On Ecclesiastical Theology (Book 3, chapter 21)

On Ecclesiastical Theology

continued

Chapter 21

1 In the same way, then, “the one who has seen” him “has seen the Father.” This is because he alone, and no one else, is “the image of the invisible God,” “the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his subsistence,” and exists “in the form of God,” according to the apostolic teachings. Consider someone who looks at a royal portrait made as an exact likeness. By tracing the outlines of the features in the painting, he forms a picture of the king in his mind. In the same way, but far beyond any description and beyond every comparison, there is the person whose mind is clear, whose soul is cleansed, and whose eyes are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. He fixes his gaze on the greatness of the power of the only-begotten Son and Lord. He understands how “in him dwells all the fullness of the Father’s divinity,” and how “all things came to be through him” and “in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.” He reasons that the Father begat only him as the only-begotten Son, made like him in every respect. That person will in power see the Father himself through the Son, as the Father is contemplated by those whose minds have been purified. Of them it is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

2 Since my aim is brevity, let this much be worked out here in summary. The matters in this passage need a very full treatment. Anyone who cares to grasp them accurately should give his mind to the readings from the Gospels and the apostles and, at leisure, gather the whole sense from them. As for the countless other things heaped together without order in Marcellus’s treatise, many of them said against the intention of Scripture, others forced and keeping no consistency, I consider that his refutation has already been made plain to sensible people by what we have examined. I will therefore be content with these points.