Commentary on John 1 part 39/94

Therefore, since the things that come from the moments are not in our power after the moments are gone, let us not doze off while the good things are present, but rather let us be watchful, and let us not, senselessly, be eager to hunt after what profits when seeking it is useless.

'And where I am, you cannot come.'

Once again, most elegantly He sends forth the race of the Jews from the kingdom of the heavens, adding words consistent with what has already been said, yet burying within them a deep mystery for them.

For approaching the saying more simply, and receiving concerning it a less laborious contemplation, we say that He hints at something of this kind: that He will in no way be apprehensible to them, nor, when He has run back to the Father, will He fall into the snares they set.

For not even heaven will be accessible to them; and how could He who sits enthroned together with God and the Father become capable of being seized by those who seek Him? This, then, is one interpretation, not a deep one, but rather more suited to the levity of the Jews and to their more ordinary understandings;

for they are somehow always found to think in more grovelling ways;

but the precise and hidden meaning of what was said is of this manner: I, He says, having run clean through the snare of your unholiness, shall be brought back to God and the Father;

and I shall go before all My worshippers, so that, having shown them that the path leading up on high is passable, I may have all with Myself.

But you shall be strangers to the wedding; you shall not behold My festal assembly; you shall not ascend to the mansions above, nor shall you gaze upon the beauty of the Church of the firstborn;

the city above shall be out of your sight;

you shall not behold the wealthy Jerusalem;

for there My flock shall glorify Me, but you cannot come.

For heaven will not receive the murderers of the Lord, nor will the Cherubim open the gates of Paradise for a people that fights against God to enter, nor will a man liable for impieties against God in any way turn back the flaming sword;

it knows only the godly man and honors the lover of God, and it makes faith the watchword of peace.

Such a contemplation shall we bring to bear upon what has been said, tracking out everywhere the true meaning and the one befitting those endowed with understanding.

And we shall add a few things to these, demonstrating for the sake of profit that all who ascend to the God-loving disposition shall both be with Christ and keep festival together with Him;

but those who run along with the Jewish follies shall not be among these.

How could they? Rather, they shall suffer the bitter chastisement of their disobedience.

Let the inspired Paul, therefore, come to us, crying out to those who are dead to sin: 'For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God;

when Christ, your life, shall be manifested, then you also shall be manifested with Him in glory.' And again, carrying through the discourse concerning the resurrection: 'And we who are alive, who are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.' And kindred to these things the Savior Himself also is seen speaking to His own disciples.

For while feasting together with them He says: 'But I say to you, I will not drink from now on of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of the heavens.' But also to the robber hanged together with Him, who at the very gates of death was, through faith in Him, snatching the grace of the saints, He said: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.' Those, then, who have honored Him by their ready obedience shall be with Him without hindrance, and shall luxuriate in the good things beyond mind;

but those who do not refuse to be insolent in their senselessness, although they are not sons of the bridal chamber, shall depart gloomy into Hades, paying bitter penalties.

For they shall be cast out, according to what is written, into the outer darkness. Truly, therefore, the Lord will speak as in a riddle to the Jews: 'Where I go, you cannot come.'

'The Jews therefore said among themselves: Where is this man about to go, that we shall not find Him? Is He about to go to the Dispersion of the Greeks and to teach the Greeks?' Do you see once again in these words the wretchedness of Jewish reasonings? Do you see the most pitiable surmise of a grovelling mind? For they do not say that He will ascend to heaven—although they had heard Him say expressly, 'Yet a little while I am with you, and I go to Him who sent Me'—but they imagine the country of the Greeks, as though the One who had sent Him were among those people, to whom also He had promised to return.

But He prophesies, as is fitting, through these words, although the populace of the Jews did not know what it was saying.

For, moved by a certain divine energy, they grant Christ to the country of the nations, glorifying, as though under the guise of a suspicion, what a little later would prove true;

for He was indeed truly about to go to the Greeks and to teach them, having spurned away the ungrateful mother of the Jews, Jerusalem.

But observe how they do not make their statement about this in a single-minded way.

For they do not merely suppose that He will run off into the Dispersion of the Greeks, but they perversely add that He is also about to teach the Greeks, so that once again their suspicion may breed for them a pretext of accusation.

