Tractate 17 (John 5:1-18)

1. It ought not to be a matter of wonder that a miracle was wrought by God; the wonder would be if man had wrought it. Rather ought we to rejoice than wonder that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was made man, than that He performed divine works among men. It is of greater importance to our salvation what He was made for men, than what He did among men: it is more important that He healed the faults of souls, than that He healed the weaknesses of mortal bodies. But as the soul knew not Him by whom it was to be healed, and had eyes in the flesh whereby to see corporeal deeds, but had not yet sound eyes in the heart with which to recognise Him as God concealed in the flesh, He wrought what the soul was able to see, in order to heal that by which it was not able to see.

He entered a place where lay a great multitude of sick folk — of blind, lame, withered; and being the physician both of souls and bodies, and having come to heal all the souls of them that should believe, of those sick folk He chose one for healing, thereby to signify unity. If in doing this we regard Him with a commonplace mind, with the mere human understanding and wit, as regards power it was not a great matter that He performed; and also as regards goodness He performed too little. There lay so many there, and yet only one was healed, while He could by a word have raised them all up. What, then, must we understand but that the power and the goodness was doing what souls might, by His deeds, understand for their everlasting salvation, than what bodies might gain for temporal health? For that which is the real health of bodies, and which is looked for from the Lord, will be at the end, in the resurrection of the dead. What shall live then shall no more die; what shall be healed shall no more be sick; what shall be satisfied shall no more hunger and thirst; what shall be made new shall not grow old. But at this time, however, the eyes of the blind, that were opened by those acts of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, were again closed in death; and limbs of the paralytics that received strength were loosened again in death; and whatever was for a time made whole in mortal limbs came to nought in the end: but the soul that believed passed to eternal life. Accordingly, to the soul that should believe, whose sins He had come to forgive, to the healing of whose ailments He had humbled Himself, He gave a significant proof by the healing of this impotent man. Of the profound mystery of this thing and this proof, so far as the Lord deigns to grant us, while you are attentive and aiding our weakness by prayer, I will speak as I shall have ability. And whatever I am not able to do, that will be supplied to you by Him by whose help I do what I can.

2. Of this pool, which was surrounded with five porches, in which lay a great multitude of sick folk, I remember that I have very often treated; and most of you will with me recollect what I am about to say, rather than gain the knowledge of it for the first time. But it is by no means unprofitable to go back upon matters already known, that both they who know not may be instructed, and they who do know may be confirmed. Therefore, as being already known, these things must be touched upon briefly, not leisurely inculcated. That pool and that water seem to me to have signified the Jewish people. For that peoples are signified under the name of waters the Apocalypse of John clearly indicates to us, where, after he had been shown many waters, and he had asked what they were, was answered that they were peoples. Revelation 17:15 That water, then — namely, that people — was shut in by the five books of Moses, as by five porches. But those books brought forth the sick, not healed them. For the law convicted, not acquitted sinners. Accordingly the letter, without grace, made men guilty, whom on confessing grace delivered. For this is what the apostle says: For if a law had been given that could have given life, certainly righteousness should have been by the law. Why, then, was the law given? He goes on to say, But the Scripture has concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. Galatians 3:21-22 What more evident? Have not these words expounded to us both the five porches, and also the multitude of sick folk? The five porches are the law. Why did not the five porches heal the sick folk? Because, if there had been a law given that could have given life, certainly righteousness should have been by the law. Why, then, did the porches contain those whom they did not heal? Because the Scripture has concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

3. What was done, then, that they who could not be healed in the porches might be healed in that water after being troubled? For on a sudden the water was seen troubled, and that by which it was troubled was not seen. You may believe that this was wont to be done by angelic virtue, yet not without some mystery being implied. After the water was troubled, the one who was able cast himself in, and he alone was healed: whoever went in after that one, did so in vain. What, then, is meant by this, unless it be that there came one, even Christ, to the Jewish people; and by doing great things, by teaching profitable things, troubled sinners, troubled the water by His presence, and roused it towards His own death? But He was hidden that troubled. For had they known Him, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 Corinthians 2:8 Wherefore, to go down into the troubled water means to believe in the Lord's death. There only one was healed, signifying unity: whoever came thereafter was not healed, because whoever shall be outside unity cannot be healed.

4. Now let us see what He intended to signify in the case of that one whom He Himself, keeping the mystery of unity, as I said before, deigned to heal out of so many sick folk. He found in the number of this man's years the number, so to speak, of infirmity: He was thirty and eight years in infirmity. How this number refers more to weakness than to health must be somewhat more carefully expounded. I wish you to be attentive; the Lord will aid us, so that I may fitly speak, and that you may sufficiently hear. The number forty is commended to our attention as one consecrated by a kind of perfection. This, I suppose, is well known to you, beloved. The Holy Scriptures very often testify to the fact. Fasting was consecrated by this number, as you are well aware. For Moses fasted forty days, and Elias as many; and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did Himself fulfill this number of fasting. By Moses is signified the law; by Elias, the prophets; by the Lord, the gospel. It was for this reason that these three appeared on that mountain, where He showed Himself to His disciples in the brightness of His countenance and vesture. For He appeared in the middle, between Moses and Elias, as the gospel had witness from the law and the prophets. Romans 3:21 Whether, therefore, in the law, or in the prophets, or in the gospel, the number forty is commended to our attention in the case of fasting. Now fasting, in its large and general sense, is to abstain from the iniquities and unlawful pleasures of the world, which is perfect fasting: That, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live temperately, and righteously, and godly in this present world. What reward does the apostle join to this fast? He goes on to say: Looking for that blessed hope, and the appearing of the glory of the blessed God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Titus 2:12-13 In this world, then, we celebrate, as it were, the forty days' abstinence, when we live aright, and abstain from iniquities and from unlawful pleasures. But because this abstinence shall not be without reward, we look for that blessed hope, and the revelation of the glory of the great God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ. In that hope, when the reality of the hope shall have come to pass, we shall receive our wages, a penny (denarius). For the same is the wages given to the workers laboring in the vineyard, Matthew 20:10 as I presume you remember; for we are not to repeat everything, as if to persons wholly ignorant and inexperienced. A denarius, then, which takes its name from the number ten, is given, and this joined with the forty makes up fifty; whence it is that before Easter we keep the Quadragesima with labor, but after Easter we keep the Quinquagesima with joy, as having received our wages. Now to this, as if to the wholesome labor of a good work, which belongs to the number forty, there is added the denarius of rest and happiness, that it may be made the number fifty.

5. The Lord Jesus Himself showed this also far more openly, when He companied on earth with His disciples during forty days after His resurrection; and having on the fortieth day ascended into heaven, did at the end of ten days send the wages, the Holy Ghost. These were done in signs, and by a kind of signs were the very realities anticipated. By significant tokens are we fed, that we may be able to come to the enduring realities. We are workmen, and are still laboring in the vineyard: when the day is ended and the work finished, the wages will be paid. But what workman can hold out to the receiving of the wages, unless he be fed while he labors? Even you yourself will not give your workman only wages; will you not also bestow on him that where with he may repair his strength in his labor? Surely you feed him to whom you are to give wages. In like manner also does the Lord, in those significant tokens of the Scriptures, feed us while we labor. For if that joy in understanding holy mysteries be withdrawn from us, we faint in labor, and there will be none to come to the reward.

6. How, then, is work perfected in the number forty? The reason, it may be, is, because the law was given in ten precepts, and was to be preached throughout the whole world: which whole world, we are to mark, is made up of four quarters, east and west, south and north, whence the number ten, multiplied by four, comes to forty. Or, it may be, because the law is fulfilled by the gospel, which has four books: for in the gospel it is said, I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Whether, then, it be for this reason or for that, or for some other more probable, which is hid from us, but not from more learned men; certain it is, however, that in the number forty a certain perfection in good works is signified, which good works are most of all practised by a kind of abstinence from unlawful lusts of the world, that is, by fasting in the general sense.

Hear also the apostle when he says, Love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 10:10 Whence the love? By the grace of God, by the Holy Spirit. For we could not have it from ourselves, as if making it for ourselves. It is the gift of God, and a great gift it is: for, says he, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us. Romans 5:5 Wherefore love completes the law, and most truly it is said, Love is the perfecting of the law. Let us inquire as to this love, in what manner the Lord does commend it to our consideration. Remember what I laid down: I want to explain the number thirty-eight of the years of that impotent man, why that number thirty-eight is one of weakness rather than of health. Now, as I was saying, love fulfills the law. The number forty belongs to the perfecting of the law in all works; but in love two precepts are committed to our keeping. Keep before your eyes, I beseech you, and fix in your memory, what I say; be ye not despisers of the word, that your soul may not become a trodden path, where the seed cast cannot sprout, and the fowls of the air will come and gather it up. Apprehend it, and lay it up in your hearts. The precepts of love, given to us by the Lord, are two: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40 With good reason did the widow cast two mites, all her substance, into the offerings of God: with good reason did the host take two pieces of money, for the poor man that was wounded by the robbers, for his making whole: with good reason did Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans, to establish them in love. Thus, while a certain good thing is generally signified by this number two, most especially is love in its twofold character set forth to us thereby. If, therefore, the number forty possesses the perfecting of the law, and the law is fulfilled only in the twin precepts of love, why do you wonder that he was weak and sick, who was short of forty by two?

7. Therefore let us now see the sacred mystery whereby this impotent man is healed by the Lord. The Lord Himself came, the Teacher of love, full of love, shortening, as it was predicted of Him, the word upon the earth, and showed that the law and the prophets hang on two precepts of love. Upon these hung Moses with his number forty, upon these Elias with his; and the Lord brought in this number in His testimony. This impotent man is healed by the Lord in person; but before healing him, what does He say to him? Will you be made whole? The man answered that he had not a man to put him into the pool. Truly he had need of a man to his healing, but that man one who is also God. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 He came, then, the Man who was needed: why should the healing be delayed? Arise, says He; take up your bed, and walk. He said three things: Arise, Take up your bed, and Walk. But that Arise was not a command to do a work, but the operation of healing. And the man, on being made whole, received two commands: Take up your bed, and Walk. I ask you, why was it not enough to say, Walk? Or, at any rate, why was it not enough to say, Arise? For when the man had arisen whole, he would not have remained in the place. Would it not be for the purpose of going away that he would have arisen? My impression is, that He who found the man lacking two things, gave him these two precepts: for, by ordering him to do two things, it is as if He filled up that which was lacking.

8. How, then, do we find the two precepts of love indicated in these two commands of the Lord? Take up your bed, says He, and walk. What the two precepts are, my brethren, recollect with me. For they ought to be thoroughly familiar to you, and not merely to come into your mind when they are recited by us, but they ought never to be blotted out from your hearts. Let it ever be your supreme thought, that you must love God and your neighbor: God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself. These must always be pondered, meditated, retained, practised, and fulfilled. The love of God comes first in the order of enjoying; but in the order of doing, the love of our neighbor comes first. For He who commanded you this love in two precepts did not charge you to love your neighbor first, and then God, but first God, afterwards your neighbor. Thou however, as you do not yet see God dost earn to see Him by loving your neighbor; by loving your neighbor you purge your eye for seeing God, as John evidently says, If you love not your brother whom you see, how can you love God, whom you do not see? 1 John 4:20 See, you are told, Love God. If you say to me, Show me Him, that I may love Him; what shall I answer, but what the same John says: No man has seen God at any time? And, that you may not suppose yourself to be wholly estranged from seeing God, he says, God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God. 1 John 4:16 Therefore love your neighbor; look at the source of your love of your neighbor; there you will see, as you may, God. Begin, then, to love your neighbor. Break your bread to the hungry, and bring into your house him that is needy without shelter; if you see the naked, clothe him; and despise not those of the household of your seed. And in doing this, what will you get in consequence? Then shall your light break forth as the morning light. Isaiah 58:7-8 Your light is your God, a morning light to you, because He shall come to you after the night of this world: for He neither rises nor sets, because He is ever abiding. He will be a morning light to you on your return, He who had set for you on your falling away from Him. Therefore, in this Take up your bed, He seems to me to have said, Love your neighbor.

9. But why the love of our neighbor is set forth by the taking up of the bed, is still shut up, and, as I suppose, needs to be expounded: unless, perhaps, it offend us that our neighbor should be indicated by means of a bed, a stolid, senseless thing. Let not my neighbor be angry if he be set forth to us by a thing without soul and without feeling. The Lord Himself, even our Saviour Jesus Christ, is called the corner-stone, to build up two in Himself. He is called also a rock, from which water flowed forth: And that rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 What wonder, then, if Christ is called rock, that neighbor is called wood? Yet not any kind of wood whatever; as neither that was any kind of rock soever, but one from which water flowed to the thirsty; nor any kind soever of stone, but a corner-stone, which in itself coupled two walls coming from different directions. So neither may you take your neighbor to be wood of any kind soever, but a bed. Then what is there in a bed, pray? What, but that the impotent man was borne on it; but, when made whole, he carries the bed? What does the apostle say? Bear ye one another's burdens, and so shall you fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 Now the law of Christ is love, and love is not fulfilled except we bear one another's burdens. Forbearing, says he, one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:2 When you were weak your neighbor bore you: you are made whole, bear your neighbor. So will you fill up, O man, that which was lacking to you. Take up your bed, then. But when you have taken it up, stay not in the place; walk. By loving your neighbor, by caring for your neighbor, do you perform your going. Where are you going, but to the Lord God, whom we ought to love with the whole heart, and with the whole soul, and with the whole mind? For we are not yet come to the Lord, but we have our neighbor with us. Bear him, then, when you walk, that you may come to Him with whom you desire to abide. Therefore, take up your bed, and walk.

10. The man did this, and the Jews were offended. For they saw a man carrying his bed on the Sabbath day, and they did not blame the Lord for healing him on the Sabbath, that He should be able to answer them, that if any of them had a beast fallen into a well, he would surely draw it out on the Sabbath day, and save his beast; and so, now they did not object to Him that a man was made whole on the Sabbath day, but that the man was carrying his bed. But if the healing was not to be deferred, should a work also have been commanded? It is not lawful for you, say they, to do what you are doing, to take up your bed. And he, in defense, put the author of his healing before his censors, saying, He that made me whole, the same said to me, Take up your bed, and walk. Should I not take injunction from him from whom I received healing? And they said, Who is the man that said to you, Take up your bed, and walk?

11. But he that was made whole knew not who it was that had said this to him. For Jesus, when He had done this, and given him this order, turned away from him in the crowd. See how this also is fulfilled. We bear our neighbor, and walk towards God; but Him, to whom we are walking, we do not yet see: for that reason also, that man did not yet know Jesus. The mystery herein intimated to us is, that we believe in Him whom we do not yet see; and that He may not be seen, He turns aside in the crowd. It is difficult in a crowd to see Christ: a certain solitude is necessary for our mind; it is by a certain solitude of contemplation that God is seen. A crowd has noise; this seeing requires secrecy. Take up your bed — being yourself borne, bear your neighbor; and walk, that you may come to the goal. Do not seek Christ in a crowd: He is not as one of a crowd; He excels all crowd. That great fish first ascended from the sea, and He sits in heaven making intercession for us: as the great high priest He entered alone into that within the veil; the crowd stands without. Do thou walk, bearing your neighbor: if you have learned to bear, you, who were wont to be borne. In a word, even now as yet you know not Jesus, not yet see Jesus: what follows thereafter? Since that man desisted not from taking up his bed and walking, Jesus sees him afterwards in the temple. He did not see Jesus in the crowd, he saw Him in the temple. The Lord Jesus, indeed, saw him both in the crowd and in the temple; but the impotent man does not know Jesus in the crowd, but he knows Him in the temple. The man came then to the Lord: saw Him in the temple, saw Him in a consecrated, saw Him in a holy place. And what does the Lord say to him? Behold, you are made whole; sin no more, lest some worse thing befall you.

12. The man, then, after he saw Jesus, and knew Him to be the author of his healing, was not slothful in preaching Him whom he had seen: He departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus that had made him whole. He brought them word, and they were mad against him; he preached his own salvation, they sought not their own salvation.

13. The Jews persecuted the Lord Jesus because He did these things on the Sabbath day. Let us hear what answer the Lord now made to the Jews. I have told you how He is wont to answer concerning the healing of men on the Sabbath day, that they used not on the Sabbath day to slight their cattle, either in delivering or in feeding them. What does He answer concerning the carrying of the bed? A manifest corporal work was done before the eyes of the Jews; not a healing of the body, but a bodily work, which appeared not so necessary as the healing. Let the Lord, then, openly declare that the sacrament of the Sabbath, even the sign of keeping one day, was given to the Jews for a time, but that the fulfillment of the sacrament had come in Himself. My Father, says He, works hitherto, and I work. He sent a great commotion among them: the water is troubled by the coming of the Lord, but yet He that troubles is not seen. Yet one great sick one is to be healed by the troubled water, the whole world by the death of the Lord.

14. Let us see, then, the answer made by the Truth: My Father works hitherto, and I work. Is it false, then, which the Scripture has said, that God rested from all His works on the seventh day? And does the Lord Jesus speak contrary to this Scripture ministered by Moses, while He Himself says to the Jews, If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for He wrote of me? See, then, whether Moses did not mean it to be significant of something that God rested on the seventh day. For God had not become wearied in doing the work of His own creation, and needed rest as a man. How can He have been wearied, who made by a word? Yet is both that true, that God rested from His works on the seventh day; and this also is true that Jesus says, My Father works hitherto. But who can unfold it in words, man to men, weak to weak, unlearned to them that seek to learn; and if he chance to understand somewhat, unable to bring it forth and unfold it to men, who with difficulty, it may be, receive it, even if what is received can possibly be unfolded? Who, I say, my brethren, can unfold in words how God both works while at rest, and rests while working? I pray you to put this matter off while you are advancing on the way; for this seeing requires the temple of God, requires the holy place. Bear your neighbor, and walk. You shall see Him in that place where you shall not require the words of men.

15. Perhaps we can more appropriately say this, that in the saying, God rested on the seventh day, he signified by a great mystery the Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, who spoke and said, My Father works hitherto, and I work. For the Lord Jesus is, of course, God. For He is the Word of God, and you have heard that in the begin ning was the Word; and not any word whatsoever, but the Word was God, and all things were made by Him. He was perhaps signified as about to rest on the seventh day from all His works. For, read the Gospel, and see what great works Jesus wrought. He wrought our salvation on the cross, that all things foretold by the prophets might be fulfilled in Him. He was crowned with thorns; He hung on the tree; said, I thirst, received vinegar on a sponge, that it might be fulfilled which was said, And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. And when all His works were completed, on the sixth day of the week, He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, and on the Sabbath day He rested in the tomb from all His works. Therefore it is as if He said to the Jews, Why do you expect that I should not work on the Sabbath? The Sabbath day was ordained for you for a sign of me. You observe the works of God: I was there when they were made, by me were they all made; I know them. 'My Father works hitherto.' The Father made the light, but He spoke that there should be light; if He spoke, it was by His Word He made it: His Word I was, I am; by me was the world made in those works, by me the world is ruled in these works. My Father worked when He made the world, and hitherto now works while He rules the world: therefore by me He made when He made, and by me He rules while He rules. This He said, but to whom? To men deaf, blind, lame, impotent, not acknowledging the physician, and as if in a frenzy they had lost their wits, wishing to slay Him.

16. Further, what said the evangelist as he went on? Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father; not in any ordinary manner, but how? Making Himself equal with God. For we all say to God, Our Father which art in heaven; we read also that the Jews said, Seeing You are our Father. Isaiah 63:16 Therefore it was not for this they were angry, because He said that God was His Father, but because He said it in quite another way than men do. Behold, the Jews understand what the Arians do not understand. The Arians, in fact, say that the Son is not equal with the Father, and hence it is that the heresy was driven from the Church. Lo, the very blind, the very slayers of Christ, still understood the words of Christ. They did not understand Him to be Christ, nor did they understand Him to be the Son of God: but they did nevertheless understand that in these words such a Son of God was intimated to them as should be equal with God. Who He was they knew not; still they did acknowledge such a One to be declared, in that He said God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Was He not therefore equal with God? He did not make Himself equal, but the Father begot Him equal. Were He to make Himself equal, He would fall by robbery. For he who wished to make himself equal with God, while he was not so, fell, and of an angel became a devil, Isaiah 14:14 and administered to man that cup of pride by which himself was cast down. For this fallen said to man, envying his standing, Taste, and you shall be as gods; Genesis 3:5 that is, seize to yourselves by usurpation that which you are not made, for I also have been cast down by robbery. He did not put forth this, but this is what he persuaded to. Christ, however, was begotten equal to the Father, not made; begotten of the substance of the Father. Whence the apostle thus declares Him: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. What means thought it not robbery? He usurped not equality with God, but was in that equality in which He was begotten. And how were we to come to the equal God? He emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant. Philippians 2:6 But He emptied Himself not by losing what He was, but by taking to Him what He was not. The Jews, despising this form of a servant, could not understand the Lord Christ equal to the Father, although they had not the least doubt that He affirmed this of Himself, and therefore were they enraged: and yet He still bore with them, and sought the healing of them, while they raged against Him.

