Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Book IX. But heresy lays hold of words spoken by Christ Incarnate, appropriate to His humility as Man, and assigns them to Him in His previous state; thus they make Him deny His true Godhead.
After reaching this conclusion from a general survey of Christ's life on earth, he examines in the light of it the Arian arguments from isolated words.
They assert that Christ refused to be called Good or Master. Christ took humanity, and, since the Father's nature did not share in this, the unity was so far impaired.
But humanity has been raised in Christ to God ; and this could only be because His unity in the Divine nature with the Father was perfect. The Son does the Father's work, not under compulsion as an inferior, but because They are One. The Arians also appeal to the text, The Father is greater than I. Next, the allegation of ignorance , based on St. Mark xiii. The ignorance can be nothing but concealment. Only the Father knows , i. He has told none but the Son; the Son does not know , i.
God is unlimited; unlimited therefore in knowledge. The nature of Father and Son being one, it is impossible that the Son should be ignorant of what the Father knows. And the Apostles, by repeating their question after the Resurrection, show that they were aware that His ignorance meant reserve. In the last book we treated of the indistinguishable nature of God the Father and God the Son , and demonstrated that the words, I and the Father are One John , go to prove not a solitary God , but a unity of the Godhead unbroken by the birth of the Son: for God can be born only of God , and He that is born God of God must be all that God is.
