21. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; [900] not the express image, nor yet the form, for the divine nature does not admit of combination; but the goodness of the will, which, being concurrent with the essence, is beheld as like and equal, or rather the same, in the Father as in the Son. [901]
What then is meant by "became subject"? [902] What by "delivered him up for us all"? [903] It is meant that the Son has it of the Father that He works in goodness on behalf of men. But you must hear too the words, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law;" [904] and "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." [905]
Give careful heed, too, to the words of the Lord, and note how, whenever He instructs us about His Father, He is in the habit of using terms of personal authority, saying, "I will; be thou clean;" [906] and "Peace, be still;" [907] and "But I say unto you;" [908] and "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee;" [909] and all other expressions of the same kind, in order that by these we may recognise our Master and Maker, and by the former may be taught the Father of our Master and Creator. [910] Thus on all sides is demonstrated the true doctrine that the fact that the Father creates through the Son neither constitutes the creation of the Father imperfect nor exhibits the active energy of the Son as feeble, but indicates the unity of the will; so the expression "through whom" contains a confession of an antecedent Cause, and is not adopted in objection to the efficient Cause.
[827] Rom. i. 8.
[828] Rom. i. 5.
[829] Rom. v. 2.
[830] Rom. i. 5.
[831] Rom. v. 2.
[832] cf. Eph. ii. 19.
[833] Phil. ii. 9.
[834] Two mss., those in the B. Museum and at Vienna, read here Iesou. In Ep. 210. 4, St. Basil writes that the name above every name is auto to kaleisthai auton Uion tou Theou.
[835] cf. Matt. xiv. 33, and xxvii. 54.
[836] John i. 18. cf. note on p. .
[837] 1 Cor. i. 24, and possibly Rom. i. 16, if with D. we read gospel of Christ.
[838] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[839] e.g., John i. 1. cf. Ps. cvii. 20; Wisdom ix. 1, xviii. 15; Ecclesiasticus xliii. 20.
[840] To polutropon. cf. Heb. i. 1.
[841] Ton plouton tes agathotetos. cf. Rom. ii. 4, tou ploutou tes chrestotetos.
[842] Eph. iii. 10.
[843] e.g., John x. 12.
[844] e.g., Matt. xxi. 5.
[845] e.g., Matt. ix. 12.
[846] e.g., Matt. ix. 15.
[847] e.g., John xiv. 6.
[848] e.g., John x. 9.
[849] cf. Rev. xxi. 6.
[850] e.g., John vi. 21.
[851] cf. Matt. iii. 10.
[852] e.g., 1 Cor. x. 4.
[853] I translate here the reading of the Parisian Codex called by the Benedictine Editors Regius Secundus, to eumetabolon katorthokotas. The harder reading, to eumetadoton, which may be rendered "have perfected their readiness to distribute," has the best manuscript authority, but it is barely intelligible; and the Benedictine Editors are quite right in calling attention to the fact that the point in question here is not the readiness of the flock to distribute (cf. 1 Tim. vi. 18), but their patient following of their Master. The Benedictine Editors boldly propose to introduce a word of no authority to ametabolon, rendering qui per patientiam animam immutabilem præbuerunt. The reading adopted above is supported by a passage in Ep. 244, where St. Basil is speaking of the waywardness of Eustathius, and seems to fit in best with the application of the passage to the words of our Lord, "have fled for refuge to his ruling care," corresponding with "the sheep follow him, for they know his voice" (St. John x. 4), and "have mended their wayward ways," with "a stranger will they not follow," v. 5. Mr. Johnston, in his valuable note, compares Origen's teaching on the Names of our Lord.
[854] So three mss. Others repeat epistasia, translated "ruling care" above. ennomos is used by Plato for "lawful" and "law-abiding." (Legg. 921 C. and Rep. 424 E.) In 1 Cor. ix. 21, A.V. renders "under the law."
[855] To tes gnoseos agathon: possibly "the good of knowledge of him."
[856] John x. 9.
