For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:14–19)
We must investigate, therefore, how “all paternity in heaven and on earth has been named from” God “the Father.” And at the same time, before anything is examined it should be noted that he did not say, “from whom all paternity in heaven and on earth” has been born, or created, but “from whom all paternity in heaven and on earth is named.” For it is one thing to be worthy of the title “paternity” but another to have participation in its nature.… When I occupy myself with the rest, that is, where I might also read the term paternity of the Gentiles, I do not, nevertheless, now discover another occurrence except for the testimony of the twenty-first Psalm where it is written, “And all the paternities of the Gentiles shall worship in His sight” (Ps. 21:28), and that of the twenty-eighth, “Bring to the Lord, O paternities of the Gentiles, bring to the Lord the sons of rams” (Ps. 28:1). As, then, God bestows the name of His essence and of His substance as well on other elements so that they themselves also are said to exist (not that they exist according to nature—for there was a time when all things did not exist and, if He wished, they might be turned into nothing again—but as they are said to exist they have the gift by the goodness of God), so also the name of paternity has been imparted to all from Himself.
But to make this clearer, let me cite the testimony of the Scriptures. The Lord says in Exodus, “I am who I am,” and, “You shall say this to the sons of Israel, ‘He who is sent me’” (Exod. 3:14). Was God alone and there were no other things? There were certainly angels, heaven, earth or the seas, and Moses himself to whom the Lord was speaking, and Israel and the Egyptians to whom and against whom he was sent as leader and adversary. How does God lay claim to the common appellation of substance as peculiar to Himself? The reason is, as we have said, that other things receive substance by the mediation of God, but God—who always is and does not have His beginning from another source but is Himself the origin of Himself and the cause of His own substance—can not be understood to have something which has existence from another source. Warmth, indeed, is something which belongs to fire, but something which has been warmed is something else. Fire cannot be understood without heat; other things which become warm from fire borrow its heat and, if the fire should withdraw, the heat gradually decreases and they return to their own nature and are by no means referred to as warm.
It is in this sense also that it is said in the Gospel to the man who thought of the Savior not as the Son of God but as a good teacher, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God” (Mark 10:18). We certainly read also of a good land, a good man, and a good shepherd. No one, however, is good by nature except God alone. Other things acquire goodness from his goodness so that they may be designated good. As, therefore, the good alone causes good, and the immortal alone imparts immortality, and He who is true alone bestows the name of truth, so also the Father alone, because He is the creator of all things and is the cause of the substance of all things, grants to others that they may be said to be fathers. From earthly things, we may contemplate heavenly things. Adam, whom God formed first and was his creator and Father, certainly knew that he owed the fact that he existed to God the Father. Again those who have been born from Adam understand him from whom they have their origin to be their father. Whence also in the Gospel according to Luke when little by little the generation has been reckoned backward from Christ to David and Abraham Scripture says at the end, “of the son of Seth, of the son of Adam, of the son of God” (Luke 3:38), so that it shows that the designation of paternity on earth has its origin in the first instance from God.…
We can say, therefore, that because God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to His substance and the only begotten is Son not by adoption but by nature, other creatures also merit the name of paternity by adoption. We know, furthermore, that whatever we say of the Father and the Son has been said of the Holy Spirit. Our Savior also knew Himself to be a father when he said, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” and, “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” and “My little children, yet a little while I am with you” (Mark 2:5; Matt. 9:22; John 13:33). All who are just are adopted as sons through the Holy Spirit.
Jerome, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians 3
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