70. Hence the Apostle, following this
revelation, hath said: “He thought it not a prey that He
should be equal with God.” Phil. ii. 6. Here and in § 62 I
have rendered “rapinam” in accordance with
Lightfoot’s rendering of the original “ἁρπαγμός.” For
that which a man has not he seeks to carry off as a prey.
Equality with the Father, therefore, which, as God and Lord, He
possessed in His own substance, He had not as a spoil wrongfully
seized. Wherefore the Apostle added [the words]: “He
took the form of a servant.” Now surely a servant is the
opposite of an equal. Equal, therefore, is the Son, in the form
of God, but inferior in taking upon Him of the flesh and in His
sufferings as a man. For how could the same nature be both
lower and equal? And how, if [the Son] be inferior, can He do the
same things, in like manner, as the Father doeth? How, indeed,
can there be sameness of operation with diversity of power? Can
the inferior ever work such effects as the greater, or can there be
unity of operation where there is diversity of substance?