The Great Commentary (Mossman/Cobb English)

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

Verify, Verify , &c. . . . cannot: “not from defect of power,” says Euthymius, “but on account of inseparability. For i Digitized by V^rOOQie 174 it is impossible that the Son should do anything which the Father does not 1 ' So S. Chrysostom and S. Augustine. Except , or unless. This word is not here exceptive, signifying the same as but only . It has the same meaning in Matt, xil 4. What He seeth : Greek, , #>., may see. For it is not before He worketh, but as soon as He seeth the Father working, that He, Christ, worketh with Him. For Christ as God does not produce what is similar, but what is identical with the work of the Father. For the action of the Father, which both see and work together, is the same. I say action, but not the Hypostatic Union, nor the things which depend upon it, for this union has not to do with action, but with the terminus in quo . Wherefore, although the whole Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by their Divine action, have brought about this Hypostatic Union, yet the union itself is terminated in the Son, and does not extend to the Father and the Holy Ghost Wherefore the Son only, not the Father and the Holy Ghost, became incarnate, and died, &c. Observe, Christ in this place only means to say that He has received from God the Father His Divine Essence, power, and working, as from His Author. He makes use of the word see , as if the Son did nothing except what He seeth the Father do, or what He sees to be the work of His Father. For children and pupils are wont to imitate the ways and deeds of their fathers and teachers. Christ is speaking after the manner of men, or as amongst men it becomes a son to speak of his father. It may be added that Christ in a proper and theological sense uses the word see, because He proceeds from the Father as the Word, which is the term of the vision and the notional cognition of God the Father. For the Father, as seeing and understanding Himself and all things, produces and begets the Word, and by this communicates to Him His own vision and action. Therefore the Son neither seeth, nor doeth anything except what He seeth the Father see, or do. For He Himself is the Word and the Idea, in whom, as a Term, the Father expresses and imprints all His own vision and cognition, both speculative and practical. The meaning Digitized by V^rOOQie THE FATHER SHEWETH THE SON. IJT5 then is this, “ Whatever I work, the Father worketh the same, and by altogether the same vision, cognition, will, power, and action. Wherefore if ye accuse Me because I have healed one paralysed on the Sabbath day, ye accuse God the Father also. For He hath wrought this with Me, because He in Me and by Me worketh all things. Indeed, I have received all My work from the Father. Wherefore, if ye believe that God the Father works all things rightly, wisely, and holily, ye ought to believe the same of Me, and therefore that this healing on the Sabbath was a work prudent, holy, and Divine.” Doth likewise: altogether in the same manner, with the same liberty, the same power, the same authority. So S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 2, de FHio). S. Cyril says, “They do likewise , or work in like manner, , who are altogether of the same nature: but as to things which have a diverse essence there cannot be in them the same mode of working. As therefore He (the Son) is God of true God, He is able to do likewise the same things as the Father.”

For neither doth the Father judge , &c. The Arabic omits far , but the Greek has it, and appositely. For this is the second reason by which Christ proves that He is God, and the second greater work which He said the Father would show Him. As Cyril says, “He brings forward another Divine and excellent argument, by which He shows that He is by nature truly God. For to whom else does it belong to judge the world but to God only?” To His Son . One God with Himself, but by His Incarnation made man. As S. Austin says (/id. 1, de Trin., c. 13), “ No one shall see the Father at the judgment of the quick and the dead, but all shall see the Son, because He is the Son of Man, that He may be seen by the wicked also, when 1 they shall look on Him whom they pierced.* ** You will say, Christ has been created Judge as man, according to the words (Acts x. 42), “ Who has been constituted by God the Judge of quick and dead,” therefore Christ cannot prove from His being Judge that He is God. I answer, that this correctly proves it, because the power of judgment is a thing peculiar to God : it is a matter of the highest and most ample right Wherefore neither would God communicate it, nor could it be fittingly communicated to a mere man, but to Christ alone, who is both God and man. For He as God has the supreme authority to judge, but as man, He is able to exercise this judgment visibly before men, to acquit, or to condemn. For a judge ought to be seen and heard by those who are accused

That all, &c. For the Jews who would not then honour the Son of God, or acknowledge Him to be such, when they shall see His Divine power and majesty in the day of judgment, will be compelled to acknowledge, honour, and adore Him as God. Digitized by V^rOOQie THE CHIEF ARTICLES OF FAITH. 179 Like as they honour the Father : the words like as signify equality 9 not similitude. He who honoureth not the Son , &c. Because by denying the Son he denies also the Father ; for father and son are correlative terms: and he who has not a son cannot be a father. With regard to God, he who denies that the Son is the Son of God, denies that God the Father is truly and properly the Father, and has begotten. Tacitly he asserts that He could not beget a consubstantial and co-equal Son. Moreover he dentes the Father, because the Father sent the Son into the world, that by Him He might be honoured, in such a manner that He should be acknowledged to be the Father properly so called, and to have begotten a Son of the same substance with Himself, and to be adored with the same latria as Himself. He therefore who denies that the Son is God, denies that the Father begat God, which is the highest blasphemy of the Father. For he deprives the Father of that offspring which is His equal, and worthy of Himself, and instead of a Divine and uncreated offspring assigns to Him one that is created and mean. Wherefore he denies Him to be a proper and Divine Father

