Commentary on John 1 part 17/94

For the Law, as in shadows through its typical forms of worship, foreshowed Him who was to arrive, that is, Christ;

and the prophets after it, conveying the words from the Spirit, foretold Him as being now very near at hand, as one already about to be present and to come.

But since He has now come inside the doors, the word of the apostles will no longer defer what was expected to a distant hope, but will show it as already present;

and it will reap out of the legal worship those who still serve the Law and cling only to the letter, and will transfer them like sheaves into the evangelical disposition and manner of life; it will likewise shear the idol-worshipper from the error of polytheism, and carry him over to the knowledge of the God who truly is; and, to speak of the whole in sum, it will transfer those who still mind the things upon the earth to the life of the angels through faith in Christ.

These things, He says, the word of the reapers will accomplish.

Yet it will not be without reward, for it will assuredly gather for them the fruit that nourishes unto life eternal;

and they will not indeed rejoice alone by themselves upon receiving it, but, as having laboured upon the toils of the prophets and reaped the seed that was cultivated beforehand by them, they will keep one festival together with them.

And I for my part think that the most wise Paul, having clearly learned the types concerning things to come, spoke from this concerning the holy fathers and prophets, that 'And these all, having been made perfect through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.' For the Saviour judged that the reaper ought to rejoice together with him who had sown beforehand.

I sent you to reap that whereon you have not laboured;

others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.

Now He reveals to them the whole mystery, and, having removed the enigmatic covering of the words, He sets forth most plainly the sense of what is signified.

And the Saviour, being a lover of the prophets and a lover of the apostles, neither places the labour of those outside the hand of the apostles, nor does He assign wholly to the holy apostles the boast that is to be saved concerning things to come through faith in Him;

but having, as it were, blended and mingled the labour of both in their mutual co-operations, He says—and very fittingly—that the honour shall be one for both.

He affirms indeed that the apostles have entered into the labours of the holy prophets, not permitting them to leap over the glories of those who went before, but rather persuading them to honour them as having taken the lead both in toil and in time;

and surely this teaching will be most excellent for us also, since it shall assuredly be so. Who is there that refuses to agree? And out of that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him, because of the word of the woman who testified that 'He told me all that I did.'

Again through these things Israel is condemned, and by the ready obedience of the Samaritans is convicted as being at once unteachable and harsh.

With good reason Israel [is cast out], and in its stead there will enter the more obedient multitude of the nations, that is, of those of another race.

So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to abide with them;

and He abode there two days;

and many more believed because of His word.

He narrates, as it were in simplicity of words, that which came to pass.

But he prepares, as it were, yet another demonstration, that Israel ought justly to be cast away from the hope, and that those of another race ought to be transplanted onto it.

For the Jews, when Jesus wrought manifold wonders and shone with glory befitting God, insult Him with bitter and intolerable suspicions, and are caught being so drunkenly insolent as to make an outcast of Him and to hasten to drive out of their own city the very One who procured all good cheer for them;

but the Samaritans, having been persuaded by the words of a single woman, reckon that they must run to Him.

And when they had come, they earnestly implored Him both to enter the town and to bestow lavishly upon them the saving word;

and Christ readily assents to both, knowing that the grace will not be without fruit;

for many believed because of His word.

And let the lover of God and lover of reverence learn again through these things, that Christ withdraws from those who grieve Him, but takes up His dwelling among those who gladden Him through obedience and good faith.

And they said to the woman, 'No longer do we believe because of your saying;

for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.'

The Samaritans' faith comes from the greater things, and not from what they still learn from others, but from what, having become hearers with their own ears, they marvel at.

And they say that they have come to know that He was plainly the Saviour of the world, making their confession a pledge of the faith of the hope that is in Him.

And after the two days He went forth from there into Galilee;

for Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country.

He departs from Samaria, having now sown broadcast the saving word, and, after the manner of a certain husbandman, having hidden faith away within those who dwell in it—not that it should be bound up by the silences of those who received it, remaining in a manner at rest and buried, but rather that it might take root in the souls of all, creeping and passing through ever unto the greater, and running towards a more manifest power.

But since He passes by Nazareth, which lies in the middle, in which the account says He was reared, so that from this He already even seemed to be a townsman, and rather comes down into Galilee;

he makes a necessary apology for the passing by, and says that Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country.

