Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Cyril of Alexandria
And I think that this would really suffice: yet I will also say something else by way of exposing the insolence of their loquacity. For come now, if it seems good to thee, and let us, having summarized for the present occasion in few words the doctrine of the Incarnation, show concerning the Only-Begotten Himself that it was well and rightly said: I speak not from Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Surely, Lord, before the Father sent You and gave You a commandment, did You not know what to say, did You not know that commandment which is eternal life? Did You not know this eternal life? How then did You say: "I am the life" (John 11:25)? Do you see what kind of inconsistency arises if we do not prudently understand what is being said? So know that the Lord expresses Himself so humbly because His listeners are weak. And what does He wish to express by this? That He says nothing, thinks nothing different from the Father. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
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; Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak, we must not understand, said unto Me, as if words were spoken to the Only Word. The Father spoke to the Son, as He gave life to the Son; not that the Son knew not, or had not, but that He was the Son. …
Thomas Aquinas
Chrysostom explains all this differently, and more clearly. First of all: If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him. Now one is said to be condemned in two ways: either by a judge or by the reason for the condemnation. For a murderer is condemned to be hanged both by the judge who passes sentence and by the murder he committed, which is the reason for his condemnation. …
Bonaventure
And I know that his commandment is eternal life; whence Matthew nineteen: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments"; Deuteronomy thirty: "Choose therefore life, that both you and your seed may live, and that you may love the Lord your God and obey his voice"; and therefore I do not turn aside from his commandment. …
Translation