One can examine the Gospels to ascertain how often after his baptism the Lord went up, at the time of the Passover, to Jerusalem, in accordance with what was the practice of the Jews from every land, and every year, that they should assemble at this period in Jerusalem and there celebrate the feast of the Passover. First of all, after he had made the water wine at Cana of Galilee, he went up to the festival day of the Passover…. Afterwards he went up, the second time, to observe the festival day of the Passover^[1] in Jerusalem. On this occasion he cured the paralytic man who had lain beside the pool thirty-eight years…. Then, when he had raised Lazarus from the dead and plots were formed against him by the Pharisees, he withdrew to a city called Ephraim. And from that place, as it is written, He came to Bethany six days before the Passover,^[2] and going up from Bethany to Jerusalem, he there ate the Passover and suffered on the day following. Now, that these three occasions of the Passover are not included within one year, every person whatever must acknowledge.

He chose the time when everybody gathered to offer his help to everyone. Therefore he went to Jerusalem at that time. He did not think it was necessary to travel around and go to every place where people were ill, so that it might not appear that he was looking for fame. Instead he healed one only and through him he revealed himself to many.

That pool and that water, in my opinion, signified the people of the Jews. For the Apocalypse of John clearly indicates to us that peoples are suggested by the name of waters. When many waters were shown to him and he asked what they were, he received the answer that they were peoples.^[1] Therefore that water, that is, that people was shut in by the five books of Moses as by five porticoes.

But those books brought forth sick people; they did not heal. For the law convicted sinners; it did not absolve them…. What happened, then, that they, who could not be healed in the porticoes, were healed in that agitated water? For, suddenly, the water was seen to be agitated, but he by whom it was agitated was not seen. You may believe that this used to happen by an angel’s power^[2] but still not without some significant symbolic meaning. After the agitation of the water, the one who was able to thrust himself in, and he alone, was healed. Whoever thrust himself in after him did so without effect.

What, then, does this mean, except that Christ came to the Jewish people, and by doing great things, by teaching useful things, he agitated sinners, agitating the water by his presence and stirring it up in preparation for his passion? But he agitated while being hidden. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.^[3] Therefore to descend into the agitated water is to believe humbly in the Lord’s passion.

A great crowd of ill people, struck with different infirmities, had gathered here hoping to be healed as if these waters might effect something because the entrails of sheep offered as victims to God [for the temple] were washed in them. And God also supported this belief by causing the waters to move sometimes. Since they believed that the waters were moved by divine power, they obtained the grace of healing after they had come down [into the water]. It was not that many people were healed at the same time but that the one who came down first obtained the aid afforded by grace. [This happened] in order that the facility of the healing might not diminish the effect of the miracle. And so, because they waited with great attention and anticipation for the movement of the waters, once they recovered their health, they might have a better memory of their healing. Even though many lay ill there, he did not heal all of them. But, in order to show his power, he chose one affected with a very serious infirmity and who was hopeless already about his recovery.

What kind of a cure is this? What mystery does it signify to us?… What is it that is shown in outline? A baptism was about to be given that possessed much power. It was the greatest of gifts, a baptism purging all sins and making people alive instead of dead. These things then are foreshown as in a picture by the pool…. And this miracle was done so that those [at the pool] who had learned over and over for such a long time how it is possible to heal the diseases of the body by water might more easily believe that water can also heal the diseases of the soul.

That water [at the pool of Bethesda] was moved once a year; this water of the church’s baptism is always ready to be moved. That water was moved only in one place; this water is moved throughout the entire world. Then an angel descended; now it is the Holy Spirit. Then it was the grace of the angel; now it is the mystery of the Trinity. That water cured only once in a year; this water saves people every day. That water healed the body; this water heals both body and soul. That water healed a person’s health; this heals from sin. There, the body was only healed of its infirmities; here, body and soul are freed from sin. There, many who were weary lay sick at that water because it only cured one person a year. No one will be left lying sick here where the waters of baptism are, if they resolve to come and be healed.

No one was healed before the angel had descended. Because of those who did not believe, the water was troubled as a sign that the angel had descended. They had a sign, you have faith; for them an angel descended, for you the Holy Spirit; for them the creation was troubled, for you Christ himself, the Lord of creation, worked. Then, one was healed, now all are made whole…. For that pool was as a type so that you might believe that the power of God descends upon this font.

