Consider the plurality of persons but recognize the unity of divinity. For on account of the plurality of persons it is said: Let us make man in our image and likeness. He did not say: I will make man, and pay attention while I make, so that you too can make another. He says, Let us make. I hear plurality. In our image. Again, I hear plurality. Where then is the singularity of divinity? Read the following: And God made man. It is said: Let us make man, and it is not said: The gods made man. The unity is understood in that it is said: God made man.
The meaning of the words of Christ must be sought with true faith.
Where then is that carnal intention? Let it be confounded, hidden, destroyed. Let the Word of God speak to us. Now, being devout, now believing, now imbued with faith and having acquired some merit of understanding, let us turn to the Word itself, to the fountain of light, and say together: Lord, the Father did the same things as you; for whatever the Father does, he does through you. We heard you, the Word, in the beginning: We did not see, but we believe. There, consequently, we heard that everything was made through you. Therefore, everything that the Father does, he does through you. Therefore, you do the same things as the Father. What does this mean? Why did you want to say: The Son can do nothing of himself? For I see a certain equality with the Father in you, in that I hear: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. I recognize equality, I understand this here, I grasp it as I can: I and the Father are one. What is this: That you cannot do anything, unless you see the Father doing it? What does this mean?
The difficulty of understanding arises from not being able to see the Word.
Perhaps he says to me, or rather says to all of us: For this that I said: The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do, how do you understand my seeing? What is my seeing? Disregard for a moment the form of a servant, which he took on for your sake. For indeed, in that form of a servant, our Lord had eyes and ears in the flesh, and in that human form which we also bear, he had the same figure of body, the same features of limbs. That flesh came from Adam, but he was not Adam. Therefore, the Lord, walking either on land or on sea, as it pleased him, as he willed, because whatever he willed he could do, looked at what he willed. He cast his eyes, he saw. He turned his eyes away, and did not see. He was followed by someone from behind, seen by someone from the front. He saw with the bodily eyes what was in front. However, divinity was hidden from nothing. Set aside, set aside, I say, for a moment the form of a servant. See the form of God, in which he was before the world was made, in which he was equal to the Father. From him, accept and understand what he says to you: Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. See him there, if you can, so that you can understand what his seeing is. In the beginning was the Word. How does the Word see? Does the Word have eyes, or do our eyes find themselves in him, and not bodily eyes, but the eyes of pious hearts? For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
In Christ, the form of a servant was shown to mortals, the form of God was preserved for the blessed.
You see Christ as man and God. He shows you the man, preserves for you the God. And see that he preserves for you the God, who shows himself to you as man. He who loves me, he says, keeps my commandments. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him. And as if it were said: What will you give him whom you love? And I will show myself to him, he says. What is this, brothers? He whom they already saw, he promised to show himself to them. To whom? To those by whom he was seen, or to those by whom he was not seen? Thus speaking to a certain Apostle, he said, asking to see the Father so that it would suffice him, and saying: Show us the Father, and it suffices us. And he, standing before the eyes of the servant, in the form of a servant, preserving for the deified eyes the form of God, said to him: Have I been with you for so long a time, and you do not know me? He who sees me sees also the Father. You seek to see the Father, see me. You see me, and you do not see me. You see what I have assumed for you, you do not see what I have preserved for you. Hear the commandments, cleanse your eyes. Because: He who loves me, keeps my commandments, and I will love him. As if keeping my commandments, and as if cured through my commandments, I will show myself to him.
To see the Word is not different from the Word. Love makes capable of receiving divine things.
Therefore, brothers, if we cannot see what it is to see the Word, where are we going? What vision do we perhaps seek too hastily? What do we want to be shown that we cannot see? Therefore, these things are said which we desire to see, not because we can now comprehend them. For if you see the seeing of the Word, perhaps in what you see as the seeing of the Word, you will see the Word itself, so that the Word is not something else, and seeing of the Word is not something else, so that nothing is compounded, joined, or doubled there. For it is something simple with ineffable simplicity. It is not like a man, for a man is one thing, and the seeing of the man is another. For sometimes the seeing of the man extinguishes, and the man remains. This is what I was saying I would speak something which not all could understand, even the Lord grants that some may understand. My brothers, I exhort you to see the seeing of the Word. Is this beyond your strength because it is small? Let it be nourished, let it be completed. From where? From the commandments. Which commandments? He who loves me keeps my commandments. Which commandments? For now, we want to grow, to be strengthened, to be completed, so that we may see the seeing of the Word. Tell now, Lord, which commandments? I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Therefore, brothers, let us draw this love from the abundance of the fountain, let us take hold of it, let us be nourished by it. Hold on to that by which you may be capable. Let love generate you, let love nourish you, let love complete you, let love strengthen you, so that you see the seeing of the Word, that the Word is not one thing and the seeing of it another; but that which is the seeing of the Word is the Word. And perhaps you will quickly understand, because that which was said: The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing, is such as if he were to say: The Son would not be, unless he were born of the Father. That is enough, brothers. I know I said something which perhaps is revealed by reflection, often is obscured by many words.