{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/204/2040372.htm","path":"chr/ecf/204/2040372.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/204/2040372.htm","text":"Chapter XXIV.\u2014Texts Explained; Eighthly, John xvii. 3. and the Like. Our Lord\u2019s divinity cannot interfere with His Father\u2019s prerogatives, as the One God, which were so earnestly upheld by the Son. \u2018One\u2019 is used in contrast to false gods and idols, not to the Son, through whom the Father spoke. Our Lord adds His Name to the Father\u2019s, as included in Him. The Father the First, not as if the Son were not First too, but as Origin.\n7. Now that this is the sense of the Prophet is clear and manifest to all; but since the irreligious men, alleging such passages also, dishonour the Lord and reproach us, saying, \u2018Behold God is said to be One and Only and First; how say ye that the Son is God? for if He were God, He had not said, \u201cI Alone,\u201d nor \u201cGod is One 2845 ;\u201d\u2019 it is necessary to declare the sense of these phrases in addition, as far as we can, that all may know from this also that the Arians are really contending with God 2846 . If there then is rivalry of the Son towards the Father, then be such words uttered against Him; and if according to what is said to David concerning Adonijah and Absalom 2847 , so also the Father looks upon the Son, then let Him utter and urge such words against Himself, lest He the Son, calling Himself God, make any to revolt from the Father. But if he who knows the Son, on the contrary, knows the Father, the Son Himself revealing Him to him, and in the Word he shall rather see the Father, as has been said, and if the Son on coming, glorified not Himself but the Father, saying to one who came to Him, \u2018Why callest thou Me good? none is good save One, that is, God 2848 ;\u2019 and to one who asked, what was the great commandment in the Law, answering, \u2018Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord 2849 ;\u2019 and saying to the multitudes, \u2018I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me 2850 ;\u2019 and teaching the disciples, \u2018My Father is greater than I,\u2019 and \u2018He that honoureth Me, honoureth Him that sent Me 2851 ;\u2019 if the Son is such towards His own Father, what is the difficulty 2852 , that one must need take such a view of such passages? and on the other hand, if the Son is the Father\u2019s Word, who is so wild, besides these Christ-opposers, as to think that God has thus spoken, as traducing and denying His own Word? This is not the mind of Christians; perish the thought; for not with reference to the Son is it thus written, but for the denial of those falsely called gods, invented by men.\n8. And this account of the meaning of such passages is satisfactory; for since those who are devoted to gods falsely so called, revolt from the True God, therefore God, being good and careful for mankind, recalling the wanderers, says, \u2018I am Only God,\u2019 and \u2018I Am,\u2019 and \u2018Besides Me there is no God,\u2019 and the like; that He may condemn things which are not, and may convert all men to Himself. And as, supposing in the daytime when the sun was shining, a man were rudely to paint a piece of wood, which had not even the appearance of light, and call that image the cause of light, and if the sun with regard to it were to say, \u2018I alone am the light of the day, and there is no other light of the day but I,\u2019 he would say this, with regard, not to his own radiance, but to the error arising from the wooden image and the dissimilitude of that vain representation; so it is with \u2018I am,\u2019 and \u2018I am Only God,\u2019 and \u2018There is none other besides Me,\u2019 viz. that He may make men renounce falsely called gods, and that they may recognise Him the true God p. 398 instead. Indeed when God said this, He said it through His own Word, unless forsooth the modern 2853 Jews add this too, that He has not said this through His Word; but so hath He spoken, though they rave, these followers of the devil 2854 . For the Word of the Lord came to the Prophet, and this was what was heard; nor is there a thing which God says or does, but He says and does it in the Word. Not then with reference to Him is this said, O Christ\u2019s enemies, but to things foreign to Him and not from 2855 Him. For according to the aforesaid illustration, if the sun had spoken those words, he would have been setting right the error and have so spoken, not as having his radiance without him, but in the radiance shewing his own light. Therefore not for the denial of the Son, nor with reference to Him, are such passages, but to the overthrow of falsehood. Accordingly God spoke not such words to Adam at the beginning, though His Word was with Him, by whom all things came to be; for there was no need, before idols came in; but when men made insurrection against the truth and named for themselves gods such as they would 2856 , then it was that need arose of such words, for the denial of gods that were not. Nay I would add, that they were said even in anticipation of the folly of these Christ-opposers 2857 , that they might know, that whatsoever god they devise external to the Father\u2019s Essence, he is not True God, nor Image and Son of the Only and First.\n9. If then the Father be called the only true God, this is said not to the denial of Him who said, \u2018I am the Truth 2858 ,\u2019 but of those on the other hand who by nature are not true, as the Father and His Word are. And hence the Lord Himself added at once, \u2018And Jesus Christ whom Thou didst send 2859 .\u2019 Now had He been a creature, He would not have added this, and ranked Himself with His Creator (for what fellowship is there between the True and the not true?); but as it is, by adding Himself to the Father, He has shewn that He is of the Father\u2019s nature; and He has given us to know that of the True Father He is True Offspring. And John too, as he had learned 2860 , so he teaches this, writing in his Epistle, \u2018And we are in the True, even in His Son Jesus Christ; This is the True God and eternal life 2861 .\u2019 And when the Prophet says concerning the creation, \u2018That stretcheth forth the heavens alone 2862 ,\u2019 and when God says, \u2018I only stretch out the heavens,\u2019 it is made plain to every one, that in the Only is signified also the Word of the Only, in whom \u2018all things were made,\u2019 and without whom \u2018was made not one thing.