Chapter 1. Proof That Our Lord Knew Only One God and Father
Chapter 1
1. This, then, is certain and constant: No other God and Lord was announced by the Spirit in his own name than the God who has dominion over all things together with his Word. This is also certain and constant: those who believe in the one and true God and in Christ Jesus the Son of God receive the Spirit of adoption. Likewise, the apostles themselves did not call anyone else God or name anyone else Lord. Even more so, Our Lord, who commanded us to confess no one as Father except the one who is in heaven, who is the one God and the one Father, did not call anyone else Lord. Consequently, what these circumventors and most perverse sophists assert is manifestly shown to be false. They assert, namely, that what they thought up is in reality God and Father, but by name, inasmuch as he has dominion over creation, as these perverse mythologists assert, thinking up ideas against God as they do. Passing over the doctrine of Christ and of themselves divining false doctrines, they dispute against God’s entire economy. For they assert that their Aeons are called gods and fathers, and lords, and even heavens, while their mother they call both earth and Jerusalem and give her many other names.
2. Now, to whom is it not evident that if the Lord had known many fathers and gods, he would not have commanded his disciples to acknowledge one God and to call this same one alone Father? On the contrary, he distinguished those who are gods only by name from him who is truly God, so that they might not mistake his doctrine, nor understand the one in place of the other. If he had commanded us to call one Father and God, whereas he himself would at times confess other fathers and gods in the same sense, he would appear to command one thing to his disciples while he himself would do something else. But such [manner of action] is not the part of a good teacher but of one who deceives and is envious. The apostles, too, according to these men, are shown to be transgressors of the rule, if this one is not the only God and Father, as we have demonstrated. And so Jesus, since he commanded one to be called Father, would be for them the author and teacher of transgression by imposing on them the necessity of confessing the Creator as his Father, as has been demonstrated.