Tractate 18 (John 5:19)

1. John the evangelist, among his fellows and companions the other evangelists, received this special and peculiar gift from the Lord (on whose breast he reclined at the feast, hereby to signify that he was drinking deeper secrets from His inmost heart), to utter those things concerning the Son of God which may perhaps rouse the attentive minds of the little ones, but cannot fill them, as yet not capable of receiving them; while to minds, of somewhat larger growth, and coming to a certain age of inner manhood, he gives in these words something whereby they may both be exercised and fed. You have heard it when it was read, and you remember how this discourse arose. For yesterday it was read, that therefore the Jews sought to kill Jesus, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. This that displeased the Jews, pleased the Father. This, without doubt, pleases them too that honor the Son as they honor the Father; for if it does not please them, they will not be pleasing. For God will not be greater because it pleases you, but you will be less if it displeases you. Now against this calumny of theirs, coming either of ignorance or of malice, the Lord speaks not at all what they can understand, but that whereby they may be agitated and troubled, and, on being troubled, it may be, seek the Physician. And He uttered what should be written, that it might afterwards be read even by us. Now we have seen what happened in the hearts of the Jews when they heard these words; what happens in ourselves when we hear them, let us more fully consider. For heresies, and certain tenets of perversity, ensnaring souls and hurling them into the deep, have not sprung up except when good Scriptures are not rightly understood, and when that in them which is not rightly understood is rashly and boldly asserted. And so, dearly beloved, ought we very cautiously to hear those things for the understanding of which we are but little ones, and that, too, with pious heart and with trembling, as it is written, holding this rule of soundness, that we rejoice as in food in that which we have been able to understand, according to the faith with which we are imbued; and what we have not yet been able to understand, that we lay aside doubting, and defer the understanding of it for a time; that is, even if we do not yet know what it is, that still we doubt not in the least that it is good and true. And as for me, brethren, you must consider who I am that undertake to speak to you, and what I have undertaken: for I have taken upon me to treat of things divine, being a man; of spiritual things, being carnal; of things eternal, being a mortal. Also from me, dearly beloved, far be vain presumption, if my conversation would be sound in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:1 In proportion to my measure I take what I put before you: where it is opened, I see with you; where it is shut, I knock with you.

2. Now the Jews were moved and indignant: justly, indeed, because a man dared to make himself equal with God; but unjustly in this, because in the man they understood not the God. They saw the flesh, the God they knew not; they observed the habitation, of the inhabitant they were ignorant. That flesh was a temple, within it dwelt God. It was not the flesh that Jesus made equal to the Father, it was not the form of a servant that He compared to the Lord; not that which He became for us, but that which He was when He made us. For who Christ is (I speak to Catholics) you know, because you have rightly believed; not Word only, nor flesh only, but the Word was made flesh to dwell among us. I recite again concerning the Word what you know: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: here is equality with the Father. But the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Than this flesh the Father is greater. Thus the Father is both equal and greater; equal to the Word, greater than the flesh; equal to Him by whom He made us, greater than He who was made for us. By this sound catholic rule, which you ought particularly to know, which you who know it hold fast, from which your faith ought not in any case to slip, which is to be wrested from your heart by no arguments of men, let us measure the things we do understand; and the things which, it may be, we do not understand, let us defer, to be hereafter measured by this rule, when we shall be competent to do this. We know Him, then, as equal to the Father, the Son of God, because we know Him in the beginning as God the Word. Why, then, sought the Jews to slay Him? Because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God: seeing the flesh, not seeing the Word. Let Him therefore speak against them, the Word through the flesh; let Him, the dweller within, speak for through His dwelling-place, that whoever can, shall know who He is that dwells within.

3. What says He then to them? Then answered Jesus, and said to them, being indignant because He made Himself equal with God, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. What the Jews answered to these words is not written: and perhaps they said nothing. Certain, however, who wish to be esteemed Christians, are not silent, but from these words somehow conceive certain opinions in contradiction to us, which are not to be despised, both for their and for our sakes. The Arian heretics, namely, while they assert that the Son, who took upon Himself flesh, is less than the Father, not by the flesh, but before taking flesh, and not of the same substance as the Father, take a handle of misrepresentation from these words, and reply to us: You see that the Lord Jesus, observing the Jews to be moved with indignation at his making himself equal to God the Father, subjoined such words as these, to show that he was not equal with God. For the Jews, say they, were provoked against Christ, because he made him self equal with God; and Christ, wishing to cure them of this impression, and to show them that the Son is not equal to the Father, that is, to God, says this, as if he said, Why are you angry? Why are you indignant? I am not equal to God, since 'the Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing.' Now, say they, he who 'cannot do anything of himself, but what he sees the Father doing,' is surely less, not equal.

4. In this distorted and depraved rule of his own heart, let the heretic hear us, not as yet chiding, but still as it were inquiring, and let him explain to us what he thinks. For, I suppose, whoever you are (for we may regard him as here present in person), you hold with us, that in the beginning was the Word. I do hold it, says he. And that the Word was with God? This too, says he, I hold. Proceed then, and hold the stronger saying that follows, that the Word was God. Even this, says he, I hold: but yet, this, God the greater; that, God the less. Now this somehow smells of the pagan: I thought I was speaking with a Christian. If there is God the greater, and God the less, then we worship two Gods, not one God. Why, says he; do not you, too, affirm two Gods, equal the one to the other? This I do not assert: for I understand this equality as implying therein also undivided love; and if undivided love, then perfect unity. For if the love that God put in men does make of many hearts of men one heart, and does make many souls of men into one soul, as it is written of them that believed and mutually loved one another, in the Acts of the Apostles, They had one soul and one heart toward God: Acts 4:32 if, therefore, my soul and your soul become one soul, when we think the same thing and love one another, how much more must God the Father and God the Son be one God in the fountain of love!

5. But to these words, by which your heart is disturbed, bend your thought, and reflect with me on that which we were seeking out concerning the Word. We already hold that the Word was God: I join to this another thing, that, having said, This was in the beginning with God, the evangelist immediately subjoined, All things were made by Him. Now will I urge you by questioning, now will I move you against yourself, and sue you against yourself: only keep this in memory concerning the Word, that the Word was God, and all things were made by Him. Hear now the words by which you were moved to assert that the Son is less, forsooth, because He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. Just so, says he. Explain to me this a little: This is, I presume, how you think, that the Father does certain things, and the Son observes how the Father does, that He may also Himself be able to do those things which He sees the Father doing. You have set up two artisans, as it were: the Father and the Son just like master and learner, like as artisan fathers are wont to teach their sons their craft. Behold, I come down to your carnal sense: for the moment I think as you do, let us see if this our conception finds an issue in harmony with the things which we have just now alike spoken and alike hold regarding the Word, that the Word was God, and that all things were made by Him. Suppose, then, the Father, as an artisan, doing certain works, and the Son as a learner, who cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing: He keenly watches, in a manner, the Father's hands, that, as He sees Him fashioning anything, so He may Himself in like manner fashion something similar by His own works. But the Father here does all those things that He does, and wishes the Son to give heed to Him, and to do the like also Himself; by whom does the Father? Come! now is the time for you to stand to your former opinion, which you recited with me, and held with me; that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by Him. But you, after holding with me, that all things were made by the Word, dost again, with your carnal wit and childish fancy, imagine with yourself God making something, and the Word giving heed; so that when God has made, the Word also may make the like. Now, what does God make without the Word? For if He does anything, then were not all things made by the Word; you have given up the position which you held. But if all things were made by the Word, correct what you understood amiss. The Father made, and made only by the Word: in what way does the Word give heed to see the Father making without the Word, what the Word may do in like manner? Whatever the Father has made, He made it by the Word; else is it false that all things were made by Him. But it is true that all things were made by Him. Perhaps this did not seem enough for you? Well, and without Him was nothing made.

6. Withdraw, then, from this wisdom of the flesh, and let us inquire in what manner it is said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. Let us inquire, if we are worthy to apprehend. For I confess it is a great thing, and altogether difficult; to see the Father doing through the Son: not the Father and the Son doing each His particular works, but the Father doing every work whatsoever by the Son; so that not any works are done by the Father without the Son, or by the Son without the Father, because all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. These truths being most firmly established in the foundation of faith, what now is the nature of this seeing? You seek, as I suppose, to know the Son doing: seek first to know the Son seeing. For what, in fact, says He? The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. Note what He said, but what He sees the Father doing. The seeing comes first, the doing follows: He sees in order to do. As for you, why do you seek at present to know how He does, while you understand not as yet how He sees? Why do you run to that which comes later, leaving that which comes first? He declares Himself as seeing and doing, not doing and seeing; because He cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. Will you that I explain to you how He does? Explain to me how He sees. If you can not explain this, neither can I that. If you are not yet competent to understand this, neither am I to understand that. Wherefore let each of us seek, each knock, that each may merit to receive. Why do you, as if you were learned, unjustly blame me who am unlearned? I in respect of the doing, you in respect of the seeing, being both unlearned, let us inquire of the Master, not childishly wrangle in His school. We have already, however, learned together that all things were made by Him. Therefore it is manifest that it is not a different kind of works that the Father does, that, seeing them, the Son may do other works like them; but the very same does the Father by the Son, because all things were made by the Word. Now, as to how God does, who knows? How made He, I will not say the world, but your own eye, in your carnal attachment to which you compare visible things with invisible? For you conceive of God such things as you are wont to see with these eyes. But if God might be seen with these eyes, He would not have said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Accordingly, you have an eye of the body to see an artificer, but you have not yet the eye of the heart to see God: hence, what you are wont to see in an artificer, you would transfer to God. Leave earthly things on the earth; set your heart on high.

7. What then, beloved, are we going to explain that which we have asked, how the Word sees, how the Father is seen by the Word, what the seeing of the Word is? I am not so bold, so rash, as to promise to explain this, for myself or for you: however I estimate your measure, still I know my own. Therefore, if you please, not to delay it longer, let us run over the passage, and see how carnal hearts are troubled by the words of the Lord; to this end troubled, that they may not continue in that which they hold. Let this be wrested from them, as some toy is wrested from children, with which they amuse themselves to their hurt, that, as persons of larger growth, they may have more profitable things planted in them, and may be able to make progress, instead of crawling on the earth. Arise, seek, sigh, pant with desire, and knock at what is shut. But if we do not yet desire, not yet earnestly seek, not yet sigh, we shall only be throwing pearls to all indiscriminately, or finding pearls ourselves, regardless of what kind. Wherefore, beloved, I would move a longing desire in your heart. Good character leads to right understanding: the kind of life leads to another kind of life. One kind of life is earthly, another is heavenly: there is a life of beasts, another of men, and another of angels. The life of beasts is excited with earthly pleasures, seeks earthly pleasures alone, and grovels after them with immoderate desire: the life of angels is alone heavenly; the life of men is midway between that of angels and of beasts. If man lives after the flesh, he is on a level with the beasts; if he lives after the Spirit, he joins in the fellowship of angels. When you live after the Spirit, examine even in the angelic life whether you be small or well-grown. For if you are still a little one, the angels say to you, Grow: we feed on bread; you are nourished with milk, with the milk of faith that you may come to the meat of sight. But if there be still a longing for filthy pleasures, if the thoughts be still of deceit, if lies are not avoided, if perjuries be heaped on lies, shall a heart so foul dare to say, Explain to me how the Word sees; even if I be able to do so, even if I myself now see? And further, though not perhaps of this character myself, and I am nevertheless far from this vision, how must that man be weighed down with earthly desires, who is not yet rapt with this desire from above! There is a wide difference between loathing and desiring; and again, between desiring and enjoying. If you live as do the beasts, you loathe; the angels have full enjoyment. If, on the other hand, you live not as the beast, you have no longer loathing: something you desire, and dost not receive: you have, by the very desire, begun the life of the angels. May it grow in you, and be perfected in you; and may you receive this, not of me, but of Him who made both me and you!

8. Yet the Lord also has not left us to chance, since, in that He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing, He meant us to understand that the Father does, not some works which the Son may see, and the Son does other works after He has seen the Father doing; but that both the Father and Son do the very same works. For He goes on to say, For whatever things He does, these also does the Son in like manner. Not after the Father has done works, does the Son other works in like manner; but, whatever He does, these also the Son does in like manner. If these the Son does which the Father does, then it is by the Son that the Father does: if by the Son the Father does what He does, then the Father does not some, the Son others; but the works of the Father and of the Son are the same works. And how does the Son also the same? Both the same, and in like manner. In case you should think them the same, but in a different manner, the same, says He, and in like manner. And how could they be the same and not in like manner? Take an example, which I presume is not too big for you: when we write letters they are first formed by our heart, then by our hand. Certainly: why otherwise have you all agreed, but because you perceived it to be so? It is as I have said, it is manifest to us all. The letters are made first by our heart, then by our body; the hand serves, the heart commands; both the heart and the hand make the same letters. Do you think the heart does some letters, the hand some others? The same indeed does the hand, but not in like manner: our heart forms them intelligibly, but our hand visibly. See how the same things are made, but not in like manner. Hence it was not enough for the Lord to say, Whatever things the Father does, these also the Son does; He must add, and in like manner. For what if you should understand this just as you understand whatever your heart does, this also your hand does, but in a different manner? Here, however, he added, These also the Son does in like manner. If He both does these, and in like manner does, then awake; let the Jew be crushed, let the Christian believe, let the heretic be convinced: The Son is equal to the Father.

9. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does. Here is that shows. Shows, as it were, to whom? Of course, as to one that sees. We return to that which we cannot explain, how the Word sees. Behold, man was made by the Word; but man has eyes, ears, hands, various members in the body: he is able by the eyes to see, by the ears to hear, by the hands to work; the members are diverse, their offices diverse. One member cannot do the office of another; yet, by reason of the unity of the body, the eye sees both for itself and for the ear, and the ear hears for itself and for the eye. Are we to suppose that something like this holds good in the Word, seeing all things are by Him; and Scripture has said in the psalm, Understand, you brutish among the people; and you fools, at length be wise. He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? And He that formed the eye, shall He not see? Hence, if the Word is He that formed the eye, for all things are by the Word; if the Word is He that planted the ear, for all things are by the Word: we cannot say the Word does not hear, the Word does not see; lest the psalm reprove us, and say, Fools, at length be wise. Therefore, if the Word hears and sees, if the Son hears and sees, are we yet to search for eyes and ears in Him in separate places? Does He by one part hear, by another see; and cannot His ear do what His eye does; and cannot His eye do what His ear can? Or is He not all sight, all hearing? Perhaps yes; nay, not perhaps, but truly yes; while, however, that seeing of His, and that hearing of His, is in a way far other than it is with us. Both to see and to hear exist together in the Word: seeing and hearing are not diverse things in Him; but hearing is sight, and sight is hearing.

10. And we, who see in one way, and hear in another way, how know we this? We return perhaps to ourselves, if we are not the trangressors to whom it is said, Return, O trangressors, to your heart. Isaiah 46:8 Return to your heart: why go from yourselves, and perish from yourselves? Why go the ways of solitude? You go astray by wandering: return. Where? To the Lord. 'Tis quickly done: first return to your own heart; you have wandered abroad an exile from yourself; you know not yourself, and yet you are asking by whom you were made! Return, return to your heart, lift yourself away from the body: your body is your place of abode; your heart perceives even by your body. But your body is not what your heart is; leave even your body, return to your heart. In your body you found eyes in one place, ears in another place: do you find this in your heart? Or have you not ears in your heart? Else of what did the Lord say, Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear? Luke 8:8 Or have you not eyes in your heart? Else of what says the apostle, The eyes of your heart being enlightened? Ephesians 1:18 Return to your heart; see there what, it may be, you can perceive of God, for in it is the image of God. In the inner man dwells Christ, in the inner man are you renewed after the image of God, in His own image recognize its Author. See how all the senses of the body bring intelligence to the heart within of what they have perceived abroad; see how many ministers the one commander within has and what it can do by itself even without these ministers. The eyes report to the heart things black and white; the ears report to the same heart pleasant and harsh sounds; to the same heart the nostrils announce sweet odors and stenches; to the same heart the taste announces things bitter and sweet; to the same heart the touch announces things smooth and rough; and the heart declares to itself things just and unjust. Your heart sees and hears and judges all other things perceived by the senses; and, what the senses do not aspire to, discerns things just and unjust, things evil and good. Show me the eyes, ears, nostrils, of your heart. Diverse are the things that are referred to your heart, yet are there not diverse members there. In your flesh, you hear in one place, see in another; in your heart, where you see, there you hear. If this be the image, how much more mightily He whose the image is! Therefore the Son both hears and sees; the Son is both the hearing itself and the seeing: to hear is to Him the same thing as to be; and to see is to Him the same thing as to be. To see is not the same thing to you as to be; for if you lose your sight, you can be; and if you lose your hearing, you can be.

11. Do we think we have knocked? Is there raised up within us something whereby we may even slightly conjecture whence light may come to us? It is my opinion, brethren, that when we speak of these things, and meditate upon them, we are exercising ourselves. And when we are exercising ourselves, and are as it were bent back again by our own weight to our customary thoughts, we are like weak-eyed persons, when they are brought forth to see the light, if perchance they had no sight at all before, and begin in some sort to recover their sight by the assiduous care of physicians. And when the physician would test the progress of recovery, he tries to show them something which they sought to see, but could not while they were blind: and while the eyesight is now somewhat recovered, they are brought forth to the light; and as they see it, are beaten back in a manner by the very glare; and they answer the physician, as he points out the object, This moment I did see, but now I cannot. What then does the physician? He brings them back to their usual ways, and applies the eye-salve to nourish the longing for seeing that which was seen only for a moment, so that by the very longing he may cure more completely; and if any stinging salves are applied for the recovery of sound ness, let the patient bear it bravely, and, inflamed with love of the light, say to himself, When will it be that with strong eyes I shall see what with sore and weak eyes I could not? He urges the physician, and begs him to heal him. Therefore, brethren, if, it may be, something like this has taken place in your hearts, if somehow you have raised your heart to see the Word, and, beaten back by its light, you have fallen back to your wonted ways; pray the Physician to apply sharp salves, the precepts of righteousness. There is that which you may see, but not that whereby you can see. You did not believe me before that there is that which you may see: you are now, as by the guidance of reason, brought to it: you have drawn near, strained your eyes to see it, throbbed, and shrunk back. You know for certain that there is what you may see, but that you are not yet meet to see it. Therefore be healed. What are the eye-salves? Do not lie, do not swear falsely, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not defraud. But you are used to these, and it is with some pain you are drawn away from old habits: this is what bites, but yet heals. For I tell you freely, by fear of myself and of you, if you give up the healing, and scorn to become meet to enjoy this light, by weakness of your eyes, you will love darkness; and by loving darkness, will remain in darkness; and by remaining in darkness, will be cast even into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. If the love of light has effected nothing in you, let the fear of pain effect something.

