Chapter 6

§ 1.

I mean, where our Lord, declaring Himself to His Disciples, how He is Himself the Word, Who gives knowledge of the Father,¹ and reproving the Jews, who thought they had God, even while they make void the Word of Him by Whom God is known,—said,² No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any one the Father but the Son,³ and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. Thus both Matthew hath set it down, and Luke also, and Mark, the very same thing; for John omits this passage.

Now they who would fain be more knowing than Apostles, write it thus: “No one hath known the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him,” and interpret it as though the true God were known by no one before the Coming of our Lord: and that God, Who was announced by the Prophets, they deny to be the Father of Christ.

§ 2.

But even if Christ’s existence began only with His fulfilling His human advent, and if the Father did but from the times of Tiberius Cæsar remember to take thought for men, and if there were no declaration of His Word having been always with the work of His Hands: not even in such case was it necessary that another God should be set forth, but only that the causes of so great inattention and disregard on His part should be sought after. For no controversy ought to be of such sort, or to be allowed such influence, as even to change our God Himself and make void our faith towards our Maker, Who by the things which He hath made sustains us. Yea, as we direct our Faith towards the Son, so towards the Father also it becomes us to retain a firm and immoveable Love.⁴ And well saith Justin in his book against Marcion, “I could not have believed the Lord Himself, if He announced another God beside the Creator. But because from the One God, Who both created this world, and formed us, and contains and governs all things, the Only Begotten Son came unto us, gathering together into Himself the work of His Own Hands, my faith in Him is firm, and my love to the Father immoveable; both being God’s gift unto us.”

§ 3.

For neither can any one know the Father,⁵ but by revelation of the Word of God, i.e., of the Son, nor yet the Son, but by the good pleasure of the Father. And the good pleasure of the Father, the Son fulfils: the Father sending, the Son being sent, and coming. And the Father on the one hand, being invisible and illimitable as towards us, is known by His own Word; and being unutterable, is yet uttered by Him to us: on the other hand, the Father again alone knoweth His own Word. And that both these things are as I have said, the Lord hath declared. And therefore the Son by manifestation of Himself reveals the knowledge of the Father. For the manifestation of the Son is the knowledge of the Father: for by the Word all things are made manifest.

Wherefore, to teach us that the Son Who is coming is the same Who makes the Father known to such as believe Him, He said to His Disciples, No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and those to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him: teaching of Himself and the Father, as the truth is, that we might not receive another Father, save Him Who is revealed by the Son.

§ 4.

Now He is the Framer of Heaven and Earth: as is shewn by our Lord’s discourses:⁶ not the pretended Father who hath been invented by Marcion, or by Valentinus, or by Basilides, or by Carpocrates, or Simon, or the other Gnostics falsely so called. For none of these was the Son of God, but Christ Jesus our Lord was; to Whom the method they practise is even contrary, in that they dare to announce “an unknown God.”⁷ But they ought to listen to this against their own selves. For how is He unknown, who is known by themselves? For whatsoever is known but by a few, is not wholly unknown. But our Lord said not, that the Father and the Son could not be known at all, else were His Advent superfluous. For why came He hither? To say to us, “Think not of seeking God, for He is unknown, and ye shall not find Him?” as the Valentinians feign that Christ also said to their Æons. But this is merely vain. Rather the Lord instructed us, that no one can know God, except upon God’s teaching⁸: i.e., that without God, God is not known: and that for God to be known is itself the free-will of the Father. For they shall know Him, to whom the Son will reveal Him.

§ 5.

And to this end did the Father reveal the Son, that by Him He might be manifested to all men, and that such as believe Him, being righteous, He may receive into incorruption, and into eternal refreshment:⁹ (now to believe Him, is to do His will:) but those who believe not, and therefore fly from His light, He will justly shut up into the darkness which they have chosen for themselves. To all therefore the Father hath revealed Himself, in making His Word visible to all: and the Word again in being seen by all, was shewing to all the Father and the Son. And therefore the judgement of God is just upon all those who have seen alike, but have not believed alike.

§ 6.

For so by the creature itself doth the Word reveal God the Creator, and by the world the Lord, the Framer of the World, and by the handy-work the Artificer Who moulded it, and by the Son that Father of Whom the Son is begotten: which things all indeed alike discourse of, but they do not alike believe.

But by the Law and the Prophets in like manner did the Word preach both Himself and the Father: and while the whole people heard alike, all did not alike believe. And by the same Word, made visible and tangible, the Father was declared, though all did not alike believe Him; yet all saw the Father in the Son: for that which is invisible of the Son is the Father, and that which is visible of the Father is the Son.

And for this cause all in His presence spake of Christ,¹⁰ and used the Name of God. Yea, and demons, seeing the Son,¹¹ would say, We know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God. And the Devil tempting Him, when he saw Him, said, If Thou be the Son of God:¹² all of them seeing and speaking of the Son and of the Father, but not all believing Him.

§ 7.

For it was meet that the Truth should receive testimony from all,¹³ and should be a judgement unto salvation of them that believe, and unto condemnation of them that believe not: that all might be justly judged, and that the Faith which is towards the Father and the Son might be approved by all, I mean, confirmed by all; receiving testimony from all; both from its own, in that they are friends, and from aliens, in that they are enemies. For that proof is true and incapable of contradiction, which even from its very adversaries draws out the particulars¹⁴ of its evidence; while they at first by their own sight are convinced of a thing as actually present, and bear witness, and imply it to be so: but afterwards break out into hostility, and turn accusers, and would fain have their own testimony untrue.

We conclude that it was not One who was known,¹⁵ and another who said, No man knoweth the Father; but one and the same, under Whom the Father was putting all things; Who also receiveth testimony from all, that He is truly Man and that He is truly God:—from the Father, from the Spirit, from Angels; from the creature itself, from men, and from apostate spirits and demons; from the Enemy, and last of all from death itself.

And the Son in all things ministering to the Father,¹⁶ fulfils them from beginning to end; and without Him no man can know God. For the knowledge of the Father, is the Son; but the knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed by the Son: and therefore our Lord said, No man knoweth the Son but the Father; nor the Father, but the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him: “Will reveal” being not spoken of the future only, as though the Word then began to make known the Father, when He was born of Mary, but set down largely as throughout all time¹⁷. Because from the beginning the Son abiding by the work of His own hands, reveals the Father unto all, whom the Father wills, and when He wills, and as He wills. And therefore in all and through all is One God the Father, and one Word, and one Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation to all who believe in Him.