Then said they unto him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered,
You neither know me, nor my Father: if you had known me, you should have known my Father also.
All Commentaries on John 8:19 Go To John 8
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Those who had heard out Lord say, You judge after the flesh, showed that they did so; for they understood what He said of His Father in a carnal sense: Then said they to Him; Where is Your Father? meaning, We have heard you say, I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me. We see you alone; prove to us then that Your Father is with You.
As if He said, You ask where is Your Father? As if you knew Me already, and I were nothing else but what you see. But you know Me not, and therefore I tell you nothing of My Father. You think Me indeed a mere man, and therefore among men look for My Father. But, forasmuch as I am different altogether, according to My seen and unseen natures, and speak of My Father in the hidden sense according to My hidden nature; it is plain that you must first know Me, and then you will know My Father; If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.
What does this mean: If you knew Me, you would know My Father also, but, I and My Father are one? It is a common expression, when you see one man very like another, If you have seen him, you have seen the other. You say this, because they are so like. And thus our Lord says, It you had known Me, you had known My Father also; not that the Father is the Son, but that the Son is like the Father.
This word perhaps is used only by way of rebuke, though it seems to express doubt. As used by men indeed it is the expression of doubt, but He who knew all things could only mean by that doubt to rebuke unbelief: Nay, even we sometimes say perhaps, when they are certain of athing, e.g. when you are angry with your slave, and say, Do not you heed me? Consider, perhaps I am your master. So our Lord’s doubt is a reproof to the unbelievers, when He says, You should have known perhaps My Father also.
Great however is His confidence and fearlessness: it not being possible that He should undergo any suffering, but that which He voluntarily undertook. Wherefore it follows, And no man laid hands on Him, for His hour was not yet come. Some, when they hear this, think Christ to have been under the control of fate. But if fate comes from the verb fari, to speak, as some derive it, how can the Word of God be under the control of fate? Where are the fates? In the heavens, you say, in the courses and revolutions of the stars. How then can fate have power over Him, by Whom the heavens and stars were made; when even your will, if you exert it aright, transcends the stars? Do you think that because the flesh of Christ was placed beneath the heavens, that therefore His power was subjected to the heavens? His hour then had not yet come; i.e. the hour, not on which he should be obliged to die, but on which He should deign to be put to death.
