“The true (sing.) is spoken of in
contradistinction to the false (pl.). But He is incomparable,
because in comparison with all He is in all things
superexcellent. When Jeremiah said of the Son, ‘This is our
God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison with
Him,’ Baruch iii. 35. The quoting of Baruch
under the name of Jeremiah has been explained by the fact that in
the LXX. Baruch was placed with the Lamentations, and was regarded
in the early Church as of equal authority with Jeremiah. It
was commonly so quoted, e.g. by Irenæus, Clemens
Alexandrinus, and Tertullian. So Theodoret, Dial. i.
(in this edition, p. 165, where cf. note). did he describe Him
as greater even than the Father? That the Son also is true God,
John himself declares in the Epistle, ‘That we may know the only
true God, and we are (in Him that is true, even) in his (true) Son
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal
life.’ 1 John v. 20. There is some
MS. authority for the insertion of
“God” in the first clause, but none for the omission of
the former ἐν τῷ. It would be
wrong, on account of the words ‘There shall none other be
accounted of in comparison of Him,’ to understand the Son to be
greater than the Father; nor must we suppose the Father to be the only
true God. Both expressions must be used in connexion with those
who are falsely styled, but are not really, gods. In the same way
it is said in Deuteronomy, ‘So the Lord alone did lead him, and
there was no strange God with him.’ Deut. xxxii. 12. If God is alone invisible and
wise, it does not at once follow that He is greater than all in all
things. But the God Who is over all is necessarily
superior to all. Did the Apostle, when he styled the Saviour God
over all, describe Him as greater than the Father? The
idea is absurd. The passage in question must be viewed in the
same manner. The great God cannot be less than a different
God. When the Apostle said of the Son, we look for ‘that
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ,’ Tit. ii. 13. did he think of Him
as greater than the Father? St. Basil, with
the mass of the Greek Orthodox Fathers, has no idea of any such
interpretation of Tit. ii.
13, as Alford
endeavours to support. cf. Theodoret, pp. 391 and 321,
and notes. It is the Son,
not the Father, Whose appearance and advent we are waiting for.
These terms are thus used without distinction of both the Father and
the Son, and no exact nicety is observed in their employment.
‘Being equally with God’ τὸ εἶναι
ἴσα Θεῷ, as in
Phil. ii. 6, tr. in A.V. to be equal with God;
R.V. has to be on an equality with God. is identical
with being equal with God. τῷ εἶναι
ἴσον Θεῷ. Since the Son
‘thought it not robbery’ to be equal with God, how can He
be unlike and unequal to God? Jews are nearer true religion than
Eunomius. Whenever the Saviour called Himself no more than Son of
God, as though it were due to the Son, if He be really Son, to be
Himself equal to the Father, they wished, it is said, to stone Him, not
only because He was breaking the Sabbath, but because, by saying that
God was His own Father, He made Himself equal with God. John v. 18. Therefore, even though
Eunomius is unwilling that it
should be so, according both to the Apostle and to the Saviour’s
own words, the Son is equal with the Father.”