There would be many other things of the same import at hand which I might add, but I abstain from relating them, lest I be excessive, and I come to those Fathers and writers who by their testimony represent the faith and doctrine of the African Church. From these, moreover, we obtain this above all: that among those attributes by which the supreme Deity is related to the human race, goodness excels; that the first place belongs to it, severity and justice following only in the second place; and that therefore it is proper to God that he be believed ἐξόχως, preeminently, to be the parent of men.
Tertullian speaks excellently where he addresses the soul in these words1:
Nor are you ignorant of the nature of God which we preach: “God is good; God does good,” is your voice. Certainly you say these things—but man, namely, is evil—reproaching obliquely and figuratively by a contrary proposition that therefore man is evil who has withdrawn from the good God. Likewise, because with God every blessing of goodness and benignity is among us the supreme2 mystery of discipline and conduct, you pronounce “May God bless you” as readily as is necessary for a Christian.
Then, having made mention3 of the most gentle father who received with such benignity the son who had poured himself out into every lust, he immediately adds:
Who is that father to be understood by us? God, assuredly: no one is so much a father; no one so kind. Therefore he will receive you as his son, even though you have squandered what you received from him, even though you have returned naked, because you have returned; and he will rejoice more over your return than over the sobriety of another.
But in explaining the Lord’s Prayer4, at the beginning he admonishes that the Lord is not to be approached with an array of words for this reason: that we are certain he provides for his own of his own accord. Then he adds5 that this prayer begins
from the testimony of God and the merit of faith when we say, “Father who art in heaven.” For we both pray to God and commend the faith whose merit is this appellation. It is written: “To those who believed in him, he gave power that they should be called sons of God.” Although the Lord most frequently pronounced God to be our Father, he even commanded us not to call anyone on earth father except him whom we have in heaven. Therefore, worshiping thus, we also fulfill a precept. Blessed are they who acknowledge the Father. This is what is reproached in Israel, what the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness: “I have begotten sons,” he says, “and they have not acknowledged me.”
Cyprian has things most similar to these6; and Minucius Felix, agreeing with both7, writes:
No one, unless profane, deliberates8 whether those who do not know God are deservedly tormented as impious and unjust, since it is a crime no less to be ignorant of the Parent of all and Lord of all than to injure him.
And, after some intervening remarks9, he proceeds:
Therefore God both cannot fail to aid us and does not despise us, since he is both the ruler of all and the lover of his own; but in adversities he tests and examines each one; he weighs the disposition of each by dangers; even unto the final death he investigates the will of man, secure that nothing can perish for him. Therefore, just as gold is proved by fires, so we are proved by trials.
Concerning this benevolent nature of God, wholly intent upon the salvation and felicity of all, those things which Arnobius disputes against the gentiles are entirely excellent10. He says:
Unless perhaps you say that aid is brought by the gods to the good, while the miseries of the evil are despised. But Christ equally succors the good and the evil; nor is anyone repulsed by him who, in difficult circumstances, sought aid against the assault and injuries of fortune. For this is proper to the true God and to royal power: to deny his benignity to no one and not to consider who deserves it or does not.
For, as Lactantius says while discoursing on the praises of divine religion11:
It alone brings it about that man holds man dear and knows that the same is bound to him by the bond of brotherhood; since the same God is Father of all, so that he shares the benefits of God, the common Father, with those who do not have them, harms no one, oppresses no one, does not close his doors to a guest nor his ear to one praying, but is bountiful, beneficent, and liberal—qualities which Tullius12 judged to be royal praises. This assuredly is justice, and this is the golden age which was first corrupted while Jove reigned and soon, when both he and all his progeny had been consecrated and the worship of many gods undertaken, was wholly taken away.
Lest men remain any longer in this altogether most wretched condition,
God, as the most indulgent Parent, adds Lactantius13, when the last time drew near, sent a messenger who would restore that ancient age and justice which had been put to flight, lest the human race should be agitated by the greatest and perpetual errors.
For14
God therefore demands to be worshiped and honored by man as Father, that man may possess virtue and wisdom, which alone produces immortality. For since no one else besides him can give it, because he alone possesses it, he will reward by this prize the piety by which man has honored God: that he be blessed eternally and be always with God and in the presence of God.
