Hilary of Poitiers — Commentary on Scripture

John 14:28

The Father, therefore, is greater, because he is the Father; but the Son, because he is the Son, is not less. By the birth of the Son the Father is constituted greater: the nature that is his by birth does not suffer the Son to be less. The Father is greater, for the Son prays to him to render glory to the manhood he has assumed. The Son is not less, for he receives back his glory with the Father. Thus are consummated at once the mystery of the birth and the dispensation of the incarnation. The Father, as Father—and as glorifying him who now is Son of man—is greater. Father and Son are one in that the Son, born of the Father, after assuming an earthly body is taken back to the glory of the Father.

ON THE TRINITY 9.56

John 14:28

We must confess the Father to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, by unity of nature, by might of power, as equal in honor as begetter and begotten. But, perhaps you say, the witness of our Lord himself is contrary to this declaration, for he says, “The Father is greater than I.” … Can you be ignorant that the incarnation for your salvation was an emptying of the form of God and that the Father, unaffected by this assumption of human conditions, abode in the blessed eternity of his own incorrupt nature without taking our flesh? We confess that the only-begotten God, while he abode in the form of God, abode in the nature of God, but we do not at once reabsorb into the substance of the divine unity his unity bearing the form of a servant. Nor do we teach that the Father is in the Son, as if he entered into him bodily.… God, born of God, being found as man in the form of a servant but acting as God in his miracles, was at once God as his deeds proved, and yet man, for he was found in the fashion of man.

ON THE TRINITY 9.51

John 14:28

(de Trin. ix) Or thus: If the Father is greater by virtue of giving, is the Son less by confessing the gift? The giver is the greater, but He to whom unity with that giver is given, is not the less.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 14:30

(ix. de Trin) He next alludes to the approach of the time when He would resume His glory. Hereafter I will not talk much with you.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 15:1

(ix. de Trin) He rises in haste to perform the sacrament of His final passion in the flesh, (such is His desire to fulfil His Father's commandment:) and therefore takes occasion to unfold the mystery of His assumption of His flesh, whereby He supports us, as the vine doth its branches: I am the true vine.

(ix. de Trin) But He wholly separates this humiliation in the flesh from the form of the Paternal Majesty, by setting forth the Father as the diligent Husbandman of this vine: And My Father is the Husbandman.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 15:1

In His zeal to do the Father's commandment, He rises and hastens to complete the mystery of His bodily passion. But the next moment He unfolds the mystery of His assumption of flesh. Through this assumption we are in Him, as the branches in the vinestock; and unless He had become the Vine, we could have borne no good fruit. He exhorts us to abide in Himself, through faith in His assumed body, that, since the Word has been made flesh, we may be in the nature of His flesh, as the branches are in the Vine. He separates the form of the Father's majesty from the humiliation of the assumed flesh by calling Himself the Vine, the source of unity for all the branches, and the Father the careful Husbandman, Who prunes away its useless and barren branches to be burnt in the fire.

On the Trinity, Book 9

John 15:2

(ix. de Trin) The useless and deceitful branches He cuts down for burning.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 15:23

“Hates my Father also.” This my is the assertion of a relation to the Father that is shared by no one else.… He condemns the man who claims God as his Father and does not love the Son as using a wrongful liberty with the Father’s name, since he who hates him, that is, the Son, must hate the Father also. And none can be devoted to the Father except those who love the Son. For the one and only reason that he gives for loving the Son is his origin from the Father. The Son, therefore, is from the Father, not by his advent but by his birth. And love for the Father is only possible to those who believe that the Son is from him.

ON THE TRINITY 6.30

John 15:26

The Advocate shall come, and the Son shall send him from the Father, and he is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.… He will send from the Father the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. [The Son] therefore cannot be the recipient, since he is revealed as the sender. It only remains to make sure of our conviction on the point, whether we are to believe an egress of a co-existent being or a procession of a being begotten.… If one believes that there is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, surely to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father will be regarded as one and the same thing.… For when he says that all things whatever the Father has are his and that for this cause he declared that it must be received from his own, he teaches also that what is received from the Father is yet received from himself, because all things that the Father has are his.

