Chapter X.
The objection that Christ, on the showing of St.
John, lives because of the Father, and therefore is not to be regarded
as equal with the Father, is met by the reply that for the Life of the
Son, in respect of His Godhead, there has never been a time when it
began; and that it is dependent upon none, whilst the passage in
question must be understood as referring to His human life, as is shown
by His speaking there of His body and blood. Two expositions of
the passage are given, the one of which is shown to refer to
Christ’s Manhood, whilst the second teaches His equality with the
Father, as also His likeness with men. Rebuke is administered to
the Arians for the insult which they are seeking to inflict upon the
Son, and the sense in which the Son can be said to live “because
of” the Father is explained, as also the
union of life with the divine Life. A
further objection, based upon the Son’s prayer that He may be
glorified by the Father, is briefly refuted.
118. There are not
a few who raise this further objection, that it is written:
“As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so
he that eateth Me, liveth also by Me.”2438
“How,” ask they,
“is the Son equal with the Father, when He has said that He lives
by the Father?”
119. Let those who oppose us on this ground
tell us first what the Life of the Son is. Is it a life bestowed
by the Father upon one lacking life? But how could the Son ever
fail to possess life, He Himself being the Life, as He says, “I
am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”2439
Truly, His life is eternal, even
as His power is eternal. Was there a time, then, when (so to
speak) Life possessed not itself?
120. Bethink you what is read this day
concerning the Lord Jesus, that “He died for our sakes, to the
end that whether we wake or whether we sleep, we may live with
Him.”2440
He Whose
Death is Life, is not His Godhead Life, seeing that the Godhead is Life
eternal?
121. But is His Life truly in the
Father’s power? Why, He showed that even His bodily life
was not in the power of any other, as we have it on record:
“I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No man
taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to
lay it down, and again I have power to take it. This commandment
have I received of My Father.”2441
122. Is His divine Life then to be regarded as
depending upon the power of another, when His bodily life was subject
to no other power but His own? For it would have been the power
of another, but for the Unity of power. But just as He gives us
to understand that His laying down His life was done of His own power,
and of His free Will, so also He teaches us, in laying it down in
obedience to His Father’s command, the unity of His own with the
Father’s Will.
123. If, then, there has neither been a time when
the Life of the Son took a commencement, nor any power to which it has
been subjected, let us consider what His meaning was when He
said: “Even as the living Father hath sent Me, and I live
by the Father”? Let us expound His meaning as best we can;
nay, rather let Him expound it Himself.
124. Take notice, then, what He said in an
earlier part of His discourse. “Verily, verily, I say unto
you.” He first teaches thee how thou oughtest to
listen. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless ye eat the
flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye shall have no life in
you.”2442
He first
premised that He was speaking as Son of Man; dost thou then think that
what He hath said, as Son of Man, concerning His Flesh and His Blood,
is to be applied to His Godhead?
125. Then He added: “For My
Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink [indeed].”2443
Thou hearest Him speak of His
Flesh and of His Blood, thou perceivest the sacred pledges, [conveying
to us the merits and power] of the Lord’s death,2444
and thou dishonourest His Godhead.
Hear His own words: “A spirit hath not flesh and
bones.”2445
Now we, as
often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious
efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood,
“do show the Lord’s Death.”2446
126. Then, after calling on us to take notice that
He speaks as Son of Man, and frequent repeated mention of His Flesh and
His Blood, He adds: “Even as the living Father hath sent
Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, he also liveth by
Me.” How then do they suppose that we are to understand
these words?—for the comparison can be shown as a double
one. The first comparison being after the following manner:
“Even as the living Father hath sent Me, I live by the
Father;” the second: “Even as the living Father hath
sent Me, and I live by the Father, so also he that eateth Me, he too
liveth by Me.”
127. If our adversaries choose the former,
the meaning is this, that, “as I am sent by the Father and am
come down from the Father, so (in accordance therewith) I live by the
Father.” But in what character was He sent, and came down,
save as Son of Man, even as He Himself said before: “No man
hath ascended into heaven, save He that hath come down from heaven as
Son of Man.”2447
Then,
just as He was sent and came down as Son of Man, so as Son of Man He
lives by the Father. Furthermore, he that eateth Him, as eating
the Son of Man, doth himself also live by the Son of Man. Thus,
He has compared the effect of His Incarnation to His coming.
128. But
if they choose the second method, do we not infer both the equality of
the Son with the Father, and His likeness to men, together, though in
clear mutual distinction? For what is the meaning of the words,
“Even as He Himself liveth by the Father, so we also live by
Him,” but that the Son so quickeneth a man, as the Father hath in
the Son quickened human nature?2448
“For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, so also
the Son quickeneth whom He will,”2449
as the Lord Himself hath already
said.
129. Thus the equality of the Son to the
Father is established simply upon unity in the action of quickening,
since the Son so quickeneth as the Father doth. Acknowledge
therefore the eternity of His Life and Sovereignty. Again, our
likeness with the Son is discovered, and a certain unity with Him in
the flesh,2450
because that, like
as the Son of God was quickened in the flesh2451
| 2451 i.e. in
respect of His Body of flesh and blood. |
by the Father, so also is man quickened; for thus it is written, that
as God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, so we also, as men, are
quickened by the Son of God.2452
130. According to this interpretation, then,
immortality is not only applied to our condition by grace of bounty,
but is also proclaimed as the property of Godhead—the latter,
because it is the Godhead which quickeneth; the former, because manhood
is quickened in Christ.
