Homilies on the Gospel of John 22

「What have I to do with thee, woman? Mine hour is not yet come.」

Speaking has, indeed, a certain labor;

and Paul, making this plain, said,

「Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor,

especially those who labor in word and teaching.」

But you have power both to make this labor light and to make it heavy.

For if you spit out the things spoken, or, though you do not spit them out, yet show them not in your deeds, the toil will be heavy for us, because of laboring in vain and to no purpose;

but if you give heed, and provide the demonstration through your deeds, we shall not even feel our sweat;

for the fruit which is born of the labors will not permit the severity of the labor to appear.

So that, if you wish to rouse our eagerness, and not to quench it, nor to make it weaker, show us, I beseech you, the fruit, that seeing the crops in full ear, and ourselves nourished by the hopes of plenty and reckoning up our wealth, we may not grow sluggish in trading in this good merchandise.

For no small question, too, is set before us today.

For when the mother of Jesus had said, 「They have no wine,」 Christ says, 「What have I to do with thee, woman? Mine hour is not yet come;」

and having said this, He did that very thing which His mother had said.

And this is no less than the former as a matter for inquiry.

Having therefore called upon this same One who wrought the miracle, let us so proceed to the solution.

For it is not here alone that this is said; but as he proceeds, the same evangelist is seen saying:

They could not seize Him, because His hour was not yet come.

No man laid hands on Him, because His hour had not yet come.

All these sayings, scattered throughout the Gospel, I have gathered together here, that I may bring forward one solution for them all.

What then is the solution of these words? It was not as being subject to the constraint of times, nor from watching the hour, that Christ said, My hour is not yet come;

(for how could He be, who is the Maker of the seasons, and the Fashioner of the times and of the ages?) but rather by such words He wishes to make this plain: that He does all things with the fitting season, not doing all things at once;

since some confusion and disorder would result thereby, if He did not fashion each thing in its fitting seasons, but jumbled all together at once, birth and resurrection and judgment.

The creation had to come into being, but not the whole of it at once;

and man too, together with the woman, yet not even these at the same moment.

The race of men had to be condemned to death, and the resurrection had to take place; yet great is the interval between the two.

The Law had to be given, but not grace along with it at the same time; but each thing had to be dispensed in its fitting seasons.

Christ therefore was not subject to the necessity of the seasons, He who most of all imposed order upon the seasons, seeing that He is their Maker as well.

But John here introduces Christ saying, My hour is not yet come, showing that He was not yet manifest to the many, and that He did not yet have the whole company of the disciples, but Andrew followed Him and with him Philip, and no other;

or rather, not even these all knew Him as they ought, nor did His mother, nor His brethren.

For after the many miracles the evangelist said this concerning the brethren: that Neither did His brethren believe in Him.

For otherwise they would themselves have come forward and made request, when the need arose.

I am not yet known to those present, but neither do they know that the wine has run short.

Let them first perceive this.

For I ought not to hear these things even from you.

For you are My mother, and you make the miracle suspect.

But those who were in need ought to have come forward and made request, not because I have need of this, but that they themselves might receive what is done with much assent.

For he who knows that he stands in need, when he obtains the very things he asks, holds much gratitude;

but he who takes no perception of the need will not receive a clear and distinct perception of the benefit either.

And for what reason, one asks, having said, My hour is not yet come, and having declined, did He do the very thing His mother said? Chiefly indeed, in order that, to those who contradict and think that He was subject to the hour, there might be a sufficient proof that He was not subject to any hour.

For if He were subject, how could He, when the fitting hour had not come, have done what He did? And then also, honoring His mother, that He might not seem to be always contradicting her, that He might not incur a reputation for weakness, that He might not shame her who bore Him, so many being present;

for indeed she brought the servants to Him.

Just as also, when He said to the Canaanite woman, It is not right to take the children's bread and to give it to the little dogs, He nevertheless gave, after He had said it, out of reverence for her perseverance.

And indeed together with that He said this also, that I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;

yet nevertheless, though He said these things, He healed the woman's little daughter.

From this we learn that, even if we are unworthy, we often by our perseverance make ourselves worthy to receive.

For this reason also His mother both remained and wisely brought the servants forward, so that the request might be made by more than one.

For this reason too she added, Whatever He says to you, do it.

