Chapter V.
That "through whom" is said also in the case of the Father, and "of whom" in the case of the Son and of the Spirit.
7. After thus describing the outcome of our adversaries' arguments, we shall now proceed to shew, as we have proposed, that the Father does not first take "of whom" and then abandon "through whom" to the Son; and that there is no truth in these men's ruling that the Son refuses to admit the Holy Spirit to a share in "of whom" or in "through whom," according to the limitation of their new-fangled allotment of phrases. "There is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things."1
Yes; but these are the words of a writer not laying down a rule, but carefully distinguishing the hypostases.2
The object of the apostle in thus writing was not to introduce the diversity of nature, but to exhibit the notion of Father and of Son as unconfounded. That the phrases are not opposed to one another and do not, like squadrons in war marshalled one against another, bring the natures to which they are applied into mutual conflict, is perfectly plain from the passage in question. The blessed Paul brings both phrases to bear upon one and the same subject, in the words "of him and through him and to him are all things."3 That this plainly refers to the Lord will be admitted even by a reader paying but small attention to the meaning of the words. The apostle has just quoted from the prophecy of Isaiah, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor,"4 and then goes on, "For of him and from him and to him are all things." That the prophet is speaking about God the Word, the Maker of all creation, may be learnt from what immediately precedes: "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?"5 Now the word "who" in this passage does not mean absolute impossibility, but rarity, as in the passage "Who will rise up for me against the evil doers?"6 and "What man is he that desireth life?"7 and "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"8 So is it in the passage in question, "Who hath directed [lxx., known] the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath known him?" "For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things."9 This is He who holds the earth, and hath grasped it with His hand, who brought all things to order and adornment, who poised10 the hills in their places, and measured the waters, and gave to all things in the universe their proper rank, who encompasseth the whole of heaven with but a small portion of His power, which, in a figure, the prophet calls a span. Well then did the apostle add "Of him and through him and to him are all things."11 For of Him, to all things that are, comes the cause of their being, according to the will of God the Father. Through Him all things have their continuance12 and constitution,13 for He created all things, and metes out to each severally what is necessary for its health and preservation. Wherefore to Him all things are turned, looking with irresistible longing and unspeakable affection to "the author"14 and maintainer "of" their "life," as it is written "The eyes of all wait upon thee,"15 and again, "These wait all upon thee,"16 and "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."17
8. But if our adversaries oppose this our interpretation, what argument will save them from being caught in their own trap?
For if they will not grant that the three expressions "of him" and "through him" and "to him" are spoken of the Lord, they cannot but be applied to God the Father. Then without question their rule will fall through, for we find not only "of whom," but also "through whom" applied to the Father. And if this latter phrase indicates nothing derogatory, why in the world should it be confined, as though conveying the sense of inferiority, to the Son? If it always and everywhere implies ministry, let them tell us to what superior the God of glory18 and Father of the Christ is subordinate.
They are thus overthrown by their own selves, while our position will be on both sides made sure. Suppose it proved that the passage refers to the Son, "of whom" will be found applicable to the Son. Suppose on the other hand it be insisted that the prophet's words relate to God, then it will be granted that "through whom" is properly used of God, and both phrases have equal value, in that both are used with equal force of God. Under either alternative both terms, being employed of one and the same Person, will be shewn to be equivalent. But let us revert to our subject.
9. In his Epistle to the Ephesians the apostle says, "But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body."19
And again in the Epistle to the Colossians, to them that have not the knowledge of the Only Begotten, there is mention of him that holdeth "the head," that is, Christ, "from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered increaseth with the increase of God."20 And that Christ is the head of the Church we have learned in another passage, when the apostle says "gave him to be the head over all things to the Church,"21 and "of his fulness have all we received."22 And the Lord Himself says "He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you."23 In a word, the diligent reader will perceive that "of whom" is used in diverse manners.24 For instance, the Lord says, "I perceive that virtue is gone out of me."25 Similarly we have frequently observed "of whom" used of the Spirit. "He that soweth to the spirit," it is said, "shall of the spirit reap life everlasting."26 John too writes, "Hereby we know that he abideth in us by (ek) the spirit which he hath given us."27 "That which is conceived in her," says the angel, "is of the Holy Ghost,"28 and the Lord says "that which is born of the spirit is spirit."29 Such then is the case so far.
