Commentary on John 1 part 33/94

For not, indeed, like certain of the more ignorant, nor like those who called the word of the Saviour harsh, did they justly go back and fall away; nor were they, out of levity, easily swept along and called to believe; but rather, being first fully assured and truly disposed to know that the one who initiated them was full of life-giving words and an instructor of heavenly teachings.

And such faith is exceedingly secure;

but that faith which is not so would reasonably and easily be spat out, and, not having the full assurance for its root, is most readily rubbed away from a person's mind.

having nothing whereby to receive it.

For just as, before the sowing of the seeds, the law of husbandry advises that the earth ought to be broken up beforehand with the plough;

so, I think, those who are coming to the reception of divine words must, in a certain way, first open up their heart by their desires toward them;

for having received them thus, they render the travailing soul like a fruitful land.

Therefore the most wise disciples say that in the full assurance of faith they have come to know, and moreover are confident, that he is himself the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And most wisely, too, you will find the reasoning again woven together in this:

for they say both that they believe and that they have come to know, bringing both together at the same time.

For it was necessary both to believe and to understand;

and it is not the case that, because the more divine things are to be received by faith, one must therefore wholly abandon inquiry into them; but rather one must make the attempt and at least ascend to a moderate knowledge—that which is, as Paul says, 'in a mirror and in a riddle.'

And well again, they do not say that they first came to know and then believed, but, setting faith first, they bring in knowledge second.

For knowledge comes after faith, and not before faith, according to what is written: 'Unless you believe, neither shall you understand.' For when a certain foundation, as it were, of unquestioning faith has first been laid down in us, knowledge is thereafter built upon it little by little, bringing us up to the measure of the stature that is in Christ, and to a perfect and spiritual man.

For this very reason God somewhere says: 'Behold, I lay in the foundations of Zion a chosen stone, a precious cornerstone.' For our beginning and foundation unto sanctification and righteousness is Christ—plainly through faith, and not otherwise;

for thus he takes up his dwelling in us.

Observe how everywhere, and in the singular, and with the article set before, they say, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' setting apart the One who is truly Son, as one and preeminent, from those who by grace have been called unto adoption; in likeness unto whom we too are sons.

And again they call Him Christ, as one and unique.

Yet we must know that He is not called Christ on His own account, or as being this essentially, in the way that He will also be Son; but He is indeed one and preeminently so.

For no one among the anointed is as He is; but He is named Christ only according to a likeness such as pertains to us.

For His own name and reality, properly and specially set apart, is in truth 'Son'; but the name 'Christ' is common to Him with us.

For since He was anointed inasmuch as He became man, therefore He is Christ.

Therefore if we assign the being anointed to the need of His humanity, He would be understood as Christ according to a likeness such as pertains to us, and not in the manner in which He is also Son; but rather one and only, both naturally and preeminently, both before the flesh and after the flesh, and not two, as some suppose, who do not, it seems, understand the depth of the mystery.

For the Word who is from God the Father did not descend into a man, as the grace through the Spirit came upon one of the holy prophets, but He Himself in truth became flesh, according to what is written, that is to say, man.

Therefore He is indivisible after the union, and is not cut apart into two persons, even if we conceive as something distinct the Word who is from God, and the flesh in which He has dwelt.

And since the whole choir of the holy apostles confirms for us the faith concerning these things—through which they say they came to know, in the singular, that He Himself is the Christ, the Son of God—we shall not receive, if we are minded rightly, those who out of folly do not shrink from innovating something else besides these things.

'Jesus answered them, Did I not choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil? But He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot;

for he it was who was about to betray Him, being one of the twelve.'

He intensifies the reproof and constrains them with sharper words, cutting away the slackness and looseness that leads to negligence in their wishing to be thought wise;

it is a time for good sense and for a strenuous mind bent upon the will to be saved.

For most slippery indeed is the road of perdition, dragging down not only the weak mind, but even the one that already seems to stand firm.

And a dreadful and many-shaped thing is sin, bewitching the human mind with manifold pleasures, and dragging it by desires most smooth toward what is not fitting.

'A proof of my word,' He says, 'will be your own case.'

'I did not choose any of those who out of fickleness fell away behind, as good men.'

'For I knew, as God, the things that are in you.'

'But Satan snatched away one in the wantonness of love of gain; and my verdict has by no means been proved false.'

