'2 John viii. 26.
AGAINST PRAXEAS.
[chap. XXltl.
day; and he saw it, and was glad," ' He cer- tainly proves that it was not the Father that appeared to Abraham, but the Son. In like manner He declares, in the case of the man born blind, "that He must do the works of the Father which had sent Him; " ' and after He had given the man sight, He said to him, "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" Then, upon the man's inquiring who Ife was, He proceeded to reveal Himself to him as that Son <3/" 6^<?^ whom He had announced to him as the right object of his faith. ^ In a later passage He declares that He is known by the Father, and the P'ather by Him;-* add- ing that He was so wholly loved by the Father, that He was laying down His life, because He had received this commandment from the Father. 5 When He was asked by the Jews if He were the very Christ^ (meaning, of course, the Christ of God; for to this day the Jews expect not the Father Himself, but the Christ of God, it being nowhere said that the Father will come as the Christ), He said to them, " I am telling you, and yet ye do not believe: the works which I am doing, in my Father's name, they actually bear witness of me." ' Witness of what? Of that very thing, to be sure, of which they were making in- quiry— whether He were the Christ of God.
Then, again, concerning His sheep, and (the assurance) that no man should pluck them out of His hand,^ He says, "My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all;"^ adding immediately, " I am and my Father are one."'° Here, then, they take their stand, too infatuated, nay, too blind, to see in the first place that there is in this passage an intimation of Two Beings — "/ and my Father;' then that there is a plural predicate, '"'"are" inapplicable to one person only; and lastly, that (the predicate terminates in an ab- stract, not a personal noun) — "we are one thing''' Unum, not "one person" Unus. For if He had said "one Person," He might have rendered some assistance to their opinion. Unus, no doubt, indicates the singular num- ber; but (here we have a case where) " Two " are still the subject in the masculine gender. He accordingly says Unum, a neuter term, which does not imply singularity of number, but unity of essence, likeness, conjunction, af- fection on the Father's part, who loves the Son, and submission on the Son's, who obeys the Father's will. When He says, " I and my Father are one " in essence — Unum — He shows that there are Two, whom He puts on an equality and unites in one. He therefore adds to this very statement, that He " had showed them many works from the Father," for none of which did He deserve to be stoned." And to prevent their thinking Him deserving of this fate, as if He had claimed to be considered as God Himself, that is, the Father, by having said, " I and my Father are One," representing Himself as the Father's divine Son, and not as God Himself, He says, "If it is written in your law, I said, Ye are gods; and if the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, that He biasphemeth, because He said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, even if ye will not believe me, still believe the works; and know that I am in the Father, and the Father in me." " It must therefore be by the works that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and so it is by the works that we understand that the Father is one with the Son. All along did He therefore strenuously aim at this conclusion, that while they were of one power and essence, they should still be believed to be Two; for otherwise, unless they were be- lieved to be Two, the Son could not possibly be believed to have any existence at all.
CHAP. XXIII. MORE PASSAGES FROM THE SAME GOSPEL IN PROOF OF THE SAME PORTION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH. PRAXEAS' TAUNT OF WORSHIPPING TWO GODS REPUDIATED.
Again, when Martha in a later passage acknowledged Him to be the Son of God,'^ she no more made a mistake than Peter '* and Nathanael 's had; and yet, even if she had made a mistake, she would at once have learnt the truth: for, behold, when about to raise her brother from the dead, the Lord looked up to heaven, and, addressing the Father, said — as the Son, of course: " Father, I thank Thee that Thou always hearest me; it is be- cause of these crowds that are standing by that I have spoken to Thee, that they may be- lieve that Thou hast sent me." '* But in the trouble of His soul, (on a later occasion,) He said: "What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this canse is it that I am come to this hour; only, O Father, do Thou glorify Thy name"'' — in which He CHAP xxni.]
