You will also notice how God’s word gives the title of gods not only to those heavenly beings who are our superiors^[1] but also to those sacred people among us who are distinguished for their love of God.^[2] Now the hiddenness of the Godhead is a transcendent one. It is far above everything. No being can in any way or as a matter of right have a name like it. Yet every intelligent and reasonable person who returns to God to be united with him, strives to be enlightened by divine matters and tries as hard as possible to imitate God deserves to be called divine.

He is said to reign in one sense as the almighty King, both of the willing and the unwilling, but in another as producing in us submission and placing us under his kingship as willingly acknowledging his sovereignty. Of his kingdom, considered in the former sense, there shall be no end. But in the second sense, what end will there be? His taking us as his servants, on our entrance into a state of salvation. For what need is there to work submission in us when we have already submitted? After which he arises to judge the earth and to separate the saved from the lost. After that he is to stand as God in the midst of gods, that is, of the saved, distinguishing and deciding of what honor and of what mansion each is worthy.

To walk in darkness indicates blameworthy action, and to hate one’s own brother is to fall away from that which is properly called knowledge. But also because he who is ignorant of divine matters, by that very ignorance, walks in darkness, David says, They have not known or understood; they walk in darkness.

Look, I ask you, and see with how great a dignity Jesus favors you. You were called a catechumen, which means one into whom something is drummed from without.^[1] You heard of some hope, but you did not know what. You heard mysteries without understanding anything. You heard Scriptures without plumbing their depth. It is not drummed in, any more, but whispered. For the indwelling Spirit is fashioning your mind into mansions for God. When you hear, in the future, Scriptures concerning mysteries, you will understand things you knew nothing of. And do not esteem as if a trifle what you are receiving. Being but a wretched person, you are recipient of a divine title. For listen to Paul, God is faithful,^[2] or to another text in Scripture, God is faithful and just.^[3] It was as foreseeing that a divine title would come to be applied to human beings that the psalmist, speaking in the person of God, said, I have said, you are gods and are all the children of the most High. But see that when the title is faithful, the purpose is not faithless. You have entered the contest; run your course steadfastly. No other chance like this will come your way. If it was your wedding day ahead of you, would you not make light of all else, in preparing the banquet? When, then, you are going to consecrate your soul to the heavenly Bridegroom, will you not leave your physical concerns to chance, so that you may take a firm hold on the things of the spirit?

In every kind of petition we ought first to try to gain the good will of the one we are petitioning and then to state the object of our petition. We usually try to gain the good will by bestowing praise on the one we are petitioning. And the praise is usually placed at the beginning of the prayer, where in this instance our Lord has bidden us to say nothing else than, Our Father who is in heaven. Praise of God has been expressed in many manners of speech. Anyone can see this as he reads those forms of praise scattered widely here and there throughout the sacred Scriptures. But nowhere is there found any instruction for the people of Israel to say, Our Father, or to pray to God as to a Father. To them he has been proposed as a Master, for they were servants; that is, they were as yet living according to the flesh. When I say this, I am referring to them when they received the commandments of the law that they were ordered to observe, for the prophets frequently point out that this same Lord of ours would have been their Father as well, if they did not stray from his commandments. For instance, there are the following expressions: I have reared children and brought them up; but they have despised me,^[1] and, I have said, ‘You are gods, and all of you the children of the most High,’ and, If I am a Master, where is my fear? And if I am a Father, where is my honor?^[2] Even if we were to disregard those prophetic sayings that refer to the fact that there would be a Christian people who would have God as their Father—in accordance with that saying in the Gospel, He gave them the power of becoming children of God^[3]—there are still many other expressions whereby they are reproved for the fact that by committing sins they refused to be children. The apostle Paul says, As long as the heir is a little child, he differs in no way from a slave,^[4] but he reminds us that we have received the spirit of adoption by virtue of which we cry, Abba, Father.^[5]

We find the name of God in the holy Scriptures, as many as now come to mind, spoken of in four ways. For God is spoken of according to the truth of [his divine] nature, that the holy Trinity is one, true and unchangeable God, who says, See now that I, even I, am he; there is no God besides me.^[1] And concerning whom David says, For who is God except the Lord? And who is a rock besides our God?^[2] This is the one and only God who alone is God by nature. From this one true God, certain ones, in order that they might be gods, did not have the name by nature but received it by the gift of grace. Concerning such gods, it was Moses to whom that one true God said, See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh.^[3] Of such people are also those to whom it is said, I said, ‘You are gods, children of the most High, all of you.’ Therefore, these gods received that grace to be gods so that they might become the children of God. The Evangelist says that to those who did accept him, he gave power to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not by natural generation, or by human choice or by a man’s decision, but of God.^[4] Likewise, to them it is said, I said, ‘You are gods, children of the most High, all of you.’

The Lord, the God of gods, has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun until its setting.^[1] The power of the Lord is proclaimed in advance so that no one might believe that his incarnation ought to be deemed as being of moderate import and so that the depravity of all unbelief may be removed. Human beings who receive the grace of the divine majesty for their good conduct are called gods, just as he says in another psalm, I have said, ‘You are gods and children of the Most High.’ Therefore, they are called children, just as they are called gods, because grace, not nature, offers each title. But the God of the gods is the Lord Christ, for he himself (along with the Father and the Holy Spirit) is truly called God of the gods. Nonetheless, the name God of gods does not altogether belong to the Divinity, but as we have already said, human language cannot indicate his exalted stature beyond this.

I have said you are gods and all of you children of the most High, but you shall die like man.^[1] This he says to them that did not accept the gift of adoption but dishonor the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, deprive humankind of ascent to God and are ungrateful to the Word of God who for their sakes was made flesh. For this cause was the Word made human, that humanity receiving the Word and accepting the adoption should be made God’s children.^[2]

Often were the righteous given into the hands of the wicked,^[1] not that the latter might be honored but that the former might be tested; and though the wicked come, as it is written, to an awful death,^[2] nevertheless for the present the godly are a laughing stock, while the goodness of God and the great treasuries of what is in store for each of them hereafter are concealed. Then indeed word and deed and thought will be weighed in the just balances of God, as he arises to judge the earth, gathering together counsel and works and revealing what he had kept sealed up. Of this let the words and sufferings of Job convince you, who was a truthful, blameless, just, God-fearing man, with all those other qualities that are testified of him, and yet he was struck with such a succession of remarkable visitations, at the hands of him who begged for power over him,^[3] that, although many have often suffered in the whole course of time, and some have, as is probable, been grievously afflicted, yet none can be compared with him in misfortunes.

For you shall inherit all the nations. We pray that you be judge because you have compassion on all nations. What was the prophet’s intention in saying, You shall inherit all the nations, instead of, you shall have all the nations? Whenever an inheritance has been bestowed, death has preceded; hence, we are called heirs and coheirs. Heirs, the apostle said, of Christ because Christ died for us; co-heirs because Christ will reign with us.