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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Or thus: The Apostles did not yet know what the resurrection was of which He spoke when He said, I go, and come again to you; or what they ought to think of it. They only knew the great power of the Father. So He tells them: Though ye fear I shall not be able to save Myself, and do not trust to My appearing again after My crucifixion; yet when ye hear that I go to My Father, ye should rejoice, because I go to one greater, one able to dissolve and change all things. …
Cyril of Alexandria
If ye loved Me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father; for My Father is greater than I. CHAPTER I. That in nothing is the Son inferior to God the Father, but rather equal to and like Him in nature. He turns the occasion of sorrow into a source of solace, and plainly rebukes them because they do not rather rejoice at what now gives them pain: and at the same time tries to teach them, that those who practise an unaffected and sincere love towards others, must not merely seek their own pleasure and advantage, but rather …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Since the Lord saw that the apostles did not fully hope in His resurrection, and did not even know what it was, and therefore grieved greatly and were troubled at the thought of separation from Him, He condescends to their weakness and says: "I told you that I would go and come again; and yet you still grieve, for you do not trust Me that, although I will die, I will not abandon you in your sorrows. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
Though He was only going for a time, their hearts would be troubled and afraid for what might happen before He returned; lest in the absence of the Shepherd the wolf might attack the flock: Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again to you. In that He was man, He went: in that He was God, He stayed. Why then be troubled and afraid, when He left the eye only, not the heart? …
Gregory the Dialogist
The Lord himself also says: "I and the Father are one." And again he says: "The Father is greater than I." Of whom it is also written that he was subject to his parents. What wonder then if from his humanity he asserts himself less than the Father in heaven, from which he was also subject to his parents on earth?
Hilary of Poitiers
He who has not grasped the manifest truths of the faith, obviously cannot have an understanding of its mysteries; because he has not the doctrine of the Gospel he is an alien to the hope of the Gospel. We must confess the Father to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, by unity of nature, by might of power, as equal in honour as Begetter and Begotten. But, perhaps you say, the witness of our Lord Himself is contrary to this declaration, for He says, The Father is greater than I. Is this, heretic, the weapon of your profanity? …
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