Commentary on John 1 part 55/94

And the divine psalmist, as it were calling all men everywhere to one festal assembly, and bidding all that is under the sun to gather together unto a heavenly feast, says: 'Clap your hands, all you nations; shout unto God with a voice of exultation.' But if it should seem to anyone worth inquiring into the cause of so splendid and celebrated a festival, he will find him plainly saying: 'For God is King of all the earth; sing praises with understanding; God has reigned over all the nations.' And somewhere too he has brought in the Lord Himself in His own words proclaiming the gospel message to all the nations together;

for in the forty-eighth psalm he says: 'Hear this, all you nations; give ear, all you inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together.'

'My mouth shall speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart understanding.' For what will anyone say is wiser than the evangelical teachings? And what shall we find spoken with such understanding as the instruction that is through Christ? Therefore—

for the discourse will return to its starting-point;

that with those of Israel who turn back the multitude of the Gentiles shall be gathered into one flock, he plainly foretells.

Speaking to those whose heart was set ablaze, does he reveal mysteries? For, tell me, why was it fitting that such men should learn that He would rule over the nations, and that He would gather the sheep outside Judaea into His own folds? What then shall we say to this, and how shall we account for it? He does not communicate mysteries to them as to friends, but neither does He make His exposition of these things to them in vain;

but since He knew that He would benefit them, so far as in Him lay;

for this was His purpose, even if the mind of His hearers, being exceedingly hard to catch and not readily disposed to obedience, remained unbending.

But since He knew that they had studied the writings of Moses and the declarations of the holy prophets—and among the prophets there is a great and lengthy discourse that Christ would draw the nations also into a net unto the knowledge of God—on this account, setting before them the matter as a most manifest sign that He was clearly the One foretold, He expressly affirmed that He would call also the sheep that were not of the fold of the Jews, in order that finally, as we said just now, they might believe that He was truly that very One whom the choir of holy men had prophesied beforehand.

Often He responds not only to the things already uttered by the tongue, but also to the reasonings in the depths;

for being true God, He has clear knowledge of all things.

Therefore, when the impious Jews were mocking the word that came from Him—and because He promised to strive so greatly on behalf of His own sheep, and that most eagerly, so as to be quite ready even to die for them, while they supposed Him now to be babbling and thought He was raving—He of necessity now shows, by words and deeds, that those who mock, out of the ignorance and boundless impiety that dwelt in them, choose to censure the very things which God the Father knows to count worthy of great honour.

'For this cause,' He says, 'the Father loves Me'—namely, that which through your great senselessness you have counted for nothing.

How then are they not boastful and utterly within the grip of all impiety, who declare to be laughable that which is most pleasing to God? And somehow through these things He gives them to understand that they are greatly hated by God.

For if He loves the one who lays down his life for the sheep of the flock committed to him, it is altogether necessary to understand that He will hold abominable the one who, seeing the wolf coming, abandons the flock to the assailing and raging beast and turns to flight—which very thing He convicted those appointed to rule the people, or fold, of the Jews of doing.

At the same time, therefore, He convicts them of being both hateful to God and impious, in that they did not shudder to laugh at what is most precious in God's sight.

Christ affirms, moreover, that He is loved by God the Father not only because He lays down His life, but because He lays it down that He may also take it again;

for in this most of all shines forth the magnitude of the good things wrought for us.

For if He had only died but had not been raised, what further advantage would there have been? In what respect would He have appeared to benefit our nature, if He had remained dead together with us, tyrannized under the bonds of death and, mingled with the rest, under the corruption that came in from without? But since He laid it down that He might also take it again, He thereby saved the whole nature, having abolished the dominion of death, and will show us forth a new creation.

The Son, then, is loved by God the Father—not as though He would have remained outside that love had our concerns not come about;

for He was always and through all things loved.

But let us proceed to the apprehension of what is said;

the things that belong to any by nature, or that come to them by acquired habit, then most of all have their most graceful manifestation when they are brought forth into activity.

For example, fire has naturally in itself its own heat, but when it is at work upon materials, then most of all we discern how great and of what kind is the power that dwells within it.

Likewise one who has perhaps acquired the art of grammar, or some other such science, would not, I think, be admired while keeping silent, but rather when he sets forth for the knowledge of others the beauty of the learning that is in him.

Thus, therefore, the divine and ineffable [wisdom]

appears more gracious, and it is seen to be so among us also.

