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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 66
37, 38 If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe My works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him.
What He says is this. Though it is easy for any one to call God Father, yet to demonstrate the fact by works is hard and impossible to a creature. By works however of a God-befitting character, He says, I am seen to be equal to God the Father: and there is no defence for your unbelief since you have learnt that I am equal to the Father by the evidence of the God-befitting works which I do, although as regards the flesh I seemed to be one among you like an ordinary man. Hence it is possible to perceive that I am in the Father and the Father in Me. For the sameness of their Essence makes the Father to be and to be seen in the Son, and the Son in the Father. For truly even among ourselves the essence of our father is recognised in him that is begotten of him, and in the parent again that of the child. For the delineation of their nature is one in them all, and they all are by nature one. But when we distinguish ourselves by our bodies, the many are no longer one; a distinction which cannot be mentioned concerning One Who is God by Nature, for whatever is Divine is incorporeal, although we conceive of the Holy Trinity as in distinct Subsistences. For the Father is the Father and not the Son; the Son again is the Son and not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is peculiarly the Spirit: although They are not at variance, through Their fellowship and unity One with Another.
The Holy Trinity is known in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. But the designation of each one of These Who have been enumerated denotes not a part of the Trinity, but the Whole of It; since in truth God is undivided and simple, although distributed in These Subsistences.
Therefore, as there is but One Godhead in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, we say that the Father is seen in the Son, and the Son in the Father. And it is necessary to know this other point also, that it is not the wishing the same things as the Father, nor the possessing one will with Him, that makes the Son say: I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, and: I and the Father are One; but because, being the genuine Offspring of the Essence of the Father, He shews forth the Father in Himself, and Himself also is shewn forth in the Father. For He says that He wills and speaks and effects the same things as the Father, and easily performs what He wishes, even as the Father doth, in order that He may be acknowledged in all respects Consubstantial with Him, and a true Fruit of His Essence; and not merely as having a relative unity with Him, only in similarity of will and the laws of love; which unity we say belongs also to His creatures.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary-4.asp?pg=66