12. I think I have spoken long enough, and yet I have not concluded the Gospel lesson: if I go on to declare what remains, I shall burden you, and I fear lest even what has been drawn may be lost; therefore let this be enough for you now, beloved. We are debtors, not now, but always as long as we live; because we live for you. However, do you, by good living, comfort this life of ours, so weak, toilsome, and full of peril in this world; do not afflict and wear us out by your evil manners. For if, when offended with your evil life, we flee from you and separate ourselves from you, and no longer come to you, will you not complain, and say, And if we were sick, you might care for us; and if we were weak, you might have visited us? Behold, we do care for you; behold, we do visit you; but let it not be with us as you have heard from the apostle, I fear lest I have bestowed labor upon you in vain. Galatians 4:11

Tractate 19 (John 5:19-30)

In the former discourse, so far as the subject impressed us, and so far as our poverty of understanding attained to, we have spoken by occasion of the words of the Gospel, where it is written: The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing,— what it is for the Son — that is, the Word, for the Son is the Word — to see; and as all things were made by the Word, how it is to be understood that the Son first sees the Father doing, and then only Himself also does the things which He has seen done, seeing that the Father has done nothing except by the Son. For all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. We have not, however, delivered to you anything as fully explained, and that because we have not understood anything thus clearly set forth. For, indeed, speech sometimes fails even where the understanding makes way; how much more does speech suffer defect, where the understanding has nothing perfect! Now, therefore, as the Lord gives us, let us briefly run over the passage, and even today complete the due task. Should there perchance remain somewhat of time or of strength, we will reconsider (so far as it may be practicable for us and with you) what it is for the Word to see and to be shown to; since, in fact, all that is here spoken is such that, if understood according to man's sense, carnally, the soul full of vain fancies makes for us only certain images of the Father and the Son, just as of two men, the one showing, the other seeing; the one speaking, the other hearing — all which are idols of the heart. And if now at length idols have been cast down from their own temples, how much more ought they to be cast down from Christian hearts!

2. The Son, says He, cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. This is true: hold this fast, while at the same time you do not let slip what you have gotten in the beginning of the Gospel, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and especially that all things were made by Him. Join this that you have now heard to that hearing, and let both agree together in your hearts. Thus, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, except what He sees the Father doing, is yet in such wise that what the Father does, He does only by the Son, because the Son is His Word: and, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; also, All things were made by Him. For whatever things He does, the Son also does in like manner; not other things, but these and not in a different, but in like manner.

3. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does. To that which He said above, except what He sees the Father doing, seems to belong this also, He shows Him all things that Himself does. But if the Father does show what He does, and the Son cannot do except the Father has shown, and if the Father cannot show unless He has done, it will follow that it is not through the Son that the Father does all things; moreover, if we hold it fixed and unshaken, that the Father does all by the Son, then He shows the Son before He does. For if the Father does show to the Son after He has done, that the Son may do the things shown, which being shown were already done, then doubtless something there is that the Father does without the Son. But the Father does not anything without the Son, because the Son of God is God's Word, and all things were made by Him. It remains, then, that possibly what the Father is about to do, He shows as about to be done, that it may be done by the Son. For if the Son does those things which the Father shows as already done, surely it is not by the Son that the Father has done the things which He thus shows. For they could not be shown to the Son unless they were first done, and the Son would not be able to do them unless they were first shown; therefore were they made without the Son. But yet it is a true thing, All things were made by Him; therefore they were shown before they were made. But this we said must be put off, and returned to after briefly scanning the passage, if, as we said, some portion of time and of strength should remain to us for a reconsideration of the matters deferred.

4. Attend now to a wider and more difficult question. And greater works than these, says He, will He show Him, that you may marvel. Greater than these. Greater than which? The answer readily occurs: than the cures of bodily diseases which you have just heard: For the whole occasion of this discourse arose about the man who was thirty and eight years in infirmity, and was healed by the word of Christ; and in respect of this cure, the Lord could say, Greater works than these He will show Him, that you may marvel. For there are greater, and the Father will show them to the Son. It is not has shown, as of a thing past, but will show, of a thing future; or, is about to show. Again a difficult question arises: Why, then, is there something with the Father that has not yet been shown to the Son? Is there something with the Father that was still hid from the Son when He spoke these words? For surely, if it be will show, that is to say, is about to show, then He has not yet shown; and He is about to show to the Son at the same time as to these persons, since it follows, that you may marvel. And this is a thing hard to see, how the Eternal Father does show something, as it were in time, to the coeternal Son, who knows all things that are with the Father.

5. But what are the greater works? For perhaps this is easy to understand. For as the Father, says He, raises up the dead, and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. To raise the dead, then, are greater works than to heal the sick. But as the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. Hence, the Father some, the Son others? But all things are by Him: therefore the Son the same persons as the Father does; since the Son does not other things and in a different manner, but these and in like manner. Thus clearly it must be understood, and thus held. But keep in memory that the Son quickens whom He will. Here, too, know not only the power of the Son, but also the will. Both the Son quickens whom He will, and also the Father quickens whom He will — the Son the same persons as the Father; and hence the power of the Father and of the Son is the same, and also the will is the same. What follows then? For the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all men may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father: this He subjoined, as rendering a reason of the foregoing sentence. A great question comes before us; give it your earnest attention. The Son quickens whom He will, the Father quickens whom He will; the Son raises the dead, just as the Father raises the dead. And further, the Father judges not any man. If the dead must be raised in the judgment, how can it be said that the Father raises the dead, if He judges not any man, since He has given all judgment to the Son? But in that judgment the dead are raised; some rise to life, others to punishment. If the Son does all this, but the Father not, inasmuch as He judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son, it will appear contrary to what has been said, viz., As the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. Consequently the Father and the Son raise together; if they raise together, they quicken together: hence they judge together. How, then, is that true, For the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son? Meanwhile let the questions now proposed engage your minds; the Lord will cause that, when solved, they will delight you. For so it is, brethren: every question, unless it stirs the mind to reflection, will not give delight when explained. May the Lord Himself then follow with us, in case He may perhaps reveal Himself somewhat in those matters which He folds up. For He folds up His light with a cloud; and it is difficult to fly like an eagle above every obscure mist with which the whole earth is covered, and to behold the most serene light in the words of the Lord. In case, then, He may perhaps dissipate our darkness with the heat of His rays, and deign to reveal Himself somewhat in the sequel, let us, deferring these questions, look at what follows.

6. Whoever honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him. This is a truth, and is plain. Since, then, all judgment has He given to the Son, as He said above, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father, what if there be those who honor the Father and honor not the Son? It cannot be, says He: Whoever honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him. One cannot therefore say, I honored the Father, because I knew not the Son. If you did not yet honor the Son, neither did you honor the Father. For what is honoring the Father, unless it be in that He has a Son? It is one thing when you are taught to honor God in that He is God; but another thing when you are taught to honor Him in that He is Father. When you are taught to honor Him in that He is God, it is as the Creator, as the Almighty, as the Spirit supreme, eternal, invisible, unchangeable, that you are led to think of Him; but when you are taught to honor Him in that He is Father, it is the same thing as to honor the Son; because Father cannot be said if there be not a Son, as neither can Son if there be not a Father. But lest, it may be, you honor the Father indeed as greater, but the Son as less — as you may say to me, I do honor the Father, for I know that He has a Son; nor do I err in the name Father, for I do not understand Father without Son, and yet the Son also I honor as the less,— the Son Himself sets you right, and recalls you, saying, that all may honor the Son, not in a lower degree, but as they honor the Father. Therefore, whoever honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him. I, do you say, wish to give greater honor to the Father, less to the Son. Therein you take away honor from the Father, wherein you give less to the Son. For, being thus minded, it must really seem to you that the Father either would not or could not beget a Son equal to Himself: if He would not, He lacked the will; if He could not, He lacked the ability. Do you not therefore see that, being thus minded, wherein you would give greater honor to the Father, therein you are reproachful to the Father? Wherefore, so honor the Son as you honor the Father, if you would honor both the Father and the Son.

7. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whoever hears my word, and believes in Him that sent me, has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but is passed, not is passing now, but is already passed, from death into life. And mark this, Whoever hears my word, and— He says not, believes me, but — believes Him that sent me. Let him hear the word of the Son, that he may believe the Father. Why hears Your word, and yet believes another? When we hear any one's word, is it not him that utters the word we believe? Is it not to him who speaks we lend our faith? What, then, did He mean, saying, Whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, if it be not this, because His word is in me? And what is hears my word, but hears me? So, too, believes Him that sent me, because, believing Him, he believes His word; but again, believing His word, he believes me, because I am the Word of the Father. There is therefore peace in the Scriptures, and all things duly disposed, and in no way clashing. Cast away, then, contention from your heart; understand the harmony of the Scriptures. Do you think that the Truth should speak things contrary to itself?

8. Whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. You remember what we laid down above, that as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. He is beginning already to reveal Himself; and behold, even now, the dead are rising. For whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and will not come into judgment. Prove that he has risen again. But is passed, says He from death unto life. He that is passed from death unto life, has surely without any doubt risen again. For he could not pass from death to life, unless he were first in death and not in life; but when he will have passed, he will be in life, and not in death. He was therefore dead, and is alive again; he was lost, but is found. Luke 15:32 Hence a resurrection does take place now, and men pass from a death to a life; from the death of infidelity to the life of faith; from the death of falsehood to the life of truth; from the death of iniquity to the life of righteousness. There is, therefore, that which is a resurrection of the dead.

9. May He open the same more fully, and dawn upon us as He begins to do! Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is. We did look for a resurrection of the dead in the end, for so we have believed; yea, not we looked, but are manifestly bound to look for it: for it is not a false thing we believe, when we believe that the dead will rise in the end. When the Lord Jesus, then, was willing to make known to us a resurrection of the dead before the resurrection of the dead, it is not as that of Lazarus, John 11:43 or of the widow's son, Luke 6:14 or of the ruler of the synagogue's daughter, Matthew 5:41 who were raised to die again (for in their case there was a resurrection of the dead before the resurrection of the dead); but, as He says here, has, says He, eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but is passed from death into life. To what life? To life eternal. Not, then, as the body of Lazarus: for he indeed passed from the death of the tomb to the life of men, but not to life eternal, seeing he was to die again; whereas the dead, that are to rise again at the end of the world, will pass to eternal life. When our Lord Jesus Christ, then, our heavenly Master, the Word of the Father, and the Truth, was willing to represent to us a resurrection of the dead to eternal life before the resurrection of the dead to eternal life, The hour comes, says He. Doubtless you, imbued with a faith of the resurrection of the flesh, looked for the hour of the end of the world, which, that you should not look for here, He added, and now is. Therefore He says not this, The hour comes, of that last hour, when at the command and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet Christ in the air: and so shall we be ever with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-16 That hour will come, but is not now. But consider what this hour is: The hour comes, and now is. What happens in that hour? What, but a resurrection of the dead? And what kind of resurrection? Such that they who rise live forever. This will be also in the last hour.

10. What then? How do we understand these two resurrections? Do we, it may be, understand that they who rise now will not rise then; that the resurrection of some is now, of some others then? It is not so. For we have risen in this resurrection, if we have rightly believed; and we ourselves, who have already risen, are looking for another resurrection in the end. Moreover, both now are we risen to eternal life, if we perseveringly continue in the same faith; and then, too, we shall rise to eternal life, when we shall be made equal with the angels. Luke 20:36 But let Himself distinguish and open up what we have made bold to speak; how there happens to be a resurrection before a resurrection, not of different but of the same persons; nor like that of Lazarus, but into eternal life. He will open it clearly. Hear ye the Master, while dawning upon us, and as our Sun gliding in upon our hearts; not such as the eyes of flesh desire to look upon, but on whom the eyes of the heart fervently long to be opened. To Him, then, let us give ear: Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour comes, and now is, when the dead — you see that a resurrection is asserted — shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. Why has He added, they that hear shall live? Why, could they hear unless they lived? It would have been enough, then, to say, The hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. We should immediately understand them to be living, since they could not hear unless they lived. No, says He, not because they live they hear; but by hearing they come to life again: Shall hear, and they that hear shall live. What, then, is shall hear, but shall obey? For, as to the hearing of the ear, not all who hear shall live. Many, indeed, hear and do not believe; by hearing and not believing, they obey not; by not obeying, they live not. And so here, they that shall hear are they that shall obey. They that obey, then, shall live: let them be sure and certain of it, shall live. Christ, the Word of God, is preached to us; the Son of God, by whom all things were made, who, for the dispensation's sake, surely took flesh, was born of a virgin, was an infant in the flesh, a young man in the flesh, suffering in the flesh, dying in the flesh, rising again in the flesh, ascending in the flesh, promising a resurrection to the flesh, promising a resurrection to the mind — to the mind before the flesh, to the flesh after the mind. Whoever hears and obeys, shall live; whoever hears and obeys not, that is, hears and despises, hears and believes not, shall not live. Why shall not live? Because he hears not. What is hears not? Obeys not. Thus, then, they that hear shall live.

11. Turn your thoughts now to what we said had to be deferred, that it may now, if possible, be opened. Concerning this very resurrection He immediately subjoined, For as the Father has life in Himself, even so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. What means that, The Father has life in Himself? Not elsewhere has He life but in Himself. His living, in fact, is in Him, not from elsewhere, nor derived from another. He does not, as it were, borrow life, nor, as it were, become a partaker of life, of a life which is not what Himself is: but has life in Himself, so that the very life is to Him His very self. If I should be able yet further in some small measure to speak from this matter, by proposing examples for informing your understanding, will depend on God's help and the piety of your attention. God lives, and the soul also lives; but the life of God is unchangeable, the life of the soul is changeable. In God is neither increase nor decrease; but He is the same always in Himself, is ever as He is: not in one way now, in another way hereafter, in some other way before. But the life of the soul is exceedingly various: it lived foolish, it lives wise; it lived unrighteous, it lives righteous; now remembers, now forgets; now learns, now cannot learn; now loses what it had learned, now apprehends what it had lost. The life of the soul is changeable. And when the soul lives in unrighteousness, that is its death; when again it becomes righteous, it becomes partaker of another life, which is not what itself is, inasmuch as by rising up to God, and cleaving to God, of Him it is justified. For it is said, To him that believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Romans 4:5 By forsaking God, it becomes unrighteous; by coming to Him, it is made righteous. Does it not seem to you as it were something cold, which, when brought near the fire, grows warm; when removed from the fire, grows cold? A something dark, which, brought near the light, grows bright; when removed from the light, grows dark? Something such is the soul: God is not any such thing. Moreover, man may say that he has light now in his eyes. Let your eyes say then, if they can, as by a voice of their own, We have light in ourselves. I answer: Not correctly do you say that you have light in yourselves: you have light, but in the heavens; you have light, but in the moon, in candles, if it happen to be night, not in yourselves: for, being shut, you lose what you perceive when open. Not in yourselves have you light; keep the light if you can when the sun is set: 'tis night, enjoy the light of night; keep the light when the candle is withdrawn; but since you remain in darkness when the candle is withdrawn, you have not light in yourselves. Consequently, to have light in oneself is not to need light from another. Behold, whoever understands wherein He shows that the Son is equal with the Father, when He says, As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son also to have life in Himself; that there may be only this difference between the Father and the Son, that the Father has life in Himself, which none gave Him, while the Son has life in Himself which the Father gave.

12. But here also arises a cloud that must be scattered. Let us not lose heart, let us strive in earnest. Here are pastures of the mind; let us not disdain them, that we may live. Behold, do you say, yourself confessest that the Father has given life to the Son, that He may have life in Himself, even as the Father has life in Himself; that the Father not lacking, the Son may not lack; that as the Father is life, so the Son may be life; and both united one life, not two lives; because God is one, not two Gods; and this same is to be life. How, then, is the Father said to have given life to the Son? Not so as if the Son had been without life before, and received life from the Father that He might live; for if it were so, He would not have life in Himself. Behold, I was speaking of the soul. The soul exists; though it be not wise, though it be not righteous, though it be not godly, it is soul. It is one thing for it to be soul, but another thing to be wise, to be righteous, to be godly. Something there is, then, in which it is not yet wise, not yet righteous, not yet godly. Nevertheless it is not therefore nothing, it is not therefore non-life; for it shows itself to be alive by certain of its own actions, although it does not show itself to be wise, godly, or righteous. For if it were not living it would not move the body, would not command the feet to walk, the hands to work, the eyes to look, the ears to hear; would not open the mouth for speaking, nor move the tongue to distinction of speech. So, then, by these operations it shows itself to have life, and to be something which is better than the body. But does it in any wise show itself by these operations to be wise, godly, or righteous? Do not the foolish, the wicked, the unrighteous walk, work, see, hear, speak? But when the soul rises to something which itself is not, which is above itself, and from which its being is, then it gets wisdom, righteousness, holiness, which so long as it was without, it was dead, and did not have the life by which itself should live, but only that by which the body was quickened. For that in the soul by which the body is quickened is one thing, that by which the soul itself is quickened is another. Better, certainly, than the body is the soul, but better than the soul itself is God. The soul, even if it be foolish, ungodly, unrighteous, is the life of the body. But since its own life is God, just as it supplies vigor, comeliness, activity, the functions of the limbs to the body, while it exists in the body; so, in like manner, while God, its life, is in the soul, He supplies to it wisdom, godliness, righteousness, charity. Accordingly, what the soul supplies to the body, and what God supplies to the soul, are of a different kind: the soul quickens and is quickened. It quickens while dead, even if itself is not quickened. But when the word comes, and is poured into the hearers, and they not only hear, but are made obedient, the soul rises from its death to its life — that is, from unrighteousness, from folly, from ungodliness, to its God, who is to it wisdom, righteousness, light. Let it rise to Him, and be enlightened by Him. Come near, says he, to Him. And what shall we have? And be enlightened. If, therefore, by coming to you are enlightened, and by departing from ye become darkened, your light was not in yourselves, but in your God. Come to Him that you may rise again: if you depart from Him, you shall die. If by coming to Him ye live, and by departing from Him ye die, your life was not in yourselves. For the same is your life which is your light. Because with You is the fountain of life, and in Your light we shall see light.

13. Not, then, in like manner as the soul is one thing before it is enlightened, and becomes a better thing when it is enlightened, by participation of a better; not so, I say, was the Word of God, the Son of God, something else before He received life, that He should have life by participation; but He has life in Himself, and is consequently Himself the very life. What is it, then, that He says, has given to the Son to have life in Himself? I would say it briefly, He begot the Son. For it is not that He existed without life, and received life, but He is life by being begotten. The Father is life not by being begotten; the Son is life by being begotten. The Father is of no father; the Son is of God the Father. The Father in His being is of none, but in that He is Father, 'tis because of the Son. But the Son also, in that He is Son, 'tis because of the Father: in His being, He is of the Father. This He said, therefore: has given life to the Son, that He might have it in Himself. Just as if He were to say, The Father, who is life in Himself, begot the Son, who should be life in Himself. Indeed, He would have this dedit (has given) to be understood for the same thing as genuit (has begotten). It is like as if we said to a person, God has given you being. To whom? If to some one already existing, then He gave him not being, because he who could receive existed before it was given him. When, therefore, you hear it said, He gave you being, you were not in being to receive, but you received, that you should be by coming into existence. The builder gave to this house that it should be. But what did he give to it? He gave it to be a house. To what did he give? To this house. Gave it what? To be a house. How could he give to a house that it should be a house? For if the house was, to what did he give to be a house, when the house existed already? What, then, does that mean, gave it to be a house? It means, he brought to pass that it should be a house. Well, then, what gave He to the Son? Gave Him to be the Son, begot Him to be life — that is, gave Him to have life in Himself that He should be the life not needing life, that He may not be understood as having life by participation. For if He had life by par ticipation, He might, by losing, be without life. Do not take, nor think, nor believe this to be possible respecting the Son. Wherefore the Father continues the life, the Son continues the life: the Father, life in Himself, not from the Son; the Son, life in Himself, but from the Father. Begotten of the Father, that He might live in Himself; but the Father, not begotten, life in Himself. Nor did He beget the Son less than Himself to become equal by growth. For surely He by whom, being perfect, the times were created, was not assisted by time towards His own perfection. Before all time, He is co-eternal with the Father. For the Father has never been without the Son; but the Father is eternal, therefore also the Son co-eternal. Soul, what of you? You were dead, lost life; hear then the Father through the Son. Arise, take to you life, that in Him who has life in Himself you may receive the life which is not in you. He that gives you life, then, is the Father and the Son; and the first resurrection is accomplished when you rise to partake of the life which you are not yourself, and by partaking art made living. Rise from your death to your life, which is your God, and pass from death to eternal life. For the Father has eternal life in Himself; and unless He had begotten such a Son as had life in Himself, it could not be that as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son should quicken whom He will.

