Chapter XI.
We must refer the fact that Christ is said to speak
nothing of Himself, to His human nature. After explaining how it
is right to say that He hears and sees the Father as being God, He
shows conclusively, by a large number of proofs, that the Son of God is
not a creature.
132. we indeed
to bring the Son of God to such a low estate that He may not know how
to act or speak, except as He hears, and are we to suppose that a fixed
measure of action or of speech is assigned to Him, because it is
written: “I speak not of Myself,” and, further
on: “As the Father hath said unto Me, even so I
speak”? But those
words have reference to the obedience of the flesh, or else to the
faith in the Unity. For many learned men allow that the Son
hears, and that the Father speaks to the Son through the unity of their
Nature; for that which the Son, through the unity of their will, knows
that the Father wills, He seems to have heard.
133. Whereby is meant no personal duty, but
an indivisible sentence of co-operation. For this does not
signify any actual hearing of words, but the unity of will and of
power, which exists both in the Father and in the Son. He has
stated that this exists also in the Holy Spirit, in another place, saying, “For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak,” so that we may learn that whatsoever the Spirit says, the Son also says; and whatsoever the Son says, the Father says also; for there is one mind and one mode of working in the Trinity. For, as the Father is seen in the Son, not indeed in bodily appearance, but in the unity of the Godhead, so also the Father speaks in the Son, not with a voice of earth, not with a human sound, but in the unity of Their work. So when He had said: “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He speaketh; and the works that I do, He doeth;” He added: “Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the very work’s sake.”
134. This is what we understand according to
the whole course of the holy Scriptures; but the Arians, who will not
think of God the things that be right, may be put to silence by an
example just suited to their deserts; that they may not believe
everything in carnal fashion, since they themselves do not see the
works of their father the devil with bodily eyes. So the Lord has
declared of their fellows the Jews, saying: “Ye do what ye
have seen your father doing;” though they
are reproved not because they saw the work of the devil, but because
they did his will, since the devil unseen works out sin in them in
accordance with their own wickedness. We have written this, as
the Apostle did, because of the folly of these traitors.
135. But we have sufficiently proved by
examples from Scripture that it is a property of the unity of the
divine majesty that the Father should abide in the Son, and that the
Son should seem to have heard from the Father those things which He
speaks. How else can we understand the unity of majesty than by
the knowledge that the same deference is paid to the Father and the
Son? For what can be better put than the Apostle’s saying
that the Lord of glory was crucified?
136. The Son then is the God of glory and the Lord
of glory, but glory is not subject to creatures; the Son therefore is
not a creature.
137. The Son is the Image of the
Father’s Substance; but every
creature is unlike that divine Substance, but the Son of the Father is
not unlike God; therefore the Son is not a creature.
138. The Son thought it not robbery to be
equal with God; but no creature
is equal with God, the Son, however, is equal; therefore the Son is not
a creature.
139. Every creature is changeable; but the Son of
God is not changeable; therefore the Son of God is not a creature.
140. Every creature meets with chance occurrences
of good and evil after the powers of its nature, and also feels their
passing away; but nothing can pass away from or bring addition to the
Son of God in His Godhead; therefore the Son of God is not a
creature.
141. Every work of His God will bring into
judgment; but the Son of
God is not brought into judgment; for He Himself judges; therefore the
Son of God is not a creature.