|
25. Behold, then, why the Son of God was sent; nay, rather
behold what it is for the Son of God to be sent. Whatever things
they were which were wrought in time, with a view to produce faith,
whereby we might be cleansed so as to contemplate truth, in things that
have a beginning, which have been put forth from eternity, and are
referred back to eternity: these were either testimonies of this
mission, or they were the mission itself of the Son of God. But
some of these testimonies announced Him beforehand as to come, some
testified that He had come already. For that He was made a creature
by whom the whole creation was made, must needs find a witness in the
whole creation.
For except one were preached by the sending of many [witnesses] one
would not be bound to, the sending away of many. And unless there
were such testimonies as should seem to be great to those who are
lowly, it would not be believed, that He being great should make men
great, who as lowly was sent to the lowly.
For the heaven and the earth and all things in them are incomparably
greater works of the Son of God, since all things were made by Him,
than the signs and the portents which broke forth in testimony of Him.
But yet men, in order that, being lowly, they might believe these
great things to have been wrought by Him, trembled at those lowly
things, as if they had been great.
26. "When, therefore, the fullness of time was come, God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law;" to such a
degree lowly, that He was "made;" in this way therefore sent, in
that He was made. If, therefore, the greater sends the less, we
too, acknowledge Him to have been made less; and in so far less, in
so far as made; and in so far made, in so far as sent. For "He
sent forth His Son made of a woman." And yet, because all things
were made by Him, not only before He was made and sent, but before
all things were at all, we confess the same to be equal to the sender,
whom we call less, as having been sent. In what way, then, could
He be seen by the fathers, when certain angelical visions were shown
to them, before that fullness of time at which it was fitting He
should be sent, and so before He was sent, at a time when not yet
sent He was seen as He is equal with the Father? For how does He
say to Philip, by whom He was certainly seen as by all the rest, and
even by those by whom He was crucified in the flesh, "Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also;" unless because He
was both seen and yet not seen? He was seen, as He had been made in
being sent; He was not seen, as by Him all things were made. Or
how does He say this too, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of
my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him,"
at a time when He was manifest before the eyes of men; unless because
He was offering that flesh, which the Word was made in the fullness
of time, to be accepted by our faith; but was keeping back the Word
itself, by whom all things were made, to be contemplated in eternity
by the mind when cleansed by faith?
|
|