For we are somehow so constituted as to reckon as nothing that which is familiar, even though it should be great and precious.

And the Saviour surely did not deem it necessary to hunt after the honours from those men, in the rank of some man greedy for glory and boastful, but He knew clearly that to those who did not at all suppose that it was fitting to honour the teacher, the word of faith would no longer become sweet and readily received.

He therefore passes on, as is fitting, not deeming it right to expend futile labours upon those who would in no way be benefited, and in this very thing conferring a favour upon those who despised Him.

For it was not likely that they, sinning to so great a degree, would do this with impunity, since it is altogether agreed and beyond dispute that those who have resolved to despise Him and to spit upon a gift so worthy of admiration will bear the punishment reserved for the last things.

When therefore He came into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all that He did in Jerusalem at the feast;

for they themselves also had gone to the feast.

Not inconsiderately do the Galileans receive Jesus, but they too, being justly astonished by what they had already beheld Him working as wonders, and through their reverence toward Him condemning the senselessness of the Jews, are found far better in right-mindedness than those learned in the Law.

He came therefore again into Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine.

To those who go, in a somewhat more forward manner, toward the perception and knowledge of the benefits they might receive, He bestows lavishly the provision of yet greater good things.

He comes therefore to work a wonder in Cana, reckoning that He ought to benefit those in it, and holding, as it were already sown beforehand through the signs already accomplished in it, the supposition that He is able to do all things.

Now there was a certain royal official, whose son was sick in Capernaum;

this man, having heard that Jesus had come out of Judaea into Galilee, went away to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son;

Jesus therefore said to him:

The royal official indeed approaches Him as to one having strength to heal;

but he does not yet understand Him to be God by nature;

and he calls Him Lord indeed, yet in no way grants Him the true dignity of lordship.

For otherwise he would at once have fallen down and entreated Him, not that He should by all means walk to the hearth and go down with him to the sick lad, but rather that He should authoritatively and by a command befitting God drive out the disease that had fallen upon him.

For what need was there for Him who was able to save even while absent to be present with the sufferer, and that easily? And how is it not exceedingly ignorant to suppose Him to be mightier than death, yet in no way to think that He who is full of God-befitting strength exists as God? 'Unless you see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.'

The royal official says to Him:

The mind still dwells harshly with those who go astray, but somehow the more wonder-working sign will be stronger than the word which calls to faith;

for this very reason the Saviour said that they rather had need of wonders, in order to be able easily to be re-educated toward what is profitable, and to recognize the One who by nature is God.

Lord, come down before my child dies.

The royal official is quite small in understanding, and behaves somewhat childishly regarding the request for the grace, and, quietly raving, does not perceive it.

For if he had believed not only that He would be strong when present, but that He would assuredly work even when absent, he would have formed a most worthy judgement concerning Him;

but as it is, thinking and acting most unreasonably, he demands the strength that befits God, yet does not think that He fills all things as God, nor even that He will prove mightier than death—and this though he beseeches that the one held fast by the mightiest be given the advantage.

For the child was about to die.

Jesus says to him, 'Go your way;'

Thus ought one to have drawn near in faith; but Christ is not seen contending against our want of understanding.

Yet again He does good even to those who stumble, inasmuch as He is God.

That very thing which the man ought to have done and been admired for doing, this Christ teaches him even though he had not done it, showing Himself at once both the introducer of what is most excellent and the bestower of the good things sought in prayer.

For in the word 'Go' lies the act of believing; but in the words 'Thy son liveth' lies the fulfilment of what was desired, uttered with a great and God-befitting authority.

The man believed the word which Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.

And as he was now going down, his servants met him and brought him word, saying that his son was living.

One command of the Saviour straightway heals two souls.

For in the nobleman He works an unaccustomed faith, while from the boy He draws out bodily death.

But which of the two is wholly made well before the other, it is hard to say.

For I think that both came to pass together at the same moment, the disease receiving its release by the commands of our Saviour.

And the household servants, meeting him, announce the healing of the child, and at the same time make plain the swiftness of the divine commands;

and this too was very clearly ordered by the providence of Christ;

and by the fulfilment of his hope they quickly confirm the master, who was weak in faith, unto belief.

