Commentary on John 1 part 58/94

For many have said and done many things bearing upon a mystical type without knowing it.

Nevertheless the Lord again reproves Judas, that he said these things not out of reverence, but because he was greedy of base gain and was about to betray his Teacher for a little profit.

For the mention of the burial and the remembrance of death seem to make this plain.

The Savior also brings forward a further consideration, persuading us that nothing is better than piety toward Him.

For, He says, love of the poor is most worthy of esteem; yet let it be ranked behind reverence toward God.

And what He says is of this sort: The time, He says, appointed for honor toward Me—that is, of My sojourn upon earth—does not require that the poor be preferred above Me.

But this He said by way of dispensation.

He does not, however, altogether remove the compassionate man from love toward the poor.

When, therefore, there is need of worship or of hymn-singing, one ought to prefer these above love toward the poor;

for it is possible to do good after the spiritual services.

He says, therefore, that one must not without intermission be ever occupied with honors toward Me, nor spend everything upon the priestly service, but expend the greater part upon the needy.

Just as, after His ascending to the Father, He permits the disciples to fast;

so also He says that they would then take up the care of the poor more freely, and would set right the love of the poor more calmly and at greater leisure;

for after the Savior's assumption, when they no longer followed the Teacher but were at leisure, then they earnestly expended upon the needy all that was brought as offerings.

A great crowd of the Jews therefore learned that He was there, and they came not only because of Jesus, but also that they might see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.

And they wished to see not only Lazarus, but also Christ, the worker of the sign—not then seeing Him for the first time;

for they had often seen Him and conversed with Him;

and at the opportune moment they sought again to see Him;

while the more reasonable among them also marveled at Him, as having found no fault in Him.

By way of dispensation, therefore, the Lord did not enter Jerusalem at once, but remained outside, so that through the report He might draw the many into a longing to wish to see Him.

But the chief priests took counsel that they might kill Lazarus also, because on his account many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

Observe how the rulers seem to be out of their minds, tossed hither and thither by envy, and speaking nothing consistent, they contrive murder upon murder, imagining that the power of the marvelous deed would be done away together with the one who had died, so that they might check the peoples running to believe in Christ.

On the next day a great crowd who had come to the feast, hearing that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out, saying: Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!

The crowds, being more obedient and drawn by the working of the sign, met Christ with palm branches, praising Him as one who had conquered death.

And they praise Him not simply, but from the divinely inspired Scripture, speaking what had been rightly said concerning Him, confessing that He was also the King of Israel, whom they even called their own King, thereby receiving the lordship of Christ.

And in saying 'blessed,' they mean the Son;

not as though He, who blesses all things and does not allow them to perish, and who is of the ineffable substance of the Father, had received a blessing from the Father;

but because the blessing befitting God and belonging to Him who is Lord by nature is offered by us to Him, since He has come in the name of the Lord.

For all the saints came not in an authority of lordship, but as genuine household servants;

wherefore also the prophetic word was fittingly spoken concerning Him.

For even if some are called lords, they possess the dignity not by nature but by grace.

For indeed, by abstaining from falsehood, men are called truthful;

which cannot be said of Christ;

for He is not called Truth on this account, that He does not lie, but because He has a nature altogether better than falsehood.

And Jesus, having found a young ass, sat upon it, as it is written: Fear not, daughter of Zion;

behold, your King comes to you, sitting upon the colt of an ass.

For though a great multitude escorted and acclaimed Him, out of the utmost moderation He sat upon an ass, teaching us not to be exalted amid praises;

in nothing overstepping the bounds of what was needful.

Now Matthew spoke more fully concerning the ass;

but John came straight to the most essential point of the matter, as it is his custom to do.

And since, contrary to His custom, the Lord now for the only time appears sitting upon an ass, we do not say that He sat for this reason, that He was far from the city;

for He was not distant more than fifteen stadia;

and on another occasion too, when He found Himself amid a crowd, He did not do this;

but He does this to show that He is about to subject to Himself a new people, the unclean people from among the Gentiles, and to lead them up to the dignity of righteousness, and to the Jerusalem above, of which the earthly one is a type.

into which enters the people that has been made clean together with Christ, who is hymned by the guileless angels, of whom the infants are a type.

By 'the colt' He means the ass, since the people gathered from among the Gentiles was untrained in the faith that leads to godliness.

Now His disciples did not understand these things at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written concerning Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.

