CHAPTER 4

That Isaiah also the Greatest of the Prophets dearly knew Him to be God in God, agreeing in His Words with Us Who glorify the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father.

[Passage quoted, Isa. xlv. 12-13.]

IN these words God the Creator of the Universe first foretells by the prophet a King and Saviour who will come to build up a holy constitution, and ransom all men who are enslaved by the errors of daemons. And next in order the prophetic Spirit darkly tells of the subjection of the different nations, which shall be subject to the One of Whom he prophesies, and how they will worship Him as God, how they will pray in His name, because of the greater God dwelling in Him, that is to say the Most High Father and God of the Universe. And this is how it is expressed.

"14. Thus saith the Lord: Egypt hath laboured for thee, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, great in stature, shall pass over to thee, and shall be thy servants; and they shall follow thee bound in fetters, and shall worship thee anew, and shall pray in thy name, because God is in thee, and there is no God but thee. 15. For thou art God, and we knew it not, God of Israel, Saviour. 16. All that are opposed to Him shall be ashamed and confounded, and shall walk in shame."

This is the prophecy. And I do not think that any one, however deficient in judgment he may be, can fail to see how clearly and plainly the words evidently refer to God, Israel's Saviour, and another God in Him. "The just," he says, "shall worship thee, and make their prayers in thee. Because God is in thee, and there is no God but thee. For thou art God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour." And the words "we knew it not" spoken in the person of those of old who did not know Him, only - 245 - occur in the Septuagint, for the Hebrew is different, and translated by Aquila, "God then is strong and hidden, God that saves Israel," and by Theodotion, "Therefore a strong secret God preserves Israel." It is remarkable how he calls Christ a hidden God, and gives the reason clearly, why he calls Him God alone among the ones begotten after the First and Unbegotten, viz. the dwelling of the Father in Him.

"For in him" according to the holy apostle "it pleased that all the fullness of the godhead should dwell." This the passage plainly expresses when it says "God is in thee, and there is no God but thee." Instead of, "But thee" Theodotion has "But him," translating: "There is no God but him," that is to say, "But the God that is in thee, by whom thou also art God."

According to Aquila it runs thus: "But a strong one is in thee, and there is none beside thee: God the strong and the one that hides himself preserving Israel." And Symmachus, "God is in thee alone, and there is no other and exists no other God, verily thou art a hidden God, God preserving Israel," in which the words clearly shew the reason of the Christ of God being God. It is where he says, "God is in thee and therefore thou art a strong and hidden God." According to this, then, the true and only God must be One, and alone owning the Name in full right. While the Second, by sharing in the being of the True God, is thought worthy to share His Name, not being God in Himself, nor existing apart from the Father Who gives Him Divinity, not called God apart from the Father, but altogether being, living and existing as God, through the presence of the Father in Him, and one in being with the Father, and constituted God from Him and through Him, and holding His being as well as His Divinity not from Himself but from the Father. Wherefore we are - 246 - taught to honour Him as God after the Father, through the Father dwelling in Him, as we see these prophecies before us intend.

For as the image of a king would be honoured for the sake of him whose lineaments and likeness it bears (and though both the image and the king received honour, one person would be honoured, and not two; for there would not be two kings, the first the true one, and the one represented by the image, but one in both forms, not only conceived of, but named and honoured), so I say the Only-begotten Son, being the only image of the Unseen (227) God, is rightly called the image of the Unseen God, through bearing His likeness, and is constituted God by the Father Himself: thus He is, with regard to essence, and gives an image of the Father that grows from His nature and is not something added to Him, because of the actual source of His existence. Wherefore He is by nature both God and Only-begotten Son, not being made such by adoption like those who were without, who only acquire an accidental right to the Name of God. But He (b) is celebrated as Only-begotten Son by nature and as our God, but not as the first God, but as the first Only-Begotten Son of God, and therefore God.

And the general cause also of His being God, would be the fact that He alone is Son of God by nature, and is called Only-begotten, and that He completely preserves the living and vivid spiritual image of the One God, being made in all things like the leather, and bearing the likeness of His actual Divinity. Thus therefore Him also, as being the only Son and the only image of God, endued with the powers of the Father's Unbegotten and eternal essence (c) according to the example of likeness, and fashioned to the extremest accuracy of likeness by the Father Himself, Who is the most skilled and the wisest delineator and maker of life conceivable, the holy Scriptures salute as God, as One worthy of receiving this Name of the Father with His other (names), but as one Who receives it, and does not - 247 - possess it in His own right. For the One gives, and the Other receives; so that strictly the First is to be reckoned God, alone being God by nature, and not receiving (divinity) from another. And the Other is to be thought of as secondary, and as holding a Divinity received from the Father, as an image of God, the Divinity in both being conceived of as one in type, God in Himself being one without beginning and unbegotten, but He is seen through the Son as by a mirror and image. And this is exactly the teaching of the prophetic oracle, which says that He is only to be worshipped as God, because the Father dwells in Him. For it says, "In thee shall they pray, because God is in thee, and Thou thyself art God, the Saviour of Israel, and therefore Thou art a strong and a hidden God. Since God is in Thee, and there is none beside Him."

Instead of "Egypt laboured," the Hebrew has, and the other translators render, "Labour of Egypt,'' so that the passage runs: "The Labour of Egypt and the merchandise of the Aethiopians shall worship Thee and be Thy slaves, and the Sabeans," by which I understand to be meant barbarous and obscure nations, in fact all those that long ago were a prey to daemonic superstition. For as the Egyptians seemed to be the most superstitious of all nations, and to have begun the errors of idolatry, it is natural that they should be represented as first coming under the yoke of Christ, and should represent all the rest of idolatry. And this was fulfilled in our Lord and Saviour, by the worship and service rendered to Him in all nations by many multitudes of nations throughout the world.

And I understand that the Ethiopians and Sabeans here foretold as worshipping Christ are also meant in Ps. lxxi., where it is said: "The Ethiopians shall fall down before him, and the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts, and shall worship him." And it is plain from the context that it is Christ Who it is there predicted will also be the Object of their worship.