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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 08 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 28.00.02 Prolegomena Part 2
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In fact the appeal of Basil seems to have failed to elicit the response he desired, not so much from the independent tone of his letters, which was only in accordance with the recognised facts of the age, as from occidental suspicions of Basil's orthodoxy, and from the failure of men, who thought and wrote in Latin, to enter fully into the controversies conducted in a more subtle tongue. Basil had taken every precaution to ensure the conveyance of his letters by messengers of tact and discretion. He had deprecated the advocacy of so simple-minded and undiplomatic an ambassador as his brother Gregory. He had poured out his very soul in entreaty. But all was unavailing. He suffered, and he had to suffer unsupported by a human sympathy on which he thought he had a just claim.
It is of a piece with Basil's habitual silence on the general affairs of the empire that he should seem to be insensible of the shock caused by the approach of the Goths in 378. A letter to Eusebius in exile in Thrace does shew at least a consciousness of a disturbed state of the country, and he is afraid of exposing his courier to needless danger by entrusting him with a present for his friend. But this is all. He may have written letters strewing an interest in the fortunes of the empire which have not been preserved. But his whole soul was absorbed in the cause of Catholic truth, and in the fate of the Church. His youth had been steeped in culture, but the work of his ripe manhood left no time for the literary amusement of the dilettante. So it may be that the intense earnestness with which he said to himself, "This one thing I do," of his work as a shepherd of souls, and a fighter for the truth, and his knowledge that for the doing of this work his time was short, accounts for the absence from his correspondence of many a topic of more than contemporary interest. At all events, it is not difficult to descry that the turn in the stream of civil history was of vital moment to the cause which Basil held dear. The approach of the enemy was fraught with important consequences to the Church. The imperial attention was diverted from persecution of the Catholics to defence of the realm. Then came the disaster of Adrianople, and the terrible end of the unfortunate Valens. Gratian, a sensible lad, of Catholic sympathies, restored the exiled bishops, and Basil, in the few months of life yet left him, may have once more embraced his faithful friend Eusebius. The end drew rapidly near. Basil was only fifty, but he was an old man. Work. sickness, and trouble had worn him out. His health had never been good. A chronic liver complaint was a constant cause of distress and depression.
In 373 he had been at death's door. Indeed, the news of his death was actually circulated, and bishops arrived at Caesarea with the probable object of arranging the succession. He had submitted to the treatment of a course of natural hot baths, but with small beneficial result. By 376, as he playfully reminds Amphilochius, he had lost all his teeth. At last the powerful mind and the fiery enthusiasm of duty were no longer able to stimulate the energies of the feeble frame.
The winter of 378-9 dealt the last blow, and with the first day of what, to us, is now the new year, the great spirit fled. Gregory, alas! was not at the bedside. But he has left us a narrative which bears the stamp of truth. For some time the bystanders thought that the dying bishop had ceased to breathe. Then the old strength blazed out at the last. He spoke with vigour, and even ordained some of the faithful who were with him. Then he lay once more feeble and evidently passing away. Crowds surrounded his residence, praying eagerly for his restoration to them, and willing to give their lives for his. With a few final words of advice and exhortation, he said: "Into thy hands I commend my spirit," and so ended.
The funeral was a scene of intense excitement and rapturous reverence. Crowds filled every open space, and every gallery and window; Jews and Pagans joined with Christians in lamentation, and the cries and groans of the agitated oriental multitude drowned the music of the hymns which were sung. The press was so great that several fatal accidents added to the universal gloom. Basil was buried in the "sepulchre of his fathers" - a phrase which may possibly mean in the ancestral tomb of his family at Caesarea.
