Hebrews 3:2

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture]. Abraham was specially honoured, and was called the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding the glory of God, humbly declared, “I am but dust and ashes.” Moreover, it is thus written of Job, “Job was a righteous man, and blameless, truthful, God-fearing, and one that kept himself from all evil.” But bringing an accusation against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.” Moses was called faithful in all God’s house; and through his instrumentality, God punished Egypt with plagues and tortures. …

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture]. Abraham was specially honoured, and was called the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding the glory of God, humbly declared, “I am but dust and ashes.” Moreover, it is thus written of Job, “Job was a righteous man, and blameless, truthful, God-fearing, and one that kept himself from all evil.” But bringing an accusation against himself, he said, “No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day.” Moses was called faithful in all God’s house; and through his instrumentality, God punished Egypt with plagues and tortures. …

C. iii. 1, 2 . “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus , who was faithful to Him that appointed [ or made] Him, as also Moses [was faithful] in all His house.” Being about to place Him before Moses in comparison, he led his discourse to the law of the high-priesthood; for they all had a high esteem for Moses: moreover, he is already beforehand casting down the seeds of the superiority. Therefore he begins from the flesh, and goes up to the Godhead, where there was no longer any comparison. He began from the flesh [from His Human nature], by assuming for a time the equality, and says, “as also Moses in all His house”: nor does he at first show His superiority lest the hearer should start away, and straightway stop his ears. …

Against X. The unchangeable nature was not changed into nature of flesh, but assumed human nature and set it over the common high priests, as the blessed Paul teaches in the words, “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is encompassed with infirmity. …

Dionysius, teaching exactly thus, in his letter to Euphranor and Ammonius wrote in view of Sabellius concerning the human pre dicates of the Saviour. For to the latter class belong the sayings, ‘I am the Vine and My Father the Husbandman’ ( Joh. xv. 1 ), and ‘faithful to Him that made Him’ ( Heb. iii. 2 ), and ‘He created me’ ( Prov. viii. 22 ), and ‘made so much better than the angels’ ( Heb. i. 4 ). But He was not ignorant of the passages, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in Me’ ( Joh. xiv. 10 ), and ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ For we know that he mentioned them in his other Epistles. For while mentioning them there, he made mention also of the human attributes of the Lord. For just as ‘being in the form of God He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave’ ( Phil. ii. …

This then being the sense of the expression, it follows that it is of the vine, so understood, that it is written: ‘Who was faithful to Him that had created Him’ ( Heb. iii. 2 ), and ‘made so much better than the angels’ (ib. i. 4 ), and ‘He created me’ ( Prov. viii. 22 ). For when He had taken that which He had to offer on our behalf, namely His body of the Virgin Mary, then it is written of Him that He had been created, and formed, and made: for such phrases are applicable to men. Moreover not after (His taking) the body has He been made better than the angels, lest He should appear to have been previously less than or equal to them. But writing to Jews, and comparing the human ministry of the Lord to Moses, he said, ‘having been made so much better than the angels,’ for by means of angels the law was spoken, because ‘the law was given by Moses, but grace came by Jesus Christ’ ( Joh. …

Chapter XIV . Texts explained; Fourthly, Hebrews iii. 2 Introduction; the Regula Fidei counter to an Arian sense of the text; which is not supported by the word ‘servant,’ nor by ‘made’ which occurs in it; (how can the Judge be among the ‘works’ which ‘God will bring into judgment?’) nor by ‘faithful;’ and is confuted by the immediate context, which is about Priesthood; and by the foregoing passage, which explains the word ‘faithful’ as meaning trustworthy, as do 1 Pet. iv . fin. and other texts. On the whole made may safely be understood either of the divine generation or the human creation.

1. I did indeed think that enough had been said already against the hollow professors of Arius’s madness, whether for their refutation or in the truth’s behalf, to insure a cessation and repentance of their evil thoughts and words about the Saviour. They, however, for whatever reason, still do not succumb; but, as swine and dogs wallow in their own vomit and their own mire, rather invent new expedients for their irreligion. Thus they misunderstand the passage in the Proverbs, ‘The Lord hath created me a beginning of His ways for His works,’ and the words of the Apostle, ‘Who was faithful to Him that made Him,’ and straightway argue, that the Son of God is a work and a creature. …