v. 7 — If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also.

Some may perchance say and think that the Son is here speaking of His own accord, and at His own suggestion. But it is not so. For He never uttered anything in an uncalled-for, or merely casual way; though He does occasionally repeat Himself in a most instructive manner, especially because of the utter inability of some to follow His teaching. But in the present instance His words are most profitable to us in connection with what He had said just before. For when Thomas questioned Him, asking: "Whither wilt Thou depart; or how can we know the way, if we know not whither Thou wilt go?" He thereupon answered him most effectively in the words: I am the Way, and the Life, and the Truth; and again: No man cometh unto the Father but by Me; thereby shewing that if any one willed to know the way which would lead to eternal life, he would strive with all diligence to know Christ. But since it was likely that some, who had been trained in Jewish rather than in Evangelic doctrine, might suppose that a confession of faith in and a knowledge of One Person only out of all was sufficient for a right belief, and that it was needless to learn the doctrine concerning the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity; Christ seems to absolutely exclude those who hold this opinion from a true knowledge concerning God, unless they would also accept Himself. For it is through the Son that we must draw near to God the Father. For in a manner analogous to our acceptance of the Offspring, we shall arrive at our belief in the Parent also. For it is utterly impossible to doubt that a belief in the sonship of Son, as begotten of the essence of the Father, will certainly lead to a knowledge of the Father.

CyrJn 9.7.1

According then to the simpler and more obvious interpretation, He must be supposed to have spoken with this meaning: but if any one believes that He is employing subtle ideas so as to penetrate to the very root of the whole matter, he will find once more that the Son is teaching truth. The Divine Nature, indeed, is utterly incomprehensible by any human intellect; and to claim for oneself to have fully discovered Who and What in very essence the Creator of the universe is, would involve a display of absolute folly. Still, it is not impossible for us, though in a shadowy and uncertain manner, to obtain some kind of knowledge by holding up as a mirror to our mind's eye the catalogue of Divine attributes which are inherent by nature in the Son. For from a knowledge of what Christ is in Himself, and of the works He has wrought when He became Incarnate as well as before His Incarnation, one might afterwards ascend by analogous reasoning to a contemplation of the Father Who begat Him. Behold, I pray thee, the glory and the power that were His: gaze on His authority, that extended without hindrance over all. Tell me, is there anything conceivable or inconceivable that He does not appear to have achieved with perfect success at His own free will, both before and since His Incarnation? Nay, more, He Who shewed Himself to us so mighty by the evidence of His works, says expressly: I and the Father are One, and: He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. We must therefore, in reliance on what we have just quoted, pass onward from the Likeness to the Archetype, and from the Very Image to the full realisation of Him Whom the Very Image represents. We do not say, as some of the heterodox would have us say, that the Son is fashioned after the Father's likeness by means of certain attributes bestowed upon Him from without; nor even would we admit, as some in error suppose, that He is styled the Image of God the Father as possessing His glory, His power, and His wisdom, although being Himself really of a different nature: these are the foolish babblings of the heretics, sheer nonsense delicately veiled, or rather absolute impiety, designed according to their unholy and ungodly object to overthrow and destroy the doctrine of the Son's Consubstantiality with the Father. But Christ is a Son in very truth, begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly of the essence of God the Father, and as such is the Very Image and Likeness and Effulgence of Him, bearing innate within Himself the proper characteristics of His Father's essence, and possessing in all their beauty the attributes that are naturally the Father's. For we will not imitate the heretics in their extravagant madness, and degrade our own minds to such a depth of foolishness as to say that Christ in any respect differs from a Being Who is in very nature God, or to deny that He is begotten of the essence of God the Father, and so refuse to attribute to Him the glory of God; neither would we allow that any nature which was created and brought into existence out of nothing could ever, without undergoing change, be endowed with the Divine power and wisdom, or ever be such as the Divine and ineffable nature of God the Father may be imagined to be. For else, what distinction could any longer exist between the Creator and the creature; or what could intervene or sever, that is to say, between the thing made and Him Who made it, in regard to identity and essence? For if a creature possesses glory and power and wisdom exactly to the same degree as God the Father, I should be utterly unable to say, and I conceive the heretics would be in the same perplexity, wherein God's superiority can possibly consist, or how He can be greater than we or than His creature. Therefore we maintain that the Son is in no wise fashioned so as to resemble the Father by the addition of attributes from without, nor is He like a representation in a picture, adorned by us with merely ideal colours which gloss over and falsely indicate the royal dignity; but He is truly the Very Image and Likeness of His Father, displaying to us the Father's nature in clearest light by the graces that are His own by nature. And this is why Christ pronounces it impossible for any to have fully known the Father without first knowing Himself, that is, the Son.

CyrJn 9.7.2

And from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.