So passed away a leader of men in whose case the epithet ' great' is no conventional compliment. He shared with his illustrious brother primate of Alexandria the honour of rallying the Catholic forces in the darkest days of the Arian depression. He was great as foremost champion of a great cause, great in contemporary and posthumous influence, great in industry and self-denial, great as a literary controversialist. The estimate formed of him by his contemporaries is expressed in the generous, if somewhat turgid, eloquence of the laudatory oration of the slighted Gregory of Nazianzus. Yet nothing in Gregory's eulogy goes beyond the expressions of the prelate who has seemed to some to be "the wisest and holiest man in the East in the succeeding century." Basil is described by the saintly and learned Theodoret in terms that might seem exaggerated when applied to any but his master, as the light not of Cappadocia only, but of the world. To Sophronius he is the "glory of the Church." To Isidore of Pelusium, he seems to speak as one inspired. To the Council of Chalcedon he is emphatically a minister of grace; to the second council of Nicaea a layer of the foundations of orthodoxy. His death lacks the splendid triumph of the martyrdoms of Polycarp and Cyprian. His life lacks the vivid incidents which make the adventures of Athanasius an enthralling romance. He does not attract the sympathy evoked by the unsophisticated simplicity of Gregory his friend or of Gregory his brother. There does not linger about his memory the close personal interest that binds humanity to Augustine, or the winning loyalty and tenderness that charm far off centuries into affection for Theodoret. Sometimes he seems a hard, almost a sour man. Sometimes there is a jarring reminder of his jealousy for his own dignity. Evidently he was not a man who could be thwarted without a rupture of pleasant relations, or slighted with impunity. In any subordinate position he was not easy to get on with. But a man of strong will, convicted that he is championing a righteous cause, will not hesitate to sacrifice, among other things, the amenities that come of amiable absence of self-assertion. To Basil, to assert himself was to assert the truth of Christ and of His Church. And in the main the identification was a true one. Basil was human, and occasionally, as in the famous dispute with Anthimus, so disastrously fatal to the typical friendship of the earlier manhood, he may have failed to perceive that the Catholic cause would not suffer from the existence of two metropolitans in Cappadocia. But the great archbishop could be an affectionate friend, thirsty for sympathy. And he was right in his estimate of his position. Broadly speaking, Basil, more powerfully than any contemporary official, worker, or writer in the Church, did represent and defend through all the populous provinces of the empire which stretched from the Balkans to the Mediterranean, from the Aegean to the Euphrates, the cause whose failure or success has been discerned, even by thinkers of no favourable predisposition, to have me: death or life to the Church. St. Basil is duly canonized in the grateful memory, no less than in the official bead-roll, of Christendom, and we may be permitted to regret that the existing Kalendar of the Anglican liturgy has not found room for so illustrious a Doctor in its somewhat niggard list. For the omission some amends have lately been made in the erection of a statue of the great archbishop of Caesarea under the dome of the Cathedral St. Paul in London.
II. WORKS
The extant works of St. Basil may be conveniently classified as folows:
I. Dogmatic.
(i) Adversus Eunomium. IIro;" Eujno;mion.
(iII. Exegetic. {stf vac}
(i) In Hexaemeron. Eiß" th;n !Exahvmeron.
(iiIII. Ascetic.
(i) Tractatus prævii.
(ii)IV. Homiletic.
XXIVVI. Letters.
(i) HistVI. Liturgic.
I. (i) Against Eunomius. The work under this title comprises five books, the first three generally accepted as genuine, the last two sometimes regarded as doubtful. Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, and Theodoret all testify to Basil's having written against Eunomius, but do not specify the number of books. Books IV. and V. are accepted by Bellarmine, Du Pin, Tillemont, and Ceillier, mainly on the authority of the edict of Justinian against the Three Chapters (Mans) ix., 552), the Council of Seville (Mansi ix., 552) and the Council of Fiorence (Hardouin ix., 200). Maran (Vit. Bas. xliii.) speaks rather doubtfully. Böhringer describes them as of suspicious character, alike on grounds of style, and of their absence from some mss. They may possibly be notes on the controversy in general, and not immediately directed against Eunomius. Fessler's conclusion is "Major tamen eruditorum pars eos etiam genuinos esse censet."
