53. So the Only-begotten God, just before He finished His work in the flesh, and completed the mystery of taking the servant’s form, in order to establish our faith, thus speaks, Ye heard how I said unto you, I go away, and I came unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father; for the Father is greater than I545    Ib. 28.. He has already, in an earlier part of this very discourse unfolded in all its aspects the teaching of His divine nature: can we, then, on the strength of this confession deprive the Son of that equality, which His true birth has perfected in Him? Or is it an indignity to the Only-begotten God, that the Unbegotten God is His Father, seeing that His Only-begotten birth from the Unbegotten gives Him the Only-begotten nature? He is not the source of His own being, nor did He, being Himself non-existent, bring to pass His own birth out of nothing; but, existing as a living nature and from a living nature, He possesses the power of that nature, and declares the authority of that nature, by bearing witness to His honour, and in His honour to the grace belonging to the birth He received. He pays to the Father the tribute of obedience to the will of Him Who sent Him, but the obedience of humility does not dissolve the unity of His nature: He becomes obedient unto death, but, after death, He is above every name546    Phil. ii. 8, 9..

53. Cur, et quod salva naturae aequalitate dixit Christus, Pater major me est.---Impleturus itaque unigenitus Deus carnis dispensationem, et acceptae 0323C formae servilis sacramentum consummaturus, usus est demonstrandae fidei nostrae professione, dicens: Audistis quoniam dixi vobis, Vado, et venio ad vos. Si diligeretis me, gauderetis quoniam vado ad Patrem; quia Pater major me est (Joan. XIV, 28). His itaque, quae ad naturam divinitatis spectant , explicitis hoc eodem superiore sermone, numquid 0324A professio haec aufert Filio naturae aequalitatem, quam nativitas genuina consummat? Aut 300 numquid unigenito Deo contumelia est Patrem sibi innascibilem Deum esse; cum ex innascibili Deo nativitas unigenita in naturam unigenitam subsistat? Non enim suae originis est Filius, neque nativitatem sibi non exstans ipse conquisivit ex nullo: sed ex vivente natura vivens natura exstans, tenet in se naturae potestatem, professa auctoritate naturae, ut et honorem testetur, et gratiam sumptae nativitatis in honore. Et hoc quidem Patri debitum reddens, ut obedientiam suam mittentis deputet voluntati, non tamen ut naturae unitatem obedientia humilitatis infirmet; factus obediens usque ad mortem, non tamen post mortem non super omne nomen est.