Commentary on John 1 part 32/94

For just as to those whose bodily sight is ailing the light of the sun is hostile, while it is somehow pleasant to settle in dark places, so to those diseased in mind the more rigorous of instructions are hateful, and those shadowed over with hard-to-find notions are most abominable, even though they should hold much profit; whereas the small and more pleasant things are rather agreeable, even though they should sometimes procure nothing of benefit.

For shall we not find from what lies before us that what has been said is true? When Christ sets forth the divine and great mystery, and through manifold contemplations opens up the apprehension concerning Himself, and all but now draws aside the veil of the temple and uncovers the inner tabernacle, they loathe the word so wise and heavenly, and turn away again to a brutish ignorance, and 'went back,' as the Evangelist says, declining even to walk any longer with Him.

For this is truly what it means to fall backward.

...you will go; for indeed, according to the true principle, falling backward follows upon the turning away from good things.

They went back, therefore, and the wretched ones have fallen backward, no longer marching together with the Saviour, but as it were having turned to other paths, and being dragged down into their accustomed passions.

But let us see again whether we may not find the type of this also in the words of Moses.

And so, when, having ridden over long roads and traversed that savage wilderness, they were now at last upon the very land of promise, Joshua the son of Nun and certain others with him were sent, by divine command, to spy it out.

But when, having surveyed the whole of it, they were coming back again to Moses, some spoke to the congregation bitter things.

'For the land,' they said, 'which we spied out, has fierce inhabitants, and we saw there sons of giants,' and they went on continually adding as many things as were apt to persuade the hearers to be terrified.

But Joshua, after them, tried to crown the land with many praises, and exhorted them, saying: 'The land which we spied out is exceeding good.'

'If the Lord chooses us, He will bring us into it.' But the ancestors of the Jews maintained that it were fitting to stone Joshua.

And since they were thus disobedient and insolent, they fell away from the promise.

'For as I sware,' He says, 'in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest.' Then what followed upon this? God commands them to run back and to walk backward once more.

For He says to Moses: 'To-morrow set out and turn yourselves back by the way of the Red Sea.' For since they were unwilling to enter into the land unto which they were called, they are sent back to turn away, and are compelled to retrace the very same road.

For they were unwilling to follow the words of Joshua, nor, hearing that the land was good, did they honour their counsellor with agreement.

What, then, those men suffered at that time, this too these men suffer now.

For being taught the way of eternal life, and being exhorted to run into the kingdom of heaven, they act insolently by their acts of disobedience.

For this reason they justly went back, and, being deprived by their own perversity of any longer marching together with the Leader unto salvation.

'Jesus therefore said to the twelve: Would ye also go away?' Our Lord Jesus Christ does not urge the holy apostles toward apostasy, nor does He set before them free and unblamable licence in the matter; but neither does He permit them to turn aside lightly, as though they would suffer no harm therefrom.

Rather, He threatens skilfully, that if they should not show themselves better than the ignorance of the Jews, they too will be sent backward, and will no longer walk with Him, but will settle down toward destruction.

For it is not the worshipper who is great in number that will altogether be honoured and precious with God, but he who is distinguished by right faith, even though he should appear few.

For this reason the divine Scripture says that many are they that are called, but that only the chosen shall be received, and the most approved, being altogether few.

For this too the divine word itself testified to us.

It is, then, as if the Saviour were saying to His own disciples: If ye without delay obey My words, if, having laid aside the doubting that accuses, ye henceforth receive the mystery with a faith that does not pry over-curiously; if it seems bitter to you and filled with no ordinary loathing to charge My words with harshness; if ye decline to say, in Jewish fashion, 'How can this man give us His flesh to eat?'—then I shall behold you as my gladsome companions, and shall keep house with you rejoicing, and shall love you as being genuine.

But if ye have resolved to think the same things as those who have fallen backward, I both permit you to run away together with them, and justly drive you away along with them.

And as though calling into one company those from everywhere, and readily gathering them together unto the recognition of the truth.

Behold, therefore, the kindness and severity of God, even as Paul says.

And severity indeed upon those who have disbelieved, but kindness again upon those who are about to recognize Him, if they continue in His kindness—even as Paul again somewhere strongly affirmed.

Since they also shall be cut off.

For He who spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare those that were grafted in.

