“My first-born son”—that is, Israel.

And elsewhere:

“The sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and were captivated by them.”

Does this wording, then, bestow divinity upon the house of Israel?

He continued:

You also say that the Messiah was begotten of his Father before all worlds and is therefore uncreated. Yet the Father must have begotten either something already in existence or something nonexistent. If what was begotten had always existed, then in truth the Father begot nothing; but if it had not existed and only later came to be, then it is a created being, exactly as we claim.

He went on:

Another proof of our position that the Messiah is a creature is that the very title “Messiah” attached to him only because he was anointed for prophethood and beneficence, and it was God—blessed and exalted—who anointed him.

David bears witness to this in his Psalms when he says:

“Because of this righteousness, God—your God—has anointed you with an anointing greater than that of your peers.”

By this verse David makes plain the meaning of the anointing in his Gospel: that his Anointer is God, his God, and that he is a specially chosen and honored servant, distinguished above his counterparts.

David also says in Psalm Thirty-One, addressing God:

(