AGAINST PR AXE AS.
spake as the Son. (At another time) He said: "I am come in my Father's name."' Ac- cordingly, the Son's voice was indeed alone sufficient, (when addressed) to the Father. But, behold, with an abundance (of evi- dence)^ the Father from heaven replies, for the purpose of testifying to the Son: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him."^ So, again, in that ossa'eration, " I have both glorified, and will glorify again," * how many Persons do you discover, obstinate Praxeas? Are there not as many as there are voices? You have the Son on earth, you have the Father in heaven. Now this is not a separation; it is nothing but the divine dispensation. We know, however, that God is in the bottomless depths, and exists everywhere; but then it is by power and authority. We are also sure that the Son, being indivisible from Him, is everywhere with Him. Nevertheless, in the Economy or Dispensatioti itself, the Father willed that the Son should be regarded s as on earth, and Himself in heaven; whither the Son also Him- self looked up, and prayed, and made suppli- cation of the Father; whither also He taught us to raise ourselves, and pray, " Our Father, which art in heaven," etc.,^ — although, in- deed. He is everywhere present. '\:\(\s heaven the Father willed to be His own throne; while He made the Son to be "a little lower than the angels," ' by sending Him down to the earth, but meaning at the same time to "crown Him with glory and honour," ® even by tak- ing Him back to heaven. This He now made good to Him when He said: "I have both glorified Thee, and will glorify Thee again.'' The Son offers His request from earth, the Father gives His promise from heaven. Why, then, do you make liars of both the Father and the Son? If either the Father spake from heaven to the Son when He Him- self was the Son on earth, or the Son prayed to the Father when He was Himself the Son in heaven, how happens it that the Son made a request of His own very self, by asking it of the Father, since the Son was the Father? Or, on the other hand, how is it that the Father made a promise to Himself, by making it to the Son, since the Father was the Son? AVere we even to maintain that they are two separate gods, as you are so fond of throwing out against us, it would be a more tolerable assertion than the maintenance of so versa- 2 Or, " by way of excess."
3 Matt. xvii. 5.
s Or, held (haberi).
* Matt. vi. g.
* Same ver.
tile and changeful a God as yours! Therefore it was that in the passage before us the Lord declared to the people present: " Not on my own account has this voice addressed me, but for your sakes,"' that these likewise may believe both in the Father and in the Son, severally, in their own names and persons and positions. " Then again, Jesus exclaims, and says. He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me;"'" be- cause it is through the Son that men believe in the leather, while the Father also is the authority whence springs belief in the Son. " And he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me."" How so? Even because, (as He afterwards declares,) " I have not spoken from myself, but the Father which sent me: He hath given me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak." '= For " the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know when I ought to speak " '^ the word which I actually speak. " Even as the Father hath said unto me, so do I speak."'* Now, in what way these things were said to Him, the evangelist and beloved disciple John knew better than Praxeas; and therefore he adds concerning his own meaning: " Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God, and was going to God." '5 Praxeas, however, would have it that it was the Father who proceeded forth from Himself, and had returned to Himself; so that what the devil put into the heart of Judas was the betrayal, not of the Son, but of the Father Himself. But for the matter of that, things have not turned out well either for the devil or the heretic; because, even in the Son's case, the treason which the devil wrought against Him contributed nothing to his advantage. It was, then, the Son of God, who was in the Son of man, that was betrayed, as the Scripture says afterwards: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." '* Who is here meant by " God? " Certainly not the Father, but the Word of the Father, who was in the Son of man — that is in the flesh, in which Jesus had been already glorified by the divme power and word. "And God," says He, " shall also glorify Him in Himself;" " that is to say, the Father shall glorify the Son, because He has Him within Himself; and even though prostrated to the '"John xii. 44. Mjohn xii. 50.
AGAINST PRAXEAS.
[chap. XXIV.
earth, and put to death, He would soon glo- rify Him by His resurrection, and making Him conqueror over death.
CHAP. XXIV. — ON ST. PHILIP'S CONVERSATION WITH CHRIST. HE THAT HATH SEEN ME, HATH SEEN THE FATHER. THIS TEXT EX- PLAINED 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."' 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 sufificeth us." = Then the Lord answered him: " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip P"^ 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 tlie New Testament as the Son of God. In this character was He anciently predicted, in this was He also declared even by Christ Him- self; nay, by the very Father also, who openly confesses Him from heaven as His Son, and as His Son glorifies Him. " This is my be- loved 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 when- ever He named the Father, and gave prefer- ence to the Father, and honoured the Father. This, then, being the case, it was not the Father whom, after His lengthened inter- course with them, they were ignorant of, but it was the Son; and accordingly the Lord, while n]")braiding Philip for not knowing Himself who was the object of their ignorance, wished Himself to be acknowledged indeed as that Being wh.ovn He had reproached them for be- ing ignorant of after so long a time — in a word, as the Son. And now it may be seen ' Fohn xiv, S-7.
