Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

my salvation,’ 433 and so Paul, ‘Let God be true, but every man a liar.’ 434 Thus the Lord ‘of
God is made unto us wisdom and sanctification and redemption.’ 435 Now when the Father
was made defender and true, He was not a thing made; and similarly when the Son was
made wisdom and sanctification, He was not a thing made. If it is true that there is one
God the Father, it is assuredly also true that there is one Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour. According
to them the Saviour is not God nor the Father Lord, and it is written in vain, ‘the
Lord said unto my Lord.’ 436 False is the statement, ‘Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed
thee.’ 437 False too, ‘The Lord rained from the Lord.’ 438 False, ‘God created in the image of
God,’ 439 and ‘Who is God save the Lord?’ 440 and ‘Who is a God save our God.’ 441 False
the statement of John that ‘the Word was God and the Word was with God;’ 442 and the
words of Thomas of the Son, ‘my Lord and my God.’ 443 The distinctions, then, ought to
be referred to creatures and to those who are falsely and not properly called gods, and not
to the Father and to the Son.”
On John xvii. 3. That they may know Thee, the only true God.
“The true (sing.) is spoken of in contradistinction to the false (pl.). But He is incomparable,
because in comparison with all He is in all things superexcellent. When Jeremiah said
of the Son, ‘This is our God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison with
Him,’ 444 did he describe Him as greater even than the Father? That the Son also is true
God, John himself declares in the Epistle, ‘That we may know the only true God, and we
are (in Him that is true, even) in his (true) Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and
433 Ps. cxviii. 21.
434 Rom. iii. 4.
435 1 Cor. i. 30.
436 Ps. cx. 1.
437 Ps. xlv. 8.
438 Gen. xix. 24.
439 Gen. i. 27.
440 Ps. xviii. 31.
441 Id. LXX.
442 John i. 1.
443 John xx. 28.
444 Baruch iii. 35. The quoting of Baruch under the name of Jeremiah has been explained by the fact that in
the LXX. Baruch was placed with the Lamentations, and was regarded in the early Church as of equal authority
with Jeremiah. It was commonly so quoted, e.g. by Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian. So Theodoret,
Dial. i. (in this edition, p. 165, where cf. note).
Dogmatic.
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