Commentary on John 1 part 16/94

we must then, it seems, take up the worship within the definition of sonship; and we shall say that the Son must by all means worship the Father, as having received His being in Him — just as we too, in being living beings that are rational and mortal, receptive of mind and knowledge, shall entrust ourselves to outward and mental impulses and to the mere inclinations that spring from acts of will.

For if the necessity of worshipping in every way and as of compulsion has been sown into the Only-begotten by nature, and they thus conceive and speak, how will they not be convicted of impiety nakedly directed against the Father Himself? For all necessity requires that He too be conceived of as such, since the Son is His image and His impress; and whatsoever things exist in likenesses that admit of no variation, these will in no respect differ from one another.

But if they say that it lies solely in the Son's willing to offer worship to the Father, they are conjecturers rather than those who know the truth.

For what would prevent others also from saying — fabricating some rash sort of piety — that it is a thing willed by the Father to worship the Son, even though the Father is not by nature a worshipper? 'But,' he says, 'propriety itself will withdraw the person of the Father, and will subject the Son to the matter, since He does not hold worshipping the Father to be against His will.'

What are you saying, my good man? Again you bring up to us oracles as if from shrines, or from Hellenic tripods; or you come like that Elamite Shemaiah, belching forth things from your own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord. And are you not ashamed to set 'what is fitting' against us in these matters as though it were unassailable? For do you not think it fitting that He who is God by nature should have as God the Word begotten from Him, and Him whom all creation worships; and that a Son who is worshipped rather than worshipping should be called, and be by nature, Father? Yet I think this is not out of tune with those who are truly wise.

But how shall we define it as fitting that the Father be worshipped by His own offspring, when so great a loss is thereby incurred to the estimation of both? For first, that which does not worship will not stand in equality of dignity, nor in the unvarying image of the nature, with that which worships.

For He worships as one lesser, and as measurable in quantity by something belonging to the things attached to Him.

For He will not be a lesser God or Lord;

but as differing by a definition according to the principle of the manner of His being.

Then how will He appear to be truthful when He says, 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father'? And how does He say that He ought to be honoured in no lesser degree than the Father, when He does not have equality in glory, at least according to the principle of the one worshipping? And besides this, the Father Himself will be seen by us to have fallen into no ordinary unseemliness.

For it is glory to Him to have begotten such a One as He Himself is by nature;

but on the contrary it is no small shame to have as one from Himself a being of another kind and alien, and to have suffered such a thing as even the very nature of created things has shrunk from.

'For let the earth,' He says, 'bring forth the herb of grass, and the fruit-bearing tree yielding seed after its kind and after its likeness.' Then the Divine will be inferior even to created things, if indeed those bring forth after their kind, but It does so in no way.

At the same time He decreed that things had been well distinguished in the successions arising from existing beings; and in this very point alone will He be convicted of having failed.

Who then, most excellent sirs, could endure those who say that it is fitting for the Son to worship His own Begetter? But since it has been added to your arguments that the matter is not even against the will of the Only-begotten, and you fortify against us this indemonstrable pretext, taking it solely from what is fitting, come, let us examine this too again from the sacred writings, whence I think it especially befits us to be zealous to hunt out the demonstration concerning each of the things sought.

The Law, then, commanded that by each of the Jews the half of the didrachm should be paid to the God who is over all — not devising a means of exacting silver, nor a random collection of money, but showing forth, through most vivid figures, a certain instruction:

first, that no one is lord of his own head, but we all possess one Master, being enrolled unto servitude by the deposit of the payments;

and then, besides this, it depicts the fruit-bearings that proceed from the mind and are spiritual, as it were in a coarser letter and matter.

'For honour the Lord,' it says, 'from your righteous labours, and offer Him firstfruits from your fruits of righteousness'; which indeed came to pass through the Gospel teaching, the service according to the Law having now been abrogated.

For we no longer think that we must serve the Lord of all with outward gifts, hastening to pay the didrachm from corruptible matter;

but being true worshippers, we worship in spirit and in truth the God and Father.

One must suppose that this meaning was hidden in the letter of the Law.

As, then, the Lord was in Jerusalem, the collectors of the didrachm inquired of Peter, saying, 'Does your Teacher not pay the didrachms?' But when he had entered into the house, as it is written, Jesus anticipated him, saying, 'The kings of the earth, from whom do they take tolls or tribute? From their own sons, or from strangers?' And when he said, 'From strangers,' Jesus declared, 'Then the sons are free.

