約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 65/94 段

Do you not then see, someone might now say to those men, whither this argument, falling away from the straight road, is proceeding, and into what pit it carries off those who have held such opinions? 'But indeed He can,' he says, 'even though the Son is a created being, fulfil the works of the nature, glory thus belonging to God the Father.'

Then what could appear more impious than this? For there would no longer be anything greater or more excellent in God beyond the creation, if we shall also invest it with the glory and power of the Godhead.

For let no one, out of great derangement of mind, think it something admirable and great to hold and say concerning the Son that He is indeed a creature, yet not as one of the creatures;

rather let him know that he is not slightly wronging His glory.

For the question is not whether He has a nature exceptional beyond the other creatures, but whether He came into being at all.

For how could He escape being a creature, even if He is the most beautiful of all the creatures? And when the glory of the Son is wronged by saying that He came into being, why do they vainly bring in — as though some remedy for Him — that He exists in the most beautiful place among the others? We shall therefore be doing outrage to the substance of God the Father, if we shall invest with the ability to accomplish these things the Son, who is Himself also a created being, according to their unlearned and foolish reasoning.

But we will not tolerate them when they say that the Son accomplishes the works of the Godhead while being by nature a created thing, glory thus belonging to God the Father.

For if they can demonstrate this from the divine Scripture, let them bring forward what they wish, keeping for us the words of the saints free from adulteration;

but if these are the inventions of their own opinion, and they have fashioned their reasonings upon this, we shall wittily say: 'Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart!' For we shall grant that the Father always wills those things which He knows how to keep His divine glory unadulterated, and which preserve the rectitude of the doctrines concerning Him.

Therefore, having bidden farewell to their want of understanding, we shall proceed to the true doctrine concerning Him, believing that the Son is truly begotten from the substance of God the Father, and is God from God according to nature.

For thus, being both the express character and the likeness of God the Father, He speaks truly when He says: 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father.'

'For I have appeared and I am in truth the undeviating express character of His substance and the resembling image, engraving in Myself the whole nature of God the Father;

what other manner of the vision of God would you still seek, if indeed the ability to think fitting things were seen present in you? Or what kind of contemplation, tell me, do you ask for? Surely you do not suppose that a better and more exact one was given to those of old, when I came down in the form of fire upon Mount Sinai? For upon this most of all the Jews are wont to boast greatly.'

These things, perhaps, we might conjecture that Christ was discoursing;

and that the manifestation of wonders wrought by our Saviour Christ is superior, for the knowledge of God the Father, to that upon Mount Sinai, I think we ought even now most unhesitatingly to affirm.

For in this way you will see that Philip, with the true image lying beside him, was needlessly asking for that other kind of contemplation of God the Father which was given also to those of old on Mount Sinai;

for there the Lord came down in the form of fire, as it is written, while those of Israel evidently looked on.

[nor were they thereby able] ever to arrive at true conceptions concerning God, or to leap up to the apprehension befitting the Godhead;

for how at all, through fire, as from some image, could we proceed to the archetype, that is, to the Father and God? For God is good by nature, and in addition to this a creator, calling the things that at some time did not exist into being, and holding all things together in existence, and giving life; He is Himself wisdom and power, kind and compassionate and merciful.

But of these things there is absolutely nothing in fire.

For no one, if he has any sense, would suppose that fire is kind and loving toward humankind, nor would anyone in his right mind say that it is creative, wise, and life-giving.

Then how, tell me, could anyone gather through fire the notions concerning the true Godhead? Or how could he behold in a mirror and in a riddle any of the things that are inherent in it? 'What then,' someone says, 'is the reason, or what occasion arose, that persuaded God to be called forth into fire on Mount Sinai?' We shall say that when those of Israel were, at that particular time, beginning their tutelage unto godliness, and were about to make the law that was to correct them a kind of rule of their own life, it was then most of all necessary that God should appear to them as a chastiser and a fearful one, so that the transgressors might know that they had to do with fire.

For on this account also the great Moses proclaimed to those of Israel, saying: 'Our God is a consuming fire.' And surely we would not say that this most wise man, in expounding the nature of God, likened it to fire; rather he named God thus because, out of His very great hatred of evil, He does not decline, like all-devouring fire, to consume and destroy those who despise Him.

Therefore it is not from what He is according to nature that God is made known through fire;

but His being thus named and seen at that time was adopted for the benefit of the hearers.

Let us then now proceed to the true and most exact contemplation of the Father, that is, to the Son.

