17. The name Father has thus been
revealed to men; the question arises, What is this Father’s own
name? Yet surely the name of God has never been unknown.
Moses heard it from the bush, Genesis announces it at the beginning of
the history of creation, the Law has proclaimed and the prophets
extolled it, the history of the world has made mankind familiar with
it; the very heathen have worshipped it under a veil of
falsehood. Men have never been left in ignorance of the name of
God. And yet they were, in very truth, in ignorance. For no man knows God
unless He confess Him as Father, Father of the Only-begotten Son, and
confess also the Son a Son by no partition or extension or procession,
but born of Him, as Son of Father, ineffably and incomprehensibly, and
retaining the fulness of that Godhead from which and in which He was
born as true and infinite and perfect God. This is what the
fulness of the Godhead means. If any of these things be
lacking, there will not be that fulness which was pleased to dwell in
Him. This is the message of the Son, His revelation to men in
their ignorance. The Father is glorified through the Son when men
recognise that He is Father of a Son so Divine.