Bibliothek der Kirchenväter

3.

But if the Lord said this, His words would not rightly have been, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ but rather, ‘I too am in the Father, and the Father is in Me too,’ that He may have nothing of His own and by prerogative ¹, relatively to the Father, as a Son, but the same grace in common with all. But it is not so, as they think; for not understanding that He is genuine Son from the Father, they belie Him who is such, whom alone it befits to say, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ For the Son is in the Father, as it is allowed us to know, because the whole Being of the Son is proper to the Father’s essence ², as radiance from light, and stream from fountain; so that whoso sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father, and knows that the Son’s Being, because from the Father, is therefore in the Father. For the Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and proper to Him, as in the radiance the sun, and in the word the thought, and in the stream the fountain: for whoso thus contemplates the Son, contemplates what is proper to the Father’s Essence, and knows that the Father is in the Son. For whereas the Form ³ and Godhead of the Father is the Being of the Son, it follows that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son ⁴.

Or.ii. 19, n. 6. ↩
Since the Father and the Son are the numerically One God, it is but expressing this in other words to say that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, for all They have and all They are is common to Each, excepting Their being Father and Son. A περιχώρησις of Persons is implied in the Unity of Essence. This is the connexion of the two texts so often quoted; ‘the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son,’ because ‘the Son and the Father are one.’ And the cause of this unity and περιχώρησις is the Divine γέννησις . Thus S. Hilary,Trin.ii. 4. vid.Or.ii. 33, n. 1. ↩
εἴδους . Petavius here prefers the reading ἰδίου; θεότης and τὸ ἱδιον occur togetherinfr.6. and 56. εἶδος occursOrat.i. 20, a.de Syn.52. vid.de Syn.52, n. 6.infr.6, 16,Ep. Æg.17,contr. Sabell. Greg.8, c. 12, vid.infr.§§6, 16, notes. ↩
In accordance with §1, note 10, Thomassin observes that by the mutual coinherence or indwelling of the Three Blessed Persons is meant ‘not a commingling as of material liquids, nor as of soul with body, nor as the union of our Lord’s Godhead and humanity, but it is such that the whole power, life, substance, wisdom, essence, of the Father, should be the very essence, substance, wisdom, life, and power of the Son.’de Trin.xxviii. 1. S. Cyril adopts Athan.’s language to express this doctrinein Joan.p. 105.de Trin.vi. p. 621,in Joan. p. 168. Vid.infr.ταὐτότης οὐσίας , 21. πατρικὴ θεότης τοῦ υἱοῦ , 26. and 41. andde Syn.45, n. 1. vid. also Damasc.F. O.i. 8. pp. 139, 140. ↩

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