Commentary on John 1 part 42/94

so, I think, and not otherwise, those who have been driven down into Hades and are there paying a penalty commensurate with their sins must both endure the calamity that comes from chastisement, and be deprived of the enjoyment of the saints' hope.

Most excellently, therefore, our Lord Jesus the Christ says, not only that they shall die in their own sins, but also that they shall not ascend to the mansions above;

for, having bound them as it were with a double cord, He hastens to draw them out of the ill counsel that is in them.

On every side saving that which was lost, and binding up that which was broken, and raising up that which was cast down;

for these were the works of the good shepherd, who readily gives His own soul in exchange for the salvation of the sheep;

to His own disciples He promised, saying: 'I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you unto Myself,' showing that heaven itself would be accessible to the saints, and teaching that the mansions above have been made ready for those who love Him;

but to those who chose to be disobedient to Him, justly and of necessity He says that 'whither I go, you cannot come.'

And if it is right, going about it in various ways, to examine it and to say yet something further concerning these things, we shall not shrink from doing this too.

'Whither I go, you cannot come.'

'Being true God, I am absent from nothing, but fill all things, and being present with all, I dwell most of all in heaven, most sweetly making My abode among the holy spirits.

But since I am also the loving Maker of all things, I did not deem the loss of My own works to be bearable;

I saw man gone forth into utter destruction;

I beheld him fallen from sin unto death;

but henceforth a helping hand had to be stretched out to him who lay fallen;

the vanquished and ever-falling one had to be succoured by every means.

Then how was it consistent to save that which was lost? The physician had to be together with those in danger, life had to be present with those who were dying, the light had to make its abode with those in darkness.

But it was not possible for you, being men in nature, to fly up to heaven and make your abode together with the Saviour.

Therefore I Myself have come to you. I heard the saints often crying out: "Lord, bow Thy heavens and come down." I have come down, therefore, having bowed the heavens, He says;

for it was not possible for you to expect to come thither in any other way.

While I yet endure to be with you and to sojourn among you, lay hold more swiftly of life, be cleansed through faith, so long as He is present who knows how to have mercy with authority and is able.

For I shall go My way—or rather I shall return again—whither you cannot come; and though you seek the Giver of salvation out of ill-timed after-counsel, you shall not find Him.

What follows thereupon it is now permitted to consider.

For you shall by all means die in your sins, and, weighed down by your own transgressions, you shall henceforth go down in gloom into the prison-house of death, there to pay the penalty for so long a disobedience.

Being therefore good and exceedingly loving toward mankind, the Saviour, by the fear of the evils to come, drives the Jews together, even against their will, toward being saved.

'And He said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above.'

...what it was that moved our Lord Jesus Christ, when He had just now addressed the Jews and said, 'I go My way, and you shall seek Me,' to bring in, as though it were something necessary, 'You are from beneath, I am from above.'

For such things seem somehow not very closely to follow upon what precedes, yet they are pregnant with some hidden dispensation.

For since He is God who has no need, as the inspired Evangelist John somewhere says, that anyone should bear witness concerning man;

for He Himself knew what was in man—for He pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart—so again He was not ignorant of the ignorant suppositions of the Jews, who, since a gross and dull mind was lodged in them, on hearing the 'I go My way' from the Saviour, foolishly supposed either that He would flee somewhere, leaving Judaea, or else that He meant something like this: 'So long as I am alive and living, believe, lest perchance it come to pass that I too should die.'

For the 'I go My way,' taken in a common sense, also intimates this;

and it is no wonder if the Jews fell into such follies as even to reckon some such thing concerning Christ.

For being God by nature they knew Him not, but looking only at this body which is from earth, they thought Him a man, one of those such as we are.

For on this account also, rebuking them, the Saviour said: 'You judge according to the flesh.' Therefore, drawing them away from a conception so childish and grovelling, He teaches again that they are reasoning these things not about someone among those in generation and corruption, but about One begotten from above and from God the Father in truth.

It will therefore befit not me rather to die and to flee, He says, for I am from above, that is, God from God;

but this belongs more fittingly to you,

for you are from below, that is, of a nature subject to death and falling under corruption and cowardice;

concerning me therefore, He says, reason nothing of the sort, laying aside your own weakness;

And that the word 'from above' hints at the Son's begetting from God the Father, a wise reasoning too will persuade us.