What did the angel declare in this type but the descent of the Holy Spirit, which was to come to pass in our day and should consecrate the waters when invoked by the prayers of the priest? That angel, then, was a herald of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as by means of the grace of the Spirit medicine was to be applied to our infirmities of soul and mind. The Spirit, then, has the same ministers as God the Father and Christ. He fills all things, possesses all things, works all and in all in the same manner as God the Father and the Son work.

The perseverance of the paralytic was astonishing. He was thirty-eight years old, and each year he hoped to be freed from his disease. He lay there waiting, never giving up. If he had not persevered as much as he did, wouldn’t his future prospects, let alone the past, have been enough to discourage him from staying around that place? Consider how alert the other sick people there would be, since no one knew for sure when the waters would be troubled. The lame and the limping could observe it, but how would a blind man?^[1] Maybe he learned it from the clamor that arose. Let us be ashamed then, beloved, let us be ashamed and groan over our excessive laziness. That man had been waiting thirty-eight years without obtaining what he desired, and he still did not withdraw. And he failed, not through any carelessness of his own but through being oppressed and suffering violence from others. And still he did not give up. We… might persist in prayer for something for ten days or so, and if we have not obtained it, we are too lazy afterwards to employ the same energy [as he did]. And yet, we will wait forever on our fellow human beings, fighting and enduring hardships, performing menial labor, all for the chance of something that in the end fails to meet our expectations. But when it comes to our Master, from whom we are sure to obtain a reward greater than our labors… we exercise no such diligence in waiting on him…. For even if we receive nothing from him, isn’t the very fact that we are able to converse with him continually the cause of ten thousand blessings?

Jesus asked, Do you want to be made whole? See his modesty here. He does not say, Do you desire that I heal you, for he did not want to make himself appear as someone great by making an announcement, as it were, of his miracles. And the [lame] man says, I desire, but I do not have a man [to help me]; for where there is no love, there is not even one person [to offer help]. And so, I also ask for this reason, [Jesus says]: not only so that you should know of my plan to make whole those who are sick, but also so that you might see the cruelty of those of the city who were well, because not only did no one give their hand to help you to the streams but they even treated you like an enemy when you asked [for help].

There is clear evidence of the great goodness of Christ in that he does not wait for entreaties from the sick but anticipates their request with his own loving kindness. See how he runs to the one who is lying down and how compassionate he is to one who was sick with no one to comfort him. But the inquiry as to whether he would like to be relieved from his infirmity was not that of one asking out of ignorance what was obvious, but of one stirring up an increased desire and diligent entreaty. The question as to whether he wanted to obtain what he longed for is huge. It has the kind of force and expression that conveys that Jesus has the power to give and is now ready to do so, only waiting for the request of the one who will receive this grace.

What can be more pitiable than these words? What more sad than these circumstances? Do you see a heart crushed through an extended illness? Do you see all the pain and violence he suffered subdued? He utters no blasphemy. He does not curse the day of his birth or get angry at the question, Will you be healed? … Instead, he replies gently and with great mildness, Yes, Lord. And yet, he did not know who it was that asked him, let alone that he would heal him. Rather, he still mildly relates all the circumstances, asking for nothing further as though he were speaking to a physician and merely wanted to tell the story of his sufferings. Perhaps he hoped that Christ might be of some use to him in putting him into the water and hoped to stir up some sympathy with his words.

Some are of the opinion that this is the same incident that Matthew records of the one who was lying on a bed.^[1] But he is not since…. that paralytic man had many to wait upon and carry him, whereas this man had not a single one…. The places too were different: one was cured in a house, the other by the pool.

There are three distinct commands. Rise, take up your bed, and walk. Rise, however, is not a command but the conferring of the cure. Two commands were given upon his cure: take up your bed, and walk.

Was it not enough to say, Rise up and go? For was it not a miracle that the one who could not turn about on his bed could rise up easily and go? Yet to show that he had given him a full healing, he also made him carry his bed—and not like the sick who return [to health] little by little. [Our Lord said], Take up your bed and go. And even if he remained silent, his bed would cry out.

