33. I know that laboured solutions of
difficult questions do not find favour with the reader, but it will
perhaps be to the advantage of the faith if I permit myself to postpone
for a time the exposition of the full truth, and wrestle against the
heretics with these words of the Gospel. You hear the statement
of the Lord, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the
only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus
Christ. What is it, pray, which suggests to you that Christ
is not the true God? No further indication is given to shew you
what you should think of Christ. There is nothing but Jesus
Christ: not Son of Man, as He generally called
Himself: not Son of God, as He often declared
Himself: not the living bread which cometh down from
Heaven St. John vi. 51., as He repeated to
the scandal of many. He says, Thee, the only true God, and Him
Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, omitting all His usual
names and titles, natural and assumed. Hence, if the confession
of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, gives us eternal life,
without doubt the name Jesus Christ has here the full sense of that of
God.