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130 Pages
Page 62
On John xvii. 3. That they may know Thee, the only true God.
"The true (sing.) is spoken of in contradistinction to the false (pl.). But He is incomparable, because in comparison with all He is in all things superexcellent. When Jeremiah said of the Son, This is our God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison with Him,' [444] did he describe Him as greater even than the Father? That the Son also is true God, John himself declares in the Epistle, That we may know the only true God, and we are (in Him that is true, even) in his (true) Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.' [445] It would be wrong, on account of the words There shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him,' to understand the Son to be greater than the Father; nor must we suppose the Father to be the only true God. Both expressions must be used in connexion with those who are falsely styled, but are not really, gods. In the same way it is said in Deuteronomy, So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.' [446] If God is alone invisible and wise, it does not at once follow that He is greater than all in all things. But the God Who is over all is necessarily superior to all. Did the Apostle, when he styled the Saviour God over all, describe Him as greater than the Father? The idea is absurd. The passage in question must be viewed in the same manner. The great God cannot be less than a different God. When the Apostle said of the Son, we look for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,' [447] did he think of Him as greater than the Father? [448] It is the Son, not the Father, Whose appearance and advent we are waiting for. These terms are thus used without distinction of both the Father and the Son, and no exact nicety is observed in their employment. Being equally with God' [449] is identical with being equal with God. [450] Since the Son thought it not robbery' to be equal with God, how can He be unlike and unequal to God? Jews are nearer true religion than Eunomius. Whenever the Saviour called Himself no more than Son of God, as though it were due to the Son, if He be really Son, to be Himself equal to the Father, they wished, it is said, to stone Him, not only because He was breaking the Sabbath, but because, by saying that God was His own Father, He made Himself equal with God. [451] Therefore, even though Eunomius is unwilling that it should be so, according both to the Apostle and to the Saviour's own words, the Son is equal with the Father."
[444] Baruch iii. 35. The quoting of Baruch under the name of Jeremiah has been explained by the fact that in the LXX. Baruch was placed with the Lamentations, and was regarded in the early Church as of equal authority with Jeremiah. It was commonly so quoted, e.g. by Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian. So Theodoret, Dial. i. (in this edition, p. 165, where cf. note).
[445] 1 John v. 20. There is some MS. authority for the insertion of "God" in the first clause, but none for the omission of the former en to.
[446] Deut. xxxii. 12.
[447] Tit. ii. 13.
[448] St. Basil, with the mass of the Greek Orthodox Fathers, has no idea of any such interpretation of Tit. ii. 13, as Alford endeavours to support. cf. Theodoret, pp. 391 and 321, and notes.
[449] to einai isa Theo, as in Phil. ii. 6, tr. in A.V. to be equal with God; R.V. has to be on an equality with God.
[450] to einai ison Theo.
[451] John v. 18.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=62