The year 364 is assigned for the date of the publication of the three books. At that time Basil sent them with a few words of half ironical depreciation to Leontius the sophist. He was now about thirty-four years of age, and describes himself as hitherto inexperienced in such a kind of composition. Eunomius, like his illustrious opponent, was a Cappadocian. Emulous of the notoriety achieved by Aetius the Anomoean, and urged on by Secundus of Ptolemais, an intimate associate of Aetius, he went to Alexandria about 356 and resided there for two years as Aetius' admiring pupil and secretary. In 358 he accompanied Aetius to Antioch, and took a prominent part in the assertion of the extreme doctrines which revolted the more moderate Semiarians. He was selected as the champion of the advanced blasphemers, made himself consequently obnoxious to Constantius, and was apprehended and relegated to Migde in Phrygia. At the same time Eudoxius withdrew for a while into Armenia, his native province, but ere long was restored to the favour of the fickle Constantius, and was appointed to the see of Constantinople in 359. Eunomius now was for overthrowing Aetius, and removing whatever obstacles stood between him and promotion, and, by the influence of Eudoxius, was nominated to the see of Cyzicus, vacant by the deposition of Eleusius. Here for a while he temporized, but ere long displayed his true sentiments. To answer for this he was summoned to Constantinople by Constantius, and, in his absence, condemned and deposed. Now he became more marked than ever in his assertion of the most extreme Arianism, and the advanced party were henceforward known under his name. The accession of Julian brought him back with the rest of the banished bishops, and he made Constantinople the centre for the dissemination of his views.
Somewhere about this period he wrote the work entitled Apologeticus, in twenty-eight chapters, to which Basil replies. The title was at once a parody on the Apologies of defenders of the Faith, and, at the same time, a suggestion that his utterances were not spontaneous, but forced from him by attack. The work is printed in Fabricius, Bibl. Groec. viii. 262, and in the appendix to Migne's Basil. Pat. Gr. xxx. 837. It is a brief treatise, and occupies only about fifteen columns of Migne's edition. It professes to be a defence of the "simpler creed which is common to all Christians."
This creed is as follows: "We believe in one God, Father Almighty, of Whom are all things: and in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things: and in one Holy Spirit, the Comforter." But it is in reality like the extant Exposition of the Creed, a reading into this "simpler" creed, in itself orthodox and unobjectionable, of explanations which ran distinctly counter to the traditional and instinctive faith of the Church, and inevitably demanded corrective explanations and definitions.
In the creed of Eunomius the Son is God, and it is not in terms denied that He is of one substance with the Father. But in his doctrinal system there is a practical denial of the Creed; the Son may be styled God, but He is a creature, and therefore, in the strict sense of the term, not God at all, and, at best, a hero or demigod. The Father, unbegotten, stood alone and supreme; the very idea of "begotten "implied posteriority, inferiority, and unlikeness. Against this position Basil protests. The arguments of Eunomius, he urges, are tantamount to an adoption of what was probably an Arian formula, "We believe that ingenerateness is the essence of God," i.e., we believe that the Only-begotten is essentially unlike the Father. This word "unbegotten," of which Eunomius and his supporters make so much, what is its real value? Basil admits that it is apparently a convenient term for human intelligence to use; but, he urges, "It is nowhere to be found in Scripture, it is one of the main elements in the Arian blasphemy; it had better be left alone. The word 'Father' implies all that is meant by ' Unbegotten.' and has moreover the advantage of suggesting at the same time the idea of the Son. He Who is essentially Father is alone of no other. In this being of no other is involved the sense of 'Unbegotten.' The title 'unbegotten' will not be preferred by us to