For it belongs to men, by free choice and self-determination, to walk toward either side, whether to the right or to the left; and I mean, plainly, toward virtue and toward vice.

Therefore at once, by rebuking them the more severely, He both rouses them to the fitting watchfulness and, in what concerns Himself, renders each one more secure.

For as to who it is that will betray Him, He does not yet say plainly;

but laying the burden of impiety simply and indefinitely upon one, He set them all in a struggle, and called them to a more exact watchfulness, each shuddering at the loss of his own soul.

And together with these things He accomplished yet another thing profitable to the good faith of the disciples.

For since they had confessed that they knew, and had believed firmly, that He Himself is the Son of God, He appears as foreknowing the things that were to be, thereby showing, as it were, the firm confession concerning Himself.

For it belongs to none of things that are to know the things to come, save to the One who alone is by nature God, concerning whom it is also written: 'He who knows all things before their coming to be.' And He called him a devil—the minister of the devilish wills—not falsely.

For just as he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, so plainly also is the contrary the case.

Concerning the Feast of Tabernacles, that it signifies the restoration of the hope owed to the saints, and the raising again from the dead;

the text set before us being: 'Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Tabernacles, was at hand.'

'And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee;

for He would not walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.'

'After these things,' he says—the things spoken and done—Christ again made His sojourn more gladly in Galilee;

for this, I think, is what 'walked' signifies;

but He shows that being among those people was not voluntary for Him, but rather came about as of necessity, having added the reasons.

'For the Jews,' he says, 'wished to kill Him;

for this reason He bestowed Himself for long times upon those of other race, declining to walk in Judaea.'

But I think, again, that no less by these things is Israel accused of very great perversity, if indeed to be found among those of the Gentiles appeared far better than to abide with Him;

and this was what had been uttered through the prophet Jeremiah: 'I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance, I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.' For that Christ should become an exile because of the impiety of His persecutors, and should pass over to the Galileans—how is this not manifestly to give His own soul into the hands of her enemies? For the Gentiles were enemies of Christ, in that they served another and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator, because they had not yet received the faith in Him.

And this He will teach plainly, saying Himself: 'He that is not with me is against me.' But I suppose everyone will say that before the true knowledge of God and faith, the Gentiles were not with Christ;

they were therefore against Him, and lay for this reason in the rank of enemies.

It was fitting and more becoming to be among His kinsmen according to the flesh;

and inasmuch as this was so, they ought also to have loved Him.

Most reasonably, therefore, Christ was removing to the Gentiles, and through this Himself in a certain manner already declaring that, unless they should cease from persecuting and from wearying their Benefactor with their madnesses, He would wholly bestow Himself upon those without, and Christ would remove to the Gentiles.

And just as we say that He intimates this through the present matter, so again we shall find that through a more ancient figure He threatened the departure from Jerusalem.

When, therefore, He was defining the laws concerning the sacrifices, as is also written in the book of Leviticus, He prefigured, as in an image of Christ, that a calf should be brought as a gift and whole burnt-offering to the Lord;

and again He figures Him in another way, saying: 'But if his gift to the Lord be from the flocks, from the lambs or from the kids, for a whole burnt-offering, he shall bring it a male without blemish, and shall lay his hand upon its head, and they shall slay it at the side of the altar toward the north before the Lord.' How, then, through these things also the mystery concerning Christ is shaped for us, must of necessity be searched out.

But first, I think, it is proper to speak of the position of the very temple in Jerusalem and of the divine altar, that thus we may understand what indeed it signifies that the sheep looked not straight toward the things mentioned, but rather was turned toward the north.

Now the country of the Jews lies in the more southerly parts of the earth, and the temple looks toward the east, and opens its doors to the first rays of the sun;

and the divine altar itself also, being set right before the sanctuary, as it were in the sight of God, presented its front first to those entering from the east, of the two sides one looking to the south, the other to the north;

and that these things are so, as we have said, you will be fully assured on learning what is set down in the prophet Ezekiel.

For when he was being taught the things concerning the death of Pelatiah—plainly through spiritual vision—he thus says: 'And I saw, and behold, about five-and-twenty men, their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces the opposite way;

and these were worshipping the sun toward the east.' Now if one worshipping the rising sun set the temple at the back part of his own body, how is it not necessary to understand that his face was turned toward the east? And according to this figure was the divine altar itself also, as we have said.