And indeed Wisdom says in the book of Proverbs: 'I was that in which He rejoiced, and day by day I was glad in His presence at all times, when He rejoiced, having completed the world, and delighted Himself among the sons of men.' And yet rejoicing is ever present to God, and gladness without end;

for nothing at all grieves Him who holds authority over all things, but He rejoiced in His own Wisdom when He had completed the world.

For seeing the activity of His own Wisdom brought forth into deed, then most of all He deemed it right to rejoice more abundantly.

Thus, therefore, let us understand also here.

For God the Father, being love, according to the word of John, and not merely good, but rather Goodness itself, since He saw His own Son laying down His life for us and, through His love toward us and the incomparable kindness of His own nature, preserving exact the characters of the Father, loved Him with good reason—not bestowing His love on Him as it were a wage for the things done on our behalf, but, as we have said, beholding in the Son the genuineness of His own essence, and being drawn to this as by certain necessary and inescapable bonds of nature.

Just as, therefore, if one of us should behold in his own child the exact character of his own form, he is raised to an intensity of love just when he most beholds it;

in this manner, I think, God the Father is said to have loved His own Son, who lays down His own life for us and again takes it up.

For it is the work of love even to suffer; to choose this, and that too without honor, for the salvation of some; and not only to die, but also to take again the soul that had been laid down, that He might put death to death and drive away the gloom that comes from corruption.

Being therefore ever beloved by reason of His nature, He will also be understood to be loved on account of His love toward us, since by it He summons His own Begetter unto gladness of heart.

For it was possible for the Father even from this to behold the image of His own nature shining forth wholly untroubled and without any distortion.

'No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.'

'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.'

Here indeed He teaches that He was not only a good shepherd risking Himself for the flock, but also God by nature.

Wherefore He would not have submitted to death, had He not willingly done so; for He possessed, in a manner more befitting God, authority over this dispensation, which held great benefit for us.

And the very texture of His discourse teaches even the Jews that they would never have prevailed against Him unless He had so willed.

And not only concerning the laying down of His soul did He say 'I have power,' but He set the 'I have power' upon both — upon the death and upon the resurrection — so that the accomplishment might not appear to belong to another's power and working, as though it were granted to Him by permission, like a servant and a subordinate acting under commission; but rather that He might display as the fruit of His own nature the ability even to have authority over the very bonds of death, and easily to transform the natures of things to whatever He might will — which is truly proper to Him who is God by nature.

This then is what He wishes to show by saying 'I have power to lay down My soul, and I have power to take it again':

that not being commanded as a slave or servant, nor as of necessity or compelled by any, but willingly did He come to this.

'This commandment I received from My Father.'

For lest anyone should say that against the Son's will the Father is unable to take His soul, and thereby introduce faction and division into the one Godhead of the Father and the Son —

by the words in which He says 'I received a commandment,' He shows the Father also to be of one mind and one will toward this, and He confesses that they came to this as from a single purpose, even though He Himself is the will of the Father.

And this will also fit the dispensation in the flesh.

When He says that in the order of a commandment He received that which seemed right to the Father, He does not diminish Himself below the Father — being God by nature — but rather preserves what is fitting for the Incarnation.

'He will speak according to whatever I command Him' — saying that He has received, as a commandment, the shared counsel with God the Father.

which He said to the Jews, so that they might not suppose Him to speak contrary to the ordinances of the Father.

But if the Father named His own consubstantial Son a prophet, do not be disturbed;

for when He became man, then also the name of prophet was fitted to Him, and then too we say that commandments were given to Him by the Father according to the dispensation.

Yet he who receives commandments is not on that account less than, or unlike, the substance or nature of him who commands — seeing that even men command men, and angels command angels;

and we do not on this account say that those who are commanded are of a different nature or inferior.

Therefore the Son is not less than the Father, even though He became man that He might become for us the pattern of all virtue;

wherefore He also teaches this, that we ought to obey our parents in all things, even though we are equal in nature.

But there is a case where the word 'I will command,' spoken by the Father, signifies 'I will do it firmly and unalterably,' as when He says, 'And I will command evils upon the whole world, and their sins upon the ungodly.' Yet the Son sometimes speaks also in a condescending manner, so that we may understand, so far as is possible, the unutterable oracles;

nevertheless, the saying 'I received a commandment' does not make Him who is God by nature not to be God.

Either then call Him God, and grant all that befits the Godhead to possess; or openly call Him a creature.

