Chapter XII.
The comparison, found in the Gospel of St. John, of the
Son to a Vine and the Father to a husbandman, must be understood with
reference to the Incarnation. To understand it with reference to
the Divine Generation is to doubly insult the Son, making Him inferior
to St. Paul, and bringing Him down to the level of the rest of mankind, as well as in like manner the Father also, by making Him not merely to be on one footing with the same Apostle, but even of no account at all. The Son, indeed, in so far as being God, is also the husbandman, and, as regards His Manhood, a grape-cluster. True statement of the Father’s pre-eminence.
158. is yet
another Scripture, which our opponents commonly object against us, in
order to prove their division of the Godhead of the Father from the
Godhead of the
Son, namely, our Lord’s words in the Gospel: “I am the true Vine and My Father is the Husbandman.” The vine and the husbandman, say they, are of different natures, and the vine is in the power of the husbandman.
159. Thus, then, ye would have us believe
that the Son, as touching His Godhead, is like to a vine, so that
without a vine-dresser He is nothing, and may be neglected or even
rooted up. Thus ye juggle up a lie from the letter of the
Scripture which sayeth that our Lord called Himself the Vine, intending
thereby the mystery of His Incarnation. Howbeit, if ye are bent on it that
we dispute upon the letter, I too confess, yea, I proclaim, that the
Son called Himself the Vine. For woe be to me, if I deny the
pledge of the
salvation of His people!
160. How then do you purpose to understand
the truth that the Son of God called Himself the Vine? If you
interpret the saying with respect to the Substance of His Godhead, and
if you suppose such a diversity of Godhead between the Father and the
Son as there is of nature between a husbandman and a vine, you do
double insult both to Father and to Son—to the Son, because if, as you affirm, He is, as touching His Godhead, beneath a husbandman, then must He on the same showing be esteemed lower than the Apostle Paul, forasmuch as Paul indeed called himself a husbandman, as we find it written: “I have planted, Apollos hath watered: but God hath given the increase.” Will you have Paul, then, to be better than the Son of God?
161. Thus far the one insult. As for
the other, it lies herein, that if the Son is the Vine in respect of
His eternally-begotten Person, then, He having said: “I am
the Vine, ye are the branches,” that divinely-begotten One appears to be
of one substance with us. But “who is like unto Thee among
the gods, O Lord?” as it is
written; and again, in the Psalms: “For who is there among
the clouds that shall be equal to the Lord? Or who among the sons
of God shall be like unto God.”
162. Moreover, ye disparage not only the Son, but
the Father also. For if the term “husbandman” is to
comprehend in its designation all the prerogative of the Father’s
Sovereignty, then, seeing that Paul too is a husbandman, you set the
Apostle, to whom you deny that the Son is equal, on an even footing
with the Father.
163. Again, it being written, “But
neither he which planteth is anything, nor he that watereth; but God, Who giveth the increase,” you will rest the fulness of the Father’s Majesty in a name which, as you see, stands for weakness. For if he that planteth is nothing, and he that watereth is nothing, but it is God, Who giveth the increase [Who is all], observe what your blasphemy intends—even to expose the Father to contempt under the title of a husbandman, and to demand another God to provide the increase of the Father’s labour. Wickedly, therefore, do they think to extol the Dignity of God the Father by this use of the term “husbandman,” in which God the Father is brought down to the level of man, as being designated by a common title.
