Слово 27. На [слова] «Да знаютъ Тебе, единаго истиннаго Бога и егоже послалъ еси Іисусъ Христа» 1038

The objection seems to be on behalf of heretics. Behold, they say, the Son Himself confesses that the Father alone is the true God, and we find the Father Himself saying: “I am God first, I am hereafter, and besides Me there is no God.” 1039. How then do you add the Son to the first and only, and truly existing God and Father, as if He were by nature God? Rebuttal to this. First of all, you should know that the Father does not say this to eliminate the Son. For what could motivate Him to do this? After all, if He, like a man, competed with those born from Him, like David when his own children fought against him, then perhaps such a fable would have some meaning. And if the Divine nature does not know discord with itself, but rather the Son appears as the ever-giving glory to the Father, then what is the point of the Father saying such things to eliminate the Son? Therefore, we are most likely to assume that He says this to crush the false gods. Then, the Savior, saying: “Let them know you, the only true God,” immediately adds Himself: “And whom Jesus Christ sent,” 1040, since He is inseparable from the essence of the Father as far as the Divinity is concerned, and is always thought of together with the Father. OTHER. If the Son is the Word of the Father - which He is and admits - then who is so crazy as to think that for the sake of eliminating His own Word, with which He creates everything, the Father called Himself the only true God? Since this is absurd, the power of the statement is most likely directed at the false gods, even if the anti-Christ fighters did not like this. OTHER, [said] on the basis of a hypothesis. Let us now imagine that some deluded people from among those who are deprived of true wisdom would set up an image for themselves, and, having drawn on it the image of some person or other animal, would call it “light,” actually thinking that light is born from there for them; and if we then imagine that the sun had a voice, and that it would then say to them: “People, you are mistaken: only I am light, and there is no other [light] besides me,” then, by crying out for the sake of eliminating this false light, will it thereby deprive its own radiance of being light? But there is no reason to think so. Therefore, when the Father says: “I am one, and there is nothing besides Me,” He does not exclude from the Divinity the Property of His own essence, that is, the Word that came from Him, but in the identity of nature He has Him with Himself, and in the one Divinity co-confessed and co-glorified. OTHER, showing that although the Father is called the only God, the Son, in every way, is thought of together with Him. One of the prophets says somewhere to God: “I have spread out one heaven” 1041 and the voice of God is also given: “I have spread out one heaven” 1042. And again His other words about the Son: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established” 1043. So, if, despite the fact that God and the Father said that He alone created heaven, the Son is found by him who created him, then it is clear to everyone that even though the Father alone was called the true God, the Son is also implied along with Him, by whom He does and speaks everything, and truly by nature abides in the One and Only, and the First, and the True, just as His radiance abides in the light. You might be interested in: