9.

He doth not say then, "What things soever the Father doeth, such doeth the Son:" as if the Father doeth some things, and the Son others. For it did seem as though He had meant this when He said above, "The Son doeth nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do." Mark; He did not there either say, "But what He heareth the Father enjoin;" but, "what He seeth the Father do." If then we consult the carnal understanding, or sense rather, He hath set before Him as it were two workmen, ¹ the Father and the Son, the Father working without seeing any, the Son working from seeing the Father. This is still a carnal view. Nevertheless, in order to understand those things which are higher, let us not decline these lower and mean things. First, let us set something before our eyes in this way; let us suppose there are two workmen, father and son. The father has made a chest, which the son could not make, unless he saw the father making it: he keeps his mind on the chest which the father has made, and makes another chest like it, not the same. I put off for a while the words which follow, and now I ask the Arian; "Dost thou understand it in the sense of this supposition? Hath the Father done something, which when the Son saw Him do, He too hath done something like it? For do the words by which thou art perplexed seem to have this meaning?" Now He doth not say, "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He heareth the Father enjoin." But He saith, "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do." See, if thou understand it thus; the Father hath done something, and the Son attendeth that He may see what He Himself too hath to do; and that, some other thing like that which the Father had done. This which the Father hath done, by whom hath He done it? If not by the Son, if not by the Word, thou hast incurred the charge of blasphemy against the Gospel. "For all things were made by Him." ² So then what the Father had done, He had done by the Word; if by the Word He had done it, He had done it by the Son. Who then is that other who attends, that He may do some other thing which he seeth the Father do? Ye have not been wont to say that the Father hath two sons: there is One, One Only-Begotten of Him. But through His mercy, Alone as regards His Divinity and not Alone as regards the inheritance. The Father hath made coheirs with His Only Son; not begotten them like Him of His Own Substance, but adopted them by Him out of His Own family. For "we have been called," as Holy Scripture testifieth, "into the adoption of sons." ³