But that we may not offend them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take up the first fish that comes up; and when you have opened its mouth, you will find a stater;

take that and give it to them for Me and for you.' You see that He does not endure to become a tributary, the Son, nor to submit, like one of those under the yoke of servitude, to a servile matter? For knowing the free dignity of His own nature, He firmly asserts that He owes nothing servile to God and the Father;

'For the sons are free,' He says.

How then does He not hold the servile worship to be against His will? And He who has grown numb even at the mere figure of the matter — how could He still accept this truth? For shall we not reckon worship to be a payment and a spiritual fruit-bearing, and shall we say that it is a kind of service? Since for what cause did the Law bind service together with worship, saying, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve'? For worship is as it were a gate and a road of the service that is in works, having a beginning of servitude such as is directed toward God.

But if those on the opposite side persist, still bearing themselves haughtily upon their unbroken shamelessness, and do not cease from the reasonings that are undisciplined in these matters, let them show us — ranging through the whole of Holy Scripture — the Son having worshipped the God and Father when He was still bare Word, before the times of the Incarnation and the form of servitude.

For now indeed, as man, He worships blamelessly; but then, no longer so.

But they will not be able to show this from the divine and sacred writings;

and heaping up fancies, they will with good reason hear: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the glory of the Only-begotten.'

For that, insofar as He is Word and God, He does not worship, but having become as we are, He accepted to suffer this too in a manner befitting man, on account of the dispensation with flesh — for this the full assurance will not be sought by us from outside, but again through His own words we shall know it.

For what indeed does He also say to the woman of Samaria? 'You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know.'

Is it not then manifest to everyone, even through this, that by using the plural number and numbering Himself among those who worship of necessity and servitude, He says such things as having come to be in humanity as in a slave? For what, tell me, was there to prevent Him from drawing worship to His own person in a solitary manner, if He desired to be conceived of by us as a worshipper? For He ought rather to have said, 'I worship what I know,' so that, being ranked apart from the others, He might seize upon Himself alone the force of what was said.

But as it is, He says 'We' most excellently and very safely, as one already ranked among slaves on account of the humanity, as numbered with those who worship, as a Jew on account of the region.

'But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth;

for indeed the Father seeks such to be those who worship Him.

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.'

He signifies the season of His own presence as already at hand, and says that the figures shall be transformed into truth, and the shadow of the Law into spiritual service.

And through the Gospel instruction, He says, the true worshipper — that is, the spiritual man — shall be led by the hand into a manner of life well-pleasing to the Father, running somehow the more readily into intimacy with God.

For God is spirit, as conceived over against embodied nature.

For this reason He justly accepts the spiritual worshipper, one who does not bear the form of godliness in outward shaping and figures, after the Jewish manner, but who shines forth evangelically by the right achievements of virtue, and who fulfils the truly true worship by rightness in the divine doctrines.

'We know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ;

when He comes, He will announce all things to us.'

When Christ taught that an hour and a season would come — or rather were already present — in which the true worshippers would offer the service in spirit to the God and Father, straightway the little woman was raised on wings, by conceptions beyond her habit, toward the hope spoken of among the Jews.

And she confesses that she knows that Messiah will come at His own proper season; but upon what terms He will come she does not say exactly, taking up, as it seems, the rumours concerning Him without close scrutiny, inasmuch as she was a woman fond of laughter and fond of the flesh;

yet she was not wholly ignorant that He would be shown forth to Israel as an introducer of more refined teachings, and this indeed she found in every way in the words concerning Him.

Jesus says to her, 'I who speak to you am He.'

Christ does not reveal Himself to untaught souls, or to those wholly unlearned, but rather He shines upon and appears to those who would already be more ready toward willing to learn something, and who, travailing with the beginning of faith in simple words, press on toward the knowledge of things more perfect.

Such a one, too, the woman of Samaria was shown to be for us: having approached the truly divine contemplations more coarsely than was proper, yet not wholly banished from willing and understanding something.

