By Water & Blood

Chapter 4: That Isaiah also the Greatest of the Prophets dearly knew Him to be God in God, agreeing in His Words with Us Who glorify the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father

[Passage quoted, Isa. xlv. 12-13.]

"14. Thus saith the Lord: Egypt hath laboured for thee, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, great in stature, shall pass over to thee, and shall be thy servants; and they shall follow thee bound in fetters, and shall worship thee anew, and shall pray in thy name, because God is in thee, and there is no God but thee. 15. For thou art God, and we knew it not, God of Israel, Saviour. 16. All that are opposed to Him shall be ashamed and confounded, and shall walk in shame."

This is the prophecy. And I do not think that any one, however deficient in judgment he may be, can fail to see how clearly and plainly the words evidently refer to God, Israel's Saviour, and another God in Him. "The just," he says, "shall worship thee, and make their prayers in thee. Because God is in thee, and there is no God but thee. For thou art God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour." And the words "we knew it not" spoken in the person of those of old who did not know Him, only |245 occur in the Septuagint, for the Hebrew is different, and translated by Aquila, "God then is strong and hidden, God that saves Israel," and by Theodotion, "Therefore a strong secret God preserves Israel." It is remarkable how he calls Christ a hidden God, and gives the reason clearly, why he calls Him God alone among the ones begotten after the First and Unbegotten, viz. the dwelling of the Father in Him.

"For in him" according to the holy apostle "it pleased that all the fullness of the godhead should dwell." This the passage plainly expresses when it says "God is in thee, and there is no God but thee." Instead of, "But thee" Theodotion has "But him," translating: "There is no God but him," that is to say, "But the God that is in thee, by whom thou also art God."

According to Aquila it runs thus: "But a strong one is in thee, and there is none beside thee: God the strong and the one that hides himself preserving Israel." And Symmachus, "God is in thee alone, and there is no other and exists no other God, verily thou art a hidden God, God preserving Israel," in which the words clearly shew the reason of the Christ of God being God. It is where he says, "God is in thee and therefore thou art a strong and hidden God." According to this, then, the true and only God must be One, and alone owning the Name in full right. While the Second, by sharing in the being of the True God, is thought worthy to share His Name, not being God in Himself, nor existing apart from the Father Who gives Him Divinity, not called God apart from the Father, but altogether being, living and existing as God, through the presence of the Father in Him, and one in being with the Father, and constituted God from Him and through Him, and holding His being as well as His Divinity not from Himself but from the Father. Wherefore we are |246 taught to honour Him as God after the Father, through the Father dwelling in Him, as we see these prophecies before us intend.

For as the image of a king would be honoured for the sake of him whose lineaments and likeness it bears (and though both the image and the king received honour, one person would be honoured, and not two; for there would not be two kings, the first the true one, and the one represented by the image, but one in both forms, not only conceived of, but named and honoured), so I say the Only-begotten Son, being the only image of the Unseen (227) God, is rightly called the image of the Unseen God, through bearing His likeness, and is constituted God by the Father Himself: thus He is, with regard to essence, and gives an image of the Father that grows from His nature and is not something added to Him, because of the actual source of His existence. Wherefore He is by nature both God and Only-begotten Son, not being made such by adoption like those who were without, who only acquire an accidental right to the Name of God. But He (b) is celebrated as Only-begotten Son by nature and as our God, but not as the first God, but as the first Only-Begotten Son of God, and therefore God.

And the general cause also of His being God, would be the fact that He alone is Son of God by nature, and is called Only-begotten, and that He completely preserves the living and vivid spiritual image of the One God, being made in all things like the leather, and bearing the likeness of His actual Divinity. Thus therefore Him also, as being the only Son and the only image of God, endued with the powers of the Father's Unbegotten and eternal essence (c) according to the example of likeness, and fashioned to the extremest accuracy of likeness by the Father Himself, Who is the most skilled and the wisest delineator and maker of life conceivable, the holy Scriptures salute as God, as One worthy of receiving this Name of the Father with His other (names), but as one Who receives it, and does not |247 possess it in His own right. For the One gives, and the Other receives; so that strictly the First is to be reckoned God, alone being God by nature, and not receiving (divinity) from another. And the Other is to be thought of as secondary, and as holding a Divinity received from the Father, as an image of God, the Divinity in both being conceived of as one in type, God in Himself being one without beginning and unbegotten, but He is seen through the Son as by a mirror and image. And this is exactly the teaching of the prophetic oracle, which says that He is only to be worshipped as God, because the Father dwells in Him. For it says, "In thee shall they pray, because God is in thee, and Thou thyself art God, the Saviour of Israel, and therefore Thou art a strong and a hidden God. Since God is in Thee, and there is none beside Him."

