Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.
All Commentaries on John 14:10 Go To John 14
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Believe ye not that I am in the Father, &c. Observe1. Here again the distinction of the Divine Persons is signified. Nor is any one properly said to be in himself, but in another2. The oneness of the Divine Nature is signified. For because the Father and the Son are, and exist in one and the same Divine Nature, therefore the Father is in the Song of Solomon , and the Son in the Father. Christ proved this by the effect. For He had His doctrine and works from the Father, and common with the Father. Therefore He had the same common Nature with Him. Hence, 3. By this saying is consequently signified the perfect and intimate union and indwelling of one Divine person in the Other, and the converse. By which it comes to pass that the Father is in the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Son in the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son. Damascene (1. de Fid. c11) calls this, πεζιχώζησις, and from him the schoolmen call it circumincessio. Concerning which mystery S. Augustine treats (l6 , de Trin. c. ult.) and S. Hilary (lib4 , de Trin.) Each one of the Divine Persons is in each of the others, not only as regards Their Essence, but also as regards Their relation and proper Person, because all are most intimately conjoined and united with One Another. Whence it follows that he who fully knows and beholds one Divine Person- as, for example, the Son—as the Blessed see Him, not only sees the Godhead common to the Father and the Song of Solomon , but sees also the very Person of the Father, both because the Person of the Father is most intimately related to the Person of the Song of Solomon , and also because in that relationship is included the essential order. For it is the Father who of His Essence begetteth the Son. And this is what Christ here means when He saith, Believe ye not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?
The words which I speak, &c. They are not human but Divine words. They proceed not from My Humanity, but from My Divinity, which I have received of the Father. Wherefore whoso heareth Me speak, heareth not so much Me as God the Father speaking in Me and by Me. Observe, the Godhead common to the Father and the Son was the efficient cause of the Divine words which Christ uttered. Yet the thing signified by the words was often peculiar to the Person of the Song of Solomon , not of the Father, as when He said, "I am the Son of God," "I have taken flesh," "The things which I say and do I have received of the Father." For these things He said concerning Himself, not the Father, as is plain. For not the Father was made Prayer of Manasseh , but the Son. And yet the Father equally with the Son was the efficient cause as well of the Incarnation, as of the words uttered by the Word Incarnate. For the works of the Holy Trinity, ad extra, as theologians say, are undivided, and common to all the Three Divine Persons.
But the Father abiding in Me, &c. The Father, as the prime source not only of creatures, but of the other Divine Persons, that Isaiah , the Son and the Holy Ghost. For when the Father by begetting communicated His Divinity to the Song of Solomon , He communicated also His omnipotence, virtue, and power of working. Wherefore, if not the Son but the Father Himself had assumed Humanity, He would have spoken and done the self-same things which the Son spoke and did. For the Father both spoke and wrought in the Son: and also there is one Godhead and omnipotence of the Father and the Song of Solomon , which spoke and wrought all things through the Humanity which He assumed. Wherefore Christ left it to be gathered by the Apostles that when they saw and heard Him speaking they were to think that they saw and heard the Father. "From these My words and deeds," as Ribera paraphrases, "ye are able to understand how good My Father Isaiah , how kind, how much He loves you. From My miracles ye may know My omnipotence, and that I know all things, and have in Me all good. From whence ye understand that the Father likewise hath the same. And since these external things lead you to the knowledge of such great good things, what, think ye, will be yours when ye shall behold My and the Father"s Essence without glass, or figure?"