By this Lactantius declares what the sum of the divine counsels regards when he answers15 in this manner the question why the world and man were created:
For this reason the world was made: that we might be born. For this reason we are born: that we might acknowledge God, the maker of the world and of ourselves. For this reason we acknowledge him: that we might worship him. For this reason we worship him: that we might receive immortality as the recompense of our labors, since the worship of God is comprised of the greatest labors. For this reason we are affected with the reward of immortality: that, having been made like the angels, we may serve the supreme Father and Lord forever and be an eternal kingdom for God. This is the sum of things; this is the secret of God; this is the mystery of the world. From it those are alien who, following present pleasure, have devoted themselves to earthly and fragile goods and submerged in mud and mire, through death-bearing delights, souls born for heavenly things.
Nor is the image by which Marius Victorinus exhibits God different. For, expounding the Apostle’s statement16, “from whom every paternity in heaven and on earth is named,” he speaks thus17:
Namely, from God the Father and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for he is Father, he is the first Father, and from him whoever is a father has been named father. And yet this name or power flowed down from the first God the Father as from a fountain. For Christ also is the Father of all things which were created; for through Christ all things were created.
Likewise, he is Father in the mysteries18. And Paul is in some manner a father, since he said: “You are my sons; I begot you,” he says, “in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” Finally, paternity in heaven is Christ; on earth paternity is either the apostles, or whoever evangelizes, or he who hands on the mystery. For in these ways and many others those who receive the faith are called sons, and those who hand it on are called fathers. Therefore all paternity proceeds from God the Father.
Footnotes
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On the Testimony of the Soul, chap. II, p. 81, edition of Rigaltius, 1641. ↩
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Every blessing of the goodness and benignity of God is called by Tertullian the supreme mystery of Christian discipline and conduct, as though the highest and last mystery, and, so to speak, the most celebrated. In the same manner Augustine wrote that this salutation, “Thanks be to God,” was in his time most celebrated in the Church. ↩
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On Penance, chap. VIII, p. 146. ↩
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On Prayer, chap. I, p. 149. ↩
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Ibid., chap. II, pp. 149–150. ↩
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On the Lord’s Prayer, pp. 99–102, Amsterdam edition, 1700. ↩
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Octavius, § XXXV, p. 402, in Gallandius, vol. II. ↩
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That is, no one doubts; for those who doubt deliberate what must be done. ↩
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Ibid., § XXXVI, p. 402. ↩
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Disputations against the Gentiles, book I, § XVIII, p. 142, in Gallandius, vol. IV. ↩
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Divine Institutes, book V, chap. VI, p. 312, in Gallandius, vol. IV. ↩
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Oration for Deiotarus, chap. IX. ↩
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Ibid., chap. VII, p. 312. ↩
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Ibid., book VII, chap. V, p. 350. ↩
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Ibid., book VII, chap. VI, p. 350. ↩
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Eph. III.15. Not only the Vulgate but also nearly all the other Latin writers in Sabatier have the same word paternity, except that the author of On the Forty Mansions among the works of Ambrose reads, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” In Greek it is thus: ἐξ οὗ πᾶσα πατριὰ ἐν οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς ὀνομάζεται. Now, according to Hesychius the interpreter, πατριά is φυλή, tribe; and by Suidas πατριαί are rendered χῶραι, φυλαί, τοπαρχίαι, regions, tribes, districts. By the name πατριά the Alexandrians render both the Hebrew משפחה, family, race, and בית אב, house of the father. In the New Testament the same name also occurs in Luke II.4 and Acts III.25, and in both places it bears the force and signification of family and race. Therefore, we would not depart very far from the truth of the matter if we rendered the apostolic testimony ἐξ οὗ πᾶσα πατριὰ ἐν οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς ὀνομάζεται in Latin thus: “who is the author and founder of his family throughout the universe.” Compare Kypke, Observationes Sacrae, vol. II, p. 213. ↩
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On the Epistle to the Ephesians, book I, p. 119, in Mai, Veterum Scriptorum, vol. III. ↩
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For illustrating these things, what he has on Gal. IV.19 in book II, p. 37, is useful:
↩Moreover, as to what he added, “My sons,” since men are called sons in many ways—now by charity, now by nature, now by blood, and now also by religion, by which Paul today says “My sons”—either because through baptism, when regeneration occurs, he who perfects the baptized or receives him when perfected is called father; or because, when he renews them into Christ, he makes them his sons; for this reason he added, “whom I bring forth,” that is, whom I desire to bring forth into the light and, with great pains of my soul, desire to be born unto life and salvation.