For if 'from above' be taken locally, it plainly signifies 'from heaven'; yet there would be nothing exceptional in the Son beyond the lower creation which is subject to God, if He merely comes from heaven, since indeed most of the angels also, being sent forth for ministry, walk below, administering some of the things upon the earth, coming down from above and from heaven.

And the Saviour is a witness to us, saying: 'Verily, verily I say unto you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.' Since therefore the angels also descend from above out of heaven, why does Christ vainly boast, as of some great thing surpassing the whole creation, that He comes from above? But it is possible, without sweat and quite without toil, to discern who by nature is the Only-begotten, and what are the angels who came into being through Him.

Necessarily, therefore, 'from above' does not signify to us this common thing, namely coming down from heaven, but rather that the Son shone forth from the highest nature that is above all things.

Therefore 'from above,' in the case of the Only-begotten alone, denotes that which is from God by nature and nothing else.

For while all things are said both to be and to exist from God, there belongs to the Son, as exceptional above all, this: that He exists from the very substance of the Father by way of begetting, and not, as the works do, by way of creation.

That the Son is God by nature, wholly removed from any likeness to the creation, as far as the account of substance is concerned.

'You are of this world; I am not of this world.'

Lest anyone take 'above' and 'below' locally, and thereby wander off into many notions, our Lord Jesus Christ usefully strips His word of the seeming veil that has been cast over it and of all obscurity, setting before them more clearly, as it were once again, what He had said enigmatically.

For 'You,' He says, 'are of this world,' that is, of the world below;

'I am not of this world' — therefore this refers to the world above.

But God transcends everything that is in the realm of becoming, not surpassing it by local heights;

for it is utterly foolish and senseless to conceive the incorporeal as being in a place;

but rather He rises above created things by the ineffable superiorities of His nature.

Of this substance the Word says He Himself is — not a work, but fruit and offspring.

For observe how He is not caught saying, 'From above I came into being and was made,' but rather 'I AM,' that He might show both whence He is, and that He co-existed eternally with His own Begetter.

For He IS, even as the Father also is;

and He who IS, and who co-exists eternally with Him who IS — in what manner could He 'not have been'? Let the folly of those who hold false opinions declare it.

But perhaps the enemy of the truth will rise up against us, saying: Christ did not say indiscriminately 'I am not of the world,' but by adding 'this,' He clearly showed that there is also another world, the intelligible one, from which He can be.

So then the Son is among the things made;

for this, my good sir, is what your argument works out for us;

for do you not know once more that even if you assign to Him the highest standing and seat that could be conceived among the holy angels, even if you confess Him to be above all rule and authority and thrones, yet if you believe Him to be nonetheless created, you will no less commit outrage? For there is absolutely no argument that redounds to the worthiness of the Only-begotten in His pre-eminence over the rest, so long as He is conceived at all as being made.

For He has His glory not in being ranked before certain beings, but in not being created — rather in being God from God by nature.

But you again number Him who has appeared from God, and is therefore God, among created things, and reckon Him to be a part of the world — and if not perhaps of this one, then at any rate of another;

for the supposed difference of the worlds will make no difference at all as regards the account of being made;

and then, do you not blush to enroll the Word who sits enthroned with His Begetter among the bodyguards and attendants? For if you do not hear Gabriel saying to Zacharias, 'I am Gabriel, who stands before God, and I was sent to speak to you'; and Isaiah again, that 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth seated upon a throne high and lifted up, and the Seraphim stood round about Him' — and the marvel is, the prophet was beholding the Son, and called Him Lord of Sabaoth, and presents Him as guarded like a king by the highest powers.

And that he was clearly beholding the glory of the Only-begotten, the wise John will bear witness, saying: 'These things said Isaiah, because he saw His glory,

and spoke concerning Him.' On this account too the divinely-inspired Paul, coming both from the Son's sitting enthroned with God the Father and from His being called Son by nature to the most exact comprehension of the mystery, and gathering the knowledge of the contemplation concerning Him, says: 'For to which of the angels did He'—that is, God the Father—'ever say, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you?' For in the 'I have begotten,' it is signified that the Son is by nature God from God.