that of Father, unless we wish to make ourselves wiser than the Saviour, Who said, 'Go and baptize in the name' not of the Unbegotten, but ' of the Father.'" To the Eunomian contention that the word "Unbegotten" is no mere complimentary title, but required by the strictest necessity, in that it involves the confession of what He is, Basil rejoins that it is only one of many negative terms applied to the Deity, none of which completely expresses the Divine Essence. "There exists no name which embraces the whole nature of God, and is sufficient to declare it; more names than one, and these of very various kinds, each in accordance with its own proper connotation, give a collective idea which may be dim indeed and poor when compared with the whole, but is enough for us." The word "unbegotten," like "immortal." "invisible," and the like, expresses only negation. "Yet essence is not one of the qualities which are absent, but signifies the very being of God; to reckon this in the same category as the non-existent is to the last degree unreasonable." Basil "would be quite ready to admit that the essence of God is unbegotten," but he objects to the statement that the essence and the unbegotten are identical. It is sometimes supposed that the Catholic theologians have been hair-splitters in the sphere of the inconceivable, and that heresy is the exponent of an amiable and reverent vagueness. In the Arian controversy it was Arius himself who dogmatically defined with his negative "There was when He was not," and Eunomius with his "The essence is the unbegotten "" What pride! What conceit!" exclaims Basil. "The idea of imagining that one has discovered the very essence of God most high! Assuredly in their magniloquence they quite throw into the shade even Him who said, ' I will exalt my throne above the stars.' It is not stars, it is not heaven, that they dare to assail. It is in the very essence of the God of all the world that they boast that they make their haunt. Let us question him as to where he acquired comprehension of this essence. Was it from the common notion that all men share? This does indeed suggest to us that there is a God, but not what God is. Was it from the teaching of the Spirit? What teaching? Where found? What says great David, to whom God revealed the hidden secrets of His wisdom ? He distinctly asserts the unapproachableness of knowledge of Him in the words, ' Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.' And Isaiah, who saw the glory of God' what does he tell us concerning the Divine Essence? In his prophecy about the Christ he says, ' Who shall declare His generation ?' And what of Paul, the chosen vessel, in whom Christ spake, who was caught up into the third heaven, who heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful to man to utter? What teaching has he given US of the essence of God? When Paul is investigating the special methods of the work of redemption he seems to grow dizzy before the mysterious maze which he is contemplating, and utters the well-known words, ' O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! ' These things are beyond the reach even of those who have attained the measure of Paul's knowledge. What then is the conceit of those who announce that they know the essence of God! I should very much like to ask them what they have to say about the earth whereon they stand, and whereof they are born. What can they tell us of its 'essence'? If they can discourse without hesitation of the nature of lowly subjects which lie beneath Out' feet, we will believe them when they proffer opinions about things which transcend all human intelligence. What is the essence of the earth? How can it be comprehended? Let them tell us whether reason or sense has reached this point! If they say sense, by which of the senses is it comprehended? Sight? Sight perceives colour. Touch? Touch distinguishes hard and soft, hot and cold, and the like; but no idiot would call any of these essence. I need not mention taste or smell, which apprehend respectively savour and scent. Hearing perceives sounds and voices, which have no affinity with earth. They must then say that they have found out the earth's essence by reason. What? In what part of Scripture ? A tradition from what saint ?