CyrJn 9.7.3

Wonderful, it seems to me, is the gracious intention and the unspeakably profound purpose that underlies this saying also. For after having just said: If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also, and seeming thus to reproach His disciples for their ignorance of truths so essential, He immediately passes on to comfort them with the assurance: From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him. For since they were destined to become rulers of the Churches throughout the world, in obedience to the Saviour's commission: Go ye and make disciples of all nations, for this reason above all others, as I think, He first utters a most useful truth of universal reference to all time, that whosoever knoweth the Son will most assuredly also know God the Father of Whom the Son is begotten; and then in His kindness He goes on to testify that His disciples possess this knowledge: not speaking at all by way of compliment, for He could never utter aught but truth, but inasmuch as they really knew Him and had most fully acknowledged Him. For that they knew and had believed that the Lord was really Son of God can by no means be a matter of doubt to right-minded persons. For how came it that Nathaniel the Israelite, when he heard Christ say: Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee, immediately put forth his full confession of faith, saying: Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel? Moreover, when the sea was marvellously and supernaturally calmed, how was it that those who were in the ship worshipped Him, saying: Truly Thou art the Son of God? Will any one maintain that this saying was uttered by men who did not know that He was God and begotten of God the Father? Surely such an one would give a most convincing proof of his want of intelligence. When, in the district of Caesarea Philippi, they were asked by Christ Himself: Who do men say that I the Son of Man am? did not they first of all give the opinions of others? Some, they say, think Thou art Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. But Who they themselves said that He was, they shrank not from telling Him plainly, all speaking by the mouth of their chief, and that was Peter, affirming positively: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Yet when Christ says: If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also, do not suppose that the saying is uttered entirely for the sake of the disciples: it is rather a general declaration laid down for all, the holy disciples being taken as representatives of all mankind.

CyrJn 9.7.4

Notice carefully then how clearly we shall find that they have not been ignorant that He is God and the Son of God; but when He spoke of Himself as "the Way" of God, then they did not understand what seemed to be spoken enigmatically: and this will comprise the full extent of any charge of ignorance that can be brought against them. For this reason surely, having briefly refuted the idea of their inability to understand what was told them indirectly, and then grounded on this a declaration affecting all men, teaching plainly that whosoever knows not the Son will also lose his knowledge of the Father; He then most justly testifies to the disciples' knowledge of Him, inasmuch as they had already made open confession of their faith: and this He does in the words: From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him. And He uses the word "henceforth," not with reference to that hour or that day on which He was uttering His teaching on these matters: but He uses the word in order to contrast with the days of the old and first dispensation the new and recently-arisen season of His own presence, whereby the knowledge of the Father as seen through the Son has been made clearer for all men throughout the world. Therefore also in the Book of Psalms, as speaking to God the Father, He says: The knowledge of Thee has been greatly magnified by Me. For having seen the Son excelling in deeds incredibly marvellous, and with God-befitting authority easily accomplishing His own good pleasure, we have been led on thereby to accept in reverent admiration the knowledge of the Father, believing it to be no other than the knowledge of the Son Who came forth from Him. From henceforth, therefore, ye know Him and have seen Him. For through the Son we have been led, as I said just now, to know Who the Father is, and not only have we known, but we have also beheld or seen. For knowledge indicates that mental contemplation at which one may very well arrive concerning the Divine and ineffable nature that is above all, and through all, and in all. But to have seen the Truth signifies the fulfilment of our knowledge by the vision of the miraculous works. For we have not simply known the bare fact that the Father is in His nature Life; nor have we had within ourselves the knowledge of the matter ideally and theoretically only: we have seen the truth carried out by the Son, in giving life to the dead, and restoring to existence those who had seen corruption. We have not simply known the fact that the God and Father of all is in His nature Life, and has the whole creation in subjection beneath His feet; and that He rules in sovereign authority over all things made by Him, so that, as it is written: All His works shake and tremble at Him, we have seen evidence of the truth in the action of the Son, when, in rebuking the sea and the winds, He said with all authority, Peace, be still.

CyrJn 9.7.5

Since therefore He was intending to say that "you have not only known, but have even seen the Father," He considered it essential to prefix the word "henceforth;" and why so? The reason was this: the law of Moses declared to the children of Israel, The Lord thy God is one Lord, and never offered the doctrine concerning the Son to the men of old time; it was content with driving them away from the worship of many gods and calling them to adore One, and One only: but our Lord Jesus the Christ by His Incarnation made known to us the Father through Himself by many signs and mighty works, and has shown that the nature of the Godhead which we believe to be contained in the Holy Trinity is in truth One. And so He does well to say "henceforth," on account of the imperfection of knowledge possessed by those who walk after the law, and order their lives in that system. And we must note well that in saying that He Himself and not the Father has been seen, He in no way denies the real and individual existence of the God and Father from Whom He is; nor does He even say that He Himself is the Father, inasmuch as He claims to have come to represent the Father's Person. But since He is Consubstantial with the Father, He says that His Father is seen in His Person; just as if an ordinary man's son, wishing to indicate plainly the nature of his father, were to point to himself and say to any chance inquirer in the matter: "In me thou hast seen my father." Here again, however, the Godhead will entirely transcend the power of the example to illustrate.

CyrJn 9.7.6