And again: 'To which of the angels did He ever say, Sit at my right hand?' And in saying such things He assuredly is not accusing God the Father, as though accustomed to do anything unjust, nor as dishonouring the nature of the angels, when He knew to honour it in the second rank after the Son;

since it was possible for them to enjoy a greater measure, just as those beings surpass us perhaps.

But God the Father is not unjust, who commands the angels to stand by, and grants this dignity to their nature, while having His own Son seated with Him, since indeed He knows Him to be by nature God, and not alien to His substance — His own offspring.

How then is He still created, and how of the created world, and not rather among these things wherein the true God would be, that is, above all things that are conceived and confessed to exist in every world? But since, as though some great and unanswerable point, you insisted on Christ's having said with clear distinction, 'I am not of this world,' and by the 'this' contend that another world is signified to us, maintaining that He is from thence, let us again see whether you do not lean on rotten reasonings, being persuaded to reckon and think such things by nothing but your own frivolity.

For the word 'this,' or 'of this' perhaps, and whatever is said by us pronominally, is demonstrative, and not by any means nor necessarily indicative of another.

And so blessed Baruch, indicating to us the one and only God, says: 'This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside Him.' But if 'this' were altogether indicative of another, how would not another be reckoned beside Him? But Symeon the just also, prophesying the mystery concerning Christ, says: 'Behold, this One is set for the fall and rising again of many dead in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against.' And yet to whom of all beings is it not most plain that the just man says 'this One' not as removing us to other persons, but, so to speak, singularly pointing out the One already present and set for this?

Therefore, whenever Christ says 'I am not of this world,' He by no means says such things as being from another world, but rather, defining and setting up as it were two places in a more bodily manner — I mean of the created nature and of the ineffable nature that is above every substance of man — He places the Jews, who remain in the place of created things, saying: 'You are of this world';

but wholly separating Himself from things in the state of becoming, and joining Himself to the other place, that of Godhead, He says, 'I am not of this world.'

Therefore, setting Godhead over against the world for knowledge, He gives this world to that lower rank, but assigns Himself to God who begot Him and to the substance that is highest of all.

But God the Father, He says, will in no way wrong the nature of the angels, if He honours it not with those very honours wherewith He knew to honour the Son.

For the variety in creation in no way declares God to be unjust, nor does His fittingly assigning glory to each; since in some manner we are made inferior to angels, and yet we confess God to be just;

what we therefore are in relation to angels, this too the angels are in relation to the Son;

and they yield to Him as to a better, granting even that He be in greater honours than those in which they themselves are.

Again we shall speak, putting to shame the ignorant heretic;

even if we fall short of the glory of the angels, since we are inferior to the piety that is in them, and even if there is much in the creation that is varied and different and superior in honours, or inferior according to the will of the Maker, yet to all alike belongs the common fact of being created, and there is absolutely nothing in these matters wherein the one surpasses or falls short of the other in essence.

For that the angel should excel man in honour and glory is nothing marvellous, or that the archangel should excel the angel;

but the ability to ascend to the glory of Him who made all things we shall find belongs to none of the creatures;

what measure of honour, then, will there be for the Son, if He is created according to you, and the God-befitting dignity from the intelligible world? And how will that which is of the same kind as the creatures run up to the same glory as the God who is by nature, and yet is of the creatures?

better and greater — and in these things too lay the substance of the charges against him: or that he dared to say, 'I will be like the Most High'? For he imagined that the thing made could ascend to the nature of Him who made it, and could be enthroned together with God who holds the might over all.

On this account too he fell like lightning, according to what is written, from heaven.

But you, leaping upon us who are thus perilous without any guard, reckon it as nothing that the Son, according to you, being from some world and therefore a part of the creation, should be called by God the Father to a rank of honour so as to sit with Him — His substance in no way procuring this for Him, nor even calling Him to the dignity that is fitting and owed to it.

For, if it is as you nonsensically say, He receives the things above the creation as it were by way of a portion of grace.

Away with the blasphemy, O man!

For we shall not be so disposed — God forbid it.

For we believe that angels and archangels, and those yet above these in higher ranks, have been honoured with varying degrees according to the authority and will of the all-wise God, who assuredly determines a just verdict upon each of the things that have come to be;

but the Son by nature we shall not deem to be among these;

for He does not have His glory as a portion of grace and adventitiously, but since He is of the substance of God the Father, He is true God from God who is by nature and true, co-enthroned and seated together with Him, having all things under His feet as God, and from the Father with the Father borne in God-befitting manner over the whole creation.

