§449By attributing to Jesus the divine title "Lord", the first confessions of the Church's faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honour and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because "he was in the form of God",65 and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising him from the dead and exalting him into his glory.66

§839"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325 The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religio…

Proofs from the apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man. 1. But there are some who say that Jesus was merely a receptacle of Christ, upon whom the Christ, as a dove, descended from above, and that when He had declared the unnameable Father He entered into the Pleroma in an incomprehensible and invisib…

2. And what may be the reason that Matthew said not at the beginning, in the same way as the prophet, the vision which I saw, and the word which came unto me? Because he was writing unto men well disposed, and exceedingly attentive to him. For both the miracles that were done cried aloud, and they who received the word were exceeding faithful. But in the case of the prophets, t…

1. When children are just brought to their learning, their teachers do not give them many tasks in succession, nor do they set them once for all, but they often repeat to them the same short ones, so that what is said may be easily implanted in their minds, and they may not be vexed at the first onset with the quantity, and with finding it hard to remember, and become less acti…

1. Everywhere, beloved, we have need of faith, faith the mother of blessings, the medicine of salvation; and without this it is impossible to possess any one of the great doctrines. Without this, men are like to those who attempt to cross the open sea without a ship, who for a little way hold out by swimming, using both hands and feet, but when they have advanced farther, are q…

Source. Translated by J. Walker, J. Sheppard and H. Browne, and revised by George B. Stevens. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 11. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1889.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210219.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Adven…

2. This then is one way, and the first, by which he cast down their pride; the next has greater force. What then is this? In that he shows that not even this thing itself was in all points complete, but imperfect, and extremely so. And not only imperfect, but also injurious, unless there were another thing joined together with it. For having said that we have knowledge, he adde…

Chapter 20.—How It is that Cain’s Line Terminates in the Eighth Generation, While Noah, Though Descended from the Same Father, Adam, is Found to Be the Tenth from Him. Some one will say, If the writer of this history intended, in enumerating the generations from Adam through his son Seth, to descend through them to Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred, and from him again to …

Whosoever will candidly consider each particular, will recognise the greatness of the gifts which were given by Him. For from Jacob sprang all the priests and Levites who minister at the altar of God. From him also was descended our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. From him arose kings, princes, and rulers of the race of Judah. And all these were highly honoured and ma…

10. Which of the two theologies sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father, this which you vomited forth, or that which we have spoken and maintain from the Scriptures? If the Saviour be not God, nor Word, nor Son, you shall have leave to say what you will, and so shall the Gentiles, and the present Jews. But if He be Word of the Father and true Son, and God …

11. At his suggestion then you have maintained and you think, that 'there was once when the Son was not;' this is the first cloke of your views of doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men ? If you say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is impious to say that He was 'once,' or to signify H…

24. For first of all, as to their first question, which is such as this, how dull and vague it is! They do not explain who it is they ask about, so as to allow of an answer, but they say abstractedly, 'He who is,' 'him who is not.' Who then 'is,' and what 'are not,' O Arians? Or who 'is,' and who 'is not?' what are said 'to be,' what 'not to be?' for He that is, can make things…

He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. Chapter 1. He Regarded Not God Indeed Under the Form of a Human Body, …

Acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation — the difference of the natures being in no way removed because of the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved, and both concurring into one person and one subsistence — not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten Go…

As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham's stock. The Church cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the…

Q. What does it mean that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary? A. That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God, took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, a truly human nature so that he might become David's true descendant, like his brothers in every way except for si…