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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 16
For the weightiness of the subject forces us to speak even more firmly still on the point. And if we allow that this is true, and confess that it follows as we have said, and admit that the Son is utterly different from the essence of God the Father, surely then Christ will be speaking falsely in the words: He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. For since the Father is from the beginning in His nature God, how could the Son, although not being (according to the view of these heretics) in His nature God, shew forth the Father in Himself? For how shall we behold the Uncreated in the created? And in one who once was not (according to their theory), how could any man possibly behold Him Who was from all eternity? For let not any of these blasphemers tell me, in his sophistical declamations against the power of truth, that because Christ is endued with the glory of God and His power and wisdom and good and omnipotence, so that He can bring into being things that never before existed, therefore He is also an Image of Him: but first let such an one prove whether Christ does not display Himself as in His nature God, and that so irrefutably that there is nothing which impairs the universal and absolute resemblance of the Image to the Archetype. And if he hesitates in perplexity and is unwilling to prove this, we will in the next place ask him to tell us what explanation will allow of one who (according to their accursed notions) is not in His nature God, being enabled to fulfil the works that belong to the Godhead: for this is what they mean by saying that He bears the Image of the Father. For if the Son, without possessing as His own a power sufficient for the purpose, borrows the power from the Father, and is by Him supplied with wisdom and might, so as to be able to perform actions which we shall allow to be beyond the power of any nature save that of the Father alone; then in so doing He will be falsely representing the Image and the Likeness. And if we refuse to admit that He (being of the nature we have just been describing) is guilty of falsehood, and accept the truth of His words, we shall then find ourselves convicted of wronging the glory of God the Father in a manner that I will now explain. We are constrained to admit one of two things: either He falsely represents the Image of God the Father, in that He possesses not in Himself the might sufficing for His acts, but is supplied therewith from another, whereas it is not so with the Archetype; or else, if it is true as He says that in Him the Father is seen by us, and that there is really nothing whatever that disfigures or obscures or perverts His perfect similarity, it is absolutely necessary, willingly or unwillingly, to admit that the Father Himself holds His power as something received from another. For in this way He willed to display to us Himself in the Image of His own nature and of His glory.
"Is it possible then," one might go on to say to these heretics, "that you do not perceive whither your theory, when once it quits the safe path, will lead you on, and into what an abyss of error it will plunge those who have held such views?" "But," say they, "surely it is possible that the Son, although a created being, may yet fulfil the works whereof by His nature He is capable, and so advance the glory of God the Father?" Now what suggestion can appear more impious than this? If this be as they say, there can no longer be any superiority or any higher dignity by which God excels His creatures, if even one of them is to be invested with the glory and power of the Godhead. For let no one be so excessively deranged in mind as to suppose that he is imagining and uttering a marvellous and magnificent compliment concerning the Son in thinking or saying that "He is a creature, but not as one of the creatures." Let him be well assured that he is thus in no small degree disparaging His glory. For the question is not whether His nature is specially superior beyond all other creatures, but whether He is at all a created being. For how could He avoid the consequences of being a creature, even though He were the noblest of all creatures? And if the glory of the Son is disparaged by saying that He was brought into existence, why do they vainly advance (to heal as it were His offended dignity) the statement that He was created in the highest of all possible ranks? It follows therefore that we shall offer insult to the essence of God the Father if we bestow such power on the Son, supposing the Son (according to their ignorant and unskilful reasoning) is Himself a created being. And we shall not tolerate them when they tell us that the Son performs the acts of the Godhead, though Himself in His nature a creature, so as to glorify God the Father. If they can prove as much from the Divine Scripture, let them bring forward their citations, and let them observe the sayings of the holy writers in all sincerity: but if these are inventions of their own brains, and if they have themselves manufactured their arguments in this matter, we shall salute them with the words: Woe to those who prophesy after their own heart! For we shall allow that the Father ever is desirous of whatsoever He knows will maintain in integrity His Divine glory and preserve the absolute truth of the declarations made concerning Himself. And so we shall now bid farewell to the ignorant suggestions of those heretics and pass on to the real truth concerning Christ, believing that He is in truth begotten as Son of the essence of God the Father, and that He is in His nature God of God. For thus He speaks in perfect truth, in that He is both the Very Image and the Likeness of God the Father, when He says: He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary-5.asp?pg=16