[857] cf. note on page 3, on meta and son.
[858] Phil. ii. 10, 11.
[859] Eph. v. 29.
[860] philanthropia occurs twice in the N.T. (Acts xxviii. 2, and Titus iii. 4) and is in the former passage rendered by A.V. "kindness," in the latter by "love to man." The philanthropia of the Maltese barbarians corresponds with the lower classical sense of kindliness and courtesy. The love of God in Christ to man introduces practically a new connotation to the word and its cognates.
[861] Or to sympathize with our infirmities.
[862] poikile diakosmesis. diakosmesis was the technical term of the Pythagorean philosophy for the orderly arrangement of the universe (cf. Arist. Metaph. I. v. 2. "he hole diakosmesis); Pythagoras being credited with the first application of the word kosmos to the universe. (Plut. 2, 886 c.) So mundus in Latin, whence Augustine's oxymoron, "O munde immunde!" On the scriptural use of kosmos and aion vide Archbp. Trench's New Testament Synonyms, p. 204.
[863] In Hom. on Ps. lxv. Section 5, St. Basil describes the power of God the Word being most distinctly shewn in the oeconomy of the incarnation and His descent to the lowliness and the infirmity of the manhood. cf. Ath. on the Incarnation, sect. 54, "He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. For while He Himself was in no way injured, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God, men who were suffering, and for whose sakes He endured all this, He maintained and preserved in His own impassibility."
[864] Rom. viii. 37.
[865] huperesia. Lit. "under-rowing." The cognate huperetes is the word used in Acts xxvi. 16, in the words of the Saviour to St. Paul, "to make thee a minister," and in 1 Cor. iv. 1, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ."
[866] Eph. vi. 10.
[867] cf. Matt. xii. 29.
[868] 2 Tim. ii. 21.
[869] This passage is difficult to render alike from the variety of readings and the obscurity of each. I have endeavoured to represent the force of the Greek ek tes hetoimasias tou eph' hemin, understanding by "to eph' hemin," practically, "our free will." cf. the enumeration of what is eph' hemin, within our own control, in the Enchiridion of Epicetus, Chap. I. "Within our own control are impulse, desire, inclination." On Is. vi. 8, "Here am I; send me," St. Basil writes, "He did not add I will go;' for the acceptance of the message is within our control (eph' hemin), but to be made capable of going is of Him that gives the grace, of the enabling God." The Benedictine translation of the text is "per liberi arbitrii nostri præparationem." But other readings are (i) tes hetoimasias autou, "the preparation which is in our own control;" (ii) tes hetoimasias autou, "His preparation;" and (iii) the Syriac represented by "arbitrio suo."
[870] Col. i. 12, 13.
[871] cf. note on page 7.
[872] prokope: cf. Luke ii. 52, where it is said that our Lord proekopte, i.e., "continued to cut His way forward."
[873] 1 Cor. iv. 6, R.V. marg.
[874] There seems to be here a recollection, though not a quotation, of Phil. iii. 13.
[875] John xiv. 6.
[876] John i. 9.
[877] 2 Tim. iv. 8.
[878] John v. 22.
[879] John xi. 25.
[880] Heb. i. 3.
[881] Judith ix. 5 and 6.
