[2563] Serm. cxl. 3 "Seek in the Epistle of this same John what he hath said of Christ. Believe' (credamus) saith he, on His true Son Jesus Christ, He is the True God and Eternal Life!' What meaneth, True God and Eternal Life?' The True Son' of God is the True God and Eternal Life.' Why has he said, On His True Son?' Because God hath many sons, therefore He was to be distinguished by adding that He was the True Son.' Not just by saying that He is the Son, but by adding, as I said, that He is the True Son': He was to be distinguished because of the many sons whom God hath. For we are sons by grace, He by Nature. We, made such by the Father through Him; He, what the Father is, Himself is also: what God is, are we also?"
[2564] Rom i. 20.
[2565] Serm. cxxxix. 3, 4.
Collatio cum Maximino, § 14.
If He is begotten, He is Son: if He is Son, He is the "true Son," because Only-Begotten. For we also are called sons: He Son by nature, we sons by grace . . . To say that because He is begotten, He is of another nature, is to deny that He is the "true Son." Now we have the Scripture: "That we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ; He is the true God and Eternal Life." [2566] Why "true God"? because "true Son" of God. For if He has given to animals this property, that what they beget shall be none other than what they themselves are: man begets man, dog begets dog, and should God not beget God? If then He is of the same substance, why callest thou Him less? Is it because when a human father begets a son, though human beget human, yet greater begets less? If so, then let us wait for Christ to grow as human beings grow whom human beings beget! [2567] But if Christ, ever since He was begotten (and this was not in time but from eternity), is what He is, and yet is less than the Father, at that rate the human condition is the better of the two: for a human being at any rate can grow, and has the property of sooner or later attaining to the age, to the strength of the father; but He never: then how is He a "true Son"?
[2566] C. Serm. Arian, sec. 1.
[2567] C. Maximin. i. 5.
De Trinitate, lib. i. 6, § 9.
And if the Son be not of the same substance as the Father, then is He a made substance: if a made substance, then not "all things were made by Him:" but, "all things were made by Him;" [2568] therefore, He is of one and the same substance with the Father. And therefore, not only God, but True (or, Very) God. Which the same John doth most openly affirm in his epistle: "Scimus quod Filius Dei venerit et dederit nobis intellectum ut cognoscamus verum Deum, et simus in vero Filio ejus Jesu Christo. Hic est verus Deus et vita æterna." "We know that the Son of God is come; and hath given us an understanding that we may (learn to) know the True God, [2569] and may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the True God and Eternal Life."
10. Hence also by consequence we understand, that what the apostle Paul saith, "Who only hath immortality," [2570] he saith not merely of the Father, but of the One and Only God, which the Trinity itself is. For neither is the "Eternal Life" itself mortal in respect of any mutability: and consequently, since the Son of God "is Eternal Life," He also is to be understood together with the Father, where it is said, "Who only hath immortality."
[2568] John i. 2.
[2569] So ton alethinon Theon. St. Basil, St. Cyril. Al. Vers. Arab. Aeth. Cod. Al. (ALEThEINONThN, which abbreviated manner of writing may explain the omission) and several other mss. Beda, verum Deum. Facundus: quod est verum (to alethinon).
[2570] 1 Tim. i. 16.
St. AUGUSTIN:
two books
of
soliloquies.
translated by
rev. charles c. starbuck, a.m.,
andover, mass.