Therefore of the temple itself and of the divine altar the front was that approachable toward the east;

and there were two sides, the one toward the south, the other toward the north—the latter plainly being also the one that is lacking, which is understood in a way as being at the back for those looking toward the parts of the west;

so, therefore, the things we have said being thus, we shall find Galilee, the neighbour of the land of the Jews—that is, the country of the Gentiles—lying close to the very north, according to what is written, 'Galilee of the Gentiles.' And since our Lord Jesus Christ was, after the saving Passion, to remove from the country of the Jews and to come to Galilee—that is, to the Church of the Gentiles—the sheep taken in type for a sacrifice was slain at the side of the altar, that it might look toward the north, according to that word spoken by the psalmist concerning Christ: 'His eyes look upon the Gentiles.' And since the blessed Evangelist says that He declined to be with the Jews, because they were plotting to kill Him, to what has been said we shall add this: that we shall not reckon the withdrawal of Christ as a charge of cowardice, nor for this reason accuse of weakness Him who is all-powerful, but shall accept the mode of the dispensation;

for it behoved Him to endure the cross on behalf of all, not before the time, but in His own due season.

'His brethren therefore said to Him, Depart hence and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may behold the works that thou doest;

for no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be in open view.

For neither did His brethren believe in Him.'

Not yet recognizing God the Word who had dwelt in the holy flesh, those reputed to be the brethren of the Saviour—nor even knowing, at that time in which they say such things, that He had become man—still have small conceptions concerning Him, and imagine things far more meagre than the grace and preeminence that are in Him, seeing nothing more than the rest, but deluded by the common opinions about Him, supposing that He too had been truly begotten of Joseph as father, and not seeing the hidden framing of the mystery;

for since many wonders, as is likely, were being secretly worked by Christ throughout Galilee, they urge Him to aim at empty glory, and counsel Him that it is some great thing to be honoured with wonder by beholders, as though for this alone He willed to work the powers upon each of the things accomplished—that only He might seem worthy of admiration among the beholders, and might revel in the praises of men, after the manner of certain who are wont to be fond of glory.

For see how they counsel Him to go up to Judaea, and rather to work marvels there, not that His disciples may believe in Him, but that they may behold the works that He does.

'For if thou wilt be known,' they say;

'for this is to be in the open;

be not secretly a great worker, nor, being eminent in the power to do all things, flee open speech;

for thus wilt thou be known to the world, and more conspicuous among the beholders.'

Such, then, is the word from those men in these matters.

But the most wise Evangelist usefully notes that His brethren had not yet believed in Him;

for it was indeed of the most absurd things that they who had already, through faith, received the God-befitting knowledge concerning Him should be convicted of words so cold.

But at that time, since they did not yet believe, they spoke without wisdom.

But when they came to believe, having understood the great mystery concerning Him, they mounted up to such a height of piety and virtue that they were even styled apostles and acquired a distinguished reverence.

You have this also foresung through the voice of the prophets.

For indeed the blessed Jeremiah says, as though addressed to our Lord Jesus the Christ: 'For even your brothers and the house of your father, even these have dealt treacherously with you, and they too have cried out; from behind you they have gathered together.'

'Do not trust in them, though they speak good words to you.' For the brothers who before their faith had dealt treacherously—and, as has just been said by us, had all but even attempted to cry out against Him—when they were gathered through faith, spoke good things concerning Him, both benefiting others and contending in words on behalf of the faith.

And the prophet, most vigilantly having named them 'brothers,' usefully adds 'the house of your father,' lest these too should somehow be thought to have come from the holy Virgin, but rather as from Joseph alone as father.

Jesus therefore says to them: 'My time is not yet present, but your time is always ready.'

The word of the Saviour is ever veiled in shadow.

For thus it is written concerning Him, that 'the man shall be one who hides his words.' And that this too was practised for a useful purpose, who among the right-minded will not affirm? 'It is not yet, then,' He says, 'the season for unmixed boldness of speech, nor even for so unveiled a manifestation to all, since the mind of the Jews is not yet ripened into understanding, so as to be able to receive the words that come from Me apart from wrath and anger.'

'Nor indeed does the present season permit that I be made known to the world at all, since the Jews have not yet altogether departed from grace, nor even so far outraged Me that I should now at last need to remove My anchorage to others.'

'It is not yet, then, for these reasons,' He says, that His own time is present; but He says that theirs is present, and lies ready at all times.

