And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore
did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I then bear a child? But I am
grown old. Is anything from God impossible? At this season
I will return to thee hereafter, and Sarah shall have a
son716
. The Scripture is accurate and
consistent; we detect no such confusion as the plural used of the One
God and Lord, no Divine honours paid to the two angels. Lot, no
doubt, calls them lords, while the Scripture calls them
angels. The one is human reverence, the other literal
truth.
29. And now there falls on Sodom and
Gomorrah the vengeance of a righteous judgment. What can we learn
from it for the purposes of our enquiry? The Lord rained
brimstone and fire from the Lord. It is The Lord from the
Lord; Scripture makes no distinction, by difference of name,
between Their natures, but discriminates between Themselves. For
we read in the Gospel, The Father judgeth no man, but hath given all
judgment to the Son717
. Thus what
the Lord gave, the Lord had received from the Lord.
30. You have now had evidence of God the
Judge as Lord and Lord; learn next that there is the same joint
ownership of name in the case of God and God. Jacob, when he fled
through fear of his brother, saw in his dream a ladder resting upon the
earth and reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon it, and the Lord resting above it, Who gave him all the
blessings which He had bestowed upon Abraham and Isaac. At a
later time God spoke to him thus: And God said unto Jacob,
Arise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an
altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the
face of thy brother718
. God
demands honour for God, and makes it clear that demand is on behalf of
Another than Himself. He who appeared to thee when thou
fleddest are His words: He guards carefully against any
confusion of the Persons. It is God Who speaks, and God of Whom
He speaks. Their majesty is asserted by the combination of Both
under Their true Name of God, while the words plainly declare Their
several existence.
31. Here again there occur to me considerations
which must be taken into account in a complete treatment of the
subject. But the order of defence must adapt itself to the order
of attack, and I reserve these outstanding questions for discussion in
the next book. For the present, in regard to God Who demanded
honour for God, it will suffice for me to point out that He Who was the
Angel of God, when He spoke with Hagar, was God and Lord when He spoke
of the same matter with Abraham; that the Man Who spoke with Abraham
was also God and Lord, while the two angels, who were seen with the
Lord and whom He sent to Lot, are described by the prophet as angels,
and nothing more. Nor was it to Abraham only that God appeared in
human guise; He appeared as Man to Jacob also. And not only did
He appear, but, so we are told, He wrestled; and not only did He
wrestle, but He was vanquished by His adversary. Neither the time
at my disposal, nor the subject, will allow me to discuss the typical
meaning of this wrestling. It was certainly God Who wrestled, for
Jacob prevailed against God, and Israel saw God.
32. And now let us enquire whether elsewhere than
in the case of Hagar the Angel of God has been discovered to be God
Himself. He has been so discovered, and found to be not only God,
but the God of Abraham and of
Isaac and of Jacob. For the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses
from the bush; and Whose voice, think you, are we to suppose was
heard? The voice of Him Who was seen, or of Another? There
is no room for deception; the words of Scripture are clear:
And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire from
a bush, and again, The Lord called unto him from the bush,
Moses, Moses, and he answered, What is it? And the Lord said,
Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And He said unto him,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob719
. He
who appeared in the bush speaks from the bush; the place of the vision
and of the voice is one; He Who speaks is none other than He Who was
seen. He Who is the Angel of God when the eye beholds Him is the
Lord when the ear hears Him, and the Lord Whose voice is heard is
recognised as the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.
When He is styled the Angel of God, the fact is revealed that He is no
self-contained and solitary Being: for He is the Angel of
God. When He is designated Lord and God, He receives the full
title which is due to His nature and His name. You have, then, in
the Angel Who appeared from the bush, Him Who is Lord and God.
33. Continue your study of the witness borne
by Moses; mark how diligently he seizes every opportunity of
proclaiming the Lord and God. You take note of the passage,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One720
. Note also the words of that Divine
song of his; See, See, that I am the Lord, and there is no God
beside Me721
. While God
has been the Speaker throughout the poem, he ends with, Rejoice, ye
heavens, together with Him and let all the sons of God praise
Him. Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people, and let all the
Angels of God do Him honour722
. God is to
be glorified by the Angels of God, and He says, For I am the Lord,
and there is no God beside Me. For He is God the
Only-begotten, and the title ‘Only-begotten’ excludes all
partnership in that character, just as the title
‘Unoriginate’ denies that there is, in that regard, any who
shares the character of the Unoriginate Father. The Son is One
from One. There is none unoriginate except God the Unoriginate,
and so likewise there is none only-begotten except God the
Only-begotten. They stand Each single and alone, being
respectively the One Unoriginate and the One Only-begotten. And
so They Two are One God, for between the One, and the One Who is His
offspring there lies no gulf of difference of nature in the eternal
Godhead. Therefore He must be worshipped by the sons of God and
glorified by the angels of God. Honour and reverence is demanded
for God from the sons and from the angels of God. Notice Who it
is that shall receive this honour, and by whom it is to be paid.
