But you have still other words of
Christ with which you might assail us. For he says, when praying to the Father,
that before the world was founded he had with him that glory with which he was
asking to be adorned by him. We truly wonder that men otherwise perspicacious
are so blind as not to see that Christ means nothing else than that already
before the foundation of the world it had been decreed by his Father that he should
be adorned with that glory for which he asked. And if truly not a few other
places of the divine writings, in which something is said to be “had” or to
have been “given” which is merely decreed and destined, could not instruct you
concerning the sense of this place, that place at least in the same discourse
of Christ ought to have done so, which may be called a king of explanation of
this one. For afterwards Christ says: Father, I will that those whom thou
hast given me be also with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which
thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
Hence it is certainly clear: because Christ new that he had been loved by the
Father before the foundation of the world—that is, that that glory which he
expected was already then destined for him by the Father--, he therefore called
it “his” and said that he had already been given him by the Father and that he
had had it with the Father before the foundation of the world. And what is to
be said of this, that in the same prayer to the Father he says that he has
given to his disciples that glory which the Father had given him? For how could
Christ do this otherwise than by promise and destination? Wherefore it must be altogether
be granted that in this very same sense he said that glory had been given him by
the Father—which is the same as: that he had had that glory with the Father.
We say nothing meanwhile of this,
that the glory with which Christ demanded to be endued by his Father was not
that which you would have him to have had with the Father before the foundation
of the world; nothing of this, that if Christ had never had that glory devised
by you, he would never have laid it aside, and would have been furnished with
it even then, when he was praying to the Father, so that he would not have had
to ask that it be given him; nothing of this, that there was no cause why he
should ask it of the Father even if he had laid it aside, for he could have
resumed it of himself; nothing, finally, of this, that—even by your own
concession—he who was truly praying to the Father, or Christ in so far as he was
praying, had in reality never had that glory. All these things, then, and
others besides we pass over, which show that your interpretation of the words
of Christ can in no way be maintained. For everyone can see them of himself,
and some of you yourselves reject that interpretation and embrace ours. (Faustus
Socinus, On the Nature of Jesus Christ: Socinus’s Disputation Against
Andreas Volanus on the Essence of Christ and the Expiation of Sins [trans.
Marcin Poholski; 2026], 40-42)