For merely to mingle with the Dispersions of the Greeks by going to their cities or countries was found to be something ordinary and unaccusable among the Jews;

and indeed God, through the prophet Jeremiah, reproached certain ones for being indifferent about this, saying: 'And they read the law outside.' Bitterly, therefore, they say that He is about to teach the Greeks, tearing Him to pieces as one who readily transgresses the law, and believing, from the things already done by Him on the Sabbath day, that it was habitual with Him and counted as nothing to do everything without scruple, even though it be discordant with the divine laws.

'And on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying: If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.'

We must inquire very carefully in this passage too what our most wise Evangelist is again hinting at with great and exceeding attentiveness, in naming the last day of the feast 'great'; or what it was that prompted our Lord Jesus Christ, as though from some necessary reason befitting the occasion, to say to the Jews especially on that very day: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.'

For He might have made use of other words as well;

such as, 'I am the light, I am the truth';

but having turned the exposition to the theme of believing, He introduced the words 'let him drink' as something necessary and, as it were, owed to the discourse concerning the feast.

And I shall try to state the aim of the passage before us in as few words as possible.

When, then, God was prescribing the ordinances concerning the feast of Tabernacles, He spoke thus to Moses: 'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month there shall be a feast of Tabernacles to the Lord, and you shall offer whole burnt offerings and sacrifices seven days, and the first day shall be a holy convocation for you.' Then, having further ordained for these the modes of the sacrifices, He added again: 'And on the fifteenth day of this seventh month you shall offer whole burnt offerings to the Lord seven days, and the first day shall be a rest, and the seventh day shall be a rest.'

'And on the first day you shall take fair boughs of palm trees, and thick branches of a tree, and fruit of a goodly tree, and willows, and branches of the agnus-tree from the brook, to rejoice.' Now already in the second book, going through each of the parts of the aforesaid text, we have spent a long discourse upon it; but abridging it nonetheless into a few words, we shall once again recall it to mind.

For we said that the feast of Tabernacles signifies the thrice-longed-for season of the resurrection for us;

and that the taking of the fair boughs, and the fruit of the goodly tree, and besides these the other things as well, signify a certain restoration of Paradise, as of that which will once more be given to us through Christ.

And since it was appended to the text at its conclusion that it is fitting to take all these things from the brook, rejoicing again from this very fact, we said that our Lord Jesus Christ is likened to a brook, in whom indeed we shall find all delight and luxury that is in our hopes, and in whom we shall rejoice divinely and spiritually.

And that He is and is called a brook spiritually, our most wise psalmist too will bear witness, saying to God and the Father concerning us: 'But the sons of men shall hope in the shelter of Your wings;

they shall be inebriated with the fatness of Your house, and You shall give them to drink of the brook of Your delight.' And the Lord Himself too somewhere in the prophets says: 'Behold, I turn toward them as a river of peace, and as a torrent overflowing.' Since, then, the law called both the first and the seventh day of the feast a holy convocation, the inspired Evangelist too named it 'great,' not dishonoring, as it seems, a custom worn familiar among the Jews.

Since, then, there was also within the ordinances concerning the feast a remembrance of the brook, the Savior, showing Himself to be that very brook which was foreannounced in the words of the law, says: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.'

For see how He removes the mind of the Jews from the types set forth in the letter, and skillfully transfers the things in figures, if in any way He may counsel them toward the truth.

For I am, He says, the brook that is proclaimed beforehand through the lawgiver in the words concerning the feast.

Not properly, nor truly, does the shape of the feast reside in those things; rather it would be symbols of intelligible realities, which shall be given to the godly through Christ.

But having treated of these things more broadly in the second book, as indeed we have already said before, we shall not repeat ourselves, but shall rather follow on to what comes next.

'He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'

He shows the recompense of faith to be great and unaging, and He says that the one who is not disobedient shall luxuriate in the most abundant gracious gifts from God.

For he shall thus be so filled with the gifts that come through the Spirit that not only is his own mind fattened thereby, but he is already able even to flood the hearts of others, pouring out the God-given good to his neighbor as well, after the manner of a river's stream.

For we find somewhere concerning everyone who honors and loves God, that 'He shall be as a garden that is drunk with water, and as a spring which the water has not failed.' And what He said in the passages already gone before to the woman from Samaria, this He now also declares plainly.

For there He says: 'Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again;

but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever, but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water leaping up unto eternal life.' And here again, referring the aim of the discourse to the same meaning, He says: 'Rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly.'