" In a word, if any one wishes to realise the truth of what I am urging, let him ask himself this question; when he wishes to understand anything about God, does he approach the meaning of ' the unbegotten' ? I for my part see that, just us when we extend our thought over the ages that are yet to come, we say that the life bounded by no limit is without end, so is it when we contemplate in thought the ages of the past, and gaze on the infinity of the life of God as we might into some unfathomable ocean. We can conceive of no beginning from which He originated: we perceive that the life of God always transcends the bounds of our intelligence; and so we call that in His life which is without origin, unbegotten. The meaning of the unbegotten is the having no origin from without." As Eunomius made ingenerateness the essence of the Divine, so, with the object of establishing the contrast between Father and Son, he represented the being begotten to indicate the essence of the Son. God, said Eunomius, being ingenerate, could never admit of generation. This statement, Basil points out, may be understood in either of two ways. It may mean that ingenerate nature cannot be subjected to generation. It may mean that ingenerate nature cannot generate. Eunomius, he says, really means the latter, while he makes converts of the multitude on the lines of the former. Eunomius makes his real meaning evident by what he adds to his dictum, for, after saying "could never admit of generation," he goes on, "so as to impart His own proper nature to the begotten." As in relation to the Father, so now in relation to the Son, Basil objects to the term. Why "begotten"? Where did he get this word? From what teaching? From what prophet ? Basil nowhere finds the Son called "begotten "in Scripture. We read that the Father begat, but nowhere that the Son was a begotten thing. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given." But His name is not begotten thing but "angel of great counsel." If this word had indicated the essence of the Son, no other word would have been revealed by the Spirit. Why, if God begat, may we not call that which was begotten a thing begotten ? It is a terrible thing for us to coin names for Him to Whompage God has given a "name which is above every name." We must not add to or take from what is delivered to us by the Spirit. Things are not made for names, but names for things. Eunomius unhappily was led by distinction of name into distinction of being. If the Son is begotten in the sense in which Eunomius uses the word, He is neither begotten of the essence of God nor begotten from eternity. Eunomius represents the Son as not of the essence of the Father, because begetting is only to be thought of as a sensual act and idea, and therefore is entirely unthinkable in connexion with the being of God. "The essence of God does not admit of begetting; no other essence exists for the Son's begetting; therefore I say that the Son was begotten when non-existent." Basil rejoins that no analogy can hold between divine generation or begetting and human generation or begetting. "Living beings which are subject to death generate through the operation of the senses: but we must not on this account conceive of God in the same manner; nay, rather shall we be hence guided to the truth that, because corruptible beings operate in this manner, the Incorruptible will operate in an opposite manner." "All who have even a limited loyalty to truth ought to dismiss all corporeal similitudes. They must be very careful not to sully their conceptions of God by material notions. They must follow the theologies delivered to us by the Holy Ghost. They must shun questions which are little better than conundrums, and admit of a dangerous double meaning. Led by the rev that shines forth from light to the contemplation of the divine generation, they must think of a generation worthy of God, without passion, partition, division, or thee. They must conceive of the image of the invisible God not after the analogy of images which are subsequently fashioned by craft to snatch their archetype, but as of one nature and subsistence with the originating prototype. . . . This image is not produced by imitation, for the whole nature of the Father is expressed in the Son as on a seal." "Do not press me with the questions: What is the generation? Of what kind was it? In what manner could it be effected ? The manner is ineffable, and wholly beyond the scope of our intelligence; but we shall not on this account throw away the foundation of our faith in Father and Son. If we try to measure everything by our comprehension, and to suppose that what we cannot comprehend by our reasoning is wholly non-existent farewell to the reward of faith; farewell to the reward of hope! If we only follow what is clear to our reason, how can we be deemed worthy of the blessings in store for the reward of faith in things not seen "?
If not of the essence of God, the Son could not be held to be eternal. "How utterly absurd," exclaims Basil, "to deny the glory of God to have had brightness; to deny the wisdom of God to have been ever with God! . . . The Father is of eternity. So also is the Son of eternity, united by generation to the unbegotten nature of the Father. This is not my own statement. I shall prove it by quoting the words of Scripture. Let me cite from the Gospel 'In the beginning was the Word.' and from the Psalm, other words spoken as in the person of the Father, 'From the womb before the morning I have begotten them.' Let us put both together, and say, He was, and He was begotten. . . . How absurd to seek for something higher in the case of the unoriginate and the unbegotten! Just as absurd is it to start questions as to thee, about priority in the case of Him Who was with the Father from eternity, and between Whom and Him that begat Him there is no interval."
A dilemma put by Eunomius was the following: When God begat the Son, the Son either was or was not. If He was not, no argument could lie against Eunomius and the Arians. If He was, the position is blasphemous and absurd, fur that which is needs no begetting.
