Catena Aurea

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. c. 5) Or is not the order of the words, That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, to be the only true God? the Holy Spirit being necessarily understood, because the Spirit is only the love of the Father and the Son, consubstantial with both. If then the Son so glorifies Thee as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, and Thou hast given Him the power, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him, and, This is life eternal, to know Thee, it follows that He glorifies Thee by making Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Moreover, if the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more advance we make in this knowledge, the more we make in life eternal. But in life eternal we shall never die. Where then there is no death, there will then be perfect knowledge of God; there will God be most glorified1, because His glory will be greatest. Glory was defined among the ancients to be fame accompanied with praise. But if man is praised in dependence on what is said of him, how will God be praised when He shall be seen? as in the Psalm, Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house: they will be alway praising Thee. (Ps. 83:4) There will be praise of God without end, where will be full knowledge of God. There then shall be heard the everlasting praise of God, for there will there be full knowledge of God, and therefore full glorifying of Him.

AUGUSTINE. (i. de Trin. c. viii) What He said to His servant Moses, I am that I am; (Exod. 3) this we shall contemplate in the life eternal.

AUGUSTINE. (iv. de Trin. c. xviii) For when sight has made our faith truth, then eternity shall take possession of and displace our mortality.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv) But God is first glorified here, when He is proclaimed, made known to, and believed in, by men: I have glorified Thee on the earth.

HILARY. (iii. de Trin) This new glory with which our Lord had glorified the Father, does not imply any advancement2 in Godhead, but refers to the honour received from those who are converted from ignorance to knowledge.

CHRYSOSTOM. He says, on the earth; for He had been glorified in heaven, both in respect of the glory of His own nature, and of the adoration of the Angels. The glory therefore here spoken of is not that which belongeth to His substance, but that which pertaineth to the worship of man: wherefore it follows, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv) Not Thou commandest Me, but, Thou gavest Me, implying evidently grace. For what hath human nature, even in the Only-Begotten, what it hath not received? But how had He finished the work which had been given Him to do, when there yet remained His passion to undergo? He says He has finished it, i. e. He knows for certain that He will.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxx) Or, I have finished, i. e. He had done all His own part, or had done the chief of it, that standing for the whole; (for the root of good was planted:) or He connects Himself with the future, as if it were already present.

HILARY. (ix. de Trin) After which, that we may understand the reward of His obedience, and the mystery of the whole dispensation, He adds, And now glorify Me with the glory with Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv. 5) He had said above, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: the order of which words shews that the Son was first to be glorified by the Father, that the Father might be glorified by the Son. But now He says, I have glorified Thee; and now glorify Me; as if He had first glorified the Father, and then asked to be glorified by Him. We must understand that the first is the order in which one was to succeed the other, but that He afterwards uses a past tense, to express a thing future; the meaning being, I will glorify Thee on the earth, by finishing the work Thou hast given Me to do: and now, Father, glorify Me, which is quite the same sentence with the first one, except that He adds here the mode in which He is to be glorified; with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee. The order of the words is, The glory which I had with Thee before the world was. This has been taken by some to mean, that the human nature which was assumed by the Word, would be changed into the Word, that man would be changed into God, or, to speak more correctly, be lost in God. For no one would say that the Word of God would by that change be doubled, or even made at all greater. But we avoid this error, if we take the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, to be the glory which He predestined for Him on earth: (for if we believe Him to be the Son of man, we need not be afraid to say that He was predestinated.) This predestined time of His being glorified, He now saw was arrived, that He might now receive what had been aforetime predestined, He prayed accordingly: And now, Father, glorify Me, &c. i. e. that glory which I had with Thee by Thy predestination, it is now time that I should have at Thy right hand.

HILARY. (iii. de Trin) Or He prayed that that which was mortal, might receive the glory immortal, that the corruption of the flesh might be transformed and absorbed into the incorruption of the Spirit.