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| Chapter III. That the Father and the Son must not be divided is proved by the words of the Apostle, seeing that it is befitting to the Son that He should be blessed, only Potentate, and immortal, by nature, that is, and not by grace, as even the angels themselves are immortal, and that He should dwell in the unapproachable light. How it is that the Father and the Son are alike and equally said to be “alone.”
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Chapter III.
That the Father and the Son must not be
divided2124
| 2124 That is, in
respect of substance or nature, though the Persons must be
distinguished. | is
proved by the words of the Apostle, seeing that it is befitting to the
Son that He should be blessed, only Potentate, and immortal, by nature,
that is, and not by grace, as even the angels themselves are immortal,
and that He should dwell in the unapproachable light. How it is
that the Father and the Son are alike and equally said to be
“alone.”
15. When,
therefore, you read the Name “God,” separate neither Father
nor Son, for the Godhead of the Father and the Son is one and the same,
and therefore separate them not, when you read the words “blessed
and only Potentate,”2125
for the words are
spoken of God, even as you may read: “I charge thee before
God, Who quickeneth all things.”2126
Christ also indeed doth quicken,
and therefore the Name of God is meetly given both to the Father and to
the Son, inasmuch as the effect of their activity is in
agreement. Let us go on to the words following: “I
charge thee,” he says, “before God, Who quickeneth all
things, and Jesus Christ.”2127
16. The Word is in God, even as it is
written: “In God will I praise His Word.”2128
In God is His Eternal Power, even
Jesus; in [speaking of] God, therefore, the Apostle hath witnessed to
the unity of the Godhead, whilst by the Name of Christ he hath
witnessed to the sacrament of the Incarnation.
17. Furthermore, to show that he hath spoken of
the Incarnation of Christ, he added: “Who bore witness
under Pontius Pilate with the good confession,” [I charge thee]
“keep undefiled the commandment, until the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ,
Which in His
own good time the blessed and only Potentate shall manifest, the King
of kings and Lord of lords, Who alone hath immortality, and dwelleth in
light unapproachable, Whom no man hath seen, nor can
see.”2129
Those
words, then, are written with regard to God, of which Name the dignity
and truth are common to [both the Father and] the Son.
18. Why, then, should there be no thought of
the Son in this place, seeing that all these things hold good of the
Son also? If they do not so, then deny His Godhead, and so mayest
thou deny what is proper to be said of God. His Blessedness
cannot be denied, Who bestows blessings, for “Blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven.”2130
He cannot but be called
“Blessed,” Who hath given us wholesome teaching, even as it
is written: “Which is according to the Gospel of the beauty
of the Blessed God.”2131
His Power
cannot be denied, of Whom the Father saith: “I have laid
help upon One that is mighty.”2132
And
who dare refuse to acknowledge Him to be immortal, when He Himself hath
made others also immortal, as it is written of the Wisdom of God:
“By her shall I possess immortality.”2133
19. But the immortality of His Nature is one
thing, that of ours is another. Things perishable are not to be
compared to things divine. The Godhead is the one only Substance
that death cannot touch, and therefore it is that the Apostle, though
knowing both the [human] soul and angels to be immortal, declared that
God only had immortality. In truth, even the soul may die:
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die,”2134
and an angel is not absolutely immortal,
his immortality depending on the will of the Creator.2135
| 2135 “That is to
say, immortality is not of the essential nature of an angel as it is of
the essential Nature of God. For God’s existence is such
that He necessarily exists, He cannot but exist; His existence is not
derived from another, but is from the power of His essential Nature, or
rather is that very Nature. Not so with the angel, whose
existence is a gift of God, and so the angel’s existence is no
part of the idea of an angel, but is a property which is, so to speak,
added on from without and accessory to the conception of such a
being. Hence, in so far as an angel’s existence issues not
of the mere force of his essential properties, but only of the
Creator’s Will, we may say that by virtue of the said Will, not
by force of his own nature, he continues in existence, and so far is
immortal, although in another sense immortality may be called a natural
property of an angel, inasmuch as there is no created power whereby he
may be destroyed, and nothing in him that renders him liable to be
destroyed by God—nay rather, everything about him demands that,
once he is created, he should be for ever preserved in
being.”—H. |
20. Do not hastily reject this, because
Gabriel dies not, nor Raphaël, nor Uriel.2136
| 2136 Hurter
observes that St. Ambrose understands mortality in a wide sense, as
including the capacity of any and every sort of change.