131. But if any would apply the force of
either comparison to Christ’s Godhead, then the Son of God
is put on one footing with men, so that the Son of God lives by the
Father just as we live by the Son of God. But the Son of God
bestows eternal life by free gift, we cannot so do. If then He be
placed on a level with us, He too does not bestow this gift. Let
Arius’ disciples then have the due reward of their
faith—which is, not to obtain eternal life of the Son.
132. I would now go further. If our
opponents are pleased to apply the teaching of this passage to the
principle of the eternity of the Divine Substance, let them hear a
third exposition: Does not our Lord plainly appear to say that as
the Father is a living Father, so too the Son also lives?—and who
can but observe that here we must understand a reference to unity of
Life, forasmuch as the same Life is the Life of the Father and the Life
of the Son? “For as the Father hath Life in Himself, so
hath He given to the Son also to have Life in Himself.”2453
He hath given—by reason of
unity with Him. He hath given, not to take away, but that He may
be glorified in the Son. He hath given, not that He, the Father,
might keep guard over it, but that the Son might have it in
possession.
133. But the Arians think that they must
oppose hereto the fact that He had said, “I live by the
Father.” Of a certainty (suppose that they conceive the
words as referring to His Godhead) the Son lives by the Father, because
He is the Son begotten of the Father,—by the Father, because He
is of one Substance with the Father,—by the Father, because He is
the Word given forth from the heart of the Father,2454
because He came forth from the Father,
because He is begotten of the “bowels of the
Father,”2455
because the
Father is the Fountain and Root of the Son’s being.
134. But peradventure they may urge:
“If you hold that the Son, in saying, ‘And I live by the
Father,’ spoke of the unity of life subsisting between the Father
and the Son, does it not follow that He discovered the unity of life
between the Son and mankind in saying that ‘he that eateth Me,
the same liveth by Me’?”
135. Even so. Just as I confess the
unity of celestial Life subsisting in Father and Son by reason of the
unity of the substance of the Godhead, so too, save as concerns the
prerogatives of the Divine Nature or those which are the effect of the
Incarnation of our Lord, I affirm of the Son a participation of
spiritual life with us by virtue of the unity of His Manhood with ours,
for “as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly.”2456
| 2456 1 Cor. xv. 40. On this place H. observes:
“As the Son, by reason of a nature numerically identical with the
Father’s, lives together with Him the same Divine Life, so we by
virtue of a manhood specifically the same as Christ’s have power
to live the life which the Man Christ lives; which life indeed resides
in its greatest fulness in Him as its Head and Fountain, and from His
Person overflows into us, His members—yet not without a certain
difference, for the comparison is incomplete, by reason, namely, of the
reservation of prerogatives attaching to the Divine Nature or to the
Lord’s Incarnation. The Godhead is numerically One, the
Life of the Father and the Life of the Son is numerically one, but
Christ’s Life and ours are not so. Moreover, this (Divine)
Life subsistent in the Son is united to His Manhood in and by the unity
of His Person, but is not communicated to us in so close an alliance,
overflowing rather into us only by a certain participation.…But
perhaps the sainted Doctor’s meaning here is that we live and
abide in Christ by a corporal unity, because, Christ having Manhood
specifically the same as ours, whatsoever is fittingly predicted of
manhood as existing in Christ is applicable to all His
fellow-men. The first construction, however, explains St.
Ambrose’s analogy more fully.” |
Further,
even as in Him we sit at the right hand of the Father, not in the sense
that we share His throne, but that we rest in the Body of
Christ—even as, I say, we have part in Christ’s session by
reason of corporal unity, so too we live
in Christ by reason of unity of our bodies with
His Body.
136. Not only, then, have I no fears of the
text, “I live by the Father,” but I should have none, even
though Christ had said, “I live by help of the
Father.”2457
| 2457 St. Ambrose quotes
the words from St. John vi.
58, thus:
“propter Patrem.” This seeming expression of
dependence, he says, does not in the least disturb his belief in the
co-eternity and co-equality of the Son with the Father; which belief
would indeed remain unshaken even though Christ’s words had been
still more expressive, to all appearance, of dependence and
inferiority. |
137. Now another objection commonly urged by
them starts from the text: “This sickness is not unto
death, but for the glory of God, to the end that His Son may be
glorified by Him.”2458
But not
only is the Son glorified through the Father and by the Father, as it
is written: “Glorify Me, Father;”2459
and again: “Now hath the Son
of Man been glorified, and God hath been glorified in Him, and God
glorifieth Him,”2460
but the Father
also is glorified through the Son and by the Son, for Truth hath
said: “I have glorified Thee upon earth.”2461
138. Even as the Son, therefore, is glorified
through the Father, so too He lives by the Father. There are some
who have been led by consideration of these words to the supposition
that [the Greek] “δόξα” means “opinion,
belief,” rather than “glory,” and therefore have
interpreted as follows: “I have given thee a δόξα upon earth, I have
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do, and now, O Father, give
me a δόξα;” that is to say:
“I have taught men so to believe concerning Thee, as to know that
Thou art the true God; do Thou also establish in them, concerning Me,
the belief that I am Thy Son, and very God.”
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