Let him therefore know and be instructed through these things, whoever from folly halts concerning the faith, that if he be unwilling to cease from such a sickness, he will go backward, and, no longer having the Leader unto eternal life, he will descend gloomy into Hades, and will bewail his own evil counsel.

'For there,' He says, 'shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.' And it is likely, again, that something else profitable is being intimated to us through Jesus' saying to His own disciples, 'Would ye also go away?' For in order that they too might not be thought to be carried away together with the Jewish ignorances, and to slide down together with those who had disbelieved, or otherwise to cry out against Him along with them, as though He taught harsh things and attempted to initiate His hearers into impossibilities, He usefully inquired whether it was their will to depart along with those men, in order that through this He might call them to the confession of the right and undefiled faith—which indeed came to pass.

That the holy tabernacle that went before the people in the wilderness was a type of Christ, and the ark within it, and the lampstand, and the altars also, both that of the incense and that of the burnt offerings, signified Christ Himself.

'Simon Peter answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go away? Thou hast words of eternal life.'

For it behoved them to speak into the ears of a teacher, not for all indiscriminately to leap forward more rashly than the others, and to snatch at speaking when it did not befit them, but rather to hasten wisely to yield to those who might be set before them in both counsel and rank.

For this reason Paul also says: 'Let two or three prophets speak, and in turn.' For he did not decree that, because they had been honoured with the grace of prophecy, they must on that account make their speech even disorderly.

But rather, since they were holy, on that very account he charged them the more to speak to their hearers with understanding.

It was therefore the work of a holy and reverent understanding to leave the pleading on behalf of all to him alone to whom belonged the greater office. In due order,

'To whom then shall we go?' he says — as much as to say, 'Who shall initiate us into things like these? Or to whom shall we go and find something better? Thou hast the words of eternal life';

not harsh, as those others say, but leading toward that which is most excellent of all, that is, toward a life without end and of long duration, a life set far apart from all corruption.

And it will surely be made plain to us also through these words, that we must sit at the feet of one and only one teacher, even Christ, and attend upon him unceasingly and undistractedly, and make him our guide, who knows well how to lead us into the life that has no end.

For thus, and thus alone, shall we ascend into the heavenly and divine court, and entering into the assembly of the firstborn, shall we take our delight in the good things that surpass the human mind.

For that it is a good and saving thing to be willing to follow Christ alone and to be with him continually, both the very nature of the matter will assure us beyond all dispute,

and no less shall we learn it also from the more ancient writings.

God commanded them not to make their journeys in disorder, nor did the Lawgiver permit anyone to walk wherever he might wish;

for it was beyond doubt that, having no leader, they would altogether go astray.

For this reason it is again written, for our instruction, in the book called Numbers: 'And on the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the house of the testimony;

and in the evening there was over the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire until morning.

So it came to pass continually: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.

And whenever the cloud went up from the tabernacle, then afterward the children of Israel journeyed onward;

and in the place where the cloud rested, there the children of Israel encamped.

By the commandment of the Lord they shall journey onward.

And the children of Israel shall keep the charge of God and shall not journey.

By the voice of the Lord they shall encamp, and by the commandment of the Lord they shall journey onward.' Dost thou see how they are enjoined to follow, and to journey onward together with the cloud when it moved on, and again to halt together with it and to rest together with it? For to be with him who leads was then a saving thing for those of Israel, and for us now it is not to be separated from Christ.

For he himself was to the men of old both as a tabernacle and a cloud, and was shaped as fire;

but the discourse shall again be transferred, so far as is possible, from the historical to the spiritual meaning.

For when Wisdom, according to that which is written, had built for herself a house and set up the truer tabernacle — that is, the temple born of the Virgin — there descended into it, in a manner beyond comprehension and befitting God, the God the Word who is in the bosom of God the Father, and became man; that to those already enlightened, and walking as in the day, according to Paul, he might become a cloud overshadowing them and relieving the burning heat of the passions that spring from weakness;

but to those who are yet in ignorance and going astray, and dwelling as it were in night and darkness, a fire giving light and transforming them into the fervour of the Spirit.

For we believe that those who are good are fervent in spirit;

for I think that it was for no other reason that the cloud appeared over the tabernacle by day and the fire by night, than for the sake of the interpretation already set forth by us.

