約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 66/94 段

Then the Father begot an implement of the skill or wisdom that is in Him, and is seen to have brought forth something other than what He Himself is.

And how could this be admitted? How is it not utterly foolish to conceive any such thing? Therefore, if you do not free the Son from any notion of an instrument or a servant, and in no way confess Him to be an offspring in truth, but deny the ineffable begetting—I mean that which is from the essence of God the Father—you will do wrong to the very glory of the One who begot.

For the Father will no longer be a Father in truth.

For He who has not at all begotten out of Himself, of what could He be father by nature? Therefore the holy Trinity is utterly falsely named, neither the Father being a father in truth, nor indeed the Son a son by nature.

And there will follow, correspondingly to the theory, the blasphemy against the Spirit as well.

Then we have been deceived, and the faith has been proved false.

And the holy Scripture tells false tales, calling God Father.

And together with those on earth, the city above too has gone astray, and the most pure multitude of the holy angels, who glorify and worship together with Him who is God by nature—and who, I know not how, have been persuaded to give glory to a God-bearing vessel and one of the creatures—according, I say, to the folly of those men.

But if the Father should ever wish to withdraw from His relation to the Son and from His indwelling, He will perhaps differ in nothing from those who have slipped away from their own beginning—having nothing of His own, nor indeed bearing the One who begot Him in His own nature, but being rather altogether such as we are, strengthened only by the divine grace, and moreover honoured together with us by the name of sonship.

What then, tell me, does not He too, together with us, confess His own nature? And why is it that 'we perish for ever, and He sits enthroned for ever'? And for what reason are we servants, while He is Lord? For even though we too are called sons of God, none the less recognizing our own nature, we are not ashamed of the glory.

But tell me, for what cause does He Himself—if indeed He is such as we are, and in no respect among the creatures in anything superior, at least as regards not being God by nature—

for this is what seems right to the untaught—

why does He not confess servitude together with us? But investing Himself with the honour and glory that fittingly and specially belong to the divine nature, He is found saying to the holy disciples, 'You call Me the Lord and the Teacher, and you say well.'

'For so I am.' And these things the Saviour spoke.

But those fine and good propounders of the doctrines against Him praise Him when He says and earnestly affirms that He is most truly called Lord, yet by not being willing to confess Him to be God of God by nature, they thrust Him out of the lordship that is His by nature, and do not believe that they are charging the basest of all things upon their own abomination.

For that He does not wish to be among those who hold the rank of servants, nor to be numbered in the catalogues of things that have come into being, but rather looks to the freedom that is in Him by nature—even when He came to be in the form of the servant—you will understand from this also.

For He came to Capernaum, just as we have read in the Gospels.

And the collectors of the double-drachma required by the Law, coming to Peter, said, 'Does not your Teacher pay the double-drachma?' And when Christ had inquired about this, it is right to see what He answered to Peter: 'From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons, or from strangers?' And when Peter had wisely and sensibly confessed that the one who is a stranger to the kingdom—so far as concerns race and the kinship understood among us—ought to be subject to the ordinances or the tributes, Christ at once applied to Himself the testimony befitting God, assigning it as truly present in Him: 'Then the sons are free.' But if He were a fellow-servant, and not truly the Son begotten of the essence of the Father, nor having by nature the kinship toward the One who begot Him, why, having made all the rest subject to the tributes as being by nature strangers to Him who has the right to levy tribute, and set in the rank of household servants, did He attest freedom to Himself alone? For loosely and by abuse of terms are those things that belong properly and truly to the Godhead alone applied to us, but they exist in Him in truth; so that, if anyone should carefully examine the nature of created things, he would altogether behold that the name and the reality of servitude is most fitting to it.

But if any of us have been honoured with the glory of freedom, they hold by abuse of terms that which is owed to God alone.

And besides these things, I would very gladly ask them this: Will they say that Paul is a God-bearer, since Christ dwells in him through His own Spirit?

Or will they, talking nonsense, deny even this?

For if they should say that he is not truly a God-bearer, this will suffice to persuade all men henceforth to shake off their idle talk and to hate it to the utmost, as men who decline to say nothing absurd.

Will they be caught in impiety, saying that the Son is alien to the essence of God the Father? For Paul is no longer a God-bearer, unless the Son is God by nature.

But sometimes they blush.

For there belongs to them also craftiness and malice in argument.