For to receive a commandment does not strip one of what belongs to him by nature.

But since He speaks whatever things the Father commanded the Son —

and He says, 'I and the Father are one,' you are constrained to say either that the Father commanded the Son to speak the truth, or to lie.

For the things which the Son received a commandment to speak, He speaks;

'For the Father who sent Me,' He says, 'gave Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak.' And if He also said, 'For My Father is greater than I,' there is nothing contrary in it.

For inasmuch as He is God by nature, He is equal to the Father;

but inasmuch as He became man and emptied Himself, He speaks the words befitting the humanity, according to the dispensation.

Nevertheless, the name of 'commandment,' being something external to the substance, could not become a reproach against the substance.

For the Son's being does not consist in the Father's commanding, nor could this ever become a definition of the substance.

The Son therefore knows, as the counsel and wisdom of the Father, that which has been firmly decreed by Him;

and if He receives it as a commandment, do not marvel.

For by human words are things above word signified, and things unutterable by our voices have been drawn down to the reason that is within us, so that we might be able even to understand them.

Let us therefore lay the blame not on the strangeness of the matter, but on the weakness of the words, which cannot attain, in the manner required, to the quality of the things and to their exact interpretation.

'There arose a division again among the Jews because of these words;'

'Why do you listen to Him?' Others said, 'These words are not those of one possessed by a demon;'

'Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?' The Savior's word descends into the hearts of His hearers, and finding the softer ones, it straightway remolds them and brings them over to a good disposition;

but coming upon the hard ones, it departs and, in a manner, turns away.

Therefore he whose mind is somehow ready for right judgment will gladly receive the saving word, but he who is not such, no longer does so.

Something of this sort came to pass with the peoples of the Jews.

For when they had listened to the Savior's words, they were split into division, and the more perceptive among them were already inclining toward the beginning of salvation;

but the hard ones were more grievously sick than they had been at the beginning.

And the divinely-inspired Evangelist is, as it were, amazed that because of these words it came to pass that the peoples of the Jews were divided.

For I think he speaks most emphatically, marveling at the hardness of those who disbelieved, in that a division arose because of these words — words on account of which, he says, the Jews ought to have been exactly persuaded that He is the Christ.

So wonderful were the words of the Savior.

He marvels therefore at them, unholily turned aside into shameless disobedience.

For I think it just that they be accused in as great a degree as, with good reason, the word of our Savior might be admired.

He indeed spoke things befitting God, things that transcend man;

but the brilliance of words above man, and the God-befitting boldness, drove the many out to unmixed folly.

And since it was customary for those truly possessed by demons most readily to blaspheme — inasmuch as they easily rave and lie outside all understanding — and since they supposed the Lord to be a mere man, not perceiving that He was God by nature, on this account they called Him, as one blaspheming without restraint, a man possessed by a demon.

For they heard Him saying things that would befit God alone to say.

But seeing Him as one of us, and not yet knowing who He is by nature, they thought He blasphemed whenever He said anything befitting God.

Therefore, in the way of the dispensation, on account of the weakness of His hearers, He often made use, in a lowered manner, of language such as ours.

The multitude of the Jews therefore is split;

and some, having understood nothing at all of the mysteries concerning Him, unholily revile Him;

but those more equitable in disposition do not readily condemn, but chewing over His words and testing them with exactness, they perceive the sweetness within them, and so make a most approved discernment — words sober and full of the highest understanding — not gratifying the frivolities of the demons.

For it is the way of those in their raving to speak whatever comes to mind.

The Pharisees therefore were rather the ones possessed by demons, they who so called Him who was free from every passion;

and they escape their own notice in publicly declaring the sickness that dwells in them, and do not decline, out of ignorance, to expound the evil that possesses them.

And I for my part think that they speak most maliciously indeed, saying that the Lord is possessed by a demon.

But others, from the quality of His words, judge the words of the Lord to be right, as such words were not those of one possessed by a demon;

'Nevertheless the works of wonder,' he says, 'possess an irrefutable testimony.'

For even if you accuse the words as not being rightly spoken, yet it is impossible for one and the same to have a demon and to do those things which God alone can do.

Therefore from the fruits the discerning judges recognized Him, together also with marveling at the word that came from Him.

Now the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem, and it was winter.

And Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon's porch.

The Lord was present at the feasts, yet not as one who came to keep the festival together with them.

