St. Thomas Aquinas (compiler)
Catena Aurea
John › 1:18 · Part 2 of 2
Compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas from attributed patristic excerpts. Speaker labels identify the quoted authors; not every statement is Aquinas’s own wording. English edition edited by John Henry Newman (1841–1845). John 1:18
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. iii. c. 18) Yet have there been men, who, deceived by the vanity of their hearts, maintained that the Father is invisible, the Son visible. Now if they call the Son visible, with respect to His connexion with the flesh, we object not; it is the Catholic doctrine. But it is madness in them to say He was so before His incarnation; i. e. if it be true that Christ is the Wisdom of God, and the Power of God. The Wisdom of God cannot be seen by the eye. If the human word cannot be seen by the eye, how can the Word of God?
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xvi. [xv.] 1.) The text then, No man hath seen God at any time, applies not to the Father only, but also to the Son: for He, as Paul saith, is the Image of the invisible God; but He who is the Image of the Invisible, must Himself also be invisible.
Source: Catena Aurea (eCatholic2000)