This, For God is a Spirit, and
those who worship Him, etc., that is to say, He is an incorporeal and
infinite substance unlimited to places; but He is in every place, and
everywhere we ought to worship and pray to Him. For He made Himself gradually
known to the Samarian woman; first as a thirsty man, then as a Jew, then as the
Christ; leading from step to step, He placed her on the top step; at first she
saw Him as a thirst man, and then as a Jew, and then as a Prophet, and then as
God. (The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv, 3 vols. [trans. Margaret
Dunlop Gibson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911], 1:231)
I ascend unto My Father, and your
Father; and My God, and your God. This word is an Atlantic ocean;
and in another place we have expounded [it]. But shortly, all this was a custom
of our Saviour, that He sometimes speaks from the person of His Godhead, like
this, I and My Father are one, etc.; and sometimes from the person of His
Humanity, like this, Why do you seek to kill Me? a man who hath spoken truly
with you? but sometimes from the person of the Unity, as in the present case;
for He distinguishes the natures and Persons in this, My Father and My
God, and confines them to the unity of a Person, by means of the
conjunction of both names to one Something. For this is the definition of
Unity; conjunction in one Person of two natures and individualities, which give
names and deeds to one another, natures and Persons being preserved without
mixture and confusion. See an example of Unity. God is not the God of the Word
either by grace or any other way.
Mar Nestorius
says: He is God, and Father at the same time and God; but Father
to Me on the one hand by nature, to you on the other hand by Grace; but God
to Me on the one hand by Grace, to you on the other hand by Nature; nevertheless
one Person and one Lord and one Christ, and one Son in both of them. (The
Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv, 3 vols. [trans. Margaret Dunlop Gibson;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911], 1:284)
Whose soever sins ye remit, they
are remitted to him; and whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained.
Therefore this gift from the breathing regarded only the authority to
bind and loose; in order that it might be seen by them, that this was the
fulfilment of the things concerning Peter, I will give unto thee the keys of
the Kingdom of Heaven, etc.; for it was also right for Him to begin by gifts
like these; that they might learn that from Himself by nature, and one of like
essence with Him, the Spirit, whom He would give to them [there would be]
abundant wealth of gifts. And on that account He said, He shall take of Mine,
and shall shew it unto you. But until where does the breathing come? and
does He limit [it]? Whose soever sins ye remit, or retain? well,
to the true gift; for not alone does He give power for the working both of
signs and wonders; but also that they would be Gods by name; for it is the
prerogative of God alone to forgive sins or to retain them, which the Jews also
caused our Lord to hear, saying Who can forgive sins, but God only? to those
who fear Him He gives ungrudgingly. (The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv,
3 vols. [trans. Margaret Dunlop Gibson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1911], 1:286)
