Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. X:
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons.: Chapter II. The Emperor is exhorted to display zeal in the Faith. Christ's perfect Godhead is shown from the unity of will and working which He has with the Father. The attributes of Divinity are shown to be proper to Christ, Whose various titles prove His essential unity, with distinction of Person. In no other way can the unity of God be maintained.

Chapter II.

The Emperor is exhorted to display zeal in the Faith. Christ’s perfect Godhead is shown from the unity of will and working which He has with the Father. The attributes of Divinity are shown to be proper to Christ, Whose various titles prove His essential unity, with distinction of Person. In no other way can the unity of God be maintained.

12. “Not every one that saith unto Me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,” 1689 saith the Scripture. Faith, therefore, august Sovereign, must not be a mere matter of performance, for it is written, “The zeal of thine house hath devoured me.” 1690 Let us then with faithful spirit and devout mind call upon Jesus our Lord, let us believe that He is God, to the end that whatever we ask of the Father, we may obtain in His name. 1691 For the Father’s will is, that He be entreated through the Son, the Son’s that the Father be entreated. 1692

13. The grace of His submission makes for agreement [with our teaching], and the acts of His power are not at variance therewith. For whatsoever things the Father doeth, the same also doeth the Son, in like manner. 1693 The Son both doeth the same things, and doeth them in like manner, but it is the Father’s will that He be entreated in the matter of what He Himself proposeth to do, that you may understand, not that He cannot do it otherwise, but that there is one power displayed. Truly, then, is the Son of God to be adored and worshipped, Who by the power of His Godhead hath laid the foundations of the world, and by His submission informed our affections. 1694

14. Therefore we ought to believe that God is good, eternal, perfect, almighty, and true, such as we find Him in the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the holy Scriptures, 1695 for otherwise there is no God. For He Who is God cannot but be good, seeing that fulness of goodness is of the nature of God: 1696 nor can God, Who made time, be in time; nor, again, can God be imperfect, for a lesser being is plainly imperfect, seeing that it lacks somewhat whereby it could be made equal to a greater. This, then, is the teaching of our faith—that God is not evil, that with God nothing is impossible, that God exists not in time, that God is beneath no being. If I am in error, let my adversaries prove it. 1697

15. Seeing, then, that Christ is God, He is, by consequence, good and almighty and eternal and perfect and true; for these attributes belong to the essential nature of the Godhead. Let our adversaries, therefore, deny the Divine Nature in Christ,—otherwise they cannot refuse to God what is proper to the Divine Nature.

16. Further, that none may fall into error, let a man attend to those signs vouchsafed us by holy Scripture, whereby we may know the Son. He is called the Word, the Son, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God. 1698 p. 204 The Word, because He is without blemish; the Power, because He is perfect; the Son, because He is begotten of the Father; the Wisdom, because He is one with the Father, one in eternity, one in Divinity. Not that the Father is one Person with the Son; between Father and Son is the plain distinction that comes of generation; 1699 so that Christ is God of God, Everlasting of Everlasting, Fulness of Fulness. 1700

17. Now these are not mere names, but signs of power manifesting itself in works, for while there is fulness of Godhead in the Father, there is also fulness of Godhead in the Son, not diverse, but one. The Godhead is nothing confused, for it is an unity: nothing manifold, for in it there is no difference.

18. Moreover, if in all them that believed there was, as it is written, one soul and one heart: 1701 if every one that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit, 1702 as the Apostle hath said: if a man and his wife are one flesh: 1703 if all we mortal men are, so far as regards our general nature, of one substance: if this is what the Scripture saith of created men, that, being many, they are one, 1704 who can in no way be compared to Divine Persons, how much more are the Father and the Son one in Divinity, with Whom there is no difference either of substance or of will!

19. For how else shall we say that God is One? Divinity maketh plurality, but unity of power debarreth quantity of number, seeing that unity is not number, but itself is the principle of all numbers.

Footnotes

S. Matt. vii. 21.

Ps. 69:9, John 2:17.

John 15:16, Luke 11:9, 10.

John 16:23, 24, John 14:13, Matt. 7:7, 8, Mark 11:24.

S. John 5:19, 30.

S. John 1:3, Heb. 5:7.

Vide, e.g., Ps. 25:8, Jer. 10:10, Jas. 1:17, 18, Dan. 9:9, 10, Luke 1:37.

Dan. 9:7, Exod. 34:6.

See Jas. 1:13, Luke 18:27, Ps. 90:2, Ps. 89:6.

John 1:1, 14, John 20:31, Rom. 1:4, Matt. 28:18, 1 Cor. 1:24, Col. 2:3.

Begetter and begotten must be personally distinct.

Col. 1:19, Col. 2:9.

Acts iv. 32.

1 Cor. vi. 17.

Gen. 2:24, Matt. 10:8.

Acts 17:26, Gal. 3:28.