-
Chapter Two: In which Christ is shown specifically to be God
- The Catholic University of America Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
CHAPTER TWO In which Christ is shown specifically to be God UT AFTER Christ has been proved to be God and the Son of God on the authority of your texts, O Jews, perhaps , with your customary depravity, you will still insist and demand that his divinity be shown to you more clearly with other examples. And how, I ask, can it be shown more clearly? Among things of the world, what is clearer than the light, what is more resplendent than the sun? Nonetheless, even the light is a night for the blind, and the sun is darkness. The clarity of the sacred Scriptures shines so brightly on you, shines so plainly on you, that those that illuminate others cannot shine on you, those that are resplendent for others become dark for you. Except for you, for whom will the lucid testimony of the divine psalm that has been set forth fail to suffice to prove the deity of Christ: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right side,”1 and the rest? Other than for you, for whom will Solomon’s splendid statement fail to suffice to prove the deity of Christ, by which, inquiring after the name of God’s son as well as the name of God himself, he shows that Christ is not only the Son of God but also is God? Other than for you, for whom will that argument alone fail to suffice with which, because Christ has been proved by sacred proof-texts to be the Son of God, he is also proved to be God? And how is this? Listen: If he is the Son of God, he is the Son of God either according to nature (naturaliter) or only metaphorically (vocaliter). But as I showed above, some angels have been called sons of God just as some men have been called sons 69 1. Ps 109.1. 70 PETER THE VENERABLE of God, but only metaphorically (either because of some grace or from some merit) and not according to nature. Some of the angels [have been called sons of God] as in the Book of Job: “On a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord.”2 Some men [have been called sons of God], as when through Ezekiel God said: “I took them and they have borne me sons and daughters.”3 Because Christ was shown above to have been begotten before every creature from the very essence of the Father, he is the Son of God according to nature. But if he is the Son of God according to nature, then certainly he is not different from the Father. The Father, however, is God. Therefore, the Son cannot be anything but God. Now, to take an example from a carnal generation, although it is very dissimilar , just as a man is nothing other than a man if begotten from a man, and just as a bird is nothing other than a bird if begotten from a bird, just as light is nothing other than light if kindled from light, so God is nothing other than God born from God. Or does this argument by itself not suffice for you? Then let the other arguments and other examples from your sacred Scriptures succeed and let testimony be offered up as evidence to prove the true deity of Christ from your very own lawgiver, Moses. I say approach, then, holy Moses, you singular friend of God,4 you whom God himself says that he knew by name,5 you who were given to the Jews in a veil but who were revealed to us,6 approach a people that no longer belongs to God, but come arrayed against the enemies of God, and expose to them just as to us the deity of the Son of God: “The Lord,” he says, “rained down brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heaven.”7 Who is the Lord, O Jews, who rained down brimstone and fire out of heaven from another Lord? You have already heard David saying: “The Lord said to [my] Lord,” so listen as well to Moses saying: “The Lord rained down from the Lord.” 2. Jb 1.6. 3. Ezek 23.4. 4. Cf. Ex 33.11. 5. Cf. Ex 33.17. 6. Cf. Ex 34.33–34; cf. 2 Cor 3.14–16. 7. Gn 19.24. [44.199.241.53] Project MUSE (2024-03...