Immortality, then, in accordance with this definition, would connote
perfect absence of change. Hurter cites St. Bernard, § 81
in Cant.: “Omnis mutatio quædam mortis
imitatio…Si tot mortes quot mutationes, ubi
immortalitas?” and Plutarch, in Eusebius, Præpar.
Ev. XI. 12. Plutarch’s view perhaps owed something to
study of the reliques of Herachtus. Many fathers expounded
1 Tim. vi. 16 on this definition of immortality
as=immutability. This definition would exclude angels, who are
naturally fallible (as the rebellion of Lucifer and the third part of
the host of heaven proved)—or if they are now no longer
fallible, they owe it not to their own natural constitution but to
grace. In so far then as angels are mutable, whether for better
or worse, they are not immortal. | Even in their nature there is a
capacity of sin, though not one of improvement by discipline,2137
| 2137 Angels
being by nature mutable, either for better or for worse, that is,
capable of good or evil, and so of death, are de facto sinless,
and hence need not, are not meet to be placed under, penal
discipline. Or the meaning may be that the angelic nature was not
created to be gradually taught in the way of holiness as human nature
was. | for every reasonable creature is
exposed to influences from without itself, and liable to
judgment. It is on the influences which work upon us that the
award of judgment, and corruption, or advance to perfection, do depend,
and therefore Ecclesiastes saith: “For God shall bring all
His work to judgment.”2138
| 2138 Eccl. xii. 14. Hurter observes that God would
not judge rational creatures, were they not capable of advance or
retrogression, of becoming better or falling into degradation, and had,
as a matter of fact, advanced or fallen back. | Every
creature, then, has within it the possibility of corruption and death,
even though it do not [at present] die or commit sin; nor, if in
anything it deliver not itself over to sin, hath it this boon of its
immortal nature, but of discipline or of grace. Immortality,
then, that is of a gift is one thing: immortality without the
possibility of change is another.2139
| 2139 The Arians
regarded the Son as immortal de gratia; the Orthodox esteem Him
immortal de jure, with true, absolute immortality. |
21. Do we deny the immortality of
Christ’s Godhead,2140
| 2140 i.e. Is Christ
God in the true sense of the Name, or not? | because He tasted
death for all in the flesh? Then is Gabriel better than Christ,
for Gabriel never died, but Christ gave up the ghost. But the
servant is not above his lord,2141
and we must
discern the weakness of flesh from the eternity of Godhead.
Christ’s Death had its source in the flesh, immortality is of the
nature of Christ’s sovereignty. But if the Godhead brought
it to pass that the flesh saw not corruption, the flesh being surely by
nature liable to corruption, how could the Godhead itself have
died?
22. And how is it that the Son dwelleth not
in light unapproachable, if He is in the bosom of the Father, if the
Father is Light, and the Son also is Light, because God is
Light?2142
Or, if we
suppose some other light, beside the Light of the Godhead, to be the
unapproachable Light, is, then, this Light better than the Father, so
that He is not in that Light, Who, as it is written, is both with the
Father and in the Father?2143
| 2143 S. John i. 1; xvii. 5, 21. | Let men,
therefore, not exclude the thought of the Son, when they read only of
“God”—and let
them not exclude that of the Father, when
they read of “the Son” only.2144
23. On earth, the Son is not
without2145
the Father, and
thou thinkest that the Father is without the Son in heaven? The
Son is in the flesh—(when I say “He is in the flesh”
or “He is on earth,” I speak as though we lived in the days
whose story is in the Gospel, for now we no longer know Christ
“after the flesh”2146
)—He is in
the flesh, and He is not alone, as it is written: “And I am
not alone, because the Father is with Me,”2147
and think you that the Father dwells
alone in the Light?
24. Lest you should regard this argument as
mere speculation take this sentence of authority. “No
man,” saith the Scripture,2148
“hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son, Who is in
the bosom of the Father; He hath revealed Him.”2149
| 2149 Greek ἐξηγήσατο,
“explained,” “expounded.” The Incarnation
has taught us something about God and about man that we never knew
before and never could have known by ourselves. | How can the Father be in solitude,
if the Son be in the bosom of the Father? How doth the Son reveal
Him, Whom He seeth not? The Father, then, exists not
alone.
25. Observe now what the “solitude” of
the Father and of the Son is. The Father is alone, because there
is no other Father; the Son is alone, because there is no other Son;
God is alone, because the Godhead of the Trinity is One. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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