They will say that the Son is truly God, yet that He has not been begotten of God by nature.

And that anyone whatsoever would cry out against them even in this, is beyond dispute.

For how could He be God who has not been begotten of God by nature? But this we say: You say that the Son is God by nature.

How then could He who is God by nature be a God-bearer, that is, a partaker of God? For He could never partake of Himself.

For to what end shall God dwell in God, as one in another? For if that which receives is by nature the very thing which the indwelling one also would be conceived to be, what then any longer would be the need of partaking? But if, just as He Himself dwelt in Paul, in the same manner the Father dwells in Him, how will He not be a God-bearer like Paul, since He no longer has from any source His being God by nature, because He needs the superior indwelling God? Then again, upon these things, this fine fellow of ours contrives further, and through many demonstrations, as he supposes, he attempts to bruit abroad his own argument.

For I think it worthwhile to go through all his words and to unfold the inquiry into the God-fighting counsel that is in him, that it may be clearly refuted that he ranks the Only-begotten among the works, and that the wretch, having buried his impiety against Him under elegant deceits, confesses Him indeed to be God, yet, dismissing Him from the truly and natural Godhead, supposes that he can somehow escape the notice of those who look to the truth itself.

He writes then thus: 'But just as we, though said to be in Him,' he says, 'have our hypostasis unmingled with respect to Him,'

'in the same manner the Son also, though being in the Father, has His essence distinct from the Unbegotten.'

How dreadful the argument, and full of senselessness—or rather of all ill counsel and madness!

For if they say that the Word of God is a man and one of those like us, there is nothing further to prevent saying that He exists in God thus, just as we do.

But if they believe Him to be God, and have resolved to worship Him as being this by nature, why do they not rather ascribe to Him the fitting-for-God existence within His own Begetter, and His having Him within Himself? For this, I think, is more fitting for the truly God-loving to hold and to say.

But if, practising an unbroken shamelessness against us, they persist in what they have said, and say that the Son is in the Father just as perhaps each of us might be—we who are of things that were not and have come into being from the earth through Him—why is it not henceforth permitted, without danger, to those who so wish, to say, 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father, and I am in the Father and the Father is in Me'? But I think that anyone would be convicted of the utmost folly of all upon this writing, and quite reasonably.

For such an utterance is both discordant and was never brought forth by any of the saints in the God-inspired Scripture.

But all yield to the One who by nature is Lord and God, the Only-Begotten, the incomparable pre-eminence over all good things; and indeed they cry aloud, saying, 'Who shall be likened unto the Lord among the sons of God?' How then is the Only-Begotten still on a level with us, if indeed none is equal or like unto Him, according to the voice of the saints? But if He exists in God just as we do, how is it not henceforth necessary to say that the choir of the saints spoke falsely, and that they assigned nothing more to the Son who is Son by nature, through which He might appear not to stand on equal footing with those who are sons by adoption? Away with such abomination, O man!

For we shall not think thus—God forbid—but, following the opinions of the holy fathers, we believe that we shall be well-pleasing before God.

...they who wish to slander the mind of the holy apostles, and who most senselessly wrest to their own liking words that were spoken with entire correctness.

For when the blessed Paul had come to Athens, and then saw the people there greatly stirred up into the error of polytheism—although they were reputed to be wise—he attempted to lead them away from their ancient deception, skillfully transferring them to reasonings that make for piety, so that henceforth they ought to know one and only God, who bestows upon the things made by Him both motion and life and being.

For there was no other way for the things which received their coming-into-being out of non-being to be preserved and held together in existence;

for otherwise it would straightway have sunk back into its own nature—

and I mean, back into non-being once more—

had it not, by its relation to Him who truly is, overcome the weakness of its own origin.

The inspired Paul therefore said, rightly and very well, showing that God is the life of all things, that 'in Him we live and move and have our being;'

not at all meaning that which these men, corrupting the correctness of the sacred writings, have fabricated according to their own purpose, but that which was true and most profitable to those but newly instructed unto the knowledge of God;

and if it must be said more plainly, he by no means wished to signify that we, being human by nature, lie within the substance of the Father and appear as though existing in Him, but rather that we both live and move and have our being in God, that is, are held together in existence.

For understand that he did not say, simply and loosely, only that 'we are in God'—on account of your ignorance, good sir, as is likely—but with distinction; interpreting what he wished to say, and placing first 'we live,' then adding to this 'we move,' he introduced as a third 'we have our being,' bestowing even this upon the sense of the preceding words.

