Again He speaks as a Jew and as a man, because circumstances required precisely this manner of speech. Christ did not decline what was fitting to the moment.
He sets the worship of the Jews somewhat above that of the Samaritans in rationality. The Samaritans worship God simply and without understanding. The Jews, as far as they can contain it, possess through the Law and the Prophets knowledge of Him Who Is.
Therefore He says that the Samaritans "do not know," while the Jews in part "know." From them, He affirms, "salvation" must appear. Clearly this means Himself, for Christ came according to the flesh from David, and David was from the tribe of Judah.
Again, as man, He places Himself among the worshipers, though He receives worship with God the Father from us and from the holy angels.
Since He clothed Himself in the form of a servant, He also performs the service fitting to a servant. Yet He does not cease to be God, Lord, and the One worshiped.
He remains the very same, though He became man, everywhere and fully preserving the form of the divine economy with the flesh.
If you see this greatest and supernatural abasement of the Son of God, approach this mystery with reverent wonder, not accusation. Be an imitator, not a critic.
Paul also wishes us to be such when he says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself.
He took the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself" (Phil 2:5-8).
Do you see how the Son became for us a pattern of humility? He was in equality with the Father and "in the form of God," as it is written.
Yet for our sake He descended into voluntary obedience and abasement.
Could this obedience and abasement have been displayed in any other way than through deeds and words beneath His divine dignity? They had far less than what He possesses in Himself as the Word with the Father, apart from union with the form of a servant.
How can we say that He condescended unless we affirm that He endured something foreign to His dignity?
How would He have been "in the likeness of men," according to Paul's word, if He did not do what is like the things proper to men?
The deed most proper to men is the worship of God, rendered and offered by us as a debt. Therefore He worships as man when He became man.
Yet He always receives worship with the Father, since He was, is, and will be God by nature and true God.
But the opponent will not stop even at this. He will object thus: "Do not be troubled when we say that the Son will worship.
We do not think that He worships the Father exactly as we do, or even as the angels do. The Son's worship is something special and far higher than ours."
What shall we say to this in turn? You assign servitude to the Only-begotten as something owed to Him, and gild this servile dignity with flattering words. Do you think, dear friend, that you will deceive us?
Cease glorifying the Son by dishonor, if you wish to remain one who honors the Father. For "he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father," as it is written (Jn 5:23).
Tell me, what benefit concerning freedom can it bring the Only-begotten that He performs a worship of the Father different from ours?
So long as He is found among the worshipers, He will undoubtedly be a servant, even if He is acknowledged as a special kind of worshiper.
He would then differ from creatures not with respect to the createdness of His being, but only by other advantages.
So Michael, or some other holy and rational power, surpasses men. Such a power possesses over the inhabitants of earth an essential advantage in holiness, or in some higher degree of glory, by the good pleasure of the Creator and God.
Yet by its createdness it has this in common with the other creatures: it belongs to the order of created beings.
Therefore the Word, Who exists by nature in the Father and from the Father, will in no way escape being created, even if it is affirmed that He performs some special worship of God.
Then again, how can a creature still be Son? How can a servant and minister be Lord by nature?
I think the royal and sovereign dignity consists precisely in receiving worship. The ministerial and servile quality consists in performing worship.
By worship we must express our confession of the Nature that is supreme and above all.
Thus it was said through the mouth of the wise Moses to all creation, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve" (Deut 6:13; Mt 4:10).
Therefore what is servile by nature and lies under the authority of the Godhead must certainly perform worship and submit to the duty of divine service.
By the word "Lord" he distinguishes from Him what is servile. By the word "God" he distinguishes what is created.
These are conceived together and mutually opposed: to the Lord by nature is opposed what is servile, and to the unoriginate Godhead is opposed what has been brought into being.
Since the Son exists eternally in the Father, and as God is Lord, I cannot show why He should perform worship.
But they continue their chatter and say that the Only-begotten must worship the Father neither as servant nor as creature, but as Son worshiping the Begetter.
Thus worship must be received as already contained in sonship itself. We must think that the Son is obliged to worship the Father simply because He is Son.
So too, they say, we must perform worship because we are living beings, rational and mortal, endowed with reason and knowledge, or because of outward and rational actions, or even only by the impulses of the will.
If the necessity of performing worship is implanted by nature in the Only-begotten, as they think and say, must they not prove impious even toward the Father Himself?
It is absolutely necessary to think Him the same, once the Son is His image and imprint. In whatever things are completely like each other, there can be no difference between them.
If they say that the Son's worship of the Father consists only in the Son's will, they are guided more by conjectures than by true grounds.
