Commentary on John 1 part 49/94

For indeed he saw three men by the oak of Mamre, and moreover he received a promise from God that he should be father of many nations—which it was not possible to accomplish in any other way, unless through faith in Christ the nations were called, being reckoned as having Abraham for their father, and destined to recline together with him in the kingdom of heaven and to share with him in the bounty of our Saviour that is lavished upon all good things.

'The blessed Abraham therefore saw,' He says, 'and seeing was glad at My day.'

And for what reason Christ goes on to say these things as well, it is necessary to state.

The Jews, seeing Him as a man because of the covering of the flesh, conceived nothing God-befitting concerning Him, but supposed that He too was mortal like us, as though He too had been brought over from non-being into being.

But that He was eternal, as being from the eternal Father, they were unwilling to believe, out of much folly.

At the same time, as it seems, He usefully reproaches them, that they spit upon and treat with contempt, acting thoughtlessly and thinking senselessly, the very things that were in the nature of a feast to the founder of their race.

For that one only saw and was glad;

but they, though it is granted them both to possess and to enjoy it, insult it with their disobedience, and boast themselves against so splendid a grace.

Or perhaps He also indirectly suggests this: that He is both greater and mightier than Abraham, if indeed it was a festival to that one merely to know something concerning Him.

For to say this nakedly and without some veil was not possible, because of their unbridled tendency to wrath; so in another manner He again signifies it.

And let no one suppose that, in saying to the Jews, 'Abraham your father died,' Jesus utters things contrary to Himself, since at one time He removes them from kinship with Abraham, saying, 'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham; but now,' and again on the other hand He calls them sons of Abraham.

It should be observed that in both cases he rightly directs his own argument toward the truth.

For in the former case, defining the character of spiritual nobility, he depicts kinship as consisting in a sameness of moral disposition;

but in the latter case he assigns to them only kinship in the flesh, and that in bare terms, so that in the former he may speak the truth, and in the latter he may not utter a falsehood.

The Jews therefore said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' Utterly senseless is this saying of the Jews, and its absurdity is full of birth-pangs of folly;

and one might quite reasonably marvel at them, that they had run out into such want of understanding as to be utterly unable to conceive any of the things they ought to have considered.

For though our Savior Christ devised for them countless turns of argument, going up and down through the very same words, and signifying his own eternity to them in manifold ways, they reason out nothing at all beyond what they see with the eyes of the body; but as though wholly beside themselves and struck out of the activity of their mind, they do not lift up their heart to what befits God, but rather, as if he were one of us human beings who had then barely begun to be and to be numbered among existing things at the moment when he was actually born, they irrationally charge him with falsehood, not even rightly understanding what they heard him say.

For he had said that Abraham had beheld his day; but they, transposing the force of the saying to its opposite, say, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and how have you beheld Abraham?' Pitiable therefore is the deranged Jew, who has lived his whole life in great want of instruction, and has made untamed madness his foster-companion.

Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am.'

Again Christ proceeds according to his customary and beloved practice.

For sometimes he speaks very enigmatically indeed, and overshadowing the interpretation with various concealments, he does not allow it to become clear to all.

But when he sees that his hearers have understood nothing, then, stripping the saying of its obscurity, he sets it forth bare and clear; which indeed he hastens to do also in the present case.

For since he finds them understanding nothing, although a long discourse has coursed by, and unable to conceive that he is eternal as being from an eternal Father, and that he is incomparably greater than Abraham as God, he now says openly, adding the 'Amen' as in the manner of an oath to confirm what is said: 'Before Abraham came to be, I am.'

But we shall by no means suppose that the Only-Begotten boasts of being before Abraham alone.

For he is before all time, and has the most ancient generation, being without beginning in the Father.

But since for the present the comparison with Abraham lay before him, he says that he is more ancient than that man; just as though the number one hundred should say of any given thing, 'I am greater than ten'—and it would say such things not at all as having its superiority only in being neighbor to ten, but because it far exceeds and is beyond the tens.

And very fittingly and well, concerning Abraham he uses 'came to be,' but concerning himself 'I am,' showing that to the one who came to be from things that were not, corruption too must altogether follow, but to the one who ever is, to move toward non-being could never come to pass.

Therefore, then, he is greater and better than Abraham;

greater as being eternal, and better because he does not undergo corruption as that man does.