What does this mean, take up your pallet except carry and govern your body? Conduct that which carried you. For when you were under the dominion of sin your flesh first carried you to evil, but now since grace is in control you conduct and direct your body to what is good. In the wrong and wicked order your flesh was first in control and the soul served. But now through the mercy of Christ the soul holds sway and the flesh is subject to it in servitude. Rise, take up your pallet, and go into your house. When you were thrown out of your house, that is, out of the land of paradise at the intervention of sin, your flesh hurled you down into the world. But now through the gift of divine mercy take up your pallet, and in every good work govern your little body and return to your house, that is, return to eternal life…. From it we were thrown into the exile of this world. Therefore, when you hear it said to the paralytic, take up your pallet, and go into your house, believe that it is said to you: govern your flesh in all chastity and return to paradise, as if to your own home and your original country.

What significance is there, then, in the bed, I ask you? What, except that that sick man was carried on the bed, but when healed, he carries the bed? What was said by the apostle? Bear your burdens, each for the other, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.^[1] Now the law of Christ is love, and love is not fulfilled unless we bear our burdens, each for the other. Bearing with one another, he says, in love, eager to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.^[2] When you were sick, your neighbor was carrying you. You have been healed; carry your neighbor. So you will fulfill, O man, what was lacking to you.

Take up, therefore, your bed. But when you have taken it up, do not stay; walk. In loving your neighbor, in being concerned about your neighbor, you are taking a trip. Where are you taking a trip to except to the Lord God, to him whom we ought to love with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind? For, we have not yet reached the Lord, but we have our neighbor with us. Therefore carry him with whom you are walking that you may reach him with whom you long to stay. Therefore take up your bed, and walk.

Jesus does not pray to relieve the patient’s sickness in case he [Jesus] should seem to be like one of the holy prophets. Rather, as the Lord of powers, he commands with authority that it be so. He tells him to go home rejoicing, to take his bed on his shoulders, to be a memento to those who would see the might of the one who had healed him. And so the man does as he is asked and by obedience and faith gains the threefold longed for grace…. Christ heals the man on the sabbath, and when healed immediately enjoins him to break through the custom of the law. He induces him to walk on the sabbath,^[1] and this while carrying his bed, although God clearly cries aloud by one of the holy prophets, Neither carry a burden out of your house on the sabbath day.^[2] And no one, I suppose, who is sober-minded would say the man was then a despiser or unruly in the face of the divine commands. They would instead see that, as in a type, Christ was making known to the Jews that they should be healed by obedience and faith in the last times of the world (for this is what I think the sabbath signifies, being the last day of the week). But once they have received healing through faith and are remodeled into a new life, it was necessary that the old letter of the law should become of no effect and that the typical worship in shadows and empty Jewish customs should be rejected.

They did not charge our Lord with healing on the sabbath since he would have replied that if an ox or an ass of theirs had fallen into a pit, would they not have taken it out on the sabbath day. Rather, they addressed the man as he was carrying his bed, as if to say: Even if the healing could not be delayed, why command the work?… He shields himself under the authority of his healer: The one who made me whole is the one who said to me, Take up your bed, and walk, meaning: Why should I not receive a command if I also received a cure from him?

Had he been inclined to deception, he might have said, I am not doing this on my own but at the request of another. If it is a crime, accuse the one who commanded it, and I will lay down my bed. In this way, he would have concealed his cure, knowing, as he did, that the real cause of their offense was not the breaking of the sabbath but the curing of his illness. But he neither concealed it nor asked for pardon. Instead he boldly confessed the cure. This is how he acted. But consider how unfairly they acted. They do not say, Who is it who made you whole? Rather, they keep bringing up the seeming transgression.

The healed one did not know who it was who healed him because Jesus hid as soon as he had healed him. It would have been typical of someone looking for glory if he had stayed around with the one whom he had healed. It would have been typical of someone who desired public exposure. But we see our Lord cautiously avoiding this. In fact, it would have been easier to have himself seen as God. Since, however, he appeared as a man and many had this opinion about him, he protected himself from the opinion of those who saw him.

He did this first of all because the man who had been made whole was the best witness of the cure and could give his testimony with less suspicion in our Lord’s absence. His second reason for doing so was so that the fury of people might not be excited more than was necessary. For the mere sight of the object of envy is no small incentive to envy. For these reasons he departed and left them to examine the fact for themselves.

