The Co-eternity of the Son

…That is, from the earth; a staining of garments from Bosporus?"—a term which in the Greek tongue signifies compression or affliction—"that your garments and your clothing are red, as if from the tread of a winepress?" They were approaching him there, saying, "What are these wounds which are in the midst of your hands?" And he replied to them, "As I was struck in my beloved house." No one would have clearly asserted that it was necessary for him to retain the marks of the nails after the resurrection and to ascend into heaven with them.

It is more worthy to contemplate that matter.

Just as he showed the side to the unbelieving Thomas, along with the marks of the nails, so that he might finally believe and say with a learning mind, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28), so also he appeared through the signs of the passion, making the manner of the economy after the flesh manifest to the holy angels. Indeed, he bore red garments and the marks of the nails so that they too might believe that, being by nature and truly existing God, he had become a son of man, having taken a body from the holy Virgin and having seated himself in self-emptying, so that, having offered himself as a sacrifice and a victim for all as a fragrance of sweetness to God and the Father, he might save those under heaven.

The holy multitude of the angels also worships him. They do not refuse this worship because he was a firstborn and a man among many brothers, but having been taught the economy, they recognize the Son from God according to nature and the moment when he became flesh.

…But to the Son: "Your throne, O God" (Psalm 45:7).

How, then, is it not foolish and impudent to scrutinize that nature through which all things were provided toward existence, a nature older than all time? For through it the Word has come to be, and before all ages, the Word is from God the Father.

Yet the wanderers accuse him of being recent, claiming that he is a created being, not realizing that they are opposing the words of the Holy Spirit.

For those who speak in the Spirit say that the ages were made through him.

But those who insist he is a created being base their argument on what lies beyond intellect and reason, failing to grasp even that through the lens of intellect.

For God did not become Father within time, but he was always so, even in the beginning.

Since this is the case, it is a necessity in every respect to conceive of the Son as co-existing, so that God may truly be called Father.

Since they have taught that if the Son is the Word of the Father, and wisdom, and power, and the character and radiance of his subsistence, then what sort of time was it during which the Father was without the Logos, lacking the Son? When was the source of wisdom without wisdom itself? When was power without its power? When was the radiance of his glory not present in God? Or how could his own character not be continuously with him and in him? If indeed these things came to pass within time, then he was not Father before he was begotten; he would have been without Logos, without wisdom, and without strength, lacking both character and radiance.

But I consider it impious to conceive of such a thing, and it is the highest impiety…