10. It must now be pointed out that the phrase "through whom" is admitted by Scripture in the case of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost alike. It would indeed be tedious to bring forward evidence of this in the case of the Son, not only because it is perfectly well known, but because this very point is made by our opponents. We now show that "through whom" is used also in the case of the Father. "God is faithful," it is said, "by whom (di' ou) ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son,"30 and "Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by (dia) the will of God;" and again, "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God."31 And "like as Christ was raised up from the dead by (dia) the glory of God the Father."32 ^ Isaiah, moreover, says, "Woe unto them that make deep counsel and not through the Lord;"33 and many proofs of the use of this phrase in the case of the Spirit might be adduced. "God hath revealed him to us," it is said, "by (dia) the spirit;"34 and in another place, "That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by (dia) the Holy Ghost;"35 and again, "To one is given by (dia) the spirit the word of wisdom."36
11. In the same manner it may also be said of the word "in," that Scripture admits its use in the case of God the Father. In the Old Testament it is said through (en) God we shall do valiantly,37 and, "My praise shall be continually of (en) thee;"38 and again, "In thy name will I rejoice."39 In Paul we read, "In God who created all things,"40 and, "Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father;"41 and "if now at length I might have a prosperous journey by (en) the will of God to come to you;"42 and, "Thou makest thy boast of God."43 Instances are indeed too numerous to reckon; but what we want is not so much to exhibit an abundance of evidence as to prove that the conclusions of our opponents are unsound. I shall, therefore, omit any proof of this usage in the case of our Lord and of the Holy Ghost, in that it is notorious. But I cannot forbear to remark that "the wise hearer" will find sufficient proof of the proposition before him by following the method of contraries. For if the difference of language indicates, as we are told, that the nature has been changed, then let identity of language compel our adversaries to confess with shame that the essence is unchanged.
12. And it is not only in the case of the theology that the use of the terms varies,44 but whenever one of the terms takes the meaning of the other we find them frequently transferred from the one subject to the other. As, for instance, Adam says, "I have gotten a man through God,"45 meaning to say the same as from God; and in another passage "Moses commanded...Israel through the word of the Lord,"46 and, again, "Is not the interpretation through God?"47 Joseph, discoursing about dreams to the prisoners, instead of saying "from God" says plainly "through God." Inversely Paul uses the term "from whom" instead of "through whom," when he says "made from a woman" (A.V., "of" instead of "through a woman").48 And this he has plainly distinguished in another passage, where he says that it is proper to a woman to be made of the man, and to a man to be made through the woman, in the words "For as the woman is from [A.V., of] the man, even so is the man also through [A.V., by] the woman."49 Nevertheless in the passage in question the apostle, while illustrating the variety of usage, at the same time corrects obiter the error of those who supposed that the body of the Lord was a spiritual body,50 and, to shew that the God-bearing51 flesh was formed out of the common lump52 of human nature, gave precedence to the more emphatic preposition.
The phrase "through a woman" would be likely to give rise to the suspicion of mere transit in the generation, while the phrase "of the woman" would satisfactorily indicate that the nature was shared by the mother and the offspring. The apostle was in no wise contradicting himself, but he shewed that the words can without difficulty be interchanged. Since, therefore, the term "from whom" is transferred to the identical subjects in the case of which "through whom" is decided to be properly used, with what consistency can these phrases be invariably distinguished one from the other, in order that fault may be falsely found with true religion?
Chapter VI.
Issue joined with those who assert that the Son is not with the Father, but after the Father. Also concerning the equal glory.
13. Our opponents, while they thus artfully and perversely encounter our argument, cannot even have recourse to the plea of ignorance. It is obvious that they are annoyed with us for completing the doxology to the Only Begotten together with the Father, and for not separating the Holy Spirit from the Son. On this account they style us innovators, revolutionizers, phrase-coiners, and every other possible name of insult. But so far am I from being irritated at their abuse, that, were it not for the fact that their loss causes me "heaviness and continual sorrow,"53 I could almost have said that I was grateful to them for the blasphemy, as though they were agents for providing me with blessing. For "blessed are ye," it is said, "when men shall revile you for my sake."54 The grounds of their indignation are these: The Son, according to them, is not together with the Father, but after the Father. Hence it follows that glory should be ascribed to the Father "through him," but not "with him;" inasmuch as "with him" expresses equality of dignity, while "through him" denotes subordination. They further assert that the Spirit is not to be ranked along with the Father and the Son, but under the Son and the Father; not coordinated, but subordinated; not connumerated, but subnumerated.55
With technical terminology of this kind they pervert the simplicity and artlessness of the faith, and thus by their ingenuity, suffering no one else to remain in ignorance, they cut off from themselves the plea that ignorance might demand.
14. Let us first ask them this question: In what sense do they say that the Son is "after the Father;" later in time, or in order, or in dignity? But in time no one is so devoid of sense as to assert that the Maker of the ages56 holds a second place, when no interval intervenes in the natural conjunction of the Father with the Son.57 And indeed so far as our conception of human relations goes,58 it is impossible to think of the Son as being later than the Father, not only from the fact that Father and Son are mutually conceived of in accordance with the relationship subsisting between them, but because posteriority in time is predicated of subjects separated by a less interval from the present, and priority of subjects farther off. For instance, what happened in Noah's time is prior to what happened to the men of Sodom, inasmuch as Noah is more remote from our own day; and, again, the events of the history of the men of Sodom are posterior, because they seem in a sense to approach nearer to our own day. But, in addition to its being a breach of true religion, is it not really the extremest folly to measure the existence of the life which transcends all time and all the ages by its distance from the present? Is it not as though God the Father could be compared with, and be made superior to, God the Son, who exists before the ages, precisely in the same way in which things liable to beginning and corruption are described as prior to one another?
