Chapter 7. How Abraham Was Taught by the Word
Chapter 7
1. Hence, Abraham, too, having known through the Word the Father who made heaven and earth, acknowledged him to be God. When he had learned by the apparition that God’s Son would become Man among men, through whose coming his posterity would become as the stars of heaven, he longed to see that day, so that he too might embrace Christ; and when he saw him by means of the Spirit of prophecy, he was glad. For this reason, Simeon, too, who was a descendant of his, brought the joy of the Patriarch to a climax and said: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to the people Israel. Even angels announced great joy to the shepherds who were keeping watch. Mary, moreover, said: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Thus Abraham’s exultation descended upon those of his posterity who were awaiting Christ and saw him and believed in him. But the exultation was reciprocal; it returned from the children to Abraham, who had longed to see the day of Christ’s coming. Well, then, did Our Lord testify in his regard. Your Father Abraham rejoiced, he said, that he might see my day, he saw it and was glad.
2. He said this not only because of Abraham, but to show that all who from the beginning had knowledge of God and prophesied Christ’s coming received the revelation from the Son himself. This Son in these last times became visible and touchable and spoke with the human race, so that from the stones he might raise up children to Abraham and might fulfill the promise that God had made to him [Abraham], and might make his posterity as the stars of heaven. John the Baptist said as much, For God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Jesus did that when he drew us away from the religion of stones and transferred us from the hard and unfruitful ideas, and established in us a faith like Abraham’s. Paul likewise testified, saying that we are Abraham’s children by virtue of the similarity of faith and the promise of the inheritance.
3. So there is one and the same God who called Abraham and gave him the promise. And he is the Maker who through Christ prepares the lights of the world, those believers from among the Gentiles. He says, You are the light of the world; that is, you are stars of heaven. Rightly, therefore, have we shown that this One is known by no one except the Son, and by those to whomever the Son may reveal. Now the Son reveals to all those by whom the Father wills to be known; so neither does anyone know God without the Father’s good pleasure, nor without the Son’s administration. For this reason, the Lord said to the disciples, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known the Father also; henceforth you know him and you have seen him. From those passages it is evident that he [God] is known through the Son, that is, through the Word.
4. Consequently, the Jews apostatized from God by not receiving his Word but thinking they can know the Father by himself without the Word, that is, without the Son. They were ignorant of the One who spoke in human form to Abraham and who also said to Moses, I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt and I have come down to deliver them. These things, in fact, the Son, who is the Word of God, performed from the beginning in advance, and the Father did not need the angels for making the creation and fashioning man, for whose sake even the creation was made. Nor was he in need of any service for giving form to the things that have been made, and for ordering man’s affairs. No, he had a rich and ineffable service, because his Offspring and his Pattern, that is, the Son and the Spirit, the Word and the Wisdom, minister to him in all his affairs—they whom all the angels serve and to whom they are subject. So those are foolish who because of the saying, No one knows the Father except the Son, introduce another, an unknown Father.