If we judge this miracle on the basis of low and human standards, it is not at all a striking display of power, and it is only a moderate display of goodness. Of so many who lay sick, only one was healed; although, had he chosen to do so, our Lord could have restored them all by a single word. How should we account for this? We might suppose that his power and goodness were asserted more for imparting knowledge of eternal salvation to the soul than for working a temporal cure on the body…. That which received the temporal cure was certain to decay at some point when death arrived, whereas the soul that believed passed into eternal life.

After the paralytic apologized, saying that another had ordered him to take up his mat on a sabbath, the Jews turned their rage against the one who had given the order…. When he pointed Jesus out to such an enraged and furious people, however, he did not act as a friend. Rather, in order to comply with the rules of the Jews, he betrayed his own benefactor. Nor can one excuse his actions as being done out of necessity because he felt pressured by the violence of the questioners. Therefore when our Lord came to him in the temple, he spoke these words to the healed man, who had [already] demonstrated his inclination to sin.

Here we learn in the first place that his disease was the consequence of his sins. Second, we learn that there is really a hell; third, that it is a place of lasting and infinite punishment…. But someone might ask, Do all diseases proceed from sin? Not all, but most do. Some proceed from different kinds of loose living, since gluttony, intemperance and sloth produce similar sufferings…. But why is it that in the case of these paralytics^[1] Christ mentions their sins?… I know that some slander this paralytic, asserting that he was an accuser of Christ and that therefore this speech was addressed to him.^[2] But what about the paralytic in Matthew who heard nearly the same words? For Christ also told him, Your sins are forgiven you. And so it is clear that this man was not addressed in this way because of what they allege…. Rather, Jesus was securing him against future sins.

In healing others, however, he makes no mention of sins at all. And so, it would seem to be the case that the diseases of these men had arisen from their sins, whereas those of the others had come from natural causes only. Or perhaps through these, Jesus is admonishing everybody else…. Or he may have admonished this man, knowing his great patience of mind, anticipating that he would bear an admonition, keeping him healthy both by the benefit of the healing and the fear of future ills…. It is also a disclosure too of his divinity, for he implies in saying, Sin no more, that he knew what sins he had formerly committed.

Yesterday you were flung upon a bed, exhausted and paralyzed, and you had no one to put you into the pool when the water should be troubled. Today you have him who is in one person man and God, or rather God and man. You were raised up from your bed, or rather you took up your bed and publicly acknowledged the benefit. Do not again be thrown on your bed by sinning…. But as you now are, so walk, mindful of the command…. Sin no more lest a worse thing happen to you if you prove yourself to be evil after the blessing you have received.

The Jewish elders were unwilling to be subject to the law of God, which was to prepare them for the coming of Christ. But they even blamed the Lord for healing on the Sabbath days, which the law did not prohibit. For they did themselves, in one sense, perform acts of healing upon the Sabbath day, when they circumcised a man [on that day]. But they did not blame themselves for transgressing the command of God through tradition and the previously mentioned pharisaical law. Nor did they condemn themselves for not keeping the commandment of the law, which is the love of God.

He refers to the charge of violating the sabbath, brought against him. My Father works up to this time, and I work. He means that he had a precedent for claiming the right he did, and that what he did was in reality his Father’s doing who acted in the Son. And to quiet the jealousy that had been raised, because by the use of his Father’s name he had made himself equal with God, and to assert the excellence of his birth and nature, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do.^[1]

Their anger was so kindled against him that they wanted to kill him, because he did his works on the sabbath. But let us see also what the Lord answered: My Father is still working, and I also am working.… He speaks that we may recognize in him the power of the Father’s nature employing the nature that has that power to work on the sabbath. The Father works in him while he works. Without doubt, then, Jesus works along with the working of the Father…. We must regard Jesus as referring to that very work of the Father’s which he was then doing since it implies the working of the Father at the very time of his words…. If the Father works and the Son works, no union exists between them that merges them into a single person.

The word still^[1] shows [the Son’s] eternal existence in the Father as the Word. For it is proper to the Word to do the Father’s works and not to be external to him…. He is either seen to be the efficient cause of things that he himself has brought about, or he has no power to cause anything at all…. For none of the things that are brought to be is an efficient cause, but all things were made through the Word who would not have brought anything into being if he himself were numbered among the creatures…. For by the Word, the things that were not have come into existence. And if through him [i.e., the Son] the [Father] creates and makes, [the Son] is not himself of things created and made. Rather, he is the Word of the Creator God and is known, from the Father’s works which he himself works, to be in the Father and the Father in him… because the Son’s essence is proper to the Father, and he is in all points like his Father.