For we shall behold Him as the image of the One who begot Him, fixing the eye of the understanding upon the excellences that are in Him.

God the Father, then, is good by nature; and we shall find the Son to be such also.

For how is He not good, who for our sake endured so great a humiliation, and came into the world to save sinners, and laid down His life for them? Likewise the Father is powerful; so also is the Son.

For what could be more powerful than One who commands the very elements, and rebukes both the sea and the winds, and transforms the natures of things into whatever He wills, and commands the leper to be cleansed, and gives sight to the blind, in an authority befitting God?

Again, the Son is also life, quickening those who have been corrupted, and overturning the dominion of death, and on this account raising the dead.

Fittingly, therefore, He says to Philip: 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father.'

'For since it is granted you,' He says, 'to behold most excellently in Me and out of Me the One who begot Me, in what other manner do you ask for the vision of God — you who have obtained the better vision than that given to those of old, and have lighted upon the truest image, that is, upon Me? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? I indeed,' He says, 'O Philip, since I inscribe in Myself the nature of the One who begot Me, am the image of His substance, formed evidently after Him — not, as one might suppose, adorned with external opinions, nor illumined by strange or imported excellences;'

but bearing in My own nature the properties of Him who begot Me, and being truly this very thing which He also would be — according, that is, to the principle of identity, I mean that which is according to substance.

For you will again say in reply to these things:

'You were not then, after all, so disposed as that I am in the Father, and the Father in turn is in Me?'

'And yet, even unwilling,' He says, 'the force of what has been said will constrain you at last to assent to this.'

'Therefore, whatever things I might say, these belong entirely to the Father, and whatever I might work, the Father works.'

For those men spoke not their own things at all, but those of the God who gives and inspires in them;

and He again assigns to His own Father the outcome of the wonders, not as working miracles by an imported power, according evidently to those who say, 'Do not fix your attention on us as though by our own power or godliness we had healed' — the sick man, that is.

For it was the custom of the saints to make use, not at all by their own strength, but rather by that of God, for their wonders;

for they are found to be ministers and servants alike of the divine words and of the operations.

But since the Son is consubstantial with the Father, differing in no manner whatsoever, that is, as being otherwise disposed in relation to Him, He says that His own words are the Father's, inasmuch as the Father would not use other words than those which the Son would use.

But also in the majesty of the works you will understand in like manner.

For inasmuch as the Father is by nature able and strong to work nothing other than what the Son also would know and perchance perform, He says that the works are His own.

For consider Him speaking more plainly thus: 'I am in every respect whatsoever resembling the One who begot Me, and the image of His substance, not adorned merely with outward forms and external opinions, but having in Myself the whole of the One who begot Me, by reason of the identity of substance.'

'The words that I speak, I speak not from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me, He does the works.'

'For if the Father had spoken anything to you,' He says, 'in these very words which I now use, He would not have used other words.'

'For so great is My essential resemblance to Him, that My utterances are His, and whatever things I might do, these are believed to be His accomplishments;'

'for abiding in Me, by reason of the undeviating identity in substance, He Himself does the works.'

Since the Godhead is one, being conceived in Father and Son and Spirit, every word that is from the Father is entirely through the Son in the Spirit;

and every work, or wonder, is through the Son in the Spirit;

yet it is done, as coming from the Father.

For the Son is not outside the substance of the One who begot Him, nor indeed is the Holy Spirit; but the Only-Begotten, being in Him, and having again in Himself the One who begot Him, says that He Himself works.

For the nature of the Father is operative, shining forth beautifully in the Son.

But someone might, in addition to these things, express another sense, the economy in the flesh furnishing him well with the occasions.

'For I speak not from Myself,' He says, that is, not in a divided way, nor discordantly with God the Father.

For since He appeared in human form to those who beheld Him, He refers His own words to the nature of the Godhead, as in the person of the Father, and indeed His works as well;

and He all but says: 'Let not this human form deprive Me of the apprehension that befits Me and is owed to Me, nor suppose that My words are those of a mere man and one of your own kind, but rather truly divine and befitting the Father Himself, even as they befit Me.'

'And abiding in Me, He works.'

For I am in Him, and He Himself is in me.

Do not therefore suppose, He says, that some great and extraordinary thing was granted to the men of old, namely that they beheld God as it were in the appearance of fire and heard also a voice speaking to them.

For you have truly beheld the Father through me and in me; even though I have appeared according to your likeness, yet being God by nature I have come manifestly, according to the voice of the psalmist.

