Commentary on John 1 part 57/94

And she readily ran unto him and desires to meet him.

For how should she not be about to do this, seeing that she was exceedingly grieved at his absence, and had a fervent disposition unto piety and much love toward him? Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

The Jews then who were with her in the house and comforting her, when they saw Mary that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying that she goeth unto the tomb to weep there.

The Jews then who were with her, supposing that she had run to the tomb to rend herself with grief, accompany her, doing this by a nod of God, that they might come together to see the wonder even though unwilling.

For unless this had come to pass by God's dispensation, the Evangelist would not have made mention of it, nor recorded the causes attending each thing, had he not everywhere laid claim to the truth.

He told therefore the cause for which many ran to the tomb, and were found there, and became beholders of the wonder, and announced it to others.

Mary then, when she came where Jesus was, seeing him, fell at his feet, saying: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

Mary indeed says that death came prematurely upon her brother because the Lord was absent.

The season for healing passed by.

And it is possible even from this to conjecture that she said this to him as to God, even if she did not speak with precision, supposing him not to be present even though he was absent in body.

But being more exact and more understanding than Martha, she did not say, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee. Wherefore the Lord speaks nothing to her, but to Martha he extended a long discourse.

He does not indeed reprove Mary, drunken with grief, for saying, If thou hadst been here, to him who fills all creation.

Doing this also for our example, that we should not reprove those who are in the very height of their lamentations.

Rather he condescends the more, laying bare the human nature; and he weeps and is troubled, seeing her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping.

Jesus therefore, when he saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, groaned in the spirit and troubled himself, and said: Where have ye laid him? Now since Christ was not only God by nature, but was also man, he suffers the human affections together with the rest.

But when grief somehow began to be stirred in him, and the holy flesh was already inclining toward tears, he does not permit it to suffer this without restraint, as is our custom.

He groans in the spirit, that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit he in a manner rebukes his own flesh.

And the flesh, not bearing the movement of the Godhead united to it, trembles and feigns a semblance of tumult.

For this I think is the meaning of, He troubled himself.

For how otherwise should he endure tumult? And in what manner shall the ever undisturbed and calm nature be troubled? The flesh therefore is rebuked through the spirit, being taught to think things above its own nature.

For on this very account the all-powerful Word of God came to be in flesh, or rather became flesh, that by the operations of his own Spirit he might strengthen the weaknesses of the flesh, and free the nature from its more earthly disposition, and refashion it, as it were, unto those things alone that seem good to God.

It is therefore a disease of human nature to be tyrannized by griefs.

But this also is abolished together with the rest in Christ first, that it might pass over also unto us.

Or thus must one understand, He groaned in the spirit and troubled himself, in the sense that, being moved unto compassion by the weeping of many, he in a manner commanded his own Spirit to wrestle down death even before its time and to raise up Lazarus.

And it is not as being ignorant that he asks, Where have ye laid him?

For he who was in a far country and yet knew that he had died, how could he be ignorant of the tomb? But he speaks thus as one free from ostentation.

He did not indeed say, Let us go to the tomb, for I will raise him, even though above all the asking in this way carries this implication.

Yet even by saying this, he prepared many to go on before him, as pointing out the thing sought.

Providently therefore he said this also, drawing by the word many to the place, and he feigns to be ignorant, in no way declining the poverty of humanity — he who is God by nature and knows all things, not only the things that have come to pass but also the things that shall be, before their coming into being.

The asking, therefore, brings no ignorance upon him who for our sake became according to us, but rather from this he is the more shown to be equal to the Father.

For that one too asks Adam, Where art thou? and this one likewise contrives ignorance and inquires, Where have ye laid him? so that through the questioning a multitude might be gathered together unto the demonstration, and the marvel of the coming-back-to-life of one already corrupted might be witnessed rather even by his enemies.

The Jews therefore said, 'Behold how He loved him.'

But some of them said, 'Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this one also should not die?' The Evangelist, however, seeing that nature which is stranger to tears now weeping, is amazed, even though the suffering was proper to the flesh and unbefitting the Godhead.

The Lord weeps, having beheld man—made according to His own image—corrupted, that He might wipe away our tears.

For on this account also He died, that we too might be set free from death.

Teaching us not to give way overmuch in grief for those who have died.

For a measure of grief pertains to fellow-feeling;

but excess is womanish and unmanly.