That after the Savior's Cross, at the coming back to life from the dead, the Holy Spirit took up a firm dwelling in us.

'But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were about to receive.'

For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

For anyone who reflects and looks to each one of the holy prophets might well pass over into fervent musings, wondering how the Spirit was not, seeing that so great a choir of prophets had been raised up, who are found even speaking in the Spirit the divine mysteries concerning Christ throughout their lengthy discourses.

We stray outside the reasoning that befits us, if we were to suppose that the mind of the saints came to be bereft of the Spirit.

For it puts us to shame, and as if by necessity calls us to be persuaded, so that we are truly disposed to hold that they were Spirit-bearers—both the very gift of prophecy itself and the things found in the sacred writings testify to this.

And one might easily heap up many things similar to what has been said, through which it could very readily be seen that the saints were bearers of the Spirit.

But in matters so utterly manifest, to wear oneself out in lengthy discourses is, it seems, superfluous, or even in another way burdensome.

How the Spirit 'was not' must be sought out with precision.

For I think we must reckon that the blessed Evangelist speaks the truth.

Now what is truly the case, let God Himself, who knows all things, know;

for one must not dare to approach with excessive curiosity the things that are above us.

Yet, so far as it is possible to see with pious reasonings, something of this sort has come to pass concerning us.

For this rational living creature upon the earth—that is, man—came to be in the beginning in incorruption.

And the cause of his incorruption and of his abiding in all virtue was shown to be this: that the Spirit from God dwelt within him.

For 'He breathed into his face the breath of life,' as it is written.

But having, through that ancient deception, turned aside into sin, and then little by little through what followed having received a great increase toward it, together with the other good things he suffers also the loss of the Spirit; and thus he came thereafter to be not only subject to corruption, but also prone to every sin.

But since the Creator of all things purposed—doing exceedingly well—to sum up all things in Christ, and willed to restore the nature of man once more to its ancient state, He promises that, among the other gifts, He will again bestow upon it the Holy Spirit as well;

for there was no other way to run back up to an unshakable standing in good things.

Therefore He fixes the appointed time of the Spirit's descent upon us, and promises, saying: 'In those days'—

the days of our Savior, that is;

'from My Spirit,' that is;

'upon all flesh.' And when the time of this munificence brought forth into the midst the Only-Begotten with flesh upon the earth—that is, having become man, born of a woman according to the holy Scripture—God the Father again gave the Spirit, and Christ, as the firstfruits of the renewed nature, was the first to receive the Spirit.

For John bore witness, saying: 'I have beheld the Spirit descending from heaven, and it abode upon Him.' But how did He receive it? For what has been said must of necessity be worked out thoroughly.

Was it as though not possessing it? This we do not say;

for the Spirit is the Son's own, and not from without, as in our case it is imparted to us as a thing supplied from God, but it exists in Him naturally, just as it does in the Father, and through Him it proceeds to the saints, distributed by the Father according to what befits each one.

But He is said to have received it inasmuch as He became man, and it was fitting for a man to receive.

And just as, being the Son of God the Father and begotten of His substance, even before the incarnation—or rather, even before all ages—He is in no way at all indignant when God the Father says to Him, when He had become man, 'You are My Son, this day have I begotten You' (for the God who is before the ages, begotten of Him, He says has been begotten 'this day')—

in order that He might receive us in Himself unto adoption as sons; for the whole of humanity was in Christ, inasmuch as He was man;

so also, though He possesses the Spirit as His own, it is said to be given again to the Son, in order that we in Him might gain the Spirit.

He does all things for the brethren. The Only-Begotten, then, receives the Holy Spirit not for Himself;

for the Spirit is His, and is in Him and through Him, as we have already said before;

but since, having become man, He held the whole nature in Himself, that He might set the whole aright, refashioning it into its ancient state.

But in addition to what has been said, that point too must be carefully considered.

For, proceeding through wise reasonings and being confirmed by the words from the divine Scripture, we shall see that Christ received the Spirit not for Himself, but rather for us in Himself;

for all good things run through Him even to us.

For since the forefather Adam did not preserve the grace of the Spirit, being turned aside through deception into disobedience and sin, and thus the whole nature was thereafter deprived in him of the God-given good, of necessity the Word of God, who knows no change, became man, that receiving as man He might firmly preserve the good for the nature.