And you know that when you heard our words, you heard those that come from the Father.

And you have become spectators also of the works and of the might that dwells within Him.

For through me He speaks, as through His own Word, and He accomplishes and effects things worthy of wonder, again as through His own power.

That no reasoning, I think, could ever sever from the Father's substance both the Word and the power that belongs to it,

but that they inhere in it and are by nature implanted in it, in every possible way, no one would fail to confess this—it is beyond doubt—unless indeed someone were deranged in mind.

That because of the identity of nature, the Son is in the Father, and the Father in turn is again in the Son.

Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.

with absolutely nothing intervening, or in any way cutting off the one from the other into a natural otherness.

For He is one with Him, so that in the substance of the Begetter the nature of the Son shines forth, and in the substance of the Offspring the nature of God the Father is seen and stands resplendent—just as indeed one might also observe in things pertaining to ourselves.

For we are not of a different nature from the offspring that come from us, nor indeed are we divided into a natural estrangement, even though we are separated by the otherness of bodies.

Wherefore one might see the blessed Abraham in him who has beheld the son begotten of him.

But in the case of men there is perhaps a great separation, since each in a manner contracts and withdraws into himself with distinct form, so as to have and appear according to his own individuality, and is not bodily implanted in the other, even though the principle of the substance is seen to be common to all.

But concerning God who is such by nature, you will not conceive in this way.

For in a distinctive manner the Father is Father, and not Son;

and again in like manner the Son who is from Him is Son and not Father, and the Spirit is the Spirit in His own distinctive way.

But since the Holy Trinity comes together and is gathered into one nature of Godhead, there is one God in us; and one would not grant to each of the things signified a full departure, as it were, from the other, nor withdrawal altogether into a divided existence.

But we believe that each is that very thing which it is and is named among us, subsisting in its own hypostasis.

And we understand that the Son, being from the Father—that is, from His substance—came forth from Him ineffably, and abides in Him.

And in the same manner also concerning the Holy Spirit.

For it is truly from God who is such by nature, yet in no way divided from His substance, but rather proceeding from Him and abiding in Him forever;

and being supplied to the saints through Christ.

For all things are through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

This rightness and truth of the doctrines the understanding of the holy Fathers has taught us;

thus have we been trained both to speak and to think, even through the sacred writings themselves.

And that we go very rightly upon this reproachless faith, the Lord gives us courage, saying: Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.

But if not, believe for the very works' sake.

And see with how great security and truth alike He says such things.

For He does not deem it right to be believed so much on the basis of what He might say—although He knows not how to lie—as on the basis of what He effects.

And for what reason, I will tell.

For to make use of words and sayings befitting God, and to utter something rash, is no hard thing for a man who is mad and out of his senses;

but who could ever make use of a work and a power befitting God? And to whom of created beings will the Father grant His own glory? For do we not say that it is God's glory to be able to do all things and to possess all-accomplishing might,

and that it belongs to none other, at least to one wholly numbered among the creatures? Therefore, wishing that the things concerning Himself be tested by necessary and at the same time incontrovertible proofs, Christ commands that He be believed from the very works, namely that He Himself is in the Father, and that He again has the Father in Himself—that is, that He bears the nature of the Father in His own existence, as a genuine offspring, as truly fruit, as the Son who has appeared from the Father by nature.

But the Church of Christ, though greatly exulting in the rightness of her doctrines, holds such an opinion concerning the Only-Begotten;

whereas to the God-fighting heretics it has seemed good to hold opinions of another sort, and to persuade to them those who approach and give heed to their pernicious words.

For raging like mad dogs in their revilings against Christ, the wretches wrangle and eye one another, not toward a provocation to piety, but that one might appear to have to be more impious than another, and to utter something of a still more discordant sort.

For since they drink the wine from Sodom, and gather the bitter grape from Gomorrah,

they think nothing of things that are sound, but say those things which render the wretched souls of their hearers desolate, carrying them down to Hades and into the pit below.

Having dared to put these things also into books, they have set up, as it were immortal, the wickedness that is in them.

It would then have been fitting for us, having said sufficiently upon the matter at hand those things which were likely to be able to profit our readers—holding the most correct understanding concerning the Son—to make no mention of the things held by those men.

