Now are we to call these passages, and others like
them, throughout the whole of Holy Scripture, proofs of humiliation, or
rather public proclamations of the majesty of the Only Begotten, and of
the equality of His glory with the Father? We ask them to listen
to the Lord Himself, distinctly setting forth the equal dignity of His
glory with the Father, in His words, “He that hath seen me hath
seen the Father;” John xiv. 9. and again,
“When the Son cometh in the glory of his
Father;” Mark viii. 38. that they
“should honour the Son even as they honour the
Father;” John v. 23. and, “We
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father;” John i. 14. and “the
only begotten God which is in the bosom of the
Father.” John i. 18. “Only begotten
God” is here the reading of five mss.
of Basil. The words are wanting in one codex. In Chapter
viii. of this work St. Basil distinctly quotes Scripture as calling
the Son “only begotten God.” (Chapter viii.
Section 17.) But in Chapter xi. Section 27, where he has been
alleged to quote John i. 18, with the reading “Only
begotten Son” (e.g., Alford),
the ms. authority for his text is in favour
of “Only begotten God.” OC is the reading of א.B.C. TC of A. On the comparative
weight of the textual and patristic evidence vide Bp.
Westcott in loc. Of all these
passages they take no account, and then assign to the Son the place
set apart for His foes. A father’s bosom is a fit and
becoming seat for a son, but the place of the footstool is for them
that have to be forced to fall. cf.
Ps. cx. 1.