For she knew that the declining was not from weakness, but from His freedom from boasting, and from His not wishing to seem to fling Himself carelessly upon the miracle;

wherefore also she brought the servants forward.

Now there were set there six stone water-jars, according to the purification of the Jews, holding two or three measures apiece.

Fill the water-jars with water.

He did not say simply, According to the purification of the Jews, without cause, but that none of the unbelievers might suspect that, some lees having remained within, then the water being poured in and mixed, a very thin wine was produced.

For this reason he says, According to the purification of the Jews, showing that those vessels had never been receptacles of wine.

For since Palestine is a waterless land, and it was not possible in many places to find fountains and springs, they used always to fill the water-jars with water, so as not to have to run to the rivers whenever they might become unclean;

but might have close at hand the means of purification.

And why, pray, did He not perform the sign before they were filled, which would have been far more wonderful? For it is one thing to change an underlying matter into a quality, and another to make the very substance itself out of things that are not;

for the latter indeed would have been the more wonderful.

But it would not thus have seemed credible to the many.

For this very reason then He often willingly curtails the greatness of His miracles, so that they may become the more readily acceptable.

And for what reason, one asks, did He not Himself bring forward the water and then display the wine, but commanded the servants? Again for the same cause, and that He might have as witnesses of what was done those who had drawn it, and that what was accomplished might be no mere illusion.

For if any were disposed to be shameless, those who had ministered could say to them:

In addition to what has been said, He also overturns the doctrines that spring up against the Church.

For since there are some who say that the Maker of the world is another, and that the things which are seen are not His works, but of some other, opposing god;

in order to muzzle the madness of these too, He works the greater part of His miracles out of the substances that already lie at hand.

For if the Maker had been opposed to Him, He would not have used what belonged to another for the display of His own power.

But now, showing that He is the very One who works in the vines;

changing the water, and turning the rain through the root into wine, which in the plant comes to pass over a long time, this He wrought all at once at the marriage.

And when they had filled the water-jars, He says:

Draw out now, and carry to the master of the feast.

And when the master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know whence it was (but the servants knew, who had drawn the water), the master of the feast calls the bridegroom, and says to him:

Every man first sets out the good wine, and when men have drunk freely, then that which is worse.

You have kept the good wine until now.

Here again some scoff, saying:

The gathering was of men thus drunken, and the perception of those who judged was corrupted and not able to apprehend the things that were done, nor to judge concerning what was performed, so that they did not even know whether what had come to be was water or wine;

for that they were drunken, the master of the feast himself showed by the things he said.

Now this above all is ridiculous;

yet nevertheless the evangelist cut away even this suspicion of theirs.

For he does not say that it was the banqueters who passed judgment concerning what had happened, but the master of the feast, who was sober and had as yet tasted nothing.

For you all surely know this, that most of all men, those who have been entrusted with the service of such banquets, these are especially the sober ones, having one task: to dispose all things in order and in due arrangement.

For this reason He summoned this sober perception as a witness of the things that were done.

For he did not say, Pour out wine for those reclining, but, Carry to the master of the feast.

And when the master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know whence it was (but the servants knew), the master of the feast calls the bridegroom.

And for what reason did he not call the servants? for thus the miracle would have been laid bare.

Because not even Jesus Himself was uncovering what had been done, but wished the power of the signs to be made known gently and little by little.

If, then, the miracle had been exposed at that very moment, the servants who related these things would not have been believed;

rather, they would have seemed to be mad, bearing such testimony to one who at that time appeared to most people to be a mere man.

For they themselves indeed came to know the certainty of it through experience;

for surely they were not about to disbelieve their own hands.

But to convince others they were not competent.

For this reason He did not reveal it to all, but reserved the clearer knowledge of it for the time to come, disclosing it to the one most able to perceive what had taken place.

For after the demonstration of the other signs, this too was destined to be believed.

At any rate, when He afterward heals the son of the royal official, the Evangelist, by what he there says, shows that this too became clearer.

For it was chiefly on this account that the man called upon Him, because he had come to know of the sign, as I said.

And John, making this plain, said:

'Jesus came into Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine;'

and not simply wine, but the finest wine.

For such are the miracles of Christ: they turn out far more beautiful and better than the things wrought by nature.

So it was also in the other cases: when He restored a lame member of the body, He made it better than those that were sound.