But since it is not unlikely that some of the simpler folk, falling in with those wretches' words, might be carried off from understanding, I thought it necessary to beat back the harm arising from their nonsense by means of the doctrines drawn from truth, and to show utterly easy to overthrow the calumny which they wish to raise up as a rampart against the Son, or rather against the whole divine nature;

for this it is truer to say.

Accordingly, I came upon a little book of those on the opposite side;

then, examining the things in the text before us, I found him saying in these very words, after certain other matters: 'The Son, therefore, being substantially contained by the Father, has the Father in Himself uttering the words and accomplishing the signs;'

which he interprets by saying: 'The things I speak to you I do not speak of myself, but the Father who abides in me, He does the works.'

These are the words of that man's chicanery;

but since it behooves us also to state what stands opposed to the things said, and is able to convict his mind as being unsound, I say this: To say that the Son is substantially contained by the Father—whatever indeed it may mean, or whatever it may signify—I do not at all understand;

for I think it necessary to speak the truth;

so great is the obscurity it possesses.

For it blushes, as it were, and somewhat shrinks toward the more hidden, the notion having no boldness of speech.

For just as he who does base deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, lest he be convicted, according to the Saviour's word,

so every discourse that reveals base things loves to come through dark notions, and will not arrive at the light of clarity, lest the paltriness of the rottenness within it be exposed.

What then is it for the Son to be substantially contained by the Father? For I go through every possible notion, unfolding by whatever words I can that which was obscurely said—and which perhaps is abashed, lest, being once understood, it should uncover the ill-counsel of him who begot it.

If, then, he wishes to signify this: that the Son, appearing in the substance of the Father as consubstantial with Him, has also Himself the Father within Himself shining beautifully in the nature of the Offspring—then we too shall consent to the force of the observation;

yet the term 'containing,' as applied to the Son, would perhaps do no small wrong.

But if he does not mean this—

for he who has spewed out such blasphemy against Him will never admit that the Son was ever begotten from the substance of the Father; but he insists that, as it were like some finite body, the nature of the Son is encompassed within that of the Father—

how would he not be caught openly blaspheming, and being full of madness reaching to the utmost degree? For they too, though saying that the Son is God, yet irrationally attempt to attach to Him the properties of bodies;

for to be at all hemmed in by some circumscription and measure in that which is conceived as extended—so as even to terminate from some beginning at an end—would altogether admit also of being perhaps in place and quantity and form and figure.

Then how are these things not the properties of bodies? And how will He who is above us not be conceived as being with us, as one like us? Or how is He not brother to the rest of creation, having no longer anything more than it, at least as far as concerns being in a finite manner? But having it thus, according to the ignorant supposition of those on the opposite side, why did He vainly din in our ears, saying: 'You are from below, I am from above'; and again: 'You are of this world, I am not of this world'? For in saying that He Himself is from above, He did not simply mean 'from the heavens';

for what would He have more than the holy angels, if indeed we shall find them too to be from above, the thing signified being taken in a local sense? But it signifies that He sprang forth from the substance that is from above and that rides over all things.

It follows, then—if He has in common with the rest of creation the properties of bodies—that He too, together with the things brought from nonexistence into being, is contained by the Father, if indeed we shall grant that nothing lies outside Him.

And the divinely-inspired psalmist, speaking assuredly true and hidden mysteries in the Spirit, says that the Son is left out of absolutely no place, thereby testifying to Him the incorporeal and the uncircumscribed, and that He is not comprehended by place, as God;

For 'Whither shall I go,' he says, 'from Your Spirit? And whither shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I descend into Hades, You are present;

if I take up my wings at dawn and journey to the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall guide me, and Your right hand shall hold me.' But these men, recklessly setting their own opinion against the utterances of the Spirit, subject the Only-Begotten to limitation and circumscriptions, though they ought to have taken up in this matter a necessary and useful reckoning.

For if He has filled the heavens and the uttermost parts of the earth—that is, the regions unto Hades—

how is it not utterly most irrational to attach to Him the term 'containment,' when they have not even reckoned this: that if His presence—that is, the Spirit—

for He calls the Spirit the presence of the Son.

He fills all things; how then could He Himself be contained within an enclosure, even if one should say the enclosure of God the Father? Nevertheless, no less does such a one commit an outrage by circumscribing that which is incorporeal, and by setting a measure about that which has no finite limit.

For to say that He is essentially contained by God the Father—what else does this signify than that He has a finite essence, just as, quite plainly, does each one of the things that have come into being through Him?

These things we shall grant to be contained both without danger and truly.

For they are bodies, even if perhaps not such as ours are.