For this reason, then, He permitted His own flesh to weep a little, although in His nature He is without tears and, so far as concerns His own nature, incapable of any grief.

Even those who hated Him marvel at the Lord's tears.

For those who philosophize to the highest degree, and those held in brilliant repute, weep only with the greatest difficulty, as though playing the youthful hero over every misfortune.

The Jews supposed that He wept on account of the death of Lazarus; but He wept in pity for the whole of human nature, not weeping for Lazarus only, but considering what had befallen all men—that all humanity had come under death, having justly fallen under such a penalty.

But others, wounded by envy, spoke nothing good;

for they did not truly reproach the Lord as having permitted Lazarus to die;

for that would have been the mark of those who believed that He was able to hold back death;

but they all but say this: 'Where is your power, O wonder-worker? For behold, even against your will, he whom you loved has died.'

'For that you did love him is plain from your weeping.'

'If, then, the work upon the blind man was of your power, you could also have held back death—which itself likewise is above the nature of man.'

As though rejoicing at what they saw—His glory in a manner being undone—they say this.

Jesus therefore, again groaning in Himself, comes to the tomb;

now it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

And Jesus says, 'Take away the stone.'

Here we understand His groaning to be, as it were, a willing accompanied by a movement of authority;

and that He rebuked grief the more sternly, and the tear that was about to be poured out from grief.

For as God He rebukes humanity in a tutorial manner, enjoining it to play the hero over sorrowful things; or by a movement befitting God He determines that henceforth the might of death must be overturned.

And this He makes manifest through His own flesh;

and the movement of the body signified that which was hidden within.

And this the word 'He groaned' here indicates—that is, by the outward posture of the body He signified the hidden movement.

But He did not roll away the stone by Himself, for these two reasons:

one, teaching that it is superfluous to work wonders in things not necessary;

the other, that He Himself raises the dead, but the angels shall stand ready for the service of the deed—those whom the Lord elsewhere in a parable calls reapers.

Martha, the sister of him that was dead, says to Him, 'Lord, by this time he stinks.'

Great accomplishments are wont to be disbelieved, and things beyond reason are followed by a reluctance to be readily amazed;

this, it seems to me, the good Martha also underwent;

for the excess of the matter robs her of a firm assurance unto faith, and the strangeness of the hope drives out the reasoning proper to what is fitting;

and it is nothing wonderful if, having confessed her faith, she is again storm-tossed by little faith at the excess of the miracle.

Or else, even as one greatly honoring Christ, she said 'By this time he stinks,' lest He should be made loathing by the stench of the dead body;

for the kinsfolk of the dead make haste, before the body becomes malodorous, to hide it in the earth, being ashamed before the living and deeming it a dishonor to the one lying there, that he should be an object of loathing to any.

Jesus says to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believe you shall see the glory of God?' A great good is faith, when it arises from a fervent mind, and it has such power that not only is the one who believes saved, but others too have been saved through the faith of others—as the paralytic let down at Capernaum, through the faith of those who bore him;

as also Lazarus, through the faith of his sister, to whom the Lord said, 'If you believe you shall see the glory of God?'—all but saying, 'Since Lazarus, being dead, cannot believe, do you supply what is lacking of the dead man's faith.'

The kind of faith is twofold:

the one, doctrinal, having the soul's assent concerning some particular thing;

as, 'He that believes on the Son is not judged.' The other is bestowed by Christ as a portion of grace;

and for another there is a faith which is not doctrinal only, but also effective of things above man, so as even to remove mountains. Martha, however, from weakness of reasonings, fell into unbelief.

But the Lord does not permit it, bringing a swift release to the ailment.

For one must, He says, believe firmly, in order to behold the things that are beyond hope.

For doublemindedness is a great sickness, and it deprives one of the gifts that come from God.

Wherefore, rebuking this, He set right the whole race of men, that they might not be caught by the evils of doublemindedness.

And shunning vainglory, Christ did not say, 'You shall see my glory,' but 'the glory of God.'

And the glory of God is to raise the dead.

He then Himself is God by nature, He who said, 'I am the resurrection,' whose glory He says the woman will behold before long, when she shall reckon that the Truth—which is Christ—does not lie;

and what had been promised her was that her dead brother should rise.

And Mary, being the more understanding, utters nothing of doubt;

but Martha was held fast by the sickness of doublemindedness.

And Jesus lifted up His eyes on high and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.'

