Chapter 1.—The Son, According to the Apostle, is the
Power and Wisdom of the Father. Hence the Reasoning of the
Catholics Against the Earlier Arians. A Difficulty is Raised,
Whether the Father is Not Wisdom Himself, But Only the Father of
Wisdom.
1.
Some
think themselves hindered from
admitting the equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because
it is written, “Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of
God;” in that, on this ground, there does not appear to be
equality; because the Father is not Himself power and wisdom, but
the begetter of power and wisdom. And, in truth, the question is
usually asked with no common earnestness, in what way God can be
called the Father of power and wisdom. For the apostle says,
“Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
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And hence
some on our side have reasoned in this way against the Arians, at
least against those who at first set themselves up against the
Catholic faith. For Arius himself is reported to have said, that if
He is a Son, then He was born; if He was born, there was a time
when the Son was not: not understanding that even to be born is, to
God, from all eternity; so that the Son is co-eternal with the
Father, as the brightness which is produced and is spread around by
fire is co-eval with it, and would be co-eternal, if fire were
eternal. And therefore some of the later Arians have abandoned that
opinion, and have confessed that the Son of God did not begin to be
in time. But among the arguments which those on our side used to
hold against them who said that there was a time when the Son was
not, some were wont to introduce such an argument as this: If the
Son of God is the power and wisdom of God, and God was never
without power and wisdom, then the Son is co-eternal with God the
Father; but the apostle says, “Christ the power of God, and the
wisdom of God;” and a man must be senseless to say that God at
any time had not power or wisdom; therefore there was no time when
the Son was not.
2. Now this argument compels us to
say that God the Father is not wise, except by having the wisdom
which He begat, not by the Father in Himself being wisdom itself.
Further, if it be so, just as the Son also Himself is called God of
God, Light of Light, we must consider whether He can be called
wisdom of wisdom, if God the Father is not wisdom itself, but only
the begetter of wisdom. And if we hold this, why is He not the
begetter also of His own greatness, and of His own goodness, and of
His own eternity, and of His own omnipotence; so that He is not
Himself His own greatness, and His own goodness, and His own
eternity, and His own omnipotence; but is great with that greatness
which He begat, and good with that goodness, and eternal with that
eternity, and omnipotent with that omnipotence, which was born of
Him; just as He Himself is not His own wisdom, but is wise with
that wisdom which was born of Him? For we need not be afraid of
being compelled to say
that there are many sons of God,
over and above the adoption of the creature, co-eternal with the
Father, if He be the begetter of His own greatness, and goodness,
and eternity, and omnipotence. Because it is easy to reply to this
cavil, that it does not at all follow, because many things are
named, that He should be the Father of many co-eternal
sons
;
just as it does not follow that He is the Father of two sons,
because Christ is said to be the power of God, and the wisdom of
God. For that certainly is the power which is the wisdom, and that
is the wisdom which is the power; and in like manner, therefore, of
the rest also; so that that is the greatness which is the power, or
any other of those things which either have been mentioned above,
or may hereafter be mentioned.
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1 Cor. i. 24