And I think that our discourse concerning this, being rightly framed, will perhaps somewhat abash the fighter against God;

but should he again resist, and drag even the phrase 'in God' toward what seems good to him and him alone, we shall demonstrate to him the customary usage of the God-inspired Scripture.

For it is customary for Scripture at times to say 'in God' instead of 'through God.'

For let that man tell us how in the Psalms someone cries aloud, saying, 'In God we shall do valiantly;' and again, as though addressed to Him, 'In Thee we shall push down our enemies.' For surely no one will suppose that he says this—that he promises to fashion some power within the substance of God—nor does the psalmist say that his own enemies, found within it, will be pushed down;

And what did the blessed Paul say when writing to the Corinthians? 'I thank my God always concerning you all, for the grace which was given you in Christ Jesus;' and again, 'But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.' Will anyone then say sensibly that the Spirit-bearer means the grace apportioned from above to the Corinthians was given within the very substance of Christ, or will he take the other passage consistently with this? And how would he not be seen to be talking nonsense? Why then do you dissolve the very custom of the sacred writings, and, having slandered the intention of the blessed Paul, assert that we exist in God—that is, in the substance of the Father—when you hear him who declared to those in Athens that 'in Him we live and move and have our being'? 'But yes,' says the champion of ruinous doctrines...

...to strip bare his villainy and harmfulness.

For I marvel how, having gladly heard that 'in God' is customarily used by the divine Scripture to mean 'through God,' and merely because they might thereby say something against the glory of the Only-Begotten, they gave their assent and accepted the expression, yet have by no means recognized that they will be caught none the less talking nonsense—although they profess to be wise and sharp.

For if it were permitted only to our adversaries always to fence in the custom of the God-inspired Scripture around the substance of the Only-Begotten, and on this account to say that He was made by the Father—since He says He is 'in God'—

and if we granted that 'in God' is to be understood as 'through God,' then their villainy would perhaps, according to likelihood, seem to have some not altogether ignorant reason;

but if nothing hinders us also—wishing by the greater absurdity to overturn the rottenness of their doctrines—from referring to the Father Himself the force of what is signified, and from saying plainly that, since He also says 'the Father is in Me,' it is fitting to understand this in the sense of 'through Me,' so that the Father Himself may henceforth become a created being: how, having taken courage in exceedingly senseless reasonings, will they not carry off the verdict of unmixed folly? For just as the Son says that He Himself is in the Father, so also He said that the Father is in Him;

and if they wish 'in the Father' to be understood as 'through the Father,' what would prevent us from saying that 'in the Son' too will be understood as 'through the Son'? But we will not endure to slide down, along with those men, into this pitch of folly once more;

for we will neither say that the Son was made through the Father, nor indeed that the Father and God, from whom are all things, came into being through the Son;

but rather, applying the custom of the God-inspired Scripture fittingly to each occasion and person and matter, we will weave a discourse that is clean and blameless upon all necessary points.

For to those things which were brought over from non-being into being and were made through God, how would it not be most fitting to be understood and said by us that they are 'in God,' that is, 'through God'? But to the Son who is Son by nature, and Lord and God and Maker of all things, this, I think, would not properly and truly apply; rather, that He is by nature in the Father and inheres in Him and has Him within Himself, because He is seen to be in identity of substance, and has nothing whatever intervening and severing them into a natural otherness.

And that this has, as it seems to me, been well set forth to the more apt learners, would perhaps be granted; yet our adversary will by no means give his assent;

and he will say again, chewing over the argument introduced at the outset, that the Father is in the Son in just the way that we are in Him.

To which we would say, not without understanding, refuting one who both thinks and speaks things rotten and puerile:

You say that the Son is in the Father just as we are in Him? Very well.

Then why, we shall say to this, does the measure of our nature not permit us to glory in the same terms in which Christ Himself also is seen? For He, since He is in the Father and has the Father within Himself—inasmuch as He is His image and unvarying imprint, and for this reason He says, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' 'I and the Father are one'—but as for us, tell me, if we are thus in Him and have Him within ourselves, just as, doubtless, He too is in the Father and the Father in Him:

why do we not, stretching our necks high and showing a lofty face to those we meet, say with boldness, 'I am in Christ and Christ in me;'

'He that hath seen me hath seen Christ;'

'I and Christ are one'? And then, what follows from here? No one, I think, would rightly be afraid, nor would it be fitting for anyone to shrink back—if, having dared to say this very thing, he should venture at last to say even concerning the Father Himself, 'I and the Father are one.'