in what sense it was said, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,"^ — even in the same in which it was said in a previous pas- sage, "land my Father are one." 5 Where- fore? Because "I came forth from the Father, and am come info the world'' ^ and, " I am the way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me;"' and, "No man can come to me, except the Father draw him;"* and, "All things are delivered unto me by the Father;"' and, "As the Father quick- eneth (the dead), so also doth the Son;" '' and again, " If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also."" For in all these passages He had shown Himself to be the Father's Commissioner,'- through whose agency even the Father could be seen in His works, and heard in His words, and recog- nised in the Son's administration of the Father's words and deeds. The Father in- deed was invisible, as Philip had learnt in the law, and ought at the moment to have re- membered: "No man shall see God, and live." '^ 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 seetli 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?" "* He ought rather to have said: " Be- lievest 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," '^ 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; be- cause 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 4 John xiv. 9.
7 John xiv. 6.
i5 John xiv. ii.
CHAP.
XXVI.]
AGAINST I'RAXEAS.
that the Son might be regarded as the repre- sentative 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,"' because indeed they were the Father's words; " but the Father that dwell- eth in me, He doeth the works." - 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 circum- stance, that He says, " I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." ^ Accordingly He adds: "Believe—" What? That I am the Father? 1 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;"* 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.
CHAP. XXV. — THE PARACLETE, OR HOLY GHOST. HE IS DISTINCT FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON AS TO THEIR PERSONAL EXISTENCE. ONE AND INSEPARABLE FROM THEM AS TO THEIR DIVINE NATURE. OTHER QUOTATIONS OUT OF ST. John's gospel.
What follows Philip's question, and the Lord's whole treatment of it, to the end of John's Gospel, continues to furnish us with statements of the same kind, distinguishing the Father and the Son, with the properties of each. Then there is the Paraclete or Com- forter, also, which He promises to pray for to the Father, and to send from heaven after He had ascended to the Father. He is called "another Comforter," indeed; ^ but in what way He is another we have already shown. ^ " He shall receive of mine," says Christ,' just as Christ Himself received of the Father's. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, 7vho are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one® essence, not one Person,^ as it is said, " I and my Father are One,"'" in respect of unity of substance, not singularity of num- ber. Run through the whole Gospel, and you will find that He whom you believe to be the - ^yarne ver.
3 Same ver.
* See above ch. xiii.
8 Unum. [On this famous passage see Elucidation III.]
9 Unus.
Father (described as acting for the Father, although you, for your part, forsooth, sup- pose that " the Father, i)eing the husband- man,"" must surely have been on earth) is once more recognised by the Son as in heaven, when, "lifting up His eyes thereto,"'-' He commended His disciples to the safe-keeping of the Father.'' We have,. moreover, in that other Gospel a clear revelation, i.e. of the Son's distinction /ro/n the father, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me? " '" and again, (in the third Gospel,) " Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." '^ But even if (we had not these passages, we meet with satisfactory evidence) after His resurrection and glorious victory over death. Now that all the restraint of His humiliation is taken away, He might, if possible, have shown Him- self as the Father to so faithful a woman (as Mary Magdalene) when she approached to touch Him, out of love, not from curiosity, nor with Thomas' incredulity. Bi/t not so; Jesus saith unto her, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren " (and even in this He proves Himself to be the Son; for if He had been the Father, He would have called them His children, (instead of His brethren), "and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."'* No7u, does this mean, I ascend as the Father to the Father, and as God to God? Or as the Son to the Father, and as the Word to God? Wherefore also does this Gospel, at its very termination, intimate that these things were ever written, if it be not, to use its own word? "that ye might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? " '^ Whenever, therefore, you take any of the statements of this Gospel, and apply them to demonstrate the identity of the Father and the Son, supposing that they serve your views therein, you are con- tending against the definite purpose of the Gospel. For these things certainly are not written that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Father, but the Son.'^ CHAP. XXVI. A BRIEF REFERENCE TO THE GOS- PELS OF ST. MATTHEW AND ST. LUKE. THEIR AGREEMENT WITH ST. JOHN, IN RESPECT TO THE DISTINCT PERSONALITY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.
In addition to Philip's conversation, and " John XV. I.
J2 John xvii. i.
•3 John xvii. ii.
>4 Matt, xxvii. 46.
'5 Luke xxiii. 46.