At the beginning, then, they were ignorant of the things written concerning Him;

but after the Resurrection they no longer remained in the Jewish blindness; rather, through the Spirit the knowledge of the divine oracles was revealed to them.

And Christ was glorified then, when, having been crucified, He came back to life.

The Evangelist is not ashamed to record the ignorance of the disciples, and again their knowledge; for it was his aim to disregard human respect, but to plead the cause of the glory of the Spirit, and to show what manner of men the disciples were before the Resurrection, and what they became after the Resurrection.

If these were ignorant, much more were the other Jews.

But after the Crucifixion the veil was rent, that we might know that nothing henceforth of the hidden things escapes the faithful and those who love God.

They were therefore enlightened in knowledge from the time of the Resurrection, when Christ breathed upon their face, and they became other men out of what they had been.

But they were yet more fully enlightened on the day of Pentecost, when they were transformed into the power of the Holy Spirit that came upon them.

The crowd therefore that was with Him bore witness, when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead;

for this reason also the crowd went out to meet Him, because they had heard that He had done this sign.

The assembly of the common people, having heard what had happened, was readily persuaded by those who testified that Christ had raised Lazarus and had loosed the dominion of death, even as the prophets had foretold;

for this reason also they went out to meet Him.

The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, 'Do you see that you prevail nothing? Behold, the whole world is gone after Him.'

This they say as though blaming themselves, because from of old they had not made away with Jesus together with Lazarus—thus spurring themselves on to murder;

being indignant on account of the faithful crowd, as though they were being robbed of their own possessions—the possessions which in truth belong to God.

Now there were certain Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast.

One might be perplexed at this point and inquire on what account certain of the Greeks go up to Jerusalem to worship, and this while a feast according to the Law was being celebrated.

For surely no one will say that they went up merely to see the sights of that place;

for they were about to share with the Jews in the feast that befits them and them alone, running up together with them to it.

What common ground was there, in respect of worship, between Greeks and Jews? And indeed we shall find that the disposition and the choice in the two are very far apart;

for the one honoured the truth, but the other the lie.

What then shall we say in these matters? Since the country of the Jews lay adjacent to that of the Galileans, having cities and villages bordering one upon another—both the Greeks and those others—they had frequent mutual dealings, and each resorted to the other, various occasions summoning them to this.

And since somehow the mind of the idolaters is far more ready to change for the better—inasmuch, indeed, as their false worship was very easily convicted of being utterly useless—some were readily persuaded to another view;

not yet indeed wholly unto worshipping only the God who truly is, but being in some way divided by reasonings that inclined them to apostasy, and following the opinions of their own teachers—I mean of Plato and of those who are called wise men after his school.

It was therefore the custom of certain Palestinians—of the Greeks especially, who had the country of the Jews joined and neighbouring to them—somehow to catch up customs from among them, and to honour the name of monarchy, this seeming good even to those whom we just now mentioned, though they do not affirm it in the same way as we do.

But those who neither had a full inclination toward the Jews, nor yet had departed from the customs dear to the Greeks, but cultivated some middle opinion that looked toward both, are called 'God-fearers.'

Such men, then, seeing that their own practices were not greatly separated from the Jewish customs—as far, that is, as concerned the modes of sacrifice and the apprehension of monarchy—

for those of Israel did not formerly know the doctrines of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, nor yet the power of spiritual worship;

—they went up together to worship, especially in the great public gatherings, not as grieving their own religion, but as honouring the one God who is over all.

These, then, came to Philip, who was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus.'

Philip comes and tells Andrew;

Andrew and Philip come, and they tell Jesus.

'The whole world is gone after Him.' For not only Jews, but also those of the Gentiles, were about to believe.

Wherefore also, as it were in a firstfruits, the accession of the Greeks then came about; and inasmuch as the Greeks were Galileans, they came to Philip, since he too was a Galilean, that he might show them Jesus, whom they desired to see—hearing the great praise that was arising concerning Him—so that they might both worship Him and obtain what they desired.

But Philip, remembering that the Lord had said to them, 'Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into a city of the Samaritans,' is afraid lest he should seem to give offence by bringing to Christ those who had not believed—not knowing that the Lord had, by way of dispensation, forbidden the disciples to go in unto the Gentiles until first the Jews should have shaken off the grace that was given them.

But as to one more ardent and more fitted for such matters, he speaks to Andrew;

and this seeming good to them, they both together announce it to the Lord.

And Philip, having acted prudently, teaches us that it is not well to speak anything at random concerning those who are above us, even though it may seem to be one of the good things, but rather to take counsel with the wise as to what one ought to do.

