Homilies on the Gospel of John 74

'Lord, where goest thou?' Jesus answered him:

'Whither I go, thou canst not now follow me;

but afterward thou shalt follow me.'

it is more vehement than fire, and it mounts up to heaven itself;

and there is no hindrance able to check its impetuous onrush.

At any rate the most ardent Peter, when he heard, 'Whither I go, ye cannot come,' what does he say? 'Lord, where goest thou?' And this he said, not so much from a wish to learn, as from a desire to follow.

Openly, then, to say 'I am coming' he did not yet dare;

but he says, 'Where goest thou?' Yet Christ answered, not to his words, but to his mind.

For that this was what he desired is plain from what Christ said.

For what does he say? 'Whither I go, thou canst not now follow me.'

Seest thou that he longed to follow, and for this reason asked? But when he heard, 'Thou shalt follow afterward,' not even so could he restrain his longing;

and though he had received good hopes, yet he is so pressed on as to say, 'Why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thee.'

For since he had shaken off the reproach of the betrayal, and had shown himself also to be among the genuine ones, henceforth with boldness he asks of his own accord, while the others kept silence.

'What sayest thou, Peter? He said, Thou canst not;

and thou sayest, I can? Then thou shalt know by experience itself that thy love is nothing, unless the help from above be present.'

Whence it is plain that even that fall he permitted out of care for him.

For he wished indeed to instruct him even by the former words;

but since he persisted in his vehemence, He did not Himself cast him down, nor thrust him into the denial, but left him bereft, that he might learn his own weakness.

He said that he must be delivered up, and he says:

He was rebuked, yet he was not corrected;

but again, when Christ wished to wash his feet, he says:

'Thou shalt never wash my feet.'

Hearing again, 'Thou canst not now follow me,' he says:

'Though all shall deny thee, I will not deny thee.'

Since then it was likely that he would be lifted up even to arrogance, being intent on gainsaying Him, He henceforth teaches him not to resist.

This, at any rate, Luke also hinting at, says that He declared, 'And I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not;'

that is, that thou mayest not utterly perish;

throughout all teaching him humility, and reproving human nature as being nothing of itself by itself.

For since his great love had made him contentious, He henceforth brings him to soberness, that he may not suffer this also in the times thereafter, when he shall have taken up the stewardship of the world;

but that, remembering what he suffered, he may come to know himself.

And behold the vehemence of the fall.

For not once and twice did he suffer this, but he was so beside himself as to utter the word of denial three times in a short space of time;

that he might learn that he had not loved so much as he had been loved.

Yet nevertheless, to him who had thus fallen He says again:

'Lovest thou me more than these?' Thus it came about not from coldness, but from being stripped of the help from above.

The love of Peter, then, He accepts, but the contentiousness born of it He cuts away.

For if thou lovest, thou oughtest to obey the beloved.

He said both to thee and to those with thee, 'Ye cannot;'

why art thou contentious? Knowest thou not what the forbidding of God is? But since in this thou wilt not learn that what I say cannot but come to pass, thou shalt learn it in the denial itself;

and yet this then appeared to thee far more incredible.

For this thou didst not even know;

but of that thou hadst the knowledge in thy soul;

yet nevertheless there came to pass what had not even been expected.

'I will lay down my life for thee.'

For since he had heard that no one has greater love than this, he leaped forward at once, being insatiable and desiring to reach the very heights.

But Christ, showing that to promise these things with authority belongs to Him alone, says:

For the interval was not long either;

for it was in the dead of night that He was conversing with them, and the first and second watch had already passed.

'Let not your heart be troubled.'

He says this because it was likely that, on hearing what He had said, they would be troubled.

For if the chief of them, who was so fervent, heard that before the cock crowed he would deny Him thrice,

it was likely that they expected to undergo some great calamity, one sufficient to overturn even adamantine souls.

Since, then, it was likely that as they reasoned thus they would even be beside themselves, see how He consoles them, saying, 'Let not your heart be troubled';

by this first showing forth the power of His Godhead, in that He knows the things they held within their soul and brings them into the open.

'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me';

that is, all these terrors shall pass away.

For faith in Me and in Him that begat Me is mightier than the things that assail you, and will suffer none of these hardships to prevail.

'In My Father's house are many mansions.'

Just as He consoled Peter in his distress, saying,

so also to these He intimates this same hope.

For lest they should suppose that the promise had been given to him alone, He says,

'In My Father's house are many mansions.'

