As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me, even he shall live by me.
All Commentaries on John 6:57 Go To John 6
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
CHAPTER III. That the Son is not a Partaker of Life from any other, but rather Life by Nature, as being begotten of God the Father Who is Life by Nature.
Obscure is the meaning of this passage, and enveloped in no passing difficulty: but it will not entirely attain to impenetrability: for it will be apprehended and got at by those who choose to think aright. When then the Son saith that He was sent, He signifieth His Incarnation, and nothing else. And when we speak of His Incarnation, we mean that He was made Man complete. As then the Father (He saith) hath made Me Man, and since I God the Word, was begotten Life of That which is by Nature Life, and, made Man, have filled My Temple, that is, My Body, with Mine Own Nature; in like manner shall he also who eateth My Flesh live because of Me. For I took mortal Flesh: but, having dwelt in it, being by Nature Life, because I am of the Living Father, I re-elemented it wholly into Mine Own Life, I have not been overcome of the corruption of the flesh but have rather overcome it, as God. As then (for again I will say it shrinking not for profits sake) although I was made (He says) Flesh (for this the being sent meaneth), I live again because of the Living Father, that is, retaining in Myself the natural excellence of Him That begat Me, so he too who, by the participation of My Flesh, receiveth Me in himself shall live, wholly trans-elemented entire into Me, Who am able to give life, because I am (as it were) of life-giving Root, that is God the Father. But He says that He was Incarnate by the Father, although Solomon says, Wisdom builded her an house: and the blessed Gabriel attributeth the creation of the Divine Body to the Operation of the Spirit, when he was speaking with the holy Virgin (for The Holy Ghost, he says, shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee) that thou mayest again understand, that the Godhead being by Nature One, conceived of both in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Ghost,----not severally will Each in-work as to ought of things that are, but whatever is said to be done by One, this is wholly the work of the whole Divine Nature. For since the Holy Trinity is One in respect of consubstantiality, one full surely will be also Its Power in respect to every thing. For all things are of the Father through the Son in the Spirit. But what we have often said, this we will again say. For to say the same things, though it be burdensome, yet it is safe. It was the habit of our Saviour Christ for our profit to attribute those things which surpass the power suitable to man, to the Operation of the Father. For He hath humbled Himself being made Man: and since He accepted the Form of a servant, He spurneth not the measure of servants, yet will He not be excluded from doing all things with the Father. And He That begat Him worketh all things through Him, according to the Word of the Saviour Himself, The Father (He says) That dwelleth in Me, Himself doeth the works. Having then given to the dispensation of the Flesh what befits it, He attributeth to God the Father what is above man's power. For the building a Temple in the Virgin surpasseth man's power.
But our opponent will again reply: 'And in what other mode did the Son reveal what He is by Nature, or how did He shew clearly that the Father is greater, save by saying, I live because of the Father? For if the Father is the Giver of Life to the Son, who will rush on to so great stupidity as not full surely to conceive that that which partakes of life, will not be the same by nature as life or that which is mighty to quicken?'
To such things we too will array in turn the word of the truth, and opportunely say, The fool will speak folly, and |426 his heart will conceive vain things, to practise transgression, and to utter error against the Lord. For what can be more wicked than such a conception of the heretics? How is not the deepest error uttered by them against Christ who quickeneth all things, since those most foolish ones blush not to say, that He lives by partaking of life from another, just like His creatures? Will then the Son at last be a creature too, inasmuch as it is a partaker of life, but is not very life by nature? for the creature must needs be wholly other than that which is the life in it. But if they suppose that they may be the same, let them call every creature life. But I do not suppose that any one in his senses would do that. Therefore neither is the Only-Begotten a creature, but will be conceived of as by Nature Life: for how would He be true in saying, I am the Resurrection and the Life? for life is that which gives life, not that which needs to receive it from another, just as wisdom too is understood to be that which can make wise, not that which receives wisdom. Therefore according to you the Truth will be false, and Christ will not be true, Who says, I am the Life. Yea and the brilliant choir of saints again will speak falsely, uttering words through the Spirit, and calling the Only-Begotten Life. For the Divine Psalmist is found saying to the Father, With Thee is the Fountain of Life. And the wondrous Evangelist John in his epistles thus says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands handled, of the Word of Life: and the Word was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare unto you the Eternal Life, Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. Seest thou that the Psalmist speaks true, even by the testimony of John, when he says to God the Father of all, With Thee is the Fountain of Life? For the Son was and is with Him the Fountain of Life. For that the Spirit-clad says these things of Him, he will again prove by his words: for he thus writes, And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him That is True, and we are in His True Son Jesus Christ. This is the True God and Eternal Life. Then who (tell me) will any longer endure the trifling of the heretics? or who will not justly cry out against their impiety, in daring to say that the Son is partaker of life from another, albeit the holy and God-inspired Scripture says no such thing of Him; but rather openly cries aloud, that He is both God by Nature, and Very, and the Fountain of Life, and again Life Eternal. For how will He be conceived of as Very God, who needs life from another, and is not rather Himself Life by Nature? or how will He any more be called Fountain of Life, if He is holpen by another's gifts to be able to live?