14. But what of that resurrection of the body? For these who hear and live, whence live, except by hearing? For the friend of the Bridegroom stands and hears Him, and rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice: John 3:29 not because of his own voice; that is to say, they hear and live by partaking, not by coming into being; and all that hear live, because all that obey live. Tell us something, O Lord, also of the resurrection of the flesh; for there have been those who denied it, asserting that this is the only resurrection which is wrought by faith. Of which resurrection the Lord has just now made mention, and inflamed our desire, because the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall live. It is not some of those who hear shall live, and others shall die; but all that hear shall live, because all that obey shall live. Behold, we see a resurrection of the mind; let us not therefore let go our faith of the resurrection of the flesh. And unless Thou, O Lord Jesus, declare to us this, whom shall we oppose to those who assert the contrary? For truly all sects that have undertaken to engraft any religion upon men have allowed this resurrection of minds; otherwise, it might be said to them, If the soul rise not, why do you speak to me? What do you mean to do in me? If you do not make of the worse a better, why do you speak? If you do not make a righteous of the unrighteous, why do you speak? But if you make righteous of the unrighteous, godly of the ungodly, wise of the foolish, you confess that my soul does rise again, if I comply with you and believe. So, then, all those that have founded any sect, even of false religion, while they wished to be believed, could not but admit this resurrection of minds: all have agreed concerning this; but many have denied the resurrection of the flesh, and affirmed that the resurrection had taken place already in faith. Such the apostle resists, saying, Of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection has taken place already, and overthrow the faith of some. 2 Timothy 2:17-18 They said that the resurrection had taken place already, but in such manner that another was not to be expected; and they blamed people who were looking for a resurrection of the flesh, just as if the resurrection which was promised were already accomplished in the act of believing, namely, in the mind. The apostle censures these. Why does he censure them? Did they not affirm what the Lord spoke just now: The hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live? But, says Jesus to you, it is of the life of minds that I am hitherto speaking: I am not yet speaking of the life of bodies; but I speak of the life of that which is the life of bodies, that is, of the life of souls, in which the life of bodies exists. For I know that there are bodies lying in the tombs; I know also that your bodies will lie in the tombs. I am not speaking of that resurrection, but I speak of this; in this, rise ye again, lest ye rise to punishment in that. But that you may know that I speak also of that, what do I add? For as the Father has life in Himself, even so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. This life which the Father is, which the Son is, to what does it pertain? To the soul or to the body? It is not surely the body that is sensible of that life of wisdom, but the rational mind. For not every soul has capacity to apprehend wisdom. A brute beast, in fact, has a soul, but the soul of the brute beast cannot apprehend wisdom. It is the human soul, then, that can perceive this life which the Father has in Himself, and has given to the Son to have in Himself; because that is the true light which enlightens, not every soul, but every man coming into this world. When, therefore, I speak to the mind itself, let it hear, that is, let it obey and live.

15. Wherefore, keep not silent, O Lord, concerning the resurrection of the flesh; lest men believe it not, and we continue reasoners, not preachers. But as the Father has life in Himself, even so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. Let them that hear, understand; let them believe that they may understand; let them obey that they may live. And that they may not suppose that the resurrection is finished here, let them hear this further: and has given Him authority to execute judgment also. Who has given? The Father. To whom has He given? To the Son; namely, to whom He gave to have life in Himself, to the same has He given authority to execute judgment. Because He is the Son of man. For this is the Christ, both Son of God and Son of man. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. Behold, how He has given Him to have life in Himself! But because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, was made man of the Virgin Mary, He is the Son of man. What, therefore, has He received as Son of man? Authority to execute judgment. What judgment? That in the end of the world. Then also there will be a resurrection, but a resurrection of bodies. So, then, God raises up souls by Christ, the Son of God; bodies He raises up by the same Christ, the Son of man. Hath given Him authority. He should not have this authority did He not receive it; and He should be a man without authority. But the same who is Son of God is also Son of man. For by adhering to the unity of person, the Son of man with the Son of God is made one person, and the Son of God is the same person which the Son of man is. But what characteristic it has, and wherefore, must be distinguished. The Son of man has soul and body. The Son of God, which is the Word of God, has man, as the soul has body. And just as soul having body does not make two persons, but one man; so the Word, having man, makes not two persons, but one Christ. What is man? A rational soul, having a body. What is Christ? The Word of God, having man. I see of what things I speak, who I the speaker am, and to whom I am speaking.

16. Now hear concerning the resurrection of bodies, not me, but the Lord about to speak, on account of those who have risen again by a resurrection from death, by cleaving to life. To what life? To a life which knows not death. Why knows not death? Because it knows not mutability. Why knows not mutability? Because it is life in itself. And has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. What judgment, what kind of judgment? Marvel not at this which I have said — gave Him authority to execute judgment — for the hour is coming. He does not adds and now is: therefore He means to make known to us a certain hour in the end of the world. The hour is now that the dead rise, the hour will be in the end of the world that the dead rise: but that they rise now in the mind, then in the flesh; that they rise now in the mind by the Word of God, the Son of God; then in the flesh by the Word of God made flesh, the Son of man. For it will not be the Father Himself that will come to judgment, notwithstanding the Father does not withdraw Himself from the Son. How, then, is it that the Father Himself will not come? In that He will not be seen in the judgment. They shall look on Him whom they pierced. John 19:37 That form which stood before the judge, will be Judge: that form will judge which was judged; for it was judged unjustly, it will judge justly. There will come the form of a servant, and that same will be apparent. For how could the form of God be made apparent to the just and to the unjust? If the judgment were to be only among the just, then the form of God might appear as to the just. But because the judgment is to be of the just and of the unjust, and that it is not permitted to the wicked to see God — for blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, Matthew 5:8 — such a Judge will appear as may be seen by those whom He is about to crown, and by those whom He is about to condemn. Hence the form of a servant will be seen, the form of God will be hid. The Son of God will be hid in the servant, and the Son of man will be manifest, because to Him has He given authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. And because He alone will appear in the form of a servant, but the Father not, since He has not taken upon Him the form of a servant; for that reason He says above: The Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son. Rightly then had it been deferred, that the propounder might Himself be the interpreter. For before it was hidden; now, as I think, it is already manifest, that He gave Him authority to execute judgment, that the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son: because the judgment is to be by that form which the Father has not. And what kind of judgment? Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming: not that which now is, for the souls to rise; but that which is to be, for the bodies to rise.

17. Let Him declare this more distinctly, that the heretical denier of the resurrection of the body may not find a pretext for sophistical cavil, although the meaning already shines out clearly. When it was said above, The hour is coming, He added, and now is; but just now, The hour is coming, He has not added, and now is. Let Him, however, by the open truth, burst asunder all handles, all loops and pegs of sophistical attack, all the nooses of ensnaring objections. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves. What more evident? What more distinct? Bodies are in the graves; souls are not in the graves, either of just or of unjust. The soul of the just man was in the bosom of Abraham; the unjust man's soul was in hell, tormented: neither the one nor the other was in the grave. Above, when He says, The hour is coming, and now is, I beseech you give earnest heed. You know, brethren, that we get the bread of the belly with toil; with how much greater toil the bread of the mind! With labor you stand and hear, but with greater we stand and speak. If we labor for your sake, you ought to labor with us for your own sake. Above, then, when He said, The hour is coming, and added, and now is, what did He subjoin? When the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. He did not say, All the dead shall hear, and they that hear shall live; for He meant the unrighteous to be understood. And is it so, that all the unrighteous obey the gospel? The apostle says openly, But not all obey the gospel. Romans 10:16 But they that hear shall live, because all that obey the gospel shall pass to eternal life by faith: yet all do not obey; and this is now. But certainly, in the end, All that are in the graves, both the just and the unjust, shall hear His voice, and come forth. How is it He would not say, and shall live? All, indeed, will come forth, but all will not live. For in that which He said above, And they that hear shall live, He meant it to be understood that there is in that very hearing and obeying an eternal and blessed life, which not all that shall come forth from the graves will have. Here, then, both in the mention of graves, and by the expression of a coming forth from the graves, we openly understand a resurrection of bodies.

18. All shall hear His voice, and shall come forth. And where is judgment, if all shall hear and all shall come forth? It is as if all were confusion; I see no distinguishing. Certainly You have received authority to judge, because You are the Son of man: behold, You will be present in the judgment; the bodies will rise again; but tell us something of the judgment itself, that is, of the separation of the evil and the good. Hear this further, then: They that have done good into the resurrection of life; they that have done evil into the resurrection of judgment. When above He spoke of a resurrection of minds and souls, did He make any distinction? No, for all that hear shall live; because by hearing, viz. by obeying, shall they live. But certainly not all will go to eternal life by rising and coming forth from the graves — only they that have done well; and they that have done ill, to judgment. For here He has put judgment for punishment. There will also be a separation, not such as there is now. For now we are separated, not by place, but by character, affections, desires, faith, hope, charity. Now we live together with the unjust, though the life of all is not the same: in secret we are distinguished, in secret we are separated; as grain on the floor, not as grain in the granary. On the floor, grain is both separated and mixed: separated, because severed from the chaff; mixed, because not yet winnowed. Then there will be an open separation; a distinguishing of life just as of the character, a separation as there is in wisdom, so also will there be in bodies. They that have done well will go to live with the angels of God; they that have done evil, to be tormented with the devil and his angels. And the form of a servant will pass away. For to this end He had manifested Himself, that He might execute judgment. After the judgment, He shall go hence, will lead with Him the body of which He is the head, and deliver up the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 15:24 Then will openly be seen that form of God which could not be seen by the wicked, to whose vision the form of a servant must be shown. He says also in another place on this wise: These shall go away into everlasting burning (speaking of certain on the left), but the just into life eternal; Matthew 25:46 of which life He says in another place: And this is eternal life, that they may know You the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3 Then will He be there manifested, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Philippians 2:6 Then He will manifest Himself, as He has promised to manifest Himself to them that love Him. For he that loves me, says He, keeps my commandments; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father; and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21 He was present in person with those to whom He was speaking: but they saw the form of a servant, they did not see the form of God. They were being led on His own beast to His dwelling to be healed; but now being healed, they will see, because, says He, I will manifest myself to him. How is He shown equal to the Father? When He says to Philip, He that sees me sees my Father also. John 14:19

19. I cannot of myself do anything: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just. Else we might have said to Him, You will judge, and the Father will not judge, for 'all judgment has He given to the Son.' it is not, therefore, according to the Father that You will judge. Hence He added, I cannot of myself do anything: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Undoubtedly the Son quickens whom He will. He seeks not His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. Not my own, my proper will; not mine, not the Son of man's; not mine to resist God. For men do their own will, not God's, when they do what they list, not what God commands; but when they do what they list, so as yet to follow God's will, they do not their own will, notwithstanding they do what they list to do. Do what you are bidden willingly, and thus shall you both do what you will, and also not do your own will, but His that bids.

20. What then? As I hear, I judge. The Son hears, and the Father shows to Him, and the Son sees the Father doing. But we had deferred these matters, in order to handle them, so far as might lie in our abilities, with somewhat greater plainness and fullness, should time and strength remain to us after finishing the perusal of the passage. If I say that I am able to speak yet further, you perhaps are not able to go on hearing. Again, perhaps, in your eagerness to hear, you say, We are able. Better, then, that I should confess my weakness, that, being already fatigued, I am not able to speak longer, than that, when you are already satiated, I should continue to pour into you what you cannot well digest. Then, as to this promise, which I deferred until today, should there be an opportunity, hold me, with the Lord's help, your debtor until tomorrow.

Tractate 20 (John 5:19)

1. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially those recorded by the Evangelist John, — who not without cause leaned on the Lord's bosom, that he might drink in the secrets of that higher wisdom, and by evangelizing give forth again what by loving he had drunk in — are so secret and profound of understanding, that they trouble all who are perverse of heart, and exercise all who are in heart upright. Wherefore, beloved, give heed to these few words that have been read. Let us see if in any wise we can, by His own gift and help who has willed His words to be recited to us, which at that time were heard and committed to writing that they might now be read, what He means in what you have now heard Him say: Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing: for whatever things the Father does, these same the Son also does in like manner.

2. Now you need to be reminded whence this discourse arose, by reason of what precedes this passage, where the Lord had cured a certain man among those who were lying in the five porches of that pool of Solomon, and to whom He had said, Take up your bed, and go unto your house. But this He had done on the Sabbath; and hence the Jews, being troubled, were falsely accusing Him as a destroyer and transgressor of the law. He then said to them, My Father works even until now, and I work. John 5:17 For they, taking the observance of the Sabbath in a carnal sense, fancied that God had, as it were, slept after the labor of framing the world even to this day; and that therefore He had sanctified that day, from which He began to rest as from labor. Now, to our fathers of old there was ordained a sacrament of the Sabbath, Exodus 20:8 which we Christians observe spiritually, in abstaining from every servile work, that is, from every sin (for the Lord says, Every one that commits sin is the servant of sin), and in having rest in our heart, that is, spiritual tranquillity. And although in this life we strive after this rest, yet not until we have departed this life shall we attain to that perfect rest. But the reason why God is said to have rested is, that He made no creature after all was finished. Moreover, the Scripture called it rest, to admonish us that after good works we shall rest. For thus we have it written in Genesis, And God made all things very good, and God rested on the seventh day, in order that you, O man, considering that God Himself is said to have rested after good works, should not expect rest for yourself, until after you have wrought good works; and even as God after He made man in His own image and likeness, and in him finished all His works very good, rested on the seventh day, so may you also not expect rest to yourself, unless you return to that likeness in which you were made, which likeness you have lost by sinning. For, in reality, God cannot be said to have toiled, who said, and they were done. Who is there that, after such facility of work, desires to rest as if after labor? If He commanded and some one resisted Him, if He commanded and it was not done, and labored that it might be done, then justly He should be said to have rested after labor. But when in that same book of Genesis we read, God said, Let there be light, and there was light; God said, Let there be a firmament, and the firmament was made, and all the rest were made immediately at His word: to which also the psalm testifies, saying, He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created, — how could He require rest after the world was made, as if to enjoy leisure after toil, He who in commanding never toiled? Consequently these sayings are mystical, and are laid down in this wise that we may be looking for rest after this life, provided we have done good works. Accordingly, the Lord, restraining the impudence and refuting the error of the Jews, and showing them that they did not think rightly of God, says to them, when they were offended at His working men's healing on the Sabbath, My Father works until now, and I work: do not therefore suppose that my Father so rested on the Sabbath, that thenceforth He does not work; but even as He now works, so I also work. But as the Father without toil, so too the Son without toil. God said, and they were done; Christ said to the impotent man, Take up your bed, and go unto your house, and it was done.

3. But the catholic faith has it, that the works of the Father and of the Son are not separable. This is what I wish, if possible, to speak to you, beloved; but, according to those words of the Lord, he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 But he that is not able to receive it, let him not charge it on me, but on his own dullness; and let him turn to Him that opens the heart, that He may pour in what He freely gives. And, lastly, if any one may not have understood, because I have not declared it as I ought to have declared it, let him excuse the weakness of man, and supplicate the divine goodness. For we have within a Master, Christ. Whatever you are not able to receive through your ear and my mouth, turn ye in your heart to Him who both teaches me what to speak, and distributes to you in what measure He deigns. He who knows what to give, and to whom to give, will help him that seeks, and open to him that knocks. And if so be that He give not, let no one call himself forsaken. For it may be that He delays to give something, but He leaves none hungry. If, indeed, He give not at the hour, He is exercising the seeker, He is not scorning the suitor. Look ye, then, and give heed to what I wish to say, even if I should not be able to say it. The catholic faith, confirmed by the Spirit of God in His saints, has this against all heretical perverseness, that the works of the Father and of the Son are inseparable. What is this that I have said? As the Father and the Son are inseparable, so also the works of the Father and of the Son are inseparable. How are the Father and the Son inseparable, since Himself said, I and the Father are one? John 10:30 Because the Father and the Son are not two Gods, but one God, the Word and He whose the Word is, One and the Only One, Father and Son bound together by charity, One God, and the Spirit of Charity also one, so that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is made the Trinity. Therefore, not only of the Father and Son, but also of the Holy Spirit; as there is equality and inseparability of persons, so also the works are inseparable. I will tell you yet more plainly what is meant by the works are inseparable. The catholic faith does not say that God the Father made something, and the Son made some other thing; but what the Father made, that also the Son made, that also the Holy Spirit made. For all things were made by the Word; when He spoke and they were done, it is by the Word they were done, by Christ they were done. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: all things were made by Him. If all things were made by Him, God said, Let there be light, and there was light; in the Word He made, by the Word He made.

4. Behold, then, we have now heard the Gospel, where He answered the Jews who were indignant that He not only broke the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. John 5:18 For so it is written in the foregoing paragraph. When, therefore, the Son of God, the Truth, made answer to their erring indignation, says He, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing; as if He said, Why are you offended because I have said that God is my Father, and that I make myself equal with God? I am equal in that wise that He begot me; I am equal in that wise that He is not from me, but I from Him. For this is implied in these words: The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. That is, whatever the Son has to do, the doing it He has of the Father. Why of the Father has He the doing it? Because of the Father He has it that He is Son. Why has He it of the Father to be Son? Because of the Father He has it that He is able, of the Father that He is. For, to the Son, both to be able and to be is the self-same thing. It is not so with man. Raise your hearts by all means from a comparison of human weakness, that lies far beneath; and should any of us perhaps reach to the secret, and, while awe-struck by the brilliance as it were of a great light, should discern somewhat, and not remain wholly ignorant; yet let him not imagine that he understands the whole, lest he should become proud, and lose what knowledge he has gotten. With man, to be and to be able are different things. For sometimes the man is, and yet cannot what he wills; sometimes, again, the man is in such wise, that he can what he wills; therefore his being and his being able are different things. For if man's esse and posse were the same thing, then he could when he would. But with God it is not so, that His substance to be is one thing, and His power to be able another thing; but whatever is His, and whatever He is, is consubstantial with Him, because He is God: it is not so that in one way He is, in another way is able; He has the esse and the posse together, because He has to will and to do together. Since, then, the power of the Son is of the Father, therefore also the substance of the Son is of the Father; and since the substance of the Son is of the Father, therefore the power of the Son is of the Father. In the Son, power and substance are not different: the power is the self-same that the substance is; the substance to be, the power to be able. Accordingly, because the Son is of the Father, He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything. Because He is not Son from Himself, therefore He is not able from Himself.

5. He appears to have made Himself as it were less, when He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. Hereupon heretical vanity lifts the neck; theirs, indeed, who say that the Son is less than the Father, of less authority, of less majesty, of less possibility, not understanding the mystery of Christ's words. But attend, beloved, and see how they are confounded in their carnal intellect by the words of Christ. And this is what I said a little before, that the word of God troubles all perverse hearts, just as it exercises pious hearts, especially that spoken by the Evangelist John. For they are deep words that are spoken by him, not random words, nor such as may be easily understood. So, a heretic, if he happen to hear these words, immediately rises and says to us, Lo, the Son is less than the Father; hear the words of the Son, who says, 'The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing.' Wait; as it is written, Be meek to hear the word, that you may understand. Sirach 5:13 Well, suppose that because I assert the power and majesty of the Father and of the Son to be equal, I was disconcerted at hearing these words, The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. Well, I, being disconcerted at these words, will ask you, who seemest to yourself to have instantly understood them, a question. We know in the Gospel that the Son walked upon the sea; Matthew 14:25 when saw He the Father walk upon the sea? Here now he is disconcerted. Lay aside, then, your understanding of the words, and let us examine them together. What do we then? We have heard the words of the Lord: The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. The Son walked upon the sea, the Father never walked upon the sea. Yet certainly the Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing.

6. Return then with me to what I was saying, in case it is so to be understood that we may both escape from the question. For I see how I, according to the catholic faith, may escape without tripping or stumbling; while you, on the other hand, shut in on every side, art seeking a way of escape. See by what way you have entered. Perhaps you have not understood this that I said, See by what way you have entered: hear Himself saying, I am the door. John 10:7 Not without cause, then, are you seeking how you may get out; and this only you find, that you have not entered by the door, but fell in over the wall. Therefore raise yourself up from your fall how you can, and enter by the door, that you may go in without stumbling, and go out without straying. Come by Christ, not bringing forward of your own heart what you may say; but what He shows, that speak. Behold how the catholic faith gets clear of this question. The Son walked upon the sea, planted the feet of flesh on the waves: the flesh walked, and the divinity directed. But when the flesh was walking and the divinity directing, was the Father absent? If absent, how does the Son Himself say, but the Father abiding in me, Himself does the works? John 14:10 If the Father, abiding in the Son, Himself does His works, then that walking upon the sea was made by the Father, and through the Son. Accordingly, that walking is an inseparable work of Father and Son. I see both acting in it. Neither the Father forsook the Son, nor the Son left the Father. Thus, whatever the Son does, He does not without the Father; because whatever the Father does, He does not without the Son.

