ACC ~ John 8 v16

JESUS JUDGES WITH THE FATHER

AUGUSTINE: Let it not by any means surprise anyone that he says, “My judgment is true”; because I am not alone, but it is I and the Father that sent me that judge. [1] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 36.12. [2]

[1] Augustine refers us to his comments on Jn 5:27 that the Son will be visible in the judgment while the Father will not.

[2] NPNF 1 7:213*.

THE FATHER AND THE SON ARE TWO, AND YET INSEPARABLE

TERTULLIAN: When… [Jesus] declares that he is not alone and uses these words, “but I and the Father who sent me,” does he not show that there are two— two and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the sum and substance of what he was teaching them, that they [i.e., Father and Son] were inseparably two. [This must be the case] since, after citing the law when it affirms the truth of two men’s testimony, he adds at once: “I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.” Now, if he were one—being at once both the Son and the Father—he certainly would not have quoted the sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one but of two. AGAINST PRAXEAS 22. [1]

[1] ANF 3:617*.

THE SON PROCEEDS BUT IS NO LESS IN DIGNITY

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: But we must know that by his saying again that he was sent, he does not show that he is second in dignity to the Father. For we must not imagine a mission befitting a servant, even though, because he was clothed in a servant’s form, he might rightly say even this of himself. But he was sent as Word from Mind, as the Sun’s radiance from itself. For these I suppose are processions [1] from those things in which they are, from their appearing to issue forth, [2] yet they exist naturally and immovably in those things from which they come. For we should not suppose that the things that mind and sun have produced, that is, Word or radiance, are devoid of Word or radiance once they have gone forth from them…. For mind will never be wordless, nor will words ever exist without the mind that fashioned them. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 4.5. [3]

[1] Gk ekphantika.

[2] Gk prokuptein.

[3] LF 43:478*.