What the Son Says He Received

For the passages “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand,” and, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father,” and, “I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge,” and the like, do not show that the Son once lacked these privileges. For did he not have eternally what the Father has, he who is the only Word and Wisdom of the Father in substance, who also says, “All that the Father has is mine,” and that what is his is the Father’s? For if the things of the Father are the Son’s, and the Father always has them, it is plain that what the Son has, being the Father’s, was always in the Son. So it was not because he once lacked them that he said this, but because, although the Son has eternally what he has, he still has it from the Father. [a]

For someone, seeing that the Son has all that the Father has, because what he has is exactly like the Father’s and the same, might wander into the impiety of Sabellius and think that he is the Father. To prevent this, he has said, “was given to me,” and, “I received,” and, “were handed over to me,” only to show that he is not the Father, but the Father’s Word and the eternal Son, who, because of his likeness to the Father, has eternally what he has from him, and, because he is the Son, has from the Father what he has eternally. Moreover, we can learn from the passages themselves that “was given” and “were handed over” and the like do not lessen the Godhead of the Son, but rather show him to be truly Son. For if all things are handed over to him, then, first, he is other than that “all” which he has received; and next, being heir of all things, he alone is the Son, and the Father’s own according to the Father’s substance. For if he were one of the “all,” he would not be “heir of all”; each would have received as the Father willed and gave. But as it is, since he receives all things, he is other than them all, and alone is the Father’s own. [b]

Moreover, that “was given” and “were handed over” do not show that he once lacked them, we can conclude from a similar passage, and so in the same way about all of them. For the Savior himself says, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself.” By the words “has given,” he signifies that he is not the Father; but by saying “so,” he shows the Son’s natural likeness to the Father, and that he is the Father’s own. If, then, the Father once did not have life, plainly the Son once did not have it either; for as the Father has, “so” the Son has too. But if that is impious to say, and it is religious, on the contrary, to say that the Father always had it, is it not unfitting of them, when the Son says that “as” the Father has, “so” the Son has too, to say that he does not have it “so,” but otherwise? Rather, the Word is faithful, and all the things he says he has received he has always had, and yet has from the Father; the Father indeed from no one, but the Son from the Father. Take the example of radiance. If the radiance itself were to say, “The light has given me all places to light up, and I do not give light from myself, but as the light wills,” it would not mean by this that it once lacked it. It would mean, “I am the light’s own, and all that is the light’s is mine.” So, and much more, must we understand it in the case of the Son. For the Father, having given all things to the Son, still has all things in the Son; and since the Son has them, the Father still has them. For the Son’s Godhead is the Father’s Godhead, and so the Father exercises his providence over all things in the Son.

And while this is the sense of expressions like these, those that speak of the Savior in human terms also admit of a religious meaning. That is why we examined these things beforehand: so that if we hear him asking where Lazarus has been laid, or, when he came into the district of Caesarea, asking, “Who do people say that I am?” or, “How many loaves do you have?” and, “What do you want me to do for you?” we may know from what has already been said the right sense of the passages, and not stumble like Christ’s enemies the Arians. First, then, we must put this question to the impious: why do they consider him ignorant? For one who asks does not necessarily ask from ignorance; it is possible for one who knows to ask about what he knows. So John was aware that Christ, when he asked, “How many loaves do you have?” was not ignorant, for he says, “He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” But if he knew what he was doing, then he asked not in ignorance but with knowledge. From this instance we can understand similar ones: when the Lord asks where Lazarus lies, or again who people say he is, he does not ask in ignorance, but knowing the thing he was asking, and aware of what he was about to do. And so their clever point is easily exploded. But if they still persist because of his asking, then they must be told that in the Godhead there is no ignorance, but that ignorance is proper to the flesh, as has been said. And to see that this is really so, notice how the Lord who asked where Lazarus lay himself said, when he was not on the spot but a long way off, “Lazarus is dead,” and said where he had died. And notice how the very one they think ignorant is the one who knew beforehand the reasonings of the disciples, and was aware of what was in the heart of each, and of “what was in man,” and, what is greater, alone knows the Father, and says, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” [d]

So this is plain to everyone: the flesh indeed is ignorant, but the Word himself, considered as the Word, knows all things even before they come to be. For when he became man he did not cease to be God; nor, because he is God, does he shrink from what is man’s. Far from it! Rather, being God, he has taken the flesh to himself, and being in the flesh he deifies the flesh. For as he asked questions in it, so also in it he raised the dead; and he showed everyone that he who gives life to the dead and calls back the soul much more surely discerns the secrets of all. And he knew where Lazarus lay, and yet he asked. For the all-holy Word of God, who endured all things for our sakes, did this so that, carrying our ignorance, he might grant us the knowledge of his own only and true Father, and of himself, sent for our sake for the salvation of all; and no grace could be greater than that. So when the Savior uses the words they put forward in their defense, “Power has been given to me,” and, “Glorify your Son,” and when Peter says, “Power was given to him,” we understand all these passages in the same sense: that he says all this in a human way, because of the body. For though he had no need, he is nevertheless said to have received what he received in a human way, so that, on the other hand, since it is the Lord who has received, and the gift rests in him, the grace may remain secure. For while a mere man receives, he is liable to lose again, as was shown in the case of Adam, for he received and he lost. So, that the grace might be beyond recall, and might be kept securely by men, he himself makes the gift his own. And he says that he has received power, as man, the power he always had as God; and he who glorifies others says, “Glorify me,” to show that he has a flesh that needs these things. So when the flesh receives, since what receives is in him, and by taking it he has become man, he himself is therefore said to have received. [e]

