Exposition of the Christian Faith.
Chapter 12
‸92. I would now ask how they suppose the kingdom of the Father and the Son to be divided, when the Lord hath said, as we showed above: “Every kingdom divided against itself shall be speedily overthrown.”
93. Indeed, it was to debar the impious teaching of Arian enmity that Saint Peter himself asserted the dominion of the Father and the Son to be one, saying: “Wherefore, my brethren, labour to make your calling and election sure, for so doing you shall not go astray, for thus your entrance into the eternal realm of God and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shall be granted with the greater abundance of grace.”
94. Now, if it be thought that Christ’s dominion alone is spoken of, and the place be therefore understood in such sense that the Father and the Son are regarded as divided in authority—yet it will be still acknowledged that it is the dominion of the Son, and that an eternal one, and thus not only will two kingdoms, separate, and so liable to fail, be brought in, but, furthermore, inasmuch as no kingdom is to be compared with God’s kingdom, which they cannot, however greatly they may desire to, deny to be the kingdom of the Son, they must either turn back upon their opinion, and acknowledge the kingdom of the Father and the Son to be one and the same; or they must ascribe to the Father the government of a lesser kingdom—which is blasphemy; or they must acknowledge Him, Whom they wickedly declare to be inferior in respect of Godhead, to possess an equal kingdom, which is inconsistent.
95. But this [their teaching] squares not, agrees not, holds not [with its premisses]. Let them confess, then, that the kingdom is one, even as we confess and prove, not indeed on our own evidence, but upon testimony vouchsafed from heaven.
96. To begin with, learn, from further testimonies [of Scripture], how that the kingdom of heaven is also the kingdom of the Son: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that there are some amongst those which stand here with us, who shall not taste death, until they see the Son of Man coming into His kingdom.” There is therefore no room for doubt that the kingdom appertaineth to the Son of God.
97. Now learn that the kingdom of the Son is the very same as the kingdom of the Father: “Verily, I say unto you that there be some of those which stand around us, who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming in power.” So far, indeed, is it one kingdom, that the reward is one, the inheritor is one and the same, and so also the merit, and He Who promises [the reward].
98. How can it but be one kingdom, above all when the Son Himself hath said of Himself: “Then shall the righteous shine like the sun in the kingdom of My Father”? For that which is the Father’s, by fitness to His majesty, is also the Son’s, by unity in the same glory. The Scripture, therefore, hath declared the kingdom to be the kingdom both of the Father and of the Son.
99. Now learn that where the kingdom of God is named, there is no putting aside of the authority either of the Father or of the Son, because both the kingdom of the Father and the kingdom of the Son is included under the single name of God, saying: “When ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God.” Do we deny that the prophets are in the kingdom of the Son, when even to a dying robber who said, “Remember me, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom,” the Lord made answer: “Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” What, indeed, do we understand by being in the kingdom of God, if not the having escaped eternal death? But they who have escaped eternal death see the Son of Man coming into His kingdom.
100. How, then, can He not have in His power that which He gives, saying: “To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven”? See the gulf between [the one and the other]. The servant opens, the Lord bestows; the One through Himself, the other through Christ; the minister receives the keys, the Lord appoints powers: the one is the right of a giver, the other the duty of a steward.
101. See now yet another proof that the kingdom, the government, of the Father and the Son is one. It is written in the Epistle to Timothy: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the government of God, our Saviour, and Christ Jesus, our Hope.” One, therefore, the kingdom of the Father and the Son is plainly declared to be, even as Paul the Apostle also asserted, saying: “For know this, that no shameless person, none that is impure, or covetous (which meaneth idolatry), hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” It is, therefore, one kingdom, one Godhead.
102. Oneness in Godhead the Law hath proved, which speaks of one God, as also the Apostle, by saying of Christ; “In Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” For if, as the Apostle saith, all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, is in Christ, then must the Father and the Son be confessed to be of one Godhead; or if it is desired to sunder the Godhead of the Son from the Godhead of the Father, whilst the Son possesses all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, what is supposed to be further reserved, seeing that nothing remains over and above the fulness of perfection? Therefore the Godhead is one.
Chapter 13
‸103. Now, we having already laid down that the Father and the Son are of one image and likeness, it remains for us to show that They are also of one majesty. And we need not go far afield for proof, inasmuch as the Son Himself has said of Himself: “When the Son of Man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His majesty.” Behold, then, the majesty of the Son declared! What lacketh He yet, Whose uncreated majesty cannot be denied?
‸104. Let our adversaries now hold it proved beyond doubt that the majesty of the Father and of the Son is one, forasmuch as the Lord Himself hath said: “For he who shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of Him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in His majesty and His Father’s, and the majesty of the holy angels.”
What is the force of the words “and the majesty of the holy angels,” but that the servants derive honour from the worship of their Lord?
105. The Son, therefore, ascribed His majesty to His Father as well as to Himself, not, indeed, in such sort that the angels should share in that majesty on equal terms with the Father and the Son, but that they should behold the surpassing glory of God; for truly not even angels possess a majesty of their own, after the manner in which Scripture speaks of the Son: “When He shall sit upon the throne of His majesty,” but they stand in the presence, that they may see the glory of the Father and the Son, in such degrees of vision as they are either worthy of or able to bear.
106. Furthermore, the God-given words themselves declare their own meaning, that you may understand that glory of the Father and the Son not to be held in common with them by angels, for thus they run: “But when the Son of Man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with Him.” Again, to show that His Father’s majesty and glory and His own majesty and glory are one and the same, our Lord Himself saith in another book: “And the Son of Man shall confound him, when He shall come in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels.” The angels come in obedience, He comes in glory: they are His retainers, He sits upon His throne: they stand, He is seated—to borrow terms of the daily dealings of human life, He is the Judge: they are the officers of the court.
Note that He did not place first His Father’s divine majesty, and then, in the second place, His own and the angels’, lest He should seem to have made out a sort of descending order, from the highest to lower natures. He placed His own majesty first, and then spoke of His Father’s, and the majesty of the angels (because the Father could not appear lower than they), in order that He might not, by placing mention of Himself between that of His Father and that of the angels, seem to have made out some ascending scale, leading from angels to the Father through increase of His own dignity; nor, again, be believed to have, contrariwise, shown a descent from the Father to angels, entailing diminution of that dignity. Now we who confess one Godhead of the Father and the Son suppose no such order of distinction as the Arians do.