But to end let us see the addition with which you sum up your preceding blasphemies. Your words are, "Who gave such [2657] glory to Christ?" You name glory in order to degrade Him. For by the assertion that the Lord was endowed with glory, in saying that He received it you blasphemously imply that He stood in need of it. For your perverse notion suggests that the generosity of the giver shows the need of the receiver. O miserable impiety of yours! and where is that which Divinity itself once foretold of the Lord Jesus Christ ascending into heaven? Saying: "Lift up your heads, and the King of glory shall come in." [2658] And when He (after the fashion of Divine utterances) had made answer to Himself as if in the character of an inquirer: "Who is the King of glory?" at once He adds: "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle:" showing under the figure of a battle fought, the victory of the Lord in His triumph. Then when, to complete the exposition of it, He had repeated the words of the utterance quoted above, He showed by the following conclusion the majesty of the Lord as He entered heaven, saying "The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." On purpose that the fact of His taking a body might not interfere with the glory of His mighty Divinity, He taught that the same Person was Lord of hosts and King of heavenly glory, whom He had previously proclaimed Victor in the battle below. Go now [2659] and say that the glory was given to the Lord, when both prophecy has said that He was the King of glory, and He Himself also has testified of Himself as follows: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory." [2660] Refute it, if you can, and contradict this; viz., that whereas He testifies that He has glory of His own, you say that He has received Another's. Although we maintain that He has His own glory, in such a way that we do not deny that His very property of glory is common to Him with the Father and the Holy Ghost. For whatever God possesses belongs to the Godhead: and the kingdom of glory belongs to the Son of God in such a way that it is not kept back from belonging to the entire Godhead. Footnotes: [2657] Tantam Petschenig. Tamen Gazæus. [2658] Psalm 23.(xxiv.) 7. [2659] I nunc Petschenig. The text is however doubtful. One ms. reading is In hunc, and another jam nunc. [2660] S. Matthew 25:31. |
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