Whatever you intended to say on the matter would have amounted to abolishing the Law.

He went on: We have another question for you. Why have you named the Father “Father” and the Son “Son”? If the Father is entitled to the name “fatherhood” because of His pre-eternity, then the Son—being, according to you, equally eternal—deserves that very title as well. And if the Father is all-knowing and mighty, then so is the Son; your own creed testifies to this when it declares: “He created all creatures, and all things were perfected by His hand, and He descended for your salvation. Whoever can accomplish such deeds must be all-knowing and mighty.”

These considerations overturn the notions of fatherhood and sonship; and once those notions collapse, the Law that states, “He was begotten of His Father,” collapses with them. Otherwise, if Father and Son are equal in pre-eternity and power, by what privilege and authority does the Father command and forbid the Son—so that the Father is the sender and the Son the one sent, the Father the one obeyed and the Son the obedient follower?

A further proof of the soundness of our view, and of the falsity of the interpretation adopted by your early authorities concerning Christ’s servitude, is that Matthew the disciple, when he composed his Gospel, opened with the words: “The book of the birth of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” He traced him to those from whom he truly descended; he did not say that he is the Son of God, nor that he is “a god from God,” as they claim. And if you should say that the name “Jesus” refers to the human nature which you have made the basis of your argument between yourselves and