They took up stones therefore to cast at him;

but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

They do not see the truth, inasmuch as they themselves are truly liars and have a liar for their father, according to the word of the Savior;

and they are indignant again at something that is not wont to give offense.

As though they thought they were contending on behalf of the wronged glory of their forefather, through these things they were again kindled into untimely fits of anger, although they ought rather to have considered both the sayings, as far as they were able, and who it is that speaks them; but veering off irrationally into a most senseless and beast-like madness, they set about slinging stones at him, as though they had not sufficiently given offense already through much reviling, or rather were drawing down upon themselves in their folly no moderate wrath.

Hot-headed, then, and most irrational was the Jews' undertaking;

but it did not proceed into deed at an untimely moment, for the time of suffering was not yet at hand.

And Christ hides himself, not by ducking behind walls, nor by putting anything else in front of his own body, but by rendering himself invisible to those who sought him through the power of the Godhead.

And he was not content merely with escaping notice, but also goes out of the temple, tracing for us in these things as it were a type of spiritual realities.

For to those who love him he is manifest continually, according to the word, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' But he runs away from those accustomed to fight against God, and appears to none of the impious; nor does he account it dear in any way to be with and to dwell together with those who persecute him, but rather departs from them and withdraws, drawing away as it were all good cheer along with himself, and leaving destitute of the graces that come from him those from whom he might suffer ill—as far, I mean, as their willing to wrong him and the undertakings of the impious go—even though Christ shows all these things to be vain, abolishing by ineffable power the unholy audacity of those who transgress against him.

And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.

When the Jews were behaving insolently toward him, and already attempting to strike him down with stones, he goes out at once from their temple and withdraws himself from the unholiness of his persecutors.

And as he passes by, he straightway looks upon the man blind from birth, setting this too as a most manifest sign that he will rise up against the abomination of the Jews and will forsake the throng of those who fight against God, but will rather visit the nations instead and turn the largesse of his gentleness toward them—which nations are also likened to the man blind from birth, because they had come to be in error and from as it were their earliest age were bereft of the true knowledge of God, and did not have the light that is from God, that is, the illumination through the Spirit.

And it is fitting again to observe what it might mean that the blind man was, as it were in passing, visited by Christ.

And it occurs to me again to understand that Christ did not properly speaking sojourn among the nations, but only for the sake of Israel, as indeed he himself says somewhere: 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'; but the recovery of sight was accomplished for the nations as it were in passing, since Christ, on account of Israel's disobedience, shifted his mercy over to them.

And this indeed was what was foretold through Moses as well: 'I will provoke them to jealousy by that which is no nation; by a nation without understanding I will anger them.' For a nation without understanding was the one that served the creation rather than the Creator, and, like unreasoning beasts, grazed upon every kind of ignorance without distinction, and clung only to the things upon the earth.

Christ became for us wisdom and sanctification and redemption of faith, according to what is written; and clearly, too, light and recovery of sight.

That bodily afflictions do not befall some people out of prior sins of the soul; but neither does God bring the sins of fathers upon some, punishing those who have committed no sin, but he brings forth a righteous judgment upon all.

And his disciples asked him, saying, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither did this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.'

Eager to learn, then, and exceedingly reasonable were the most wise disciples; or rather, not without divine prompting were they moved to desire to learn these things, and they inquire usefully, not so much for themselves as furnishing for us the benefit that comes from this;

for we are benefited in no small measure, hearing the true opinion in these matters from him who knows all things, and besides this repelling still the abomination of obsolete doctrines—which were not held among the Jews alone, but which certain persons even now, of those who insufferably lift their brows over knowledge of the God-inspired Scripture and seem to be counted among Christians, have dared to say are true, taking pleasure rather in their own ingenuities of argument, being overcome by their own wills, and not fearing to mix Greek error into the doctrines of the Church.

For the wretched Jews, as though exacting penalties for ancestral impieties, or as though God most irrationally cast the sins of the fathers upon them, grumbled not a little, and derided it as a most unjust judgment, and indeed used to say, as it were in the form of a parable: 'The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge.' But these others again, sick with a neighboring and kindred ignorance to that of those just now named by us, contend that the souls of human beings pre-exist and have prior subsistence before the fashioning of bodies, and, descending eagerly into transgression even before the bodies, are then bound together with them, receiving their coming to be in flesh as it were in the rank of a punishment.

