He that seeth me seeth the Father also. St John Chapter xiv. 8-10

St John Chapter xiv : Verses 8-10

Contents

• St John Chapter xiv : Verses 8-10. Douay-Rheims (Challoner) text, Greek (SBLG) & Latin text (Vulgate); 
• Annotations based on the Great Commentary of Cornelius A Lapide (1567-1637)

St John Chapter xiv : Verses 8-10

Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. J-J Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

8 Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us.  

9 Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, shew us the Father?  

10 Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works.

8 Λέγει αὐτῷ Φίλιππος· Κύριε, δεῖξον ἡμῖν τὸν πατέρα, καὶ ἀρκεῖ ἡμῖν.

 8 Dicit ei Philippus : Domine, ostende nobis Patrem, et sufficit nobis.  

9 λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ⸂Τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ⸃ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωκάς με, Φίλιππε; ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα· ⸀πῶς σὺ λέγεις· Δεῖξον ἡμῖν τὸν πατέρα;

9 Dicit ei Jesus : Tanto tempore vobiscum sum, et non cognovistis me? Philippe, qui videt me, videt et Patrem. Quomodo tu dicis : Ostende nobis Patrem?  

10 οὐ πιστεύεις ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐστιν; τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ ⸀λέγω ὑμῖν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐ λαλῶ, ὁ δὲ ⸀πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοὶ ⸀μένων ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα ⸀αὐτοῦ.

10 Non creditis quia ego in Patre, et Pater in me est? Verba quae ego loquor vobis, a meipso non loquor. Pater autem in me manens, ipse fecit opera.

Annotations 

    8. Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us.—Philip did not understand Christ’s answer; how, namely, he who knows Christ knows also the Father. He urges therefore Christ to show them the Father Himself. “Thou sayest that the Father is in Thee, as it were lies hid in Thee. Open Thyself, and shew Him to us.”

    and it is enough for us. 1st. Says S. Chrysostom, we desire nothing else but to be shown the Father.

2d. S. Cyril, it is enough for us, viz., for blessedness, that we should be delivered from all trouble and sorrow; for since the Father is God He will bless us.

3d. it is enough for us, for confounding the Jews, who deny that Thou art the Son of God.

4th. And more simply, as though it were said, “instead of all the reasons which Thou, O Christ, bringest together, to console us in our sorrow for Thy death, we ask one, that Thou wouldst show us the Father. This one will suffice us instead of all the rest.”

    Anagogically. Hear S. Augustine, “With that joy which shall fill us with His countenance nothing more will be required.” This Philip well understood when he said, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. But he did not yet understand that he might say, Lord, show us Thyself, and it sufficeth us. But that he might understand this, he received the answer, Have I been so long time with you? &c.

Herein is that saying of S. Augustine true, “Thou sufficest for God, let God be sufficient for thee.” “For God is Saddai, i.e., sufficiency, abundance of all good things.” Wherefore the Psalmist says, “We shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear” (xvi.15); and, “They shall be inebriated from the richness of Thy house, and Thou shalt give them drink from the torrent of Thy pleasure” (xxxv. 9); and, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever” (lxxii. 25, 26).

    The reason à priori is, because God made man after His own image and likeness, wherefore He gave him an infinite capacity, and infinite desires, such as cannot be satisfied with any finite goods. Therefore it is necessary that God alone, who is infinite Good, should fill and satisfy that capacity. As S. Augustine says (lib. 1, Conf. c. 1), “O Lord, thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.” And the same saith (in Ps. lxii), “Lovest thou riches? God Himself will be thy riches. Lovest thou a fountain of good? What is more excellent than wisdom? What more full of light? Whatever here can be loved, He who made all things shall be Thine instead of all things.”

    9. Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me?   The Greek S. Chrysostom and S. Cyril make thou hast not known Me in the sing., that indeed I am not only man, but the Son of God; not diverse in essence and existence from Him, but Consubstantial with God the Father. For therefore having seen Me, you still desire to see the Father, because you think that I have a nature wholly different from the Father. As though Philip said, I have seen Jesus the Son of God: it remains for me to see His Father, as being different from Him, as is the case with men. This was the root of Philip’s mistake, which Christ removes by what follows.

    Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, shew us the Father? “Since I and the Father are plainly one and the same in the essence of Godhead—one, I say, not only in likeness, but one indivisibly, therefore he who sees Me in the Humanity which I have assumed, inasmuch as he sees Me, sees My Father also, for I and My Father are one.” Where observe, in Christ the Humanity was seen per se, but the Godhead per accidens. For It was seen not as It is in Itself, but through the Humanity, even as the soul is seen by means of the body in which it moves and operates. Wherefore he who with his bodily eye (with regard to which principally Philip asked, and Christ answered) beheld this Man, namely Jesus, per se, beheld indirectly, and per accidens His Godhead, because this Man was truly God. I am speaking as regards the essence of the Godhead, which is common to the Father and the Son. For as regards Person, it was indeed the Person of the Son which assumed human nature, not the Person of the Father. Wherefore he who directly saw this Man (Christ), directly saw the Person of God the Son lying hid in the manhood, but not the Person of God the Father, except by concomitance, as I shall show in ver. 10. Wherefore he who sees or recognises the Godhead of the Son, recognises also the Godhead of the Father, because They are one and the same. So S. Augustine, Cyril, Chrysostom, Hilary, and other Fathers passim. From this passage they prove against the Arians, 1. That Jesus was really God, so that those who saw that Man likewise saw God. 2. That there was one Person of the Father, another of the Son, which the Sabellians denied. For diversity of Persons is denoted by the words Me and Father. 3. That the Son is Consubstantial with the Father. For unless They were Consubstantial, the Son might be seen without seeing the Father: and vice versa, the Father might be seen without beholding the Son, even as happens with men. “You err therefore, O Philip, when having seen Me, you desire to see the Father, as though you were about to see another God, and another Deity, when there is but one and the same. How then sayest thou, Show us the Father, when I have shown Him unto thee in Myself?”

    This is the true sense in which Christ answers directly the question and meaning of Philip. But because Christ, taking occasion, as He is wont, from the question to rise and to carry His hearers with Him to a loftier height, this passage may, as to its second intention, be taken to apply to the perfect and proper cognition of the Father and the Son, whether by faith or by sight. As it were, He who seeth Me according to the Divinity, seeth also the Father. Because, although He is distinct from Me, yet am I in Him and He in Me by identity of nature. Wherefore He who sees, i.e. who believes, that I am the Son of God, also sees, i.e. believes, that God is my Father. And he who through the beatific vision intuitively beholds Me, intuitively beholds the Father also. So S. Cyril, Augustine, Chrysostom, Maldonatus, and others. Also Suarez, who shows from this passage that the Blessed who see the Divine Essence see also Three Persons in It.

    10. Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?  Observe 1. Here again the distinction of the Divine Persons is signified. Nor is any one properly said to be in himself, but in another. 2. The oneness of the Divine Nature is signified. For because the Father and the Son are, and exist in one and the same Divine Nature, therefore the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. Christ proved this by the effect. For He had His doctrine and works from the Father, and common with the Father. Therefore He had the same common Nature with Him. Hence, 3. By this saying is consequently signified the perfect and intimate union and indwelling of one Divine person in the Other, and the converse. By which it comes to pass that the Father is in the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Son in the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son. Damascene (l. de Fid. c. 11) calls this, περιχώρησις, and from him the schoolmen call it circumincessio. Concerning which mystery S. Augustine treats (l. 6, de Trin. c. ult.) and S. Hilary (lib. 4, de Trin.) Each one of the Divine Persons is in each of the others, not only as regards Their Essence, but also as regards Their relation and proper Person, because all are most intimately conjoined and united with One Another. Whence it follows that he who fully knows and beholds one Divine Person—as, for example, the Son—as the Blessed see Him, not only sees the Godhead common to the Father and the Son, but sees also the very Person of the Father, both because the Person of the Father is most intimately related to the Person of the Son, and also because in that relationship is included the essential order. For it is the Father who of His Essence begetteth the Son. And this is what Christ here means when He saith, Believe ye not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?

    The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself.  They are not human but Divine words. They proceed not from My Humanity, but from My Divinity, which I have received of the Father. Wherefore whoso heareth Me speak, heareth not so much Me as God the Father speaking in Me and by Me. Observe, the Godhead common to the Father and the Son was the efficient cause of the Divine words which Christ uttered. Yet the thing signified by the words was often peculiar to the Person of the Son, not of the Father, as when He said, “I am the Son of God,” “I have taken flesh,” “The things which I say and do I have received of the Father.” For these things He said concerning Himself, not the Father, as is plain. For not the Father was made man, but the Son. And yet the Father equally with the Son was the efficient cause as well of the Incarnation, as of the words uttered by the Word Incarnate. For the works of the Holy Trinity, ad extra, as theologians say, are undivided, and common to all the Three Divine Persons.

    But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works. The Father, as the prime source not only of creatures, but of the other Divine Persons, that is, the Son and the Holy Ghost. For when the Father by begetting communicated His Divinity to the Son, He communicated also His omnipotence, virtue, and power of working. Wherefore, if not the Son but the Father Himself had assumed Humanity, He would have spoken and done the self-same things which the Son spoke and did. For the Father both spoke and wrought in the Son: and also there is one Godhead and omnipotence of the Father and the Son, which spoke and wrought all things through the Humanity which He assumed. Wherefore Christ left it to be gathered by the Apostles that when they saw and heard Him speaking they were to think that they saw and heard the Father. “From these My words and deeds,” as Ribera paraphrases, “ye are able to understand how good My Father is, how kind, how much He loves you. From My miracles ye may know My omnipotence, and that I know all things, and have in Me all good. From whence ye understand that the Father likewise hath the same. And since these external things lead you to the knowledge of such great good things, what, think ye, will be yours when ye shall behold My and the Father’s Essence without glass, or figure?”

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The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

 

 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.