\u2019 Therefore, if they were made through the Word, and yet He says, \u2018I Only,\u2019 and together with that Only is understood the Son, through whom the heavens were made, so also then, if it be said, \u2018One God,\u2019 and \u2018I Only,\u2019 and \u2018I the First,\u2019 in that One and Only and First is understood the Word coexisting, as in the Light the Radiance. And this can be understood of no other than the Word alone. For all other things subsisted out of nothing through the Son, and are greatly different in nature; but the Son Himself is natural and true Offspring from the Father; and thus the very passage which these insensates have thought fit to adduce, \u2018I the First,\u2019 in defence of their heresy, doth rather expose their perverse spirit. For God says, \u2018I the First and I the Last;\u2019 if then, as though ranked with the things after Him, He is said to be first of them, so that they come next to Him, then certainly you will have shewn that He Himself precedes the works in time only 2863 ; which, to go no further, is extreme irreligion; but if it is in order to prove that He is not from any, nor any before Him, but that He is Origin and Cause of all things, and to destroy the Gentile fables, that He has said \u2018I the First,\u2019 it is plain also, that when the Son is called First-born, this is done not for the sake of ranking Him with the creation, but to prove the framing and adoption of all things 2864 through the Son. For as the Father is First, so also is He both First 2865 , as p. 399 Image of the First, and because the First is in Him, and also Offspring from the Father, in whom the whole creation is created and adopted into sonship.\nDeut. xxxii. 39; vi. 4, &c.\n397:2846\n\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9. vid. Acts v. 39.\n397:2847 397:2848\nLuke xviii. 19, and vid. Basil. Ep. 236, 1.\n397:2849 397:2850\nJohn vi. 38; xiv. 28.\n397:2851\nJohn 5:23, John 13:20John v. 23, cf. xiii. 20.\n397:2852 398:2853\n\u03bf\u1f31 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd, cf. Or. ii. 1, note 6, and Hist. Ar. 61, fin.\n398:2854\n\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af. vid. supr. p. 187, and de Decr. 5, note 2. vid. also Orat. ii. 38, a. 73, a. 74 init. Ep. \u00c6g. 4 and 6. In the passage before us there seems an allusion to false accusation or lying, which is the proper meaning of the word; \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd occurs shortly before. And so in Apol. ad Const. when he calls Magnentius \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, it is as being a traitor, 7. and soon after he says that his accuser was \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03ce\u03bd, where the word has no article, and \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03ad\u03b2\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 and \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03b2\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd have preceded. vid. also Hist. Ar. 52 fin. And so in Sent. D. his speaking of the Arians\u2019 \u2018father the devil,\u2019 3, c. is explained 4, b. by \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd and \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c2.\n398:2855\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac, vid. \u00a724 end, and John xv. 26\n398:2856 398:2857\nWho worship one whom they themselves call a creature, vid. supr. Or. i. 8, n. 8, ii. 14, n. 7, 21, n. 2, and below, \u00a716 notes.\n398:2858 398:2859 398:2860\n\u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f10\u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5, de Decr. 7, n. 8; Or. ii. 1, note 6a.\n398:2861 398:2862 398:2863\nHe says that in \u2018I the first\u2019 the question of time does not come in, else creatures would come \u2018second\u2019 to the Creator, as if His and their duration admitted of a common measure. \u2018First\u2019 then does not imply succession, but is equivalent to \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae; a word which, as \u2018Father,\u2019 does not imply that the Son is not from eternity.\n398:2864 398:2865\nIt is no inconsistency to say that the Father is first, and the Son first also, for comparison or number does not enter into mystery. Since Each is \u1f45\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2, Each, as contemplated by our finite reason, at the moment of contemplation excludes the Other. Though we \u2018say\u2019 Three Persons, Person hardly denotes one abstract \u2018idea,\u2019 certainly not as containing under it three individual subjects, but it is a \u2018term\u2019 applied to the One God in three ways. It is the doctrine of the Fathers, that, though we use words expressive of a Trinity, yet that God is beyond number, and that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, though eternally distinct from each other, can scarcely be viewed together in common, except as \u2018One\u2019 substance, as if they could not be generalized into Three Any whatever; and as if it were, strictly speaking, incorrect to speak of \u2018a\u2019 Person, or otherwise than of \u2018the\u2019 Person, whether of Father, or of Son, or of Spirit. The question has almost been admitted by S. Austin, whether it is not possible to say that God is \u2018One\u2019 Person (Trin. vii. 8), for He is wholly and entirely Father, and at the same time wholly and entirely Son, and wholly and entirely Holy Ghost. Some references to the Fathers shall be given on that subject, infr. 36 fin. vid. also supr. \u00a76, n. 11. Meanwhile the doctrine here stated will account for such expressions as \u2018God from God,\u2019 i.e. the One God (who is the Son) from the One God (who is the Father); vid. supr. de Syn. 52, note 8. Again, \u1f21 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f55\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1. de Syn. 48, b. Vid. also infr. Orat. iv. 1 and 2.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. IV: Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.): Texts Explained; Eighthly, John xvii. 3. and the Like. Our Lord's divinity cannot interfere with His Father's prerogatives, as the One God, which were so earnestly upheld by the Son. 'One' is used in contrast to false gods and idols, not to the Son, through whom the Father spoke. Our Lord adds His Name to the Father's, as included in Him. The Father the First, not as if the Son were not First too, but as Origin.","type":"page"}