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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 28
Another. If they say that the Son needs some innate word, that thereby He may be taught the Will of God the Father, what will become of Paul who says, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God? For how is the Son the Wisdom of the Father, if lacking in wisdom He receive perfection from another, through learning what forsooth He knows not? or how must one not needs say, that the wisdom which is in the Father is not perfect? and if the Son be the Wisdom of the Father, how can His Will be conceived of as other than He? We come then to say that the Will of God the Father is not perfected in wisdom. But great is the impiety of this, and full of blasphemy the statement. Not therefore as partaker of instruction from another does the Son know what belongs to His own Father, but as Himself the Word and the Wisdom and the Will, does He search all things, yea, the deep things of God, as it is written concerning the Spirit too.
Another. As the Likeness and the exact express Image of the Father do the Divine Scriptures introduce to us the Son: and the Saviour Himself saith, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But if with that likeness to Him, He knows not of Himself what is in Him, but needs so to speak expositions from another in order to learn it, it is time to think that the Father Himself is in the same case, if He is in the Likeness of the Son, and He will Himself too need one to unfold to Him what lies hid in His Offspring. And thus in addition to the absurdities that result from hence, the Divine Nature becomes also a recipient of ignorance. But since it is impious thus to think, we must betake ourselves to more fitting thoughts: for this clearly is what is profitable and helpful.
Another. The Spirit, says the blessed Paul, searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God; and he adds, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That is in Him. Since then the Holy Spirit Which accurately discerneth all things, is Spirit not only of the Father, but of the Son too, how can He having within Him by Nature the Spirit Which knoweth all things be yet ignorant of ought that is in the Father? Superfluous then in truth does it plainly appear to imagine that the Son learns of another the Will of the Father; and utterly will vanish the need of a word to mediate in vain, according to their ill-instructedness. For the Son knows all things of Himself.
Another, by the method of reductio ad absurdum. They who accuse the Essence of the Only-Begotten, saying that He knew not the Will of the Father, but made use of in order to learn, another teacher, the word invented by them, which they call conceived, let them tell us, if they think that their own opinion hereupon ought to prevail, whether they will say that the conceived word is by nature equal to the Son (for let it be supposed to have a separate existence of itself) or not equal, but inferior perchance or even superior. If then they suppose it inferior, they will commit impiety against the Father Himself also: for there will be of a surety in Him what is worse than He, and other than He, the conceived word. But if they do not say worse, but shall allot to it a superiority to the Son, the charge against the Son will operate two-fold against the Father. For first of all He will be found to have begotten what is in worse condition than Himself. Then moreover He too will have the conceived word superior to Him, if the Father is Consubstantial with the Son who according to them has got an inferior position. But it is likely I suppose that the opponents will start back from the blasphemy that results from either alternative: and will say that the conceived word of the Father is equal to the Son as regards essence. The question then is at an end. For how will the one teach the other, as one who knows one who does not know, if both are equal by nature? The argument of these people being then on all sides weak, it will be superfluous to imagine that the Son has any mean, and not rather to believe that He is in God the Father, God the "Word Who was in the beginning.
Another. The blessed Paul says that in the Son are hid the treasures of all wisdom and all knowledge. But if he is true in saying such things, how yet shall we suppose that He needed teaching from another, or in whom shall we any more seek perfectness in knowledge, if He Who has it all is made wise by another? how is he Wisdom who is made wise? But since we must needs give heed not to their words, but to those through the Spirit, and the Son hath, as Paul saith, in Himself the treasures of wisdom and of all knowledge, not from any one else will He know the things whereby He is wisdom, but being in the Father He knows all that is the Father's, as His Wisdom.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary.asp?pg=28