Instead of "Egypt laboured," the Hebrew has, and the other translators render, "Labour of Egypt,'' so that the passage runs: "The Labour of Egypt and the merchandise of the Aethiopians shall worship Thee and be Thy slaves, and the Sabeans," by which I understand to be meant barbarous and obscure nations, in fact all those that long ago were a prey to daemonic superstition. For as the Egyptians seemed to be the most superstitious of all nations, and to have begun the errors of idolatry, it is natural that they should be represented as first coming under the yoke of Christ, and should represent all the rest of idolatry. And this was fulfilled in our Lord and Saviour, by the worship and service rendered to Him in all nations by many multitudes of nations throughout the world.

And I understand that the Ethiopians and Sabeans here foretold as worshipping Christ are also meant in Ps. lxxi., where it is said: "The Ethiopians shall fall down before him, and the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts, and shall worship him." And it is plain from the context that it is Christ Who it is there predicted will also be the Object of their worship. |248 

CHAPTER 5 

Psalm xxxii.

How David equally with Us knows the Word of God, Who is of His Essence, to be by the Command of the Father Creator of All Things; and how the Same Prophet witnesses that the Same Word of God was sent by the Father for the Saving of Men, and how He prophesies that in a Short Time the Whole World would be filled by His Teaching.

"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth." 

And in Ps. cvi. it is said:

"He sent his word and healed them, and saved them from their destruction." 

And again in Ps. cxlvii.:

"He sendeth his oracle upon earth, his word runneth swiftly."

"8. Let all the earth fear the Lord, | and let all the dwellers on earth be moved by him. | 9. For he spake, and they were created, | he commanded and they were made. | "

For it is plain that a speaker must speak to some one else, and one who issues a command must issue it to another beside himself. And clearly since our Saviour's Incarnation |249 many multitudes from all the earth, that is to say from all the nations of the earth, have ceased to fear daemons as before, and have feared the Lord Jesus, and all the inhabitants of the world have been moved at the Name of Christ, agreeably to the oracle which here says, "Let the earth fear the Lord: By him shall be moved all the inhabitants of the world." These, then, come from Ps. ii. and xxx. And you would find similar prophecies also in Ps. cxlviii., which teaches that not only things in earth, but also things in heaven, the whole creation in a word, came into being by the command of God. For it says:

"1. Praise the Lord from the heavens, | praise him in the height; | 2. Praise him all ye angels of his, | praise him all his powers, | 3. Praise him sun and moon, | Praise him all ye stars and light, | . . . 5. For he spake, and they were made, | he commanded, and they were created."

For if He commanded, Who was great enough to receive such a command, but the Word of God, who in many ways has been proved to be God in this treatise, and naturally called the Word of God, because the Almighty has set in Him the words that make and create all things, delivering to Him the task of governing all things and steering them by reason and in order?

For of course no one should imagine that the Word of God is like to articulate and spoken speech, which among men consists of syllables, and is compounded of nouns and verbs: for we know that our speech consists essentially of sounds and syllables and their significations, and is produced by the tongue and the organs of the throat and mouth, whereas that of the eternal and unembodied nature, totally divorced from all our conditions, could not possibly involve anything human: It uses the name of speech and nothing more. Since we must not in the case of the God of the Universe postulate a voice that depends on the movements of the air, nor words, nor syllables, nor tongue, nor mouth, nor anything indeed that is human and mortal. |250 

For His must be a Word of the soul, and quite incapable of existence or being apart from the soul. For human speech is in itself without essence and substance, and regarded generally is a self-movement and activity of thought. But the Word of God is other than this: It has its own substance (c) in Itself altogether divine and spiritual, It exists in Itself, It is active also in Itself, and being divorced from matter and body, and made like to the nature of the first Unbegotten and Only God, It carries in Itself the meaning of all begotten things, and the ideas of things visible, being Itself without body and invisible. Wherefore the divine oracles call It Wisdom and the Word of God.

(d) CHAPTER 6

That Isaiah, as well as David, acknowledges Two Lords, and the (231) Second, as in David, is the Creator, as We also confess.

[Passage quoted, Isa. xlviii. 12-15.]