'If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you';

that is, the same region that shall receive Peter shall receive you also.

For there is there great abundance of dwellings, and one cannot say that it stands in need of any preparing.

For since He had said, 'Ye cannot follow Me now,' lest they should think they were utterly cut off, He added,

'That where I am, there ye may be also.'

'So great is the zeal I have shown for this matter, that I should already have gone thither, had not the place long since been made ready for you.'

showing that they ought to be exceedingly of good courage and confidence.

Then, lest He should seem to be saying this merely as one soothing their minds, but that they might believe it is indeed so, He adds,

'And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.'

See how He gives them proof that these things are not spoken idly? He says this because He perceived that their soul was now longing to learn this.

For Peter said what he said, not in order to learn, but so that he might follow.

But when that one was rebuked, and what had hitherto seemed impossible He declared to be possible, and its appearing impossible led Peter to desire to know it with exactness;

for just as, when He had said, 'Thou shalt deny Me,' though no one had uttered anything, He was searching out the things in the heart and said, 'Be not troubled';

so here also, by saying, 'Ye know,' He made plain the desire in their mind, and Himself gave them occasion to ask.

Now the question, 'Whither goest Thou?' Peter asks out of great affection, but Thomas out of timidity.

'Lord, we know not whither Thou goest.'

'We know not the place,' he says;

'and how shall we know the way that leads thither?' And observe with how much reserve he speaks.

For he did not say, 'Tell us the place';

but, 'We know not whither Thou goest.'

For this they had all long been in travail to learn.

For if the Jews were perplexed on hearing it, and that too when they wished to be rid of Him, much more did those who never wished to be parted from Him desire to learn it.

They were afraid, indeed, to ask Him, yet nevertheless they do ask, both out of their great longing and out of their anguish.

What then says Christ? 'I am the way and the truth and the life.'

'No man can come to the Father but by Me.'

Why then, when Peter first asked, 'Whither goest Thou?' did He not straightway say, 'I go to the Father;

and ye cannot come now';

but instead introduced so long a circuit of words, composing questions and answers? For to the Jews He fittingly did not say this;

but to these, why? He said to these as well as to the Jews that He came forth from God and goes to God;

and now He says it more plainly than before,

and to the Jews He did not speak thus plainly.

For had He said, 'Ye cannot come to the Father but by Me,' they would straightway have deemed the thing an arrogant boast;

but now, by concealing it, He cast them into anguish.

'And to the disciples, and to Peter, why did He speak thus?' one may say. He knew his great eagerness, and that thereby he would press upon Him the more, troubling Him.

So then, in order to lead him away from this, He conceals it.

But having accomplished what He wished through the obscurity and the concealing of the saying, He again uncovers it.

For having said that 'Where I am, no man can come,' He added,

'In My Father's house are many mansions';

and again, 'No man cometh to the Father but by Me.'

This, then, He did not wish to say to them at the outset, so as not to cast them into greater despondency;

but when He had calmed them, then He says it.

For by the rebuke of Peter He had cast out the greater part of their despondency, and having fallen into fear lest they should hear the same things, they were the more restrained.

This is the proof of the saying, 'No man cometh but by Me';

and the words, 'And the truth and the life,' are the proof that these things shall assuredly come to pass.

'Nothing therefore from Me is false, if I am the truth;

and if I am also the life, not even death itself shall be able to hinder you from coming.'

Moreover, if I am the way, ye shall have no need of one to lead you by the hand;

and if I am also the truth, the things spoken are no falsehood;

and if I am also the life, then even though ye die, ye shall attain to the things that have been spoken.

Now the matter of the way they both understood and confessed;

yet they did not dare to speak concerning the things they were ignorant of.

But nevertheless they received much consolation from the way.

'If, then, I am Lord,' He says, 'with power to bring you to the Father, ye shall assuredly come thither.'

For neither is it possible to come by any other way.

Having said before, 'No one can come to me unless the Father draw him,'

and again, 'If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto myself,'

and now once more, 'No one comes to the Father except through me,' He shows Himself equal to the One who begot Him.

But how is it that, having said, 'Where I go you know, and the way you know,' He went on to add:

'If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; and from now on you know Him, and have seen Him'? He is not contradicting Himself;

for indeed they knew Him, yet not as they ought to have known.

For they knew Him as God, but not yet as Father; only later, when the Spirit came upon them, did He establish in them all knowledge.

