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| Sundry Passages of St. John Quoted, to Show the Distinction Between the Father and the Son. Even Praxeas' Classic Text--I and My Father are One--Shown to Be Against Him.
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Chapter XXII.—Sundry Passages of St. John Quoted, to Show
the Distinction Between the Father and the Son. Even Praxeas’
Classic Text—I and My Father are One—Shown to Be Against
Him.
Again, whose doctrine does He announce, at which
all were astonished?8040
Was it His own or
the Father’s? So, when they were in doubt among themselves
whether He were the Christ (not as being the Father, of course but as
the Son), He says to them “You are not ignorant whence I am; and
I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not;
but I know Him, because I am from Him.”8041
He
did not say, Because I myself am He; and, I have sent mine own self:
but His words are, “He hath sent me.” When, likewise, the
Pharisees sent men to apprehend Him, He says: “Yet a little while
am I with you, and (then) I go unto Him that sent me.”8042
When, however, He declares that He is not
alone, and uses these words, “but I and the Father that sent
me,”8043
does He not show
that there are Two—Two, and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the
sum and substance of what He was teaching them, that they were
inseparably Two; since, after citing the law when it affirms the truth
of two men’s testimony,8044
He adds at once:
“I am one who am bearing witness of myself; and the Father (is
another,) who hath sent me, and beareth witness of me.”8045
Now, if He were one—being at once both
the Son and the Father—He certainly would not have quoted the
sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one, but of
two. Likewise, when they asked Him where His Father was,8046
He answered them, that they had known
neither Himself nor the Father; and in this answer He plainly told them
of Two, whom they were ignorant of. Granted that “if they
had known Him, they would have known the Father also,”8047
this certainly does not imply that He was
Himself both Father and Son; but that, by reason of the inseparability
of the Two, it was impossible for one of them to be either acknowledged
or unknown without the other. “He that sent me,” says He,
“is true; and I am telling the world those things which I have
heard of Him.”8048
And the Scripture
narrative goes on to explain in an exoteric manner, that “they
understood not that He spake to them concerning the
Father,”8049
although they ought
certainly to have known that the Father’s words were
uttered in the Son, because they read in Jeremiah, “And
the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in thy
mouth;”8050
and again in
Isaiah, “The Lord hath given to me the tongue of learning that I
should understand when to speak a word in season.”8051
In accordance with which, Christ
Himself says: “Then shall ye know that I am He and that I am
saying nothing of my own self; but that, as my Father hath taught me,
so I speak, because He that sent me is with me.”8052
This also amounts to a proof that they were
Two, (although) undivided. Likewise, when upbraiding the Jews in His
discussion with them, because they wished to kill Him, He said,
“I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that
which ye have seen with your father;”8053
“but now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth
which I have heard of God;”8054
and again,
“If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth
and came from God,”8055
(still they are not
hereby separated, although He declares that He proceeded forth from
the Father. Some persons indeed seize the opportunity afforded them
in these words to propound their heresy of His separation; but
His coming out from God is like the ray’s procession from the
sun, and the river’s from the fountain, and the tree’s from
the seed); “I have not a devil, but I honour my
Father;”8056
again, “If I
honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me,
of whom ye say, that He is your God: yet ye have not known Him, but I
know Him; and if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar like
unto you; but I know Him, and keep His saying.”8057
But when He goes on to say, “Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was
glad,”8058
He certainly proves
that it was not the Father that appeared to Abraham, but the Son. In
like manner He declares, in the case of the man born blind,
“that He must do the works of the Father which had sent
Him;”8059
and after He had
given the man sight, He said to him, “Dost thou believe in the
Son of God?” Then, upon the man’s inquiring who He
was, He proceeded to reveal Himself to him, as that Son of God
whom He had announced to him as the right object of his faith.8060
In a later passage He declares that He is
known by the Father, and the Father by Him;8061
adding that He was so wholly loved by the Father, that He was laying
down His life, because He had received this commandment from the
Father.8062
When He was asked
by the Jews if He were the very Christ8063
(meaning, of course, the Christ of God; for to this day the Jews expect
not the Father Himself, but the Christ of God, it being nowhere said
that the Father will come as the Christ), He said to them, “I am
telling you, and yet ye do not believe: the works which I am doing, in
my Father’s name, they actually bear witness of
me.”8064
Witness of what? Of
that very thing, to be sure, of which they were making
inquiry—whether He were the Christ of God. Then, again,
concerning His sheep, and (the assurance) that no man should pluck them
out of His hand,8065
He says, “My
Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all;”8066
adding immediately, “I am and my
Father are one.”8067
Here, then, they
take their stand, too infatuated, nay, too blind, to see in the first
place that there is in this passage an intimation of Two
Beings—“I and my Father;” then that there is a
plural predicate, “are,” inapplicable to one person
only; and lastly, that (the predicate terminates in an abstract, not a
personal noun)—“we are one thing”
Unum, not “one person” Unus. For if He had
said “one Person,” He might have rendered some assistance
to their opinion. Unus, no doubt, indicates the singular
number; but (here we have a case where) “Two” are still the
subject in the masculine gender. He accordingly says Unum,
a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of number, but unity of
essence, likeness, conjunction, affection on the Father’s part,
who loves the Son, and submission on the Son’s, who obeys the
Father’s will. When He says, “I and my Father are
one” in essence—Unum—He shows that
there are Two, whom He puts on an equality and unites in one. He
therefore adds to this very statement, that He “had showed them
many works from the Father,” for none of which did He deserve to
be stoned.8068
And to prevent
their thinking Him deserving of this fate, as if He had claimed to be
considered as God Himself, that is, the Father, by having said,
“I and my Father are One,” representing Himself as the
Father’s divine Son, and not as God Himself, He says, “If
it is written in your law, I said, Ye are gods; and if the Scripture
cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and
sent into the world, that He blasphemeth, because He said, I am the Son
of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I
do, even if ye will not believe me, still believe the works; and know
that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.”8069
It must therefore be by the works that the
Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and so it is by the
works that we understand that the Father is one with the Son.
All along did He therefore strenuously aim at this conclusion, that
while they were of one power and essence, they should still be believed
to be Two; for otherwise, unless they were believed to be Two, the Son
could not possibly be believed to have any existence at
all.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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