In that case, what would prevent others, who consider piety foolishness, from asserting that the Father also has a will to worship the Son, though by nature the Father is not a worshiper?
But duty itself, they say, requires that the Person of the Father be exempt from performing worship, while the Son is subject to it, worshiping the Father not against His will.
What are you saying, dear friend? Are you again bringing us oracles, as it were from the abysses, from the Greek tripods?
Or, like that "Shemaiah the Elamite" (Jer 29:24; 23:16), are you belching out from your own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord?
Are you not ashamed to present this to us as an irrefutable proof?
Do you not know that it is fitting for Him Who is God by nature to have as God the Word begotten from Him?
Do you not know that He whom all creation worships is fittingly called, and by nature is, Father of the worshiped Son, not of a Son who worships?
I say what I think true wise men will agree with.
How can we allow that it is fitting for the Father to be worshiped by His own Son, when this harms the notion of both?
First, the one who worships cannot have equal dignity with the one worshiped. Nor can he be the wholly exact image of that nature which does not worship.
He will worship as one lesser. This is not according to a quantitative measure in regard to some accident, for God and Lord cannot be lesser.
Rather, this would define a difference in the form or essence of being.
In that case, how can the One Who says, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), be speaking truly?
How could He say that He ought to be honored no less than the Father, if as one who worships He does not possess equality in glory?
Second, the Father Himself would also suffer no small dishonor among us.
It is glory for Him to beget such a Son as He Himself is by nature.
On the contrary, it is no small dishonor to the Father to have a Son alien and foreign to His nature. He would thus undergo something from which even the very nature of creatures recoils.
Everything that, by the decree and will of the Creator of all, has received the power to beget does not produce offspring inferior to itself.
It is said, "Let the earth bring forth herbaceous grass, and the fruit tree bearing seed according to its kind and likeness" (Gen 1:11).
Therefore God will be lower than creatures if they are such and He is not. He alone will be deprived of what He rightly and wisely appointed for offspring from created beings.
In view of this, dear friends, who can endure your claim that the Son must worship His own Begetter?
You add to these words that the Only-begotten does this not unwillingly. You set against us this groundless argument, taken only from what seems fitting.
We too must examine this from the Holy Scriptures. From them, I think, one must chiefly try to draw proofs for every question.
The Law commanded that a half-drachma be collected from each Jew as tribute to the God Who is above all (Ex 30:13).
This was not because it was concerned with inventing a monetary tax or with a useless accumulation of possessions. Rather, it was to reveal to us a certain teaching through the clearest images.
First, no one is master of his own head. By this payment of tribute, we all are shown to be enrolled in servitude to the one Master.
Then, in addition, through a rough letter and sensible object, it portrayed as in a painting a spiritual and intelligible fruit-bearing.
As it is said, "Honor the Lord from your righteous labors, and give Him the firstfruits of your fruits of righteousness" (Prov 3:9).
This came to pass through the Gospel teaching, when the service under the Law had already been abolished.
For we think that the Lord of all must no longer be honored by external gift-offerings, as though we tried to pay a didrachma from perishable matter.
Instead, being true worshipers, we worship God the Father "in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:23).
One must suppose that such a thought is hidden in the letter of the Law.
When the Lord was in Jerusalem, those who collected the didrachma asked Peter, "Does your Teacher not pay the didrachma?"
When Peter entered the house, as it is written, "Jesus anticipated him, saying, 'From whom do the kings of the earth take tribute or tax? From their own sons, or from strangers?'
When he answered, 'From strangers,' Jesus said, 'Then the sons are free. But lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up.
Open its mouth, and you will find a stater. Take it and give it to them for Me and for yourself'" (Mt 17:24-27).
Do you not see that the Son does not endure being subject, or being subjected to servile action, as one of those under the yoke of slavery?
Knowing the free dignity of His nature, He declares that He owes nothing servile to God the Father. "The sons," He says, "are free."
How then can He perform a servile worship that is not involuntary?
He rejected even the image of this action in the Gospel event just mentioned. How could He accept it in the truth itself?
Or shall we not reckon worship as a tribute and a spiritual offering of fruits? Shall we not call it one of the manifestations of servile service?
If not, why did the Law join worship and service in the words, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve" (Mt 4:10; Deut 6:13)?
It did so because worship is, as it were, a door and a path to service in deeds. It is the beginning of servitude toward God.
Therefore the Psalmist says somewhere to certain people, "Come, let us worship and fall down before Him, and let us weep before the Lord Who made us" (Ps 94:6).
Do you see that falling down is joined after worship? I cannot say what could be more servile than this, if the qualities of things are defined correctly.
THEOSIS