Father, glorify your name.
Then came there a voice from heaven, saying,
I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
All Commentaries on John 12:28 Go To John 12
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
The Evangelist did not say that it was the Father Who uttered the voice from above, but that the voice came from heaven; in order that no heretics, because they heard that the Father spake, might attempt to say that also the Divine Nature, to wit, the Father, is encompassed with a gross body. Wherefore he speaks indeed of the harmonious voice, but how the voice was brought to pass it is not in our power to say. But what the interpretation of its words signifies is this: The Son was conspicuous by many signs, the Father withal working the miracles along with Him; and inasmuch as He was Fellow-worker with Him in all things which He did, He says now that He has glorified [His Name,] and freely promises that He will also glorify it again, through the sign at His Death. For inasmuch as the Son is both God of God, and Life born of That which is by nature Life, He raised Himself from the dead; but inasmuch as He is regarded as a Man like us, albeit without sin, He is not regarded as having raised Himself, but as risen by the power of the Father. 30 Jesus answered and said unto them, This voice hath not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
The Father replied aloud----after what manner He only knows----unto His own Son, manifesting His own purpose with intent to rouse the zeal of the hearers, that they might believe without any doubt that He is by Nature the Son of God the Father. But the multitude were perplexed and divided unto different surmisings, without understanding. For they ought to have apprehended that it was the Father that gave answer, unto Whom the Son had addressed His words. For the Son asked not for thunder to come, nor for an angel to utter a voice, nevertheless He saith: The Voice hath not come for My sake, but for your sakes. For He knew the purpose of Him Who begat Him, even if no word had been uttered, for that He was and is the Wisdom and Word of the Father. For your sakes therefore, He says, the Voice hath come; in order that ye may receive Me as Son of God, Whom the Father knoweth to be by Nature His own Son. Now the Lord says that the Voice hath come; yet He adds not that it was the Father's Voice, nor how it came: for this is a superfluous matter. He affirmed however that although they had even heard a Voice as from heaven, they persisted none the less in their impiety
