56. Why do you distort the Incarnation into a
blasphemy? Why pervert the mystery of salvation into a weapon of
destruction? The Father, Who glorifies the Son, is greater:
The Son, Who is glorified in the Father, is not less. How can He
be less, when He is in the glory of God the Father? And how can
the Father not be greater? The Father therefore is greater,
because He is Father: but the Son, because He is Son, is not
less. By the birth of the Son the Father is constituted
greater: the nature that is His by birth, does not suffer the Son
to be less. The Father is greater, for the Son prays Him to
render glory to manhood He has assumed. The Son is not less, for
He receives back His glory with the Father. Thus are consummated
at once the mystery of the Birth, and the dispensation of the
Incarnation. The Father, as Father, and as glorifying Him Who now
is Son of Man, is greater: Father and Son are one, in that the
Son, born of the Father, after assuming an earthly body is taken back
to the glory of the Father.