As expounder of such mysteries to us, the divine psalmist himself will enter in;

for thus he says to the Son: 'You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity;

therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.' For 'since,' he says, 'You have ever loved righteousness'—

for You are righteous, O God, and cannot in any way be turned aside from this;

'and You have ever hated iniquity';

for the hatred of evil is naturally implanted in You, as in a God who loves righteousness;

'therefore God, even the Father, has anointed You';

for He who has, as an advantage of His own nature, unchangeable righteousness, could never have been transferred to that sin which He has not known;

and being so disposed, You unquestionably preserved in Yourself, inasmuch as You became man, for humanity the holy anointing from God the Father—that is, the Spirit.

The Only-Begotten, then, became man like us, in order that in Him first the good things might run back, and that the grace of the Spirit, once rooted, might henceforth be securely kept for the whole nature—the Only-Begotten, as it were, lending us the immutability of His own nature, being the Word from God the Father, because the nature of man had been condemned in Adam as unable to hold itself without falling, but slipping down all too easily into deviation.

As therefore in the falls of the first man the loss of good things pervaded the whole nature;

in the same manner, I think, in Him who knows no change, the gain of the abiding of the divine graces shall be preserved for the whole race.

But if to anyone we seem not to think and speak what is reasonable, let him come forward and teach the reason why in the divine Scriptures the Savior is named the second Adam.

For in that first one the human race came forth from non-being into being, and having come forth was corrupted, because it grieved the divine law;

but in the second, that is, in Christ, it comes back again to a second beginning, being refashioned unto newness of life and unto the return to incorruption.

'For if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,' as Paul says.

There has therefore been given to us the renewing Spirit—that is, the Holy Spirit, the author of eternal life—after Christ was glorified, that is, after the resurrection, when, having broken the bonds of death and having been shown to be mightier than all corruption, He lived again, holding the whole nature in Himself, inasmuch as He was man and one of us.

And if you inquire diligently into the reason why the outpouring of the Spirit came to pass not before the resurrection but after it, you will again hear this: Christ then became the firstfruits of the renewed nature, when, taking no thought at all for the bonds of death, He lived again, as we have just now said.

How then ought those who come after the firstfruits to be seen made alive before the firstfruits? For just as a plant could not sprout up from the earth unless it had by all means already grown out of its own root—

for the beginning of its growth is from there;

so it was impossible that we, having as our root unto incorruption our Lord Jesus Christ, should be seen sprouting before the root.

And showing that the time of the Spirit's descent upon us was already present, after His return to life from the dead He breathed upon the disciples, saying: 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'

And let the lover of learning look around with me again, to see whether our discourse concerning these things has not proved true for us as well;

for on this very account Paul also says to certain persons: 'My little children, for whom I again travail in birth until Christ be formed in you.' Let us therefore reason.

For I will take up again the aim of my discourse;

namely, that in the holy prophets there came, as it were, a rich illumination and torch-bearing of the Spirit, able to lead them as a tutor unto the apprehension of things to come and unto the knowledge of things hidden;

but in those who believe in Christ we have taken courage to affirm not simply a torch-bearing from the Spirit, but that the Spirit Himself dwells and makes His abode within them.

Whence with good reason we are also called temples of God, although none of the holy prophets was ever at any time called a temple of God.

For how shall we understand that, and what indeed shall we say, when we hear our Savior Christ saying: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist;

yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he'? And what is the kingdom of heaven? Manifestly the gift of the Holy Spirit, according to that saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is within you'; for the Spirit makes His abode in us through faith.

You see, then, how He sets him who is in the kingdom of heaven before everyone born of women, even though he falls short of the perfect one? And let no one suppose that this saying either belittles us in comparison with the virtue of those saints, or declares that even the most insignificant are better than they.

For the beauty of their manner of life is beyond comparison.

But, that we may understand clearly, let us in a few words interpret what was said by our Savior.

The blessed Baptist was truly great, and most eminent through every virtue, having pressed on at last to the very bounds of the righteousness that is in us, so that there was nothing higher.

Yet he who was thus disposed had need of Christ, saying: 'I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?' You see how, being perfect—so far as that was possible among men and among those born of women—he entreats in a certain manner to be created anew and regenerated through the Holy Spirit? You see how he yields the greater place to those who have been regenerated, in that he declares he still himself has need of this? For if he were among the better without being baptized, why does he entreat and urge to be baptized? But if he knows that he himself will be among the better when baptism comes, how shall he not assign the greater place to those already baptized? Therefore Christ declares that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater even than John himself—that is, even the one just baptized, who does not yet possess distinction in works—according to this alone: that the blessed Baptist was still one born of a woman, whereas the other has been begotten of God, according to what is written, and has become a partaker of the divine nature, having the Holy Spirit dwelling within him, and being now called a temple of God.

But I shall run back once more to the matter that lies before us.

For the Spirit came upon the prophets on account of the need to prophesy;

but now, through Christ, He takes up His dwelling in those who believe, having first begun in Him when He became man.

For as God He has, without any interval of separation, that Spirit which proceeds from Him essentially and which is His own;

yet for our sakes He is said also to be anointed and to receive the Spirit as man—not procuring for Himself the participation in divine good things, but rather for the nature of man, even as we have already taught beforehand.

Let us suppose that in saying 'Jesus was not yet glorified' he signifies the full and complete indwelling of the Holy Spirit among men.

Some of the multitude, therefore, when they heard this saying, said, 'This is truly the prophet.'

Others said, 'This is truly the Christ.'

They are struck with amazement at His boldness of speech as befitting God, and seeing that His words no longer fit within the measures proper to a man, they take refuge in the remembrance of the Law, as having already foretold concerning Christ that a prophet should be raised up, and having said to the all-wise Moses that One should come, like unto him, who would convey to Israel the words that come from God.

For thus God somewhere says concerning Him to holy Moses: 'I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put My words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.' Therefore, from the quality of His words and the surpassing excellence of His utterances, they now say that He who was foreproclaimed through the Law has at last been made manifest.

For to whom would it befit to say, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,' and 'He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,' save to Him alone who is by nature God—and this was Christ?

And though the Jews, thinking meanly of Him, call Him simply a prophet, not knowing the supremacy of Emmanuel over all things, but measuring Him as one of the rest, they very foolishly attack the very ordinances of the Law, and in this too they shall be caught out.

For they suppose that the Christ is other than the prophet spoken of in the Law.

And it is no marvel if the common people have no accuracy in these matters, seeing that even that God-fighting throng of the boastful Pharisees is manifestly sick with the same ignorance as the crowds.

For once, rebuking the blessed Baptist, they said, 'Why then baptizest thou, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that prophet?' For, since two were expected to come—I mean the prophet according to the Law, that is, Christ, and Elijah—they inquired concerning three, supposing the prophet to be other than Jesus.

It is therefore fitting to say concerning them what was spoken through the prophet Ezekiel: 'As is the mother, so is the daughter; thou art thy mother's daughter.' For the people is sick with the same disease as those who have obtained the office of leading them.

Yet it is well to observe this, that they were already prepared to believe, and are somehow persuaded by the words of the Saviour to marvel at Him; but not having instruction from their leaders, they are carried off into a many-branched path of opinions, some calling Him the Christ, others the prophet, and already believing.

For the word 'truly' inserted carries a certain force of a reasoning already fixed firm, and introduces the intimation of a faith that has been admitted.

For, passing through every notion, they are found gathering, by means of various conceptions, the apprehension of the truth concerning Him.

For having already come to marvel through His very words, and having now received the surpassing boldness of His teachings as a guide to reckon something great concerning Him, they search out the divine Scripture itself, thinking to find thence a most unerring judgment concerning Him.

For the matter stands thus by nature.

'From the beginning, from the days of eternity.' Yet the unguided mind of the Jews wandered astray, and stumbled concerning Christ solely on account of Nazareth, situated in Galilee, in which the common report holds that the Lord was reared.

For His lineage was of the tribe of Judah;

yet merely because the Lord was reared in Nazareth, they fall away from the truth and err from the saving reckoning.

So there arose a division in the multitude because of Him.

They contend in vain, and are split into differing opinions, some supposing Him to be the prophet, others the Christ.

And the pretext for their discord thence was that they knew not the Christ, nor discerned the exactness in the sacred writings;

for otherwise, believing that Jesus was not other than the prophet in the Law, they would have departed from their untimely discord.

And some of them wished to seize Him, but no one laid hands upon Him.