For we say that it is open to those who are in the world to accomplish whatever seems good to them, since no necessity hinders, nor summons them to any temporary dispensation counselling that something be done or not done—just as, of course, was the case with Christ as well.

For those who have chosen life in the world, their manner of living is relaxed and free from more toilsome care, ever bringing as it were a time laid out and spread open for the sweetest pleasures, and readily permitting those who employ it to proceed to whatever they may wish.

Therefore, in matters that are of necessity subject to dispensations, not every season is suited to the doing of what is fitting, but only the one proper to each of the things being accomplished, and such as the nature of the matter might require.

But upon him who has chosen to live without restraint, no such thing is laid.

Rather, most ready and altogether unrestricted is the passage for going to whatever they may will.

'The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify concerning it that its works are evil.'

Very gracefully now also the Saviour convicts the brothers, who were still minded and disposed in too worldly a fashion, and He introduces as it were a second defence skilfully blended, through which He shows them not merely as not having known who He is by nature, but as still so far estranged from love toward Him that they chose to spend their lives, not out of tune with those who admire the life in the world, and not rather the life in virtue.

For it would truly have been most absurd that to all others He should speak the profitable things, with all reserve on this point laid aside;

but to those who seemed to be brothers He should not grant in a far greater and fuller measure the things by which they were about to be no small profited in learning, since they already had the Supplier of wisdom Himself—this would have been most absurd.

And this is a custom of Christ the Saviour.

For, having seized upon a timely occasion, He sometimes weaves long catecheses for His hearers.

'Ever, then,' He says, 'is what is akin dear to each, and sameness of manner brings together, wondrously, into affection.'

'For you still are minded after its things.'

'But Me it hates, not being pleased at the things for which it is disgracefully accused by Me.'

'Therefore you indeed will go up to this feast without danger, but I no longer.'

'For I will assuredly discourse, and being present will speak the profitable things; but bitter to lovers of pleasure is reproof, and terrible to kindle unto wrath the man who does not accept that he ought to be self-controlled.'

And again through these words too the Lord benefits us.

For indeed it is profitable not to make reproofs inconsiderately, nor to bring forth instruction to all with rebuke, but to know what is written: 'Do not reprove evil men, lest they hate you'—since hatred is for us not without loss—but rather to press to speak into the ears of those who hear, according to what is written.

For the world is a lover of sin, but the Lord is a corrector of things not rightly performed.

And it is fitting often to make the correction through reproof.

For to make a full catalogue of sin is to rebuke those who love it, and to accuse wickedness is to reprove those who possess it.

When, therefore, necessity calls the teacher to reprove, and the manner of the cure bids him proceed by this means, but he who is being trained by the reproofs against his will is exceedingly vexed, then must there of all necessity spring up the evils that come from hatred.

For this reason the Saviour says that He is hated by the world, as by one not yet strong enough to make room for exhortation accompanied by rebuke, whenever this too must come to pass for its usefulness.

For a mind tyrannized by the pleasures that lead toward baseness assuredly is vexed at the word that persuades that one ought to be self-controlled.

And the Saviour says these things not having altogether refused the journey up to Jerusalem, nor having renounced reproofs such as might appear profitable to those who sin, but purposing to do this too in the fitting season along with the other matters.

And it is to be noted that He says something of this sort to His own disciples as well.

For consoling them, and teaching them not to be over-distressed at the things that are to befall, whenever they proclaim Him to the inhabited world and on account of this fall into countless trials, He says: 'If you were of the world, the world would love its own.'

To such men indeed he who is no lover of like ways is exceedingly reckoned harsh and hostile and set in the rank of an enemy.

But kindred and friend is he who wills the same, and by sameness of life is bound fast toward a like disposition in shameful things.

'You go up to this feast;'

'I do not go up to this feast, because My time is not yet fulfilled.'

The Lord now already clearly refuses His will to keep the feast together with the Jews, that is, to go up at the same time, as though to share with them in the merriment that lies among shadows.

For what was said once, as though to a few—albeit those reckoned to be brothers—will in effect run through the whole race that is from Israel.

For no one surely will say that Jesus properly declines being with His brothers for their own sake, since He also plainly appears to be with them in Galilee.

And it is to be supposed that, not without purpose, He was also a fellow-dweller with them, on account of the supposition held by many concerning kinship according to the flesh.

It is evident, then, that since the brothers are brought in as it were as a type of the whole multitude of the Jews, Christ shuns keeping the feast together with them, according to what was said through one of the holy prophets: 'I have hated, I have rejected your feasts, and I will not smell your solemn assemblies.'

'Wherefore even if you offer Me whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, I will not accept them, nor will I look upon the presentation of your peace-offerings.'

'Remove from Me the sound of your songs, and the psalm of your instruments I will not hear.' 'For God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth,' according to the very voice of the Saviour.

And being Spirit, He would naturally take pleasure in spiritual honours and gifts, of which as a type, through the commandment of the Law, sacrifices of oxen and slayings of sheep, and in addition to these the presentations of frankincense and fine flour and wine and oil, were duly performed—disclosing through more manifest figures the manifold virtue of those who worship in spirit.

'You therefore,' He says, 'who still love the shadow, and are disposed in a grosser and more Jewish way concerning these things, go up to the solemn assembly that is in shadows and types.'

'But to Me it is not thus pleasant to keep feast.'

'I do not go up to this feast, namely the one in type and figure.'

'For I have in it nothing that delights.'

'But I rather await the season of the true solemn assembly, which is not yet fulfilled.'

'For then, then,' He says, 'I will be together with My devotees, rejoicing in the splendour of the saints, in the glory of the Father, flashing forth radiance unto its uttermost.'

And He calls the time His own, and names it as His own possession.

For His is the feast; He Himself is the president of the solemn assembly.

For to Him also the blessed Jeremiah dedicated it, saying to those who had neglected piety toward God and had counted as nothing the will to be distinguished in good things: 'What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the days of the feast of the Lord?' 'For those who altogether,' he says, 'decline to sweat for virtue's sake, and do not possess the splendid garment of love toward God, what will you do in the day of solemn assembly? How will you enter in to the divine and heavenly feast? Or how would the Master of the banquet not with good reason thrust you out from the most radiant company of those who are called, saying: Friend, how did you come in here not having a wedding garment?' And akin to this, and bringing in a like thought to us, would be what lies in the prophet Zechariah: 'For it shall be,' he says, 'that as many as are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall even go up year by year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles.' And he says that those who are left shall go up to the worship of the great King, and unto the fulfilment of the feast of Tabernacles.

For though many are called through grace, those who go up to the city above are not many.

For 'few are the chosen,' according to the voice of the Saviour, taken plainly out of every nation.

...the truth, all but sending up melodiously that song in the Psalms: 'Blessed be the Lord, for He has heard the voice of my supplication.'

'In Him my heart hoped, and I was helped, and my flesh flourished again.' For the flesh flourished, and hereafter shall be brought to life again, and not apart from Christ.

For He Himself has become for us the beginning of the resurrection, and the door of the truer feast of Tabernacles.

'When He had said these things, He Himself remained in Galilee;'

'But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He also went up, not openly, but as it were in secret.'

Christ lingers fondly in Galilee, and being banished from the land of the Jews, He dwells more pleasantly and more securely, that again He may appear more noble than those who seem to be learned in the Law—albeit the multitude of the Gentiles was exceedingly untaught, on account of the error still holding them fast.

And through this He signifies both His just love toward them and His most reasonable aversion toward those of Israel.

For how was He who knows all things before their coming to be not going to be so disposed as already to deem worthy of the divine love the Church out of the Gentiles—so readily called unto believing in Him—but henceforth justly to shake off and to loathe Jerusalem as ungrateful?

For neither does He prematurely bring upon those of Israel their punishment in its entirety, nor indeed does He wholly bestow Himself upon Galilee before the saving cross.

For at that time it was fitting to do this rightly, and, upon reasonable grounds, to withdraw from love toward those men.

Having therefore said that He would not go up to this feast, and having given leave to His brethren to go if they willed, He remained alone;

for the appointed time to be present was not yet fully confirmed.

He goes up after them, not saying one thing while doing the contrary of what He had said;

for that would already have been to lie, though guile—that is, falsehood—is said to have been found not at all in His mouth;

but He was truly eager to do that very thing which He had promised.

For He does not go up to keep the feast with them, but rather to admonish them; and since He had come for the purpose of saving, He went up to speak of and to introduce the things that lead to eternal life.

That this indeed was His aim will be clearly taught by the fact that He was unwilling even to travel together with those going up, but went up only with difficulty and secretly, not employing the boldness and cheerfulness of those who go to a public festival.