(b) SEE now how He that says, "I am the first, and I am the last. He that established the earth and the heaven," clearly confesses that He was sent by "the Lord, the Lord," calling the Father Lord twice, and you will have undeniable evidence of what we seek. And He says that He is first among beings begotten in all reverence, since He allots Being, original, unbegotten, and beyond the first, to the Father. For the customary meaning of first in the sense of "first of a greater number," superior in honour and order, (c) would not be applicable to the Father. For the Almighty God of course is not the first of created things, since the idea of Him does not admit of a beginning. He must be beyond and above the first, as Himself generating and establishing the First, and the Divine Word alone is to be called the First of all begotten things. So if we ask with reference to the words, "He spake and they were made, he commanded and they were created," to which of the begotten beings He gave the command to create, we see now clearly that it was given to Him, Who said, "My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has |251 made the heaven strong": Who also confesses that He was sent by One greater than Himself, when He says: "Now (d) the Lord, the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit." And it must be the Word of God Who said also, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made firm," if we compare the Psalm. And yet though the Word of God is Himself proclaimed divine by the word "Lord," He still calls One Higher and Greater His Father and Lord, using with beautiful reverence the word Lord twice in speaking of Him, so as to differentiate His title. For He says here, "The Lord, the Lord has sent me," as if the Almighty God were in a special sense first and true Lord both of His Only- (232) begotten Word and of all begotten things after Him, in relation to which the Word of God has received dominion and power from the Father, as His true and Only-begotten Son, and therefore Himself holds the title of Lord in a secondary sense.

CHAPTER 7 

From Genesis.

That Moses, God's Greatest Servant, knows the Father and God of the Universe to have been associated with Another in the Creation of Man: And that. We have learned already that this Being was the Divine Word.

"AND God said, Let us make man in our image, and likeness." And also: "And God said, It is not good for man to be alone, let us make a helper for him." And he at once shews that the Being addressed is not an angel of God, so that it may not be thought that this was said to angels, with the words: "And God made man, in the image of God he made him." |252 

CHAPTER 8 

From the same. 

That Moses clearly without Veil reveals God to be Two Lords,

"THE sun arose on the earth, and Lot entered Segor, and the Lord rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord."

It is clear here that the second "Lord'' refers to him that was sent by the greater Lord to punish the ungodly. Yet if we unreservedly confess two Lords, we do not regard them both as God in the same sense. We are taught in all reverence to admit an order, that One is the Most High Father and God and Lord, and God and Lord of the Second: but that the Word of God is the Second Lord, Lord of those below Him, and yet not equally with the greater. For the Word of God is not Lord of the Father, nor God of the Father, but His Image, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Lord and God of those that come after Him; whereas the Father is Father and Lord and God even of the Son. Wherefore a reverent theology in our opinion rightly recurs to one Source of being and to one God.

CHAPTER 9 

From the same.

That the Same Servant of God shews a Second Being called God and Lord, and relates that He was seen in Human Shape and Form and answered Them of Old Time.

[Passages quoted, Gen. xii. 7; xvii. 1; xviii. 1, 17.]

AND again he adds to this, as if speaking of Another:

"For I knew that he will establish his children, and his house after him, and they will keep the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, so that the |253 Lord will bring on Abraham what things he spake to him."

The Lord Who answers, Who is recorded to have said this to Abraham, is represented as clearly confessing another Lord to be his Father and the Maker of all things. At least Abraham, who as a prophet has a clear conception of the speaker, prophetically continues with the words:

"Wilt thou destroy the righteous man with the wicked, and shall the righteous be as the wicked? If there be fifty righteous in the city, wilt thou destroy them? Wilt thou not spare [all] the place, because of the fifty righteous? Be it far from thee to fulfil this word, and destroy the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked. In no way let him, that judgeth all the earth, not do judgment."

CHAPTER 10 

From the same.

That the same Prophet shews more clearly in the Matter of Jacob the said Person to be Lord, Whom also He calls God, and an Angel of God Most High, in addressing Him.

[Passage quoted, Gen. xxviii. 10-19.]

THIS Being who here answers him at such length, you will find, if you read on, to be Lord and God, and the Angel of God, from the words Jacob himself says to his wives:

"And the angel of the Lord said to me in sleep, Jacob. And I said, Here am I." 

And also:

"I have seen, he says, all that Laban doeth to thee. I am the God, that was seen of thee in the place where thou anointedst the pillar for me, and offeredst prayer to me."

Therefore He that said before, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy Father, and the God of Isaac, to whom godly |255 Jacob raises the pillar, was indeed God and Lord: for we must believe that which He Himself says. Not of course the Almighty, but the Second to Him, Who ministers for His Father among men, and brings His Word. Wherefore Jacob here calls Him an Angel: "The Angel of God said to me, speaking in my sleep, ' I am the God who was seen by thee in this place.' " So the same Being is clearly called the Angel of the Lord, and God and Lord in this place. And by Isaiah the Prophet he is called "Angel of Great Counsel," as well as God and Ruler and Potentate, where His Incarnation is prophesied in the words:

"For unto us a child is born, and to us a son is given, on whose shoulder shall be the rule, and his name shall be called the Angel of Great Counsel, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, the Potentate, the Father of the Age to Come."