For first, when Christ asked for drink, she does not readily give it, but somehow undoing — so far as it went, to speak humanly — and observing closely the local customs of the Jews, she sought out beforehand the reasons for the transgression, all but calling the Lord, by way of reminder, unto an explanation;

and, as a rebuke, she brought to Him another question, saying inquisitively, 'Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.' But she was taught this again: that a season will come one day — or rather is already present — in which the true worshippers, having thrust aside worshipping in the mountains upon the earth, shall offer the higher and spiritual service to the God and Father.

And having ascribed the fairest things as fitting to Christ alone, and having reserved the knowledge of the better things for His times, she says, 'We know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ; when He comes, He will announce all things to us.' You see how the little woman was already becoming well-disposed toward believing, and, as though ascending some flight of steps, from small questions she leaps up to a higher condition? It was therefore necessary for Him now to lay bare with clearer voices the thing longed for, and henceforth to set before her eyes that which was preserved in good hopes, saying, 'I who speak to you am He.'

Accordingly, let those who hold the teaching office in the churches permit the newcomers to chew over the word of catechesis, and thus henceforth reveal Jesus to them, raising them from a small tutelage up to the more complete knowledge of the faith;

but those who snatch up the foreigner and thus the proselyte, and bring him within the inner tabernacle, and permit him to sacrifice the lamb with hands still unwashed, and crown with the dignity of the priesthood one not yet catechized — let them prepare themselves for great reckonings in the day of judgement.

For it suffices me to say this alone.

'And upon this His disciples came.'

The end of the words to the woman is the coming of the disciples.

For Christ henceforth keeps silence, He says, and having implanted in the Samaritans the warm spark of faith, He entrusts it to their yieldings to be kindled into a great flame.

In this way you will understand what is said by Him: 'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I, if it is already kindled?' And they marveled that He was speaking with a woman.

The disciples of the Saviour are once more struck with wonder at His gentleness, and they marvel at His condescending manner.

Let him also who teaches in the churches gain this too as a pattern, and let him not decline to be of benefit to women.

For one must by all means follow, not one's own inclinations, but the need of the preaching.

Yet no one said, 'Why are You speaking?' or 'What do You seek with her?' It was the work of understanding disciples, who knew how to preserve the honour befitting their teacher, not to seem, by meddlesome questions, to wander off into unseemly suspicions because He was speaking with a woman, but rather out of reverence and fear to keep the tongue restrained within the teeth, and to wait rather for the Lord to come forward of His own accord to speech and to add for them the explanation willingly.

Through these things, then, one must marvel at Christ for His gentleness, and at the disciples for their wisdom and understanding and their knowledge of what is fitting.

So the woman left her water-jar and went away into the city.

She now appears superior and loftier than bodily cares—this woman who but yesterday and the day before was given to many men, and who was often an easy prey to base pleasures; she gets the better of the flesh's seemingly necessary need, disregarding at once both thirst and drink, and through faith was being forged anew into another disposition.

Practising at once love, the fairest of all virtues, and a manner devoted to her neighbour, she proclaims to others also the good that had appeared to her, and with eager haste presses on in her course toward the city.

...the talent, but let us rather be zealous to labour further upon it.

And this indeed is what this much-talked-of woman does, doing well: she shares with others the good that had befallen her—no longer having drawn water from the flowing breasts of the spring, nor carrying her earthen jar back home again, but rather filling the storehouses of her mind with divine and heavenly grace and with the all-wise teaching of the Saviour.

From this, then, we must know—as in a type again and in writing—that by rightly despising things very small and bodily, we shall receive from God things many times more and better.

'Is not this the Christ?' O paradoxical transformation! O truly great and God-befitting might, made manifest in an ineffable and radiant wonder!

She is now skilled in discourse and an initiator into mysteries—she who understood nothing of what was said at the beginning, and who for that very reason justly heard, 'Go, call your husband, and come here.' For see how skilfully He conducted the discussion with the Samaritans.

She does not say that she has straightway found the Christ, nor does she at the very first bring Jesus into her narratives to them.

For otherwise she would justly have been scorned, as one climbing far beyond the measure of words befitting her, and finding her hearers not ignorant of her ways.

She therefore first prepares the way with the wonder, and, having first astonished them with the marvel, she makes the road to faith smoother, as it were.

'Come and see,' she says wisely, all but crying out with fervent words: 'The sight alone will suffice for faith, and will fully assure those present by wonders more worthy of consideration.'