So he inquired of them the hour in which he began to amend, and they told him that yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

The father therefore knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, 'Thy son liveth'; and he himself believed, and his whole house.

This again was the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judaea into Galilee.

He inquires of them the hour of the sick one's turn for the better, examining whether it coincides with the time of the grace.

Being otherwise taught, he is saved together with his whole house, ascribing the power of the marvel to the Saviour Christ, and offering, as a kind of fruit of thanksgiving for these things, a more assured faith.

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches.

In these lay a great multitude of the sick, blind, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

For an angel of the Lord went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water;

and whoever first stepped in after the troubling of the water became whole, of whatsoever disease he was held.

Not without purpose does the blessed Evangelist immediately join to what has been said the Saviour's return from thence to Jerusalem;

but it was, as is likely, his aim to show how much better than the Jews foreigners are in ready obedience, and how great a difference in disposition and manners is seen between the two.

For it was thus, and not otherwise, that we should learn that by the just judgment of God who rules over all, and who does not accept the person of man, Israel with reason falls away from the hope, while in their stead the multitude of the nations is brought in.

And it is no hard thing, looking at the juxtaposition of the chapters, to make trial of the truth of what is said.

He showed Him, then, in one sign restoring the city of the Samaritans, and likewise in one sign in Galilee healing the nobleman, and through him assuredly benefiting greatly all who were in that place.

And having testified through these things to the great readiness of foreigners toward obedience, he brings the Wonder-worker up again to Jerusalem, and shows Him accomplishing a deed befitting God.

For marvellously He frees the paralytic from a most ancient disease, just as, of course, He freed from death the son of the nobleman who was at the point of dying.

But the one believed with his whole house and confessed Jesus to be God;

the others, where they ought to have been struck with awe, straightway thirst for blood and persecute their Benefactor as one impiously transgressing the law, themselves pronouncing against themselves the verdict for the basest of deeds, whereby, falling behind the understanding shown in the foreigners and the reverence toward Christ, they are convicted.

And this indeed was what was said concerning them in the Psalms, as toward the Lord Jesus: 'For Thou shalt make them turn their back'; for those who were first appointed by reason of the choice of the fathers shall walk afterward and behind the calling of the nations;

for when the fulness of the nations shall have come in, then all Israel shall be saved. This aim of the contemplations the well-ordered arrangement of the composition of the chapters travails to bring forth for us;

and we will make also, part by part, an exact search into the meaning contained in the verses.

And there was a certain man there who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity;

when Jesus saw him lying, and knew that he had already been a long time in that case.

When the Jews had completed the feast of unleavened bread, in which it is also their custom to slay the lamb, that is, at the time of the Passover, Christ departs from Jerusalem, and mingles with Samaritans and foreigners, and teaches among them, being grieved at the perversity of the Pharisees;

and having returned only with difficulty about the time of the holy Pentecost;

for this festival in Jerusalem was next in order and near at hand;

at the waters of the pool He heals the paralytic, who had spent a long time in sickness;

for it was indeed the thirty-eighth year;

yet he had not yet risen to the perfect number according to the law, I mean that of ten times four, that is, forty.

The discourse of the narrative, then, will here come to a close for us;

but we must again transform the type derived from the letter into spiritual contemplation.

That Jesus, being grieved, departs from Jerusalem after the slaying of the lamb;

He showed favour, commanding it to be made known to His own disciples after His rising from the dead, that He goes before them all into Galilee; but His running back again to Jerusalem at the end of the weeks of the holy Pentecost, as it were in types and riddles, again faintly indicates the return of our Saviour, out of His love for man, to the Jews in the last times of the present age, in which we who have been saved through faith in Him celebrate the all-venerable feasts over the saving Passion.

And that the paralytic is healed before the time of the perfection according to the law, again signifies, as through a type of what befell, that Israel, having impiously wantonly outraged Christ, shall indeed be sick and paralysed and shall wear away long times in idleness, yet shall not depart into perfect chastisement, but there shall be for him a certain visitation from the Saviour, and he too shall be healed at the pool through obedience and faith.

And that forty is the number perfect according to the divine law, it would be no hard thing from any quarter to learn for those who have once conversed with the divine Scriptures.

