Moreover, the rich man called him good,
as though favouring him, as people favour their companions with honorary
titles. [The Lord] fled from that by which people favoured him, so that he
might show that he had received this goodness from the Father, through nature
and generation, and not [merely] in name. One only is good, [he said],
and did not remain silent, but added, the Father, so that he might show
that the Son he possesses is good, because he is similar to him. [The rich man]
called him Good Teacher, as though one of the [ordinary] good teachers. No
one is good, as you think, except one, God the Father. He said God,
to show about whom he was speaking. [He said] the Father, to show that
[God] could not be called Father, except on account on the Son. Because they
were ready to locate many gods in heaven, he said, There is no one good
except one, the Father who is in heaven. “I am not God and God, but God
from God, and not good alongside good, but good from good.” That is why he
said, Father. For if you hear [a judgment] about a good tree, you instantly
extend the witness of goodness to its fruit also. Wherefore, just as the son of
the Law had come from the Law to be instructed, he replied to him as though
from the Law, I am, and there is none besides me. So too here, No one
is good, except one. The two [statements] are one [in meaning], just as in Hear,
O Israel, the Lord your God is one. (Saint Ephrem's Commentary on
Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709
with Introduction and Notes XV §2 [trans. Carmel McCarthy; Journal of
Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 2000], 229-30)