Here he has already indicated that he is equal to God. My Father, he says, is working until now, and I too am working. Their literal-minded understanding of the sabbath is disturbed. They imagined that it was because the Lord was tired that he rested, in order to do no more work. They hear, My Father is working until now, and they are disturbed. But then he adds, And I too am working, making himself equal to God, and again they are disturbed.

Here he brings up his Father, who always acts according to his will and authority. He too does not abstain from those works on the sabbath that are beneficial to us. Christ, too, knew that any time is suitable for our salvation. He brings up the Father, he says, in order to show us that this same authority is also in him. As the Father always has the authority to do work without being subject to the law—even though he has decreed the law of rest on the sabbath—so the Son has the same privilege. And there is no precept or law that might prevent him from doing whatever he wants.

How can both be true when it says that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made, and what he himself through whom they were made says in the gospel, My Father is working until now; and I myself am working.… The Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered only at the precise time he willed, underlined the mystery of this [Genesis] rest by his burial. It was of course on the day of the Sabbath that he rested in the tomb, and he had the whole of that day as a kind of holy vacation, after he had finished all his works on the sixth day, that is, Preparation Day … when he said, It is finished; and bowing his head he surrendered his spirit.^[1] So why should we be surprised if God wished to point forward to this day on which Christ would rest in the grave, before proceeding from then on to work the unfolding of the ages, in order to verify these other words too, My Father is working until now?

God can be understood to have rested from establishing different kinds of creatures, because he did not now establish any new kinds any more. But he rested like this in such a way as to continue from then on and up till now to operate the management of the things that were then set in place, not as though at least on that seventh day his power was withheld from the government of heaven and earth and of all the things he had established. If that had been done, they would immediately have collapsed into nothingness. It is the creator’s power, after all, and the virtuosity, the skill and tenacity of the almighty, that causes every created thing to subsist. If this tenacious virtuosity ceased for one moment to rule and direct the things that have been created, their various species would at once cease to exist, and every nature would collapse into nothingness. It is not, you see, like a mason building houses; when he has finished he goes away, and his work goes on standing when he has stopped working on it and gone away. No, the world will not be able to go on standing for a single moment if God withdraws from it his controlling hand.

Indeed, the very expression employed by the Lord, My Father is working until now, points to the continuousness of his work by which he holds together and manages the whole of creation. It could, you see, have been understood differently if he had said, and is now working, where we would not have to take the work as being continuous. But by saying until now, he forces us to understand it in the other sense as meaning, that is, from the time when he had worked at the original establishment of all things.

Therefore it is as if he said to the Jews, Why do you expect that I should not work on the sabbath? The sabbath day was ordained for you as a sign about me. You observe the works of God: I was there when they were made. They were all made by me…. The Father made the light, but he spoke that there should be light. If he spoke, it was by his Word that he made it. I was his Word, and I am [his Word]. The world was made by me in those works, and the world is also ruled by me in those works. My Father worked when he made the world, and he still works while he rules the world. Therefore, just as it was by me that he created when he made the world, so it is by me that he rules when he rules.

If he had simply called God his father, they would have not grumbled. But he called him his own Father as if he proceeded directly from him and was equal to him.

The Evangelist testifies that in calling himself God’s own Son, Jesus made himself equal to God. For the Jews are not presented as saying, For this cause we sought to kill him. Rather, the Evangelist, speaking for himself, says, For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him. Moreover, he has discovered the cause, [in saying] that the Jews were stirred with desire to slay him because, when as God he broke the sabbath and also claimed God as his own Father, Jesus ascribed to himself not only the majesty of divine authority in breaking the sabbath but also, in speaking of his Father, the right pertaining to eternal equality.

If he had not been the very Son and of the same essence, the defense he offered here would have been worse than the charge. For no viceroy could clear himself from altering a royal law by asserting that the king also broke the law. Not only would he not escape, but he would even increase the weight of the charge against him. But in this instance, since the dignity is equal, the defense is valid. And so he says, in effect, Absolve me from the same charges from which you absolve God.

So, the Jews understood what the Arians do not. For the Arians say that the Son is not equal to the Father, and hence sprang up that heresy that afflicts the church.