It is God, and they are the sons and angels of God. And lest you
should imagine that honour is not demanded for God Who shares our
nature723
| 723 Dei
naturalis: cf. Book ix. § 39. | , but that Moses is thinking here of
reverence due to God the Father,—though, indeed, it is in the Son
that the Father must be honoured—examine the words of the
blessing bestowed by God upon Joseph, at the end of the same
book. They are, And let the things that are well-pleasing to
Him that appeared in the bush come upon the head and crown of
Joseph724
. Thus God
is to be worshipped by the sons of God; but God Who is Himself the Son
of God. And God is to be reverenced by the angels of God; but God
Who is Himself the Angel of God. For God appeared from the bush
as the Angel of God, and the prayer for Joseph is that he may receive
such blessings as He shall please. He is none the less God
because He is the Angel of God; and none the less the Angel of God
because He is God. A clear indication is given of the Divine
Persons; the line is definitely drawn between the Unbegotten and the
Begotten. A revelation of the mysteries of heaven is granted, and
we are taught not to dream of God as dwelling in solitude, when angels
and sons of God shall worship Him, Who is God’s Angel and His
Son.
34. Let this be taken as our answer from the books
of Moses, or rather as the answer of Moses himself. The heretics
imagine that they can use his assertion of the Unity of God in disproof
of the Divinity of God the Son; a blasphemy in defiance of the clear
warning of their own witness, for whenever he confesses that God is One
he never fails to teach the Son’s Divinity. Our next step
must be to adduce the manifold utterance of the prophets concerning the
same Son.
35. You know the words, Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is One; would that you knew them aright! As
you interpret them, I seek in vain for their sense. It is said in
the Psalms, God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee725
. Impress upon the reader’s
mind the distinction between the Anointer and the Anointed;
discriminate between the Thee and the Thy: make it
clear to Whom and of Whom the words are spoken. For this definite
confession is the conclusion of the preceding passage, which runs thus;
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom
is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated
iniquity. And then he continues, Therefore God, Thy God,
hath anointed Thee. Thus the God of the eternal kingdom, in
reward for His love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity, is
anointed by His God. Surely some broad difference is drawn, some
gap too wide for our mental span, between these names? No; the
distinction of Persons is indicated by Thee and Thy, but
nothing suggests a difference of nature. Thy points to the
Author, Thee to Him Who is the Author’s offspring.
For He is God from God, as these same words of the prophet declare,
God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee. And His own words bear
witness that there is no God anterior to God the Un-originate; Be ye
My witnesses, and I am witness, saith the Lord God, and My Servant Whom
I have chosen, that ye may know and believe and understand that I am,
and before Me there is no other God, nor shall be after Me726
. Thus the majesty of Him that has
no beginning is declared, and the glory of Him that is from the
Unoriginate is safeguarded; for God, Thy God, hath anointed
Thee. That word Thy declares His birth, yet does not
contradict His nature727
| 727 His human nature
also; cf. next §, and Book xi. § 18. | ; Thy God
means that the Son was born from Him to share the Godhead. But
the fact that the Father is God is no obstacle to the Son’s being
God also, for God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee. Mention is
made both of Father and of Son; the one title of God conveys the
assurance that in character and majesty They are One.
36. But lest these words, For I am, and
before Me there is no other God, nor shall be after Me, be made a
handle for blasphemous presumption, as proving that the Son is not God,
since after the God, Whom no God precedes, there follows no other God,
the purpose of the passage must be considered. God is His own
best interpreter, but His chosen Servant joins with Him to assure us
that there is no God before Him, nor shall be after Him. His own
witness concerning Himself is, indeed, sufficient, but He has added the
witness of the Servant Whom He has chosen. Thus we have the
united testimony of the Two, that there is no God before Him; we accept
the truth, because all things are from Him. We have Their witness
also that there shall be no God after Him; but They do not deny that
God has been born from Him in the past. Already there was the
Servant speaking thus, and bearing witness to the Father; the Servant
born in that tribe from which God’s elect was to spring. He
sets forth also the same truth in the Gospels: Behold, My
Servant Whom I have chosen, My Beloved in Whom My soul is well
pleased728
. This is
the sense, then, in which God says, There is no other God before Me,
nor shall be after Me. He reveals the infinity of His eternal
and unchanging majesty by this assertion that there is no God before or
after Himself. But He gives His Servant a share both in the
bearing of witness and in the possession of the Name of God.