But Jesus answered them, saying, 'The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified.'

Since therefore those of the Gentiles are pressing on in their desire to see Him or to turn to Him, for this reason He says, 'The hour is come.'

For the season of the Passion was near, after which immediately would come the calling of the Gentiles.

And by 'the hour' in these words He names the present season—not that anything was bringing Him by necessity to suffer, but that this was appointed by ordinances of His own.

For having done all things that led men to faith, and having preached the word of the kingdom of the heavens, He now wills to proceed to the very sum of hope, namely, to put death to death;

which could not otherwise have come about, unless Life had endured death on behalf of all, that we all might live in Him.

For on this account He names as His own glory both death and the suffering of all dreadful things on behalf of the sinners who dishonoured Him.

Nevertheless, although He was ever glorified by the angels in the heavens, yet the Cross became for Him the beginning of being glorified upon the earth by the Gentiles as God.

Since, having left the Jews who had insulted Him, He passed over to the Gentiles, and is glorified as God by them, being hoped to come in the glory of the Father.

But He does not say that the Word bare and by Himself shall be glorified; rather, showing one Son, ineffably conceived of both manhood and Godhead, He says 'Son of Man';

for one is the Son and Christ, having no division after the Incarnation;

but being and being conceived as God even with the flesh.

'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone;

but if it die, it bears much fruit.'

Not only does He foretell that He suffers, nor merely that the season is at hand, but He also sets forth the cause on account of which He counted it most sweet to suffer;

and that great is the gain of the Passion;

for otherwise He would not have chosen to suffer, since He did not suffer unwillingly.

For indeed, on account of His sparing tenderness toward us, He showed such gentleness that He chose for our sakes to suffer all cruel things.

And just as the sown grain of wheat sprouts up many ears, not being itself harmed for their sakes, but existing in power in all the grains of the ear—

for out of it they all sprang up;

so also the Lord died, and having opened the recesses of the earth, He brought up together with Himself the souls of men, being Himself in all according to the word of faith, while yet existing in His own distinct subsistence.

And not only to those who have died did He give this gain, of bearing fruit through Him, but also to those who live;

even though, for the sake of the parable, the discourse has been fittingly figured.

For the fruit of the sufferings of Christ is the life of all, both of the dead and of the living.

For the death of Christ became a seed of life.

Did then the divine nature of the Word become receptive of death? And how is it not utterly impious to say this? For the Word who is of God the Father is Life according to His nature;

He raises up rather, He does not fall;

He abolishes death, He is not mastered by corruption;

He rather gives life to that which is in need of life; He does not Himself seek life from another.

the light could never become darkness, so it is impossible that the Life should not be Life.

How then is the same One said both to fall into the ground like a grain of wheat, and to ascend as God with a shout of triumph? Clearly, to taste death befits Him inasmuch as He became man;

but to ascend in a divine manner is His own by nature.

'He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.'

Not only ought you not to be scandalized at My suffering, nor to disbelieve the things I have told you, but it is fitting that you also be prepared for this very thing;

for he who here seems to care for his own soul, and is unwilling to give it up to dangers for My sake, destroys it in the age to come.

But he who gives it up to dangers in the present age, preserves for it great fruits.

And he who has despised the life in this world shall gain the incorruptible life in the age to come.

The Lord said these things, not as though the soul suffers anything here, but He calls 'love of the soul' the seeming to hold fast to it by not betraying the body to dangers.

'If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.'

What He says is of this sort: If I, He says, for your benefit give Myself up to death, how is it not unmanly, for the sake of your own advantage, that you should not despise this transient life and, by the death of the flesh, gain the unfading life? For those who give it up to death seem to hate their own soul, so far as concerns the suffering, while they preserve it for the eternal good things;

and those who live in ascetic discipline also hate their own souls, not being overcome by the pleasures of love for the flesh.

What Christ did, then, in suffering for the salvation of all, He did as a pattern of courage, teaching those who desire the good things hoped for to press on to accomplish virtue.

For it is necessary, He says, that those who wish to follow Me should display courage and boldness equal to Mine;

for thus shall they receive the prizes of victory.

'And where I am, there shall also My servant be.'

And since the Author of salvation journeyed not through glory and luxury, but through dishonour and toils;

so must we also do without grief, that we may arrive at the same place, and partake of the divine glory.

