42. As you have listened already to Moses
and Isaiah, so listen now to Jeremiah inculcating the same truth as
they:—This is our God, and there shall be none other likened
unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given
it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward
did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men Baruch iii. 35–37.. For previously he had said,
And He is Man, and Who shall know Him Jer. xvii. 9 (LXX.).? Thus you have God seen on earth
and dwelling among men. Now I ask you what sense you would assign
to No one hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father St. John i. 18.,
when Jeremiah proclaims God seen on earth and dwelling among men?
The Father confessedly cannot be seen except by the Son; Who then is
This who was seen and dwelt among men? He must be our God, for He
is God visible in human form, Whom men can handle. And take to
heart the prophet’s words, There shall be none other likened
to Him. If you ask how this can be, listen to the remainder
of the sentence, lest you be tempted to deny to the Father His share of
the confession. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is
One. The whole passage is, There shall be none likened
unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given
it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward
did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men. For there
is one Mediator between God and Men, Who is both God and Man; Mediator
both in giving of the Law and in taking of our body. Therefore
none other can be likened unto Him, for He is One, born from God into
God, and He it was through Whom all things were created in heaven and
earth, through Whom times and worlds were made. Everything, in
fine, that exists owes its existence to His action. He it is that
instructs Abraham, that speaks with Moses, that testifies to Israel,
that abides in the prophets, that was born through the Virgin from the
Holy Ghost, that nails to the cross of His passion the powers that are
our foes, that slays death in hell, that strengthens the assurance of
our hope by His Resurrection, that destroys the corruption of human
flesh by the glory of His Body. Therefore none shall be likened
unto Him. For these are the peculiar powers of God the
Only-begotten; He alone was born from God, the blissful Possessor of
such great prerogatives. No second god can be likened unto Him,
for He is God from God, not born from any alien being. There is
nothing new or strange or modern created in Him. When Israel
hears that its God is one, and that no second god is likened, that men
may deem him God, to God Who is God’s Son, the revelation means
that God the Father and God the Son are One altogether, not by
confusion of Person but by unity of substance. For the prophet
forbids us, because God the Son is God, to liken Him to some second
deity.