Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John: Tractate XX
5. He appears to have made Himself as it were less, when He said, “The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He seeth 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 seeth the Father doing.’” Wait; as it is written, “Be meek to hear the word, that thou mayest understand.” 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 seeth the Father doing.” Well, I, being disconcerted at these words, will ask thee, who seemest to thyself to have instantly understood them, a question. We know in the Gospel that the Son walked upon the sea; when saw He the Father walk upon the sea? Here now he is disconcerted. Lay aside, then, thy 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 seeth 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 seeth 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; whilst thou, on the other hand, shut in on every side, art seeking a way of escape. See by what way thou hast entered. Perhaps thou hast not understood this that I said, See by what way thou hast entered: hear Himself saying, “I am the door.” Not without cause, then, art thou seeking how thou mayest get out; and this only thou findest, that thou hast not entered by the door, but fell in over the wall. Therefore raise thyself up from thy fall how thou canst, and enter by the door, that thou mayest go in without stumbling, and go out without straying. Come by Christ, not bringing forward of thy own heart what thou mayest 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 doth the Son Himself say, “but the Father abiding in me, Himself doeth the works?” If the Father, abiding in the Son, Himself doeth 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 doeth, He doeth not without the Father; because whatever the Father doeth, He doeth 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 thou understandest it, lo, God made the light, and the Son saw the Father making light, according to thy carnal understanding, who wilt have it that He is less, because He said, “The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He seeth 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 thy 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 seeth the Father doing,” then show me the other firmament made by the Son. Hast thou 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; 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 thine 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 thou sayest, “By the Son, not by the Father,” then thou hast erred from the Father; if thou sayest, “By the Father, not by the Son,” the Gospel answers thee 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 begat Him equal to Himself. Nor was aught wanting to Him that begat; He who begat 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 begat 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 begat equal, eternal begat eternal. How, says some one, has eternal begat 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 thee God the Father without Son. Accordingly, “the Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He seeth 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 seeth 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 saith, “For what things soever the Father doeth, these same also the Son doeth in like manner.” It is not, the Father doeth some, the Son others like them, but the same in like manner. For He saith not, What things soever the Father doeth, the Son also doeth others the like; but saith He, “What things soever the Father doeth, these same also the Son doeth in like manner.” What things the Father doeth, these also the Son doeth: 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 doeth those things which also the Father doeth, and doeth not in a different manner; He both doeth these, and doeth them in like manner.