37. The fact is obvious from His own
words. For He says to Hosea the prophet, I will no more have
mercy upon the house of Israel, but will altogether be their
enemy. But I will have mercy upon the children of Judah, and will
save them in the Lord their God729
. Here
God the Father gives the name of God, without any ambiguity, to the
Son, in Whom also He chose us before countless ages. Their
God, He says, for while the Father, being Unoriginate, is
independent of all, He has given us for an inheritance to His
Son. In like manner we read, Ask of Me, and I will give Thee
the Gentiles for Thine inheritance730
. None can be God to Him from Whom
are all things731
| 731 I.e. We cannot
say Thy God of the Father. | , for He is
eternal and has no beginning; but the Son has God, from Whom He was
born, for His Father. Yet to us the Father is God and the Son is
God; the Father reveals to us that the Son is our God, and the Son
teaches that the Father is God over us. The point for us to
remember is that in this passage the Father gives to the Son the name
of God, the title of His own unoriginate majesty. But I have
commented sufficiently on these words of Hosea.
38. Again, how clear is the declaration made
by God the Father through Isaiah concerning our Lord! He says,
For thus saith the Lord, the holy God of Israel, Who made the things
to come, Ask me concerning your sons and your daughters, and concerning
the works of My hands command ye Me. I have made the earth and
man upon it, I have commanded all the stars, I have raised up a King
with righteousness, and all His ways are straight. He shall build
My city, and shall turn back the captivity of My people, not for price
nor reward, saith the Lord of Sabaoth. Egypt shall
labour, and the
merchandise of the Ethiopians and Sabeans. Men of stature shall
come over unto Thee and shall be Thy servants, and shall follow after
Thee, bound in chains, and shall worship Thee and make supplication
unto Thee, for God is in Thee and there is no God beside Thee.
For Thou art God, and we knew it not, O God of Israel, the
Saviour. All that resist Him shall be ashamed and confounded, and
shall walk in confusion732
. Is
any opening left for gainsaying, or excuse for ignorance? If
blasphemy continue, is it not in brazen defiance that it
survives? God from Whom are all things, Who made all by His
command, asserts that He is the Author of the universe, for, unless He
had spoken, nothing had been created. He asserts that He has
raised up a righteous King, who builds for Himself, that is, for God, a
city, and turns back the captivity of His people, for no gift nor
reward, for freely are we all saved. Next, He tells how after the
labours of Egypt, and after the traffic of Ethiopians and Sabeans, men
of stature shall come over to Him. How shall we understand these
labours in Egypt, this traffic of Ethiopians and Sabeans? Let us
call to mind how the Magi of the East worshipped and paid tribute to
the Lord; let us estimate the weariness of that long pilgrimage to
Bethlehem of Judah. In the toilsome journey of the Magian princes
we see the labours of Egypt to which the prophet alludes. For
when the Magi executed, in their spurious, material way, the duty
ordained for them by the power of God, the whole heathen world was
offering in their person the deepest reverence of which its worship was
capable. And these same Magi presented gifts of gold and
frankincense and myrrh from733
the merchandise
of the Ethiopians and Sabeans; a thing foretold by another prophet, who
has said, The Ethiopians shall fall down before His face, and His
enemies shall lick the dust. The Kings of Tharsis shall offer
presents, the Kings of the Arabians and Sabeans shall bring gifts, and
there shall be given to Him of the gold of Arabia734
. The Magi and their offerings
stand for the labour of Egypt and for the merchandise of Ethiopians and
Sabeans; the adoring Magi represent the heathen world, and offer the
choicest gifts of the Gentiles to the Lord Whom they adore.
39. As for the men of stature who shall come
over to Him and follow Him in chains, there is no doubt who they
are. Turn to the Gospels; Peter, when he is to follow his Lord,
is girded up. Read the Apostles: Paul, the servant of
Christ, boasts of his bonds. Let us see whether this
‘prisoner of Jesus Christ’ conforms in his teaching to the
prophecies uttered by God concerning God His Son. God had said,
They shall make supplication, for God is in Thee. Now mark
and digest these words of the Apostle:—God was in Christ,
reconciling the world to Himself735
. And
then the prophecy continues, And there is no God beside
Thee. The Apostle promptly matches this with For there is
one Jesus Christ our Lord, through Whom are all things736
. Obviously there can be none other
but He, for He is One. The third prophetic statement is, Thou
art God and we knew it not. But Paul, once the persecutor of
the Church, says, Whose are the fathers, from Whom is Christ, Who is
God over all737
. Such is
to be the message of these men in chains; men of stature, indeed, they
will be, and shall sit on twelve thrones to judge the tribes of Israel,
and shall follow their Lord, witnesses to Him in teaching and in
martyrdom.