7. We have got clear of this question. Mark ye that rightly we say the works of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit are inseparable. But as you understand it, lo, God made the light, and the Son saw the Father making light, according to your carnal understanding, who will have it that He is less, because He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. God the Father made light; what other light did the Son make? God the Father made the firmament, the heaven between waters and waters; and the Son saw Him, according to your dull and sluggish understanding. Well, since the Son saw the Father making the firmament, and also said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing, then show me the other firmament made by the Son. Have you lost the foundation? But they that are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone, are brought into a state of peace in Christ; Ephesians 2:14-20 nor do they strive and wander in heresy. Therefore we understand that the light was made by God the Father, but through the Son; that the firmament was made by God the Father, but through the Son. For all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made. Cast out your understanding, which ought not to be called understanding, but evidently foolishness. God the Father made the world; what other world did the Son make? Show me the Son's world. Whose is this world in which we are? Tell us, by whom made? If you say, By the Son, not by the Father, then you have erred from the Father; if you say, By the Father, not by the Son, the Gospel answers you thus, And the world was made by (through) Him, and the world knew Him not. Acknowledge Him, then, by whom the world was made, and be not among those who knew not Him that made the world.

8. Wherefore the works of the Father and of the Son are inseparable. Moreover, this, The Son cannot do anything of Himself, would mean the same thing as if He were to say, The Son is not from Himself. For if He is a Son, He was begotten; if begotten, He is from Him of whom He is begotten. Nevertheless, the Father begot Him equal to Himself. Nor was anything wanting to Him that begot; He who begot a co-eternal required not time to beget: who produced the Word of Himself, required not a mother to beget by; the Father begetting did not precede the Son in age, so that He should beget a Son younger than Himself. But perhaps some one may say, that after many ages God begot a Son in His old age. Even as the Father is without age, so the Son is without growth; neither has the one grown old nor the other increased, but equal begot equal, eternal begot eternal. How, says some one, has eternal begot eternal? As a temporary flame generates a temporary light. The generating flame is coeval with the light which it generates: the generating flame does not precede in time the generated light; but from the moment the flame begins, from that moment the light begins. Show me flame without light, and I show you God the Father without Son. Accordingly, the Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, implies, that for the Son to see and to be begotten of the Father, is the same thing. His seeing and His substance are not different; nor are His power and substance different. All that He is, He is of the Father; all that He can is of the Father; because what He can and what He is is one thing, and all of the Father.

9. Moreover, He goes on in His own words, and troubles those that understand the matter amiss, in order to recall the erring to a right apprehension of it. After He had said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing; lest a carnal understanding of the matter should by chance creep in and turn the mind aside, and a man should imagine as it were two mechanics, one a master, the other a learner, attentively observing the master while making, say a chest, so that, as the master made the chest, the learner should make another chest according to the appearance which he looked upon while the master wrought; lest, I say, the carnal mind should frame to itself any such twofold notion in the case of the divine unity, going on, He says, For whatever things the Father does, these same also the Son does in like manner. It is not, the Father does some, the Son others like them, but the same in like manner. For He says not, Whatever things the Father does, the Son also does others the like; but says He, Whatever things the Father does, these same also the Son does in like manner. What things the Father does, these also the Son does: the Father made the world, the Son made the world, the Holy Ghost made the world. If three Gods, then three worlds; if one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then one world was made by the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. Consequently the Son does those things which also the Father does, and does not in a different manner; He both does these, and does them in like manner.

10. After He had said, these does, why did He add, in like manner does? Lest another distorted understanding or error should spring up in the mind. You see, for instance, a man's work: in man there is mind and body; the mind rules the body, but there is a great difference between body and mind: the body is visible, the mind is invisible: there is a great difference between the power and virtue of the mind and that of any kind of body whatever, be it even a heavenly body. Still the mind rules its own body, and the body does; and what the mind appears to do, this the body does also. Thus the body appears to do this same thing that the mind does, but not in like manner. How does this same, but not in like manner? The mind frames a word in itself; it commands the tongue, and the tongue produces the word which the mind framed: the mind made, and the tongue made; the lord of the body made, and the servant made; but that the servant might make, it received of its lord what to make, and made while the lord commanded. The same thing was made by both, but was it in like manner? How not in like manner? Says some one. See, the word that my mind formed, remains in me; that which my tongue made, passed through the smitten air, and is not. When you have said a word in your mind, and uttered it by your tongue, return to your mind, and see that the word which you have made is there still. Has it remained on your tongue, just as it has in your mind? What was uttered by the tongue, the tongue made by sounding, the mind made by thinking; but what the tongue uttered has passed away, what the mind thought remains. Therefore the body made that which the mind made, but not in like manner. For the mind, indeed, made that which the mind may hold, but the tongue made what sounds and strikes the ear through the air. Do you chase the syllables, and cause them to remain? Well, not in such manner the Father and the Son; but these same does, and in like manner does. If God made heaven that remains, this heaven that remains the Son made. If God the Father made man that is mortal, the same man that is mortal the Son made. Whatever things the Father made that endure, these things that endure made also the Son, because in like manner He made; and whatever things the Father made that are temporal, these same things that are temporal made also the Son, because He made not only the same, but also in like manner made. For the Father made by the Son, since by the Word the Father made all things.

11. Seek in the Father and Son a separation, you find none; no, not if you have mounted high; no, not even if you have reached something above your mind. For if you turn about among the things which your wandering mind makes for itself, you talk with your own imaginations, not with the Word of God; your own imaginations deceive you. Mount also beyond the body, and understand the mind; mount also beyond the mind, and understand God. Thou reachest not unto God, unless you have passed beyond the mind; how much less you reach unto God, if you have tarried in the flesh! They who think of the flesh, how far are they from understanding what God is!— since they would not be there even if they knew the mind. Man recedes far from God when his thoughts are of the flesh; and there is a great difference between flesh and mind, yet a greater between mind and God. If you are occupied with the mind, you are in the midway: if you direct your attention beneath, there is the body; if above, there is God. Lift yourself up from the body, pass beyond even yourself. For observe what said the psalm, and you are admonished how God must be thought of: My tears, it says, were made to me my bread day and night, when it was said to me daily, Where is your God? As the pagans may say, Behold our gods, where is your God? They indeed show us what is seen; we worship what is not seen. And to whom can we show? To a man who has not sight with which to see? For anyhow, if they see their gods with their eyes, we too have other eyes with which to see our God: for blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 Therefore, when he had said that he was troubled, when it was daily said to him, Where is your God? these things I remembered, says he, because it is daily said to me, Where is your God? And as if wishing to lay hold of his God, These things, says he, I remembered, and poured out my soul above me. Therefore, that I might reach unto my God, of whom it was said to me, Where is your God? I poured out my soul, not over my flesh, but above me; I transcended myself, that I might reach unto Him: for He is above me who made me; none reaches to Him but he that passes beyond himself.

12. Consider the body: it is mortal, earthy, weak, corruptible; away with it. Yes, perhaps you say, but the body is temporal. Think then of other bodies, the heavenly; they are greater, better, more magnificent. Look at them, moreover, attentively. They roll from east to west, they stand not; they are seen with the eyes, not only by man, but even by the beast of the field. Pass beyond them too. And how, do you say, pass beyond the heavenly bodies, seeing that I walk on the earth? Not in the flesh do you pass beyond them, but in the mind. Away with them too: though they shine ever so much, they are bodies; though they glitter from heaven, they are bodies. Come, now that perhaps you think you have not whither to go, after considering all these. And whither am I to go, do you say, beyond the heavenly bodies; and what am I to pass beyond with the mind? Have you considered all these? I have, do you say. By what means have you considered them? Let the being that considers appear in person. The being that considers all these, that discriminates, distinguishes, and in a manner weighs them in the balance of wisdom, is really the mind. Doubtless, then, better is the mind with which you have contemplated all these things, than these things which you have contemplated. This mind, then, is a spirit, not a body. Pass beyond it too. And that you may see whither you are to pass beyond, compare that mind itself, in the first place, with the flesh. Heaven forbid that you should deign so to compare it! Compare it with the brightness of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars; the brightness of the mind is greater. Observe, first, the swiftness of the mind; see whether the scintillation of the thinking mind be not more impetuous than the brilliance of the shining sun. With the mind you see the sun rising. How slow is its motion compared with your mind! What the sun is about to do, you can think in a trice. It is about to come from the east to the west; tomorrow rises from another quarter. Where your thought has done this, the sun still lags behind, and you have traversed the whole journey. A great thing, therefore, is the mind. But how do I say is? Pass beyond it also. For the mind, notwithstanding it be better than every kind of body, is itself changeable. Now it knows, now knows not; now forgets, now remembers; now wills, now wills not; now errs, now is right. Pass therefore beyond all changeableness; not only beyond all that is seen, but also beyond all that changes. For you have passed beyond the flesh which is seen; beyond heaven, the sun, moon, and stars, which are seen. Pass, too, beyond all that changes. For when you had done with those things that are seen, and had come to your mind, there you found the changeableness of your mind. Is God at all changeable? Pass then, beyond even your mind. Pour out your soul above you, that you may reach unto God, of whom it is said to you, Where is your God?

13. Do not imagine that you are to do something beyond a man's ability. The Evangelist John himself did this. He soared beyond the flesh, beyond the earth which he trod, beyond the seas which he looked upon, beyond the air in which the fowls fly, beyond the sun, the moon, the stars, beyond all the spirits unseen, beyond his own mind, by the very reason of his rational soul. Soaring beyond all these, pouring out his soul above him, whither did he arrive? What did he see? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. If, therefore, you see no separation in the light, why do you seek a separation in the work? See God, see His Word inhering to the Word speaking, that the speaker speaks not by syllables, but this his speaking is a shining out in the brightness of wisdom. What is said of the Wisdom itself? It is the radiance of eternal light. Wisdom 7:26 Observe the radiance of the sun. The sun is in the heaven, and spreads out its brightness over all lands and over all seas, and it is simply a corporal light.

If, indeed, you can separate the brightness from the sun, then separate the Word from the Father. I am speaking of the sun. One small, slender flame of a lamp, which can be extinguished by one breath, spreads its light over all that lies near it: you see the light generated by the flame spread out; you see its emission, but not a separation. Understand, then, beloved brethren, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are inseparably united in themselves; that this Trinity is one God; that all the works of the one God are the works of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All the rest which follows, and which refers to the discourse of our Lord Jesus Christ, now that a discourse is due to you tomorrow also, be present that you may hear.

Tractate 21 (John 5:20-23)

1. Yesterday, so far as the Lord vouchsafed to bestow, we discussed with what ability we could, and discerned according to our capacity, how the works of the Father and of the Son are inseparable; and how the Father does not some, the Son others, but that the Father does all things through the Son, as through His Word, of which it is written, All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. Let us today look at the words that follow. And of the same Lord let us pray for mercy, and hope that, if He deem it meet, we may understand what is true; but if we should not be able to do this, that we may not go into what is false. For it is better not to know than to go astray; but to know is better than not to know. Therefore, before all things, we ought to strive to know. Should we be able, to God be thanks; but should we not be able meanwhile to arrive at the truth, let us not go to falsehood. For we are bound to consider well what we are, and what we are treating of. We are men bearing flesh, walking in this life; and though now begotten again of the seed of the Word of God, yet in Christ renewed in such manner that we are not yet wholly rid of Adam. For truly our mortal and corruptible part that weighs down the soul Wisdom 9:15 shows itself to be, and manifestly is, of Adam; but what in us is spiritual, and raises up the soul, is of God's gift and of His mercy, who has sent His only Son to partake our death with us, and to lead us to His own immortality. The Son we have for our Master, that we may not sin; and for our defender, if we have sinned and have confessed, and been converted; an intercessor for us, if we have desired any good of God; and the bestower of it with the Father, because Father and Son is one God. But He was speaking these things as man to men: God concealed, the man manifest, that He might make them gods that are manifest men; and the Son of God made Son of man, that He might make the sons of men sons of God. By what skill of His wisdom He does this, we perceive in His own words. For as a little one He speaks to little ones, but Himself little in such wise that He is also great, and we little, but in Him great. He speaks, in deed as one cherishing and nourishing children at the breast that grow by loving.

2. He had said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing. We, however, understood it not that the Father does something separately, which when the Son sees, Himself also does something of the same kind, after seeing His Father's work; but when He said, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing, we understood it that the Son is wholly of the Father — that His whole substance and His whole power are of the Father that begot Him. But just now, when He had said that He does in like manner these things which the Father does, that we may not understand it to mean that the Father does some, the Son others, but that the Son with like power does the very same which the Father does, while the Father does through the Son, He went on, and said what we have heard read today: For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does. Again mortal thought is disturbed. The Father shows to the Son what things Himself does; therefore, says some one, the Father does separately, that the Son may be able to see what He does. Again, there occur to human thought, as it were, two artificers — as, for instance, a carpenter teaching his son his own art, and showing him whatever he does, that the son also may be able to do it. Shows Him, says He, all things that Himself does. Is it therefore so, that while He does, the Son does not, that He may be able to see the Father do? Yet, certainly, all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. Hence we see how the Father shows the Son what He does, since the Father does nothing but what He does through the Son. What has the Father made? He made the world. Hath He shown the world, when made, to the Son in such wise, that the Son also should make something like it? Then let us see the world which the Son made. Nevertheless, both all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made, and also the world was made by Him. If the world was made by Him, and all things were made by Him, and the Father does nothing save by the Son, where does the Father show to the Son what He does, if it be not in the Son Himself, through whom He does? In what place can the work of the Father be shown to the Son, as though He were doing and sitting outside, and the Son attentively watching the Father's hand how it makes? Where is that inseparable Trinity? Where the Word, of which it is said that the same is the power and the wisdom of God? 1 Corinthians 1:24 Where that which the Scripture says of the same wisdom: For it is the brightness of the eternal light? Wisdom 7:26 Where what was said of it again: It powerfully reaches from the end even to the end, and orders all things sweetly? Wisdom 8:1 Whatever the Father does, He does through the Son: through His wisdom and his power He does; not from without does He show to the Son what He may see, but in the Son Himself He shows Him what He does.

3. What sees the Father, or rather, what does the Son see in the Father, that Himself also may do? Perhaps I may be able to speak it, but show me the man who can comprehend it; or perhaps I may be able to think and not speak it; or perhaps I may not be able even to think it. For that divinity excels us, as God excels men, as the immortal excels a mortal, as the eternal excels the temporal. May He inspire and endow us, and out of that fountain of life deign to bedew and to drop somewhat on our thirst, that we may not be parched in this wilderness! Let us say to Him, Lord, to whom we have learned to say Father. We make bold to say this, because Himself willed it; if only we so live that He may not say to us, If I am a Father, where is mine honor? If I am Lord, where is my fear? Let us then say to Him, Our Father. To whom do we say, Our Father? To the Father of Christ. He, then, who says Our Father to the Father of Christ, says to Christ, what else but Our Brother? Not, however, as He is the Father of Christ is He in like manner our Father; for Christ never so conjoined us as to make no distinction between Him and us. For He is the Son equal to the Father, the eternal Son with the Father, and co-eternal with the Father; but we became sons through the Son, adopted through the Only-begotten. Hence was it never heard from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, when speaking to His disciples, that He said of the supreme God His Father, Our Father; but He said either My Father or Your Father. But He said not Our Father; so much so, that in a certain place He used these two expressions: I go to my God, says He, and to your God. Why did He not say, Our God? Further, He said, My Father, and your Father; He said not, Our Father. He so joins as to distinguish, distinguishes so as not to disjoin. He wills us to be one in Him, but the Father and Himself one.

4. How much soever then we may understand, and how much soever we may see, we shall not see as the Son sees, even when we shall be made equal with the angels. For we are something even when we do not see; but what are we when we do not see, other than persons not seeing? And that we may see, we turn to Him whom we may see, and there is formed in us a seeing which was not before, although we were in being. For a man is when not seeing; and the same, when he does see, is called a man seeing. For him, then, to see is not the same thing as to be a man; for if it were, he would not be man when not seeing. But since he is man when not seeing, and seeks to see what he sees not, he is one who seeks, and who turns to see; and when he has well turned and has seen, he becomes a man seeing, who was before a man not seeing. Consequently, to see is to him a thing that comes and goes; it comes to him when he turns to, and leaves him when he turns away. Is it thus with the Son? Far be it from us to think so. It was never so that He was Son, not seeing, and afterwards was made to see; but to see the Father is to Him the same thing as to be Son. For we, by turning away to sin, lose enlightenment; and by turning to God we receive enlightenment. For the light by which we are enlightened is one thing; we who are enlightened, another thing. But the light itself, by which we are enlightened, neither turns away from itself, nor loses its lucidity, because as light it exists. The Father, then, shows a thing which He does to the Son, in such wise that the Son sees all things in the Father, and is all things in the Father. For by seeing He was begotten; and by being begotten He sees. Not, however, that at any time He was not begotten, and afterwards was begotten; nor that at any time He saw not, and afterwards saw. But in what consists His seeing, in the same consists His being, in the same His being begotten, in the same His continuing, in the same His unchanging, in the same His abiding without beginning and without end. Let us not therefore take it in a carnal sense that the Father sits and does a work, and shows it to the Son; and the Son sees the work that the Father does, and does another work in another place, or out of other materials. For all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. The Son is the Word of the Father. The Father said nothing which He did not say in the Son. For by speaking in the Son what He was about to do through the Son, He begot the Son through whom He made all things.

5. And greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel. Here again we are embarrassed. And who is there that may worthily investigate this so great a secret? But now, in that He has deigned to speak to us, Himself opens it. For He would not speak what He would not have us understand; and as He has deigned to speak, without doubt He has excited attention: for does He forsake any whom He has roused to give attentive hearing? We have said that it is not in a temporal sense that the Son knows — that the knowledge of the Son is not one thing, and the Son Himself another; nor one thing His seeing, Himself another; but that the seeing itself is the Son, and the knowledge as well as the wisdom of the Father is the Son; and that that wisdom and seeing is eternal and co-eternal with Him from whom it is; that it is not something that varies by time, nor something produced that was not in being, nor something that vanishes away which did exist. What is it, then, that time does in this case, that He should say, Greater works than these He will show Him? He will show, that is, He is about to show. Hath shown is a different thing from will show: has shown, we say of an act past; will show, of an act future. What shall we do here, then, brethren? Behold, He whom we had declared to be co-eternal with the Father, in whom nothing is varied by time, in whom is no moving through spaces either of moments or of places, of whom we had declared that He abides ever with the Father seeing, seeing the Father, and by seeing existing; He, I say, here again mentioning times to us, says, He will show Him greater works than these. Is He then about to show something to the Son, which the Son does not as yet know? What, then, do we make of it? How do we understand this? Behold, our Lord Jesus Christ was above, is beneath. When was He above? When He said, Whatever things the Father does, these same also the Son does in like manner. Whence know we that He is now beneath? Hence: Greater works than these He will show Him. O Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, Word of God, by which all things were made, what is the Father about to show You, that as yet You know not? What of the Father is hid from You? What in the Father is hid from You, from whom the Father is not hid? What greater works is He about to show You? Or greater than what works are they which He is to show You? For when He said, Greater than these, we ought first to understand the works than which are they greater.

6. Let us again call to mind whence this discourse started. It was when that man who was thirty-eight years in infirmity was healed, and Jesus commanded him, now made whole, to take up his bed and to go to his house. For this cause, indeed, the Jews with whom He was speaking were enraged. He spoke in words, as to the meaning He was silent; hinted in some measure at the meaning to those who understood, and hid the matter from them that were angry. For this cause, I say, the Jews, being enraged because the Lord did this on the Sabbath, gave occasion to this discourse. Therefore let us not hear these things in such wise as if we had forgotten what was said above, but let us look back to that impotent man languishing for thirty-eight years suddenly made whole, while the Jews marvelled and were angry. They sought darkness from the Sabbath more than light from the miracle. Speaking then to these, while they are indignant, He says, Greater works than these will He show Him. Greater than these: than which? What you have seen, that a man, whose infirmity had lasted thirty-eight years, was made whole; greater than these the Father is about to show to the Son. What are greater works? He goes on, saying, For as the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. Clearly these are greater. Very much greater is it that a dead man should rise, than that a sick man should recover: these are greater. But when is the Father about to show these to the Son? Does the Son not know them? And He who was speaking, did He not know how to raise the dead? Had He yet to learn how to raise the dead to life — He, I say, by whom all things were made? He who caused that we should live, when we were not in being, had He yet to learn how we might be raised to life again? What, then, do His words mean?