But in one brief saying Christ dissolved the lack of understanding on both sides, and by affirming that neither the blind man sinned nor indeed those who begot him, he overturns the doctrine of the Jews, saying that the man was born blind not from any transgression—neither his own nor ancestral, nor of father or mother;

and he overthrows again the drivel of the others' foolishness, who say that souls sinned even before the body.

For someone might say to them, and quite reasonably: 'How, tell me,' he says, 'does Christ say that neither the blind man sinned nor his parents? And yet we would not grant that they were altogether pure of sin.'

For being human beings, it was surely quite likely—or rather it was necessary—that they should fall into stumblings as well.

What time, then, does Christ define, in respect to which the word from him will be seen by us to be true, that neither did he himself sin nor indeed his parents? But it is clear that he means the time before his birth, in respect to which, not existing at all, neither did they sin.

Concerning such matters, then, and that it truly belongs to those who babble and are deranged to reckon that souls sinned before bodies and were on that account embodied and came into this earthly region, we made a lengthy discourse at the beginning of the Gospel, when the passage 'It was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world' lay before us for exposition and contemplation; and it would be superfluous for us to treat of these matters yet again.

But whence it came about that the Jews arrived at this opinion and supposition, it is necessary to state, and to show clearly that, not being able to understand the divine utterance, they fell away from the fitting reckoning.

Israel was once encamped in the wilderness, and God was calling Moses the hierophant on Mount Sinai;

as regards the count of days, he seemed to the multitudes to be tarrying, and they at that time rose up against Aaron alone, and, being dragged down out of contempt toward the false worship in Egypt, cried out saying, 'Make for us gods who shall go before us;

for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' Then, what followed after this, I think I should say in cursory fashion.

They made a calf, according to what is written, and God was righteously angry over this;

then also he threatened to consume the whole congregation at one stroke.

Moses fell down and besought pardon through a long prayer;

for he knew that he would pardon them not once but many times, and would bestow mercy for whatever offenses they might commit.

And God assented to this also;

then Moses sought a sign from him for full assurance and a manifest demonstration that pardon had been granted him wholly, in his seeing Him;

for he says, 'If I have found grace before you, manifest yourself to me knowably, that I may see you, so that I may be one who has found grace in your sight, and that I may know that this people is your nation, this great one.' And God wrought this also, so far as was possible, giving full assurance in all respects to his own worshipper that he had both remitted the sin to the people and that he would go up with him to the land of promise.

Then, setting as it were a crowning finish upon his promises, to supply what was lacking, he commands him to hew out two other tablets for himself—the first ones having, of course, been shattered—in order to write out the law for him yet again, thereby making no small demonstration of his gentleness toward them in this too.

And when Moses had been made ready for this too, 'the Lord descended in a cloud,' as it is written, 'and stood beside him there, and he called upon the name of the Lord.'

'And the Lord passed by before his face, and the Lord God called out, compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and abounding in mercy and true, and keeping righteousness and doing mercy to thousands, taking away lawlessness and unrighteousness and sins, yet he will by no means clear the guilty, bringing the sins of fathers upon children and upon children's children unto the third and fourth generation.' But behold now clearly;

for I will take up again and state what was inquired at the beginning;

God affirms that he has in himself a gentleness befitting God and a certain incomparable love toward humankind.

For we affirm that the utterance is his and no other's, and not, as some suppose, that of the all-wise Moses sending up thanksgiving prayers on behalf of the people.

For those who, when they had been brought back up from the land of the foreigners and had come again to the people, spat out bitter words concerning it, saying that it was a land so wild and harsh that it was able to devour those who dwelt in it—these summoned their hearers into such great disparagement that their cheeks were drenched with tears, and their toils now made them wish even to be in Egypt.

Egypt; and when God threatened to consume them, Moses again entreated, and, all but bringing God even to remembrance of the promise given to him, comes forward crying out: 'And now let your strength be exalted, O Lord, in the manner you spoke, saying, The Lord is long-suffering and abounding in mercy and true, taking away lawlessness and unrighteousness and sins;

and in cleansing he will not clear the guilty, requiting the sins of fathers upon children unto the third and fourth generation;

forgive the sin of this people according to your great mercy, just as you were gracious to them from Egypt until now.' It has therefore been shown that the God who is over all bears witness to his own love for humankind and his utter forbearance of evil.