40. Thus God is in God, and it is God in
Whom God dwells. But how is There is no God beside Thee
true, if God be within Him? Heretic! In support of your
confession of a solitary Father you employ the words, There is no
God beside Me; what sense can you assign to the solemn declaration
of God the Father, There is no God beside Thee, if your
explanation of There is no God beside Me be a denial of the
Godhead of the Son? To whom, in that case, can God have said,
There is no God beside Thee? You cannot suggest that this
solitary Being said it to Himself. It was to the King Whom He
summoned that the Lord said, by the mouth of the men of stature who
worshipped and made supplication, For God is in Thee. The
facts are inconsistent with solitude. In Thee implies that
there was One present within range, if I may say so, of the
Speaker’s voice. The complete sentence, God is in
Thee, reveals not only God present, but also God abiding in Him Who
is present. The words distinguish the Indweller from Him in Whom
He dwells, but it is a distinction of Person only, not of
character. God is in Him, and He, in Whom God is, is God.
The residence of God cannot be within a nature strange and alien to His
own. He abides in One Who is His own, born from Himself.
God is in God, because God is from God. For Thou art God, and
we knew it not, O God of Israel, the Saviour.
41. My next book is devoted to the refutation of
your denial that God is in God; for the prophet continues, All that resist Him
shall be ashamed and confounded and shall walk in confusion.
This is God’s sentence, passed upon your unbelief. You set
yourself in opposition to Christ, and it is on His account that the
Father’s voice is raised in solemn reproof; for He, Whose Godhead
you deny, is God. And you deny it under cloak of reverence for
God, because He says, There is no other God beside Me.
Submit to shame and confusion; the Unoriginate God has no need of the
dignity you offer; He has never asked for this majesty of isolation
which you attribute to Him. He repudiates your officious
interpretation which would twist His words, There is no other God
beside Me, into a denial of the Godhead of the Son Whom He begot
from Himself. To frustrate your purpose of demolishing the
Divinity of the Son by assigning the Godhead in some special sense to
Himself, He rounds off the glories of the Only-begotten by the
attribution of absolute Divinity:—And there is no God beside
Thee. Why make distinctions between exact equivalents?
Why separate what is perfectly matched? It is the peculiar
characteristic of the Son of God that there is no God beside Him; the
peculiar characteristic of God the Father that there is no God apart
from Him. Use His words concerning Himself; confess Him in His
own terms, and entreat Him as King; For God is in Thee, and there is
no God beside Thee. For Thou art God, and we knew it not, O God
of Israel, the Saviour. A confession couched in words so
reverent is free from the taint of presumption: its terms can excite no
repugnance. Above all, we must remember that to refuse it means
shame and ignominy. Brood in thought over these words of God;
employ them in your confession of Him, and so escape the threatened
shame. For if you deny the Divinity of the Son of God, you will
not be augmenting the glory of God by adoring Him in lonely majesty;
you will be slighting the Father by refusing to reverence the
Son. In faith and veneration confess of the Unoriginate God that
there is no God beside Him; claim for God the Only-begotten that apart
from Him there is no God.
42. As you have listened already to Moses
and Isaiah, so listen now to Jeremiah inculcating the same truth as
they:—This is our God, and there shall be none other likened
unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given
it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward
did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men738
. For previously he had said,
And He is Man, and Who shall know Him739
? Thus you have God seen on earth
and dwelling among men. Now I ask you what sense you would assign
to No one hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father740
,
when Jeremiah proclaims God seen on earth and dwelling among men?
The Father confessedly cannot be seen except by the Son; Who then is
This who was seen and dwelt among men? He must be our God, for He
is God visible in human form, Whom men can handle. And take to
heart the prophet’s words, There shall be none other likened
to Him. If you ask how this can be, listen to the remainder
of the sentence, lest you be tempted to deny to the Father His share of
the confession. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is
One. The whole passage is, There shall be none likened
unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given
it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward
did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men. For there
is one Mediator between God and Men, Who is both God and Man; Mediator
both in giving of the Law and in taking of our body. Therefore
none other can be likened unto Him, for He is One, born from God into
God, and He it was through Whom all things were created in heaven and
earth, through Whom times and worlds were made. Everything, in
fine, that exists owes its existence to His action. He it is that
instructs Abraham, that speaks with Moses, that testifies to Israel,
that abides in the prophets, that was born through the Virgin from the
Holy Ghost, that nails to the cross of His passion the powers that are
our foes, that slays death in hell, that strengthens the assurance of
our hope by His Resurrection, that destroys the corruption of human
flesh by the glory of His Body. Therefore none shall be likened
unto Him. For these are the peculiar powers of God the
Only-begotten; He alone was born from God, the blissful Possessor of
such great prerogatives. No second god can be likened unto Him,
for He is God from God, not born from any alien being. There is
nothing new or strange or modern created in Him. When Israel
hears that its God is one, and that no second god is likened, that men
may deem him God, to God Who is God’s Son, the revelation means
that God the Father and God the Son are One altogether, not by
confusion of Person but by unity of substance. For the prophet
forbids us, because God the Son is God, to liken Him to some second
deity.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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