For how could this be, seeing that He is the One who said, 'I have hated, I have rejected your feasts'? Rather, that He might speak His profitable words in the presence of many, He made Himself manifest to the Jews, mingling among them unsought and freely.

By 'the Dedication' here we should understand either the first feast at which Solomon completed the dedication of the temple, or the later time when Zerubbabel, together with Jeshua after the return from Babylon, rebuilt the temple.

Since it was then winter and rain, it was natural that everyone should hasten to the porch.

For this reason Christ also came there, that He might make Himself known to all who wished to see Him, and impart to them His benefit.

For those who beheld Him were whetted to ask Him something.

For in times of leisure especially men are naturally inclined diligently to stir up discourses of this kind.

So the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, 'How long do You keep our soul in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.'

Envy, which sharply galls their acuteness toward faith, robs them of it.

Yet they lay the blame upon His word, and allege that the reserved character of His teaching is for them a hindrance to being able rightly to understand the very things they ought to have learned.

Therefore they demand that He speak more clearly, although they had often heard Him and had received on this matter a lengthy exposition.

For even if He did not say plainly, 'I am the Christ,' yet He brought forward into the midst many of the dignities that naturally belong to Him, at one time saying, 'I am the light of the world,' at another again, 'I am the resurrection and the life';

'I am the good shepherd.' For by the very things by which He thus names Himself, He signifies that He is the Christ.

For with such dignities Scripture is wont to crown the Christ, even though the Jews were requiring Him to say this in plain terms.

Besides, perhaps it would not have been very easily received to say in bare words, 'I am the Christ,' when there did not follow, as proof, the deeds by which He might reasonably be believed to be Himself the Christ.

It is incomparably better that He should be recognized to be the Christ, not from what He Himself said, but rather from the attributes that naturally belong to Him, and from what the divine Scriptures prophetically declare concerning Him, foretelling that He shall be made manifest.

The Jews, not understanding these things because they were exceedingly faint-hearted, say, 'How long do You keep our soul in suspense?' For it is the custom of the disheartened to say this.

Jesus answered them, 'I told you, and you do not believe.'

'The works that I do in My Father's name, these bear witness of Me.'

Christ therefore considered it superfluous to say the same things again to those who had often heard yet were not persuaded.

For it is right that each man's claims be tested by the quality of the deeds done, and not at all merely to look to words.

He says that He accomplishes the works in the Father's name—not as some holy man reaping power from on high, nor as charging Himself with any lack of power (He who is God from God, consubstantial with the Father, the power of the Father)—but as ascribing to the divine glory the power of the things accomplished; and so He says that He does the works in the Father's name.

Moreover He refers the honor up to the Father,

so as not to give the Jews an occasion to fall upon Him.

Nevertheless He also thought it fitting not to overstep the measure of the form of the servant, even though He is God and Lord.

And by saying that He does the works in the Father's name, He teaches that the Jews were blaspheming when they said He cast out demons by Beelzebul.

But since the Father works the wonders not because He is Father, but because He is God by nature,

the Son therefore also, not because He is Son, but as God from God, is Himself likewise able to do the works of the Father;

wherefore in a manner of dispensation He said that He does the works in the Father's name.

'But you do not believe Me, because you are not of My sheep.'

'And as I told you, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish forever.'

The proof of Christ's sheep is their readiness to hear and their aptness to obedience, even as the mark of the estranged is disobedience.

For by 'hearing' here we understand being persuaded by the things spoken.

And those who hear Him are known by God.

And 'being known' signifies being made His own.

For in general no one is unknown to God.

So when He says, 'I know My own,' He means this: that I will receive them and make them My own, both mystically and by relationship.

One might say that inasmuch as He became man, He made all men His own through kinship of nature, so that we are all Christ's own by a mystical relationship, insofar as He became man;

but estranged are all those who do not preserve the image conformed to holiness.

For thus also the Jews, being kin by race to faithful Abraham, since they became unbelieving, were deprived of kinship with him because of the unlikeness of their ways.

He says, 'And My sheep follow Me';

for those who are persuaded also follow in the footsteps of Christ by a certain God-given grace, no longer serving the shadows of the law, but following the things that Christ commands and His word; and through grace they shall ascend to His dignity, being called sons of God.

For when Christ ascends into the heavens, they too shall follow Him.

And He says that as a recompense and reward to those who follow Him He will bestow eternal life, and freedom from being subject to death or corruption, and to the torments brought by the Judge upon those who have transgressed.

