God, Jesus Christ, &c. [Vol. i. part i. p. 58.]
In his Epistle to Dracontius, he says, "We ought to conduct ourselves
agreeably to the principles of the saints and fathers, and to imitate
them,--assured that if we {187} swerve from them, we become alienated
also from their communion." [Vol. i. part i, p. 265.]

The passage, however, to which I would invite the reader's patient and
impartial thoughts, occurs in the third oration against the Arians, when
he is proving the unity of the Father and the Son, from the expression
of St. Paul in the eleventh verse of the third chapter of his first
Epistle to the Thessalonians.

"Thus then again ([Greek: outo g' oun palin]), when he is praying for
the Thessalonians, and saying, 'Now our God and Father himself and the
Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you,' he preserves the unity of the
Father and the Son. For he says not 'may THEY direct ([Greek:
kateuthunoien]),' as though a twofold grace were given from Him AND Him,
but 'may HE direct ([Greek: katenthunai]),' to show that the Father
giveth this through the Son. For if there was not an unity, and the Word
was not the proper offspring of the Father's substance, as the
eradiation of the light, but the Son was distinct in nature from the
Father,--it had sufficed for the Father alone to have made the gift, no
generated being partaking with the Maker in the gifts. But now such a
giving proves the unity of the Father and the Son. Consequently, no one
would pray to receive any thing from God AND the angels, or from any
other created being; nor would any one say 'May God AND the angels give
it thee;' but from the Father and the Son, because of their unity and
the oneness of the gift. For whatever is given, is given through the
Son,--nor is there any thing which the Father works except through the
Son; for thus the receiver has the gracious favour without fail. But if
the patriarch Jacob, blessing his descendants Ephraim and Manasseh,
said, 'The God who nourished {188} me from my youth unto this day, the
Angel who delivered me from all the evils, bless these lads;' he does
not join one of created beings, and by nature angels, with God who
created them; nor dismissing Him who nourished him, God, does he ask the
blessing for his descendants from an angel, but by saying 'He who
delivered me from all the evils,' he showed that it was not one of
created angels, but the WORD OF GOD; and joining him with the Father, he
supplicated him throug