For in whatever things Christ was seen to excel, in those same things must also those who follow Him be, not in the dignities that befit God and are above man;

for it is not possible for a man to imitate the true and natural God;

but in whatever things the nature of man can be capable of excelling—not in bridling the sea and doing such like things, but in being humble and meek and bearing insults.

'If any man serve Me, the Father will honour him.'

In this, then, He says, the reward consists—in being honoured by the Father;

for the disciples of Christ are partakers of Christ's kingdom and glory, according to the measure fitting for men;

and He says that the honours are given by the Father, although He Himself is the giver of good things, ascribing to the divine nature the giving to each according to his work, and showing that the Father wills that we be subject to the Son's commands;

for He does not lay down laws contrary to the Father.

It is to be noted, then, that he who does the things pleasing to God serves Christ;

but he who follows his own wills follows rather himself and not God.

'Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour;

but for this cause came I unto this hour.'

'Father, glorify Thy Son.'

'Now,' He says, 'is My soul troubled;

and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour—but for this cause came I unto this hour.'

Observe, then, again in these words, on the one hand the readiness of human nature to fall into disturbance and its easy inclination toward fear, and on the other hand the unbreakable and unshaken quality of the divine and ineffable power in all things, which looks only to the courage befitting itself.

and the power of the Godhead, once the passion has been stirred, immediately masters it, and at once transforms into incomparable boldness that which had been conquered by fear.

For we shall hold that in the Saviour Christ Himself the human affections were also stirred, and that for two necessary reasons.

For it was necessary—yes, necessary—that through these things too He should appear, not in seeming and supposition, but naturally and truly, a man born of a woman, bearing all human things, apart from sin alone.

Now fear and cowardice are affections natural in us, yet ones that have escaped being ranked among sins.

And besides these, the human affections were also profitably stirred in Christ, not that when stirred they might gain strength and advance further, as also happens in our case, but that, being stirred, they might be cut short by the power of the Word, the nature being transformed into some better and more divine condition in Christ as the firstfruits.

For it was in this way, and in no other, that the manner of healing was to pass over even to ourselves.

In Christ as the firstfruits the nature of man was brought back to newness of life;

and in Him we also gained the things that are above nature.

For this reason too He has been named the second Adam by the divine Scriptures.

And as He hungered and grew weary as a man, so too He receives the disturbance arising from the passion, as something human.

But He is troubled not as we are, but only so far as to be brought to a mere perception of the matter, and then again immediately leaps up to the boldness befitting Himself.

From these things it is clear that He also had a rational soul.

For as to hunger, or perhaps to fall into some other such thing, is a proper affection of the flesh, so also to be troubled through the memory of dreadful things would be an affection of the rational soul, in which alone memory enters into us through reflections.

For Christ, not yet being on the cross itself, endures the disturbance prematurely, having plainly foreseen what was to come, and being brought by reasoning to the memory of the things that would be.

For the affection of cowardice we would ascribe neither to the impassible Godhead, nor indeed to the flesh;

for the affection belongs to the reasonings of the soul, and not to the flesh.

And even if that which has an irrational soul is also disturbed and troubled, yet it is not through memory, nor by reasoning that examines beforehand what is to be, that it comes to fear; but only when it happens to be caught by the evils themselves does it then scarcely gather a perception of the present danger.

But now the Lord is troubled, not from what He sees, but from what He ponders and from what He anticipates.

But neither did Christ say, 'My flesh is troubled,' but 'My soul,' thrusting aside the suspicion of the heretics.

But if you should say that in the Old Testament it was also spoken by God to the Jews, 'My soul hateth your fasting and idleness and your feasts,' and such like things;

we shall say that He has rather made use of our customary modes of speech, on account of His condescension toward us, just as He also attributes, by a figure of speech, a face and eyes and the remaining members to the Incorporeal One.

But if we should say that it was spoken in this way after the Incarnation, then He was, after all, an image and a semblance and a shadow, and not truly a man, according to the godless Manes.

The Word of God, therefore, united to Himself the whole nature of man, that He might save the whole man.

For what has not been assumed has not been saved either.

Yet having said, 'It was troubled,' He is not silent, but transforms the passion into boldness, and all but says: 'To die is nothing;

but for this cause I permitted the flesh to be afraid, that I might transform it into boldness.

I came to set right the life of those on earth, wherefore I have also made Myself ready for suffering.'

And He asks of the Father, and fashions the form of prayer, not as one unable—He who is mighty in all things—but as a man assigning to the divine nature things greater than accord with man, not being outside of that nature when He calls upon His own Father, but knowing that through Father and Son the power and glory in every matter will come.

Nevertheless Christ, despising death and the shame arising from suffering, and regarding only the good achievements that come from suffering, and how the death of all was, as it were, already being cleared out of the way through the death of His own flesh—

seeing that the dominion of corruption would be utterly abolished, and that the nature of man was now henceforth being transformed unto newness of life, He all but says something of this kind to God the Father: 'The body, O Father, is reluctant toward suffering, and it dreads even the death that is contrary to nature; yet it also seems somehow unbearable to Him who sits enthroned with Thee and holds dominion over all, to be outraged by the reckless deeds of the Jews;

nevertheless, since I have come to this, glorify Thy Son—that is, hinder Me not as I go to death, consent with Thine Offspring for the sake of that which profits all.'

And that the Evangelist elsewhere too called the cross 'glory,' you will learn when he says, 'For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' For plainly in these words he calls being crucified 'being glorified';

for even if, around the time of the passion, He endured many outrages patiently and willingly, yet inasmuch as, being able not to suffer, He submitted willingly to the passion for our sake, this—to submit to it for the benefit of others—belongs to His surpassing compassion and to the highest glory.

And the Son came to be in glory in yet another manner also.

For through the things by which He overcame death, we knew Him to be Life and the Son of the living God.

And the Father is glorified when He is seen to have such a Son, begotten of Himself, of the same kind as He Himself is.

He is good, He is light, He is life, He is mightier than death, and He does whatsoever He wills.

For the Father did not give up the Son to death against His will, but the Son suffered willingly for the life of the world.

Therefore the Father's concurrence of will is here named for us as a bestowal of good things.

For instead of saying 'to suffer,' He spoke of 'the glory.'

And He says this also as a pattern for us:

namely, that we ought to pray not to fall into temptation, but if we do fall in, to bear it nobly and not to shrink back, and to pray to God that we may be saved.

'But glorify Thy name.'

For if it comes to pass that God is glorified through our perils, let all else be reckoned as secondary to this.

Just as death could in no other way be abolished, had not the Saviour died,

so also it is with each of the sufferings of the flesh.

For unless He had feared, our nature would not have come into freedom from fear;

unless He had grieved, it would never have been delivered from grieving;

unless He had been troubled and dismayed, it would never have come to be beyond these things.

And in each of the things that befell Him after the manner of men, you will find the same principle applying in Christ:

the passions of the flesh were set in motion, not that they might prevail, as they do in us, but that, once stirred, they might be abolished by the power of the Word who dwelt in the flesh, our nature being transformed unto the better.

'There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.'

The Evangelist did not say that the Father called out from above, but that the voice came out of heaven, lest certain heretics, from what they heard concerning the Father speaking, should attempt to say that the divine nature—the Father—is clothed about with some gross body.

For this reason He utters a harmonious voice; but how the voice was fashioned is not for us to say.

But the meaning which the interpretation of the saying signifies is this.

The Son was conspicuous through many signs, the Father working the marvels together with Him; and since the Father was His fellow-worker in all that He did, He says that He has already glorified Him, and readily promises to glorify Him yet again, through the sign that would be wrought at His death.

For inasmuch as the Son is God and of God, and life sprung forth from the life that is by nature, He raised Himself from the dead;

but inasmuch as He is conceived of as man like us, apart from sin, He is understood not to have raised Himself, but to have risen through the Father.

'Jesus answered and said unto them: This voice hath not come for My sake, but for yours.'

The Father answered His own Son, in the manner He knows, making His own will manifest for the profit of the hearers, that they might believe beyond all doubt that He is by nature Son of God the Father.

But the crowd was perplexed, being split without understanding into differing conjectures.

For they ought to have understood that it was the Father who answered, unto whom the Son had addressed His words.

...neither that it came to pass, nor that an angel had spoken; nevertheless the Son says that this voice came not for My sake, but for yours.

For He knew the will of Him who begat Him, even though nothing had been spoken, since He was and is the Wisdom and Word of the Father.

'For your sake, then,' He says, 'the voice came,

that you might receive Me as the Son of God, whom the Father knows to be by nature His own Son.'

The Lord therefore says that the voice came, yet He does not add that it was the Father's, or in what manner it came;

but He testifies that, even having heard a voice as from heaven, they nonetheless persisted in their own impiety.

'Now is the judgment of this world;

now shall the prince of this world be cast out.'

This thrice-longed-for season of the Saviour's sojourning made manifest that the judgment and sentence upon the nations was now at hand.