That it was wine, then, and the finest wine, which had come to be, not the servants only, but also the bridegroom and the master of the feast were to bear witness;

and that it had been made by Christ, those who had drawn the water bore witness.

So that even if the miracle was not disclosed at the time, nevertheless it could not have been passed over in silence to the very end;

in this way He laid up beforehand for Himself many and necessary testimonies for the time to come.

For of His having made the water wine He had the servants as witnesses;

and of the wine's having become excellent, the master of the feast and the bridegroom.

It is likely, then, that the bridegroom made some answer to these things and spoke;

but the Evangelist, hastening on to the more necessary of the matters, having touched on this sign only, passed over the rest.

For the necessary thing was to learn that He made the water wine, and good wine;

but what the bridegroom said to the master of the feast, he no longer thought it necessary to add.

For many of the signs, which at first were more obscure, as time went on became clearer,

having been more accurately reported by those who from the beginning knew them.

At that time, then, Jesus made wine out of water;

and both then and now He does not cease to transform dispositions that are slack and dissolute.

For there are, there are men who differ in nothing from water, so cold and slack and never standing firm.

Let us then bring those who are so disposed to the Lord, that He may change their disposition into the condition of the wine, so that they may no longer flow away, but may have firmness, and become a cause of gladness both to themselves and to others.

And who might these cold ones be, but those who cling to the fleeting affairs of the present life, who do not laugh to scorn the luxury here below, who are lovers of glory and power? For all these things are streams, standing nowhere firm, but ever borne downward with great rushing force.

For he who is rich today is poor tomorrow;

he who today appears with a herald and a girdle and a chariot and many lictors, often on the following day takes up his dwelling in prison, having yielded up that show of splendour, even against his will, to another.

Again, the man of luxury, torn this way and that, when he has burst his own belly, cannot retain even for a single day the supply thence engendered in him; but, when that has been dissipated, he is forced to cram in more, differing in nothing from a torrent.

For just as there, when the former stream has passed on, others come again in turn;

so also here, when the former food has been dispersed, we again have need of other.

And such is the nature of worldly things: to have obtained the lot of never standing still, but ever flowing and being swept along.

But in the case of luxury, it is not this only, the flowing past and running away, but it also causes us many other troubles.

For in passing by with a rush it both wears away the strength of the body and sweeps off the manliness of the soul;

and the violent currents of rivers are not wont so to eat away their banks and cause them to subside, as luxury and wantonness easily undermine all the props of our health.

And if you go into a physician's surgery and, approaching, make inquiry, you will find that nearly all the causes of diseases are from that source.

For frugality and the plain table is the mother of health.

For this reason the sons of physicians so named it, calling the not being sated 'health';

'For non-satiety of food is health';

and they called the being fed sparingly the mother of health.

But if want is the mother of health, it is plain that repletion is the mother of sickness and infirmity, and gives birth to maladies that surpass even the physicians' art.

For indeed gout, and heaviness of the head, and dimness of sight, and pains of the hands, and tremblings, and paralyses, and jaundice, and long and burning fevers, and many other ailments far more numerous than these (for it is not the moment to go through them all), are by nature wont to be begotten, not from want and a temperate manner of living, but from gluttony and repletion.

But if you wish to behold also the diseases of the soul that spring up from this source, you will see that covetousness, sloth, melancholy, dullness, licentiousness, and all ignorance take their beginning from here.

For souls given to luxury become in nothing better than asses from such tables, torn asunder by such wild beasts.

Shall I also tell how many griefs and vexations those have who devote themselves to luxury? But to recount them all is not possible;

but by this one summary I will make the whole plain.

For of that table—I mean the sumptuous one—they never taste with pleasure.

For want, just as it is the mother of health, so also is it the mother of pleasure;

but repletion, just as it is the source of diseases, so also is it the fountain and root of distaste.

For where there is satiety, it is not possible for desire to be;

and, desire not being present, how could there ever be pleasure? For this reason we should find the poor not only more sensible and healthier than the rich, but also reaping more of gladness.

Considering all these things, let us flee drunkenness and luxury—not that which is at table only, but every other kind as well, that which lies in the affairs of this life;

and in exchange for that let us take the pleasure that comes from spiritual things, and, according to the Prophet, let us delight ourselves in the Lord (for 'Delight yourself

in the Lord,' he says, 'and He shall give you the requests of your heart');

that we may enjoy both the good things here and those to come, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.