134. But peradventure they may urge: "If you hold that the Son, in saying, And I live by the Father,' spoke of the unity of life subsisting between the Father and the Son, does it not follow that He discovered the unity of life between the Son and mankind in saying that he that eateth Me, the same liveth by Me'?"
135. Even so. Just as I confess the unity of celestial Life subsisting in Father and Son by reason of the unity of the substance of the Godhead, so too, save as concerns the prerogatives of the Divine Nature or those which are the effect of the Incarnation of our Lord, I affirm of the Son a participation of spiritual life with us by virtue of the unity of His Manhood with ours, for "as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." [2456] Further, even as in Him we sit at the right hand of the Father, not in the sense that we share His throne, but that we rest in the Body of Christ--even as, I say, we have part in Christ's session by reason of corporal unity, so too we live in Christ by reason of unity of our bodies with His Body.
136. Not only, then, have I no fears of the text, "I live by the Father," but I should have none, even though Christ had said, "I live by help of the Father." [2457]
137. Now another objection commonly urged by them starts from the text: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, to the end that His Son may be glorified by Him." [2458] But not only is the Son glorified through the Father and by the Father, as it is written: "Glorify Me, Father;" [2459] and again: "Now hath the Son of Man been glorified, and God hath been glorified in Him, and God glorifieth Him," [2460] but the Father also is glorified through the Son and by the Son, for Truth hath said: "I have glorified Thee upon earth." [2461]
138. Even as the Son, therefore, is glorified through the Father, so too He lives by the Father. There are some who have been led by consideration of these words to the supposition that [the Greek] "doxa" means "opinion, belief," rather than "glory," and therefore have interpreted as follows: "I have given thee a doxa upon earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do, and now, O Father, give me a doxa;" that is to say: "I have taught men so to believe concerning Thee, as to know that Thou art the true God; do Thou also establish in them, concerning Me, the belief that I am Thy Son, and very God."
[2438] S. John vi. 58.
[2439] Isa. xiv. 6.
[2440] 1 Thess. v. 10.
[2441] S. John x. 17 ff.
[2442] S. John vi. 54.
[2443] S. John vi. 56.
[2444] S. John vi. 52.
[2445] S. Luke xxiv. 39.
[2446] 1 Cor. xi. 26. St. Ambrose's term for "are transformed" is "transfigurantur."
[2447] S. John iii. 13.
[2448] Or "flesh."
[2449] S. John v. 21.
[2450] Or "is discovered to be a certain unity, etc."
[2451] i.e. in respect of His Body of flesh and blood.
[2452] Rom. iv. 24.
[2453] S. John v. 26.
[2454] Ps. xlv. 1.
[2455] Ps. cx. 3.
[2456] 1 Cor. xv. 40. On this place H. observes: "As the Son, by reason of a nature numerically identical with the Father's, lives together with Him the same Divine Life, so we by virtue of a manhood specifically the same as Christ's have power to live the life which the Man Christ lives; which life indeed resides in its greatest fulness in Him as its Head and Fountain, and from His Person overflows into us, His members--yet not without a certain difference, for the comparison is incomplete, by reason, namely, of the reservation of prerogatives attaching to the Divine Nature or to the Lord's Incarnation. The Godhead is numerically One, the Life of the Father and the Life of the Son is numerically one, but Christ's Life and ours are not so. Moreover, this (Divine) Life subsistent in the Son is united to His Manhood in and by the unity of His Person, but is not communicated to us in so close an alliance, overflowing rather into us only by a certain participation....But perhaps the sainted Doctor's meaning here is that we live and abide in Christ by a corporal unity, because, Christ having Manhood specifically the same as ours, whatsoever is fittingly predicted of manhood as existing in Christ is applicable to all His fellow-men. The first construction, however, explains St. Ambrose's analogy more fully."
[2457] St. Ambrose quotes the words from St. John vi. 58, thus: "propter Patrem." This seeming expression of dependence, he says, does not in the least disturb his belief in the co-eternity and co-equality of the Son with the Father; which belief would indeed remain unshaken even though Christ's words had been still more expressive, to all appearance, of dependence and inferiority.
[2458] S. John xi. 4.
[2459] S. John xvii. 5.
[2460] S. John xiii. 31, 32.
[2461] S. John xvii. 4.