Christ Was God Before He Became Man

We have now finished three books with the surest and most valuable witnesses, whose truth rests not only on human but also on divine evidence. They would be more than enough to prove our case by divine authority, especially since the divine authority of the case itself would be enough for that. Still, the whole body of the sacred Scriptures is full of such evidence. Where there are so many witnesses, there are just as many statements to press home; indeed, Holy Scripture itself gives its witness, so to speak, with one divine mouth. So we have thought it right to add some more, not because any confirmation is needed, but because of the wealth of material at hand, so that whatever might be unnecessary for defense might serve as ornament. [a]

In the earlier books, then, we proved the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ while he was in the flesh, by the evidence not only of prophets and apostles but of evangelists and angels as well. Let us now show that he who was born in the flesh was God even before his incarnation. In this way you may understand, from the harmony and agreement of the evidence of the sacred Scriptures, that you ought to believe that at his birth in the body he was both God and man, he who before his birth was God only; and that he who was God after the Virgin had brought him forth in the body was, before his birth from the Virgin, God the Word.

Learn first of all, then, from the apostle, the teacher of the whole world, that he who is without beginning, God, the Son of God, became the Son of man at the end of the world, that is, in the fullness of the times. For he says: “But when the fullness of the times had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Tell me, then: before the Lord Jesus Christ was born of his mother Mary, did God have a Son or did he not? You cannot deny that he had. For there has never yet been either a son without a father or a father without a son, because just as a son is called a son with reference to a father, so a father is named a father with reference to a son.