7. But now He condescends to us, and He who a little before was speaking as God, now begins to speak as man. Notwithstanding, the same is man who is God, for God was made man; but was made what He was not, without losing what He was. The man therefore was added to the God, that He might be man who was God, but not that He should now henceforth be man and not be God. Let us then hear Him also as our brother whom we did hear as our Maker. Our Maker, because the Word in the beginning; our Brother, because born of the Virgin Mary: Maker, before Abraham, before Adam, before earth, before heaven, before all things corporeal and spiritual; but Brother, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, of the Israelitish virgin. If therefore we know Him who speaks to us as both God and man, let us understand the words of God and of man; for sometimes He speaks to us such things as are applicable to the majesty, sometimes such as are applicable to the humility. For the selfsame is high who was made low, that He might make us high who are low. What, then, says He? The Father will show to me greater than these, that you may marvel. To us, therefore, He is about to show, not to Him. And since it is to us that the Father is to show, for that reason He said, that you may marvel. He has, in fact, explained what He meant in saying, The Father will show to me. Why did He not say, The Father will show to you; but, He will show to the Son? Because also we are members of the Son; and like as what we the members learn, He Himself in a manner learns in His members. How does He learn in us? As He suffers in us. Whence may we prove that He suffers in us? From that voice out of heaven, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Acts 9:4 Is it not Himself that will sit as Judge in the end of the world, and, setting the just on the right, and the wicked on the left, will say, Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom; for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat? And when they shall answer, Lord, when saw we You hungry? He will say to them, Since ye gave to one of the least of mine, you gave to me. Matthew 25:31-40 Let us at this time question Him, and let us say to Him, Lord, when will You be a learner, seeing Thou teachest all things? Immediately, indeed, He makes answer to us in our faith, When one of the least of mine does learn, I learn.

8. Let us rejoice, then, and give thanks that we are made not only Christians, but Christ. Do ye understand, brethren, and apprehend the grace of God upon us? Marvel, be glad, we are made Christ. For if He is the head, we are the members: the whole man is He and we. This is what the Apostle Paul says: That we be no longer babes, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine. But above he had said, Until we all come together into the unity of faith, and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:14 The fullness of Christ, then, is head and members. Head and members, what is that? Christ and the Church. We should indeed be arrogating this to ourselves proudly, if He did not Himself deign to promise it, who says by the same apostle, But you are the body of Christ, and members. 1 Corinthians 12:27

9. Whenever, then, the Father shows to Christ's members, He shows to Christ. A certain great but yet real miracle happens. There is a showing to Christ of what Christ knew, and it is shown to Christ through Christ. A marvelous and great thing it is, but the Scripture so says. Shall we contradict the divine declarations? Shall we not rather understand them, and of His own gift render thanks to Him who freely bestowed it on us? What is this that I said, is shown to Christ through Christ? Is shown to the members through the head. Lo, look at this in yourself. Suppose that with your eyes shut you would take up something, your hand knows not whither to go; and yet your hand is at any rate your member, for it is not separated from your body. Open your eyes, now the hand sees whither it may go; while the head showed, the member followed. If, then, there could be found in yourself something such, that your body showed to your body, and that through your body something was shown to your body, then do not marvel that it is said there is shown to Christ through Christ. For the head shows that the members may see, and the head teaches that the members may learn; nevertheless one man, head and members. He willed not to separate Himself, but deigned to attach Himself to us. Far was He from us, yea, very far. What so far apart as the creature and the Creator? What so far apart as God and man? What so far as justice and iniquity? What so far as eternity and mortality? Behold, so far from us was the Word in the beginning, God with God, by whom all things were made. How, then, was He made near, that He might be what we are, and we in Him? The Word was made flesh, and dwelt in (among) us. John 1:14

10. This, then, He is about to show us; this He showed to His disciples, who saw Him in the flesh. What is this? As the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. Is it that the Father some, the Son others? Surely all things were made by Him. What do we say, my brethren? Christ raised Lazarus; what dead man did the Father raise, that Christ might see how to raise Lazarus? When Christ raised Lazarus, did not the Father raise him? Or was it the doing of the Son alone, without the Father? Read ye the passage itself, and see that He invokes the Father that Lazarus may rise again. John 11:41-44 As a man, He calls on the Father; as God, He does with the Father. Therefore also Lazarus, who rose again, was raised both by the Father and by the Son, in the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit; and that wonderful work the Trinity performed. Let us not, therefore, understand this, As the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will, in such wise as to suppose that some are raised and quickened by the Father, others by the Son; but that the Son raises and quickens the very same whom the Father raises and quickens; because all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. And to show that He has, though given by the Father, equal power, therefore He says, So also the Son quickens whom He will, that He might therein show His will; and lest any should say, The Father raises the dead by the Son, but the Father as being powerful, and as having power, the Son as by another's power, as a servant does something, as an angel, He indicated His power when He says, So also the Son quickens whom He will. It is not so that the Father wills other than the Son; but as the Father and the Son have one substance, so also one will.

11. And who are these dead whom the Father and the Son quicken? Are they the same of whom we have spoken — Lazarus, or that widow's son, Luke 7:14 or the ruler of the synagogue's daughter? Luke 8:54 For we know that these were raised by Christ the Lord. It is some other thing that He means to signify to us — namely, the resurrection of the dead, which we all look for; not that resurrection which certain have had, that the rest might believe. For Lazarus rose to die again; we shall rise again to live forever. Is it the Father that effects such a resurrection, or the Son? Nay verily, the Father in the Son. Consequently the Son, and the Father in the Son. Whence do we prove that He speaks of this resurrection? When He had said, As the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. Lest we should understand here that resurrection which He performs for a miracle, not for eternal life, He proceeded, saying, For the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son. What is this? He was speaking of the resurrection of the dead, that as the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will; and immediately thereupon added as a reason, concerning the judgment, saying, for the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son. Why said He this, but to indicate that He had spoken of that resurrection of the dead which will take place in the judgment?

12. For, says He, the Father judges no man, but all judgment has He given to the Son. A little before we were thinking that the Father does something which the Son does not, when He said, The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does; as though the Father were doing, and the Son were seeing. In this way there was creeping in upon our mind a carnal conception, as if the Father did what the Son did not; but that the Son was looking on while the Father showed what He was doing. Then, as the Father was doing what the Son did not, just now we see the Son doing what the Father does not. How He turns us about, and keeps our mind busy! He leads us hither and there, will not allow us to remain in one place of the flesh, that by changing He may exercise us, by exercising He may cleanse us, by cleansing He may render us capable of receiving, and may fill us when made capable. What have these words to do with us? What was He speaking? What is He speaking? A little before, He said that the Father shows to the Son whatever He does. I did see, as it were, the Father doing, the Son waiting to see; presently again, I see the Son doing, the Father idle: For the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son. When, therefore, the Son is about to judge, will the Father be idle, and not judge? What is this? What am I to understand? What dost Thou say, O Lord? You are God the Word, I am a man. Do You say that the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son? I read in another place that You say, I judge not any man; there is one who seeks and judges. John 8:15 Of whom sayest Thou, There is one who seeks and judges, unless it be of the Father? He makes inquisition for your wrongs, and judges for them. How is it to be understood here that the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son? Let us ask Peter; let us hear him speaking in his epistle: Christ suffered for us, says he, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered wrong, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously. 1 Peter 2:21-23 How is it true that the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son? We are here in perplexity, and being perplexed let us exert ourselves, that by exertion we may be purified. Let us endeavor as best we may, by His own gift, to penetrate the deep secrets of these words. It may be that we are acting rashly, in that we wish to discuss and to scrutinize the words of God. Yet why were they spoken, but to be known? Why did they sound forth, but to be heard? Why were they heard, but to be understood? Let Him greatly strengthen us, then, and bestow somewhat on us so far as He may deem worthy; and if we do not yet penetrate to the fountain, let us drink of the brook. Behold, John himself has flowed forth to us like a brook, conveyed to us the word from on high. He brought it low, and in a manner levelled it, that we may not dread the lofty One, but may draw near to Him that is low.

13. By all means there is a sense, a true and strong sense, if somehow we can grasp it, in which the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son. For this is said because none will appear to men in the judgment but the Son. The Father will be hidden, the Son will be manifest. In what will the Son be manifest? In the form in which He ascended. For in the form of God He was hidden with the Father; in the form of a servant, manifest to men. Not therefore the Father judges any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son: only the manifest judgment, in which manifest judgment the Son will judge, since the same will appear to them that are to be judged. The Scripture shows us more clearly that it is the Son that will appear. On the fortieth day after His resurrection He ascended into heaven, while His disciples were looking on; and they hear the angelic voice: Men of Galilee, says it, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same that is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him going into heaven. Acts 1:3-11 In what manner did they see Him go? In the flesh, which they touched, which they handled, the wounds even of which they proved by touching; in that body in which He went in and out with them for forty days, manifesting Himself to them in truth, not in falsity; not a phantom, or shadow, or ghost, but, as Himself said, not deceiving them, Handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have. Luke 24:39 That body is now indeed worthy of a heavenly habitation, not being subject to death, nor mutable by the lapse of ages. It is not as it had grown to that age from infancy, so from the age of manhood declines to old age: He remains as He ascended, to come to those to whom He willed His word to be preached before He comes. Thus will He come in human form, and this form the wicked will see; both they on the right shall see it, and they that are separated to the left shall see it: as it is written, They shall look on Him whom they pierced. Zechariah 12:13 If they shall look on Him whom they pierced, they shall look on that same body which they struck through with the spear; for a spear does not pierce the Word. This body, therefore, will the wicked be able to look on which they were able to wound. God hidden in the body they will not see: after the judgment He will be seen by those who will be on the right hand. This, then, is what He means when He says, The Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son,— that the Son will come to judgment manifest, apparent to men in human body; saying to those on the right, Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom; and to those on the left, Go into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:34, 41

14. Behold, that form of man will be seen by the godly and by the wicked, by the just and the unjust, by the believers and unbelievers, by those that rejoice and by those that mourn, by them that trusted and by them that are confounded: lo, seen it will be. When that form shall have appeared in the judgment, and the judgment shall have been finished, where it is said that the Father judges not any, but has given all judgment to the Son, for this reason, that the Son will appear in the judgment in that form which He took from us. What shall be after this? When shall be seen the form of God, which all the faithful are thirsting to see? When shall be seen that Word which was in the beginning, God with God, by which all things were made? When shall be seen that form of God, of which the apostle says, Being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God? Philippians 2:6 For great is that form, in which, moreover, the quality of the Father and Son is recognized; ineffable, incomprehensible, most of all to little ones. When shall this form be seen? Behold, on the right are the just, on the left are the unjust; all alike see the man, they see the Son of man, they see Him who was pierced, Him who was crucified they see: they see Him that was made low, Him who was born of the Virgin, the Lamb of the tribe of Judah they see. But when will they see the Word, God with God? He will be the very same even then, but the form of a servant will appear. The form of a servant will be shown to servants: the form of God will be reserved for sons. Wherefore let the servants be made sons: let them who are on the right hand go into the eternal inheritance promised of old, which the martyrs, though not seeing, believed, for the promise of which they poured out their blood without hesitation; let them go there and see there. When shall they go there? Let the Lord Himself say: So those shall go into everlasting burning, but the righteous into life eternal. Matthew 25:46

15. Behold, He has named eternal life. Has He told us that we shall there see and know the Father and Son? What if we shall live for ever, yet not see that Father and Son? Hear, in another place, where He has named eternal life, and expressed what eternal life is: Be not afraid; I do not deceive you; not without cause have I promised to them that love me, saying, 'He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me, shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will show myself to him.' John 14:21 Let us answer the Lord, and say, What great thing is this, O Lord our God? What great thing is it? Will You show Yourself to us? What, then, did You not show Yourself to the Jews also? Did not they see You who crucified You? But You will show Yourself in the judgment, when we shall stand at Your right hand; will not also they who will stand on Your left see You? What is it that You will show Yourself to us? Do we, indeed, not see You now when You are speaking? He makes answer: I will show myself in the form of God; just now you see the form of a servant. I will not deceive you, O faithful man; believe that you shall see. You love, and yet you do not see: shall not love itself lead you to see? Love, persevere in loving; I will not disappoint your love, says He, I who have purified your heart. For why have I purified your heart, but to the end that God may be seen by you? For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 But this, says the servant, as if disputing with the Lord, You did not express, when Thou said, 'The righteous shall go into life eternal;' You did not say, They shall go to see me in the form of God, and to see the Father, with whom I am equal. Observe what He said elsewhere: This is life eternal, that they may know You the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3

16. And immediately, then, after the judgment mentioned, all which the Father, not judging any man, has given to the Son, what shall be? What follows? That all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. The Jews honor the Father, despise the Son. For the Son was seen as a servant, the Father was honored as God. But the Son will appear equal with the Father, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. This we have, therefore, now in faith. Let not the Jew say, I honor the Father; what have I to do with the Son? Let him be answered, He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father. Thou liest every way; you blaspheme the Son, and dost wrong to the Father. For the Father sent the Son, and you despise Him whom the Father sent. How can you honor the sender, who blaspheme the sent?

17. Behold, says some one, the Son has been sent; and the Father is greater, because He sent. Withdraw from the flesh; the old man suggests oldness in time. Let the ancient, the perpetual, the eternal, to you the new, call off your understanding from time to this. Is the Son less because He is said to have been sent? I hear of a sending, not a separation. But yet, says he, among men we see that he who sends is greater than he who is sent. Be it so; but human affairs deceive a man; divine things purge him. Do not regard things human, in which the sender appears greater, the sent less; notwithstanding, things human themselves bear testimony against you. Just as, for example, if a man wishes to ask a woman to wife, and, not being able to do this in person, sends a friend to ask for him. And there are many cases in which the greater is chosen to be sent by the less. Why, then, would you now raise a captious objection, because the one has sent, the other is sent? The sun sends out a ray, but does not separate it; the moon sends out her sheen, but does not separate it; a lamp sheds light, but does not separate it: I see there a sending forth, not a separation. For if you seek examples from human things, O heretical vanity, although, as I have said, even human things in some instances refute you, and convict of error; yet consider how different it is in the case of things human, from which you wish to deduce examples for things divine. A man that sends remains himself behind, while only the man that is sent goes forward. Does the man who sends go with him whom he sends? Yet the Father, who sent the Son, has not departed from the Son. Hear the Lord Himself saying, Behold, the hour is coming, when every one shall depart to his own, and you will leave me alone; but I am not alone, because the Father is with me. John 16:32 How has He, with whom He came, sent Him? How has He, from whom He has not departed, sent Him? In another place He said, The Father abiding in me does the works. John 14:10 Behold, the Father is in Him, works in Him. The Father sending has not departed from the Son sent, because the sent and the sender are one.

Tractate 22 (John 5:24-30)

Upon the discourses delivered yesterday and the day before, follows the Gospel lesson of today, which we must endeavor to expound in due course, not indeed proportionably to its importance, but according to our ability: both because you take in, not according to the bountifulness of the gushing fountain, but according to your moderate capacity; and we too speak into your ears, not so much as the fountain gives forth, but so much as we are able to take in we convey into your minds, — the matter itself working more fruitfully in your hearts than we in your ears. For a great matter is treated of, not by great masters, nay, rather by very small; but He who, being great, for our sakes became small, gives us hope and confidence. For if we were not encouraged by Him, and invited to understand Him; if He abandoned us as contemptible, since we were not able to partake His divinity if He did not partake our mortality and come to us to speak His gospel to us; if He had not willed to partake with us what in us is abject and most small — then we might think that He who took on Himself our smallness, had not been willing to bestow on us His own greatness. This I have said lest any should blame us as over-bold in handling these matters, or despair of himself that he should be able to understand, by God's gift, what the Son of God has deigned to speak to him. Therefore what He has deigned to speak to us, we ought to believe that He meant us to understand. But if we do not understand, He, being asked, gives understanding, who gave His Word unasked.

2. Lo, what these secrets of His words are, consider well. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whoever hears my word, and believes in Him that sent me, has eternal life. Surely we are all striving after eternal life: and He says, Whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life. Then, would He have us hear His word, and yet would He not have us understand it? Since, if in hearing and believing is eternal life, much more in understanding. But the action of piety is faith, the fruit of faith understanding, that we may come to eternal life, when there will be no reading of Gospel to us; but after all pages of reading and the voice of reader and preacher have been removed out of the way, He, who has at this time dispensed to us the gospel, will Himself appear to all that are His, now present with Him with purged heart and in an immortal body never more to die, cleansing and enlightening them, now living and seeing how that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Therefore let us consider at this time who we are, and ponder whom we hear. Christ is God, and He is speaking with men. He would have them to apprehend Him, let Him make them capable; He would have them see Him, let Him open their eyes. It is not, however, without cause that He speaks to us, but because that is true which He promises to us.

3. Whoever hears my words, says He, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. Where, when do we come from death to life, that we come not into judgment? In this life there is a passing from death to life; in this life, which is not yet life, there is a passing hence from death unto life. What is that passing? Whoever hears my words, He said, and believes Him that sent me. Observing these, you believe and passest. And does a man pass while standing? Evidently; for in body he stands, in mind he passes. Where was he, whence he should pass, and whither does he pass? He passes from death to life. Look at a man standing, in whom all that is here said may happen. He stands, he hears, perhaps he did not believe, by hearing he believes: a little before he did not believe, just now he believes; he has made a passage, as it were, from the region of unbelief to the region of faith, by motion of the heart, not of the body, by a motion into the better; because they who again abandon faith move into the worse. Behold, in this life, which, just as I have said, is not yet life, there is a passing from death to life, so that there may not be a coming into judgment. But why did I say that it is not yet life? If this were life, the Lord would not have said to a certain man, If you will come into life, keep the commandments. Matthew 19:17 For He says not to him, If you will come into eternal life; He did not add eternal, but said only life. Therefore this life is not to be named life, because it is not a true life. What is true life, but that which is eternal life? Hear the apostle speaking to Timothy, when he says, Charge them that are rich in this world, not to be high-minded, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy; let them do good, be rich in good works, ready to distribute, to communicate. Why does he say this? Hear what follows: Let them lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of the true life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 If they ought to lay up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, in order to lay hold of the true life, surely this in which they were is a false life. For why should you desire to lay hold of the true, if you have the true already? Is the true to be laid hold of? There must then be a departing from the false. And by what way must be the departing? Whither? Hear, believe; and you make the passage from death into life, and comest not into judgment.

4. What is this, and you come not into judgment? And who will be better than the Apostle Paul, who says, We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may there receive what he has done in the body, whether it be good or evil? 2 Corinthians 5:10 Paul says, We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; and do you dare promise to yourself that you shall not come into judgment? Be it far from me, do you say, that I should dare promise this to myself. But I believe Him that does promise. The Saviour speaks, the Truth promises, Himself said to me, Whoever hears my words, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and makes a passage from death unto life, and shall not come into judgment. I then have heard the words of my Lord, and I have believed; so now, when I was an unbeliever, I became a believer; even as He warned me, I passed from death to life, I come not into judgment; not by my presumption, but by His promise. Does Paul, however, speak contrary to Christ, the servant against his Lord, the disciple against his Master, the man against God; so that, when the Lord says, Whoever hears and believes, passes from death to life, the apostle should say, We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ? Otherwise, if he comes not into judgment who appears before the judgment-seat, I know not how to understand it.

