Sermon 126

SERMO 126

ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (5:19):
"The Son can do nothing by Himself,"
"UNLESS HE SEES THE FATHER DOING"

Faith must precede understanding.

The mysteries and secrets of the kingdom of God are first sought by believers, who are made understanding. For faith is the step of understanding; understanding, however, is the merit of faith. The prophet expressly says this to all who hastily and prematurely seek understanding and neglect faith. For he says: Unless you have believed, you will not understand. Therefore, faith itself also has a certain light in the Scriptures, in Prophecy, in the Gospel, and in the Apostolic readings. For all these things which are recited to us for a time, are lamps in a dark place, so that we may be nourished until the day. The apostle Peter says: We have a more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to take heed, as to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts.

It is perverse to be unwilling to believe except what you see.

You see, therefore, brothers, how perverse and hurriedly flawed they are, who, like immature conceptions, seek abortion before birth; who say to us: Why do you order me to believe what I do not see? Let me see something, so that I may believe. You order to believe, while I do not see. I want to see, and by seeing to believe, not by hearing. The Prophet says: Unless you believe, you will not understand. You wish to ascend, and you forget the steps. Certainly perverse. O man, if I could already show you what you would see, I would not urge you to believe.

From the creatures that are seen, one must rise to the Creator who is not seen.

Therefore: Faith is, as defined elsewhere, the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. If they are not seen, how are they convinced to be? Where indeed are those things which you see, unless from that which you do not see? Surely you see something, to believe something, and from what you see, you believe what you do not see. Do not be ungrateful to Him who made you see, so that you may believe what you cannot yet see. God gave you eyes in the body, reason in the heart. Awaken the reason of the heart, erect the inner inhabitant of your inner eyes, let him take up his windows, let him look at the creation of God. For there is someone inside who sees through the eyes. For when you think deeply about something, with the inner inhabitant turned away, the things before your eyes you do not see. For the windows are open in vain, when the one who looks through them is absent. Therefore, it is not the eyes that see, but someone sees through the eyes. Lift him up, awaken him. For he has not been denied to you. God made you a rational animal, set you above the beasts, formed you in His image. Should you use your eyes just like beasts, only to see what you add to the stomach, not the mind? Therefore, lift up your rational sight, use your eyes as a man, contemplate heaven and earth, the ornaments of the sky, the fertility of the earth, the flight of birds, the swimming of fish, the power of seeds, the order of times. Contemplate the deeds, and seek the Maker. Look at what you see, and seek what you do not see. Believe in Him whom you do not see, on account of those things which you see. And lest you think I am exhorting you with my word, listen to the Apostle saying: For the invisible things of God, since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

Christ performed unusual miracles so that He might be recognized as the maker even in everyday things which had become banal.

You postponed those things, and did not perceive as a man, but as an irrational animal. The Prophet cried to you, and cried in vain: "Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding." Therefore, you saw these things and postponed them. The daily miracles of God had become worthless not by their ease but by their frequency. For what is more difficult to understand than that a man who was not should be born, should depart into the hidden by dying, and should proceed into the public by being born who was not? What is so marvelous, what is so difficult to understand, yet easy for God to do? Be amazed at these things, wake up. You are accustomed to marvel at unusual things. Are they greater than what you are used to seeing? People marveled that our Lord Jesus Christ fed so many thousands with five loaves, and they do not marvel that the earth is filled with crops from a few grains. They saw water made into wine and were astonished. What else becomes wine from rain through the vine's root? He made both those things and these. Those so that you might be fed, these so that you might marvel. But both are to be marveled at because they are works of God. A man sees unusual things and marvels. But from where is the man himself who marvels? Where was he? From where did he proceed? From where the form of the body? From where the distinct arrangement of the members? From where this beautiful appearance? From what beginnings? From such contemptible ones? And he marvels at other things, while being himself a great miracle. So from where are these things you see, if not from that which you do not see? But, as I began to say, because these things had become worthless to you, he himself came to do unusual things so that in those usual ones you might recognize your craftsman. He came to whom it is said, "Renew signs," to whom it is said, "Make your mercies wonderful." For he was bestowing them. He was bestowing them, and no one marveled. Therefore, he came small to the small, the doctor came to the sick, who could come whenever he wanted, return whenever he wanted, do whatever he wanted, judge as he wanted. And what he wanted, that was justice itself. And what he wants, I say, that is justice itself. For what he wants is not unjust, nor can what he does not want be just. He came to raise the dead, to restore to the light a man who was in the light, who daily brings forth to the light those who did not exist.

