Chapter XXIV.—On St. Philip’s Conversation with Christ. He that Hath Seen Me, Hath Seen the Father. This Text Explained in an Anti-Praxean Sense.

But there were some who even then did not understand. For Thomas, who was so long incredulous, said: “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also:  but henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”325    John xiv. 5–7. And now we come to Philip, who, roused with the expectation of seeing the Father, and not understanding in what sense he was to take “seeing the Father,” says:  “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”326    Ver. 8. Then the Lord answered him: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?”327    Ver. 9. Now whom does He say that they ought to have known?—for this is the sole point of discussion. Was it as the Father that they ought to have known Him, or as the Son? If it was as the Father, Praxeas must tell us how Christ, who had been so long time with them, could have possibly ever been (I will not say understood, but even) supposed to have been the Father. He is clearly defined to us in all Scriptures—in the Old Testament as the Christ of God, in the New Testament as the Son of God.  In this character was He anciently predicted, in this was He also declared even by Christ Himself; nay, by the very Father also, who openly confesses Him from heaven as His Son, and as His Son glorifies Him. “This is my beloved Son;” “I have glorified Him, and I will glorify Him.” In this character, too, was He believed on by His disciples, and rejected by the Jews. It was, moreover, in this character that He wished to be accepted by them whenever He named the Father, and gave preference to the Father, and honoured the Father. This, then, being the case, it was not the Father whom, after His lengthened intercourse with them, they were ignorant of, but it was the Son; and accordingly the Lord, while upbraiding Philip for not knowing Himself who was the object of their ignorance, wished Himself to be acknowledged indeed as that Being whom He had reproached them for being ignorant of after so long a time—in a word, as the Son. And now it may be seen in what sense it was said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,”328    John xiv. 9.—even in the same in which it was said in a previous passage, “I and my Father are one.”329    John x. 30. Wherefore?  Because “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world”330    John xvi. 28. and, “I am the way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me;”331    John xiv. 6. and, “No man can come to me, except the Father draw him;”332    John vi. 44. and, “All things are delivered unto me by the Father;”333    Matt. xi. 27. and, “As the Father quickeneth (the dead), so also doth the Son;”334    John v. 21. and again, “If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also.”335    John xiv. 7. For in all these passages He had shown Himself to be the Father’s Commissioner,336    Vicarium. through whose agency even the Father could be seen in His works, and heard in His words, and recognised in the Son’s administration of the Father’s words and deeds. The Father indeed was invisible, as Philip had learnt in the law, and ought at the moment to have remembered: “No man shall see God, and live.”337    Ex. xxxiii. 20. So he is reproved for desiring to see the Father, as if He were a visible Being, and is taught that He only becomes visible in the Son from His mighty works, and not in the manifestation of His person. If, indeed, He meant the Father to be understood as the same with the Son, by saying, “He who seeth me seeth the Father,” how is it that He adds immediately afterwards, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?”338    John xiv. 10. He ought rather to have said: “Believest thou not that I am the Father?” With what view else did He so emphatically dwell on this point, if it were not to clear up that which He wished men to understand—namely, that He was the Son? And then, again, by saying, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me,”339    John xiv. 11. He laid the greater stress on His question on this very account, that He should not, because He had said, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father,” be supposed to be the Father; because He had never wished Himself to be so regarded, having always professed Himself to be the Son, and to have come from the Father. And then He also set the conjunction of the two Persons in the clearest light, in order that no wish might be entertained of seeing the Father as if He were separately visible, and that the Son might be regarded as the representative of the Father. And yet He omitted not to explain how the Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father. “The words,” says He, “which I speak unto you, are not mine,”340    John xiv. 10. because indeed they were the Father’s words; “but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”341    Same ver. It is therefore by His mighty works, and by the words of His doctrine, that the Father who dwells in the Son makes Himself visible—even by those words and works whereby He abides in Him, and also by Him in whom He abides; the special properties of Both the Persons being apparent from this very circumstance, that He says, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.”342    Same ver. Accordingly He adds: “Believe—”  What? That I am the Father? I do not find that it is so written, but rather, “that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for my works’ sake;”343    Ver. 11. meaning those works by which the Father manifested Himself to be in the Son, not indeed to the sight of man, but to his intelligence.

CAPUT XXIV.