For if the Father is one with the Son, how will such a one not henceforth share an equal lot with the Father Himself, having become an unvarying image of an unvarying image, that is, of the Son? Who then will ever fall into such madness as to dare to say, 'He that hath seen me hath seen Christ;'

'[I am] in Christ and Christ in us'?

First the Son would stand in our own rank; then, with nothing hindering us from passing beyond even the Son Himself, if we so wished—as lying, as it were, in the middle—we might run straight on, so to speak, to the Father Himself, and say that we are made like unto Him so exactly that nothing differing is to be seen.

For 'to be one' when said in relation to something would have such a force.

Do you not then see into how great senselessness together with impiety their thoughts have slid down, and what a tumult of absurd reasonings has burst in upon us? What then is the pretext for saying and contending these things, and for these men floating upon such stale arguments—I will say again.

They have one aim: to declare the Son wholly alien and utterly foreign to the substance of the Father.

For that we speak truly in saying such things, we shall know from what follows next and is coupled to his former blasphemies.

For he goes on thus: 'But just as we,' he says, 'being in Him, have a hypostasis unmixed with Him,

in the same manner also the Son, being in the Father, has a substance distinct from the unbegotten God.'

What are you saying, you thunderstruck man? Have you thus made naked your blasphemy against the Son? Will anyone then say that we are pressing to pour out empty slander upon the head of the fighters against God? For behold, plainly, they assign to Him nothing more at all than to those things that came from the earth and were brought into being through Him.

But I, though I find it exceedingly unbearable at the things these wretched men have dared to say, will attempt to show this—again following the aim of the divine Scripture—that since they deny the Son, they have joined in denying the Father, and are henceforth godless, and having no hope in this world, according to that which is written.

And that we speak well, a true witness will come forth for us in the God-loving John, who wrote thus: 'He that denieth the Father and the Son;'

'Every one that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father either;'

'He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also.' And the Spirit-bearer speaks very rightly, not placing the theorem outside the harmony befitting the argument;

for since he knows that not in name only, but rather in reality, He who is also called what He is—that is, Father—exists so by nature, he necessarily says that the one is denied together with the other.

For somehow the knowledge and manifestation of the offspring that has come forth from Him always runs together with Him who by nature is and is conceived of as Father; and with the one who is truly begotten there is co-conceived the person of Him whose nature it is to beget.

For as soon as one knows a Father, he understands that he has begotten; and if he should learn of the offspring, he will be wholly disposed to think that it sprang from some father.

Therefore through both, the knowledge of each is engendered in those who hear;

and one who has denied that God is truly Father will altogether do away with the begetting of the Son along with it;

and again, one who has not confessed that the Son is an offspring will thereby wholly abolish for himself the knowledge concerning the Father.

When therefore, having hurled us with his unholy words, he contends that the Son has a substance distinct from the unbegotten God, how does he not expressly confess that He does not even exist as Son? But the Son not existing, neither would the Father Himself any longer truly be conceived of as Father.

For of whom will He be Father, if He has not begotten? For we ourselves also say that the Son is distinguished, not in substance, but in the person of the Father—not as being by nature alien to Him, as indeed the fighters against God suppose, but as being and being conceived of in His own person, and in His own distinct existence by otherness;

for He is Son, and not Father;

yet that He is distinguished according to substance, neither would we ourselves say, if indeed we think rightly, nor would we counsel any of the brethren to say.

For how could each be merely distinguished, in respect of that whereby each is individually what it is? For Peter is Peter and not Paul, and Paul is not Peter, yet they remain undistinguished according to nature;

for in both there is one account of substance, and that which is bound together into a natural unity will possess the same account unvaryingly.

...of the intimate relationship, namely that toward the Father and God.

For on what account do they, setting us forth as examples of the argument, say, 'Just as we, being in Him, have a hypostasis unmixed with Him, so also He has a substance distinct from God, even if He is said to be in Him'? Is not their craftiness plainly visible to all? Will not someone reasonably say that the one who has vomited out so foul-smelling an argument is one of those mockers foretold through the Spirit? For what does Jude, the disciple of the Saviour, write to us? 'But ye, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they told you there would be mockers in the last time, walking after their own ungodly lusts.'