For this reason too He justly heard: 'For all things are Thy servants.' And since He is found on every side to be true God, it is doubtless altogether plain that He is not of this world, that is, created.

Thus, I think, those who are godly ought to understand the difficulties that arise;

for 'We see through a mirror, in an enigma,' as Paul says.

'I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins.'

And this too would be a most fitting thing for a wise and gentle teacher;

for I think the teacher ought not to contend with the ignorance of his hearers, nor to neglect his care for them, even if perhaps they do not very readily receive the knowledge of the lessons, but should say the same things again, or rather even often, revolving them, and going through the same words.

Since indeed the patient ploughman too, having sometimes cut open the tilth and drawn out no small labours in it, and having buried the seed in the furrows, if he sees it corrupted, runs back again to the plough, and does not shrink from sowing over again upon what has already been corrupted.

For having missed his aim in the beginning, he would by no means suffer the like also in his second attempts.

Having practised such a habit, the divinely-inspired Paul too says somewhere: 'To say the same things to you is not irksome to me, but for you it is safe.' You see how the teacher is found to be superior to reluctance, when it often follows that safety in their pursuits accrues to the hearers? Usefully, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, taking up again His discourse to the Jews, insists that the loss of not believing in Him will be no ordinary one;

that one laden with transgressions dies, since He will deliver up the soul of man to the all-devouring flame — this is not disputable.

'For unless you believe that I AM, you shall die in your sins.'

He more precisely sets forth what is profitable, and, making most clear the manner of salvation, he then shows by what road they must travel in order to ascend to the life of the saints and to come to the city above, the heavenly Jerusalem.

And He says not only that it is fitting to believe, but He insists that this belief must also be directed unto Himself.

For we are justified by believing in Him as in God from God, as in the Saviour and Redeemer and King of all things and Lord. Truly:

'You shall therefore perish,' He says, 'if you do not believe that I am.'

And this 'I am,' He says, is He concerning whom it is written in the prophets: 'Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.' For I am, He says, the One who of old bade you depart from the diseases of the soul, and who promised the healing that comes of love by saying: 'Return, O sons that turn back, and I will heal your brokenness.' I am the One who said He would freely grant to you His godly kindness of old and His incomparable forbearance, and who for this reason cries out: 'I, I am He who blots out your sins, and I will remember them no more.' I am, He says, the One who also speaks through the prophet Isaiah: 'Wash yourselves, become clean, put away your wickednesses from your hearts before My eyes;'

'cease from your wickednesses, and come, and let us reason together, says the Lord;'

'and though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as wool.' I am, He says, the One concerning whom again the prophet Isaiah somewhere says: 'Go up upon a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem;'

'behold your God; behold, the Lord comes with strength, and His arm with authority;'

'behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.'

'Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, and with His arm He will gather the lambs, and comfort those that are with young.' And again: 'Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and clear shall be the tongue of stammerers.' I am, He says, the One of whom again it is written: 'Suddenly the Lord whom you seek shall come to His temple, even the angel of the covenant whom you desire;'

'behold, He comes, says the Lord. And who shall endure the day of His entrance? or who shall stand at His appearing? For He shall enter in as fire in a furnace and as the herb of fullers.' I am, He says, the One who, for the salvation of all, promises through the voice of the psalmist to offer Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father Himself, crying out: 'Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me;'

'in whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin You took no pleasure;'

'then I said, Behold, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of Me, to do Your will, O God.' I am, He says, the One whom the law also proclaimed through Moses, saying thus: 'A prophet from among your brethren, like me, shall the Lord your God raise up for you; Him shall you hear;'

'according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly.' Rightly then, He says, shall you perish, and shall pay a most just penalty to the Judge, you who, through the great impiety of your ways, have not received Him who was foretold to you by many saints and was attested also by the works which I perform.

And indeed, in truth, no argument can be set aside for showing that those who disobey Him must be punished, since the God-inspired Scripture is filled with testimonies and sayings concerning Him, and He Himself furnishes, in harmony with what was of old proclaimed by oracle, the splendour that comes from His works.

'They said therefore to Him: Who are You?' Again their speech proceeds from arrogance, mingled with the most savage wrath.

