16. The first virtue of godliness in Christians is to honour their parents, to requite the troubles of those who begat them [1028] , and with all their might to confer on them what tends to their comfort (for if we should repay them ever so much, yet we shall never be able to return their gift of life [1029] ), that they also may enjoy the comfort provided by us, and may confirm us in those blessings which Jacob the supplanter shrewdly seized; and that our Father in heaven may accept [1030] our good purpose, and judge us worthy to shine amid righteous as the sun in the kingdom of our Father [1031] : To whom be the glory, with the Only-begotten our Saviour Jesus Christ, and with the Holy and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever, to all eternity. Amen.
[960] See Lecture VI. 1, and 5.
[961] "In Athanasius, Quæstio i. ad Antiochum, tom. II. p. 331, Monarchia is opposed to Polytheism: If we worship One God, it is manifest that we agree with the Jews in believing in a Monarchia: but if we worship three gods, it is evident that we follow the Greeks by introducing Polytheism, instead of piously worshipping One Only God.'" (Suicer, Thesaurus, Monarchia.)
[962] Ps. ii. 7.
[963] Ib. ii. 2.
[964] John xiv. 6.
[965] Ib. x. 9.
[966] Ps. lxxxix. 26, 27.
[967] vv. 29, 36, 37.
[968] Ps. cx. 3: "From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth" (R.V.).
[969] Ps. lxxii. 5.
[970] Compare Athanasius (de Sententiâ Dionyssi, § 17): "Each of the names I have mentioned is inseparable and indivisible from that next to it. I spoke of the Father, and before bringing in the Son, I designated Him also in the Father. I brought in the Son, and even if I had not previously mentioned the Father, in any wise He would have been presupposed in the Son."
[971] katachrestikos. A technical term in Grammar, applied to the use of a word in a derived or metaphorical sense. See Aristotle's description of the various kinds of metaphor, Poet. § xxi. 7-16. The opposite to katachrestikos is kurios, as used in a parallel passage by Athanasius, Oratio i. contra Arianos, § 21 fin. "It belongs to the Godhead alone, that the Father is properly (kurios) Father, and the Son properly Son."
[972] "And in Them, and Them only, does it hold, that the Father is ever Father, and the Son ever Son." (Athan., as above.)
[973] Compare vi. 6: ho gennetheis apathos. The importance attached to the assertion of a "passionless generation" arose from the objections offered by Eusebius of Nicomedia and others to the word homoousios when proposed by Constantine at Nicæa. We learn from Eusebius of Cæsarea (Epist ad suæ paroeciæ homines, § 4) that the Emperor himself explained that the word was used "not in the sense of the affections (pathe) of bodies," because "the immaterial, and intellectual, and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any corporeal affection." Again, in § 7, Eusebius admits that "there are grounds for saying that the Son is one in essence' with the Father, not in the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He is not such by division of essence, or by severance, no, nor by any affection, or alteration, or changing of the Father's essence and power." (See the next note.)
[974] Athanasius (Expos. Fidei, § 1): "Word not pronounced nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the passionless nature." Also (de Decretis, § 11): "God being without parts is Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither effluence of the Immaterial, nor influx from without, as among men."
[975] James i. 17.
[976] Matt. xi. 27.
[977] John viii. 49.
[978] John xv. 10.
[979] 2 Cor. i. 3.
[980] Eph. iii. 14, 15.
[981] 1 John ii. 22: "This is the Antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son" (R.V.).
[982] v. 23, bracketed in the A.V. as spurious, but rightly restored in R.V.
[983] Phil. ii. 11.
[984] Ex. iii. 6.
[985] Compare Lect. iv. 33.
[986] Luke ii. 49.
[987] John ii. 16.
[988] Matt. x. 29. S. Cyril instead of "your Father" writes "my Father which is in heaven:" so Origen and Athanasius.
[989] Matt. vi. 26.
[990] John v. 17.
[991] John xx. 17. On this text, quoted again in Cat. xi. 19, see the three Sermons of Bishop Andrewes On the Resurrection.
[992] energeia, meaning here, the operation of God, by nature in begetting His Son, by adoption in making many sons.
[993] Deut. xxxii. 6.
[994] Is. lxiv. 8.
[995] 1 Cor. iv. 15.
[996] Job xxix. 16.
[997] John xix. 26, 27.
[998] philostorgia might be applied to the mutual affection of mother and son, but the context shews that it refers here to parental love only; see Polybius, V. § 74, 5; Xenoph. Cyrop. I. § 3, 2.
[999] Luke ii. 33.
[1000] Matt. i. 25.
[1001] Is. lxiii. 16.
[1002] Ib. li. 2.
[1003] Ps. lxviii. 5. Cyril quotes as usual from the Septuagint (Ps. lxvii. 6), where the clause tarachthesontai apo prosopou autou, answering to nothing in the Hebrew, is evidently an interpolation, and may have crept in from a marginal quotation of Is. lxiv. 2.
[1004] John xvii. 5.
[1005] 1 Tim. ii. 16.
[1006] John i. 18.
[1007] John vi. 46: He hath seen the Father. The weight of authority is against the reading (ton theon) which Cyril follows.
[1008] Matt. xviii. 10.
[1009] Is. xl. 12 and 22.
[1010] Jer. ii. 27.
[1011] Ps. xlv. 10.
[1012] John viii. 41.
[1013] Ps. l. 18.
[1014] 1 John iii. 10.
[1015] Mark iii. 23.
[1016] John i. 12.
[1017] Rom. viii. 14.
[1018] John viii. 39.
[1019] 1 Pet. i. 17.
[1020] 1 John ii. 15.
[1021] Matt. v. 16.
[1022] 1 Pet. v. 7; Matt. vi. 8.
