That the Son is eternal and increate
| These
attributes, being the points in dispute, are first proved by
direct texts of Scripture. Concerning the "eternal power" of God in Rom. i. 20, which is shewn to mean the Son. Remarks on the Arian formula, "Once the Son was not," its supporters not daring to speak of "a time when the Son was not." |
§
11.
1. AT
his suggestion then ye have maintained and ye think, that "there was
once when the Son was not;" this is the first cloke of your views of
doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the
Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men [Note
A]? If ye say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is
impious to say that He was "once," or to signify Him by the word "once."
For He is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is
Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if ye say that the Son
was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and
unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty,
you can but answer, that there was a time, when the Word was not; for
your very adverb "once" naturally signifies this. And your other, "The
Son was not before his generation," is equivalent to saying, "There
was once when He was not," for both the one and the other signify that
there is a time before the Word.
2.
Whence then this your discovery? Why do ye, as the
heathen rage, and imagine vain words against the Lord and
{196} against His Christ [Ps. ii.
1.]? for no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but
rather "always" and "eternal" and "co-existent always with the Father."
For, In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
[John i. 1.]. And in the Apocalypse he [Note
B] thus speaks; Who
is and who was and who is to come
[Apoc. i. 4.]. Now who can rob "who is" and "who was" of eternity?
This too in confutation of the Jews hath Paul written in his Epistle
to the Romans, Of whom as
concerning the flesh Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever
[Rom. ix. 5.]; while silencing the Greeks, he has said, The
visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal Power
and Godhead [Ib. i. 20.];
and what the Power of God is [Note C],
he teaches us elsewhere himself, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God
[1 Cor. i. 24.]. Surely in these words he does not designate the
Father, as ye often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father
is His eternal power.
This is not so; for he says not, "God Himself is the power," but "His
is the power." Very plain is it to all that "His" is not "He;" yet not
something alien but rather proper to Him.
§
12.
3. Study
too the context and turn
to the Lord [2 Cor. iii.
16, 17.]; now the Lord is
that Spirit [Note
D]; and ye will see that it is the Son who {197} is signified. For
after making mention of the creation, he naturally speaks of the
Framer's Power as seen in it, which Power, I say, is the Word of God,
by whom all things were made. If indeed the creation is sufficient of
itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, see that you fall
not into the further opinion that without the Son it came to be. But
if through the Son it came to be, and in
Him all things consist
[Col. i. 17.], it must follow that he who contemplates the creation
rightly, is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through Him
begins to apprehend the Father [Note
1]. And if, as the Saviour also says, No
one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall
reveal Him [Matt. xi.
27.], and if on Philip's asking, Shew us the Father [John
xiv. 8. 9.], He said not, "Behold the creation," but, He
that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,
reasonably doth Paul, while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the
harmony and order of the creation without reflecting on the Framing
Word within it; (for the creatures witness to their own Framer;) and
wishing that through the creation they might apprehend the true God,
and abandon their worship of it, reasonably hath he said, His
Eternal Power and Godhead
[Rom. i. 20.], thereby signifying the Son.
4. And
where the sacred writers say, "Who exists before the ages," and By
whom He made the ages
[Heb. i. 2.], they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and
everlasting being of the Son, even while they are designating God
Himself. Thus, if Esaias says, The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth
[Is. xl. 28.]; and Susanna said, O
Everlasting God [Hist. Sus. 42.]; and {198} Baruch wrote, I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days, and shortly after, My
hope is in the Everlasting, that He will save you, and joy is come
unto me from the Holy One
[Bar. iv. 20, 22.]; yet forasmuch as the Apostle, writing to the
Hebrews, says, Who being
the radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Person
[Heb. i. 3.]; and David too in the eighty-ninth Psalm, And the brightness of the Lord be upon us [Ps. xc. 17.], and, In Thy
Light shall we see Light
[Ib. xxxvi. 9.], who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity
of time Son [Note 2]? for when
did man see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may
say of the Son, "There was once, when He was not," or "Before His
generation He was not."
5. And
the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, Thy
kingdom is a kingdom of all ages
[Ps. cxlv. 13.], forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in
which the Word did not exist. For if every interval is measured by
ages, and of all the ages [Note 3]
the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all
exists prior to Him [Note E], it
were madness to say, "There was once when the Everlasting [Note
4] was not," and "From nothing is the Son."
6. And
whereas the Lord himself says, I
am the Truth [John xiv.
6.], not "I became the Truth;" but always, I am,—I
am the Shepherd [Ib. x.
14.],—I am the Light [Ib. viii. 12.],—and again, Call
ye me not, Lord and Master? and call ye Me well, for so I am
[Ib. xiii. 13.], who, hearing such language from God, and Wisdom, and
Word of the Father, speaking of Himself, will any longer hesitate
about its truth, and not forthwith believe that in the phrase I
am, is signified that the Son is eternal and unoriginate?
§
13.
7. It is
plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's
eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases
"He was not," and "before" and "when," are in the same Scriptures
predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the
generation of our system, says, And
every plant of the field, before it was in the
{199} earth, and every
herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it
to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground
[Gen. ii. 5.]. And in Deuteronomy, When
the Most High divided to the nations
[Deut. xxxii. 8.]. And the Lord said in His own Person [Note
5], If ye loved Me,
ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father, for My Father
is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass,
that when it is come to pass, ye might believe
[John xiv. 28, 29.]. And concerning the creation He says by Solomon, Or
ever the earth was, when there were no depths, I was brought forth;
when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the
mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth
[Prov. viii. 23.]. And, Before
Abraham was, I am [John
58.]. And concerning Jeremias He says, Before
I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee [Jer. i. 5.]. And David in the Psalm says, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world
were made, Thou art God from everlasting and world without end
[Ps. xc. 2.]. And in Daniel, Susanna
cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, that knowest
the secrets, and knowest all things before they be
[Hist. Sus. 42.]. Thus it appears that the phrases "once was not," and
"before it came to be," and "when," and the like, belong to things
generate and creatures, which come out of nothing, but are alien to
the Word. But if such terms are used in Scripture of things generate,
but, "ever" of the Word, it follows, O ye God's enemies, that the Son
did not come out of nothing, nor is in the number of generated things
at all, but is the Father's Image and Word eternal, never having not
been, but being ever, as the eternal Radiance [Note
6] of a Light which is eternal. Why imagine then times before the
Son? or wherefore blaspheme the Word as after times, by whom even the
ages were made [Note 7]? for how
did time or age at all subsist when the Word, as you say, had not
appeared, through whom
all things were made and without whom not one thing was made
[John i. 3.]? Or why, when you mean time, do you not plainly say, "a
time was when the Word was not?" but you drop the word "time" to
deceive the simple, why you do not at all conceal your own feeling,
nor, even if you did, could you escape discovery. For you still simply
mean times, when you say, "There was when He was not," and "He was not
before His generation." {200}
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