ON THE TRINITY 8.19-20

John 16:12

But I cannot describe Him, Whose pleas for me I cannot describe. As in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was born of Thee before times eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Thy Holy Spirit is from Thee and through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it. For in Thy spiritual things I am dull, as Thy Only-begotten says, Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born anew. The Spirit breathes where it will, and thou hearest the voice of it; but dost not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So is every one who is born of water and of the Holy Spirit. Though I hold a belief in my regeneration, I hold it in ignorance; I possess the reality, though I comprehend it not. For my own consciousness had no part in causing this new birth, which is manifest in its effects. Moreover the Spirit has no limits; He speaks when He will, and what He will, and where He will.

On the Trinity, Book 12

John 16:12

Keep, I pray Thee, this my pious faith undefiled, and even till my spirit departs, grant that this may be the utterance of my convictions: so that I may ever hold fast that which I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let me, in short, adore Thee our Father, and Thy Son together with Thee; let me win the favour of Thy Holy Spirit, Who is from Thee, through Thy Only-begotten. For I have a convincing Witness to my faith, Who says, Father, all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, even my Lord Jesus Christ, abiding in Thee, and from Thee, and with Thee, for ever God: Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

On the Trinity, Book 12

John 16:23

Perfect faith in the Son, which believes and loves what has come forth from God, and deserves to be heard and loved for its own sake, this faith confessing the Son of God, born from Him, and sent by Him, needs not an intercessor with the Father; wherefore it follows, And have believed that I came forth from God. His nativity and advent are signified by, I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. The one is dispensation, the other nature. To have come from the Father, and to have come forth from God, have not the same meaning; because it is one thing to have come forth from God in the relation of Son ship, another thing to have come from the Father into this world to accomplish the mystery of our salvation. Since to come forth from God is to subsist as His Son, what else can He be but God.

John 16:28

(vi. de. Trin. c. 31) Perfect faith in the Son, which believes and loves what has come forth from God, and deserveth to be heard and loved for its own sake, this faith confessing the Son of God, born from Him, and sent by Him, needeth not an intercessor with the Father: wherefore it follows, And have believed that I came forth from God. His nativity and advent are signified by, I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. The one is dispensation, the other nature. To have come from the Father, and to have come forth from God, have not the same meaning; because it is one thing to have come forth from God in the relation of Sonship, another thing to have come from the Father into this world to accomplish the mystery of our salvation. Since to come forth from God is to subsist as His Son, what else can He be but God.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 16:28

A perfect faith in the Son, which believes and loves the fact that he has come forth from God, has access to the Father without any need of his intervention. The confession that the Son was born and sent from God entitles such a person to a direct audience with God and to love from him. And so the narrative of Jesus’ birth and coming must be taken in the strictest and most literal sense. He says, “I went forth from God,” conveying the fact that his nature is exactly what was given to him by his birth. For what being other than God could go forth from God, that is, could enter upon existence by being born from him? And then he continues, “And I have come from the Father into this world.” In order that he might assure us that this going forth from God means his birth from the Father, he tells us that he came from the Father into the world, referring here to his incarnation. When he said prior to this that he “went forth from God,” however, there he was referring to his [birth by] nature. Since he put on record first the fact of his going forth from God, and then his coming from the Fat…

A perfect faith in the Son, which believes and loves the fact that he has come forth from God, has access to the Father without any need of his intervention. The confession that the Son was born and sent from God entitles such a person to a direct audience with God and to love from him. And so the narrative of Jesus’ birth and coming must be taken in the strictest and most literal sense. He says, “I went forth from God,” conveying the fact that his nature is exactly what was given to him by his birth. For what being other than God could go forth from God, that is, could enter upon existence by being born from him? And then he continues, “And I have come from the Father into this world.” In order that he might assure us that this going forth from God means his birth from the Father, he tells us that he came from the Father into the world, referring here to his incarnation. When he said prior to this that he “went forth from God,” however, there he was referring to his [birth by] nature. Since he put on record first the fact of his going forth from God, and then his coming from the Father, we cannot say that the going and the coming are the same thing. Coming from the Father and going forth from God are not synonymous. Perhaps we might paraphrase them instead as “birth” and “presence,” knowing that they are as different in meaning as these two words. It is one thing to have gone forth from God, entering into a substantial existence [with him] by birth. It is quite another, however, to have come from the Father into this world [by birth] in order to accomplish the mysteries of our salvation.