[1023] Heb. xii. 9.
[1024] Deut. v. 16.
[1025] Col. iii. 20.
[1026] Matt. x. 37.
[1027] Ex. xxi. 17; Lev. xx. 9; Matt. xv. 4.
[1028] Compare for the thought Euripides, Medea, 1029-1035.
[1029] antigennesai. Jeremy Taylor (Ductor Dubitantium, Book III. cap. ii. §17) mentions several stories in which a parent is nourished from a daughter's breast, who thus saves the life she cannot give.'
[1030] On the change of Moods, see Jelf, Greek Grammar, § 809. The second verb (kataxioseien) expresses a wish and a consequence which might follow, if the first (sterixosin) wish be realized, as it probably may be. Cf. Herod. ix. 51.
[1031] Matt. xiii. 43.
Lecture VIII.
Almighty.
Jeremiah xxxix. 18, 19 (Septuagint).
The Great, the strong God, Lord of great Counsel, and mighty in His works, the Great God, the Lord Almighty and of great name [1032] .
1. By believing In One God we cut off all misbelief in many gods, using this as a shield against Greeks; and every opposing power of heretics; and by adding, In One God the Father, we contend against those of the circumcision, who deny the Only-begotten Son of God. For, as was said yesterday, even before explaining the truths concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, we made it manifest at once, by saying "The Father," that He is the Father of a Son: that as we understand that God is, so we may understand that He has a Son. But to those titles we add that He is also "Almighty;" and this we affirm because of Greeks and Jews [1033] together, and all heretics.
2. For of the Greeks some have said that God is the soul of the world [1034] : and others that His power reaches only to heaven, and not to earth as well. Some also sharing their error and misusing the text which says, "And Thy truth unto the clouds [1035] ," have dared to circumscribe God's providence by the clouds and the heaven, and to alienate from God the things on earth; having forgotten the Psalm which says, If I go up into heaven, Thou art there, if I go down into hell, Thou art present [1036] . For if there is nothing higher than heaven, and if hell is deeper than the earth, He who rules the lower regions reaches the earth also.
3. But heretics again, as I have said before, know not One Almighty God. For He is Almighty who rules all things, who has power over all things. But they who say that one God is Lord of the soul, and some other of the body, make neither of them perfect, because either is wanting to the other [1037] . For how is he almighty, who has power over the soul, but not over the body? And how is he almighty who has dominion over bodies, but no power over spirits? But these men the Lord confutes, saying on the contrary, Rather fear ye Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [1038] . For unless the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has the power over both, how does He subject both to punishment? For how shall He be able to take the body which is another's and cast it into hell, except He first bind the strong man, and spoil his goods [1039] ?
4. But the Divine Scripture and the doctrines of the truth know but One God, who rules all things by His power, but endures many things of His will. For He rules even over the idolaters, but endures them of His forbearance: He rules also over the heretics who set Him at nought, but bears with them because of His long-suffering: He rules even over the devil, but bears with him of His long-suffering, not from want of power; as if defeated. For he is the beginning of the Lord's creation, made to be mocked [1040] , not by Himself, for that were unworthy of Him, but by the Angels whom He hath made. But He suffered him to live, for two purposes, that he might disgrace himself the more in his defeat, and that mankind might be crowned with victory. O all wise providence of God! which takes the wicked purpose for a groundwork of salvation for the faithful. For as He took the unbrotherly purpose of Joseph's brethren for a groundwork of His own dispensation, and, by permitting them to sell their brother from hatred, took occasion to make him king whom He would; so he permitted the devil to wrestle, that the victors might be crowned; and that when victory was gained, he might be the more disgraced as being conquered by the weaker, and men be greatly honoured as having conquered him who was once an Archangel.
5. Nothing then is withdrawn from the power of God; for the Scripture says of Him, for all things are Thy servants [1041] . All things alike are His servants, but from all these One, His only Son, and One, His Holy Spirit, are excepted; and all the things which are His servants serve the Lord through the One Son and in the Holy Spirit. God then rules all, and of His long-suffering endures even murderers and robbers and fornicators, having appointed a set time for recompensing every one, that if they who have had long warning are still impenitent in heart, they may receive the greater condemnation. They are kings of men, who reign upon earth, but not without the power from above: and this Nebuchadnezzar once learned by experience, when he said; For His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His power from generation to generation [1042] .
6. Riches, and gold, and silver are not, as some think, the devil's [1043] : for the whole world of riches is for the faithful man, but for the faithless not even a penny [1044] . Now nothing is more faithless than the devil; and God says plainly by the Prophet, The gold is Mine, and the silver is Mine, and to whomsoever I will I give it [1045] . Do thou but use it well, and there is no fault to be found with money: but whenever thou hast made a bad use of that which is good, then being unwilling to blame thine own management, thou impiously throwest back the blame upon the Creator. A man may even be justified by money: I was hungry, and ye gave Me meat [1046] : that certainly was from money. I was naked, and ye clothed Me: that certainly was by money. And wouldest thou learn that money may become a door of the kingdom of heaven? Sell, saith He, that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven [1047] .
7. Now I have made these remarks because of those heretics who count possessions, and money, and men's bodies accursed [1048] . For I neither wish thee to be a slave of money, nor to treat as enemies the things which God has given thee for use. Never say then that riches are the devil's: for though he say, All these will I give thee, for they are delivered unto me [1049] , one may indeed even reject his assertion; for we need not believe the liar: and yet perhaps he spake the truth, being compelled by the power of His presence: for he said not, All these will I give thee, for they are mine, but, for they are delivered unto me. He grasped not the dominion of them, but confessed that he had been entrusted [1050] with them, and was for a time dispensing them. But at a proper time interpreters should inquire whether his statement is false or true [1051] .