They were commanded to follow these ordinances, not to desert into a journey of their own, but to journey onward together with the tabernacle and to halt together with it — again, that thou mightest understand by way of a type that saying spoken by Christ: 'He that serveth me, let him follow me;

and where I am, there also shall my servant be.' For the steadfastness of the following, and the earnestness of the constant attendance, is signified by walking together with him undistractedly;

and to walk together with Christ the Saviour and to follow him is by no means to be understood merely bodily, but is rather fulfilled through virtue in works; upon which those most wise disciples, having firmly fixed their own mind, and refusing as ruinous to depart backward with the disobedient, fittingly cry aloud, 'To whom shall we go?'

as much as to say, 'We will be with thee always, and will hold fast to thy commandments, and will receive thy words, in no way finding fault, nor deeming with the untaught that whatsoever thou teachest as an initiate is harsh, but rather this: How sweet are thy words unto my palate, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth!' Such, then, is the meaning of the passage before us;

but that the tabernacle was to the men of old a type of Christ, we shall again come to know, if we bring a subtle understanding to bear upon the things spoken concerning it to holy Moses.

Now the discourse concerning these things might perhaps seem to some to be a digression, but it will profit us not a little;

for I think we must very readily dwell minutely upon these matters, so as to turn aside the censoriousness of those who find fault without reason.

The divine oracle, then, runs thus:

for thus we shall set forth part by part the shadow contained in the letter, refining it as finely as is possible.

Not on two or three days, but on the new moon — and not simply of any chance month, but of the first? For truly such things might very reasonably raise in us much inquiry, since of the things spoken in the divine Scriptures nothing is idle or without purpose.

For we shall follow our own words concerning these things.

The tabernacle that is set up signifies the holy body of Christ and, so to speak, the framing together of his precious dwelling, in which it pleased all the fulness of the Godhead to dwell bodily;

moreover, he commands it to be set up on one day, and this most wisely and providentially, that by the one day thou mightest understand the present age, in which alone he became man.

As for the new moon, it is fitting for us to conceive of nothing else than the sojourning of the Saviour that renews us, in which the old things passed away and all things became new. For a new season has been shown forth to us in Christ, thrusting out the oldness of the legal worship, and reshaping us into a new and fresh life through the evangelical teachings; and, moreover, renewing unto a beginning of righteousness those who had grown old through sin and had come near to destruction, and dissolving the oldness of the corruption that had been brought in upon us, while adorning with the newness of incorruption those who have run back through faith unto eternal life;

for 'if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation,' according to that which is written.

In the first month he ordains the divine tabernacle to be raised up, when the beauty of the spring change shines forth, having washed away as it were the gloom of winter, and the earth is gently warmed now by brighter and purer suns, and the vineyards put forth blossom, and the husbandman revels in the fragrance of the flowers, and the plains bear grass, and whole fields bristle with the crests of the ears of grain — according to certain of the poets among the Greeks;

'when the winter is past,' according to that which is written, 'and the rain has taken itself away, when the season of pruning has come.'

And all these things thou shalt understand spiritually: by the winter and the rain that have passed away, the temptations that fall upon us from the tyranny of the devil, and his covetous grasping against all;

for the might of the demons has been loosed in the days of Christ.

And the bright sun has risen upon us — even he, that is, concerning whom God and the Father says, 'And the Sun of righteousness shall arise upon you' — warming with the fervour of the Spirit unto righteousness those who had been chilled into sin;

and by the spiritual vines, and the spiritual flowers, and the ears of grain besides, thou shalt understand the saints, who excel in manifold godliness toward God, and who make to gush forth the multiform fruit of virtue;

and it is necessary now to speak, as it were, in brief:

The spring puts forth flowers, and makes all the earth to bear verdure, and crowns the meadows with fresh growth, and persuades the trunks long dry through the intolerable insolence of winter to grow young again, and brings them to a fairer aspect, and makes them blossom with their wonted leaf, and prepares them to be lavish, for the husbandman who tends them, with fruits according to their nature.

We shall find that something of the same sort has come to pass in our case also;

for we who were of old dry through the sin that reigned over us, and destitute of the fruits that lead to virtue, have flourished again unto righteousness through Christ, and now bring to the husbandman of spirits the fruit of faith, freshly appeared and new;

and thus we understand, fittingly, that which was spoken through one of the holy prophets, as it were in the person of Christ: 'It is I myself that speak; I am present as the season upon the mountains.' For what the season — that is, the springtime — works among the mountains, we have already clearly stated beforehand.