It would be fitting, then, henceforth to state the cause of the Jews' having gone astray and of their supposing our good God to be one who remembers wrongs and is heavy in anger.

But I think, indeed, that they have no grounds anywhere from the divine oracles to lay hold of, nor are they able to accuse them as not being most excellent, but rather as having far departed from the ordinance of justice; but they suffered this through their own ignorances alone, so as to reckon that in truth the sins of the parents are brought upon the children, and that the divine wrath is so prolonged as to reach even the third and fourth generation, unjustly punishing those who have committed no sin for things of which others have been accused.

For how ought they not rather, if any were wise, to have pondered fittingly that the fountain of righteousness would not perform even the more shameful deeds of the morals among us? For human beings cast the penalties from the laws upon those accustomed to transgress, bringing nothing whatever upon those born of them, unless indeed they should be caught as being in some way jointly responsible and sharers in the faults;

But He who laid down for us also the laws governing all matters of justice, how could He be caught doing things that even among ourselves are condemned as far from moderate? And besides this, that other point too must be carefully considered.

For through Moses He proclaimed countless laws as oracles, and in many ways ordained that those who live in unholy ways should be punished; yet nowhere is He seen commanding that the children of sinners ought to share in their peril.

But nowhere is He seen commanding that the offspring of sinners must share their peril.

For the penalty is against those who are convicted, and He determined that it befits only those who fall under the law to be the ones punished.

It is therefore impious to think in a Jewish manner; rather, it is altogether wise to aim at the divine intent, and everywhere to preserve what befits the nature that is Queen of all.

Let us therefore rightly reflect that the God of all things—who sets forth, as it were into the midst, the calm that dwells within Him, and who wills to be admired for His unmixed love of mankind, and for this reason proclaims, 'The Lord is longsuffering and full of mercy and true, taking away iniquities and sins'—would not have wished to be known as so mindful of wrongs that He should carry His wrath onward even to the fourth generation.

For how is He still longsuffering and full of mercy, or how does He take away iniquities and sins, if He does not even endure to measure out the penalty as far as the head of the offender, but extends it beyond the third generation, and like a thunderbolt falls even upon the innocent? Surely it is utterly incredible, and not far from the extreme of foolishness, to suppose that God testifies of Himself as possessing at one and the same time both love of mankind and gentleness, and also so long and so utterly unreasonable a wrath.

Then, in addition to this, those who think in a Jewish manner will not even grant that God knows the time proper to each of His acts.

For if He promises to be longsuffering, and is found readily attaching also the granting of pardon, for what reason is He seen to have added, 'Bringing the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation'? For this would be nothing other than the act of one wishing to terrify those who look to receive from Him the remission of their offences, as though from no quarter would there be any ground for hope for them, if indeed He who is justly grieved over them is thus mindful of wrongs and slow to lay aside His wrath.

But one who asks amnesty and love from God does not fittingly say to God, 'Because You are wont to be such as to render the sins of the fathers upon the children's children.'

For this would rather be the mark of one whetting Him to wrath than calling Him to mercy, and of one soliciting vindictiveness rather than longsuffering.

But I think he seemed by these words to be entreating Him, and all but bringing Him to remembrance of what He Himself had spoken, when He made proclamation of the kindness that dwells within Him.

For how He is Himself longsuffering and full of mercy, and how He is by nature one who takes away sins and iniquities, will be very well discerned precisely in those cases in which one seems most to be harsh.

In what manner, then, it was fitting to understand the things said by God, it now remains, I think, proper to state.

'The Lord,' it says, 'is longsuffering and full of mercy, taking away iniquities and sins.' Then what lies next in order after these we shall read as a question, with a comma: 'And will He not by cleansing cleanse the guilty?'—so that you may understand something of this sort: The longsuffering and merciful God, who takes away iniquities and sins, would He not cleanse the guilty by cleansing? Nay, it is not doubtful.

For how is He longsuffering and full of mercy, and how at all does He take away sins, if He does not cleanse the guilty? And to prove this, He again brings forward, as a demonstration of the longsuffering and forbearance that is in Him, the fact that He will lay the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation—not punishing the son for the father.

Nor yet casting the offences of ancestors, like some burden, upon a far-off descendant; but signifying something of this kind.