Erant plane qui et tunc non intelligerent. Quoniam et Thomas aliquandiu incredulus: Domine enim, inquit (Joan. XVI, 5), non scimus quo eas, et quomodo viam novimus? Et Jesus: Ego sum via, veritas et vita. Nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per me. Si cognovissetis me, cognovissetis et Patrem: sed abhinc nostis illum, et vidistis illum. Et pervenimus 0186B jam ad Philippum, qui spe excitatus videndi Patris, nec intelligens quomodo visum Patrem audisset: Ostende, inquit, nobis Patrem, et sufficit nobis. Et Dominus: Philippe, tanto tempore vobiscum sum, et non cognovistis me? Quem dicit cognosci ab illis debuisse (hoc enim solum discuti oportet), quasi Patrem, an quasi Filium? Si quasi Patrem, doceat Praxeas, tanto tempore Christum cum eis conversatum, Patrem aliquando, non dico intelligi, verum vel aestimari potuisse. Nobis omnes Scripturae, et veteres Christum Dei, et novae Filium Dei praefiniunt . Hoc et retro praedicabatur, hoc et ab ipso Christo pronuntiabatur; imo jam et ab ipso Patre coram de coelis Filium profitente, et Filium glorificante: Hic est Filius meus, et; Glorificavi et glorificabo. 0186C Hoc et a discipulis credebatur, hoc et a Judaeis non credebatur, hoc se volens credi ab illis, omni hora Patrem nominabat, et Patrem praeferebat, et Patrem honorabat. Si ita est, ergo non Patrem tanto tempore secum conversatum ignoraverant, sed Filium. Et Dominus eum se ignoranti exprobrans, quem ignoraverant, eum utique agnosci volebat, quem tanto tempore non agnosci exprobraverat, id est Filium. Et apparere jam post quomodo dictum sit, Qui me videt, videt et Patrem. Scilicet quo et supra, Ego et Pater unum sumus (Joan. XIV, 6). Quare? quia, Ego ex Deo exivi et veni; et, Ego sum 0187A via (Joan. X, 30): nemo ad Patrem venit, nisi per me; et, Nemo ad me venit, nisi Pater eum adduxerit; et, Omnia mihi Pater tradidit; et, Sicut Pater vivificat, ita et Filius: et, Si me cognovistis, et Patrem cognovistis (Joan. VI, 40). Secundum haec enim, vicarium se Patris ostenderat, per quem Pater et videretur in factis, et audiretur in verbis. et cognosceretur in Filio, facta et verba Patris administrante; quia invisibilis pater, quod et Philippus didicerat in lege, et meminisse debuerat: Deum nemo videbit et vivet. Et ideo suggillatur Patrem videre desiderans quasi visibilem, et instruitur visibilem eum in Filio fieri ex virtutibus, non ex personae repraesentatione. Denique, si Patrem eumdem Filium vellet intelligi, dicendo, Qui me videt, Patrem videt: quomodo subjicit, Non creditis quia ego in 0187B Patre, et Pater in me est? Debuerat enim subjunxisse, Non creditis quia ego sum Pater? Aut quo exaggeravit, si non illud manifestavit quod voluerat intelligi, se scilicet Filium esse? Porro dicendo, Non creditis quia ego in Patre, et Pater in me: propterea potius exaggeravit, ne quia dixerat, Qui me videt, et Patrem videt , Pater existimaretur: quod nunquam existimari se voluit, qui semper se Filium, et a Patre venisse profitebatur. Igitur et manifestam fecit duarum personarum conjunctionem, ne Pater seorsum quasi visibilis in conspectu desideraretur, et ut Filius repraesentator Patris haberetur. Et nihilominus hoc quoque interpretatus est, quomodo Pater esset in Filio, et Filius in Patre: Verba, inquit, quae ego loquor vobis, non sunt mea; utique 0187C quia Patris. Pater autem manens in me, facit opera. Per opera ergo virtutum, et verba doctrinae manens in Filio Pater per ea videtur, per quae manet, et per eum in quo manet: ex hoc ipso apparente proprietate utriusque personae, dum dicit: Ego sum in Patre, et Pater in me. Atque adeo: Credite, ait. Quid? Me patrem esse? Non puto scriptum esse; sed: Quia ego in Patre, et Pater in me. Si quominus, vel propter opera credite. Ea utique opera, per quae Pater in Filio, non visu, sed sensu videbatur.