Therefore he commands the tabernacle to be set up on one day, profitably, since it holds the type of Christ, that thou mightest understand concerning him the dying once in this one present season;

for he shall by no means be born again hereafter, nor yet shall he die, having been born once and having died and risen again from the dead;

for the resurrection must needs follow upon the death, being a certain framing together again of the holy dwelling.

And it is on the new moon, because a new age is ours in Christ;

and the first month too is taken, intimating the renewal of human nature from death and corruption unto life and incorruption, and the transition now from unfruitfulness unto fruitfulness, and the passing away of the tyranny of the devil, which has now ended and been contracted after the manner of winter.

Then again, in another way, he shows us Emmanuel as in a type and figure, saying: 'And thou shalt place the ark of the testimony, and thou shalt cover the ark with the veil.' For in the foregoing the Word was described to us as in the whole tabernacle;

for it was the house of God who dwelt in it — that is to say, the holy body of Christ;

but nonetheless the same one is also signified to us, part by part, through the ark.

For it was constructed of incorruptible wood, that thou mightest understand his incorruptible body;

and it was overlaid wholly with pure gold, as it is written, both within and without.

For all things in him are precious and kingly, both the divine and the human; and in all things he holds the pre-eminence, according to Paul;

and the gold is taken as a type of honour and of the pre-eminence over all things.

The ark, then, being constructed of incorruptible wood and gilded, held also the divine law laid up within it, as a type of God the Word who dwelt in and was united to the holy flesh;

for the law too was a word of God, even if it was not subsisting in a hypostasis, as indeed the Son is.

And it is covered with the veil.

For God the Word, having become man, was in a manner not manifest to the many, having his own body as a covering, and, as it were, hidden in his own flesh as in a veil; so that, from this, some, not even having recognized his God-befitting dignity, at one time attempted to stone him, making it a charge that, being a man, he called himself God;

and at another time, again, not at all abashed to say: 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then doth he now say, I have come down out of heaven?' Therefore the fact that the veil was cast over the ark intimates that Jesus was to be unrecognized by the many.

The ark, then, was after all also a type of him.

For on this very account it also went before the men of Israel in the wilderness, fulfilling then the office of God;

for he himself was the leader of the people.

And the psalmist is a witness, saying: 'O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst pass through the wilderness, the earth was shaken, yea, the heavens also dropped down.' For as the ark ever advanced and went before, God is expressly said to go forth.

You may have a still clearer demonstration of this point by pondering the following.

Once, through Moses, God commanded those of Israel to go up boldly to Mount Seir and to besiege and drive out the Amorite.

But those who had been commanded fell into a feeble cowardice; and attributing success to their own strength rather than taking courage in the help from above, they sat and wept beside the mountain, as it is written.

At this the lawgiver was naturally embittered, and he thereafter threatened that he would not even bring them into the land of promise.

Stung at last by the threat, and brought to an untimely repentance, they set about going up—out of a second disobedience—snatching up weapons against the Amorites.

But God foretold through Moses what would come to pass.

For he said to them: 'You shall not go up, and you shall not fall before the face of your enemies, for I am not with you.' Yet, being everywhere sick with disobedience, they forced their way and went up to the mountain, as it is written.

But the ark of God, it says, did not go up with them;

for it remained in the camp.

Do you see that, when God says 'I am not with you,' the ark does not go up together with the disobedient—thereby clearly showing to the more discerning that it holds the rank of God who leads the way? Moreover, it was carried around Jericho by the priests, and the high wall of the city fell—not by setting up siege-engines and battering-rams, but rather by trumpets and by a shout.

This same thing we shall find to be true again in Christ.

And this we see fulfilled in the mystical doxologies, when the people's priestly trumpet sounds forth beforehand—which is understood also in the voice of the officiating minister—and thus the power of the adversaries falls and is crushed.

For 'our weapons are not fleshly,' as Paul says, 'but mighty before God.' And that Christ in a certain way rides upon and rests upon the saints, the prophet Habakkuk will make clear when he says, 'For you will mount upon your horses, and your horsemanship is salvation'; and the Saviour himself will teach it no less, saying to Ananias concerning Paul, 'Go, for this man is a chosen vessel of mine, to bear my name before all the nations.' 'And you shall bring in the table,' he says besides this, 'and you shall set forth its shewbread, and you shall bring in the lampstand and set up its lamps.' And by both of these you will understand Christ.