If, then, as has been said many times, the Word has not become man, then ascribe to the Word, as you would have it, receiving, and needing glory, and being ignorant. But if he has become man (and he has), and it belongs to man to receive, and to need, and to be ignorant, why do we regard the Giver as a receiver, and suspect that he who supplies others is in need, and divide the Word from the Father as imperfect and needy, while we strip human nature of grace? For if the Word himself, considered as Word, has received and been glorified for his own sake, and if it is he, in his Godhead, who is made holy and has risen again, what hope is there for men? They remain as they were, naked and wretched and dead, having no share in the things given to the Son. And why did the Word come among us and become flesh? If it was so that he might receive the things he says he has received, then he was without them before, and of necessity he will rather owe thanks himself to the body, because when he came into it he received from the Father the things he did not have before his descent into the flesh. On that showing he seems rather to be promoted himself because of the body than the body promoted because of him. But this notion is Jewish. But if the Word came among us to redeem mankind, and became flesh to make them holy and deify them (and that is why he did become flesh), who does not see that what he says he received when he became flesh, he mentions not for his own sake but for the flesh’s? For the gifts given through him from the Father belonged to the flesh in which he was speaking. [f]

But let us see what he asked for, and what in all were the things he said he had received, so that in this way too they may be brought to their senses. He asked for glory, yet he had said, “All things have been handed over to me.” And after the resurrection he says that he has received all power; but even before he had said, “All things have been handed over to me,” he was Lord of all, for “all things were made through him,” and “there is one Lord, through whom are all things.” And when he asked for glory, he was what he is, the Lord of glory, as Paul says: “If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” For he had the glory he asked for when he said, “the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

The power, too, that he said he received after the resurrection, he had before he received it, and before the resurrection. For of himself he rebuked Satan, saying, “Get behind me, Satan”; and he gave the disciples power against him, when on their return he said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” And again, that he possessed before receiving it what he said he had received is clear from his driving out the demons, and from his loosing what Satan had bound, as he did in the case of the daughter of Abraham; and from his forgiving sins, when he said to the paralyzed man, and to the woman who washed his feet, “Your sins are forgiven”; and from his raising the dead, and restoring the first nature of the blind man by granting him sight. And he did all this not waiting until he should receive, but being “possessed of power.” From all this it is plain that what he had as Word, he says, once he had become man and had risen again, that he received in a human way; so that, for his sake, men from then on might have power against demons upon earth, as having become partakers of a divine nature, and in heaven, being set free from corruption, might reign forever. So we must acknowledge this once and for all: nothing that he says he received did he receive as though he did not possess it before. For the Word, being God, always had these things. But in these passages he is said to have received in a human way, so that, since the flesh received in him, from then on the gift might remain securely for us through it. For what Peter says, “receiving from God honor and glory, angels having been made subject to him,” has this meaning. As he asked in a human way and raised Lazarus in a divine way, so “he received” is said of him in a human way, but the subjection of the angels marks the Word’s Godhead. [g]

So stop, you who are hateful to God, and do not degrade the Word, nor take away from his Godhead, which is the Father’s, as though he needed anything or were ignorant, in case you are hurling your own arguments at Christ, like the Jews who once stoned him. For these things do not belong to the Word as Word; they are proper to men. When he spat, and stretched out his hand, and called Lazarus, we did not say that the triumphs were human, though they were done through the body, but that they were God’s. So, on the other hand, though human things are ascribed to the Savior in the Gospel, let us consider the nature of what is said, and that these things are foreign to God, and not impute them to the Word’s Godhead, but to his humanity. For though “the Word became flesh,” the sufferings are proper to the flesh; and though the flesh is possessed by God in the Word, the grace and the power belong to the Word. So he did the Father’s works through the flesh; and just as truly, on the other hand, the sufferings of the flesh were displayed in him. For instance, he asked questions and he raised Lazarus; he rebuked his mother, saying, “My hour has not yet come,” and then at once he made the water wine. For he was true God in the flesh, and he was true flesh in the Word. So by his works he revealed both himself as Son of God and his own Father, and by the sufferings of the flesh he showed that he bore a true body, and that it was his own. [i]