Apocalypse 1:8

Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, “the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;” the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed ( γαλακτοφάγοι ). So also may we take the Scripture: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;” so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. …

They more readily supposed that the Father acted in the Son’s name, than that the Son acted in the Father’s; although the Lord says Himself, “I am come in my Father’s name;” and even to the Father He declares, “I have manifested Thy name unto these men;” whilst the Scripture likewise says, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” that is to say, the Son in the Father’s name. And as for the Father’s names, God Almighty, the Most High, the Lord of hosts, the King of Israel, the “One that is,” we say (for so much do the Scriptures teach us) that they belonged suitably to the Son also, and that the Son came under these designations, and has always acted in them, and has thus manifested them in Himself to men. …

10. Let us now examine the expression, “Wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty;” and let us first consider what the glory of the omnipotent God is, and then we shall also understand what is its efflux. As no one can be a father without having a son, nor a master without possessing a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent unless there exist those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore, that God may be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things should exist. …

6. Let us look next at the apostle’s word: “Whose are the fathers, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.” This word declares the mystery of the truth rightly and clearly. He who is over all is God; for thus He speaks boldly, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father.” He who is over all, God blessed, has been born; and having been made man, He is (yet) God for ever. For to this effect John also has said, “Which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” And well has he named Christ the Almighty. For in this he has said only what Christ testifies of Himself. For Christ gave this testimony, and said, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father;” and Christ rules all things, and has been appointed Almighty by the Father. …

15. We believe also, that at the most seasonable time He Will Come from Thence, and Will Judge the Quick and the Dead : whether by these terms are signified the righteous and sinners, or whether it be the case that those persons are here called the quick , whom at that period He shall find, previous to [their] death, upon the earth, while the dead denote those who shall rise again at His advent. This temporal dispensation not only is , as holds good of that generation which respects His being God, but also hath been and shall be . For our Lord hath been upon the earth, and at present He is in heaven, and [hereafter] He shall be in His brightness as the Judge of the quick and the dead. For He shall yet come, even so as He has ascended, according to the authority which is contained in the Acts of the Apostles. …

4. On this account and reasonably, having said before, ‘I and the Father are One,’ He added, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ by way of shewing the identity of Godhead and the unity of Essence. For they are one, not as one thing divided into two parts, and these nothing but one, nor as one thing twice named, so that the Same becomes at one time Father, at another His own Son, for this Sabellius holding was judged an heretic. But They are two, because the Father is Father and is not also Son, and the Son is Son and not also Father; but the nature is one; (for the offspring is not unlike its parent, for it is his image), and all that is the Father’s, is the Son’s. …

49. This is why He has equality with the Father by titles expressive of unity, and what is said of the Father, is said in Scripture of the Son also, all but His being called Father. For the Son Himself said, ‘All things that the Father hath are Mine’ ( John xvi. 15 ); and He says to the Father, ‘All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine’ ( John xvii. 10 ), as for instance, the name God; for ‘the Word was God;’, Almighty, ‘Thus saith He that is, and that was, and that is to come, the Almighty’ ( John i. 1; Apoc. i. 8 ): the being Light, ‘I am,’ He says, ‘the Light’ ( John viii. 12 ): the Operative Cause, ‘All things were made by Him,’ and, ‘whatsoever I see the Father do, I do also’ ( John i. 3; v. …

18. He raises the objection that when God gave his second blessing, permission was granted to eat flesh, which had not in the first benediction been allowed. He should know that just as divorce according to the Saviour’s word was not permitted from the beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession of Moses to the human race, so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to our teeth. The Apostle writing to the Ephesians teaches that God had purposed in the fulness of time to sum up and renew in Christ Jesus all things which are in heaven and in earth. …

XVII. For we have learnt to believe in and to teach the Deity of the Son from their great and lofty utterances. And what utterances are these? These: God, The Word, He That Was In The Beginning and With The Beginning, and The Beginning. “In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “With Thee is the Beginning,” and “He who calleth her The Beginning from generations.” Then the Son is Only-begotten: The only “begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, it says, He hath declared Him.” The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light. …

35. But hear also such a passage as you can build no doubts upon: “Behold, He cometh,” saith the Scripture, “with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they which pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of Him. Yea, amen. I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord God, Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come, the Almighty.” Whom, I ask, did they pierce? For Whose coming hope we but the Son’s? Therefore, Christ is Almighty Lord, and God.

108. But neither had the Son of God any beginning, seeing that He already was at the beginning, nor shall He come to an end, Who is the Beginning and the End of the Universe; for being the Beginning, how could He take and receive that which He already had, or how shall He come to an end, being Himself the End of all things, so that in that End we have an abiding-place without end? The Divine Generation is not an event occurring in the course of time, and within its limits, and therefore before it time is not, and in it time has no place.

49. Lastly, when the succession derived through family descent from Aaron, contained rather heirs of the family than sharers in his righteousness, there came, after the likeness of that Melchisedech, of whom we read in the Old Testament, the true Melchisedech, the true King of peace, the true King of righteousness, for this is the interpretation of the Name, “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” which also refers to the Son of God, Who in His Divine Generation had no mother, was in His Birth of the Virgin Mary without a father; begotten before the ages of the Father alone, born in this age of the Virgin alone, and certainly could have no beginning of days seeing He “was in the beginning.” And how could He have any end of life, Who is the Author of life to all? He is “the Beginning and the Ending.” But this also is referred …