John 5:19

Verily, Verily, &c... cannot : "not from defect of power," says Euthymius, "but on account of inseparability. For it is impossible that the Son should do anything which the Father does not." So S. Chrysostom and S. Augustine. Except, or unless. This word is not here exceptive, signifying the same as but only. It has the same meaning in Matthew 12:4.

What He seeth : Greek, βλέπη, i.e., may see. For it is not before He worketh, but as soon as He seeth the Father working, that He, Christ, worketh with Him. For Christ as God does not produce what is similar, but what is identical with the work of the Father. For the action of the Father, which both see and work together, is the same. I say action, but not the Hypostatic Union, nor the things which depend upon it, for this union has not to do with action, but with the terminus in quo. Wherefore, although the whole Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by their Divine action, have brought about this Hypostatic Union, yet the union itself is terminated in the Son, and does not extend to the Father and the Holy Ghost. Wherefore the Son only, not the Father and the Holy Ghost, became incarnate, and died, &c.

Observe, Christ in this place only means to say that He has received from God the Father His Divine Essence, power, and working, as from His Author. He makes use of the word see, as if the Son did nothing except what He seeth the Father do, or what He sees to be the work of His Father. For children and pupils are wont to imitate the ways and deeds of their fathers and teachers. Christ is speaking after the manner of men, or as amongst men it becomes a son to speak of his father.

It may be added that Christ in a proper and theological sense uses the word see, because He proceeds from the Father as the Word, which is the term of the vision and the notional cognition of God the Father. For the Father, as seeing and understanding Himself and all things, produces and begets the Word, and by this communicates to Him His own vision and action. Therefore the Son neither seeth, nor doeth anything except what He seeth the Father see, or do. For He Himself is the Word and the Idea, in whom, as a Term, the Father expresses and imprints all His own vision and cognition, both speculative and practical. The meaning then is this, "Whatever I work, the Father worketh the same, and by altogether the same vision, cognition, will, power, and action. Wherefore if ye accuse Me because I have healed one paralysed on the Sabbath day, ye accuse God the Father also. For He hath wrought this with Me, because He in Me and by Me worketh all things. Indeed, I have received all My work from the Father. Wherefore, if ye believe that God the Father works all things rightly, wisely, and holily, ye ought to believe the same of Me, and therefore that this healing on the Sabbath was a work prudent, holy, and Divine."

Doth likewise : altogether in the same manner, with the same liberty, the same power, the same authority. So S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 2 , de Filio). S. Cyril says, "They do likewise, or work in like manner, who are altogether of the same nature: but as to things which have a diverse essence there cannot be in them the same mode of working. As therefore He (the Son) is God of true God, He is able to do likewise the same things as the Father."

Ver. 20. For the Father, &c. Showeth, not as a master to a disciple, says Euthymius, but as a father to a son, as God to God. Showeth therefore means gives, communicates, especially because, as I have said, the Son by demonstration, i.e., by understanding and vision, proceedeth as the Word from the Father. To show in the sense of give, exhibit, attribute, is used in 1 Samuel 14:12; Exodus 33:19; Psalms 4:6, &c. That this is the meaning here is plain from what follows. Moreover, the Father showeth, i.e., communicates all things to the Son in that He is God, not by free love, but by nature, out of the fecundity of the Divine Essence, of which the greatest sign among men is love. For he who among men communicates all things to his son, by so doing gives an eminent token that he loves him in the highest degree. Moreover, the Father communicates all things to the Son in that He is Man, of which communication love is not the sign, but the cause. "For the Father to show to the Son," says Bede, "is by the Son to do what He doeth."

Admirably does S. Athanasius say (Disp. cont. Arium. lib. 1), "The Almighty Father hath given to the Son omnipotence, majesty to majesty, to virtue He has given virtue, to the prudent one He has given prudence, foreknowledge to the foreknowing, eternity to eternity, Divinity to Divinity, equality to equality, immortality to immortality, invisibility to invisibility, to a king a kingdom, life to life; and He hath given not something other than that which He hath; and as much as He hath, so much hath He given."

You will ask why to manifest and to show here and elsewhere are put for to give and to communicate. I reply (1.) because God by showing Himself and His works to the Son, communicates to Him His own knowledge, and consequently His essence. For God's knowledge is the same thing as His essence. (2.) By showing, He illuminates the Son, i.e., He communicates His own light of wisdom, and of all good, and Himself, wholly to Him. For God is the uncreate and infinite Light, as S. John shows (1 Epist. i. 5). Lastly, by showing, i.e., by understanding, He produces the Word, i.e., the Son. For in God the most noble thing is understanding, and the most noble action is to understand, to illuminate, to show. For the noblest and chief power of the soul is intellect and reason. These command the will, and guide it as it were blindfold; and by it they rule and move all the other senses and powers of the soul. Hence comes the axiom of the wise, "Mind effects all things:" it is the part of reason to govern. Just as strong as any one is in intellect, so far is he able to command. For the intellect in conceiving and understanding, by means of conception and intelligence, in a lively manner incorporates all those things into itself, and as it were possesses them. For it conceives all things in itself in a certain lively manner, and forms an appearance of them in itself, which presents to it all the goodness and beauty of things. Wherefore the understanding is the eye of the mind. As in the body the eye is the noblest and most efficacious sense, which incorporates into itself the forms of all things, far more does the understanding do this in the mind. Wherefore the blessed in heaven, by means of the understanding, in understanding and seeing God, incorporate Him into themselves, possess Him, and are blessed by Him. This then is the reason of this mode of speech by which to show is taken for to give, to communicate, to bring one into possession of the thing shown. This is what Aristotle says, "The intellect by understanding becomes all things," because by a lively conception of things it assimilates itself to them, and them to itself. Thus it seizes and holds them, and makes them to exist in a nobler and better manner in itself than they are in themselves. For in themselves they are often dead and inanimate, but in the intellect they are living and animated. They live in the highest and most excellent vital act.

And will show greater things : by showing will give and communicate. These greater things are more illustrious mysteries and miracles, especially the raising of the dead, and the authority to judge all men; of both which Christ proceeds to speak.

That ye may marvel. He does not say that ye may believe. For the scribes and the Jews, when they saw so many miracles of Christ, wondered at His power, but yet were blinded by envy and hatred, and would not believe in Him as the Messiah. Still Christ did those things with the intention that they should believe in Him. The heretics act in just the same way even now. They admire the wisdom, holiness, and miracles of the orthodox saints, but will not follow their faith, nor imitate their manner of living. Such is heresy, and the blindness, obstinacy, and malignity of error.