Church Fathers Commentary John 14:8-11

"Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works` sake." — John 14:8-11 (ASV)

St. Hilary of Poitiers: A declaration so new startled Philip. Our Lord is seen to be a man. He confesses Himself to be the Son of God and declares that if He were known, the Father would be known; that if He is seen, the Father is seen. The Apostle’s familiarity, therefore, breaks forth into questioning our Lord. Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us.” He did not deny that the Father could be seen, but wished for Him to be shown; nor did he wish to see with his bodily eyes, but that the One whom he had not seen might be revealed to his understanding.

He had seen the Son in the form of a man, but he did not know how he saw the Father through that form. This is what he wants to be shown to him—shown to his understanding, not set before his eyes—and then he will be satisfied: “and that is enough for us.”

St. Augustine of Hippo: For to that joy of beholding His face, nothing can be added. Philip understood this and said, “Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us.” But he did not yet understand that he could have said the same thing this way: “Lord, show us Yourself, and that is enough for us.” But our Lord’s answer enlightens him. Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip?”

But how can this be, when our Lord said that they knew where He was going, and the way, because they knew Him? The question is easily settled by supposing that some of them knew, and others did not; Philip was among the latter.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: He reproves Philip’s ignorance in this respect. For while His actions had been strictly divine—such as walking on the water, commanding the winds, forgiving sins, and raising the dead—He complained that the Divine nature was not discerned in His assumed humanity. Accordingly, to Philip’s request to be shown the Father, our Lord answers, “He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.”

St. Augustine of Hippo: When two people are very much alike, we say, “If you have seen one, you have seen the other.” So here, “He that has seen Me, has seen the Father”; not that He is both the Father and the Son, but that the Son is an absolute likeness of the Father.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: He does not mean sight with the bodily eye, for His fleshly part, born of the Virgin, does not help in contemplating the form and image of God in Him. Rather, when the Son of God is known with the understanding, it follows that the Father is also known, since the Son is the image of God, not differing from but expressing His Author.

For our Lord’s expressions do not speak of one solitary person without relationship, but teach us of His birth. The title “Father” also excludes the idea of a single, solitary person and leaves us no other doctrine but that the Father is seen in the Son by the incommunicable likeness of their shared nature.

St. Augustine of Hippo: But should someone be reproved who, having seen the likeness, wishes to see the person of whom he is the likeness? No, our Lord rebuked the question only with reference to the mindset of the one who asked. Philip asked as if the Father were better than the Son, and in doing so, showed that he did not know the Son. Our Lord corrects this opinion: “Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” It is as if He said, “If you have a great wish to see the Father, at least believe what you do not see.”

St. Hilary of Poitiers: For what excuse was there for ignorance of the Father, or what need was there to show Him, when the Father was seen in the Son by His essential nature? By the identity of their unity, the Begotten and the Begetter are one: “Believe you not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?”

St. Augustine of Hippo: He wished him to live by faith before he had sight, and therefore says, “Believe you not?” Spiritual vision is the reward of faith, vouchsafed to minds purified by faith.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, not by a joining of two harmonizing essences, nor by one nature grafted into a more spacious substance as in material bodies, where it is impossible for what is inside to be made external to what contains it. Instead, it is by the birth of a nature that is life from life, since from God nothing but God can be born.

The unchangeable God follows, so to speak, His own nature by begetting unchangeable God. Nor does the perfect birth of unchangeable God from unchangeable God forsake His own nature. We understand, then, the nature of God subsisting in Him, since God is in God; nor can any other be God apart from Him who is God.

St. John Chrysostom: Or consider this: Philip, because he thought he had seen the Son with his bodily eye, wished to see the Father in the same way. Perhaps he was also remembering what the Prophet said, “I saw the Lord” (Isaiah 6:1), and for that reason he says, “Show us the Father.” The Jews had asked who His Father was, and Peter and Thomas asked where He went, and neither was told plainly. Philip, therefore, so that he might not seem burdensome, after saying, “Show us the Father,” adds, “and that is enough for us,” meaning, “we seek for no more.”

In reply, our Lord does not say that he asked for an impossible thing, but that he had not truly seen the Son to begin with; for if he had seen Him, he would have seen the Father: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known Me?” He does not say, “not seen Me,” but, “not known Me,” meaning, not known that the Son, being what the Father is, properly shows the Father in Himself. Then, distinguishing the Persons, He says, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father,” so that no one might maintain that He was both the Father and the Son.

These words also show that even the Son was not seen in a merely bodily sense. So if anyone takes “seeing” here to mean “knowing,” I will not contradict him, but will take the sentence as if it were, “He that has known Me, has known the Father.” Here He shows His consubstantiality with the Father: “He that has seen My substance, has seen the Father’s.” From this it is evident He is not a creature, for all know and see the creature, but not all know God—Philip, for instance, wished to see the substance of the Father. If Christ, then, had been of another substance from the Father, He would never have said, “He that has seen Me, has seen the Father.” A person cannot see the substance of gold in silver; one nature cannot be made apparent by another.

St. Augustine of Hippo: He then addresses all of them, not Philip only: “The word that I speak to you, I speak not of Myself.” What does “I speak not of Myself” mean, but that “I who speak am not from Myself”? He attributes what He does to Him from whom He Himself, the doer, is.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: In this, He neither presents Himself as a solitary Son, nor hides the existence of His Father’s power in Him. When He speaks, it is He Himself who speaks in His own person; when He speaks not of Himself, He testifies to His divine birth, that He is God from God.

St. John Chrysostom: Mark the abundant proof of the unity of substance. For He continues, “But the Father that dwells in Me, He does the works.” It is as if He said, “My Father and I act together, not differently from each other,” which agrees with what He said elsewhere: “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not.” But why does He pass from words to works? Why does He not say, as we might have expected, “He speaks the words”? Because He means to apply what He says to both His doctrine and His miracles, or because His words are themselves works.

St. Augustine of Hippo: For one who edifies his neighbor by speaking does a good work. These two sentences are used against us by different sects of heretics: the Arians, who say that the Son is unequal to the Father because He does not speak of Himself; and the Sabellians, who say that the same one who is the Father is also the Son. For what is meant, they ask, by “The Father that dwells in Me, He does the works,” but “I who dwell in Myself do these works”?

St. Hilary of Poitiers: That the Father dwells in the Son shows that He is not single or solitary; that the Father works by the Son shows that He is not different or alien. As He is not solitary who does not speak from Himself, so neither is He alien and separable who works through Him. Having shown, then, that the Father spoke and worked in Him, He formally states this union: “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” so that they might not think that the Father works and speaks in the Son as through a mere agent or instrument, and not by the unity of nature implied in His Divine birth.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Before, Philip alone was reproved.

St. John Chrysostom: But if this is not enough to show my consubstantiality, at least learn it from My works: “Or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” You have seen My miracles and all the proper signs of My divinity—works which the Father alone does, such as sins forgiven, life restored, and the like.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Believe then for My works’ sake, that “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me”; for, were we separated, we could not be working together.