For He who knows hidden things, and who has been allotted this great and God-befitting dignity, how shall He not run before the wind to the accomplishment of whatever He may will? 'They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.'

The ready obedience of the Samaritans is a rebuke to the hardness of heart of the Jews, and the inhumanity in those is set in relief by the gentleness in these.

And let the lover of learning again observe the difference of disposition in both, that he may with full justice marvel at Jesus, who departs from that of the Jews...

...synagogue, and rather bestows Himself upon those of another race.

For to the Jews the Law announced through Moses that the Christ would both come and for what purposes He would appear; and the all-venerable choir of the prophets proclaimed it, and all but showed Him henceforth present at the doors, saying, 'Behold our God, behold the Lord'; and last of all, John, the greatest among those born of women, when He had now appeared and was dwelling among them, made Him manifest, saying, 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.' And, most paradoxical of all, through many works of might and God-befitting authority the Saviour disclosed Himself.

What then, after all this, do those unbridled ones devise toward monstrous designs? They thirst unjustly for blood, they plot impiously, they envy perversely, and they drive out from their land and city the very Life, the Light, the salvation of all, the way to the kingdom, the remission of transgressions, the Bestower of adoption.

It was for this reason that the Saviour justly said: 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!'

'Behold, your house is left to you.' But the Samaritans appear better than the folly of the Jews, and, overcoming by their ready obedience the dullness of learning that was in them, having heard of but one single wonder, they hasten on foot to Jesus—not persuaded by the voices of the holy prophets, nor by the Mosaic proclamations, nor by John's pointing of the finger, but by one woman, and that a sinful one, who was their interpreter.

The inspired Evangelist orders the composition of his book most excellently, and omits nothing of all that he fully believes will be profitable to those who read it.

Hear, then, how he once more brings before us Jesus as a pattern in a matter most worthy of consideration.

For I think nothing has been set down in vain in the writings of the saints, but even what one might suppose to be small is not to be despised, being sometimes found to bring forth benefit in travail.

When, therefore, the conversion of the Samaritans had begun, and while they were even now being expected...

for as God He knew that they would come...

He is wholly, from His whole being, intent upon the salvation of those who are called, and makes no account whatever of the body's nourishment, although He was also weary from the journey, as it is written—so that through this again He might benefit the teachers in the churches, and might persuade them to overlook all toil, and to make their diligence for those being saved better than any care about the body.

For 'Cursed,' says the prophet, 'are those who do the work of the Lord carelessly.' Therefore, that we might learn that the Lord was wont to fast especially at such seasons, he brings in the disciples asking, and all but rolling before Him, that He might take some little of what had been provided as an indispensable and necessary food.

For they had gone away into the city to buy food, which they had now returned bringing with them.

'I have food to eat that you do not know of.'

Gracefully does the Saviour weave His answer from the matters at hand.

He all but says, in veiled fashion, that if they themselves knew of the conversion of the Samaritans that was at the doors, they would cling to that rather as to a delight, than be persuaded to feed the flesh.

And from this again one may learn how great is the love toward men that the divine nature has.

For He counts as food, as it were, and as a delight, the return of the lost unto salvation.

The disciples therefore said to one another, 'Has anyone brought Him something to eat?' Jesus says to them:

The disciples, not yet understanding that the saying was obscure, reasoned according to what had often happened in their own case, and descend to their customary notions, suspecting that food had been brought to Him by someone, and that it was somehow more precious or more pleasant than that which had been gathered by them.

'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work.'

Having wholly rent away the veil of the saying, He revealed to them the truth most clearly; and, inasmuch as He was to be a pattern to those who would soon be teachers of the world, He presents Himself as one of intense and most excellent zeal—that, namely, for the duty of teaching—while the necessary need of the body worthily holds, for this reason, the second place in care.

For by saying that His most delightful food is to do the will of Him who sent Him and to accomplish His work, He delineates the practice of the apostolic ministry, and clearly declares what sort of disposition they ought to have.

For it is necessary, according to reason, that they be wholly bent upon the concerns of teaching alone, and that they should so far withdraw from the delight of the flesh as sometimes not even to admit the seemingly necessary tending of it, which is undertaken solely for the averting of death.

And let this much be said by us for the present, as tending toward a type and pattern of the apostolic manner of life.

