Psalms 21:23

“Sweet is the Word that gives us light, precious above gold and gems; it is to be desired above honey and the honey-comb.” For how can it be other than desirable, since it has filled with light the mind which had been buried in darkness, and given keenness to the “light-bringing eyes” of the soul? For just as, had the sun not been in existence, night would have brooded over the universe notwithstanding the other luminaries of heaven; so, had we nor known the Word, and been illuminated by Him; we should have been nowise different from fowls that are being fed, fattened in darkness, and nourished for death. Let us then admit the light, that we may admit God; let us admit the light, and become disciples to the Lord. …

You have the work of the apostles also predicted: “How beautiful are the feet of them which preach the gospel of peace, which bring good tidings of good,” not of war nor evil tidings. In response to which is the psalm, “Their sound is gone through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world;” that is, the words of them who carry round about the law that proceeded from Sion and the Lord’s word from Jerusalem, in order that that might come to pass which was written: “They who were far from my righteousness, have come near to my righteousness and truth.” When the apostles girded their loins for this business, they renounced the elders and rulers and priests of the Jews. …

In Isaiah: “I have spread out my hands all day to a people disobedient and contradicting me, who walk in ways that are not good, but after their own sins.” Also in Jeremiah: “Come, let us cast the tree into His bread, and let us blot out His life from the earth.” Also in Deuteronomy: “And Thy life shall be hanging (in doubt) before Thine eyes; and Thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt not trust to Thy life.” Also in the twenty-first Psalm: “They tore my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones. And they gazed upon me, and saw me, and divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast a lot. But Thou, O Lord, remove not Thy help far from me; attend unto my help. Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the paw of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns. …

7. For it is from prophecy that we convince gainsaying pagans. Who is Christ? says the pagan. To whom we reply, He whom the prophets foretold. What prophets? asks he. We quote Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, and other holy prophets: we tell him that they came long before Christ, by what length of time they preceded His coming. We make this reply then: Prophets came before Him, and they foretold His coming. One of them answers: What prophets? We quote for him those which are daily read to us. And, said he, Who are these prophets? We answer: Those who also foretold the things which we see come to pass. And he urges: You have forged these for yourselves, you have seen them come to pass, and have written them in what books you pleased, as if their coming had been predicted. Here in opposition to pagan enemies the witness of other enemies offers itself. …

23. “I will declare Thy name to My brethren” ( ver. 22 ). I will declare Thy name to the humble, and to My Brethren that love one another as they have been beloved by Me. “In the midst of the Church will I sing of Thee.” In the midst of the Church will I with rejoicing preach Thee.

“For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Seest thou how again he shows the superiority? For by saying, “He is not ashamed,” he shows that the whole comes not of the nature of the thing, but of the loving affection of Him who was “not ashamed” of anything, [yea] of His great humility. For though we be “of one,” yet He sanctifieth and we are sanctified: and great is the difference. Moreover “He” is of the Father, as a true Son, that is, of His substance; “we,” as created, that is, brought out of things that are not, so that the difference is great. Wherefore he says, “He is not ashamed to call them brethren” ( ver. 12 ), “saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren.” ( Ps. xxii. 22 .) For when He clothed Himself with flesh, He clothed Himself also with the brotherhood, and at the same time came in the brotherhood.

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. …

17. Innumerable instances of the same kind are to be found in the sacred books. But, to be brief, I will return to the last of the four classes of brethren, those, namely, who are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship. I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren, as in the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” And in another psalm the Saviour says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” And elsewhere, “Go unto my brethren and say to them.” I say also general , because we are all children of one Father, there is a like bond of brotherhood between us all. …

15. These, then, are the words with which He prefaces the message, Go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God . I ask, Are they to be understood as His brethren with reference to the form of God or to the form of a servant? And has our flesh kinship with Him in regard to the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him, that we should be reckoned His brothers in respect of His divinity? No, for the Spirit of prophecy recognises clearly in what respect we are the brethren of the Only-begotten God. It is as a worm and no man that He says, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren . …