Commentary on John 1 part 41/94

'But in Me,' He says, 'there is no capacity to be sick with the same disease as those from the earth.'

Being, that is to say, light of light and true God of true God the Father, having a nature inaccessible to weakness.

'For even if I have become man,' He says, 'because of My love toward men, yet not on this account shall I be known as bereft of the dignity befitting God.'

'And I remain again what I am by nature, that is, God.'

And a clear demonstration of this is My knowing where I am going.

'For I shall ascend into the heavens, to the Father from whom I am.'

Which, I think, one might say befits not a man, one of us, but God by nature, even if He has become man.

Therefore the words 'I know whence I am' hint at the Son's being from the Father by nature.

And the words 'Where I am going' are a display of God-befitting authority.

For He ascends as God above the heavens, as Paul says.

Yet nevertheless it contains a threat, even if not very plainly, befitting the impiety of the Jews.

For inasmuch as He is presently, in a manner not far off, altogether to withdraw from their race, He is seen saying these things, and, having left them in a desolation of the divine light, He will bring it about that they come to be in ignorance and deep darkness—which He appears to have declared to them more plainly in other places: 'For while you have the light,' He says, 'walk in the light, that the darkness may not overtake you.' 'You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.'

We shall find the Lord of all once more employing a most lovely gentleness.

For He does not requite those who blaspheme Him with anger of equal weight, although He knew that they deserved to partake of bitter punishments.

But imitating the more forbearing among physicians, He would rightly, I think, be admired in this also.

For they often reckon as nothing the peevishness of the sick, and, bearing most patiently, they again make their art a help to them—doing away with what naturally causes distress, and, though sometimes reviled, explaining what contributes to health, they somehow persuade them to change their minds and be urgent to do what is beneficial, and [to drive away] the [severity] of the disease.

But our Lord Jesus Christ both bears with those who blaspheme, and, though reviled, does good; He binds up the wounds of those who insult Him.

But from what source it came about that they were sick with the charges of unbelief toward Him, He recounts most clearly.

'For you,' He says, 'judge according to the flesh'—that is, you are led astray, and very reasonably so, since you look only to this flesh, although you ought much rather to attend to the magnificence of the works.

But believing Me to be one of you, because I am clothed with flesh like yours, you have been terribly deceived, and, not perceiving the deep mystery of the dispensation with the flesh, you pronounce a most ill-advised verdict upon Me, saying that the Truth is lying.

'...that the world might be saved.' I think, then, that the matter inquired into in the passage before us has been resolved not inelegantly.

But it will be possible to proceed once more through other considerations, refining, so far as is possible, the meaning that bears upon it.

'You,' He says, 'judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.'

'Having nothing at all to bring against Me as a charge, nor even being able reasonably to fasten upon My wondrous works, you belittle Me solely on account of the flesh, and, since I appear to you as a man, you have impiously reckoned Me as nothing.'

'But I,' He says, 'do not condemn you on this account.'

'For it is not because you are men by nature that I shall on this account altogether reckon you as nothing, nor on this account shall you pay the penalty to the Judge.'

'I do not censure the nature, I do not condemn My own creatures; I do not say that the fault in man exists on account of his being man.'

'But you, on the other hand, reckon Me to be nothing on account of the flesh, and on this account you have condemned Me.'

'But I have not so reckoned concerning you, but rather I understand man to be a great and precious thing, even if he has come to be from the earth.'

'And this, though being true God and in the form of the Father who begot Me, I emptied Myself, taking the form of a servant, and became man.'

'On which account alone I am now condemned by you, although I Myself condemn no one on this account.'

'And if I do judge, My judgement is just and true, because I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent Me.'

'Is it then,' someone perhaps of those who hold opinions contrary to the doctrines of the Church will say, 'for this reason alone that the Son knows how to judge rightly, because when He does this the Father is with Him? And this being so laid down and truly holding, what then remains to prevent us from saying that the Son is steered, as it were, toward rectitude by the counsel of the Father, not possessing this perfectly, or being able blamelessly to accomplish it of Himself?' What then shall we ourselves say in reply to the words of those people? Impious, O you men, is your mind, and most befitting only the senselessness of the Jews.

For the Son does not say such things as though not being able to judge justly of Himself.

For the psalmist in the Spirit will also testify to Him, saying, 'God is a righteous judge.' And that there is no other judge besides Him, He Himself will run to our aid as witness, having said in the Gospels, 'For neither does the Father judge anyone, but He has given all judgement to the Son.' Is it, then, as to one not knowing how to judge rightly that God the Father has given the judgement? But I think that one would attribute the being so disposed concerning the righteousness of the Father—that is, of the Son—to the utmost of all senselessness.

For the Father knows His own Offspring; He has given Him the judgement, clearly testifying, even by the giving, that He is able to judge justly.

It is therefore most manifest that He says the Father will judge together with Him not as being weak in respect of judging justly, but that the matter before us is bringing to birth a certain contemplation akin and consequent to what was said above.

What then it wishes to make clear, we shall say plainly.

'You,' He says, 'O rulers and teachers of the Jews, have made concerning Me a wicked and most unjust judgement.'

'For on account of the flesh alone you suppose that you ought to consider Me as nothing, although I am by nature God.'

'But I, when I begin to judge your affairs, shall not bring forth such a verdict against you.'

For I will not suppose that you ought to be punished merely because you are by nature human beings;

but rather, having the Father as one who wills together with me and judges together with me in all things, I justly condemn you.

And for what reason? Because you did not receive the one who came from heaven, and you have not ceased to heap insult upon me as one sent to you from the Father; me, who sojourned for the salvation of all, you belittled on account of the flesh alone, having spurned far from you the Law that was ever your friend.

For tell me, where does Moses command that anyone should be condemned because his nature is human? Therefore both your judgment and your reasoning are unjust;

for in these matters you do not have the Law as one who wills together with you, but you alone dare against everything dreadful, not having the concord that flows from the divine wills.

Having the Father joined to myself, I judge most justly, delivering your whole land over to utter desolation, and burying it beneath the calamities of war; and moreover casting out from the very kingdom of heaven those who thus rage against him who wills to save, and who for this cause has come in human form.

'And it is also written in your Law that the testimony of two men is true.'

'I am the one who bears witness concerning myself, and the Father who sent me also bears witness concerning me.'

Having said that God the Father judges together with him and condemns together with him those who act impiously against him, he receives the pair of persons also for another useful purpose.

'For I,' he says, 'will not refuse to say that which I am by nature.'

'For I am the light of the world, and I would by no means seem to anyone to boast;'

for I take pride, not silently, not in advantages belonging to another, but in those that are properly my own.

'Yet if, in saying these things, I do not seem worthy for you to receive from me the understanding grounded in truth, since I am alone and have borne witness to myself, I will take as co-worker and as one who will cast his vote with me for my prerogatives, God the Father.'

'For he works wonders together with me,' he says, 'as you see, and labors together with me.'

'For so far as it concerns human nature, I could do nothing, if I did not possess being God by nature;'

'but so far as it concerns my being from the Father, and my having the Father in myself and being able to accomplish all things aright, I confess it, and I am attested by the nature of him who begot me;'

for as one who, by reason of the identity of essence, has him in myself, I proceed unhindered to accomplish all things aright.

For our Lord Jesus Christ possesses, from the divine nature, the power to work all things as God, even though he has appeared as man;

and he is attested also by the Father, since he has him as fellow-worker in all things, according to what was said by him: 'Of myself I do nothing;'

'but the Father who abides in me, he himself does the works.' We reckon that the Father works together with the Son, not as though bringing in some private and separate power to one who is perhaps too weak, for the accomplishment of the things that are wrought;

for if we think thus, we shall certainly grant that both the power of the Father and the power of the Son are imperfect, if indeed something of the marvellous is brought to completion through the two of them together,

as though one alone were not sufficient for the need.

But understanding and receiving what was said more piously, we shall say again that, since there is in the Father and the Son one Godhead also, and an authority and power of the same nature and without variation, the works of the Son will assuredly and altogether be works of God the Father, and conversely the works of God the Father will be works of the Son.

And he says, 'I do nothing of myself,' not as a servant or an underling, or as one placed in the rank of some disciple and waiting to be commanded by the Father, or as one needing to be taught in order to go forth and accomplish the marvellous works;

but rather signifying this most precisely: that having sprung from the essence of God the Father, and having risen ineffably and without beginning, like a kind of light from his secret and innermost bosom, and co-existing eternally with him, being and being conceived as the image and impress of his hypostasis, he has the same mind (so to speak) as he, and the same operation in all things.

For in order to teach plainly that he also wills together with the Begetter in all things, he says, 'I do nothing of myself;'

for it is much the same as if he said: 'I have not been removed anywhere to some private will of my own, one that is not present in God the Father.'

'Whatever the nature of the Father is wont to will and to purpose, these things are assuredly present in me also, since I have shone forth from his bosom and am the true fruit of his essence.'

These things, then, are difficult to expound, and to make them clear by the tongue is no easy toil—things which sometimes are unattainable even to the mind itself.

Nevertheless, leading such things, so far as is possible, into a pious contemplation, we shall procure for ourselves a heavenly reward, and so shall keep our own mind unwounded and unshaken by any deviations into something else.

That which is written in the Law thereafter persuades the Pharisees, as of necessity, to accept the pair of persons.

'For I,' he says, 'bear witness concerning myself, and the Father also will assist me even in this;'

'Will then the pair of witnesses, confirmed by the writing of the Law, be acceptable among you? Or, again, looking only to your envy against me, will you not even keep the Law that is admired by you?' They said therefore to him, 'Where is your father?' And in this most of all a man might, I think, and quite reasonably, cry out against the folly of the Jews, saying that prophetic word: 'Behold, a foolish and heartless people.' For though the discourse of our Savior Christ had often at great length been addressed to them, naming again and again the Father and God who is in the heavens, the wretches slid down into such great senselessness as to dare to say, 'Where is your father?' For they reckon nothing at all concerning God and Father who is in the heavens, but rather look about and seek for Joseph, believing that he is the father of Christ and that it is no otherwise.

You see, then, how truly a foolish and heartless people they were reasonably called;

for being unable to lift the eye of the mind even so much as above earthly things, they prove true that which was said of them: 'Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back continually.' For the backs of irrational animals are bent, since they have this shape from nature, and there is nothing upright in them.

But the mind of the Jews too was in a manner brutalized, and ever inclines downward, and beholds nothing of the things of heaven.

For are we not, taught most excellently from the very fact itself unto the discourse concerning this, both thinking and reckoning true things about them? For if they at all reckoned upon the Father and God who is in the heavens, how would they have sought the incorporeal in a place? And how, tell me, saying most senselessly concerning God who fills all things, 'Where is he?', do they not battle against the whole of divine Scripture, seeing that the inspired psalmist, expounding as best he might the discourse concerning God, and ascribing to him the ability to fill all things, says: 'Whither shall I go from your Spirit, and whither shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present;'

'if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall guide me, and your right hand shall hold me.' Moreover, the God who is over all things himself, clearly demonstrating to us that he does not have a nature circumscribed by place, says to those Jews, so unholy, thus: 'Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.'

'What house will you build for me? Or what is the place of my rest? Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet.' It is therefore possible, through all these things, to see the Jews acting ignorantly, when they say to the Savior Christ, 'Where is your father?'—unless they say such things concerning the one reputed to be his father according to the flesh, prating even in this.

But it is likely that the words of the Jews also hint at something else, of deeper import.

For since they supposed that the holy Virgin had committed adultery before her marriage, on this very account they revile most bitterly, as though Christ himself did not even know from whom he was, saying, 'Where is your father?'—prating.

Jesus answered: 'You know neither me nor my Father;'

'if you knew me, you would know my Father also.'

The saying is true, and in no way capable of being charged with falsehood.

For those who truly supposed Christ to be of Joseph—that is, of fornication—and were ignorant of the Word who appeared from God the Father, how should they not reasonably hear the words: 'You know neither me nor my Father'? For if they had known the Word who appeared from God and the Father, and who for our sake came to be in flesh according to the divine Scripture, they would have recognized also his Begetter.

'Your knowledge is made wonderful from me.' For since we have recognized the Son, we have recognized from him the one who begot him.

For through both is introduced the conception of the other, and together with the naming of the Father there altogether runs in also the remembrance of the Offspring;

and again, along with the signifying of the Son there walks in step the name of the one who begot him.

For on this account the Son is, as it were, a kind of door and way, carrying us over into the recognition concerning the Father.

So too he says: 'No one comes to the Father except through me;' for we must first learn, so far as is attainable, what the Son is by nature, and then in this way, as from an image and a most exact impress, come rightly to comprehend the archetype.

For the Father is seen in the Son, and as in a mirror shines through in the nature of his own Offspring.

And if this is true, as indeed it is true, let the God-fighting Arian again be put to shame.

For it is necessary that the impress of his essence be in every respect and manner like unto him, in order that nothing other than that which the Father is may be supposed to be shining in the Son, unaltered;

and if he loves to be made known in the Son and to shine through in him, then assuredly he knows him to be also of the same essence, and in no respect at all inferior to the glory that resides in himself;

for he would not have willed to be believed to be in things lesser than what he himself is by nature.

But since he both loves this and has willed it, how is it not thenceforth necessary to confess the Son to be in every manner like unto the Father, so that one may through him know also the Begetter (as we have already said before), rightly ascending from the image to the archetype, and may be able to hold an unimpeachable conception concerning the Holy Trinity?

In this way, then, he who knows the Son knows also the Father.

But consider how, together with speaking true things to the Jews, the Lord also weaves another device into his discourse;

for having plainly said, 'You know neither me nor my Father,' he draws away the mind of the Jews so as not to think only human things about him, nor indeed to suppose that in truth he was a son of Joseph, who was taken as father by dispensation, but rather to seek and to consider closely who the Word in the flesh is, and who his Father is by nature.

That the suffering upon the cross was not a work of the might of the Jews, nor did Christ die from the covetousness of certain men, but that he himself willingly suffered this for our sake, in order that he might save all.

These words he spoke in the treasury, teaching in the temple; and no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.

The most wise Evangelist usefully makes a defense on behalf of the saving Passion, and demonstrates that the death which came about upon the cross was one that Jesus suffered not from human necessity, nor unwillingly from another's covetousness, but that he himself rather, on account of the love that was in him toward us, offered himself in sacrifice to God the Father as a spotless victim on our behalf.

For since it was necessary that he should suffer—the corruption that had been brought in from outside, together with sin and death, being thus about to be overturned—he gave himself as a ransom on behalf of the life of all.

What discourse, then, will be found in the things set before us that pleads in defense of the saving Passion, and what the aim of the reflections herein travails to bring forth as useful—hear again.

For Christ spoke these words, not outside Jerusalem, nor in some one of the surrounding towns, nor indeed in some more obscure city or village of Judea; for he stood beside the very treasury, that is, in the very midmost part of the temple, in the very sanctuary he made his discourses concerning such matters.

But although the Pharisees were exceedingly cut to the heart and inordinately grieved at the things said by him, they did not seize him, though it was then most of all easy for them to do this;

for he was, as I said, within the nets.

How was it, then, that the murderous heart of the Pharisees did not seize him? It says, his hour had not yet come—that is, the time of his death was not yet at hand; not the time appointed for the Savior Christ by some other, nor, according to the false myths of the Greeks, cast upon him from fate, that is, from an hour, according to the doltish doctrine held among them; but rather appointed by himself, in concord with the will of God the Father.

For being God by nature and true, and not capable of erring from what is fitting, he knew full well and exceedingly precisely how long a time it behooved him to sojourn upon the earth with flesh, and when again he should go to heaven, having by the death of his own flesh brought death to nought;

for that death was not brought upon the life that is by nature from the covetousness of certain men, is, I think, clear indeed to all the wise.

For how could the bonds of death have prevailed over life according to nature? Indeed the Lord Himself somewhere bears witness, saying, 'No one takes My soul from Me; I lay it down of Myself.'

'I have authority to lay it down, and again I have authority to take it up.' For if the time at which He must by all means undergo death were of necessity determined by some other, how shall we find that the laying down of His soul lay within His own authority? For it would have been taken from Him, and not willingly, if the suffering were not in His own power.

But if He lays it down of Himself, then we shall perceive that His suffering was not in the power of any other, but in His own will alone.

For at that time He permitted the madness of the Jews to run its course toward what seemed good to them; but afterwards, when He perceived that the time fitting for death was now at hand—

Let not the boastful Pharisee therefore think highly of himself over his own reckless deeds, nor say, puffed up out of great foolishness: 'If Christ was God by nature, how did He not escape my snares? How did He not slip through my hands?' For he shall hear in reply from those who love Him: 'It was not your snare that so prevailed;'

for it was no hard thing for God who rules over all things to shatter your trap, and to slip out from the net of your impiety;

but suffering was the world's salvation; the Passion was the loosing of death; the great Cross held the overthrow of sin and corruption.

Knowing these things as God, He submitted Himself to your unholy audacities;

For tell me, what hindered you from laying hold of Him rather at that time, when you gnashed your teeth at Him as He taught beside the treasury itself?

And if to conquer Christ were a work of your power, why did you not make Him a prisoner then? But you stood there with unmingled rage, openly bent on bloodshed, yet doing none of the things you intended.

For He who by your madness was bound as with unbreakable bridles did not yet will to suffer.

These things one might fitly set against the babbling of the Jews, to put them to shame and, even against their will, to keep them from boasting in matters wherein they least ought.

And one might well marvel, and very reasonably, at the holy Evangelist, who noted the occasion so opportunely and stated plainly that the Saviour taught these things in the temple beside the treasury, and no one laid hold of Him.

For he thereby bore witness, as it were, to the very words that He had spoken to the Jews when they came to seize Him: 'Are you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to arrest Me? Daily I sat teaching in the temple, and you did not lay hold of Me.' And surely no one of sound mind would say that He was blaming the Jews for not having brought His Passion upon Him prematurely, nor yet that, having let slip the proper time, they had walked slowly, as it were, toward the necessity of shedding blood.

Rather He convicts them, as having supposed foolishly that they could ever gain the upper hand and by force take Him who was against His will, though He knew no suffering unless He willed it.

'For I sat teaching in the temple, and you did not lay hold of Me; for I did not will it then. But neither would you have had strength to do this at present, had I not of My own accord been delivered into your hands.'

One might indeed ascribe the deed to their audacities;

but to Christ the Saviour belongs the willing to suffer on behalf of all, that He might deliver all, and having bought them with His own blood, present them to God the Father.

For God was, according to the words of Paul, in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and, remembering no wrongs, restoring to its former state at the beginning that friendship toward Him which had fallen away.

He said therefore again to them: 'I go My way, and you shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin.'

That one must lay hold of the present opportunity, in which a man is able to profit himself, Christ very well declares in these words.

For to lag behind in good things, and to come too late in one's resolve toward what is profitable, is seen to have no gain whatever, but rather procures the lamentation that befits slothfulness.

Therefore our Lord, being kind and gentle, as it is written, both bears with those who dishonour Him and does good to those who insult Him, and, as God, is found to be better than the pettiness that is among men.

But usefully He threatens His departure from them, and says plainly 'I go My way,' that He might implant in them a more alert mind, and, as they reckon that they must not leave the Redeemer while present without effect, spur them on toward faith and render them now more ready for ready obedience.

And having cried out 'I go My way,' and having threatened His withdrawal from the whole nation, He fittingly added, by way of dispensation, the loss that would come to them thereby.

'For you shall die in your own sins,' He says;

and let us behold how this word introduces the true nature of the matter.

For those who altogether refused to receive Him who had come to us from heaven, that He might justify all through faith—how shall they not indisputably die in their own sins?

And having not admitted Him who was able to cleanse, how shall they not have perpetually the defilement that comes from their own impiety? And to die unredeemed, but still weighed down by the burden of sin—whither will it convey the soul of man? To which of all things is this in doubt? For deep Hades, I think, shall receive such a one, and he shall abide in long darkness; nay, he shall dwell in fire and flames, reckoned, and fittingly so, among those concerning whom it has somewhere been said through the voice of the prophet: 'Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.' And that they might not have the experience of these things, Christ called them in manifold ways to a swift turning away from their accustomed disobedience, saying not simply that He would flee away and depart, but of necessity setting before them also how great a calamity they must undergo thereby.

'For you shall die,' He says, 'in your sins.'

But since in the midst He has set the words 'and you shall seek Me,' yet we do not find the Jews seeking Him for the present, we shall reasonably come to some such understanding as this:

For if even now, being in their bodies and still deluded by the pleasures of the flesh through their exceeding great insensibility, they do not seek the Redeemer—yet when the wretches have fallen into Hades and have come into converse with the places of punishment, when they are in the midst of those very evils, then indeed, then, and even against their will, they shall seek Him.

'For there,' He says, 'is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth,' each of those who have come thither, as is fitting, bewailing his slothfulness toward good things, and all but uttering the words in the book of Proverbs: 'I heard not the voice of him that instructed me and taught me.' Therefore, as Paul says: 'Let us fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to have come short.' For we must run that we may lay hold, and not insult with disobediences Him who draws us out of bitter bondage, but rather receive Him, and, as it were with open hands, snatch at the grace.

'And whither I go, you cannot come.'

'Not only shall they die in their own sins,' He says, 'but also, that they shall remain outside the good things of the kingdom, not ascending to the mansions above,' He plainly proclaims;

what then, therefore, is the chastisement for the disobedient, and the account is not of some simple loss.

For just as, for those who have fallen into bodily sickness, it is henceforth a necessity both to endure suffering and to bear the dreadful pains of the malady, and in addition to be deprived of the good things of health;