ACC ~ John 5 v37

ANTHROPOMORPHIC LANGUAGE AND GOD

CHRYSOSTOM: How then did God speak and Moses answered? [1] How did David hear a tongue that he did not know? [2] Did people ever hear the voice of God [speaking out of the midst of the fire], as you [Moses] have heard his voice and seen his shape? [3] Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are said to have seen him, and many others. So what does Christ mean here? He means to impress upon them the philosophical understanding that God has neither voice nor shape but is superior to such modes of speaking about him. For as in saying, “You have never heard his voice,” he does not mean to say that he has a voice but that they just cannot hear it. And also, when he says, “Nor have they ever seen his form,” no tangible, sensible or visible shape is implied to belong to God…. But why, he says, do I bring these things up? I do so because not only have you never heard his voice or seen his shape, but it is not even in your power to assert what you are most proud and assured of: that you have received and kept his commandments. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 40.3. [4]

[1] See Ex 19:19.

[2] Ps 81:5.

[3] Deut 4:33.

[4] NPNF 1 14:146**.

VOICE AND FORM ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF THEM

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: The puffed-up Pharisees liked to pretend that the divine Word was with them and in them and that they had come to an advanced level of wisdom…. But here they are, rejecting the living and hypostatic [1] Word of God. Their faith was not directed toward him. Instead they dishonored the impress of God the Father and refused to behold his most true form (so to say) through his God-befitting authority and power. For the divine and ineffable nature is in no other way apprehended (so far as it may be) by us than through what it effects and works. This is why Paul directs us to go from the greatness and beauty of the creatures to the proportionately higher contemplation of the Creator. [2] … This is why Jesus finds fault with Philip, who thoughtlessly imagined that he could in any other way attain to the contemplation of God the Father. It was in Philip’s power, however, to consider Jesus’ uncreated image, which shows accurately in himself the One who begat him. [3] COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 3.2. [4]

[1] A technical term that Cyril often uses to refer to the person of Christ in the Trinity.

[2] See Rom 1:20.

[3] See Jn 14:9.

[4] LF 43:300**.