Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word;
All Commentaries on John 17:20 Go To John 17
Hilary of Poitiers
AD 368
And this unity is recommended by the great example of unity: As you, Father, are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be one in Us, i.e. that as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, so after the likeness of this unity, all may be one in the Father and in the Son.
Heretics endeavoring to get over the words, I and My Father are one, as a proving unity of nature, and to reduce them to mean a unity simply of natural love, and agreement of will, bring forwards these words of our Lord’s as an example of this kind of unity: That they may be all one, as You, Father, is in Me, and I in You. But though impiety can cheat its own understanding, it cannot alter the meaning of the words themselves. For they who are born again of a nature that gives unity in life eternal, they cease to be one in will merely, acquiring the same nature by their regeneration: but the Father and Son alone are properly one, because God, only-begotten of God, can only exist in that nature from which He is derived.
Or, the world will believe that the Son is sent from the Father, for that reason, viz.because all who believe in Him are one in the Father and the Son.
By this giving and receiving of honor, then, all are one. But I do not yet apprehendin what way this makes all one. Our Lord, however, explains the gradation and order in the consummating of this unity, when He adds, I in them, and You in Me; so that inasmuch as Hewas in the Father by His divine nature, we in Him by His incarnation, and He again in us bythe mystery of the sacrament, a perfect union by means of a Mediator was established.
