Friday, May 12, 2017

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Fifth Sunday of Easter


Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (John 14:12–14)

Plainly now He, being Very God, says that He will accept exceeding readily the prayers of His own people, and will supply right gladly whatever things they desire to receive, meaning of course spiritual gifts and such as are worthy of heavenly generosity. And not as the agent of another’s benevolence, nor yet as promoting another’s kindness, does He say such things—but as, with the Father, having all things in His power; and as Himself being the One through Whom are all things, both from us to God, and to us from Him.… Notwithstanding, it is by the Father through the Son that all good things are accomplished for the worthy, and the distribution of the Divine gifts is made; through the Son, I say, not as accepted in the rank of a servant, as we have already explained, but as conceived to be Co-Giver and Co-Supplier, and moreover as being truly so. For the nature of the Godhead is one, and also is believed so to be. For although it is extended to Father and Son and to the Holy Spirit, yet it has no absolute and entire severance; I mean, into each of the Persons indicated. For we shall be orthodox in believing that the Son is naturally both of the Father and in the Father, and that the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, that is, the Holy Spirit, is both of and in the Father. So then, for as much as the Godhead of Their nature both is and is conceived of as One, Their gifts will be supplied to the worthy through the Son from the Father in the Spirit, and our offerings will be carried to God manifestly through the mediation of the Son: for no one comes unto the Father but through Him, as to be sure He also Himself fully confesses. So then the Son both has become and is the Door and the Way as well of our friendship as of our progress towards God the Father, and the Co-Giver as well as Distributor of His bounty, for as much as it proceeds from a single and common generosity. For one is the nature of the Godhead in the person and substance both of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And for as much as it was unwonted in a way with them of old time, and as yet foreign to their practice, to approach the Father through the Son, He teaches this also for our profit, and laying first in His own disciples a foundation as it were of the structure, He implants in them both faith in this and knowledge, and dispatches to ourselves instruction both how we are to pray and wherein lies our hope. For He promises that He will Himself give us what we ask in prayer—a proof of the Godhead in His nature, and of the royal authority inherent in Him.

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 9.14.14

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