5. The Lord our God then reveals it, and by His Scriptures puts us in mind how it may be understood when judgment is spoken of. I exhort you, therefore, to give attention. Sometimes judgment means punishment, sometimes it means discrimination. According to that mode of speech in which judgment means discrimination, we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ that a man may there receive what things he has done in the body, whether it be good or ill. For this same is a discrimination, to distribute good things to the good, evil things to the evil. For if judgment were always to be taken in a bad sense, the psalm would not say, Judge me, O God. Perhaps some one is surprised when he hears one say,  Judge me, O God. For man is wont to say, Forgive me, O God; Spare me, O God. Who is it that says, Judge me, O God? Sometimes in the psalm this very verse even is placed in the pause, to be given out by the reader and responded by the people. Does it not perhaps strike some man's heart so much that he is afraid to sing and to say to God, Judge me, O God? And yet the people sing it with confidence, and do not imagine that they wish an evil thing in that which they have learned from the divine word; even if they do not well understand it, they believe that what they sing is something good. And yet even the psalm itself has not left a man without an insight into the meaning of it. For, going on, it shows in the words that follow what kind of judgment it spoke of; that it is not one of condemnation, but of discrimination. For says it, Judge me, O God. What means Judge me, O God, and discern my cause from an unholy nation? According to this judgment of discerning, then, we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. But again, according to the judgment of condemnation, Whoever hears my words, says He, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but makes a passage from death to life. What is shall not come into judgment? Shall not come into condemnation. Let us prove from the Scriptures that judgment is put where punishment is understood; although also in this very passage, a little further on, you will hear the same term judgment put for nothing else than for condemnation and punishment. Yet the apostle says in a certain place, writing to those who abused the body, what the faithful among you know; and because they abused it, they were chastised by the scourge of the Lord. For he says to them, Many among you are weak and sickly, and deeply sleep. For many therefore even died. And he went on: For if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord; that is, if we reproved ourselves, we should not be reproved by the Lord. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. There are therefore those who are judged here according to punishment, that they may be spared there; there are those who are spared here, that they may be the more abundantly tormented there; and there are those to whom the very punishments are meted out without the scourge of punishment, if they be not corrected by the scourge of God; that, since here they have despised the Father that scourges, they may there feel the Judge that punishes. Therefore there is a judgment into which God, that is, the Son of God, will in the end send the devil and his angels, and all the unbelieving and ungodly with him. To this judgment, he who, now believing, passes from death unto life, shall not come.

6. For, lest you should think that by believing you are not to die according to the flesh, or lest, understanding it carnally, you should say to yourself, My Lord has said to me, Whoever hears my words, and believes Him that sent me, is passed from death to life: I then have believed, I am not to die; be assured that you shall pay that penalty, death, which you owe by the punishment of Adam. For he, in whom we all then were, received this sentence, You shall surely die; Genesis 2:17 nor can the divine sentence be made void. But after you have paid the death of the old man, you shall be received into the eternal life of the new man, and shall pass from death to life. Mean while, make the transition of life now. What is your life? Faith: The just does live by faith. The unbelievers, what of them? They are dead. Among such dead was he, in the body, of whom the Lord says, Let the dead bury their dead. Matthew 8:22 So, then, even in this life there are dead, and there are living; all live in a sense. Who are dead? They who have not believed. Who are living? They who have believed. What is said to the dead by the apostle? Arise, you that sleepest. But, quoth an objector, he said sleep, not death. Hear what follows: Arise, you that sleepest, and come forth from the dead. And as if the sleeper said, Whither shall I go? And Christ shall give you light. Ephesians 1:14 Christ having enlightened you, now believing, immediately you make a passage from death to life: abide in that to which you have passed, and you shall not come into judgment.

7. Himself explains that already, and goes on, Verily, verily, I say unto you. In case, because He said is passed from death to life, we should understand this of the future resurrection, and willing to show that he who believes is passed, and that to pass from death to life is to pass from unbelief to faith, from injustice to justice, from pride to humility, from hatred to charity, He says now, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour comes, and now is. What more evident? And now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. We have already spoken of these dead. What think we, my brethren? Are there no dead in this crowd that hear me? They who believe and act according to the true faith do live, and are not dead. But they who either do not believe, or believe as the devils believe, trembling, James 2:19 and living wickedly, confessing the Son of God, and without charity, must rather be esteemed dead. This hour, however, is still passing. For the hour of which the Lord spoke will not be an hour of the twelve hours of a day. From the time when He spoke even to the present, and even to the end of the world, the same one hour is passing; of which hour John says in his epistle, Little children, it is the last hour. 1 John 2:18 Therefore, is now. Whoever is alive, let him live; whoever was dead, let him live; let him hear the voice of the Son of God, who lay dead; let him arise and live. The Lord cried out at the sepulchre of Lazarus, and he that was four days dead arose. He who stank in the grave came forth into the air. He was buried, a stone was laid over him: the voice of the Saviour burst asunder the hardness of the stone; and your heart is so hard, that Divine Voice does not yet break it! Rise in your heart; go forth from your tomb. For you were lying dead in your heart as in a tomb, and pressed down by the weight of evil habit as by a stone. Rise, and go forth. What is Rise, and go forth? Believe and confess. For he that has believed has risen; he that confesses is gone forth. Why said we that he who confesses is gone forth? Because he was hid before confessing; but when he does confess, he goes forth from darkness to light. And after he has confessed, what is said to the servants? What was said beside the corpse of Lazarus? Loose him, and let him go. How? As it was said to His servants the apostles, What things you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 18:18

8. The hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. From what source shall they live? From life. From what life? From Christ. How do we prove that the source is Christ the life? I am, says He, the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6 Do you wish to walk? I am the way. Do you wish not to be deceived? I am the truth. Would you not die? I am the life. This says your Saviour to you: There is not whither you may go but to me; there is not whereby you may go but by me. Therefore this hour is going on now, this act is clearly taking place, and does not at all cease. Men who were dead, rise; they pass over to life; at the voice of the Son of God they live; from Him they live, while persevering in the faith of Him. For the Son has life, whence He has it that they that believe shall live.

9. And how has He? Even as the Father has. Hear Himself saying, For as the Father has life in Himself, so also has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. Brethren, I shall speak as I shall be able. For these are those words that perplex the puny understanding. Why has He added, in Himself? It would suffice to say, For as the Father has life, so also has He given to the Son to have life. He added, in Himself: for the Father has life in Himself, and the Son has life in Himself. He meant us to understand something in that which He says, in Himself. And here a secret matter is shut up in this word; let there be knocking, that there may be an opening. O Lord, what is this that You have said? Wherefore have You added, in Himself? For did not Paul the apostle, whom You made to live, have life? He had, said He. As for men that were dead to be made alive, and at Your word to pass unto life by believing; when they shall have passed, will they not have life in You? They shall have life; for I said also a little before, Whoever hears my words, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life. Therefore those that believe in You have life; and You have not said, in themselves. But when You speak of the Father, even as the Father has life in Himself; again, when You speak of Yourself, Thou said, So also has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. Even as He has, so gave He to have. Where has He? In Himself. Where gave He to have? In Himself. Where has Paul life? Not in himself, but in Christ. Where have you, believer? Not in yourself, but in Christ. Let us see whether the apostle says this: Now I live; but not I, but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 Our life, as ours, that is, of our own personal will, will be only evil, sinful, unrighteous; but the life in us that is good is from God, not from ourselves; it is given to us by God, not by ourselves. But Christ has life in Himself, as the Father has, because He is the Word of God. With Him, it is not the case that He lives now ill, now well; but as for man, he lives now ill, now well. He who was living ill, was in his own life; he who is living well, is passed to the life of Christ. You are made a partaker of life; you were not that which you have received, but wast one who received: but it is not so with the Son of God as if at first He was without life, and then received life. For if thus He received life, He would not have it in Himself. For, indeed, what is in Himself? That He should Himself be the very life.

10. I may perhaps declare that matter more plainly still. One lights a candle: that candle, for example, so far as regards the little flame which shines there — that fire has light in itself; but your eyes, which lay idle and saw nothing, in the absence of the candle, now have light also, but not in themselves. Further, if they turn away from the candle, they are made dark; if they turn to it, they are illumined. But certainly that fire shines so long as it exists: if you would take the light from it, you also at the same time extinguish it; for without the light it cannot remain. But Christ is light inextinguishable and co-eternal with the Father, always bright, always shining, always burning: for if He were not burning, would it be said in the psalm, Nor is there any that can hide himself from his heat? But you were cold in your sin; you turn that you may become warm; if you will turn away, you will become cold. In your sin you were dark; you turn in order to be enlightened; if you turn away, you will become dark. Therefore, because in yourself you were darkness, when you shall be enlightened, you will be light, though in the light. For says the apostle, You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:8 When he had said, but now light, he added, in the Lord. Therefore in yourself darkness, light in the Lord. In what way light? Because by participation of that light you are light. But if you will depart from the light by which you are enlightened, you return to your darkness. Not so Christ, not so the Word of God. But how not? As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given also to the Son to have life in Himself; so that He lives, not by participation, but unchangeably, and is altogether Himself life. So has He given also to the Son to have life. Even as He has, so has He given. What is the difference? For the one gave, the other received. Was He already in being when He received? Are we to understand that Christ was at any time in being without light, when Himself is the wisdom of the Father, of which it is said, It is the brightness of the eternal light? Wisdom 7:26 Therefore what is said, gave to the Son, is such as if it were said, begot the Son; for by begetting He gave. As He gave Him to be, so He gave Him to be life, so also gave Him to be life in Himself. What is that, to be life in Himself? Not to need life from elsewhere, but to be Himself the plenitude of life, out of which others believing should have life while they lived. Hath given Him, then, to have life in Himself. Hath given as to whom? As to His own Word, as to Him who in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

11. Afterwards, because He was made man, what gave He to Him? And has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. In that He is the Son of God, As the Father has life in Himself, so also has He given to the Son to have life in Himself; in that He is the Son of man, He has given Him authority of executing judgment. This is what I ex plained to you yesterday, my beloved, that in the judgment man will be seen, but God will not be seen; but after the judgment, God will be seen by those who have prevailed in the judgment, but by the wicked He will not be seen. Since, therefore, the man will be seen in the judgment in that form in which He will so come as He ascended, for that reason He had said above, The Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son. He repeats the same thing also in this place, when He says, And has given Him authority of executing judgment, because He is the Son of man. As if you were to say, has given Him authority of executing judgment. In what way? When He had not that authority of executing judgment? Since in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; since all things were made by Him, did He not already have authority of executing judgment? Yes, but according to this, I say, He gave Him authority of executing judgment, because He is the Son of man: according to this, He received authority of judging because He is the Son of man. For in that He is the Son of God, He always had this authority. He that was crucified, received; He who was in death, is in life: the Word of God never was in death, but is always in life.

12. Now, therefore, as to a resurrection, perhaps some one of us was saying: Behold, we have risen; he who hears Christ, and believes, and is passed from death to life, also will not come into judgment. The hour comes, and now is, that whoever hears the voice of the Son of God shall live: he was dead, he has heard; behold, he does rise. What is this that is said, that there is to be a resurrection afterwards? Spare yourself, do not hasten the sentence, lest you hurry after it. There is, indeed, this resurrection which comes to pass now; unbelievers were dead, the unrighteous were dead; the righteous live, they pass from the death of unbelief to the life of faith. But do not thence believe that there will not be a resurrection afterwards of the body; believe that there will be a resurrection of the body also. For hear what follows after the declaration of this resurrection which is by faith, lest any should think this to be the only resurrection, or fall into that desperation and error of men who perverted the thoughts of others, saying that the resurrection is past already, of whom the apostle says, and they overthrow the faith of some. 2 Timothy 2:18 For I believe that they were saying to them such words as these: Behold, when the Lord says, And he that believes in me is passed from death unto life; the resurrection has already taken place in believing men, who were before unbelievers: how can a second resurrection be meant? Thanks to our Lord God, He supports the wavering, directs the perplexed, confirms the doubting. Hear what follows, now that you have not whereof to make to yourself the darkness of death. If you have believed, believe the whole. What whole, do you say, am I to believe? Hear what He says: Marvel not at this, namely, that He gave to the Son authority of making judgment. I say, in the end of the world, says He. How in the end? Do not marvel at this; for the hour comes. Here He has not said, and now is. In reference to that resurrection of faith, what did He say? The hour comes, and now is. In reference to that resurrection which He intimates there will be of dead bodies, He said, The hour comes; He has not said, and now is. because it is to come in the end of the world.

13. And whence, do you say, do you prove to me that He spoke about the resurrection itself? If you hear patiently, you will presently prove it to yourself. Let us go on then: Marvel not at this; for the hour comes, in which all that are in the graves. What more evident than this resurrection? A while ago, He had not said, they that are in the graves, but, The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. He has not said, some shall live, others shall be damned; because all who believe shall live. But what does He say concerning the graves? All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth. He said not, shall hear and live. For if they have lived wickedly, and lay in the graves, they shall rise to death, not to life. Let us see, then, who shall come forth. Although, a little before, the dead by hearing and believing did live, there was no distinction there made: it was not said, The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and when they shall have heard, some shall live, and some shall be damned; but, all that hear shall live: because they that believe shall live, they that have charity shall live, and none of them shall die. But concerning the graves, They shall hear His voice, and come forth: they that have done well, to the resurrection of life; they that have done ill, to the resurrection of judgment. This is the judgment, that punishment of which He had said a while before, Whoever believes in me is passed from death to life, and shall not come into judgment.

14. I cannot of myself do anything; as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just. If as You hear You judge, of whom dost Thou hear? If of the Father, yet surely the Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son. When do You, being in a manner the Father's herald, declare what You hear? I speak what I hear, because what the Father is, that I am: for, indeed, speaking is my function; because I am the Father's Word. For this Christ says to you. Thereupon, of yours. What is As I hear I judge, but As I am? For in what manner does Christ hear? Let us inquire, brethren, I beg of you. Does Christ hear of the Father? How does the Father speak to Him? Undoubtedly, if He speaks to Him, He uses words to Him; for every one who says something to any one, says it by a word. How does the Father speak to the Son, seeing that the Son is the Father's Word? Whatever the Father says to us, He says it by His Word: the Word of the Father is the Son; by what other word, then, does He speak to the Word Himself? God is one, has one Word, contains all things in one Word. What does that mean, then, As I hear, I judge? Just as I am of the Father, so I judge. Therefore my judgment is just. If You do nothing of Yourself, O Lord Jesus, as carnal men think; if You do nothing of Yourself, how did You say a while before, So also the Son quickens whom He will? Just now You say, Of myself I do nothing. But what does the Son declare, but that He is of the Father? He that is of the Father is not of Himself. If the Son were of Himself, He would not be the Son: He is of the Father. That the Father is, is not of the Son; that the Son is, is of the Father. Equal to the Father; but yet the Son of the Father, not the Father of the Son.

15. Because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. The Only Son says, I seek not my own will, and yet men desire to do their own will! To such a degree does He who is equal to the Father humble Himself; and to such a degree does He extol Himself, who lies in the lowest depth, and cannot rise except a hand is reached to Him! Let us then do the will of the Father, the will of the Son, the will of the Holy Ghost; because of this Trinity there is one will, one power, one majesty. Yet for that reason says the Son, I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me; because Christ is not of Himself, but of the Father. But what He had that He might appear as a man, He assumed of the creature which He himself formed.

Tractate 23 (John 5:19-40)

1. In a certain place in the Gospel, the Lord says that the prudent hearer of His word ought to be like a man who, wishing to build a house, digs deeply until he comes to the foundation of stability on the rock, and there establishes in security what he builds against the violence of the flood; so that, when the flood comes, it may be rather beaten back by the strength of the building. than bring ruin on that house by the force of its pressure. Matthew 7:24-25 Let us regard the Scripture of God to be, as it were, the field where we wish to build something. Let us not be slothful, nor be content with the surface; let us dig deeply until we come to the rock: And that rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4

2. The passage read today has spoken to us of the witness of the Lord, that He does not hold the witness of men necessary, but has a greater witness than men; and He has told us what this witness is: The works, says He, which I do bear witness of me. Then He added, And the Father that sent me bears witness of me. The very works also which He does, He says that He has received from the Father. The works, therefore, bear witness, the Father bears witness. Has John borne no witness? He did clearly bear witness, but as a lamp; not to satisfy friends, but to confound enemies: for it had been predicted long before by the person of the Father, I have prepared a lamp for mine Anointed: I will clothe His enemies with confusion; but upon Him shall flourish my sanctification. Be it that you were left in the dark in the night-time, you directed your attention to the lamp, you admired the lamp, and exulted at its light. But that lamp says that there is a sun, in which you ought to exult; and though it burns in the night, it bids you to be looking out for the day. Therefore it is not the case that there was no need of that man's testimony. For wherefore was he sent, if there was no need of him? But, on the contrary, lest man should stay at the lamp, and think the light of the lamp to be sufficient for him, therefore the Lord neither says that this lamp had been superfluous, nor yet does He say that you ought to stay at the lamp. The Scripture of God utters another testimony: there undoubtedly God has borne witness to His Son, and in that Scripture the Jews had placed their hope, — namely, in the law of God, given by Moses His servant. Search the Scripture, says He, in which you think you have eternal life: the same bears witness of me; and you will not come to me that you may have life. Why do you think that in the Scripture you have eternal life? Ask itself to whom does it bear witness, and understand what is eternal life. And because for the sake of Moses they were willing to reject Christ, as an adversary to the ordinances and precepts of Moses, He convicts those same men as by another lamp.

3. For, indeed, all men are lamps, since they can be both lighted and extinguished. Moreover, when the lamps are wise, they shine and glow with the Spirit; yet also, if they did burn and are put out, they even stink. The servants of God remain good lamps by the oil of His mercy, not by their own strength. The free grace of God, truly, is the oil of the lamps. For I have labored more than they all, says a certain lamp; and lest he should seem to burn by his own strength, he added, But not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 1 Corinthians 15:10 All prophecy, therefore, before the coming of the Lord, is a lamp. Of this lamp the Apostle Peter says: We have a more sure word of prophecy, to which you do well giving heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:19 Accordingly the prophets are lamps, and all prophecy one great lamp. What of the apostles? Are not they, too, lamps? They are, clearly. He alone is not a lamp. For He is not lighted and put out; because even as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. The apostles also, I say, are lamps; and they give thanks because they were both lighted by the light of truth, and are burning with the spirit of charity, and supplied with the oil of God's grace. If they were not lamps, the Lord would not say to them, You are the light of the world. For after He said, You are the light of the world, He shows that they should not think themselves such a light as that of which it is said, That was the true light, that enlightens every man coming into this world. But this was said of the Lord at that time when He was distinguished from John (the Baptist). Of John the Baptist, indeed, it had been said, He was not the light, but that he might bear witness of the light. John 1:9 And lest you should say, How was he not the light, of whom Christ says that he was a lamp? — I answer, In comparison of the other light, he was not light. For that was the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world. Accordingly, when He said also to the disciples, You are the light of the world, lest they should imagine that anything was attributed to them which was to be understood of Christ alone, and thus the lamps should be extinguished by the wind of pride, when He had said, You are the light of the world, He immediately subjoined, A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid; neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but an a candlestick, that it may shine on all that are in the house. But what if He did not call the apostles the candle, but the lighters of the candle, which they were to put on a candlestick? Hear that He called themselves the candle. So let your light shine, says He, before men, that they, seeing your good works, may glorify, not you, but your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16

4. Wherefore both Moses bore witness to Christ, and John bore witness to Christ, and all the other prophets and apostles bore witness to Christ. Before all these testimonies He places the testimony of His own works. Because through those men too, it was God and none other that bore witness to His Son. But yet in another way God bears testimony to His Son. God reveals His Son through the Son Himself, He reveals Himself through the Son. To Him, if a man shall have been able to reach, he shall need no lamps; and by truly digging deep, he will carry down his building to the rock.