The miracle of the birth from a virgin exhibited in Christ.

He did these things, and he was despised by many, paying more attention not to how great things he did, but how small he was, as if saying to themselves: These things are divine, but this man is human. Therefore, you see two things, the divine and the human. If divine things can only be done by God, see if God dwells hidden within the man. Attend, I say, to what you see, believe what you do not see. He who called you to believe has not deserted you. Although he commanded you to believe something you cannot see, he did not leave you seeing nothing, from which you might believe what you do not see. Are the signs small, are the indications of the Creator small in the very creation? He also came, did miracles. You could not see God, but you could see a man. God was made man, so that in one you might have both what you see and what you believe. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You hear, and you do not yet see. Behold, he comes, behold he is born, behold he takes on a body, behold he proceeds from a woman, who made male and female. He who made male and female was not made through male and female. For you might indeed have despised the one who was born, you do not despise how he was born, because he always existed before he was born. Behold, I say, he took on a body; he was clothed in flesh, he proceeded from the womb. Do you now see? Now, I say, you see the flesh? I ask, but I show the flesh. You see something, and you do not see something. Behold in the very birth, behold now there are two, both what you may see and what you may not see. But that through what you see, you may believe what you do not see. You began to despise, because you see who was born. Believe what you do not see, because he was born from a virgin. How small, he says, is the one who was born. But how great is the one who was born of a virgin! And he who was born of a virgin brought you a temporal miracle. He was not born of a father, namely of a human father, and he was born of a mother. But do not consider it impossible, because he was born through only a mother, who made man before father and mother.

We are moved by the miracle of Christ's birth to believe in God the Word.

Therefore, He brought you a temporal miracle, so that you might seek and marvel at the eternal. Indeed, He, who emerged like a bridegroom from his chamber, namely from the virginal womb where the holy nuptials took place, word and flesh, brought, I say, a temporal miracle, but He Himself is eternal, He is coeternal with the Father, He is who in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But you could not see this. He made for you a means by which you might be healed, so that you could see what you could not see. What you scorn in Christ is not yet the contemplation of the healed, but the medicine of the sick. Do not hurry to the vision of the healthy. Angels see, angels rejoice, angels are fed and live, nor is what they feed upon diminished, nor is their food decreased. On sublime thrones, in the parts of heavens, in those things above the heavens, the Word is seen by angels, and is rejoiced in, and is consumed, and remains. But so that man might consume the bread of angels, the Lord of angels became man. This is our salvation; the medicine of the sick, the food of the healthy.

It must be explained how the Son does what He has seen the Father doing.

And he spoke to men, and said what you heard: The Son can do nothing by himself, except what he sees the Father doing. Now then, do we think there is anyone who understands? Now then, do we think there is anyone in whom the collyrium of the flesh is effective to behold somewhat the splendor of divinity? He has spoken, let us also speak. He, because he is the Word; we, because [we speak] of the Word. But why do we speak somewhat of the Word? Because we are made in the likeness of the Word through the Word. Therefore, as much as we can grasp, as much as we can partake in that ineffability, let us also speak, and let us not be contradicted. Our faith has preceded, so that we say: I believed, therefore I have spoken. I speak, therefore, what I believe. Whether also what I somewhat see, he sees more; you cannot see this. But when I have said it, whether one who sees what I say either believes that I also see what I said or does not believe, what is that to me? Let him see sincerely, and believe of me what he wills.

The error of the Arians in the words of the Lord.

The Son cannot do anything by himself, except what he sees the Father doing. Here arises the error of the Arians, but it arises to fall, because it does not humble itself to rise. What is it that moved you? You wish to say that the Son is lesser. For you have heard: The Son cannot do anything by himself, except what he sees the Father doing. You wish to call the Son lesser based on this. I know this, I know. This moved you. Believe that the Son is not lesser. You cannot see it yet, believe. This is what I was just now saying. But how, you ask, should I believe against his own words? He himself says: The Son cannot do anything by himself, except what he sees the Father doing. Pay attention also to what follows: For whatever the Father does, the same the Son also does. He did not say: "such things." Let your Charity pay attention a little, so that you do not make noise to yourselves. A tranquil heart is needed, with pious and devout faith, with religious intention, not in me the small vessel, but in Him who puts bread in the small vessel. So, pay attention a little. In the things we said above, encouraging to faith, so that the mind imbued with faith may be capable of understanding, the things that were said sounded festive, joyful, easy, they cheered your minds, you followed, you understood what I said. But of the things I am about to say, I do not indeed despair that some will understand, but I do not hope that all will understand. And because God proposed to us through the reading of the gospel whence we speak, nor can we avoid what the teacher proposed, I perhaps fear that those who do not understand, who will perhaps be more, may think that I have spoken to them in vain. But nevertheless, for those who will understand, I do not speak in vain. Let him who understands rejoice, let him who does not understand patiently bear what he does not understand; what he does not understand let him bear, and let him defer so that he may understand.