Jesus saith unto him, 'Wilt thou be made whole?' The sick man answered Him.

It is a clear demonstration of Christ's goodness in its highest degree, that He does not in every case wait for the supplications of those who are afflicted, but by His love for man anticipates their asking.

For He runs up, as thou seest, to the one lying there, and takes pity on the sufferer without any entreaty.

But His inquiring whether he wished to be delivered from his sickness was not the questioning of one asking out of ignorance about what is confessedly plain to all, but of one rousing him to a warmer desire for the matter, and urging him to ask with much diligence.

And His asking whether he wished to obtain what he longed for travails with a certain intimation and reason of His being able to grant it, and of His being now already prepared for this, waiting only still for the asking of him who was to receive the grace.

'Sir, I have no man, that when the water is troubled, he may put me into the pool;

for while I am coming, another goes down before me.'

Jesus saith unto him, 'Rise.'

On the day of the holy Pentecost, angels descending from heaven troubled the water of the pool, and then made the sound arising therefrom the herald of their own presence.

And the water was hallowed as if by holy spirits;

and if any one was beforehand and came down first out of the multitude of the sick, casting off the affliction that oppressed him, he went up; but the power of healing was measured out to one only, the one who seized it first.

But this too was a sign of the legal benefit which through angels was extended to one race only, that of the Jews, and healed no other besides them.

For on this account also the water of the pool was not troubled at any other season, signifying through this the descent of the holy angels upon it.

The paralytic, therefore, not having one to cast him into the water, along with the affliction that held him fast, bewailed also the destitution of those to heal him, saying, 'I have no man'—that is to say, one to carry me down into the water.

For he fully expected that Jesus would say and counsel him this very thing.

'Take up thy bed, and walk.'

And immediately the man became whole, and took up his bed and walked.

Now it was the Sabbath on that day.

The command is befitting God, and has the clearest demonstration of a power and authority beyond man.

For He does not pray for the release from sickness for the one lying there, lest He too should appear like some of the holy prophets, but as Lord of the powers He authoritatively commands it to come to pass;

bidding him go home rejoicing, and take his little couch upon his shoulder, that it might be to those who saw a memorial of the strength of Him who had healed him.

The sick man immediately does what he is commanded, and through obedience and faith he procures for himself the thrice-longed-for grace.

We have already introduced him as an image and type of the multitude of the Jews, taking these things in advance, since that multitude was destined to be healed in later times.

Come then, let us again devise some thought bearing upon this, in a manner analogous to what has already been examined.

On the Sabbath Christ makes the man whole, and once he is made whole He at once commands him to relax the legal custom, persuading him to walk on the Sabbath, and that too laden with his pallet, although God cries out plainly through one of the holy prophets somewhere: 'And you shall not carry burdens out of your houses on the day of the Sabbath.' And surely no one who is of sound mind would say that the man was rendered a despiser and one restive against the divine commandments; rather, as in a type Christ made it plain to the Jews that they would indeed be healed through obedience and faith in the last times of the age.

For this, I think, is what the Sabbath signifies, being the last day of the week.

But once we have received, once for all, the healing that is through faith, and have been transformed into newness of life, there is no need whatever to make anything of the oldness of the legal letter; rather we must renounce the enigmatic worship that is, as it were, in shadows, and the vain observance of Jewish custom.

Hence, I think, taking his starting points for the argument, the blessed Paul wrote to those who after their faith were running back to the law: 'I say to you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing'; and again: 'You are severed from Christ, whoever of you would be justified by law; you are fallen from grace.' The Jews therefore said to the man who had been healed: 'It is the Sabbath.'

'And it is not lawful for you to take up your pallet.'

Most fitting, I think, is it to cry out over these things: 'Behold, a foolish and heartless people; they have eyes and see not.' For what could be more untaught than such men, or what greater in respect of insensibility? For they do not receive into their mind that it was fitting for them to marvel at the power of the one who healed.

But being bitter censurers, and knowing this one thing well, they charge with the accusation of transgression the man who had but now and with difficulty raised himself up from a long sickness, and they ignorantly command him to lie down again, as though even in the necessity of being sick the honour due to the Sabbath were being fulfilled.

But he answered them: 'He that made me whole, that man said to me, Take up your pallet and walk.'

