Early Church, Monarchy & Hierarchy

The Lord did nothing without the Father, for He was united to Him. . . . [There is] one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father. He is with one Father, and He has gone to one Father.

Be the followers of Jesus Christ, even as He is of His Father.

He is the Lord of the people, having received all authority from His Father.

They proclaim our madness to consist in this: that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all. For they do not discern the mystery that is herein.

He who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, and who is called God, is distinct from the One who made all things. I mean, he is numerically distinct; He is not distinct in will. For I assert that He has never at anytime done anything that the One who made the world (above whom there is no other God) has not wished Him both to do and to engage Himself with.

I will repeat the whole Psalm, in order that you may hear His reverence for the Father. Listen to how He refers all things to Him, and prays to be delivered by Him from this death. . . . “O God, my God, attend to me: why have You forsaken me? . . . O my God, I will cry to you in the daytime.”

The Son performs the good pleasure of the Father. For the Father sends, and the Son is sent, and comes.

For His Offspring and His Image do minister to Him in every respect. That is, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom—whom all the angels serve and to whom they are subject.

The Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man in God. The Mediator executes the Father’s will. For the Mediator is the Word, who is common to both man and God. He is the Son of God, but the Savior of men. He is God’s Servant, but our Teacher.

We have heard it said, “The Head of Christ is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” . . . The Son sees the goodness of the Father. God the Savior works, for He is called the First Principle of all things. He first imaged forth from the invisible God, before the ages. He fashioned all things that came into being after Himself.

Xenocrates the Chalcedonian mentions the supreme Zeus and the subordinate Zeus. In doing so, he leaves an indication of the Father and the Son.

Jesus is the Lord of all and serves above all the will of the Good and Almighty Father.

He Himself proclaimed that He did not do His own will, but that of the Father.

However, with regard to the Father, the very gospel which is common to us will testify that He was never visible, according to the word of Christ. . . . He means that the Father is invisible, in whose authority and in whose name was He God who appeared as the Son of God.

In addition to the title of Son, He was the Sent One. The authority, therefore, of the Sender must necessarily have first appeared in a testimony of the Sent. That is because no one who comes in the authority of another declares things for himself, that is, on his own assertion.

He Himself received from the Father the ability of uttering words in season: “The Lord has given to me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season.” However, Marcion introduces to us a Christ who is not subject to the Father.

No directive about the salvation of angels did Christ ever receive from the Father. And that which the Father neither promised nor commanded, Christ could not have undertaken.

The Son of God has faith’s protection absolutely committed to Him. He beseeches it of the Father—from whom He receives all power in heaven and on earth.

No one, therefore, will impair [the monarchy of God] on account of admitting the Son. For it is certain that it has been committed to Him by the Father. Eventually, it has to be delivered up again by Him to the Father.

With us, however, the Son alone knows the Father, and has Himself unfolded the Father’s bosom. He has also heard and seen all things with the Father. And what He has been commanded by the Father, that also is what He speaks. And it is not His own will, but the Father’s that He has accomplished. He had known this fact most intimately, even from the beginning. . . . The Word, therefore, is both always in the Father (as He says, “I am in the Father”) and is always with God (according to what is written, “And the Word was with God”). He is never separated from the Father, or different from the Father, since “I and the Father are one.”

Consider whether the Son also is not indicated by these designations, who in His own right is God Almighty, in that He is the Word of Almighty God and has received power over all. He is the Most High, in that He is exalted at the right hand of God, as Peter declares in the Acts. He is the Lord of hosts, because all things are made subject to Him by the Father.

He accordingly says Unum, a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of number, but unity of essence, likeness, and conjunction. It implies affection on the Father’s part, who loves the Son. And it implies submission on the Son’s part, who obeys the Father’s will.

It is the Father who commands, and the Son who obeys, and the Holy Spirit who gives understanding. The Father is above all, the Son is through all, and the Holy Spirit is in all.

He is called the “image of the invisible God and the First-Born of every creature.” “In Him all things were created, visible and invisible, . . . and He is before all things and by Him all things were made.” So He is the head of all things, having God the Father alone as His head. For it is written, “The head of Christ is God.”

He became obedient to the Father—not only by the death of the cross—but also in the end of the world. For He embraces in Himself all whom He subjects to the Father, and who by Him come to salvation. For He Himself (along with them, and in them) is said to also be subject to the Father. . . . Consequently, this is what the apostle says of Him: “And when all things will be subjected to Him, then will the Son also Himself be subject to Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” Indeed, I do not know how the heretics—not understanding the meaning of the apostle in these words consider the term “subjection” to be degrading when applied to the Son. . . . Now, according to their view, the language of the apostle means . . . that He who is not now in subjection to the Father will become subject to Him when the Father will have first subdued all things unto Him. However, I am astonished how it can be conceived that the meaning is that He who is not Himself in subjection at the present (when all things have not been subjected to Him) will later be made subject once all things have been subjected to Him.

Nor must we forget to mention the Word, who is God after the Father of all.

He will be at no loss to account for the Father’s saying to Him, “You are My Servant,” and a little further on, “It is a great thing that you should be called My Servant.” For we do not hesitate to say that the goodness of Christ appears in a greater and more divine light . . . because “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” than if He had judged it a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, and had shrunk from becoming a servant for the salvation of the world. He desires to teach us that in accepting this state of servitude, He had received a great gift from His Father. Hence, He says, “And My God will be My strength.”

