The answer
St. Cyril of Jerusalem says, “For the name of the Father, with the very utterance of the title, suggests the thought of the Son: as in like manner one who names the Son thinks straightway of the Father also.402 For if a Father, He is certainly the Father of a Son; and if a Son, certainly the Son of a Father. Lest therefore from our speaking thus [in the Creed], ‘In One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible,’ and from our then adding this also, ‘And in One Lord Jesus Christ,’ any one should irreverently suppose that the Only-begotten is second in rank to heaven and earth,—for this reason before naming them we named God the Father, that in thinking of the Father we might at the same time think also of the Son: for between the Son and the Father no being whatever comes.”403
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
402 Compare Athanasius (de Sententiâ Dionyssi, § 17): “Each of the names I have mentioned is inseparable and indivisible from that next to it. I spoke of the Father, and before bringing in the Son, I designated Him also in the Father. I brought in the Son, and even if I had not previously mentioned the Father, in any wise He would have been presupposed in the Son.”
403 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 7.4 (NPNF II/7:44–45).