For he is figured in the manner of a table having loaves set forth upon it, because in him all are nourished unto eternal life, plainly by partaking of his holy flesh, according to what was said by him: 'I am the bread that came down from heaven, and gives life to the world;'

'if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever;'

'and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.' Therefore the shewbread of the table, that is, the loaves, signifies the holy body of Christ, which nourishes all unto eternal life.

It was not permitted to taste of the loaves of the shewbread except for the priests alone, according to the ordinance of the Law;

so that through this again there might be signified the faith of the nations, and, in part, of those of Israel.

For many of them believed in Christ.

Thus, then, Christ will be understood through the holy table.

And again as a lampstand, inasmuch as he gives light to the whole house, that is, to the world;

'For I am the light of the world,' he says.

And it takes seven lamps, and not one;

for he gives light in manifold ways and illumines with diverse gifts of grace the souls of those who believe.

And again it is made of pure gold, on account of his being precious above all.

But it also has a solid stem;

for there is nothing hollow, nor anything light and empty, in Christ.

And it has lilies too, because of the fragrance that is in sanctification, according to the text: 'I am the flower of the field, the lily of the valleys.' And these funnels again signify the abundant supplies of the divine gifts of grace.

Moreover the prophet Zechariah affirmed that two olive branches were seen about it, so that you may understand the two peoples who have obtained mercy—whom he also called the sons of fatness—and he says they stand before the Lord of all the earth; and although the branches were beheld about the lampstand, he thereby makes a most vivid demonstration that the lampstand is Christ, who by obedience and faith has set before himself both the people from among the nations and the people from among the Jews.

'...of the testimony, and you shall set up the tabernacle, and you shall sanctify all that is in it round about.' For it must be observed how, through both altars as well, Christ is depicted for us.

For having ordained that the golden altar, on which the incense was, be placed over against the ark, and having said that curtains should be stretched through the midst about the doors of the tabernacle, so that the things within should not be seen, he also commands that the altar of burnt offerings be set beside the doors of the tabernacle of the testimony—not unseen or hidden;

for it was outside the veil.

Behold him, then: through the altar of incense ascending to God the Father as a sweet-smelling savour;

for this is what the incense signifies;

and through the altar of burnt offerings, as a sacrifice and victim offered up on our behalf.

But the golden altar was hidden by the veil;

for the glory of Christ was hidden;

but the other, that of the burnt offerings, on which were the victims, was visible;

for the death of Christ is manifest and known to all.

Yet they are not placed without distinction;

for the one is over against the ark, and the other beside the doors of the tabernacle.

And that the golden altar is placed over against the ark—as it were in the sight of God the Father—hints in a riddle that the glory of the Son is wonderful, according to the text, 'No one knows who the Son is except the Father.' And that the altar of burnt offerings is placed close by the very doors of the tabernacle, bearing the type of his death and of the sacrifice on behalf of all, signifies again that we cannot draw near to God the Father in any other way except through the sacrifice of Christ, according to what was said by him: 'I am the door,' and 'No one comes to the Father except through me.' And he ordains that the tabernacle be stretched round about, embracing all that is in it, so that it may be seen as one, and not as many.

For Christ is one in us, even though he is understood in manifold ways: as a tabernacle, on account of the veil of the flesh; as an ark, having the divine law, inasmuch as he is the Word of God the Father;

and again as a table, inasmuch as he is food and life;

and as a lampstand, inasmuch as he is intelligible and spiritual light;

and as an altar of incense, inasmuch as he is the sweet fragrance that is in sanctification;

and as an altar of burnt offerings, inasmuch as he is a victim for the life of the world.

And all that is in it is sanctified;

for Christ is wholly holy, in whatever way he may be understood.

Therefore, when the holy tabernacle led the way, those of Israel were commanded both to set out with it and to encamp with it; God thereby again training and profitably teaching us to make our leader and guide upon the road to salvation the Word of God who became flesh for our sake, and, inclining without delay to his ordinances, to ascend unto eternal life;

which those who had been initiated through many words were unwilling to do, and so they went back and no longer walked with him. But most wisely the blessed Peter says to the Saviour, 'To whom shall we go?'

for by no means to depart from God, but rather to press on to be with him spiritually, is most fitting for those who are truly holy.

'And we have believed and come to know that you are the Christ, the Holy One of God.'

Wonderful is the faith of the holy apostles, ardent the manner of their confession, most worthy of love and surpassing their understanding.