But yea (says the opponent) we grant that the Son is so far Life, that He too can quicken, as having in Himself the Living Father.
Yet this will not suffice, most noble sirs, to exempt you from blasphemy against the Only-Begotten: but in this too shall your argument be proved untutored and every way falling to pieces. For to have to say that the Son is called Life, because He can quicken things recipient of life, by reason He has in Himself the Father, how is it not replete with unmeasured folly? For ye know not (it seems) what by nature means, or what 'being of any thing by nature means as compared with so being by circumstances. As fire is hot by nature, and other things too are hot, by partaking of its operation, as iron or wood: but not because they are heated, are they said to be fire: for they have an external and not a physical operation in them. But our argument will proceed by means of illustrations in regard to ourselves too. Grammar for instance, or Geometry, are held to be species of reasoning science, but when any one becomes skilled in grammar or the other, he is not himself conceived of as Grammar or Geometry, but from the Grammar that is in him, he is called a Grammarian, and similarly with regard to the other: so too that which is by nature life, is something altogether different from the things wherein it is, transfashioning to itself what is not so by nature. When therefore ye say that the Father is in the Son, as He might be in matter (for instance), in order that, since He is Life by Nature, He too may be able to quicken, ye foolishly grant still that He is Life, and not rather participant of it from another, yet by relation, and not by Essence called to the dignity of a dispenser thereof. And as one would not reasonably call the heated iron fire, albeit it has the operation of the fire, in that it is heated from it: or again a man skilful in grammar is not called grammar, because he can lead others also unto the science, so I do not imagine that any man of sense would call the Son Life because He can quicken others also, though He have not by Nature, according to them, the being Life, but as from the engrafted Operation of the Father, or by reason of the indwelling Father. For what (tell me) is to hinder us at last from conceiving of the Son as one of us, that is, of corruptible nature, if He live because of the Father, that is, having received the gift of life from the Father, as they understand it? For He would perish, according to the analogy of their notions, if He had not the living Father in Himself. And if we confess that He speaks truly, I am in the Father and the Father in Me; He indeed has in Himself the Father Who is Life by Nature, and is Himself in the Father though not Life by Nature. I pass over the blasphemy, though one must utter it to convict the fighters against God of their impiety: for the Father will be found to have in Himself that which is destitute of Life, that is, decay, or a decaying nature. For since the nature of the matter in hand compels us so to conceive of the Son, we must investigate further, and go through various considerations, since our aim is by due precision to refine the question. You say that God the Father is by Nature Life. Well, so He is, but He is in the Son also. For this your argument too allows. I would now with reason ask you, desiring to learn it, 'What will He work in respect of His Son, being in Him? Will He impart of His Own Life to His Offspring, as though He needed it and had not Life of Himself? how then must we not suppose the Son to be void of Life? That which is void of Life, what is it, but subject to decay? But He will not impart of His Own Life to His Offspring: for He is Life, even though He receive it not from Him.
How then do certain unguardedly babbling still accuse Him, and say that the Son therefore lives, because He hath in Himself the Father who is by Nature Life? For if He live also apart from the Father, as being Essentially Life's Very self, He will never live because of the Father, that is, because of participation of the Father. But if He have the Father the giver of His Own Life, manifestly He has no Life of His Own. For He borrows it of another, and is (as we said at first) a creature rather than Life, and of a nature subject to decay. How then does He call Himself Life? For either we too may safely say, I am the Life, or if this be no safe word (for it is not lawful for the creature to mount up to God-befitting dignities), the Son knows that He is by Nature Life: since how will He be the Impress of the Person of Him That begat Him, how the Image and accurate Likeness? or how was not Philip right in saying, Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us? For in truth one ought to consider, that he that had seen the Son, had not yet seen the Father, since the One is by Nature Life, the Other participant of life from Him. For one will never see that which quickeneth in that which is quickened, Him That lacketh not in him that lacketh. Hence in another way too will He be untrue in saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
But he who loveth the pious doctrines of the Church sees what great absurdities will follow their pratings. Let him then turn from them, and pass away, as it is written, and let him make straight paths, and direct his ways, and look to the simple beauty of the truth, believing that God the Father is by Nature Life, the Son Begotten of Him Life too. For as He is said to be Light of Light, so too Life of Life: and as God the Father lighteneth things lacking Light by His Own Light, His Son, and gives wisdom to things recipient thereof, through His Own Wisdom, and strengthened things needing strength, through again His Own Strength, so too He quickeneth things whatever lack the Life from Him, by His Own Life which floweth forth from Him, His Son. When then He says, I live because of the Father, do not suppose that He confesses that He lives because He receives Life from the Father, but asserted that because He was begotten of a Living Father, that therefore He also lives. For it were impossible that He who is of a Living Father, should not live. As though any of us were to say, I am a reasonable man on account of my father, for I was born the child of a reasonable man: so do thou conceive in respect of the Only-Begotten also. I live (He says) because of the Father. For since the Father who begat Me is Life by Nature, and I am His Natural and Proper Offspring, I gain by Nature what is His, i. e., being Life: for this the Father too is. For since He is conceived to be and is One of One (for the Son is from the Father, even though He were with Him eternally); He with reason glories in the Natural Attributes of Him That begat Him, as His Own.
