The Son's equality with the Father despite scriptural texts that seem to subordinate him
Augustine is explaining how the Son relates to the Father, and why some scriptural statements about Christ seem to make him less than the Father.
Learned and spiritual men have written many books about the Father and the Son, in which they have tried, as far as human beings can speak to human beings, to suggest how the Father and the Son are not one person but are one thing, and what the Father is in his own right and what the Son is. The Father is the begetter, the Son is the begotten; the Father is not from the Son, the Son is from the Father; the Father is the Son's beginning—which is why he is called the head of Christ, though Christ too is a beginning, but not of the Father—while the Son is the Father's image, though in no respect unlike him and entirely equal without any difference. Those who want to explain the whole profession of the Christian faith at greater length than we do treat these matters more fully.
So, insofar as he is the Son, he received from the Father that he exists, while the Father did not receive this from the Son. And insofar as he took up a changeable human being—a creature that was to be changed for the better—through his ineffable mercy in his earthly mission, many things are found said about him in the Scriptures in such a way that they have driven the impious minds of heretics, who wanted to teach before they learned, into error. They have made the heretics think that he is not equal to the Father and not of the same substance as him. Such statements are these: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), and “The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3), and “Then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him” (1 Corinthians 15:28), and “I am going to my God and your God” (John 20:17), and several others of this kind.
All of these were set down not to signify an inequality of nature and substance—otherwise these would be false: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and “Whoever has seen me has seen my Father” (John 14:9), and “The Word was God” (John 1:1)—for he was not made God, since all things were made through him—and “He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6), and other such statements. Rather, those statements were set down partly because of the administration of the man he took up, which is why it says: “He emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7)—not because that wisdom was changed, since it is entirely unchangeable, but because he willed to become known to human beings in such a lowly way. So partly because of this administration those things were written about which the heretics make false accusations, and partly because the Son owes to the Father that he exists, and in owing this he also owes to the Father that he is equal to or on a par with the Father. But the Father owes nothing of what he is to anyone.
Latin
Et de patre quidem ac filio multis libris disseruerunt docti et spiritales uiri, quibus, quantum homines hominibus poterant, et quemadmodum non unus esset pater et filius, sed unum essent, et quid proprie pater esset et quid filius, insinuare conati sunt: quod ille genitor, ille genitus; ille non de filio, ille de patre; ille huius principium, unde et caput Christi dicitur, quamuis et Christus principium, sed non patris; hic uero illius imago, quamuis nulla ex parte dissimilis et omnino indifferenter aequalis. tractantur haec latius ab eis, qui non tam breuiter quam nos totius Christianae fidei professionem uolunt explicare. itaque, in quantum filius est, de patre accepit, ut sit, cum ille de filio id non acceperit: et in quantum hominem mutabilem, scilicet creaturam in melius commutandam, ineffabili misericordia temporali dispensatione suscepit, multa de illo in scripturis inueniuntur ita dicta, ut inpias haereticorum mentes prius uolentes docere quam nosse in errorem miserint, ut putarent eum non aequalem patri nec eiusdem esse substantiae, qualia sunt illa: quoniam pater maior me est, et: caput mulieris uir, caput uiri Christus, caput autem Christi deus, et: tunc et ipse subiectus erit ei, qui illi subiecit omnia, et: uado ad deum meum et deum uestrum, et nonnulla huius modi: quae omnia posita sunt, non ut naturae atque substantiae inaequalitatem significent, ne falsa sint illa: ego et pater unum sumus, et: qui me uidit, uidit et patrem meum, et: deus erat uerbum — non enim factus deus, cum omnia per ipsum facta sint — et: non rapinam arbitratus est esse aequalis deo et cetera talia, sed illa posita sunt partim propter administrationem suscepti hominis, qua dicitur: semet ipsum exinaniuit — non quia mutata est illa sapientia, cum sit omnino incommutabilis, sed quia tam humiliter hominibus innotescere uoluit — partim ergo propter hanc administrationem illa ita scripta sunt, de quibus haeretici calumniantur, partim propterea, quia filius patri debet, quod est, hoc etiam debens utique patri, quod eidem patri aequalis aut par est; pater autem nulli debet quidquid est.