He refutes the Arians. He rejects their carnal sense. What the Father did, He did only through the Son.

Therefore, he does not say: Whatever the Father does, the Son also does, as if the Father does some things, and the Son does others. It seemed as though he had said this, when earlier he stated: The Son can do nothing by Himself, but only what He sees the Father doing. Pay attention. Nor does he say there, but what He hears the Father commanding, but: He sees the Father doing, he says. If, therefore, we inquire of a carnal understanding, or rather sense, it is as if he proposed two craftsmen to himself, the Father and the Son, the Father doing things without seeing, the Son doing things having seen the Father. It is still a carnal view. Nevertheless, in order to understand the higher things, let us not despise these lower and abject ones. First, let us set before our eyes something, let us assume there are two craftsmen, a father and a son. The father made a box, which the son could not make, unless he saw the father making it. He observed the box which the father made and made a similar box, not the same one. I defer briefly the words that follow, and now I ask an Arian: Do you understand thus, as I have set forth? The Father made something, which when the Son saw the Father making it, He also made something similar. For this indeed the words by which you were moved seem to imply. For he does not say: The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hears the Father commanding; but he says: The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing. Behold if you understand thus, the Father made it, and the Son observed, so that He Himself might see what to make, and He thus made something similar, such as the Father had made. By whom did the Father make this which He made? If not through the Son, if not through the Word, you fall into blasphemy against the Gospel. For all things were made through Him. Therefore, what the Father had made, He had made through the Word. If He had made it through the Word, He had made it through the Son. Who else observes, to make something else that he has seen the Father making? You are not accustomed to say the Father has two Sons. He is the only begotten from Him. By His mercy, He alone is divine, and not alone in receiving inheritance. The Father made coheirs with His only Son, not those He begat from His substance like Him, but those He adopted through Him from His household. For we are called to the adoption of sons, as the Holy Scripture bears witness.

The Father does not do other works, the Son does not do other works, but the Trinity does the same works.

What, then, do you say? The only one himself speaks, the only begotten Son speaks in the Gospel, the Word itself made words for us, we heard him saying: The Son can do nothing by himself except what he sees the Father doing. The Father has already enabled the Son to see what he does, and yet the Father does nothing except through the Son. Certainly, you are troubled, heretic, certainly you are troubled; but you are troubled as if having taken hellebore, to be healed. Now you do not find yourself, and your sentence and your carnal perception, as I believe, you also condemn. Place the eyes of the flesh behind you, raise up if you have anything in your heart, observe the divine. Indeed, you hear human words through man, through the Evangelist. Through the Gospel, you hear human words, as a man. But you hear about the Word of God, so that you may hear human things and understand divine things. The teacher aroused, to instruct; he sowed a question, to move intention. The Son can do nothing by himself, except what he sees the Father doing. It was expected that he would say: For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. He did not say this, but: Whatever the Father does, the Son does the same things. The Father does not do some things and the Son others because all that the Father does, he does through the Son. The Son raised Lazarus; did not the Father raise him? The Son gave sight to the blind man; did not the Father give sight? The Father gave sight through the Son in the Holy Spirit. It is the Trinity, but one operation, one majesty, one eternity, one co-eternity, and the same works of the Trinity. The Father does not create some men, the Son others, the Holy Spirit others. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit create one and the same man. And the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God creates.

The Trinity of persons and the unity of divinity.

Consider the plurality of persons but recognize the unity of divinity. For on account of the plurality of persons it is said: Let us make man in our image and likeness. He did not say: I will make man, and pay attention while I make, so that you too can make another. He says, Let us make. I hear plurality. In our image. Again, I hear plurality. Where then is the singularity of divinity? Read the following: And God made man. It is said: Let us make man, and it is not said: The gods made man. The unity is understood in that it is said: God made man.

The meaning of the words of Christ must be sought with true faith.

