Nevertheless, in order to understand those things which are higher, let us not decline these
lower and mean things. First, let us set something before our eyes in this way; let us suppose
there are two workmen, father and son. The father has made a chest, which the son could
not make, unless he saw the father making it: he keeps his mind on the chest which the
father has made, and makes another chest like it, not the same. I put off for a while the words
which follow, and now I ask the Arian; “Dost thou understand it in the sense of this suppos-
ition? Hath the Father done something, which when the Son saw Him do, He too hath done
something like it? For do the words by which thou art perplexed seem to have this meaning?”
Now He doth not say, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He heareth the Father
enjoin.” But He saith, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father
do.” See, if thou understand it thus; the Father hath done something, and the Son attendeth
that He may see what He Himself too hath to do; and that, some other thing like that which
the Father had done. This which the Father hath done, by whom hath He done it? If not by
the Son, if not by the Word, thou hast incurred the charge of blasphemy against the Gospel.
“For all things were made by Him.” 3765 So then what the Father had done, He had done
by the Word; if by the Word He had done it, He had done it by the Son. Who then is that
other who attends, that He may do some other thing which he seeth the Father do? Ye have
not been wont to say that the Father hath two sons: there is One, One Only-Begotten of
Him. But through His mercy, Alone as regards His Divinity and not Alone as regards the
inheritance. The Father hath made coheirs with His Only Son; not begotten them like Him
of His Own Substance, but adopted them by Him out of His Own family. For “we have been
called,” as Holy Scripture testifieth, “into the adoption of sons.”3766
10. What then sayest thou? It is the Only Son Himself That speaketh; the Only-Begotten
Son speaketh in the Gospel: the Word Himself hath given us the words, we have heard
Himself saying, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do.”
Now then the Father doeth that the Son may see what to do; and nevertheless the Father
doeth nothing but by the Son. Assuredly thou art confused, thou heretic, assuredly thou art
confused; but thy confusion is as from taking hellebore, that thou mayest be cured. Even
now thou canst not find thine own self, thou dost even thyself condemn thine own judgment
and thy carnal view, I think. Put behind thee the eyes of the flesh, raise up what eyes thou
hast in thine heart, behold things divine. They are men’s words it is true thou hearest, and
by a man, by the Evangelist, by the Gospel thou hearest men’s words, as a man; but it is of
the Word of God thou hearest, that thou mayest hear what is human, come to know what
is Divine. The Master hath given trouble, that He might instruct; hath sown a difficulty,3767
3765 John i. 3.
3766 Eph. i. 5.
3767 Quæstionem.
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On the words of the Gospel, John v. 19, ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself,…