But those who do not want to receive these words with a reasonable mind assert that Christ did not make himself equal to God, but only that the Jews thought he did. Come then and let us go over what was said from the beginning. Did the Jews persecute him or not? It is clear to everyone that they did. Did they persecute him for this^[1] or something else? Again, it was for this. Did he then break the sabbath or not? No one can have anything to say against the fact that he did. Did he call God his Father, or did he not call him so? This is true too. Then the rest also follows. To call God his Father, to break the sabbath and to be persecuted by the Jews for these things does not belong to the realm of false imagination but is actual fact. This means that his making himself equal to God was a declaration that is true as well.^[2]

If Jesus had not wished to establish his equality and the Jews had made such a supposition without reason, Jesus would not have allowed their minds to be deceived. He would have corrected them. The Evangelist also would not have remained silent but would have plainly said that the Jews thought this but that Jesus did not actually make himself equal to God, which is what [John] had done elsewhere.^[1]

In one sense the Jews were right [about their indignation], because a man dared to make himself equal to God. But they were also wrong because they did not understand that it was God in the man. They saw the flesh, but they did not know God. They looked on the dwelling place, but they did not know the dweller. That flesh was a temple; God dwelt within it. Therefore Jesus did not equate his flesh to the Father. It was not the form of the servant that he compared to the Lord—not what he became for us, but what he was when he made us.

Jesus, as it were, gently lowers the honor befitting the Only Begotten while at the same time raising the nature of humanity, being at once Lord and also considered among servants. He says that the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do. For whatever works the Father does the Son does as well. Since he is able to accomplish the works of God the Father and to work in concert with the One who begot him, he reveals the identity of his essence. For things that have the same nature with one another will work alike. But for those who do not share a common nature, their mode of working will not be the same. Therefore as true God of true God the Father, he says that he can do those things equally with him. But, so that he may appear not only equal in power to the Father, but like-minded in all things and sharing one will with the Father, Jesus says that he can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do.

When… a person says that he cannot carry an enormously heavy piece of wood he establishes his innate weakness. But another says (being by nature a reasonable person and born of a father of a reasonable nature), I cannot do anything on my own that would contradict the nature of my parent. The words I cannot express the stability of essence and its inability to be anything it is not…. This is how you should hear Christ saying, The Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do.

But why didn’t he say that he does nothing contrary instead of he cannot do? It was so that he might again show the invariableness and exactness of the equality, for the expression does not impute weakness to him. On the contrary, it shows his great power.

Now we understood that the Father does not do something separately, which, when the Son has seen it, he, too, does after having examined the work of his Father. Rather, he said, The Son cannot do anything of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing, because the whole Son is from the Father, and his whole substance and power is from him who begot him. He had said that he does these things in the same way that the Father does, so that we do not think that the Father does some things and the Son other things. Rather, with the same power^[1] the Son does the very same things that the Father does when the Father does them through the Son.

The Son, therefore, is both entitled and proved the equal of the Father—a true equality, which both excludes difference of Godhead and discovers, together with the Son, the Father also, to whom the Son is equal. For there is no equality where there is difference, nor again where there is but one person, inasmuch as none is by himself equal to himself. And so, the Evangelist has shown why it is fitting that Christ should call himself the Son of God, that is, make himself equal with God.

The works of the Father and the Son are inseparable. But this phrase the Son cannot do anything of himself is what would be the case if he were to say, The Son is not of himself. For if the Son is, he was born; if he was born, he is of him from whom he was born. But, nonetheless, he begot an equal to himself. For nothing was lacking to him who begot; neither did he who begot one coeternal search for a time to beget. He who brought forth the Word from himself also did not search for a mother to beget. Nor did the Father beget a lesser Son by preceding him in age. Perhaps, someone says, after many centuries, in his old age God had a Son. As the Father is without old age, even so the Son is without growth; neither has the one grown old nor has the other grown. But an equal begot an equal; an eternal, an eternal.

How does an eternal, someone says, beget an eternal? It does so in the same way a temporal flame generates temporal light. For the generating flame is of the same duration as the light that it generates. The flame does not precede in time the generated light. Rather, the light begins from the instant when the flame begins. Give me flame without light, and I give you God the Father without the Son.