For as the Father , &c. To have life in Himself signifies three things. 1. To have life from Himself and from His own Essence, and from no other source. For the Essence of God is life, and His life is His Essence. God therefore essentially, and by His Essence, is essential, uncreated, and infinite life. 2. That God has life in Himself is that He is the fountain of all life, of angels, men, and animals. As Euthymius says, To have life in Himself means that after the manner of a living fountain He is the Author of life, according to the words, “ With Thee is the well of life ” (Ps. xxxvi. 10). 3. Which follows from the two previous meanings, to have life in Himself means to have life in His own power, to be the Lord of life to all things living, so that He according to His own good pleasure gives them life, preserves it, and takes it away. This makes plain the unity of Essence, />., of Deity, in the Father and the Son. For if the Son had a different Essence from the Father, then He would have life in another, that is to say, in the Father, who gave Him life. But now He hath life in Himself, ie n in His own Divine Essence, which He hath altogether in common with the Father. So S. Chrysostom. " Behold,” he says, “ how they differ not in any respect whatsoever, save that the one is the Father, and the other the Son.” So hath He given also 9 &c. In that He is the Son of God, and that according to the three ways just spoken of. As & Augustine says, that His life might not have need of life, that He should not be understood to have life by way of participation : for if He had life by way of participation, He might, by losing the participation, become without life. Such doctrine concerning the Son accept not, think not, believe not. The Father therefore continues as life^ the Son also continues as life. The Father is life in Himself, Digitized by V^rOOQie 182 not from the Son : the Son is life in Himself, but from the Father.”

And hath given , &c. Because Christ as God hath life in Himself, from hence, in that He is man, He hath power to judge all men. The word because must here be taken specifically, and means inasmuch as. But it may be taken even more expressively in a reduplicative and causative sense, as giving the express reason why God gave Christ judicial authority. That reason is because Christ is the Son of Man, ie., because He deigned to become Incarnate. As though it were said, “God hath willed to judge men by Christ a man, that judgment might take place in a congruous manner, that is, after a sensible and human manner, that as Pie Himself saved the world by the man Christ, so He would also judge it by the same, by that man, I say, who is God, who took human life, and laid it down for man’s salvation.” Wherefore it is that He by this great emptying of Himself, by which He willed to become man, merited this exaltation of judicial power, that He who was the Saviour of all should be the Judge ot all. So Maldonatus and others. S. Augustine gives also a twofold reason. The first is, “ that those who are to be judged might see their Judge. For those who shall be judged will be both good and bad. It was right that in the judgment the form of a servant should be shown both to the good and the bad, but the form of God should be reserved for the good only.” The second reason is, “because the Judge shall have that form in which He stood before His judge. That form which was judged shall judge: unrighteously was it judged, but righteously shall it judge.”

If I bear witness of Myself, that I am the Son of God, and therefore as man altogether conformed to the judgment and will of God, My witness is not true, that is, legitimate, judicial, worthy of credit. The word true here is not opposed to false, but to untrustworthy, uncertain. It answers to the Hebrew word neeman, faithful, worthy of credit. For it may be that a man may utter most true testimony concerning himself, and yet may fail to gain credit because of a suspicion that he has too great love of himself as Euthyraius says. There is a prolefsis by which Christ meets a tacit objection of Digitized by V^rOOQie WITNESSES TO CHRIST. 185 the scribes, to the following effect : “ Thou, O Jesus, proclaimest Thyself to be the Son of God, and so in all things to follow the judgment of God. But we will not believe Thee unless Thou shalt prove what Thou sayest by the testimony of God, or of men worthy of credit This testimony of Thine in a matter which peculiarly concerns Thyself appears to us open to suspicion.” Jesus replies, “ I grant you that My testimony concerning Myself is not legitimate, nor worthy of credit, if I alone bear witness of Myself. I grant therefore that you need not believe Me alone; but I am not alone, but others worthy of credit bear witness of Me, as will appear by what follows.” Christ is here speaking of the common opinion of the Jews, not uttering His own sentiments, as appears from chap, viii. 13, where the Jews openly object to Christ, Thou bearest testimony of Thyself Thy testimony is not true. Then Christ answers, My testimony is true, &c., because I am not alone , but /, and the Father who sent Me. So S. CyriL