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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Cyril of Alexandria
And by the words I came out from God, we must surmise that He means either I was begotten from, and manifested Myself out of, His Substance (the words being taken with reference to what goes before as to His existing in a sense independently of His Father but not altogether separately from Him; for the Father is in the Son, and the Son again by Nature in the Father); or we must take the words "I came out from," as meaning I became even as you are; that is, a Man, endued with your form and nature. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Then, lest they fall away from Christ, since they no longer have need of Him and stand in the direct love of the Father, He says: "The Father loves you, because you have loved Me." Therefore, if you fall away from My love, you will immediately fall away from the Father also.
Clement of Alexandria
But what is loveable, and is not also loved by Him? And man has been proved to be loveable; consequently man is loved by God. For how shall he not be loved for whose sake the only-begotten Son is sent from the Father's bosom, the Word of faith, the faith which is superabundant; the Lord Himself distinctly confessing and saying, "For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me;" and again, "And hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me?" What, then, the Master desires and declares, and how He is disposed in deed and word, how …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
"For the Father Himself," He says, "loveth you, because ye have loved me." Is it the case, then, that He loveth, because we love; or rather, that we love, because He loveth? Let this same evangelist give us the answer out of his own epistle: "We love Him," he says, "because He first loved us." This, then, was the efficient cause of our loving, that we were loved. And certainly to love God is the gift of God. He it was that gave the grace to love Him, who loved while still unloved. …
Thomas Aquinas
2157 Here he gives the reason for the promise, which is the Father's love for them: and first, he mentions the Father's love; secondly, the proof of this love, because you have loved me. 2158 He says: I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you, for then it might seem that the Father did not love them. …
Bonaventure
For the Father himself loves you, and therefore gladly hears you; and the reason for this is: Because you have loved me: above in the fourteenth chapter: "He who loves me will be loved by my Father"; not only was love the cause, but also faith: and you believed that I came forth from God. And by the merit of faith they deserve to be heard, because it is said in Matthew twenty-one: "All things, whatever you ask in prayer believing, you shall receive." Because therefore you have believed, you deserve to be heard. …
Translation