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(d) CHAPTER
6
That Isaiah, as well as
David, acknowledges Two Lords, and the (231) Second, as in David, is
the Creator, as We also confess.
[Passage quoted, Isa.
xlviii. 12-15.]
(b) SEE now how He that
says, "I am the first, and I am the last. He that established the earth
and the heaven," clearly confesses that He was sent by "the Lord, the
Lord," calling the Father Lord twice, and you will have undeniable evidence
of what we seek. And He says that He is first among beings begotten in all
reverence, since He allots Being, original, unbegotten, and beyond the first,
to the Father. For the customary meaning of first in the sense of "first
of a greater number," superior in honour and order, (c) would not be
applicable to the Father. For the Almighty God of course is not the first of
created things, since the idea of Him does not admit of a beginning. He must be
beyond and above the first, as Himself generating and establishing the First,
and the Divine Word alone is to be called the First of all begotten things. So
if we ask with reference to the words, "He spake and they were made, he
commanded and they were created," to which of the begotten beings He gave
the command to create, we see now clearly that it was given to Him, Who said,
"My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has
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made the heaven
strong": Who also confesses that He was sent by One greater than Himself,
when He says: "Now (d) the Lord, the Lord has sent me, and his
Spirit." And it must be the Word of God Who said also, "By the word
of the Lord were the heavens made firm," if we compare the Psalm. And yet
though the Word of God is Himself proclaimed divine by the word "Lord,"
He still calls One Higher and Greater His Father and Lord, using with beautiful
reverence the word Lord twice in speaking of Him, so as to differentiate His
title. For He says here, "The Lord, the Lord has sent me," as if the
Almighty God were in a special sense first and true Lord both of His Only-
(232) begotten Word and of all begotten things after Him, in relation to which
the Word of God has received dominion and power from the Father, as His true
and Only-begotten Son, and therefore Himself holds the title of Lord in a
secondary sense.
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