The superior remoteness of the Father is really inconceivable, in that thought and intelligence are wholly impotent to go beyond the generation of the Lord; and St. John has admirably confined the conception within circumscribed boundaries by two words, "In the beginning was the Word." For thought cannot travel outside "was," nor imagination59 beyond "beginning." Let your thought travel ever so far backward you cannot get beyond the "was," and however you may strain and strive to see what is beyond the Son, you will find it impossible to get further than the "beginning." True religion, therefore, thus teaches us to think of the Son together with the Father.
15. If they really conceive of a kind of degradation of the Son in relation to the Father, as though He were in a lower place, so that the Father sits above, and the Son is thrust off to the next seat below, let them confess what they mean. We shall have no more to say. A plain statement of the view will at once expose its absurdity. They who refuse to allow that the Father pervades all things do not so much as maintain the logical sequence of thought in their argument. The faith of the sound is that God fills all things;60 but they who divide their up and down between the Father and the Son do not remember even the word of the Prophet: "If I climb up into heaven thou art there; if I go down to hell thou art there also."61 Now, to omit all proof of the ignorance of those who predicate place of incorporeal things, what excuse can be found for their attack upon Scripture, shameless as their antagonism is, in the passages "Sit thou on my right hand"62 and "Sat down on the right hand of the majesty of God"?63 The expression "right hand" does not, as they contend, indicate the lower place, but equality of relation; it is not understood physically, in which case there might be something sinister about God,64 but Scripture puts before us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of dignified language indicating the seat of honour. It is left then for our opponents to allege that this expression signifies inferiority of rank. Let them learn that "Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God,"65 and that "He is the image of the invisible God"66 and "brightness of his glory,"67 and that "Him hath God the Father sealed,"68 by engraving Himself on Him.69
Now are we to call these passages, and others like them, throughout the whole of Holy Scripture, proofs of humiliation, or rather public proclamations of the majesty of the Only Begotten, and of the equality of His glory with the Father? We ask them to listen to the Lord Himself, distinctly setting forth the equal dignity of His glory with the Father, in His words, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;"70 and again, "When the Son cometh in the glory of his Father;"71 that they "should honour the Son even as they honour the Father;"72 and, "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;"73 and "the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father."74 Of all these passages they take no account, and then assign to the Son the place set apart for His foes. A father's bosom is a fit and becoming seat for a son, but the place of the footstool is for them that have to be forced to fall.75
We have only touched cursorily on these proofs, because our object is to pass on to other points. You at your leisure can put together the items of the evidence, and then contemplate the height of the glory and the preeminence of the power of the Only Begotten. However, to the well-disposed hearer, even these are not insignificant, unless the terms "right hand" and "bosom" be accepted in a physical and derogatory sense, so as at once to circumscribe God in local limits, and invent form, mould, and bodily position, all of which are totally distinct from the idea of the absolute, the infinite, and the incorporeal. There is moreover the fact that what is derogatory in the idea of it is the same in the case both of the Father and the Son; so that whoever repeats these arguments does not take away the dignity of the Son, but does incur the charge of blaspheming the Father; for whatever audacity a man be guilty of against the Son he cannot but transfer to the Father. If he assigns to the Father the upper place by way of precedence, and asserts that the only begotten Son sits below, he will find that to the creature of his imagination attach all the consequent conditions of body. And if these are the imaginations of drunken delusion and phrensied insanity, can it be consistent with true religion for men taught by the Lord himself that "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father"76 to refuse to worship and glorify with the Father him who in nature, in glory, and in dignity is conjoined with him? What shall we say? What just defence shall we have in the day of the awful universal judgment of all-creation, if, when the Lord clearly announces that He will come "in the glory of his Father;"77 when Stephen beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God;78 when Paul testified in the spirit concerning Christ "that he is at the right hand of God;"79 when the Father says, "Sit thou on my right hand;"80 when the Holy Spirit bears witness that he has sat down on "the right hand of the majesty"81 of God; we attempt to degrade him who shares the honour and the throne, from his condition of equality, to a lower state?82 Standing and sitting, I apprehend, indicate the fixity and entire stability of the nature, as Baruch, when he wishes to exhibit the immutability and immobility of the Divine mode of existence, says, "For thou sittest for ever and we perish utterly."83 Moreover, the place on the right hand indicates in my judgment equality of honour. Rash, then, is the attempt to deprive the Son of participation in the doxology, as though worthy only to be ranked in a lower place of honour.