ON THE TRINITY 6.31

John 16:29

By this the holy Apostles did not understand that He had gone forth, in the sense of having been sent, from God. For they had often heard Him confess, in His earlier discourses, that He was sent; but what they hear now is the express statement that He had gone forth from God. This opens their eyes to perceive from His works His Divine nature. The fact that He had gone forth from God makes clear to them His true Divinity, and so they say, Now therefore we are sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee; by this we believe that Thou wentest forth from God. The reason why they believe that He went forth from God is that He both can, and does, perform the works of God. Their perfect assurance of His Divine nature is the result of their knowledge, not that He is come from God, but that He did go forth from God.

On the Trinity, Book 6

John 16:29

For God is not born from God by the ordinary process of a human childbirth; this is no case of one being issuing from another by the exertion of natural forces. That birth is pure and perfect and stainless; indeed, we must call it rather a proceeding forth than a birth. For it is One from One; no partition, or withdrawing, or lessening, or efflux, or extension, or suffering of change, but the birth of living nature from living nature. It is God going forth from God, not a creature picked out to bear the name of God. His existence did not take its beginning out of nothing, but went forth from the Eternal; and this going forth is rightly entitled a birth, though it would be false to call it a beginning.

On the Trinity, Book 6

John 16:30

(vi. de Trin. c. 34) They believe that He came forth from God, because He does the works of God. For whereas our Lord had said both, I came forth from the Father, and, I am come into the world from the Father, they testified no wonder at the latter words, I am come into the world, which they had often heard before. But their reply shows a belief in and appreciation of the former, I came forth from the Father. And they notice this in their reply: By this we believe that Thou camest forth from God; not adding, and art come into the world, for they knew already that He was sent from God, but had not yet received the doctrine of His eternal generation. That unutterable doctrine they now began to see for the first time in consequence of these words, and therefore reply that He spoke no longer in parables. For God is not born from God after the manner of human birth: His is a coming forth from, rather than a birth from, God. He is one from one; not a portion, not a defection, not a diminution, not a derivation, not a pretension, not a passion, but the birth of living nature from living nat…

(vi. de Trin. c. 34) They believe that He came forth from God, because He does the works of God. For whereas our Lord had said both, I came forth from the Father, and, I am come into the world from the Father, they testified no wonder at the latter words, I am come into the world, which they had often heard before. But their reply shows a belief in and appreciation of the former, I came forth from the Father. And they notice this in their reply: By this we believe that Thou camest forth from God; not adding, and art come into the world, for they knew already that He was sent from God, but had not yet received the doctrine of His eternal generation. That unutterable doctrine they now began to see for the first time in consequence of these words, and therefore reply that He spoke no longer in parables. For God is not born from God after the manner of human birth: His is a coming forth from, rather than a birth from, God. He is one from one; not a portion, not a defection, not a diminution, not a derivation, not a pretension, not a passion, but the birth of living nature from living nature. He is God coming forth from God, not a creature appointed to the name of God; He did not begin to be from nothing, but came forth from an abiding (manente) nature. To come forth, hath the signification of birth, not of beginning.

