Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But whose teaching does he say they marveled at — his own, or the Father's? While they were debating among themselves whether he himself might be the Christ, at that very point it was not the Father speaking but the Son: "You know me," he says, "and you know where I am from, and I have not come of my own accord, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know; I know him, since I come from his presence." [2] He did not say, "For I am he myself," or "I sent myself," but, "He sent me." Likewise, when the Pharisees had sent men to seize him, he said, "Yet a little while I am with you, and I go to him who sent me." And when he denies that he is alone — "But I," he says, "and he who sent me, the Father" — does he not point to two, as much two as they are inseparable? Indeed this whole teaching came down to just this: that the two are inseparable. [3] For when he sets out the law which establishes proof by the testimony of two men, he adds, "I bear witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me." But if he were a single being, simultaneously Son and Father, he would not have invoked the backing of a law that grounds credibility not in the testimony of one but of two. [4] Again, when asked where the Father was, answering that neither he nor the Father was known to them, he named two as unknown; for had they known the Father, they would have known him also — not as though he himself were both Father and Son, but because through their inseparability neither can be known nor unknown apart from the other. [5] "He who sent me," he says, "is true, and I speak to the world the things I have heard from him" — Scripture interpreting from outside that they had not recognized what he had said of the Father, since of course they ought to have recognized that the Father's words are in the Son, reading in Jeremiah, "And the Lord spoke to me thus: See, I have set my words within your mouth"; and in Isaiah, "The Lord gives me a tongue of instruction, to know when it is right to speak a word"; just as he himself says elsewhere, "Then you will recognize that it is I, and that nothing I say issues from myself, but I speak precisely as he has instructed me, for the one who sent me remains beside me" — and this too is testimony to the inseparability of the two. [6] Again, in his dispute with the Jews, reproaching them for wanting to kill him, he says, "I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your father"; and, "Now you seek to kill a man who has told you the truth which he heard from God"; and, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came forth from God and have come" (and yet they are not thereby separated, even though he says he 'came forth' — as some seize on this word as their opportunity — for he came forth from the Father as a ray from the sun, as a stream from its spring, as a shoot from its seed); and, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father"; and, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, He is our God, and you do not know him; yet I am acquainted with him, and were I to claim ignorance of him, I would be a liar just as you are; but I am acquainted with him and hold fast to his word." [7] But when he adds, "Abraham saw my day and rejoiced," surely he makes plain that long ago it was the Son who appeared, not the Father. Likewise, over that blind man, he says it is necessary for him to perform his Father's works; and to him, after his sight was restored, he says, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" And when the man asked who this was, by pointing to himself he plainly pointed to the Son whom he had said must be believed in. [8] Then he states that the Father recognizes him and he recognizes the Father, and that he is therefore loved by the Father because he lays down his soul, since he had received this command from the Father. [9] And when asked by the Jews whether he himself were the Christ (that is, God's Christ — for to this very day the Jews look for the Christ of God, not for the Father himself, since the Father was never written to be the one who was to come), he says, "I tell you, and you do not believe; the works which I do in my Father's name, these bear witness of me." Witness to what? Plainly to the very thing they were asking about — that he is the Christ of God. [10] Of his sheep too, that no one shall snatch them from his hand, he says, "For what my Father has given me is greater than all"; and, "I and the Father are one." Here now fools — no, blind men who cannot see — want to plant their flag, failing to notice, first, that "I and the Father" signifies two; then that, in the last word, "We are" is not spoken of a single person, since it is put in the plural; and further, that he says "One thing we are," not "One person we are." [11] For had he said "One person we are," he might have lent support to their view; for "one" in the masculine seems to signify singularity. But when he applies to two masculine subjects a neuter predicate — "one thing," which points not to singularity of person but to unity, likeness, conjunction, to the love of a Father who loves his Son and the obedience of a Son who obeys his Father's will — by saying "One thing we are," I and the Father, he demonstrates two beings whom he equates and unites. [12] Accordingly he goes on to add that he has shown them many works from the Father, none of which deserved stoning. And lest they should think they must stone him as though he had meant himself to be understood as God himself, that is, the Father, because he had said, "I and the Father are one" — showing thereby the Son of God to be God, not showing himself to be God the Father — he says, "If it is written in the Law, 'I said, You are gods,' and Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because he called himself 'God's Son'? Should I fail to perform my Father's works, do not put faith in me; but if I do perform them, and you refuse to believe me, believe at least on account of the works, and recognize that the Father dwells in me and I in the Father." [13] Through the works, then, the Father dwells in the Son, and the Son within the Father, and it is through the works that we understand Father and Son to be one; so persistently did he keep pressing home this whole point — that the two should nevertheless be believed in as one power, since the Son could not be believed in at all unless the two were believed in together.