ACC ~ John 17 v3a

WE KNOW THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN DIVINITY

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: One who does not have the knowledge of good is wicked: for there is one good, the Father. And to be ignorant of the Father is death, just as to know him is eternal life, through participation in the power of the incorrupt One. And to be incorruptible is to participate in divinity. But revolt from the knowledge of God brings corruption. STROMATEIS 5.10. [1]

[1] ANF 2:459.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUE GOD NURTURES US TO ETERNAL LIFE

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Are we saying that knowledge is eternal life? Are we saying that to know the one true and living God will suffice to give us complete security for the future without need of anything else? Then how is “faith apart from works dead”? [1] When we speak of faith, we mean the true knowledge of God and nothing else, since knowledge comes by faith. The prophet Isaiah tells us this: “If you do not believe, neither shall you understand.” [2] But he is not talking about a knowledge that consists in barren speculations, which is entirely worthless. For one of the holy disciples said, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” [3] What then shall we say to this? How is it that Christ speaks the truth when he says that eternal life is the knowledge of God the Father, the one true God, and with him of the Son? I think, indeed, we must answer that the saying of the Savior is completely true. For this knowledge is life, laboring as it were in birth of the whole meaning of the mystery and granting to us participation in the mystery of the Eucharist, whereby we are joined to the living and life-giving Word. And for this reason, I think, Paul says that the Gentiles are made fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of Christ, [4] inasmuch as they partake in his blessed body and blood. And our members may in this sense be conceived of as being members of Christ. [5] This knowledge, then, which also brings to us the Eucharist by the Spirit, is life. For it dwells in our hearts, reshaping those who receive it into sonship with him and molding them into incorruption and piety toward God through life, according to the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, knowing that the knowledge of the one true God brings to us and promotes our union with the blessings of which we have spoken, says that it is eternal life. It is the mother and nurse of eternal life, being in its power and nature pregnant with those things that cause life and lead to life. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.5. [6]

[1] Jas 2:26.

[2] Is 7:9.

[3] Jas 2:19.

[4] See Eph 3:6.

[5] See 1 Cor 6:15.

[6] LF 48:488-89*.

ETERNAL LIFE IS TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRINITY

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: The cause of eternal life is steadfast faith, and to believe in one God, and to not attribute to others the title of God but to believe not only in the Father but also in the Son who was incarnated for us and was sent for the salvation of humankind. This doctrine expels the lie of the polytheistic error. It admits only one God while also surpassing the Jewish belief—inasmuch as the Jews worship only the Father. They surely do not understand that from the Father, by means of an unspoken word, his Son was born. It also teaches Christians to worship both the God begotten from the Father and the Spirit that is provided from the Father through the Son [1] and is in its own existence consubstantial with the Father and the Son—the very one who is perfect life and the cause of eternal life. COMMENTARY ON JOHN, FRAGMENT 132.17.3. [2]

[1] As the editors note, in the West, the filioque clause and Augustine’s On the Trinity are introduced about the same time as Theodore’s commentary.

[2] ECS 7:130.

WE WILL CONTEMPLATE THE “I AM

” AUGUSTINE: What he said to his servant Moses, “I am that I am,” … this is what we shall contemplate when we live in eternity. ON THE TRINITY 1.8.17. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 3:26*.

ETERNITY WILL BE OURS WHEN FAITH SEES

AUGUSTINE: We are distanced from eternity to the extent that we are changeable. But eternal life is promised to us through the truth. Our faith, however, stands as far apart from the clear knowledge of the truth as mortality does from eternity. At the present we put faith in things done in time on our account, and by that faith itself we are cleansed. In this way, when we have come to sight, as truth follows faith, so eternity may follow on mortality. Our faith will become truth, then, when we have attained to that which is promised to us who believe. And that which is promised to us is eternal life. And the Truth—not that which shall come to be according to how our faith shall be, but that truth that always exists because eternity is in it—the Truth then has said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” When our faith sees and comes to be truth, then eternity shall possess our now changed mortality. ON THE TRINITY 4.18.24. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 3:81-82**; CCL 50:191-92.