Tractates on the Gospel of John

¹⁰ Let what follows admonish us: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes in me has eternal life.” He willed to reveal Himself, what He was: He might have said in brief, He that believes in me has me. For Christ is Himself true God and eternal life. Therefore, he that believes in me, says He, goes into me; and he that goes into me, has me. But what is the meaning of “to have me”? To have eternal life. Eternal life took death upon itself; eternal life willed to die; but of you, not of itself; of you it received that whereby it may die in your behalf.

Of men, indeed, He took flesh, but yet not in the manner of men. For having His Father in heaven, He chose a mother on earth; both there begotten without mother, and here born without father. Accordingly, life took upon itself death, that life might slay death. “For he that believes in me,” says He, “has eternal life:” not what is open, but what is hid. For eternal life is the Word, that “in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God, and the life was the light of men.” The same eternal life gave eternal life also to the flesh which it assumed. He came to die; but on the third day He rose again. Between the Word taking flesh and the flesh rising again, death which came between was consumed.