The saying labours to bring forth a most wise thought, one that repels the perversity of the Jews.

For since it is not lawful, he says, on the Sabbath to take up one's bed and go home, they stitch together an indictment of transgression against the man who had been healed; and of necessity he brings forward against them a keener defence, saying that the one who commanded him to walk was the very one who was shown to be the giver of his health; and all but says something of this sort: 'Most worthy of account, O you men, do I declare him to be, as regards the honour due to him, even if he commands that the honours of the Sabbath be grieved—the one in whom is present such great might and grace as to drive out my sickness.'

For if to excel in such things belongs to no ordinary person, but rather befits an activity and power that is godlike, how, he says, could the worker of these things sin? Or how could he who has a godlike power fail utterly to counsel the things that are pleasing to God? The saying therefore nourishes within itself a stinging import.

'Who is the man that said to you, Take up your pallet and walk?' But he that was healed knew not who it was.

For Jesus had withdrawn, since there was a crowd in the place.

After these things Jesus finds him in the temple, and said to him:

Insatiable for bloodshed is the mind of the Jews.

They search out the one who gave the command, planning to entangle him along with the man who had been marvellously healed.

For he alone, as was likely, was in danger, causing offence on account of the Sabbath—he who had but now run through nooses and inescapable snares, and had been drawn out of the very gates of death.

And although they inquire most eagerly, he cannot tell, since Christ had hidden Himself well and by a wise dispensation.

—that the immediate heat of their wrath might pass through and spend itself,

and again presenting Himself to this man.

'Sin no more, lest something worse befall you.'

By a wise dispensation He at first remained hidden, and by a wise dispensation He appears again, having kept the fitting time for each occasion.

For nothing could come from one who does not know how to do wrong which does not altogether have within itself the fitting reason.

As a pretext, therefore, for His conversation with him He made use of the soul-profiting exhortation, saying that he must sin no more, lest he be afflicted with evils worse than those which had passed.

And by these words He teaches that God does not only store up men's transgressions for the judgment that is to come, but also scourges them in various ways while they are yet living in the body, even before the great and manifest day of Him who shall judge all.

For if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged;

but when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, that we may not be condemned with the world. The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole.

He informs the Jews about Jesus, not that they, venturing to do Him some dreadful thing, might be caught in impiety, but that, if they too were willing to be healed, they might come to know the marvellous physician.

For observe how this was his aim in that.

For he did not come forward and announce, after the manner of one fond of accusation, that it was Jesus who had commanded him to walk on the Sabbath, but that it was He who had made him whole.

And this was to do nothing else than merely to point out the physician.

And for this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered them:

The saying does not have in these words a simple exposition of the madness of the Jews.

For it is not merely that they persecute, but on what grounds they are not ashamed to do this, the Evangelist again marks most emphatically, saying: 'Because He did these things on the Sabbath.'

For they persecute both ignorantly and impiously, as though the law forbade doing good on the Sabbath, as though it were not permitted to show mercy and pity to the suffering, as though one ought to strip off the ordinance of love, the praise of brotherly affection, the grace of gentleness.

And indeed, in what manner one might show, in various ways, that the Jews spat upon every good thing, not knowing the lawgiver's purpose concerning the Sabbath and making over it a most idle observance—for, as Christ Himself said somewhere, each of them leads away his own ox or sheep and gives it drink, and a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses be not broken; then they are enraged that He made a whole man well on the Sabbath—all this through much perversity of character together with lack of instruction, not setting even before the irrational creatures the man made after the divine image; but thinking it right to have mercy on a sheep on the Sabbath, and blamelessly to free it from hunger and thirst, while making subject to transgressions and to the writings concerning the last things those who might be kind and good toward their neighbour on the Sabbath.

In order, then, that we may again behold them being no moderately foolish, and on this account justly deserving to hear 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures,' come, let us take something from the sacred writings and demonstrate clearly that even of old, as in a type, Jesus was prefigured as being indifferent concerning the Sabbath.

Therefore, in a great old age, as it is written, when the all-wise Moses had departed from human affairs and had been removed to the mansions above, by the judgment and vote of God who rules over all, the leadership over Israel was allotted and fell by lot to Joshua the son of Nun.