To meet this dilemma, Basil drew a distinction between eternity and the being unoriginate. The Eunomians, from the fact of the unoriginateness of the Father being called eternity, maintained that unoriginateness and eternity are identical. Because the Son is not unbegotten they do not even allow Him to be eternal. But there is a wide distinction to be observed in the meaning of the terms. The word unbegotten is predicated of that which has origin of itself, and no cause of its being: the word eternal is predicated of that which is in being beyond all time and age. Wherefore the Son is both not unbegotten and eternal. Eunomius was ready to give great dignity to the Son as a supreme creature. He did not hold the essence of the Son to be common to that of the things created out of nothing. He would give Him as great a preëminence as the Creator has over His own created works. Basil attributes little importance to this concession, and thinks it only leads to confusion and contradiction. If the God of the universe, being unbegotten, necessarily differs from things begotten, and all things begotten have their common hypostasis of the non-existent, what alternative is there to a natural conjunction of all such things ? Just as in the one case the unapproachable effects a distinction between the natures, so in the other equality of condition brings them into mutual contact. They say that the Son and all things that came into being under Him are of the non-existent, and so far they make those natures common, and yet they deny that they give Him a nature of the non-existent. For again, as though Eunomius were Lord himself, and able to give to the Only Begotten what rank and dignity he chooses, he goes on to argue,-We attribute to Him so much supereminence as the Creator must of necessity have over His own creature. He does not say, "We conceive," or "We are of opinion," as would be befitting when treating of God, but he says "We attribute," as though he himself could control the measure of the attribution. And how much supereminence does he give ? As much as the Creator must necessarily have over His own creatures. This has not yet reached a statement of difference of substance. Human beings in art surpass their own works, and yet are consubstantial with them, as the potter with his clay, and the shipwright with his timber. For both are alike bodies, subject to sense, and earthy. Eunomius explained the title "Only Begotten" to mean that the Son alone was begotten and created by the Father alone, and therefore was made the most perfect minister. "If," rejoins Basil, "He does not possess His glory in being perfect God, if it lies only in His being an exact and obedient subordinate, in what does He differ from the ministering spirits who perform the work of their service without blame? Indeed Eunomius joins 'created' to 'begotten' with the express object of shewing that there is no distinction between the Son and a creature! And how unworthy a conception of the Father that He should need a servant to do His work! 'He commanded and they were created.' What service was needed by Him Who creates by His will alone? But in what sense are all things said by us to be 'through the Son'? In that the divine will, starting from the prime cause, as it were from a source, proceeds to operation through its own image, God the Word." Basil sees that if the Son is a creature mankind is still without a revelation of the Divine. He sees that Eunomius, "by alienating the Only Begotten from the Father, and altogether cutting Him off from communion with Him, as far as he can, deprives us of the ascent of knowledge which is made through the Son. Our Lord says that all that is the Father's is His. Eunomius states that there is no fellowship between the Father and Him Who is of Him." If so there is no "brightness "of glory; no "express image of hypostasis." So Dorner, who freely uses the latter portion of the treatise, "The main point of Basil's opposition to Eunomius is that the word unbegotten is not a name indicative of the essence of God, but only of a condition of existence. The divine essence has other predicates. If every peculiar mode of existence causes a distinction in essence also, then the Son cannot be of the same essence with the Father, because He has a peculiar mode of existence, and the Father another; and men cannot be of the same essence, because each of them represents a different mode of existence. By the names of Father, Son, and Spirit, we do not understand different essences, (ou'si/aj but they are names which distinguish the u#parci" of each. All are God, and the Father is no more God than the Son, as one man is no more man than another Quantitative differences are not reckoned in respect of essence; the question is only of being or non-being. But this does not exclude the idea of a variety in condition in the Father and the Son (e 9te/rw<\|dq_ e#xeln), - the generation of the Latter. The dignity of both is equal. The essence of Begetter and Begotten is identical.
The Fourth Book contains notes on the chief passages of Scripture which were relied on by Arian disputants. Among these are
I Cor. XV. 28. On the Subjection of the Son.
"If the Son is subjected to the Father in the Godhead, then He must have been subjected from the beginning, from whence He was God. But if He was not subjected, but shall be subjected, it is in the manhood, as for us, not in the Godhead, as for Himself."
