Chapter 19.—In What Manner the Son Was Sent and Proclaimed Beforehand. How in the Sending of His Birth in the Flesh He Was Made Less Without Detriment to His Equality with the Father.

25. Behold, then, why the Son of God was sent; nay, rather behold what it is for the Son of God to be sent. Whatever things they were which were wrought in time, with a view to produce faith, whereby we might be cleansed so as to contemplate truth, in things that have a beginning, which have been put forth from eternity, and are referred back to eternity: these were either testimonies of this mission, or they were the mission itself of the Son of God. But some of these testimonies announced Him beforehand as to come, some testified that He had come already. For that He was made a creature by whom the whole creation was made, must needs find a witness in the whole creation. For except one were preached by the sending of many [witnesses] one would not be bound to, the sending away of many. And unless there were such testimonies as should seem to be great to those who are lowly, it would not be believed, that He being great should make men great, who as lowly was sent to the lowly. For the heaven and the earth and all things in them are incomparably greater works of the Son of God, since all things were made by Him, than the signs and the portents which broke forth in testimony of Him. But yet men, in order that, being lowly, they might believe these great things to have been wrought by Him, trembled at those lowly things, as if they had been great.

26. “When, therefore, the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law;”525    Gal. iv. 4 to such a degree lowly, that He was “made;” in this way therefore sent, in that He was made. If, therefore, the greater sends the less, we too, acknowledge Him to have been made less; and in so far less, in so far as made; and in so far made, in so far as sent. For “He sent forth His Son made of a woman.” And yet, because all things were made by Him, not only before He was made and sent, but before all things were at all, we confess the same to be equal to the sender, whom we call less, as having been sent. In what way, then, could He be seen by the fathers, when certain angelical visions were shown to them, before that fullness of time at which it was fitting He should be sent, and so before He was sent, at a time when not yet sent He was seen as He is equal with the Father? For how does He say to Philip, by whom He was certainly seen as by all the rest, and even by those by whom He was crucified in the flesh, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also;” unless because He was both seen and yet not seen? He was seen, as He had been made in being sent; He was not seen, as by Him all things were made. Or how does He say this too, “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him,”526    John xiv. 9, 21 at a time when He was manifest before the eyes of men; unless because He was offering that flesh, which the Word was made in the fullness of time, to be accepted by our faith; but was keeping back the Word itself, by whom all things were made, to be contemplated in eternity by the mind when cleansed by faith?

CAPUT XIX.

25. Filius quomodo missus et praenuntiatus. Quomodo missione nativitatis in carne factus minor sine detrimento aequalitatis cum Patre. Ecce ad quod missus est Filius Dei; imo vero ecce quid est missum esse Filium Dei? Quaecumque propter faciendam fidem, qua mundaremur ad contemplandam veritatem, in rebus ortis ab aeternitate prolatis et ad aeternitatem relatis temporaliter gesta sunt, aut testimonia missionis hujus fuerunt, aut ipsa missio Filii Dei. Sed testimonia quaedam venturum praenuntiaverunt, quaedam venisse testata sunt. Factum quippe creaturam per quem facta est omnis creatura, omnem creaturam testem habere oportebat. Nisi enim multis missis praedicaretur unus, non multis dimissis teneretur unus. Et nisi talia essent testimonia quae parvis magna esse viderentur, non crederetur , ut magnos faceret magnus, qui ad parvos missus est parvus. Incomparabiliter enim majora Filii Dei facta sunt coelum et terra et omnia quae in eis sunt, quia omnia per ipsum facta sunt, quam signa et portenta quae in ejus testimonium proruperunt. Sed tamen homines, ut haec magna per cum facta parvi crederent , illa parva tanquam magna tremuerunt.

26. Cum ergo venit plenitudo temporis, misit Deus Filium suum factum ex muliere, factum sub Lege (Galat. IV, 4); usque adeo parvum, ut factum; eo itaque missum, quo factum. Si ergo major mittit minorem, fatemur et nos factum minorem, et in tantum minorem in quantum factum, et in tantum factum in quantum missum. Misit enim Filium suum factum ex muliere, per quem tamen quia facta sunt omnia, non solum priusquam factus mitteretur, sed priusquam essent omnia, eumdem mittenti confitemur aequalem, quem dicimus missum minorem. Quomodo ergo ante istam plenitudinem temporis, qua eum mitti oportebat, priusquam missus esset videri a Patribus potuit, cum eis angelica quaedam visa demonstrarentur, quando nec jam missus sicut aequalis est Patri videbatur? Unde enim dicit Philippo, a quo utique sicut a caeteris, et ab ipsis a quibus crucifixus est in carne videbatur, Tanto tempore vobiscum sum, et non cognovistis me? Philippe, qui me vidit, vidit et Patrem; nisi quia videbatur, et non videbatur? Videbatur sicut missus factus fuerat, non videbatur sicut per eum omnia facta erant. Aut unde etiam illud dicit, Qui habet mandata 0906 mea et servat ea, ipse est qui diligit me; et qui diligit me, diligetur a Patre meo, et ego diligam eum, et manifestabo ei me ipsum (Joan. XIV, 9, 21); cum esset manifestus ante oculos hominum: nisi quia carnem, quod Verbum in plenitudine temporis factum erat, suscipiendam nostrae fidei porrigebat; ipsum autem Verbum per quod omnia facta erant, purgatae per fidem menti contemplandum in aeternitate servabat?