'These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.' For no one at all, speaking by the Holy Spirit, will say anything against the glory of the Only-Begotten;

for this, I say, is to say 'Anathema, Jesus.' But sensual and wretched men, whose heart is void of the Holy Spirit, separate the Son from the Father, asserting that He has a substantial severance—just as, no doubt, do created things and each of the things made by Him—and thus thinking Him to be in the Father in the same way that we are in Him.

But that they have entered into the extremity of ignorance, in daring to write such things, come, let us examine again from the divine Scripture, as far as is possible, and let us be earnest to show to those who hear that we are in the Son in one way, but the Son is in His own Father in quite another way.

For it is not by virtue of freely-willed excellences, being conformed to Him, that He is the image of His hypostasis and on this account is in Him;

but rather as being in natural identity and as having one substance with Him;

and let the most wise John be summoned as a witness for us on these matters, saying, 'And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.' How then do they say, or in what manner do they insist it must be, that we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ? For if, by mingling our own substance with the divine nature, that is, with the Father and the Son, we are conceived of as being in them—and the account of the fellowship does not rather look to a likeness of wills—how could we have it with the Father and with the Son, seeing that, according to those men, they are not of one substance? For it would henceforth be necessary that we too, thinking things worthy of laughter, should say that, dividing up our own nature, we have given the one half to the Father and the other to ourselves and to the Son, and are thus conceived of as being in them;

or else, avoiding the stupefaction of such an argument, we say that it is by freely-willed excellences and by conformity to the divine and unspeakable beauty that, being earnest to make bright our own mind, we procure for ourselves the grace of the fellowship.

Shall we then say that the Son exists in the Father in this way—that is, that He has a relative and cultivated fellowship with Him who begot Him? And yet why in the world does He wish our mind to be guided, by the equality and likeness of His works, to the necessity of believing without any hesitation that He is Himself in the Father and again has the Father within Himself? For is it not most plainly manifest to all, and seen to be true, that, wishing the splendour of His works to be examined by us, He shows Himself equal in power to His own Father, so that there is no longer any account left of a severance according to substance and of a natural otherness, if in equal achievements both He Himself and the Father might glory?

For consider how it is not by these things that we speak of being counted worthy of communion with God, but rather when we practise conformity to God in certain other things.

For when we have compassion on one another, and cling fast to the works of love, and cultivate all seemliness in our manner of life, then, and hardly even then, are we said to be in God.

And John is a witness, saying: 'Hereby we know that we are in Him.'

And again he says: 'Let that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you.'

For if that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father. And what that 'from the beginning' is, which he charges us to keep so that we may be in God, he himself will make no less plain to us, saying: 'For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.' You hear how it is that we are in God, namely, by practising love toward one another, and by being zealous, so far as is possible, to trace out the virtue of the Saviour.

But by virtue I mean not that which lies in being able to create heavens, or to make angels, or to establish the earth, or to spread out the sea; nor yet that whereby, with ineffable and unsearchable power, He by a word stilled the fury of the winds, and raised the dead, or bestowed sight upon the blind, or with much authority commanded the leper to be cleansed;

but rather that virtue which would be fitting to the measures of humanity.

We shall find Him, even as Paul says, when reviled by the impious Jews, not reviling in return, but suffering and not threatening, but rather committing Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.

We shall find Him saying again: 'Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' Therefore, being zealous through such great achievements to imitate Christ, the leader of us unto all virtue, we are said to abide both in the Father and in Him, gaining this thing as a reward and recompense for our seemliness in life.

But the Son does not wish us to prove from these things the splendour that is in Him; rather, having applied ourselves with our innate sagacity to the greatness of His wondrous works, He enjoins that we must consider the unvarying likeness which He has to His own Father, and thenceforth so believe: that since He is of one substance, He has within Himself the One who begat Him, and He Himself also is in Him.

Or let those of the opposite party come forward and teach that He has, as we do, this as a reward—namely, to be conceived of as being in the Father—and as a recompense proportionate to a manner of life lived according to the evangelical law.

But I think that even this does not appear absurd to them.

For to those in whom no form of loose-tongued babbling goes unpractised, what among the most discordant things is not fair game for their riding roughshod? It is likely, then, that they will say even this: that the Son is in the Father for this reason, and that He again in turn has the Father in Himself, since He too is fashioned toward Him by those virtues which are attainable even by us.