'8 [.'\ curious anecdote is given by Carlyle in his Li/e 0/ Fred- erick (Book XX. cap. 6), touching the text of " the Three Wit- nesses. Gottsched satisfied the kin^ that it was not in the Vienna MS. save in an interpolation of the margin " /« Mulanclf ikon's hand.''' Luther's Version lacks this te.\t.]
[chap. XXVI.
the Lord's reply to it, the reader will observe that we have run through John's Gospel to shmv that many other passages of a clear pur- port, both before and after that chapter, are only in strict accord with that single and prominent statement, which must be interpre- ted agreeably to all other places, rather than in opposition to them, and indeed to its own inherent and natural sense. I will not here largely use the support of the other Gospels, which confirm our belief by the Lord's nativity: it is sufficient to remark that He who had to be born of a virgin is announced in ex- press terms by the angel himself as the Son of God: "The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the power of the High- est shall overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy Thing that shall be born of thee sliall be called the Son of God." "^ On this passage even they will wish to raise a cavil; liut truth will prevail. Of course, they say, the Son of God is God, and the power of the highest is the Most High. And they do not hesitate to insinuate = what, if it had been true, would have been written. Whom was he 3 so afraid of as not plainly to declare, "God shall come upon thee, and the Highest shall overshadow thee?" Now, by saying " the Spirit of God " (although the Spirit of God is God,) and by not directly naming God, lie wished that portion •* of the whole Godhead to be understood, which was about to retire into the designation of "the Son." The Spirit of God in this passage must be the same as the Word. For just as, when John says, "The Word was made flesh," s we understand the Spirit also in the mention of the Word: so here, too, we acknowledge the Word likewise in the name of the Spirit. For both the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the Two are One (and the same).* Now John must mean One when he speaks of Him as " having been made flesh," and the angel yinother \wh€.n he announces Him as "about lo be born," if the Spirit is not the Word, and the Word the Spirit. For just as the Word of God is not actually He whose Word He is, so also the Spirit (although He is called God) is not actually He whose Spirit He is said to be. Nothing which belongs to something else 2 I Ulcere.
* ( )n this not strictly defensible term of Tertullian, see Bp. r.iiU's Dc/cnci' o/the Nicene Creed, book ii. ch. vii. sec. 5, Trans- lation, pp. igy, 200.
^ " I'he selfsiime Person is understood under the appellation bnth of spirit and M'nni, with this difference only, that He is •ailed ' the Spirit of (lod," so far as He is a Divine Person,...and ' the Word,' so far as He is the Spirit in operation, proceeding wah sound and vocal utterance from God to set the universe in order." -Kp. FIi'LL, Def. Nic. Creed, p. 535, Translation.
is actually the very same thing as that to which it belongs. Clearly, when anything proceeds from a personal subject,' and so belongs to him, since it comes from him, it may possibly be such in quality exactly as the personal subject himself is from whom it pro- ceeds, and to whom it belongs. And thus the Spirit is God, and the Word is God, because proceeding from God, but yet is not actually the very same as He from whom He proceeds. Now that which is God of God, although He is an actually existing thing,® yet He cannot be God Himself" (exclusively), but so far God as He is of the same substance as God Himself, and as being an actually existing thing, and as a portion of the Whole. Much more will " the power of the Highest" not be the Highest Himself, because It is not an actually existing thing, as being Spirit — in the same way as the wisdom (of God) and the prm'idence (of God) is not God: these attri- butes are not substances, but the accidents of the particular substance. Power is inciden- tal to the Spirit, but cannot itself be the Spirit. These things, therefore, whatsoever they are — (I mean) the Spirit of God, and the Word and the Power — having been conferred on the Virgin, that which is born of her is the Son of God. This He Himself, in those other Gospels also, testifies Himself to have been from His very boyhood: " Wist ye not," says He, " that I must be about my Father's busi- ness? " '° Satan likewise knew Him to be this in his temptations: " Since Thou art the Son of God." " This, accordingly, the devils also acknowledge Him to be: "we know Thee, who Thou art, the Holy So?i cf God." " His ''Father" He Himself adores. '^ When ac- knowledged by Peter as the " Christ (the Son) of God," ^ He does not deny the relation. He exults in spirit when He says to the Father, " I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent." '5 He, moreover, affirms also that to no man is the Father known, but to His Sonj^^ and promises that, as the Son of the Father, He will confess those who confess Him, and deny those who deny Him, before His Father.'" He also introduces a parable, of the mission to the vineyard of the Son (not / the Father), who was sent after so many ser- vants,'® and slain by the husbandmen, and