XLII. Do you fear to speak of Generation
lest you should attribute aught of passion to the impassible God?
I on the other hand fear to speak of Creation, lest I should destroy
God by the insult and the untrue division, either cutting the Son away
from the Father, or from the Son the Substance of the Spirit. For
this paradox is involved, that not only is a created Life foisted into
the Godhead by those who measure Godhead badly; but even this created
life is divided against itself. For as these low earthly minds
make the Son subject to the Father, so again is the rank of the Spirit
made inferior to that of the Son, until both God and created life are
insulted by the new Theology. No, my friends, there is nothing
servile in the Trinity, nothing created, nothing accidental, as I have
heard one of the wise S. Gregory
Thaumaturgus. say. If I yet
pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ, says the
Apostle; Galat. i. 10. and if I yet
worshipped a creature, or were baptized into a creature, I should not
be made divine, nor have changed my first birth. What shall I say
to those who worship Astarte or Chemosh, the abomination of the
Sidonians, or the likeness of a star, Amos v. 26. a
god a little above them to these idolaters, but yet a creature and a
piece of workmanship, when I myself either do not worship Two of Those
into Whose united Name I am baptized, or else worship my
fellow-servants, for they are fellow-servants, even if a little higher
in the scale; for differences must exist among
fellow-servants.