Not the Eternal Word but the Word Made Flesh

On Luke 10, verse 22, and Matthew 11, verse 27. This text speaks not of the eternal Word but of the Word made flesh.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” [a]

Because they do not see this, the followers of Arius, Eusebius and his party, give free rein to their impiety against the Lord. They say: if all things were handed over to him (and by “all” they mean lordship over creation), then there was once a time when he did not have them. But if he did not have them, he is not from the Father; for if he were, he would for that very reason have had them always, and would not have needed to receive them. But this very point will expose their folly all the more clearly. For the words in question do not refer to lordship over creation, nor to presiding over the works of God. They are meant to reveal in part the purpose of the Incarnation. [b]

For if all things were handed over to him at the time he was speaking, then clearly, before he received them, creation was empty of the Word. What then becomes of the text, “In him all things hold together”? But if all of it was handed over to him at the very moment creation came into being, such a handing over would be pointless. For “all things were made through him,” and there would be no need for things the Lord himself had crafted to be handed over to him. In making them he was Lord of the things that were coming into being. But suppose, even so, that they were handed over to him after they had come into being: see how monstrous that is. If they were handed over, and once he received them the Father withdrew, then we are in danger of falling into the fables some people tell, that God gave over his works to the Son and went away himself. Or if the Father has them too while the Son has them, we ought not to say “were handed over,” but that he took him on as a partner, as Paul did Silvanus.

But this is still more monstrous. For God is not imperfect, nor did he call in the Son to help him in his need. Rather, being Father of the Word, he makes all things through him; and without handing creation over to him, he exercises providence over it through him and in him. So not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father, nor is the grass clothed without God; but the Father is working, and the Son is working until now, both at once. The opinion of the impious, then, is empty. For the expression does not mean what they think; it points to the Incarnation.