'And I knew that You always hear Me;

but because of the multitude that stands by I said it, that they may believe that You sent Me.'

By way of dispensation, however, Christ speaks lowlily as a man, not according to the eminence of His Godhead;

and He refers the thanksgiving to the Father, not for Lazarus alone, but for the life of all.

For being good, He is of one mind with the Father, who restores the nature of man unto life—that nature which had fallen into corruption through disobedience—having no difference at all from the goodness of the Father.

And just as we too, through our own reasonings, are persuaded not to do what has been resolved, so also the Lord, being the Word and Counsel of the Father, has made the Father dear to us.

And we by no means say that the Divine is angry, but that, being just and good, He knows the season fitting for rebuke and that fitting for indulgence.

Yet the Lord gives thanks, and does this as a pattern for us, honoring the Father.

But when the equal gives thanks to the equal, He by no means makes this a diminution of the essence.

And by the things whereby He indicates that 'I say these things because of the multitude,' He all but says that 'I have assumed the form of prayer, and by way of dispensation said that I gave thanks.'

'For I knew that You always hear Me.'

For the one nature of the Godhead is not disobedient to itself, since one is the mind of the Trinity—of Father, Son, and Spirit.

'Knowing therefore,' He says, 'that our will is one and our purpose one, I said these things because of the multitude.'

And these things Christ says on account of the Jews, giving thanks to the Father, as though working the things befitting God through Him;

that they might no longer say that He works the signs by Beelzebul.

And He makes His defense also concerning the form of prayer, that we might not be scandalized, saying that 'I did this because of the multitude'; and the words 'You sent Me' He speaks on account of the Jewish suspicions.

For I have come not of my own accord, as the false prophets do;

but by Your good pleasure and will I emptied Myself, taking the form of a servant, that I might set right the life of all.

The manner of the prayer, then, belongs to the divine economy and befits the condition of one who is with flesh, not the supereminence and incomparable splendour of the Godhead.

For to ask at all and to receive would rather be something servile, and customary for one who is ruled over.

Yet Christ does even this in a way that is beyond all reproach;

for He who consented to become man, how could He any longer decline the things proper to man? And having said these things, He cried out with a loud voice: 'Lazarus, come forth.'

And the dead man came out, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped about with a napkin.

He led forth from the tomb the ill-smelling corpse, even after the fourth day from its decease, and commanded him who was fettered and bound at the feet to walk.

And straightway death took to flight, and the dead man ran, freed from corruption, having laid aside its stench, having escaped the gates of death, and not hindered by the bonds from running.

running to Him who called, and recognizing the Master's voice.

For the word was befitting of God and the command royal, having power to loose death and to overturn corruption, and to demonstrate an energy that surpasses reason.

But to make use of a piercing cry is altogether strange and unusual for the Saviour Christ.

And indeed God the Father says somewhere concerning Him: 'He shall not strive, nor cry out,' and what follows.

For without noise and apart from all tumult are the works of the true Godhead;

and this was in Christ, for He is God of God by nature and true.

What then, pray, do we say, when we see Him crying out in an unusual manner? For surely no one will sink into such folly as to say that He ever went beyond what was fitting, or even sinned against what was proper.

How then is this possible? Therefore the cry has a reason and a ground, which we shall of necessity state, because of its usefulness to the hearers;

He makes the miracle upon Lazarus as it were a type of the universal resurrection of the dead, and that which was fulfilled in one He set up as a fair image of the more general resurrection extending to all.

For that a Judge will come, we have believed, and we reckon that there will be a cry through a trumpet, according to the word of Paul, commanding the resurrection to those lying in the earth, the ineffable power of the God who is mighty over all things plainly effecting the deed.

'Keep it,' He says, 'as a memorial of trumpets.' For when the human bodies are about to be joined together again hereafter, and each one's soul is presently to take up as it were its own tabernacle, the Master's command will sound forth beforehand and the signal of the resurrection will resound before, a trumpet of God, according to what is said.

As a type, therefore, of this, Christ uttered over Lazarus something great and far-heard, not much regarding what was customary, that He might display the type of the things expected to be.

Jesus says to them: 'Loose him, and let him go.'

Usefully, then, He entrusted to them to loose him with their own hands, that they might have no occasion for slander, but might be witnesses of the miracle.

And this too holds a token of the universal resurrection, that when sin and the corruption of death are loosed, each one is set free.

