On the Trinity 26

But taking occasion from the fact that Christ is proved by the sacred authorities of the divine writings to be not only man but also God, other heretics break out and contrive to shake the standing of religion in Christ, wishing by this very fact to show that Christ is God the Father, since he is asserted to be not only man but is also proclaimed God. For they speak thus: “If God is proclaimed to be one, and Christ is God, then,” they say, “if the Father and Christ are one God, Christ will be called the Father.” In this they are proved to err, not knowing Christ but approving the sound of a name: for they will not have him be the second person after the Father, but the Father himself. Since they are easily answered, a few things will be said.

For who would not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after the Father, when he reads what was said by the Father next to the Son, “Let us make man to our image and likeness”; and after this the report, “And God made man; to the image of God he made him”? Or when he holds in his hands: “The Lord rained fire and sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven”? Or when it is said to Christ, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession”? Or when that longed-for scribe too says, “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet”? Or when, unfolding the prophecies of Isaiah, he finds it written thus: “Thus says the Lord to Christ my Lord”? Or when he reads, “I did not come down from heaven to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”? Or when he finds it written, “For he who sent me is greater than I”? Or when he considers the text, “I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God”? Or when he has, placed with the rest, “But in your law it is written that the testimony of two is true; I testify about myself, and the Father who sent me has testified about me”? Or when a voice is given from heaven: “I have both glorified, and will glorify”? Or when Peter answers and says, “You are the Son of the living God”? Or when the Lord himself approves the mystery of this revelation, and says, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven”? Or when Christ himself says, “Father, glorify me with that honor which I had with you before the world was made”? Or when the same says, “Father, I knew that you always hear me; but I said it because of those standing around, that they may believe that you have sent me”? Or when the definition of the rule is laid down by Christ himself, and it is said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one and true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work which you gave me”? Or when the same likewise asserts and says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father”? Or when his sitting at the Father's right hand is attested both by the prophets and by the apostles?

And I should be making it very long if I tried to gather all the sayings on this side; since the divine Scripture, of the New Testament no less than the Old, everywhere shows him born of the Father, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made, who has always obeyed and obeys the Father, always having power over all things, but as handed over, as granted, as bestowed on him by his own Father. For what can be so evident that he is not the Father but the Son, as that he is set forth as obedient to God the Father? Lest, if he were believed to be the Father, Christ should be said to be subject to another God the Father.