John 10:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then, showing that the hand is one, He calls it now His own and now the Father's. When you hear the word "hand," imagine nothing sensory, but power and authority. If no one could snatch them away because the Father clothed Him with power, then the next saying, "I and the Father are one," would be superfluous. If He were less than the Father, this saying would be extremely bold, because it shows nothing other than equality of power.

Observe also the distinction. Where He used "one," He did not say, "He who sent Me," but "the Father." Where He wished to prove unity and identity, He did not say, "I and He who sent Me are one," but "I and the Father are one." Between the Father and the Son there is nothing intermediate. But where "greater" appears, He adds, "He who sent Me." To send belongs to the divine economy. To be sent is not an explanation of the Godhead, but an explanation of the divine economy. For God neither sends bodily nor is sent bodily.

Listen to how this is so. One who sends sends to places where he is not personally present. Therefore show a place where the Father was not. Show a place where the Son was not present. Point out a place free from the Holy Spirit. Certainly one could point out such a place if he understood literally that one sent and the other was sent. Therefore the word "sent" signifies not passage from place to place, but the Incarnation. When Scripture says, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John" (Jn 1:6), we certainly do not think that John came from heaven. If he was there, how was he sent? But because a certain task was entrusted to him, Scripture called this a sending. Isaiah, in Jerusalem, in the very temple, saw "the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" (Is 6:1). Being in the city and in the temple, beholding the vision and being counted worthy to see God as far as is possible for man, he heard God saying, "Whom shall I send?" (Is 6:8). He was among the people. How, then, is he sent to the people? Thus, sending denotes not local passage and not servile ministry, but an appointment determined for a person. Otherwise, if you are a slave to the letter, be ashamed even of the letter. If the Lord is sent, how does He say, "He who sent Me is with Me" (Jn 8:29)? No one who sends goes together with the one sent. Otherwise it would not be sending, but going together. "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (Jn 14:10). Where is the sending here? And lest anyone think that the saying, "The Father who sent Me is with Me," was spoken with regard to activity and assistance, the Lord says, "The Father who dwells in Me" (Jn 14:10), and, "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (Jn 14:11).

Isaiah foretold this saying when he said, "The labor of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours. They shall follow you; they shall come in chains and bow down before you. They shall make supplication to you, saying, 'Only in you is God, and there is no other God'" (Is 45:14). How is this possible? If another is in Him, then how is there no other besides Him? "In you is God, and there is no other God." Is this not the interpretation of that Gospel proclamation which says, "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me," and, "I and the Father are one"? The expression "In you is God, and there is no other God" interprets the words, "I and the Father are one." Notice the wisdom of this saying and the fullness of its power. The saying "I and the Father are one" is a two-edged sword cutting down heretics on both sides. The word "one" exposes the madness of the Arians, and the word "are" exposes the Sabellian confusion. "In you is God, and there is no other God." To show that the same God is in God, the prophet adds, "You are a hidden God" (Is 45:15).

Did you not know that He is God? Did Moses not foretell this before you? Did you not come after the twenty-first generation from Moses? From Moses to David there are seven generations. From David to Isaiah there are twelve generations. Isaiah was two generations before the Babylonian captivity. How, then, does the prophet Isaiah say of Him, whom the prophets preached fifteen generations earlier as God, and of whom Moses said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord," and of whom Samuel cried the same thing. And of whom David certainly preached the same, and of whom every prophet likewise foretold the same, how, I repeat, does Isaiah say of Him, "You are a hidden God," unless he truly points to the Savior, who certainly existed then, but remained unknown? By the words "You are a hidden God," the prophet does not rebuke his own ignorance, but assumes the person of the people. The teaching, "You are a hidden God," corresponds to the words, "O Lord, Your arm was lifted high, but they did not see it" (Is 24:11). Yet that he could say, "Truly You are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior" (Is 45:15), hear the angels speaking and proclaiming good tidings to the shepherds: "Do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all people: for there is born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:10-11).

