Cornelius a Lapide

But Jesus answered , &c. “ The Father worketh ,” says S. Augustine {lib. 4, de Gen ., cap. 12), “both affording suitable government to things created, and having in Himself eternal tranquillity : ” for, as he says elsewhere, “ being still He worketh, and working He is at rest” And after an interval, “The power and virtue of the Creator is the cause of existence of every creature. And if this virtue were ever to cease from governing created things, their forms (, species ) would cease at the same time, and all nature would come to an end.” Like as the light in the air vanishes if the sun withdraw his rays, by which light is produced. The meaning is, “ You, O ye scribes, object against Me the law of Sabbatical rest, which God commanded you because He Himself rested on Digitized by V^rOOQie MY FATHER WORKETH. 1 73 the Sabbath from all His work. But I answer that God on the Sabbath only rested from producing new species of things. But He did not rest in such a manner that He is not every Sabbath continually working, that is to say, governing and preserving the world, and all the things that are in it, moving the heavens, bringing forth one thing out of another, feeding and healing all living things, &c. This, which is work of the highest beneficence, is not servile work, but pious and Divine. Such work is indeed lawful ; yea, it adorns and hallows the Sabbath. So too I, who am the co-equal Son of the Father, always work, and always have wrought the same things with Him. For neither do I work without the Father, nor the Father without Me.” So S. Augustine and others. Observe the Hebraism : and I work , that is, so, or in like manner , I work. For the word and, when it is the mark of conjunction, since it joins like things, is a sign of comparison and similitude, and means the same thing as thus , as is constantly the case in the Book of Proverbs. Ver. 1 8 . — Wherefore, &c. His Father, Greek, wariga 73/or, $e., His own Father , because Christ alone is the peculiar, and by nature, Son of God. Making Himself equal with God , because He had said that not merely like things, but that the selfsame things which the Father works, were wrought by Him, and therefore that He in all things co-operated, not as a servant, but as a Son, of the same substance with the Father. As Cyril says, “ Seeing that He was a man, and not knowing that God dwelt in Him, they could not bear that He should call God His Father in a special manner.” The chief priests and scribes therefore wished to kill Jesus, because they feared lest, as His glory increased, their authority should decrease ; indeed lest Jesus, persuading the people that He was God, should be preferred by the people to the priests, and should deprive them of their authority, and should bring in His own new priests and pontifis, which we see He actually did do