Just as Christ is our head, so God is His head.

The Word of God, who is called Faithful, is also called True. In righteousness, He judges and makes war. For He has received from God the faculty of judging.

The Unbegotten God commanded the First-Born of all creation, and they were created.

First, then, stands the Father, being without any turning or change. And then stands also His Word, always carrying on His work of salvation.

We say that the visible world is under the government of Him who created all things. We do thereby declare that the Son is not mightier than the Father—but subordinate to Him. And this belief we ground on the saying of Jesus himself, “The Father who sent me is greater than I.” And none of us is so insane as to declare that the Son of man is Lord over God. But we regard the Savior as God the Word, and Wisdom, Righteousness, and Truth. And we certainly do say that He has dominion over all things that have been subjected to Him in this capacity. But we do not say that His domain extends over the God and Father who is Ruler over all.

Who does not acknowledge that the person of the Son is second after the Father?

The divine Scripture (not so much of the Old as also of the New Testament) everywhere demonstrates Him to be born of the Father. By Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made. He always has obeyed and still obeys the Father. He always has power over all things—but these have been delivered, granted, or permitted to Him by the Father Himself. And what can be so evident proof that He is not the Father, but is the Son, than that He is shown as being obedient to God the Father.

He declares that He was sanctified by His Father. Therefore, in receiving sanctification from the Father, He is secondary to the Father. Obviously, then, He who is secondary to the Father is not the Father, but the Son. For had He been the Father, He would have given, and not received, sanctification. . . . Besides, He says that He is sent. So in being obedient as to His coming, being sent, He proved to be the Son—not the Father. If he had been the Father, He would have done the sending. But being sent, He was not the Father. Otherwise, in being sent, the Father would be proved to be subjected to another God.

He also is the image of God the Father. . . . And the Son is an imitator of all the Father’s works. Therefore, everyone may regard it just as if he saw the Father, when he sees Him who always imitates the invisible Father in all His works.

Christ received that very power by which we are baptized and sanctified from the same Father whom He called greater than Himself. This is the same Father by whom He desired to be glorified, whose will He fulfilled even unto the obedience of drinking the cup and undergoing death.

He who is called a confessor of Christ should imitate Christ whom he confesses. . . . For He Himself has been exalted by the Father. For, as the Word, the Strength, and the Wisdom of God the Father, He humbled Himself upon earth. . . . And He Himself received the highest name from the Father as the reward for His humility.

“I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” Now, if the Son was obedient to do His Father’s will, how much more should the servant be obedient to do his Master’s will.

Of this mercy and grace, the Word and Son of God is sent as the Dispenser and Master. . . . He is the Power of God. He is the Logos. He is His Wisdom and Glory. He enters into a virgin. Through the Holy Spirit, He is clothed with flesh. God is mingled with man. This is our God, this is Christ, who, as the Mediator of the two, puts on man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, Christ was willing to be—so that man may also be what Christ is.

Assuredly, the will of the Son is not one thing, and the will of the Father another. For He who wills what the Father wills, is seen to have the Father’s will. So He is speaking figuratively when He says, “Not my will, but yours.” For it is not that He wishes the cup to be removed, but that He refers the correct issue of His passion to the Father’s will. He thereby honors the Father as the First [Gr. arche].

On the head, the whiteness is shown. “But the head of Christ is God.”

The prophets and apostles spoke more fully concerning the Son of God. They assigned to Him a divinity above other men. They did not refer their praises of Him to the teaching of angels, but to Him upon whom all authority and power depend. For it was fitting that He, who was greater than all things after the Father, should have the Father as His witness—who alone is greater than Himself.

When God began the fabric of the world, He set over the whole work that first and greatest Son. He used Him at the same time as a Counsellor and Artificer, in planning, arranging, and accomplishing. For the Son is complete both in knowledge, judgment, and power.

Jesus displayed faith towards God. For He taught that there is but one God, and this one God alone should be worshipped. Nor did He at any time say that He Himself was [the] God. For He would not have maintained His faithfulness if He had introduced another God besides that One. For He was sent to abolish the false gods and to assert the existence of the one God. This would not have been to proclaim one God nor to do the work of Him who sent Him. . . . He was so faithful because He arrogated nothing at all to Himself. On account of this, in order to fulfill the commands of Him who sent Him, He received the dignity of everlasting Priest, the honor of supreme King, the authority of Judge, and the name of God.

We Christians are nothing else than worshippers of the Supreme King and Head, under our Master, Christ.

It will be revealed from what realms He has come, of what God He is the Minister.

He who does not receive Christ does not receive His God and Father.

Let the deacon minister to the bishop as Christ does to His Father. And let him serve him unblamably in all things. For Christ does nothing of Himself, but always does those things that please His Father.

Christ does nothing without his Father. . . . And as the Son is nothing without His Father, so is the deacon nothing without his bishop. And as the Son is subject to His Father, so is every deacon subject to his bishop.

He . . . blesses and glorifies the Lord God Almighty, the Father of the Only-Begotten God.