"You are the God of Israel, the Savior of all. Those who oppose You shall be ashamed and confounded; they shall go away in shame" (Is 45:15-16), because they will become like those who do not exist and will grow old like a garment. By "those who oppose" he means those who resist the word. If you say to a Greek or to someone else alien to the true religion that there is a God, he does not argue. But if you say that Christ exists, he becomes frenzied. Blessed David also says this in one place: "The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble. He sits upon the cherubim; let the earth be moved" (Ps 98:1). Who "sits"? Is it not clearly He to whom the same prophet, Isaiah, says, "You who sit upon the cherubim, appear; stir up Your might and come to save us"? Do you see that the craft used by heretics has no place before words such as these? But where equality of honor is meant, it says, "I and the Father." Where the divine economy is meant, we read, "He who sent Me is greater than I." In view of His being sent, the Lord is less in comparison with the Father, but not in view of Their divine union.

But someone will ask, "How did the Lord say that no one would snatch them out of My Father's hand, when we see many perishing?" To this one may answer that no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand, but many can deceive them. No one can drag them away from the Father, God, by force and against His sovereign power. Yet through deception we stumble every day.

We think rightly when we affirm that both the human and the divine sayings, those proper to the human and divine natures, are spoken by One.

Thus, when He says of Himself what belongs to the Godhead, "I and the Father are one," we understand here His divine and ineffable nature.

According to this nature He is one with His Father through identity of essence, as His image, reflection, and radiance of glory.

But when He does not disregard the measure of humanity and addresses the Jews with the words, "But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth" (Jn 8:37), we again acknowledge Him in His human limitation.

Yet we acknowledge Him as in no way less than equal to the Father.

For if we believe that, being God by nature, He became man, or as man was animated by a rational soul, what reason have we to be ashamed of His sayings that correspond to His humanity?

If He refused the words fitting to man, who compelled Him to become man like us?

Having brought Himself down for our sake into voluntary abasement, for what reason would He reject the words fitting to that condition of abasement?

Therefore all the sayings in the Gospels must be referred to one person, πϱοσώπῳ, and to the one hypostasis, ὑποτάσει, of the incarnate Word. For according to these sayings, there is one Lord Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, if the Father is greater than all, that is, as possessing divine superiority over creatures, He must be outside all and above all.

If, having such a nature and such dignity, He is one with the Son, then how will the Begotten be identical in essence with the Unbegotten Father?

Or how can He Who is greater than all together with the Father, and greater precisely as God in comparison with creatures, be numbered as a creature among all things?

"I and the Father are one." By the word "one" He designates identity of essence. By the word "are" He divides what is contemplated into a duality, and again binds it into one Godhead.

Against the Arians we must also refer to this: in the words, "I and the Father are one," there is no indication of sameness of will, ταὐτοβουλία, but of unity of essence.

The Jews understood it in this way, namely, that by saying this He calls Himself God and equal to the Father.

Christ did not deny that He had said it in precisely the sense in which they understood it.

We say that the Father and the Son are one, not confusing Them in number, as some call the Father and the Son one and the same person.

Rather, we believe that the Father exists distinctly in hypostasis, and the Son distinctly. We bring the Two into one identity of essence and hold that They have one power.

Thus each appears in the other immutably and wholly.

According to the teaching of the great Gregory, one must preserve the one God and confess three hypostases, each with its own property. For, according to his teaching, the Trinity is divided, yet indivisibly; and united, yet distinctly. Wondrous division and union! But what wonder would there be if the Father were united with the Son and divided from Him in the same way that one man is united with and divided from another, and nothing more?

Rather, He showed that the Son who is of the Father was produced precisely as the Father's likeness to save, having imprinted in Himself the whole likeness from His nature. He appears as the unchanging Image of the Father and the sealed impress of the Archetype.

