5.
But what is meant, says he, in the other passage: "This is God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him?" 1 That said he rightly. For in comparison of the Father who shall be accounted of? But he says: "This is our God; there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him. He hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved." He saith well. For who is Jacob His servant, Israel His beloved, but He of whom He crieth, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him?" 2 Having received, then, all knowledge from the Father, the perfect Israel, the true Jacob, afterward did show Himself upon earth, and conversed with men. And who, again, is meant by Israel 3 but a man who sees God? and there is no one who sees God except the Son alone, the perfect man who alone declares the will of the Father. For John also says, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 4 Him." 5 And again: "He who came down from heaven testifieth what He hath heard and seen." 6 This, then, is He to whom the Father hath given all knowledge, who did show Himself upon earth, and conversed with men.
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Baruch iii. 36, etc. ↩
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Matt. xvii. 5. ↩
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The word Israel is explained by Philo, De praemiis et poenis, p. 710, and elsewhere, as = a man seeing God, horon Theon, i.e., 'ys v'h 'l. So also in the Constitutiones Apostol., vii. 37, viii. 15; Eusebius, Praeparat., xi. 6, p. 519, and in many others. To the same class may be referred those who make Israel = horatikos aner kai theoretikos, a man apt to see and speculate, as Eusebius, Praeparat., p. 310, or = nous horon Theon, as Optatus in the end of the second book; Didymus in Jerome, and Jerome himself in various passages; Maximus, i. p. 284; Olympiodorus on Ecclesiastes, ch. i.; Leontius, De Sectis, p. 392; Theophanes, Ceram. homil., iv. p. 22, etc. Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryph. [see vol. i. pp. 226, 262], adduces another etymology, anthropos nikon dunamin. ↩
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Hippolytus reads diegesato for exegesato. ↩
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John i. 18. ↩
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John iii. 11, 13. ↩