5. The lesson of today, brethren, is easy; but on account of what was due yesterday (for I know what I have delayed, not withdrawn, and the Lord has deigned to allow me even today to speak to you), recall to mind what you ought to demand, if perhaps, while preserving piety and wholesome humility, we may in some measure stretch out ourselves, not against God, but towards Him, and lift up our soul, pouring it out above us, like the Psalmist, to whom it was said, Where is your God? On these things, says he, I meditated, and poured out my soul above me. Therefore let us lift up our soul to God, not against God; for this also is said, To You, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul. And let us lift it up with His own assistance, for it is heavy. And from what cause is it heavy? Because the body which is corrupt weighs down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle depresses the mind while meditating on many things. Wisdom 9:15 Let us try, then, whether we may not be able to withdraw our mind from many things in order to concentrate it on one, and to raise it to one (which indeed we cannot do, as I have said, unless He assist us who wills our souls to be raised to Himself). And so we may apprehend in some measure how the Word of God, the only begotten of the Father, the co-eternal and equal with the Father, does not anything except what He sees the Father doing, while yet the Father Himself does not anything but through the Son, who sees Him doing. Since the Lord Jesus, as it seems to me — willing here to make known some great matter to those that give attention to it, and to pour into those that are capable of receiving, and to rouse, on the other hand, the incapable to assiduity, in order that, while not yet understanding, they may by right living be made capable — has intimated to us that the human soul and rational mind which is in man, not in the beast, is invigorated, enlightened, and made happy in no other way than by the very substance of God: that the soul itself gets somewhat by and of the body, and yet holds the body subject to it, while the senses of the body can be soothed and delighted by things bodily, and that because of this kind of fellowship of soul and body in this life, and in this mutual embrace of theirs, the soul is delighted when the bodily senses are soothed, and saddened when they are offended; while yet the happiness by which the soul itself is made happy cannot be realized but by a participation of that ever-living, unchangeable life, of that eternal substance, which is God: that as the soul, which is inferior to God, causes the body, which is inferior to itself, to live, so that alone which is superior to the soul can cause that same soul to live happily. For the soul is higher than the body, and higher than the soul is God. It bestows something on its inferior, while there is something bestowed on itself by the superior. Let it serve its Lord, that it may not be trampled on by its own servant. This, brethren, is the Christian religion, which is preached through the whole world, while its enemies are dismayed; who, where they are conquered, murmur, and fiercely rage against it where they prevail. This is the Christian religion, that one God be worshipped, not many gods, because only one God can make the soul happy. It is made happy by participation of God. Not by participation of a holy soul does the feeble soul become happy, nor by participation of an angel does the holy soul become happy; but if the feeble soul seeks to be happy, let it seek that by which the holy soul is made happy. For you are made happy, not of an angel, but the angel as well as you of the same source.

6. These things being premised and firmly established — that the rational soul is made happy only by God, that the body is enlivened only by the soul, and that the soul is a something intermediate between God and the body — direct your thoughts to, and recollect with me, not the passage read today, of which we have spoken enough, but that of yesterday, which we have been turning over and handling these three days, and, to the best of our abilities, digging into until we should come to the rock. The Word Christ, Christ the Word of God with God, Christ the Word and the Word God, Christ and God and Word one God. To this press on; O soul, despising, or even transcending all things else, to this press on. There is nothing more powerful than this creature, which is called the rational mind, nothing more sublime: whatever is above this, is but the Creator. But I was saying that Christ is the Word, and Christ is the Word of God, and Christ the Word is God; but Christ is not only the Word, since the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us: John 1:14 therefore Christ is both Word and flesh. For when He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. And what of us in our low estate, who, feeble and crawling on the ground, were not able to reach unto God, were we to be abandoned? God forbid. He emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant; Philippians 2:6 not, therefore, by losing the form of God. He became man who was God, by receiving what He was not, not by losing what He was: so God became man. There you have something for your weakness, something for your perfection. Let Christ raise you by that which is man, lead you by that which is God-man, and guide you through to that which is God. And the whole preaching and dispensation by Christ is this, brethren, and there is not another, that souls may be raised again, and that bodies also may be raised again. For each of the two was dead; the body by weakness, the soul by iniquity. Because each was dead, each may rise again. What each? Soul and body. By what, then, can the soul rise again but by Christ God? By what the body, but by the man Christ? For there was also in Christ a human soul, a whole soul; not merely the irrational part of the soul, but also the rational, which is called mind. For there have been certain heretics, and they have been driven out of the Church, who fancied that the body of Christ did not have in it a rational mind, but, as it were, the animal life of a beast; since, without the rational mind, life is only animal life. But because they were driven out, and driven out by the truth, accept the whole Christ, Word, rational mind, and flesh. This is the whole Christ. Let your soul rise again from iniquity by that which is God, your body from corruption by that which is man. There, most beloved, hear ye what, so far as it appears to me, is the great profundity of this passage; and see how Christ here speaks to the effect, that the only reason why He came is, in order that souls may have a resurrection from iniquity, and bodies from corruption. I have already said by what our souls are raised, by the very substance of God; by what our bodies are raised, by the human dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He sees the Father doing; for whatever things He has done, these also the Son does in like manner. Yes, the heaven, the earth, the sea; the things that are in heaven, on the earth, and in the sea; the visible and invisible, the animals on the land, the plants in the fields, the creatures that swim in the waters, that fly in the air, that shine in heaven; besides all these, angels, virtues, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers; all were made by Him. Did God make all these, and show them when made to the Son, that He also should make another world full of all these? Certainly not. But, on the contrary, what does He say? For whatever things He has made, these, not others, but these also the Son does, not differently, but in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things which Himself does. The Father shows to the Son that souls may be raised, for souls are raised up by the Father and the Son; nor can souls live except God be their life. If souls, then, cannot live unless God be their life, just as themselves are the life of bodies; what the Father shows to the Son, that is, what He does, He does through the Son. For it is not by doing that He shows to the Son, but by showing He does through the Son. For the Son sees the Father showing before anything is done; and from the Father's showing and the Son's vision, is done what is done by the Father through the Son. So are souls raised up, if they can see that conjunction of unity, the Father showing, the Son seeing, and the creature made by the Father's showing and the Son's seeing; and that thing made by the Father's showing and the Son's seeing, which is neither the Father nor the Son, but beneath the Father and the Son, whatever is made by the Father through the Son. Who sees this?

8. Behold, again we humble ourselves to carnal notions, and descend to you, if indeed we had at any time ascended somewhat from you. You wish to show something to your son, that he may do what you do, you are about to do, and thus to show the thing. Therefore, what you are about to do, in order to show it to your son, you do not surely by your son; but you alone do that thing which, when done, he may see, and do another such thing in like manner. This is not the case there; why do you go on to your own similitude, and blottest out the similitude of God within you? There, the case is wholly otherwise. Find a case in which you show to your son what you do before you do it; so that, after you have shown it, it will be by the son you do. Perhaps something like this now occurs to you: Lo, do you say, I think to make a house, and I wish it to be built by my son: before I build it myself, I point out to my son what I mean to do: both he does, and I too by him to whom I pointed out my wish. You have retreated, indeed, from the former similitude, but still you lie in great dissimilitude. For, lo, before you can make the house, you inform your son, and point out to him what you mean to do; that, upon your showing before you make, he may make what you have shown, and so you may make by him: but you will speak words to your son, words will have to pass between you and him; between the person showing and the person seeing, between speaker and hearer, flies articulate sound, which is not what you are, nor what he is. That sound, indeed, which goes out of your mouth, and by the concussion of the air touches your son's ear, and filling the sense of hearing, conveys your thought to his heart; that sound, I say, is not yourself, nor your son. A sign is given from your mind to your son's mind, but that sign not either your mind or your son's mind, but something else. Is it thus that we think the Father has spoken to the Son? Were there words between the Father and the Word? Then how is it? Or, whatever the Father would say to the Son, if He would say it by a word, the Son Himself is the Word of the Father, would He speak by a word to the Word? Or, since the Son is the great Word, had smaller words to pass between the Father and Son? Was it so, that some sound, as it were a temporal, fleeting creature, had to issue from the mouth of the Father, and strike upon the ear of the Son? Has God a body, that this should proceed, as it were, from His lips? And has the Word the ears of a body, into which sound may come? Lay aside all notions of corporeal forms, regard simplicity, if you are single-minded. But how will you be single-minded? If you will not entangle yourself with the world, but disentangle yourself from the world. For by disentangling yourself, you will be single-minded. And see, if you can, what I say; or if you can not, believe what you do not see. You speak to your son; you speak by a word: neither are you, nor is your son, the word that sounds.

9. I have, do you say, another method of showing; for so well instructed is my son, that he hears without my speaking, but I show him by a nod what to do. Lo, show him by a nod what you will, yet certainly the mind holds within itself that which it would show. By what do you give this nod? With the body — namely, with the lips, the look, the brows, the eyes, the hands. All these are not what your mind is: these, too, are media; there was something understood by these signs which are not what your mind is, not what the mind of your son is; but all this which you do by the body is beneath your mind, and beneath the mind of your son: nor can your son know your mind, unless you give him signs by the body. What, then, do I say? This is not the case there; there all is simplicity. The Father shows to the Son what He is doing, and by showing begets the Son. I see what I have said; but because I see also to whom I have said it, may such understanding be some time or other formed in you as to grasp it. If you are not able now to comprehend what God is, comprehend at least what God is not: you will have made much progress, if you think of God as being not something other than He is. God is not a body, not the earth, not the heaven, not the moon, or sun, or stars — not these corporeal things. For if not heavenly things, how much less is He earthly things! Put all body out of the question. Further, hear another thing: God is not a mutable spirit. For I confess — and it must be confessed, for it is the Gospel that speaks it —God is a Spirit. But pass beyond all mutable spirit, beyond all spirit that now knows, now knows not; that now remembers, now forgets; that wills what before it willed not, that wills not what before it willed; either that suffers these mutabilities now or may suffer them: pass beyond all these. You find not any mutability in God; nor anything that may have been one way before, and is otherwise now. For where you find alternation, there a kind of death has taken place: since, for a thing not to be what it was, is a death. The soul is said to be immortal; so indeed it is, because it ever lives, and there is in it a certain continuous life, but yet a mutable life. According to the mutability of this life, it may be said to be mortal; because if it lived wisely, and then becomes foolish, it dies for the worse; if it lived foolishly, and becomes wise, it dies for the better. For the Scripture teaches us that there is a death for the worse, and that there is a death for the better. In any case, they had died for the worse, of whom it said, Let the dead bury their dead; Matthew 8:22 and, Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light; Ephesians 5:14 and from this passage before us, When the dead shall hear, and they that hear shall live. For the worse they had died; therefore do they come to life again. By coming to life they die for the better, because by coming to life again they will not be what they were; but for that to be, which was not, is death. But perhaps it is not called death if it is for the better? The apostle has called that death: But if you be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do ye judge concerning this world as if you were still living? Colossians 2:20 And again, For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. He wishes us to die that we may live, because we have lived to die. Whatever therefore dies, both from better to worse, and from worse to better, is not God; because neither can supreme goodness proceed to better, nor true eternity to worse. For true eternity is, where is nothing of time. But was there now this, now that? Immediately time is admitted, it is not eternal. For that you may know that God is not thus, as the soul is — certainly the soul is immortal — what, however, says the apostle of God, Who alone has immortality, unless that he openly says this, He alone has unchangeableness, because He alone has true eternity? Therefore no mutability is there.

10. Recognize in yourself something which I wish to say within, in yourself; not within as if in your body, for in a sense one may say, in yourself. For there is in you health, your age whatever it be, but this in regard to the body. In you is your hand and your foot; but there is one thing in you, within; another thing in you as in your garment. But leave outside your garment and yourself, descend into yourself, go to your secret place, your mind, and there see, if you can, what I wish to say. For if you are far from yourself, how can you come near to God? I was speaking of God, and you believed that you would understand. I am speaking of the soul, I am speaking of yourself: understand this, there I will try you. For I do not travel very far for examples, when I mean to give you some similitude to your God from your own mind; because surely not in the body, but in that same mind, was man made after the image of God. Let us seek God in His own similitude; let us recognize the Creator in His own image. There within, if we can, let us find this that we speak of — how the Father shows to the Son, and how the Son sees what the Father shows, before anything is made by the Father through the Son. But when I shall have spoken, and you have understood, you must not think that spoken of to be something just such as our example, that you may therein keep piety, which I wish to be kept by you, and earnestly admonish you to keep: that is, if you are not able to comprehend what God is, do not think it a small matter for you to know what He is not.

11. Behold, in your mind, I see some two things, your memory and your thought, which is, as it were, the seeing faculty and the vision of your soul. You see something, and perceive it by the eyes, and you commit it to the care of the memory. There, within, is that which you have committed to your memory, laid up in secret as in a storehouse, as in a treasury, as in a kind of secret chamber and inner cabinet. You think of something else, your attention is elsewhere; what you saw is in your memory, but not seen by you, because your thought is bent on another thing. I prove this at once. I speak to you who know; I mention by name Carthage; all who know it have instantly seen Carthage within the mind. Are there as many Carthages as there are minds of you? You have all seen it by means of this name, by means of these syllables known to you, rushing forth from my mouth: your ears were touched; the sense of the soul was touched through the body, and the mind bent back from another object to this word, and saw Carthage. Was Carthage made there and then? It was there already, but latent in the memory. Why was latent there? Because your mind was engaged on another matter; but when your thought turned back to that which was in the memory, thence it was shaped, and became a kind of vision of the mind. Before, there was not a vision, but there was memory; the vision was made by the turning back of thought to memory. Your memory, then, showed Carthage to your thought; and that which was in it before you directed your mind to the memory, it exhibited to the attention of your thought when turned upon it. Behold, a showing is effected by the memory, and a vision is produced in thought; and no words passed between, no sign was given from the body: you neither nodded, nor wrote, nor uttered a sound; and yet thought saw what the memory showed. But both that which showed, and that to which it showed, are of the same substance. But yet, that your memory might have Carthage in it, the image was drawn in through the eyes, for you saw what you stored up in your memory. So have you seen the tree which you remember, so the mountain, the river; so the face of a friend, of an enemy, of father, mother, brother, sister, son, neighbor; so of letters written in a book, of the book itself; so of this church: all these you saw, and committed to your memory after they were seen; and did, as it were, lay up there what you might by thinking see at will, even when they should be absent from these eyes of the body. You saw Carthage when you were at Carthage; your soul received the image by the eyes; this image was laid up in your memory; and you, the person who was present at Carthage, kept something within you which you might be able to see with yourself, even when you should not be there. All these things you received from without. What the Father shows to the Son, He does not receive from without: all comes to pass within, because there would be no creature at all without, unless the Father had made it by the Son. Every creature was made by God; before it was made it was not in being. It was not therefore seen, after being made and retained in memory, that the Father might show it to the Son, as the memory might show to thought; but, on the contrary, the Father showed it to be made, the Son saw it to be made; and the Father made it by showing, because He made it by the Son seeing. And therefore we ought not to be surprised that it is said, But what He sees the Father doing, not showing. For by this it is intimated that, with the Father, to do and to show is the same thing; that hence we may understand that He does all things by the Son seeing. Neither is that showing, nor that seeing, temporal. Forasmuch as all times are made by the Son, they could not certainly be shown to Him at any point of time to be made. But the Father's showing begets the Son's seeing, just in the same manner as the Father begets the Son. For the showing produces the seeing, not the seeing the showing. And if we were able to look into this matter more purely and perfectly, perhaps we should find that the Father is not one thing, His showing another; nor the Son one thing, His seeing another. But if we have hardly apprehended this — if we have hardly been able to explain how the memory exhibits to the thought what it has received from without — how much less can we take in or explain how God the Father shows to the Son, what He has not from elsewhere, or that which is not other than Himself! We are only little ones: I tell you what God is not, do not show you what God is. What shall we do, then, that we may apprehend what He is? Can ye do this by or through me? I say this to the little ones, both to you and to myself; there is by whom we can: we have just now sung, just now heard, Cast your care upon the Lord, and He will nourish you. The reason why you are not able, O man, is because you are a little one; being a little one, you must be nourished; being nourished, you will become full-grown; and what as a little one you could not, you shall see when full-grown; but that you may be nourished, cast your care upon the Lord, and He will nourish you.

12. Therefore let us now briefly run over what remains, and do you see how the Lord makes known to us the things which I have been here commending to your attention. The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things which Himself does. Himself raises up souls, but by the Son, that the souls raised up may enjoy the substance of God, that is, of the Father and of the Son. And greater works than these He will show Him. Greater than which? Than healings of bodies. We have treated of this already, and must not linger upon it now. Greater is the resurrection of the body unto eternity than this healing of the body, wrought in that impotent man, to last only for a time. And greater works than these He will show Him, that you may marvel. Will show, as if the act were temporal, therefore as to a man made in time, since God the Word is not made, He by whom all times were made. But Christ was made man in time. We know in what consulship the Virgin Mary brought forth Christ, conceived of the Holy Ghost. Wherefore He, by whom as God the times were made, was made man in time. Hence, just as in time, He will show Him greater works, that is, the resurrection of bodies, that you may marvel at the resurrection of bodies wrought by the Son.

13. He then returns to that resurrection of souls: For as the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will; but this according to the Spirit. The Father quickens, the Son quickens; the Father whom He will, the Son whom He will; but the Father quickens the same as the Son, because all things were made by Him. For as the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. This is said of the resurrection of souls; but what of the resurrection of bodies? He returns, and says: For the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son. The resurrection of souls is effected by the eternal and unchangeable substance of the Father and Son. But the resurrection of bodies is effected by the dispensation of the Son's humanity, which dispensation is temporal, not co-eternal with the Father. Therefore, when He mentioned judgment, in which there should be a resurrection of bodies, He says, For the Father judges not any man, but all judgment has He given to the Son; but concerning the resurrection of souls, He says, Even as the Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so also the Son quickens whom He will. That, then, the Father and the Son together. But this concerning the resurrection of bodies: The Father judges not any man, but has given all judgment to the Son; that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. This is referred to the resurrection of souls. That all may honor the Son. How? Even as they honor the Father. For the Son works the resurrection of souls in the same manner as the Father does; the Son quickens just as the Father does. Therefore, in the resurrection of souls, let all honor the Son as they honor the Father. But what of the honoring on account of the resurrection of the body? Whoever honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him. He said not even as, but honors and honors. For the man Christ is honored, but not even as God the Father. Why? Because, with respect to this, He said, The Father is greater than I. John 14:28 And when is the Son honored even as the Father is honored? When in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and all things were made by Him. And hence, in this second honoring, what says He? Whoever honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him. The Son was not sent, but because He was made man.

14. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Again He returns to the resurrection of souls, that by continual repetition we may apprehend His meaning; because we could not keep up with His discourse hastening on as on wings. Lo, the Word of God lingers with us; lo, it does, as it were, dwell with our infirmities. He returns again to the mention of the resurrection of souls. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life; but has it as from the Father. For whoever hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life from the Father, by believing the Father that sent the Son. And shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. But from the Father, whom he believes, is he quickened. What, do You not quicken? See that the Son also quickens whom He will. Verily, verily, I say unto you, That the hour comes when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Here He did not say, they shall believe Him that sent me, and therefore shall live; but by hearing the voice of the Son of God, they that hear, that is, they that obey the Son of God, shall live. Therefore, both from the Father shall they live, when they will believe the Father; and from the Son shall they live, when they will hear the voice of the Son of God. Why shall they live both from the Father and from the Son? For even as the Father has life in Himself, so also has He given to the Son to have life in Himself.

15. He has finished speaking of the resurrection of souls; it remains to speak more evidently of the resurrection of bodies. And has given Him authority also to execute judgment: not only to raise up souls by faith and wisdom, but also to execute judgment. But why this? Because He is the Son of man. Therefore the Father does something through the Son of man, which He does not from His own substance, to which the Son is equal: as, for instance, that He should be born, crucified, dead, and have a resurrection; for not any of these is contingent to the Father. In the same manner also the raising again of bodies. For the raising to life of souls the Father effects from His own substance, by the substance of the Son, in which the Son is equal to Him; because souls are made partakers of that unchangeable light, but not bodies; but the raising again of bodies, the Father effects through the Son of man. For He has given Him authority also to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man; according to that which He said above, For the Father judges not any man. And to show that He said this of the resurrection of bodies, He goes on: Marvel not at this, for the hour comes: not, and now is; but, the hour comes, in which all that are in the graves (this you have already heard sufficiently explained yesterday) shall hear His voice, and come forth. Where? Into judgment: They that have done well, into the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, into the resurrection of judgment. And dost Thou do this alone, because the Father has given all judgment to the Son, and judges not any man? I, says He, do it. But how do You do it? I cannot of myself do anything; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just. When He was treating of the resurrection of souls, He did not say, I hear; but, I see. For I hear refers to the command of the Father as giving order. Therefore, now as a man, just as He than whom the Father is greater; as from the form of a servant, not from the form of God, As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just. Whence is the man's judgment a just one? My brethren, mark well: Because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.