Where then is that carnal intention? Let it be confounded, hidden, destroyed. Let the Word of God speak to us. Now, being devout, now believing, now imbued with faith and having acquired some merit of understanding, let us turn to the Word itself, to the fountain of light, and say together: Lord, the Father did the same things as you; for whatever the Father does, he does through you. We heard you, the Word, in the beginning: We did not see, but we believe. There, consequently, we heard that everything was made through you. Therefore, everything that the Father does, he does through you. Therefore, you do the same things as the Father. What does this mean? Why did you want to say: The Son can do nothing of himself? For I see a certain equality with the Father in you, in that I hear: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. I recognize equality, I understand this here, I grasp it as I can: I and the Father are one. What is this: That you cannot do anything, unless you see the Father doing it? What does this mean?

The difficulty of understanding arises from not being able to see the Word.

Perhaps he says to me, or rather says to all of us: For this that I said: The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do, how do you understand my seeing? What is my seeing? Disregard for a moment the form of a servant, which he took on for your sake. For indeed, in that form of a servant, our Lord had eyes and ears in the flesh, and in that human form which we also bear, he had the same figure of body, the same features of limbs. That flesh came from Adam, but he was not Adam. Therefore, the Lord, walking either on land or on sea, as it pleased him, as he willed, because whatever he willed he could do, looked at what he willed. He cast his eyes, he saw. He turned his eyes away, and did not see. He was followed by someone from behind, seen by someone from the front. He saw with the bodily eyes what was in front. However, divinity was hidden from nothing. Set aside, set aside, I say, for a moment the form of a servant. See the form of God, in which he was before the world was made, in which he was equal to the Father. From him, accept and understand what he says to you: Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. See him there, if you can, so that you can understand what his seeing is. In the beginning was the Word. How does the Word see? Does the Word have eyes, or do our eyes find themselves in him, and not bodily eyes, but the eyes of pious hearts? For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

In Christ, the form of a servant was shown to mortals, the form of God was preserved for the blessed.

You see Christ as man and God. He shows you the man, preserves for you the God. And see that he preserves for you the God, who shows himself to you as man. He who loves me, he says, keeps my commandments. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him. And as if it were said: What will you give him whom you love? And I will show myself to him, he says. What is this, brothers? He whom they already saw, he promised to show himself to them. To whom? To those by whom he was seen, or to those by whom he was not seen? Thus speaking to a certain Apostle, he said, asking to see the Father so that it would suffice him, and saying: Show us the Father, and it suffices us. And he, standing before the eyes of the servant, in the form of a servant, preserving for the deified eyes the form of God, said to him: Have I been with you for so long a time, and you do not know me? He who sees me sees also the Father. You seek to see the Father, see me. You see me, and you do not see me. You see what I have assumed for you, you do not see what I have preserved for you. Hear the commandments, cleanse your eyes. Because: He who loves me, keeps my commandments, and I will love him. As if keeping my commandments, and as if cured through my commandments, I will show myself to him.

To see the Word is not different from the Word. Love makes capable of receiving divine things.

Therefore, brothers, if we cannot see what it is to see the Word, where are we going? What vision do we perhaps seek too hastily? What do we want to be shown that we cannot see? Therefore, these things are said which we desire to see, not because we can now comprehend them. For if you see the seeing of the Word, perhaps in what you see as the seeing of the Word, you will see the Word itself, so that the Word is not something else, and seeing of the Word is not something else, so that nothing is compounded, joined, or doubled there. For it is something simple with ineffable simplicity. It is not like a man, for a man is one thing, and the seeing of the man is another. For sometimes the seeing of the man extinguishes, and the man remains. This is what I was saying I would speak something which not all could understand, even the Lord grants that some may understand. My brothers, I exhort you to see the seeing of the Word. Is this beyond your strength because it is small? Let it be nourished, let it be completed. From where? From the commandments. Which commandments? He who loves me keeps my commandments. Which commandments? For now, we want to grow, to be strengthened, to be completed, so that we may see the seeing of the Word. Tell now, Lord, which commandments? I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Therefore, brothers, let us draw this love from the abundance of the fountain, let us take hold of it, let us be nourished by it. Hold on to that by which you may be capable. Let love generate you, let love nourish you, let love complete you, let love strengthen you, so that you see the seeing of the Word, that the Word is not one thing and the seeing of it another; but that which is the seeing of the Word is the Word. And perhaps you will quickly understand, because that which was said: The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing, is such as if he were to say: The Son would not be, unless he were born of the Father. That is enough, brothers. I know I said something which perhaps is revealed by reflection, often is obscured by many words.