And what He says is of this sort:

'If you had known my essence and my dignity, you would have known that of the Father also.'

'And from now on you know Him, and have seen Him' (the one referring to the future, the other to the present).

By 'seeing' He means the knowledge that is according to the mind.

For things that are seen we are able both to see and yet to be ignorant of;

but things that are known we cannot both know and be ignorant of.

As when he says, 'He was seen also of angels.'

And yet it was not the very essence itself that was seen;

but nevertheless he says He was seen, that is, in the measure in which it was possible for them to behold Him.

It is said in this way so that you may learn that he who has seen Him knows the One who begot Him.

But they beheld Him not in His naked essence, but clothed with flesh.

He knows also elsewhere to call knowledge 'sight';

as when He says, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'

By 'pure' He means not those freed from fornication only, but those freed from all sins;

for every sin puts filth upon the soul.

Let us therefore do all things to wipe away the defilement.

First the washing wipes it away;

afterward there are also many other ways, of every sort.

For God, being a lover of mankind, gave us even after these things various ways of deliverance;

of which the first of all is that through almsgiving.

'By almsgiving,' he says, 'and by faith sins are purged away.'

But by almsgiving I do not mean that which comes from injustice;

for that is not almsgiving at all, but cruelty and inhumanity.

For what profit is it to strip one man and clothe another? For one ought to begin from mercy in the matter;

for even if we give away all that belongs to others, there is no gain to us.

And Zacchaeus shows this, who then said that he propitiated God, by giving fourfold of what he had taken away.

But we, plundering ten thousand things and giving little, think to make God propitious, not knowing that we rather provoke Him.

For tell me, if you were to drag a dead and rotting ass from the crossroads and the streets and bring it to the altar, would not all stone you as accursed and abominable? What then, if I prove that the sacrifice from plunder is more abominable than this, what defence shall we find? For let us suppose that some treasure has been made from robbery;

does it not stink worse than a dead ass? Do you wish to learn how great is the putrefaction of sin? Hear the Prophet saying:

'My wounds stink and are corrupt.'

But you, by your words, ask God to forget the evils you do;

yet by your very deeds, plundering and defrauding, you contrive that He should remember them continually, laying your sin upon the altar.

And now this is not the only sin, but one yet more grievous than this, that you defile the souls of the saints.

For the one is a stone, and is sanctified;

but those souls continually bear Christ Himself;

and do you dare to send there from such uncleanness? 'Not so,' he says;

'not those very moneys, but others.'

Do you not know that even if but a drop of injustice fall into a great abundance of money, the whole is defiled? Just as, then, if one cast dung into a pure spring, he makes the whole of it unclean;

so also, when some covetousness enters into wealth, it makes the whole breathe forth the stench of that source.

Then we wash our hands when entering the church;

but our heart no longer? Do our hands then send forth a voice? It is the soul that utters the words; upon it God looks;

there is no need of the body's cleanness when that soul is defiled. For what profit is it, if you scour the outward hands, but keep the inward ones unclean? For this is the dreadful thing, and that which overturns all: that fearing the small things, we despise the great.

To pray with unwashed hands is a matter of indifference;

but to pray with an unwashed mind, this is the very worst of all evils.

Hear also what was said to the Jews who were occupied about such uncleannesses:

'Wash the wickedness from your heart.'

'How long shall the thoughts of your labours remain in you?' Let us too wash ourselves, not with mire, but with pure water, with almsgiving, and not with covetousness.

First be delivered from plundering, and then display your almsgiving.

Let us turn aside from evil, and do good.

Stay your hands from covetousness, and thus lead them on to almsgiving.

But if with the same hands we strip others—even though we do not clothe them with what was taken from those very persons—not even so do we escape punishment.

For the pretext of propitiation becomes a pretext for every transgression.

For not to show mercy is better than to show mercy in this way.

Since for Cain also it would have been better not to have offered at all.

But if he who brought the lesser thing provoked God,

how shall he who gives what belongs to others not provoke Him? 'I told you,' He says, 'not to plunder;

and do you honour me from these things? What do you suppose? That I take pleasure in these? Assuredly then He will say to you:

'You thought wickedly, that I should be like unto you.'

'I will reprove you, and set your sins in order before your face.'

But God forbid that any should hear this voice; rather, having wrought pure almsgiving, and holding our lamps bright, may we so enter into the bridal chamber, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.