And by the very fact that He gives life, He shows that He Himself is Life by nature;

and that He supplies this out of Himself, and not as having received it from another.

By 'eternal life' we understand, not mere length of days, which all—both good and evil—shall enjoy after the resurrection;

but rather also the passing of life in gladness.

'My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.'

'I and My Father are one.'

The faithful also have the succor of Christ, since the devil cannot snatch them away;

or rather, those who have unceasing enjoyment of good things abide in Him, since no one snatches them any longer from the gladness given to them, to hand them over to punishment or torments.

For it is not possible for those who are in Christ's hand to be snatched away unto punishment, because Christ is exceedingly strong;

for the 'hand' in divine Scripture signifies power.

That the hand of Christ is therefore unconquerable and mighty unto all things is beyond doubt.

But since He saw that the Jews mocked Him as a mere man, not understanding that He who was seen and handled as man was by nature God, in order to persuade them that He is the power of the Father, He says that no one shall snatch out of My Father's hand—that is, out of Mine.

For He says that He Himself is the all-powerful right hand of the Father;

inasmuch as the Father works all things through Him;

just as also the things done by us are worked through our hand.

For in many places of Scripture Christ is named the hand and the right hand of the Father;

which signifies the power;

and simply, the all-effecting energy and might of God is called His 'hand.'

For the account concerning God is always somehow better than any bodily imagining.

The Father is said to give to the Son, not as though the Son did not always have the creation under His hand, but as being Himself Life by nature—the Father bringing to us who stand in need of life, that through the Son, who is Life by nature and has this of Himself, we may be made alive.

Yet insofar as He became man, it is fitting for Him both to ask and to receive from the Father those things which He possessed as God by nature.

For Christ, leaving aside the human things, mounts up to His dignity befitting God, exulting in His natural excellences for the profit of the faithful and for their sound faith—which is in no way whatever to suspect that the Son is less than the Father.

For thus He is shown to be the unblemished image of the Father, preserving in Himself whole and sound the character of the Father.

And we say that the Son and the Father are one, not confounding the units in number—as some say that the Father and the Son are the same—but believing that the Father subsists distinctly and the Son subsists distinctly, while gathering the two into one identity of essence, and knowing them to have one might, so that in the one the other is seen without any difference.

By the word 'One' He signifies the identity of the essence;

while by the word 'We are' He divides what is conceived into a duality, and again He binds it together into one Godhead.

Moreover, this too must be noted against the Arians: that in saying 'I and the Father are one,' it is not a declaration of identity of will, but the unity of essence that is signified;

for the Jews also understood that in saying this He was calling Himself God and equal to the Father;

and Christ did not deny that He had said what they understood.

'Then the Jews took up stones again, that they might stone Him.'

For not bearing with Him when He said that He was one with the Father, they rushed to murder Him;

although each of the works done by Him proclaimed Him to be God by nature.

Having taken up stones to murder Him, they stood motionless by the working of Christ;

so that from this too it becomes plain that He would not have suffered had He not been willing.

He says that the works are from the Father, not from Himself, thinking modestly for our benefit, that when we receive anything from God we may not boast.

And in saying that He has shown the works from the Father, He does not show Himself alien to their operation, but teaches that the works belong to the whole Godhead;

for one Godhead is conceived by us in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

For whatever the Father may perchance do, this is accomplished through the Son in the Spirit;

and again, what the Son does, this the Father is said to do in the Spirit.

Wherefore He Himself also said, 'I do nothing of Myself, but the Father who abides in Me, He does the works.' '... For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy.'

Having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, they were indignant on hearing Christ say, 'I and the Father are one.' For what hindered Him from being one with the Father, if indeed they had believed that He was God by nature? Therefore they attempted to stone Him, and, in explaining for what cause they did this, they say that it is not on account of the good things You have done that we stone You, but because You blaspheme.

'I said, You are gods,' and what follows.

Since therefore the Father called certain ones gods, and this dignity must surely be for them something acquired from without;

for one is He who exists as God by nature;

necessarily, lest He Himself also be reckoned to be one of those, not clothed with the glory of the Godhead essentially but rather with one procured for Him on equal terms with the others, He clearly distinguishes Himself from them.

For He shows Himself to differ so greatly from their poverty, that it was because He had come to be among them that for this very cause they were called gods;

for He Himself is the Word of God and of the Father.