Suppose there has been some lawless man, with a mind filled full of every wickedness;

and it was fitting that one who had chosen to live in such a way should, without any delay, be punished; yet nevertheless God bore with him forbearingly, not bringing upon him the wrath that was owed to him.

Then there was born to this man a son, rivalling his father's impieties, and even surpassing his begetter in wickedness;

and God was longsuffering also toward this one.

But from this man too there came a third, and from the third a fourth, in no way whatever falling short of their fathers in the kind of wickedness, but practising an impiety equally balanced with theirs.

Then at last God brings upon them the wrath that from above and from the beginning was owed to the whole line, having borne with them long enough—indeed even longer than He ought.

For to defer the punishment even unto the fourth generation—how would this not be an encomium of a gentleness truly worthy of God? For that He knows not to punish the son for the father, nor yet the father for the son, it is nothing hard to learn even from what He plainly said through the voice of the prophet Ezekiel to those very Jews, who were murmuring on this very point and saying, 'The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'

'And there came,' it says, 'the word of the Lord to me, saying: Son of man, what is this parable to you in Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, says the Lord, this parable shall no longer be spoken in Israel.'

'For all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son, they are Mine.'

'The soul that sins, it shall die.'

'But the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of his son.'

'Each in his own iniquity, wherein he has sinned, shall die therein.' Now I think no one is so far gone in folly as to suppose that God did not at first legislate the most excellent things, but somehow changed His counsel and reconsidered for the better, and, like one of us who takes second thoughts, was only with difficulty able afterward to enact by fresh legislation the more fitting laws.

For if we praise the former, then plainly by that we shall be accusing the latter; but if we award the victory to the latter, then assuredly we shall be condemning those that are inferior.

God, then, would be legislating things contrary to Himself, and would have erred, just as we do, from what is right—now enacting these things, now those.

But the divine nature can in no way whatever be subject to absurdities, nor could it ever fall short of what is right.

Therefore, then, He brings forward the saying as a demonstration of His incomparable magnanimity—that is, 'rendering the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.'

For that it is the custom of the God who loves mankind not to punish transgressors at once, but rather to hold back and to postpone the penalties to long times, you will understand from His own words: 'And I filled up My wrath and restrained it, and did not consume them.' And again elsewhere: 'For the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up unto now.' You see how He filled up His wrath—for already certain men were doing things worthy of a wrath now most full—yet He endured as God, and deferred the bringing of complete destruction upon those who grieved Him.

But that I may, as it were upon a tablet, sketch out for you the demonstration of what has been said, and by the very facts may now assure you that the saying is an encomium of God's love of mankind, I will bring forward one of the things laid up in the sacred writings, and from the divine Scripture itself I will attempt to prove that the sins of the fathers were brought upon the children unto the third and fourth generation not unjustly, but justly, and as owed to those who suffered this.

But because of the length of the history, my account will be given in passing.

Now then, as we read in the third book of Kingdoms, after others there reigned over Israel Ahab, who, falling into a most unjust desire for a vineyard that in no way belonged to him, slew its owner—I mean Naboth.

For even if he himself did not command that this be done, yet he was not displeased at his wife's perverse dealings.

God was rightly indignant at these things, and then said to him through the prophet Elijah: 'Thus says the Lord: As you have murdered and taken possession, therefore thus says the Lord: In the place where the swine and the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, there shall the dogs lick your blood, and the harlots shall bathe in your blood.' And again immediately: 'Thus says the Lord: Behold, I bring evils upon you, and I will kindle a fire after you, and I will utterly destroy from Ahab everyone that makes water against a wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel; and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nabat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, for the provocations wherewith you provoked Me and caused Israel to sin.'

At last, however, so far did his repentance turn away the wrath, that on this account he even obtained honour and grace.

For what does God say to him? 'Because you have been eager to do what is right in My eyes, and have done all that was in My heart to the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit for you upon your throne.' You see, then, how the wicked, sprung from the wicked, He punished only with difficulty in the fourth generation, but to the one who honoured Him He extends His mercy even unto the fourth generation.

Cease then, O Jew, from accusing the righteousness of God;

for among us the saying, 'Rendering the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation,' will be received in the rank of an encomium.

'But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.'

But lest, now that the Jewish doctrines have been dissolved, some other thing akin to them should, like a root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble, according to the word of Paul;