(as quoted by Aquinas, AD 1274) Catena Aurea by Aquinas

John 16:30

They believe that he came forth from God because he does the works of God.… Notice how, on the one hand, they are not at all amazed when he says, “I am come into the world from the Father.” In fact, these are words which they had often heard before. But their reply shows a belief in and appreciation of the previous words when he had said, “I came forth from the Father.” They, in fact, make specific mention of this in their reply: “By this we believe that you came forth from God.” They didn’t add the phrase, “and are come into the world,” because they knew already that he was sent from God. But they had not yet received anything concerning the doctrine of his eternal generation. That unutterable doctrine they now began to see for the first time in consequence of these words and therefore reply that he spoke no longer in parables. For God is not born from God after the manner of human birth. His is a coming forth from, rather than a birth from God. He is one from one. He is not a portion, not a defection, not a diminution, not a derivation, not a pretension, not a passion. He is the bi…

They believe that he came forth from God because he does the works of God.… Notice how, on the one hand, they are not at all amazed when he says, “I am come into the world from the Father.” In fact, these are words which they had often heard before. But their reply shows a belief in and appreciation of the previous words when he had said, “I came forth from the Father.” They, in fact, make specific mention of this in their reply: “By this we believe that you came forth from God.” They didn’t add the phrase, “and are come into the world,” because they knew already that he was sent from God. But they had not yet received anything concerning the doctrine of his eternal generation. That unutterable doctrine they now began to see for the first time in consequence of these words and therefore reply that he spoke no longer in parables. For God is not born from God after the manner of human birth. His is a coming forth from, rather than a birth from God. He is one from one. He is not a portion, not a defection, not a diminution, not a derivation, not a pretension, not a passion. He is the birth of living nature from living nature. He is God coming forth from God, not a creature appointed to the name of God. He did not begin to be from nothing, but he came forth from a nature that has always existed. To come forth has the signification of birth, not of beginning.

ON THE TRINITY 6.34-35

John 17:1

He does not say that the day or the time but that the hour has come. An hour contains a portion of a day. What was this hour?… He was now to be spit on, scourged, crucified. But the Father glorifies the Son. The sun, instead of setting, fled, and all the other elements felt that same shock of the death of Christ. The stars in their courses, to avoid complicity in the crime, escaped by self-extinction from beholding the scene. The earth trembled under the weight of our Lord hanging on the cross and testified that it did not have the power to hold within it him who was dying.… The centurion proclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Creation is set free by the mediation of this sin offering. The very rocks lose their solidity and strength. Those who had nailed him to the cross confess that truly this is the Son of God. The outcome justifies the assertion. Our Lord had said, “Glorify your Son,” testifying that he was not the Son in name only but properly the Son. “Your Son,” he said. Many of us are sons [children] of God. But he is Son in another sense. He is the proper, true Son by n…

He does not say that the day or the time but that the hour has come. An hour contains a portion of a day. What was this hour?… He was now to be spit on, scourged, crucified. But the Father glorifies the Son. The sun, instead of setting, fled, and all the other elements felt that same shock of the death of Christ. The stars in their courses, to avoid complicity in the crime, escaped by self-extinction from beholding the scene. The earth trembled under the weight of our Lord hanging on the cross and testified that it did not have the power to hold within it him who was dying.… The centurion proclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Creation is set free by the mediation of this sin offering. The very rocks lose their solidity and strength. Those who had nailed him to the cross confess that truly this is the Son of God. The outcome justifies the assertion. Our Lord had said, “Glorify your Son,” testifying that he was not the Son in name only but properly the Son. “Your Son,” he said. Many of us are sons [children] of God. But he is Son in another sense. He is the proper, true Son by nature, not by adoption; in truth, not in name; by birth, not by creation. After he was glorified, that centurion’s confession touched on the truth. And so, when the centurion confesses him to be the true Son of God, none of his believers might doubt what one of his persecutors could not deny.

ON THE TRINITY 3.10-11

John 17:1

But perhaps this proves weakness in the Son. He waited to be glorified by one superior to himself. And who does not confess that the Father is superior, seeing that he himself said, “The Father is greater than I”? But beware that you do not let the honor of the Father impair the glory of the Son.… But the prayer, “Father glorify your Son,” is completed by “that your Son also may glorify you.” So then the Son is not weak, inasmuch as he gives back in his turn glory for the glory that he receives.… This petition for glory to be given and paid back is neither a robbery of the Father nor a depreciation of the Son. Rather, it shows the same power of divinity to be in both.

ON THE TRINITY 3.12