Letter 50018: You have written to ask how we should understand certain passages of Scripture that appear to subordinate the Son to...

From: Ambrose, Bishop of Milan To: Irenaeus Date: ~383 AD Context: A theological letter to an otherwise unknown Irenaeus, discussing questions of Christology and the proper interpretation of difficult scriptural passages about the Son's relationship to the Father. Ambrose to his friend Irenaeus — greetings. You have written to ask how we should understand certain passages of Scripture that appear to subordinate the Son to the Father. The question is an honest one, and I appreciate that you ask in the spirit of learning rather than controversy. When the Lord says "The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), he speaks as the Son incarnate — as the one who took the form of a servant for our salvation. In his eternal nature, he is equal to the Father; in his assumed humanity, he is subject. The same person who said "The Father is greater than I" also said "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). Both statements are true; they describe different aspects of the same mystery. The Arians seize on the first and ignore the second. Honest readers hold both in tension and recognize that the mystery of Christ cannot be reduced to a single proof-text. Consider an analogy: a king who disguises himself as a peasant to walk among his people is both king and apparently peasant. No one who sees through the disguise would say "He is merely a peasant" — yet while he wears the disguise, he may truly say "I am less than the king." The analogy is imperfect — all analogies for the Incarnation are — but it illustrates the point. Read Scripture as a whole, my friend, not in fragments. The parts illuminate each other, and the whole reveals Christ in his fullness — God and man, equal to the Father in divinity, subject to the Father in his saving mission. Farewell, and keep asking good questions.

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