Philipp. II. 9. On the Name Above Every Name.
" If the name above every name was given by the Father to the Son, Who was God, and every tongue owned Him Lord, after the incarnation, because of His obedience, then before the incarnation He neither had the name above every name nor was owned by all to be Lord. It follows then that after the incarnation He was greater than before the incarnation, which is absurd." So of Matt. xxviii. 18. "We must understand this of the incarnation, and not of the Godhead."
John XIV. 28 "My Father is Greater Than I."
" 'Greater' is predicated in bulk, in time, in dignity, in power, or as cause. The Father cannot be called greater than the Son in bulk, for He is incorporeal: nor yet in time, for the Son is Creator of times: nor yet in dignity, for He was not made what He had once not been: nor yet in power, for 'what things the Father doeth, these also doeth the son likewise': nor as cause, since (the Father would he similarly greater than He and than we, if He is cause of Him and of us. The words express rather the honour given by the Son to the Father than any depreciation by the speaker; moreover what is greater is not necessarily of a different essence. Man is called greater than man, and horse than horse. If the Father is called greater, it does not immediately follow that He is of another substance. In a word, the comparison lies between beings of one substance, not between those of different substances.
" A man is not properly said to be greater than a brute, than an inanimate thing, but man than man and brute than brute. The Father is therefore of one substance with the Son, even though He be called greater."
On Matt. XXIV. 36. Of Knowledge of that Day and of that Hour.
" If the Son is the Creator of the world, and does not know the time of the judgment, then He does not know what He created. For He said that He was ignorant not of the judgment, but of the time. How can this be otherwise than absurd ?
" If the Son has not knowledge of all things whereof the Father has knowledge, then He spake untruly when He said 'All things that the Father hath are mine' and 'As the Father knoweth me so know I the Father.' If there is a distinction between knowing the Father and knowing the things that the Father hath, and if, in proportion as every one is greater than what is his, it is greater to know the Father than to know what is His, then the Son, though He knew the greater (for no man knoweth the Father save the Son), did not know the less.
" This is impossible. He was silent concerning the season of the judgment. because it was not expedient for men to hear. Constant expectation kindles a warmer zeal for true religion. The knowledge that a long interval of time was to elapse would have made men more careless about true religion, from the hope of being saved by a subsequent change of life. How could He who had known everything up to this time (for so He said) not know that hour also ? If so, the Apostle vainly said 'In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.'
"If the Holy Spirit, who 'searcheth the deep things of God, cannot be ignorant of anything that is God's, then, as they who will not even allow Him to be equal must contend, the Holy Ghost is greater than the Son."
On Matt. XXVI. 39. Father, If It Be Possible, Let This Cup Pass from Me.
" If the Son really said, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,' He not only shewed His own cowardice and weakness, but implied that there might be something impossible to the Father. The words 'if it be possible' are those of one in doubt, and not thoroughly assured that the Father could save Him. How could not He who gave the boon of lift to corpses much rather be able to preserve life in the living? Wherefore then did not He Who had raised Lazarus and many of the dead supply life to Himself ? Why did He ask life from the Father, saying, in His fear, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me'? If He was dying unwillingly, He had not yet humbled Himself; He had not yet been made obedient to the Father unto death; He had not given Himself, as the Apostle says, 'who gave Himself for our sins, a ransom.' If He was dying willingly, what need of the words 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away '? No: this must not be understood of Himself; it must be understood of those who were on the point of sinning against Him, to prevent them from sinning; when crucified in their behalf He said, ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' We must not understand words spoken in accordance with the oeconomy to be spoken simply."
On John VI. 57. I Live by the Father.
" If the Son lives on account of the Father, He lives on account of another, and not of Himself. But He who lives on account of another cannot be Self-life. So He who is holy of grace is not holy of himself. Then the Son did not speak truly when He said, ' I am the life,' and again ' the Son quickeneth whom He will.' We must therefore understand the words to be spoken in reference to the incarnation, and not to the Godhead."