I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
We were about to ask Christ, you will judge, and the Father not judge: will not you then judge according to the Father? He anticipates us by saying, I can of Mine own Self donothing.
When He spoke of the resurrection of the soul, He did not say, Hear, but, See. Hear implies a command issuing from the Father. He speaks as man, who is inferior to the Father.
As I hear, I judge, is said with reference either toHis human subordination, as the Son of man, or to that immutable and simple nature of theSonship derived from the Father; in which nature hearing and seeing is identical with being. Wherefore as He hears, He judges. The Word is begotten one with the Father, and therefore judges according to truth. It follows, And My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me. This is intended to take us back to that man who, by seeking his own will, not the will of Him who made him, did not judge himself justly, but had a just judgment pronounced...
In the former discourse, so far as the subject impressed us, and so far as our poverty of understanding attained to, we have spoken by occasion of the words of the Gospel, where it is written: The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing,— what it is for the Son— that is, the Word, for the Son is the Word— to see; and as all things were made by the Word, how it is to be understood that the Son first sees the Father doing, and then only Himself also does the things which He has seen done, seeing that the Father has done nothing except by the Son. For all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. We have not, however, delivered to you anything as fully explained, and that because we have not understood anything thus clearly set forth. For, indeed, speech sometimes fails even where the understanding makes way; how much more does speech suffer defect, where the understanding has nothing perfect! Now, therefore, as the Lord gives us, let us brief...
I cannot, &c. Christ shows that His judgment, by which, as Prayer of Manasseh , He will judge all men, will be a last judgment, for his reason that He cannot either judge or will any other thing than that which the Father judges and wills. For Hebrews , in that He is God, has the very same judgment, the very self-same Divine mind and will that the Father has. But in that He is Prayer of Manasseh , He is wholly governed by the Divinity and the indwelling Word, so that He can neither judge nor will anything but that which the Godhead judges and wills. So S. Augustine.
As I hear, so I judge: always, and especially in the judgment day. I hear, i.e, I know, I understand. As S. Chrysostom says, "By hearing nothing else is meant than that nothing else is possible but the Father"s judgment. I so judge as if the Father Himself were judge."
Because I seek not Mine own will, i.e, Mine own alone, or diverse from the Father"s will, for I have no such will, but the will of Him that sent Me: for My...
CHAPTER IX. That the Son is in nothing inferior to God the Father, but is of Equal Might in Operation unto all things as God of God.
Give more exact heed again to the things said, and receive the force of its thought with intelligence. For the Jews not knowing the deep Mystery of the economy of flesh, nor yet acknowledging the Word of God indwelling in the Temple of the Virgin, were often excited by zeal, mistaken and not according to knowledge, as Paul saith, to savageness of manners and fierce anger: and indeed were attempting to stone Him, for that He, being a Man, was making Himself God, and again because He said that God was His Father, making Himself Equal with God. But since they were thus hard of understanding and utterly unable to endure God-befitting words, but both thought and spake meanly of Him, the Saviour by an economy acts the child with them, and made His explanation a mixed one, neither wholly foregoing words befitting God, nor altogether rejecting human language: ...
I can do nothing of myself See ver. 19. St. Chrysostom also take notice, that it may be no less with truth said of the Father, that he can do nothing of himself, nor without his Son, nor both of them without the Holy Spirit; because both they, and their actions, are inseparable. (Witham)
For as we do direct our faith towards the Son, so also should we possess a firm and immoveable love towards the Father. In his book against Marcion, Justin
That is, nothing that is a departure from, or that is unlike to, what the Father wishes, shall you see done by Me, but as I hear, I judge. He is only showing that it was impossible He should ever wish any thing but what the Father wished. I judge, His meaningis, as if it were My Father that judged.
He shows that the Father’s will is not a different one from His own, but one and the same, as a ground ofdefense. Nor marvel if being hitherto thought no more than a mere man, He defends Himself in a somewhat human way, and shows his judgment to be just on the same ground which anyother person would have taken; viz. that one who has his own ends in view, may incur suspicion of injustice, but that one who has not cannot.
Although He had but lately given no trifling proof of the Resurrection by bracing the paralytic; on which account also He had not spoken of the Resurrection before He had done what fell little short of resurrection. And the Judgment He hinted at after He had braced the body, by saying, Behold, you are made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you; yet still He proclaimed beforehand the resurrection of Lazarus and of the world. And when He had spoken of these two, that of Lazarus which should come to pass almost immediately, and that of the inhabited world which should be long after, He confirms the first by the paralytic and by the nearness of the time, saying, The hour comes and now is; the other by the raising of Lazarus, by what had already come to pass bringing before their sight what had not yet done so. And this we may observe Him do everywhere, putting (forth) two or three predictions, and always confirming the future by the past.
4. Yet after saying and doing so m...
