ACC ~ John 12 v50

THE HUMILITY OF JESUS

CHRYSOSTOM: Do you see the humility of the words? For he who has received a commandment is not his own master. Yet he says, “As the Father raises up the dead and enlivens them, even so the Son enlivens whom he will.” [1] Does he have power then to enliven whomever he wants, and does he not have the power to say what he wants? What he intends then by the words is this: It is not possible that he [the Father] should speak one set of words and I should utter another. “And I know that his commandment is life everlasting.” He said this to those who called him a deceiver and who asserted that he had come to do harm. However, when he says “I judge not,” he shows that he is not the cause of their destruction. By this he all but plainly testifies (when he is about to remove himself from them and leave) that “I converse with you, speaking nothing on my own but everything as from the Father.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 69.2. [2]

[1] See Jn 5:21.

[2] NPNF 1 14:255*.

THE SON IS THE COMMANDMENT OF THE FATHER

AUGUSTINE: If life everlasting is the Son himself and the commandment is life everlasting, what is this but saying, “I am the commandment of the Father”? And in the same way in the following, “Whatever I speak therefore, even as the Father said to me, so I speak,” we must not understand “said to me” as if words were spoken to the only Word or that the Word of God needed words from God. The Father spoke to the Son in the same way as he gave life to the Son. It was not that the Son was ignorant or did not [already] have life. Rather, it was simply because the Son was what he was. What, then, is meant by “as he said to me, so I speak” but that I am the Word who speaks. The Father is true, the Son is truth: the True begat the Truth. What then could he say to the Truth if the Truth was perfect from the beginning and no new truth could be added to him? That he spoke to the Truth then means that he begat the Truth. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 54.8. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:298**; CCL 36:462-63.