Church Fathers Commentary Matthew 11:27

"All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal [him.]" — Matthew 11:27 (ASV)

St. John Chrysostom: Because He had said, I praise you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise, so that you do not suppose that He thanks the Father as if He Himself were excluded from this power, He adds, All things have been committed to me by my Father. When you hear the words "have been committed," do not think of this in human terms. He uses this word so that you do not think there are two unbegotten gods, for from the moment He was begotten, He was Lord of all.

St. Jerome: For if we think of this in terms of our human weakness, when the one who receives begins to possess something, the one who gives begins to lack it.

Or when He says, All things have been committed to Him, He may mean not the heavens, the earth, the elements, and the other things He created and made, but rather those who have access to the Father through the Son.

St. Hilary of Poitiers: He says this so that we do not think there is anything less in Him than in God.

St. Augustine of Hippo: For if He has anything less in His power than the Father has, then not all that the Father has is His. By begetting Him, the Father gave power to the Son, just as by begetting Him, He gave all things that He has in His substance to the One He begot from His substance.¹

St. Hilary of Poitiers: Also, in the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son, He teaches us that there is nothing in the Son beyond what was in the Father, for it follows, And no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son.

St. John Chrysostom: By stating that He alone knows the Father, He implicitly shows that He is of one substance with the Father. It is as if He had said, "What wonder is it that I am Lord of all, when I have something even greater—namely, knowing the Father and being of the same substance with Him?"

St. Hilary of Poitiers: For this mutual knowledge proclaims that they are of one substance, since the one who knows the Son would also know the Father in the Son, because all things were given to Him by the Father.

St. John Chrysostom: When He says, Neither does anyone know the Father except the Son, He does not mean that all people are completely ignorant of Him. Rather, He means that no one knows Him with the same kind of knowledge with which the Son knows Him, which can also be said of the Son. For this is not said about some unknown God, as Marcion declares.ⁱ

St. Augustine of Hippo: And because their substance is inseparable, it is enough sometimes to name the Father and sometimes the Son; nor is it possible to separate from either of them His Spirit, who is especially called the Spirit of truth.²

St. Jerome: Let the heretic Eunomiusⁱ therefore blush at this, for he claims for himself a knowledge of the Father and the Son equal to what they have of one another. But if he argues from what follows and supports his madness with the phrase, and to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him, he should understand that it is one thing to know something by equality with God, and another to know it because God has graciously chosen to reveal it.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The Father is revealed by the Son, that is, by His Word. For if the temporal and fleeting word that we speak reveals both itself and the message we wish to convey, how much more does the Word of God, by whom all things were made? This Word reveals the Father as He is Father, because the Word Himself is the same as the Father and exists in the same manner.³

When He said, No one knows the Son except the Father, He did not add, "and to whom the Father chooses to reveal the Son." But when He said, No one knows the Father except the Son, He added, and to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.⁴

However, this must not be understood to mean that the Son can be known by the Father alone, while the Father can be known not only by the Son but also by those to whom the Son reveals Him.

Rather, it is expressed this way so that we may understand that both the Father and the Son are revealed by the Son, since He is the light of our minds. The phrase that is added, and to whom the Son chooses to reveal, must be understood to apply to both the Father and the Son, referring to everything that was just said.

For the Father reveals Himself through His Word, and the Word, in revealing the Father, also reveals Himself.

St. John Chrysostom: If, then, He reveals the Father, He also reveals Himself. He omits the latter as something obvious but mentions the former because there might have been some doubt about it.

In this, He also instructs us that He is so one with the Father that it is impossible for anyone to come to the Father except through the Son.

This teaching was necessary because the primary cause of offense was the idea that He was opposed to God, and therefore He strove by every means to overthrow that notion.

1. cont. Maximin. ii. 12
2. De Trin., i, 8
3. De Trin., vii, 3
4. Quast Ev., i, 1