III. Next is the fact of His being called
Servant Isa. xlix. 6; liii. 11. The LXX. here mistranslates; the Hebrew and the Latin have the
same word in all the passages quoted below, while the LXX. varies, as follows: Isa. xlii. 1. παῖς. 19. παἴδες, δοῦλοι. xliv.
2. παῖς. 21. παῖς. xlviii.
29. δοῦλον. xlix.
3. δοῦλος. 5. δοῦλον. 6. παῖδα. 7. δοῦλον. lii.
13. παῖς. liii.
11. δοῦλεύοντα. and serving many
well, and that it is a great thing for Him to be called the Child of
God. For in truth He was in servitude to flesh and to birth and
to the conditions of our life with a view to our liberation, and to
that of all those whom He has saved, who were in bondage under
sin. What greater destiny can befall man’s humility than
that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling
should be deified, See Prolegomena, sec.
ii. and 2 Pet. i.
4. and that we should
be so visited by the Dayspring from on high, Luke i. 78.
that even that Holy Thing that should be born should be called the Son
of the Highest, Phil. ii. 9. and that there
should be bestowed upon Him a Name which is above every name? And
what else can this be than God?—and that every knee should bow to
Him That was made of no reputation for us, and That mingled the Form of
God with the form of a servant, and that all the House of Israel should
know that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ? Acts ii. 36. For all this was done by the action of
the Begotten, and by the good pleasure of Him That begat
Him.