Annotation CLXXI

”And the Word was God.” — John 1:1

On the equality of the Father and the Son.

Origen, at the beginning of the second tome on John, seems to have furnished a certain seedbed for the Arian heresy: for when he examined the cause why the Word in this place is called “God” without the addition of the Greek article ὁ, he says that this was done to show the difference of the Father and the Son. For the Father, because he is God by his own nature, is called, the article being added, ὁ Θεός [“the God”]; but the Son, because he is God by participation in his [the Father’s] divinity, is called, without the article, Θεός [“God”]. His words are these: “With great observation — not as [though] ignorant of Greek subtlety — John in one place used the articles, in others he was silent about them: to the name, indeed — that is, to ‘Word’ [λόγῳ] — adjoining the ὁ; but to the word ‘God’ in one place adjoining [the article], in another taking [it] away. For he applies the article when the name ‘God’ is said of the unbegotten cause of all [things]; but does not apply the same, when the Word is named ‘God.’” Then a little below, rendering the reason of this variety, he says: “It must be said that he who is God through himself is τὸν Θεόν — that is, God himself, as the Savior said in his prayer,¹ ‘that they may know thee the only true God’; but everything which, besides God himself, is made God by participation in his divinity, is more properly called not τὸν Θεόν — that is, ‘God himself’ — but Θεός.” And again, after a little: “The true God, therefore, is ὁ Θεός — that is, God himself; but those who are formed and fashioned after him are Θεοί — that is, gods, and are images of the first form and exemplar.”

Chrysostom, in homily 3 on John, refutes this interpretation, the author’s name being suppressed, re-

-futing [it], demonstrates that it is of no moment — because both the Son in the sacred writings is sometimes called “God” with the article, and the Father is sometimes called “God” without the article. And he writes in this manner: “But someone will say [that] the Father is set [named] with the addition of the article, [and] the Son without the article. What, then? — when the Apostle says,² τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ, that is, ‘of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.’ And again,³ ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεός, that is, ‘Who is over all, God,’ without the article. Likewise, writing of the Father to the Philippians,⁴ ὃς ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ, that is, ‘Who, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.’ And to the Romans,⁵ ‘Grace to you and peace ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν, from God our Father, and [from] the Lord Jesus Christ’ — he neglected the article. For it is superfluous to prefix it everywhere, especially since above he had frequently used it. For just as, speaking of the Father, he says,⁶ πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός, ‘God is a spirit’; and [just as], although he does not add the article to ‘spirit,’ we do not on that account deny that God is incorporeal: so in this place, although the article is not prefixed to the Son, not on that account is the Son a lesser God than the Father. Since, therefore, he calls both this one and that one ‘God,’ he makes for us no difference of divinity of either, but altogether the contrary.” Consider, prudent reader, whether the sayings of Origen can be benignly interpreted from those [things] which we have brought forward below, Annotation 175.