24. And well is it written: “He
is the same yesterday and to-day,” so that the impiety of Arius
might find no room to pile up its profanity. For he, in reading
in the second psalm of the Father saying to the Son, “Thou art My
Son, this day have I begotten Thee,” Ps. ii. 7.
noted the word “to-day,” not “yesterday,”
referring this which was spoken of the assumption of our flesh to the
eternity of the divine generation; of which Paul also says in the Acts
of the Apostles: “And we declare unto you the promise which
was made to our fathers: for God has fulfilled the same to our
children, in that He hath raised up the Lord Jesus Christ again, as it
is written in the second psalm: Thou art My Son, this day have I
begotten Thee.” Acts xiii. 32, 33. Thus the
Apostle, filled with the Holy Ghost, in order that he might destroy
that fierce madness of his, said: “The same, yesterday,
to-day, and for ever.” “Yesterday” on account
of His eternity; “to-day” on account of His taking to
Himself a human body.