But if one must, approaching what has been said more doctrinally, also speak thus: He says He was sent—clearly by God the Father—either according to the manner of the incarnation, whereby He shone upon the world with flesh, by the good pleasure and consent of the Father; or as the Word coming forth in a certain manner from the mind that begot Him, and being sent and fulfilling what seemed good—not taken up as a servant of another's will, but Himself being at once both the living Word and the most manifest will of the Father, readily saving those who were lost.

For it is on this account that, having said that the work belongs to Him who sent Him, He Himself is seen to be the Accomplisher.

For all things are from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

That the Son is the Word and counsel and will and power of the Father, I think is evident to all.

Yet it does no harm also to confirm it from the divine Scripture.

Let one, then, behold Him existing as Word in the passage, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Let him behold counsel in the words which the Psalmist speaks, as to God and Father: 'You guided me with Your counsel, and with glory You received me.' Let him again behold will in His saying, 'Lord, in Your will grant power to my beauty.' For the living and self-subsistent will of the Father—that is, the Son—strengthens the beauty of the saints, that is, their vigour unto every virtue.

For that He is also power, you will again understand from this: 'Command,' it says, 'O God, Your power; strengthen, O God, this which You have wrought for us.' You see in these words, with all precision, that by the good pleasure of God the Father, His power—that is, the Son—was made flesh, that He might strengthen this body which He fashioned for us.

For unless He had tabernacled among us, the nature of the flesh would not at all have put off the weakness that comes from corruption.

He Himself, therefore, being the Son, the good will of the Father, accomplishes His work, being shown forth as salvation to those who believe in Him.

But someone will perhaps say to this: If the Son Himself is the will of the Father, what sort of will was He sent to fulfil? For that which is fulfilled must be other than that which fulfils.

What then, indeed, do we say to this? The imposing of names does truly demand a distinctness of the things signified; yet in the case of God this precision is often of no consequence, and the account concerning the supreme nature declines exactness in these matters.

For the things concerning it are spoken, not altogether as truth has them, but as the tongue is able to interpret and as the human ear can hear.

For he who sees in a riddle also speaks in a riddle.

Since what will you do when He who is simple in nature enters upon us as twofold, through saying concerning those of Israel: 'And they made their children pass through the fire, which I did not command them, neither did it come up upon My heart'? For is it not necessary that the heart be other than He in whom it is? And how then shall God still be conceived by us as simple? Therefore the things concerning God are spoken in human fashion...

...but they are understood in such a way as would befit God, and the measure of our tongue will do no injustice to the nature that is over all.

And so, though the Son be found speaking as though of some other thing, namely the will of the Father, you will regard it as of no consequence, ascribing dispensationally to the weakness of words the fact that He could not say anything greater, nor otherwise signify what was meant.

And let this much again be said toward the demonstration that the Son is also understood as the will of the Father.

But in the passage before us, no reasoning will compel that the Son be understood as the will of the Father; rather we shall without distinction accept the good counsel concerning those who were lost.

For it was still the season of winter at that time, and the young, freshly sprouting stalk of the seed was barely bristling up from the tilled field.

But when the time of four months had run its course, it was expected to fall into the hand of the reaper.

'Do you not,' He says, 'you men, say that there are yet four months, and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look upon the fields, that they are white for harvest.'

That is: having a little lifted the eye of the mind up from the affairs upon earth, gaze upon the spiritual sowing, that it has whitened as though already about to proceed to the threshing-floor, and henceforth calls to itself the reaping iron.

And from the likeness of the things in the historical account you will contemplate what is signified.

For by 'sowing' you will understand the spiritual sowing and the multitude of spiritual ears of grain—those who through the voice of the prophets were tilled beforehand for the faith that was about to be revealed through Christ.

And it is whitened, having become ripe and now ready for belief, and firmly compacted unto godly reverence.

The reaper's iron is the word of the apostles, which is both bright and most keen, shearing away its hearers from the worship according to the Law, and transferring them to the threshing-floor, that is, to the Church of God;

where, being threshed and pressed hard by good labours, they shall be shown to be pure wheat, worthy of the storehouse of Him who gathers.

Already the reaper receives his wages, and gathers fruit unto life eternal, that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.

For in this the saying is true, that one is the sower and another is the reaper.

It is the season, He says, of the Word who calls men to faith, and who shows to those who hear the final arrival of the legal and prophetic proclamations.