The Word, therefore, came down, not as he is in himself, but by becoming flesh—not the form of God but the form of a slave.^[1] This, then, is the one who said that he could do nothing on his own, because lack of power is a sign of weakness. For as darkness is to light and death is to life, in the same way weakness is opposed to power. And yet Christ is God’s power.^[2] Power is usually not powerless, for, if power were weak, what would have power? When the Word proclaims that he can do nothing, therefore, he is clearly not attributing lack of power to the divinity of the only begotten One but is testifying that the lack of power is due to the weakness of our nature. And the flesh is weak, as Scripture says: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.^[3]

Now, if he had wanted to signify a diminution of his strength and power, he should have said, But only what the Father orders or what [the Father] gives him the power to do. But now he added, but only what he sees the Father doing, which indicates similarity. Actually, if he does only what he sees the Father doing, he evidently possesses a perfect similarity with the Father in his action. And this would be impossible if he did not have the same power.

Let unbelievers meditate on the fact that, both by nature and sovereignty, the Son is one with the Father and that his power at work is not at cross-purposes with the Father, inasmuch as whatever the Father does, the Son does as well. For no one can do in the same way the same work that another had done unless he shares in the unity of the same nature, but at the same time also is not inferior in the method of working.

For if the Father loves the Son completely, it is plain that the Son loves his Father, not in a way that would disappoint him but in a way that would bring his Father joy in what his Son does and works. And so it is pointless for them to persecute him when he refuses not to show mercy on the sabbath…. The Father would never have loved him if he had gone contrary to the will of his Father as if he were accustomed to doing things on his own and doing whatever he wanted by himself.

Again mortal thought is troubled. The Father shows the Son what he himself does. Therefore, someone says, the Father does [his work] separately so that the Son may be able to see what he does. Again there occurs to human thought two craftsmen, as it were, as though an artisan would teach his son his artistic skill and show him whatever he does so that [his son] also may be able to do it himself. He says, He shows him all that he himself does. Therefore when the Father does something, is it that the Son does not do [that same thing] so that he can see what the Father is doing?^[1] This, at any rate is certain, that all things were made through him and without him was made nothing.^[2] From this we see how the Father shows the Son what he makes, although the Father makes nothing except what he makes through the Son.

Let us rather, in a sense befitting the Godhead, perceive a transmission of will, like the reflection of an object in a mirror, passing without note of time from Father to Son. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things, so that all things that the Father has belong to the Son, not gradually accruing to him little by little, but are rather with him all together and at once.

The Father again shows the Son what he himself does, not as though setting before him things depicted on a tablet or teaching him as though ignorant (for he knows all things as God). Rather, the Father depicts himself wholly in the nature of his Son and shows in his Son his own natural properties in order that from these properties he [the Father] has and shows, the Son may know what and who his Father is that begat him by nature. Therefore Christ says that no one knows who the Son is but the Father, or who the Father is, but the Son.^[1] For the accurate knowledge of each is in both, not by learning but by nature.

He said that greater works than these—evidently greater than the healing of the paralyzed man—had to be shown by him so that they would be astonished. Here he alludes to the general resurrection and to those things that he will do when he appears [again] to stand in judgment of all things. When he does this, there will be no denying his dignity. At that time, they will be astonished—and for good reason—learning who he [truly] was and what role he has been given. Undoubtedly, after seeing that, they will agree concerning the nature dwelling in him.

He says that the Son can do nothing of his own accord. Where is the source of his perfect wisdom? The Father… has himself given me his command of what to say and what to speak.^[1] Through all these words he guides us to the knowledge of the Father; he directs our amazement at everything he has made so that we may know the Father through him. The work of the Father is not separate or distinct from the work of the Son. Whatever the Son sees the Father doing… that the Son does likewise. The Father enjoys our awe at everything which proceeds from the glory of the Only Begotten. He rejoices both in his Son who accomplishes such deeds and in the deeds themselves, and he exults in being known as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom and through whom all things exist.^[2]

See again in these words clear proof of his equality. For how can he be inferior in anything if he works equally in the reviving of the dead? Or how can he be of another nature and alien to the Father when he is radiant with the same properties? For the power of resurrection, which is alike in both the Father and the Son, is a property of the divine essence. But it is not as though the Father separately and of himself resurrects some, and the Son separately and apart from the Father resurrects others. For since the Son has in himself by nature the Father, the Father does everything and works all things through the Son. But since the Father has the power of resurrection in his own nature, as also does the Son, the Son attributes the power of resurrecting the dead as though accruing to each separately.