And besides these things, this thought too comes to my mind to consider.

For if we say that it is necessary for that which is encompassed by something to lie wholly within that which is said to contain it, how will it not follow beyond dispute that we must conceive the contained as being less than the container, and must call it bounded, as though shut up within the enclosure of the greater? What then, most excellent sir, will you say again? For behold, having set Himself forth as the image of God the Father and having expressly declared, 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father,' He immediately added further, 'I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.' For if He says this according to your view—namely that, although He is the express character and image of the One who begot Him, He is essentially contained by Him—how is it not beyond dispute to all that He wishes us to hold such notions concerning the Father as we would also form concerning Himself? It is therefore necessary that the Father too be bounded, for He is in the Son.

And let the heretic henceforth seek out who is greater than He.

For to me it is not lawful either to say or to conceive it.

For the Son will not be in part the image of the Father, and in part no longer so.

For if there is anything at all that differs and intervenes to break the complete likeness, then He would be but a part, not a whole and entire image.

But where could you show the holy Scripture saying this? For surely we shall not, being persuaded by your arguments, thrust aside the rectitude of the sacred doctrines.

But I marvel how they were not afraid to say, in addition to these things: 'Just as Paul had Christ within himself speaking and working the mighty deeds, in that same manner the Son also had the Father within Himself speaking and doing the signs.'

For which reason He says, 'Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.'

'But if not, then believe on account of the works themselves.'

Then who any longer will call a Christian one who has considered and formed such opinions concerning Christ? For behold, behold, and very plainly, he no longer confesses Him to be truly God.

But recklessly ascribing to Him the measure that befits created things, he proclaims Him to be some God-bearer and partaker of God—or rather, a God begotten of God.

For his aim throughout, so to speak, by every mode and word, is utterly to shut Him out from the essence of God the Father, and wholly to sever Him from that natural and essential kinship which He has toward His own Father and God.

...surpassing into sheer madness? Or how could one not, as over men already dead and perished, drop a tear of love upon those who have turned themselves so unbridledly toward impiety?

And most fittingly one will say, 'Who will give water to my head and to my eyes a fountain of tears, and I will weep for this people day and night?' For over those who have chosen to hold such opinions, one might well drop an unrestrained tear.

But since I judge it fitting that the slanders proceeding from them be repelled by the doctrines that spring from truth—for the benefit of the simpler sort—come, let us again say to them that, being zealous, we have been zealous for the Lord.

For the inspired Paul, O you people, or any other of the saints, having Christ dwelling in their minds through the Spirit, wrought very well the things that seem good to God, and were shown to be workers of marvels.

It is therefore firmly established—as you yourself would also grant to be true—that they, being human in nature and something other according to essence than the Holy Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, were God-fearing men and illustrious through the grace given them from Christ.

And you will certainly agree with us that they were once destitute of the gift, but have been called to it, thus rightly deeming it glory to possess it from God who once so rightly directed all things.

It was then within the range of possibility that, through some absurd deed or something not rightly done, the blessed Paul—or some other of his kind—having given offence to God, could be seen destitute of the grace given him, and could again be thrust down and slip back into the lowliness from which he had risen.

For that which is altogether external and adventitious might easily be spat out, and is removable, inasmuch as it was given.

For the argument will turn back upon you again.

If, according to your want of instruction and most impious supposition, just as Christ was in Paul speaking and working wonders, so one should grant the Father to be in the Son, how is it not beyond dispute that He will in no way be God by nature, but something other than the indwelling Father, who is God in truth? For thus was Christ in Paul.

Then the Only-begotten is but an instrument, and as it were some vessel fitted for glory, and He will differ in nothing from a flute or a lyre, sounding forth whatever perhaps is breathed into it, or being commanded to play in tuneful melody at the touch of the plectrum.

And He will thus be received by the Father for the working of wonders, as perhaps a saw or an adze would be conceived by those who know the carpenter's craft.

Then what could be more irrational than this? For being of such a nature, as they say, He will be utterly alien to God the Father, so far as concerns being God by nature in us—and none other than He is such.

But if the Son is fenced off from the essence of the Father, at least in respect of being God by nature, how do we not now say truly that He is ranked with the creation, and numbered together with the works, and taken up in the use of an instrument, and has now appeared to us as a servant instead of a Master—He, the Son, who sits enthroned with God the Father?

Or rather, He is not even a Son in truth? For no one would conceive or accept that which is placed in the rank of an instrument as a Son.