36. But lest these words, For I am, and before Me there is no other God, nor shall be after Me, be made a handle for blasphemous presumption, as proving that the Son is not God, since after the God, Whom no God precedes, there follows no other God, the purpose of the passage must be considered. God is His own best interpreter, but His chosen Servant joins with Him to assure us that there is no God before Him, nor shall be after Him. His own witness concerning Himself is, indeed, sufficient, but He has added the witness of the Servant Whom He has chosen. Thus we have the united testimony of the Two, that there is no God before Him; we accept the truth, because all things are from Him. We have Their witness also that there shall be no God after Him; but They do not deny that God has been born from Him in the past. Already there was the Servant speaking thus, and bearing witness to the Father; the Servant born in that tribe from which God’s elect was to spring. He sets forth also the same truth in the Gospels: Behold, My Servant Whom I have chosen, My Beloved in Whom My soul is well pleased221    St. Matt. xii. 18.. This is the sense, then, in which God says, There is no other God before Me, nor shall be after Me. He reveals the infinity of His eternal and unchanging majesty by this assertion that there is no God before or after Himself. But He gives His Servant a share both in the bearing of witness and in the possession of the Name of God.

97 36. Filium Patris qualem Esaias praedicat.---Verum ne forte ex eo arripi impiae assertionis possit occasio, quod dictum est, Quoniam ego sum, et ante me non est Deus alius, et post me non erit (Esai, XLIII, 10); tamquam per id non et Filius Deus sit, quia post 0123A Deum, ante quem Deus nullus sit, nullus quoque postea Deus futurus sit: totius ob id dicti ratio tractanda est. Deus ipse sermonis sui testis est, sed et puer ejus electus una cum eo testis est, Deum ante se non esse, neque post se futurum. Sufficiens quidem sibi ipse testis est: sed testimonio de se suo, testimonium pueri quem elegit admiscuit. Unum ergo duum testimonium est, nullum ante se Deum esse; ex eo enim omnia sunt: neque post se Deum futurum; non utique ex se non fuisse. Erat enim jam puer in testimonio Patris haec loquens, puer in tribu ex qua gigni habebat electus. Idipsum ita in Evangeliis demonstrat: Ecce puer meus quem elegi, dilectus meus, in quo complacuit anima mea (Matth. XII, 18). Non est ergo ante me alius Deus, et post me non 0123B erit: aeternae videlicet et indemutabilis virtutis infinitatem in eo, quod ante et postea Deus praeter se sit nullus, ostendens: puero tamen suo, ut in testimonio suo, ita et in nomine, collocato.