Today And Forever

Ego hodei genui te. Hoc jam nihil habet commune cum caeteris, sed totum est unigeniti Filii proprium, quod ipsum designare atque inculcare rerum potuisset auctorem. Dicendo enim, hodie, enim apud Deum nullo initio incipit, nullo fine concluditur. Non est enim ibi, fuit, neque erit; sed semper manet, semper est; et quidquid dixeris, ille hodie est, sicut in Exodo Moysi praecepit ut de ipso diceret: Vade, inquit, et dic filiis Israel: Ego sum qui sum; et qui est misit me ad vos. Quapropter aeternitatem suam voluit appellatione praesentis temporis indicari. Praesens enim tempus, quod ait, hodie, pro perpetuitate poni, Scripturarum divinarum proprium esse cognoscitur. Genui te, nativitatem illam significat de qua Isaias dicit: Generationem autem ejus quis enarrabit. Lumen ex lumine, omnipotens de omnipotente, Deus verus de Deo vero: Ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia; de quo ad Hebraeos scribens, ait Apostolus: Splendor gloriae, et figura substantiae ejus, gerens quoque omnia verbo virtutis suae, purgationem peccatorum faciens, sedet ad dexteram majestatis in exclesis: tanto melior angelis effectus, quanto differentius prae illis nomen haereditavit. Cui enim angelorum dixit aliquando: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus II Source: Migne PL 70.38c-39a

Today I have begotten you. 1 This 'today' has nothing in common with the others, but is wholly the Only Begotten Son's own, by which He was able to designate Him and emphasise Him as the creator of things. For when He says, 'today,' with God there is no beginning which begins and no end which ends. Nor is there past or future there, but always it persists, always it is, and whatever you may say, that today is as in Exodus when He commanded Moses that concerning Himself he should say, 'Go and say to the sons of Israel: 'I am who I am, it is He who has sent me to you.' 2 Thus He chose to name His eternity with the name of the present time. For that the present, which he speaks as 'today,' is given for perpetuity, is known to be a property of the Divine Scriptures. 'I have begotten you,' signifies the nativity concerning which Isaiah says: 'Who shall tell of his generation?' 3 Light from light, almighty from almighty, true God from true God, 'From whom is everything, through whom is everything, in whom is everything.' 4 And writing to the Hebrews the Apostle says: 'The splendour of His glory and the figure of His substance, even upholding everything by the word of His power, who making a purification for our sins, sits at the right hand of the Father on High, being made so much better than angels, as the much more greater is the name He has acquired over them. To whom among the angels did He ever say: 'You are my son, today I have begotten you'? 5 Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, Psalm 2 1 Ps 2.7 2 Exod 3.14 3 Isaiah 53.8 4 Rom 11.36 5 Heb 1.3-5