For they are eager to inquire, not that, having learned, they might believe, but out of great madness they all but leap upon Christ.

For He Himself speaks the 'I am' quite simply, not adding that He is God from God, nor anything else of those things that would indicate the glory that is in Him;

but again, with restraint and without any boasting, He says only that, the 'I am,' leaving it to the more apt learners to add what is lacking;

but they proceed to a most outlandish and unbridled madness, and out of immeasurable contempt they all but cut off the Saviour's word before it had reached its end, and, as though interrupting Him midway, they rebuke Him, saying: 'Who are You?' This was as much as to say plainly: 'Do you then dare to think anything of yourself greater than what we know? We know you to be the carpenter's son, of a mean and most poverty-stricken man, of no account among us and altogether nothing.'

They condemn the Lord, therefore, as being nothing, looking only to His descent according to the flesh, but neither taking into their mind the magnificence that comes from His works, nor His birth from above and from God, whence above all they might have recognized Him to be God by nature.

For who could have performed the things that befit God alone, unless he too were by nature God? And Christ did perform them;

He was therefore, and is, God, even though He has come in the flesh for the salvation and life of all.

But those who are persuaded by their own ill counsels alone, and who have never taken any account of our divine and God-inspired Scripture, belittle Him for the very things for which they ought rather to give thanks, knowing neither what they say nor concerning what they make their assertions. Placing therefore an emphatic pause upon the 'You,' and raising the so-called acute accent, we take the word as a question mingled with astonishment;

For they say the 'You' as if to mean: 'You who are altogether nobody, and this too as known among us, the mean man and sprung from mean parents — what splendid thing have you to say about yourself, and what worthy of mention among the things concerning you?' For nothing of such presumptuous deeds is foreign to Jewish madness.

Jesus said to them: 'From the very beginning I am that which I also speak to you.'

'I am dishonoured,' He says, 'although I call you to eternal life, to the forgiveness of sins, to the putting away of death and corruption, to sanctification, to righteousness, to glory, to boasting in the adoption as sons of God;'

'but even while wishing to crown you with all these things, I am ranked as of no account, and reckoned so mean among you;'

'but yes, I suffer justly,' He says, 'in that I even made a beginning of speech among you, in that I addressed to you something of the things that know how to profit, and purposed to save those who were destined to sink into such wickedness as to render bitter recompense to the One who had chosen to save them.'

And Christ seems by these words to hint to us something else as well.

'For I ought,' He says, 'not to have spoken to you at all in the beginning, but rather to have granted this to those who would most gladly rejoice in My words, and without delay bend their neck under the ordinances of the Gospel.'

And by these words He signifies the multitude of the Gentiles.

But when we understand Him to say such things, we shall again guard against the argument of our opponents;

for perhaps someone of those accustomed to war against Christ will say: 'If it was not to the Jews that He ought to have spoken in the beginning, but rather to the Gentiles, then the Son missed what was fitting, having done the one rather than the other.'

But we shall say again in answer to this: The Son says such things, not having come to a change of mind concerning His own will or the will of the Father, nor as having stepped outside what befits the dispensation; for God would never have purposed anything that was not altogether destined to come to pass and fitting;

but by saying that it was not to you that He ought to have spoken in the beginning, nor, as it were, to lay among you the foundation of the saving teaching, He shows both the Father and Himself to be by nature truthful and loving toward mankind.

For behold, though the impious Jews were unworthy, He freely granted them the saving word, ranking in second place the multitude of the Gentiles, though it was far more ready both to believe Him and to be persuaded.

To them He made the promise of His coming through the holy prophets; to them the grace was owed on account of the fathers.

For this reason He also said: 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;' and to the Syrophoenician woman: 'It is not good to take the children's bread and cast it to the little dogs.' Therefore Israel is by this honoured, and set before the Gentiles, though it had the more perverse disposition.

'I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you.'

When the Jews were rather too hasty in condemning Him, and had nothing at all with which to charge Him, but were haughty only over the meanness of His descent according to the flesh, and for this reason said that He was nothing, He gently shamed them, having said more nakedly above: 'You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.' And to judge according to the flesh would reasonably have some such meaning:

For those who admire earthly things alone see nothing of the heavenly goods, but, looking only to the splendour of this life, they admire the rich man, or the one who prides himself on certain other petty distinctions;