[882] anarchos. This word is used in two senses by the Fathers. (i) In the sense of aidios or eternal, it is applied (a) to the Trinity in unity. e.g., Quæst. Misc. v. 442 (Migne Ath. iv. 783), attributed to Athanasius, koinon he ousia; koinon to anarchon. (b) To the Son. e.g., Greg. Naz. Orat. xxix. 490, ean ten apo chronon noes archen kai anarchos ho hui& 232;s, ouk archetai gar apo chronou ho chronon despotes. (ii) In the sense of anaitios, "causeless," "originis principio carens," it is applied to the Father alone, and not to the Son. So Gregory of Nazianzus, in the oration quoted above, ho hui& 232;s, e& 129;n hos aition ton patera lambanes, ouk anarchos, "the Son, if you understand the Father as cause, is not without beginning." arche gar huiou pater hos aitios. "For the Father, as cause, is Beginning of the Son." But, though the Son in this sense was not anarchos, He was said to be begotten anarchos. So Greg. Naz. (Hom. xxxvii. 590) to idion onoma tou anarchos gennethentos, ui& 231;s. Cf. the Letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Constantinople. Theod. Ecc. Hist. i. 3. ten anarchon auto para tou patros gennesin anati thentas. cf. Hooker, Ecc. Pol. v. 54. "By the gift of eternal generation Christ hath received of the Father one and in number the self-same substance which the Father hath of himself unreceived from any other. For every beginning is a father unto that which cometh of it; and every offspring is a son unto that out of which it groweth. Seeing, therefore, the Father alone is originally that Deity which Christ originally is not (for Christ is God by being of God, light by issuing out of light), it followeth hereupon that whatsoever Christ hath common unto him with his heavenly Father, the same of necessity must be given him, but naturally and eternally given." So Hillary De Trin. xii. 21. "Ubi auctor eternus est, ibi et nativatis æternitas est: quia sicut nativitas ab auctore est, ita et ab æterno auctore æterna nativitas est." And Augustine De Trin. v. 15, "Naturam præstat filio sine initio generatio."
[883] he autozoe.
[884] John vi. 57.
[885] John v. 19.
[886] John xii. 49.
[887] John v. 19.
[888] Heb. ii. 10. cf. Rom. xi. 36, to which the reading of two manuscripts more distinctly assimilates the citation. The majority of commentators refer Heb. ii. 10, to the Father, but Theodoret understands it of the Son, and the argument of St. Basil necessitates the same application.
[889] John xvii. 10.
[890] aparallaktos echei. cf. Jas. i. 17. par' o ouk eni parallage. The word aparallaktos was at first used by the Catholic bishops at Nicæa, as implying homoousios. Vide Athan. De Decretis, § 20, in Wace and Schaff's ed., p. 163.
[891] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[892] John i. 3.
[893] Col. i. 16.
[894] John xii. 49.
[895] John xii. 50.
[896] John xiv. 24.
[897] John xiv. 31.
[898] John v. 20.
[899] Col. ii. 3, A.V. cf. the amendment of R.V., "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden," and Bp. Lightfoot on St. Paul's use of the gnostic term apokruphos
[900] John xiv. 9.
[901] The argument appears to be not that Christ is not the "express image," or impress of the Father, as He is described in Heb. i. 3, or form, as in Phil. ii. 6, but that this is not the sense in which our Lord's words in St. John xiv. 9, must be understood to describe "seeing the Father." Charakter and morphe are equivalent to he theia phusis, and morphe is used by St. Basil as it is used by St. Paul,--coinciding with, if not following, the usage of the older Greek philosophy,--to mean essential attributes which the Divine Word had before the incarnation (cf. Eustathius in Theod. Dial. II. [Wace and Schaff Ed., p. 203]; "the express image made man,"--ho to pneumati somatopoietheis anthropos charakter.) The divine nature does not admit of combination, in the sense of confusion (cf. the protests of Theodoret in his Dialogues against the confusion of the Godhead and manhood in the Christ), with the human nature in our Lord, and remains invisible. On the word charakter vide Suicer, and on morphe Archbp. Trench's New Testament Synonyms and Bp. Lightfoot on Philippians ii. 6.
[902] Phil. ii. 8.
[903] Rom. viii. 32.
[904] Gal. iii. 13.
[905] Rom. v. 8.
[906] Matt. viii. 3.
[907] Mark iv. 39.
[908] Matt. v. 22, etc.
[909] Mark ix. 25.
[910] There is a difficulty in following the argument in the foregoing quotations. F. Combefis, the French Dominican editor of Basil, would boldly interpose a "not," and read whenever he does not instruct us concerning the Father.' But there is no ms. authority for this violent remedy. The Benedictine Editors say all is plain if we render "postquam nos de patre erudivit." But the Greek will not admit of this.