To show the equality of honor and glory that He has in all things with the Father. He also shows that the Father is not first, though He is the cause of the Son, and that the Son is not second, though He was begotten of the Father. Nor is the Holy Spirit third, though He proceeds from the Father. For since the Trinity is one from the beginning, and this one is called Trinity according to the hypostases, it follows that none of these three hypostases, or persons, can be first before another. Nor was any of them before another, so that the one that was before would be first before the one that shone forth from Him. The one Trinity is one Godhead. It is called Trinity according to the persons, or hypostases. Since God is indivisibly divided into three persons, united into one without confusion, He is also called God the Trinity. And not one of these three hypostases was before another in any way. The Father was not before the Son, nor the Son before the Father, nor the Father and the Son before the Holy Spirit, so that one would be first before another. All three persons are equally without beginning, coexistent, and co-eternal. Therefore the Holy Trinity is one God, ineffable, without beginning, uncreated, incomprehensible, and indivisible. It is impossible for us either to comprehend Him with the mind or to define Him worthily in speech.

According to persons or hypostases, however, They are not one, but three. To acknowledge that one of Them proceeds from two is utterly absurd.

Tell me, then, how do you say the Spirit proceeds? From the Father and the Son, or from one nature?

Certainly, you say, from the Father and the Son. That is, one proceeds from two persons, because Father, Son, and Spirit are names of persons.

But if you say, "from the Father and the Son," not as persons, but as being one by nature, what prevents one who joins the third person to the two from saying, "from the Father and the Son and the Spirit"?

For the Three are also one by nature. Thus you would allow the Spirit to proceed even from Himself.

Or again: since the Spirit and the Father are one, why on this basis do you not say that the Son, Who is begotten of the Father, is also begotten of the Spirit?

According to you, one would have to speak thus, though the blasphemy falls upon your own head: that the Father is also begotten and proceeds from the Son and the Spirit.

For the Three are one, and what is said of any one of Them must, by your rule, be said also of the others.

In reality, once one absurdity has been admitted, others necessarily follow.

The first absurdity is this: because the Father and the Son are one, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father, it makes no difference to say that He proceeds also from the Son.

But you ought to take into account not only the word "one," but also "are," and in this perceive the distinction of persons.

For He distinguished the persons when He said, "I and the Father." Then, having united Them according to nature, He again distinguished Them: "are one."

Together He indicated both the commonality of essence and the distinction of hypostases. By both He rejected beforehand your confusion of persons on the basis of the expression "one."

For in general, beings that are one by nature are many in number. Separate men, for example, while one by nature, are not limited in number.

Only here, although many men are one by nature, there is not one man, but many men.

But there, although three are numbered, there are not three Gods, but one God in Trinity. Moses, the seer of God, also proclaims this, saying, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6:4).

Abraham first offers hospitality to the Trinity, and yet calls Her Lord in the singular (Gen 18). Through this, however, the Trinity does not cease to be Trinity.

Although there is one God, and one Lord is named, this is because of the perfect identity and immutability of essence.

It is also because of co-unoriginate existence and co-eternity, equality of honor and common glory, unity of authority and will, and natural power and operation.

Yet He is also acknowledged as Trinity, and Her names are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Only-begotten Son, Who is one of the Trinity, revealed these to us.

If you too had followed Him and distinguished the persons in Their unconfused union, and had preserved the particular property of each, you would not have posited anything absurd from the beginning.

Nor would other absurdities have followed upon that first proposition.

The Father and the Son are "one in essence, not in person" (Origen, Selecta in Ps. 135). They are not one as in Swedenborg, where the divine is the Father and the human is the Son. Nor are they one as in Sabellius, Υιοπατηρ, Son-Father, or in Noetus, where the Son is the same as the Father. Renan, repeating Swedenborg, writes: "God does not speak with him, Jesus, as with someone outside Him; God is in him... He lives in God through constant communion... But he does not proclaim Himself consubstantial with God." It is true that the Son is in constant inward communion with the Father, Jn 8:16. But it is false that the Son did not confess Himself consubstantial with the Father. He says directly, "I and the Father are one." It is also false that "God does not speak with Him as with someone outside Him." The Son and the Father act as two distinct persons. The Father bears witness to the Son with a voice from heaven: "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again" (Jn 12:30).