For having fallen into sin, we have placed upon the face of the soul, as it were a veil, the shame that comes therefrom, and we have been bound with the nooses of death.

When, therefore, Christ shall bring us forth from the tombs of earth at the time of the resurrection, then indeed, having released us from the evils that were in the beginning, and in a manner removing the veil of shame, He commands us thereafter to be sent forth in freedom, no longer tyrannized by sin, nor subject to corruption, or to any other of the things wont to do harm, so that there may be fulfilled in us that which was spoken through one of the holy prophets: 'And you shall go forth and leap like calves loosed from bonds.' But take me the miracle also with regard to the inner things.

For if our mind should die as Lazarus, we must, with confession, like Martha and Mary, bring the material flesh and the more venerable soul to Christ and entreat Him;

Many therefore of the Jews, who had come to Mary and beheld what Jesus did, believed in Him.

But some of them went away to the Pharisees, and told them what Jesus had done.

Overcome by the marvel, many believed;

but others, wounded by envy, make the miracle an occasion to do the deeds of the envious, and reported what had happened to the rulers, so that when these too were grieved at the things Christ had wrought, they might obtain some consolation for their own grief, by having others of like mind and sharers of this senseless grief;

and so that they themselves, being unable to harm Him who had done no wrong, might stir up the more powerful against Him.

The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said: 'What are we doing, seeing that this man does many signs? If we let Him thus alone, all will believe in Him;

and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.'

Indeed, the Pharisees, abandoning wonder, turn to grief, and seeing Him mightier than death, take counsel to kill Him, not considering His unspeakable authority, but reasoning about Him as about a mere man, they said: 'What are we doing, seeing that this man does many signs?' — though from this they ought rather to have believed that He was the Christ, whom the God-inspired Scripture foretold in many places, that He would be the worker of many signs.

But they even allege a pretext, by which they attempted to persuade the more shallow-minded to kill Him, and they say: 'If we let Him thus alone,' that is, living and working wonders, 'we shall suffer utterly dreadful things.'

'For if many believe in this man who abolishes the Law, our affairs will thereafter be gone;

and thereafter, as the Jews having grown utterly weak, the Romans will fall upon us, and will not let us freely use our ancestral customs, nor rule our own nation, nor render judgment, they themselves rather judging and not we any longer.'

But one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest of that year, said to them: 'You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.'

And this he said not of himself; but being high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather into one the scattered children of God.

But that which we were saying, which the Jews were secretly plotting to do, this their own high priest openly counsels them to do, and to slay Christ, saying this as though for the nation, although the nation was unjust.

But he speaks a true thing, not accomplished out of their perversity, but out of the power and wisdom of God.

For they killed Christ to their own destruction, but He, being put to death in the flesh, has become for us the cause of all good things.

And he calls the destruction of the nation its coming under the Roman hand, and the passing away of the shadow of the Law;

which, seeking to overturn, they endured it.

Out of a lawless mind, then, Caiaphas said what he said;

yet the word became interpretive of a true matter, as being brought forth in the rank of prophecy.

For of how many good things the death of Christ became the cause, he foretells, speaking what he does not know, and glorifying God like Balaam under constraint, since he held the priestly dignity, as though the prophecy were given not to him, but to the character of the priesthood;

or from the things which afterwards came to pass and were fulfilled by Caiaphas, who by no means received prophetic grace.

For it is likely that what some people say comes to pass;

even if, not knowing that it will surely come to pass, they say it.

Caiaphas, then, said that Christ's death would be for the Jews alone, but he says that it came to pass for the whole of humanity.

For we are all called the race and children of God, inasmuch as He is the Father of all in a creative manner, having begotten and brought as it were into existence the things that were not.

And further, because we were honoured, having been made according to His image from the beginning, and having been allotted rule over the things on earth, and having been deemed worthy of the divine covenant, and enjoying the manner of life and delight in paradise.

But Satan scattered us, not permitting us to remain in the same state, and by manifold means lured man away from his attendance upon God.

But Christ again gathered together and brought in all through faith into one fold, the Church, and made them ready under one yoke, all having become one — Jews, Greeks, Barbarians, Scythians — and being refashioned into one new man, and worshipping one God.

From that hour, then, they took counsel together that they might kill Him.

For they had the desire of the blood-stained murder against Christ;

for the Evangelist did not say that 'From that hour they resolved to commit the murder,' but 'They took counsel together,' that is, what seemed good to each one individually pleased all in common.

Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went away from there near the wilderness to a city called Ephraim, and there He remained with His disciples.

And here too, therefore, as God, knowing what had secretly seemed good to them though no one had reported it, He withdraws unto the condemnation of the Jews, not out of cowardice, but that He might not seem, by being visible, to provoke them, murderous though they were.

And He teaches us also to yield to the heights of those who are enraged, and not to hurl ourselves into dangers, not even if it be for the sake of the truth;

but when overtaken, to stand firm, but when about to be, to withdraw, because of the uncertainty of the outcome.

Now the Passover of the Jews was near;

and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover, in order to purify themselves.

Passing by all things, the Evangelist comes to the time of the Passion.

And he calls it the Passover of the Jews, the typical one;

for the true Passover is not of the Jews, but of the Christians, who eat the flesh of Christ, the true Lamb.

And according to ancient custom those who had sinned, whether voluntary or involuntary sins, purified themselves beforehand, and not everyone kept the typical Passover — not the Gentile, not the uncircumcised, not the sojourner, not the hired servant, not the defiled — all which things come to pass spiritually through the Christians.

They sought Jesus therefore, and said to one another as they stood in the temple: 'What do you think? That He will not come to the feast?' Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a command, that if anyone knew where He was, he should give information, so that they might seize Him.

For assuredly He will not come now to keep the feast with us, knowing our devices, since He is God.

Or the saying is to be understood as coming from those who hate Him: 'Since it is ever Jesus' custom to abrogate the Law, do you who believe in Him wish to know that He is such a man—from the fact that not even now does He present Himself at the feast, setting aside the Law of the feast so as not to keep it together with us?' They say this, not because it was necessary for all to run together to Jerusalem at the Passover, as at the Feast of Tabernacles, but rather they make it a demonstration of cowardice—that He does not go up to Jerusalem, as though He were unable to help Himself on such a day, and for this reason keeps away.

Or these things are also said among themselves by those who had been commanded to arrest Him, and who grew slack, since they did not yet see Him coming, though they were eager to carry out quickly what had been commanded.

Jesus therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had died, whom He raised from the dead.

So they made Him a supper there, and Martha served;

and Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with Him.

Despising the plotting of the Jews, the Lord willingly delivers Himself up to suffer; and since the season of His Passion was at hand, He came to Bethany, yet not to Jerusalem, so that He might not, by being suddenly seen by the Jews, kindle them to wrath, but rather, through the report that He was near, might restrain the boiling of their fury.

He eats together with Lazarus, thereby reminding those who saw it of His divinely befitting authority.

And the Evangelist shows through the narrative that Christ did not despise the Law;

wherefore also, six days before the Passover, when the lamb had to be bought and kept until the fourteenth day, He ate together with those about Lazarus.

Perhaps on the day before the sheep was taken, it being the custom of the Jews to make a small celebration—not from the Law but from usage—so that after the sheep had been taken they might then be at leisure until the feast, in fasting, that is, in eating sparingly, and in purifications.

The Lord therefore appears to have honored the customs of the feast in this matter also.

He says that the man who had been dead four days ate together with Christ, as a reminder of His divinely befitting authority.

And out of her love for Christ, he brings in Martha as serving and ministering to the labors of the table.

Mary then, taking a pound of very costly ointment of pure nard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair;

and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.

While Martha ministered, Mary, having anointed the Lord with ointment, brought her love toward Him to perfection; and through the two of them the perfect measure of love was fulfilled.

Jesus therefore said: Let her alone; she has kept it for the day of My burial.

For the poor you always have with you, but Me you do not always have.

The traitor rebukes the woman who had displayed her piety toward Christ, and finds fault with a praiseworthy deed; he pretends to blame her out of love for the poor, because she offered ointment and not silver.

But being ignorant even of what is truly good, Judas says this.

For the offering of gifts to God ought to be preferred above the poor.

The Evangelist, however, explains the reason for which Judas said these things;

namely, that it was not because he cared for the needy, but because he was a thief and a temple-robber, stealing the money dedicated to God.

And the Lord declares the woman free of every charge, whereby in veiled fashion He reproves the traitor for unreasonably finding fault with what was worthy of praise, saying: Let her alone.

And He defends the anointing with the ointment, that it was done not for luxury but for the sake of a certain mystery which was accomplished with a view to His burial, even though she who did it was ignorant of the dispensation of the mystery.