Commentary on John 1 part 59/94

For they were about to be freed from the greedy tyranny of the devil, the holy and righteous Judge apportioning to them a most just mercy.

For I do not think we should suppose that the world was now being condemned, when the time was present for it to be justified;

but rather there will be a judgment for the world—that is, a vindication.

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

'There shall be,' He says, 'a judgment against him who has wronged the world, and not against the world which has endured the wrong.'

For indeed, as Christ Himself said: 'God sent not the Son to judge the world, but to save the world.' The limit, therefore, of the present judgment, He says, shall be the casting out of the prince of this world.

But cast out from where? Or is it not plain, from the dominion procured for him by violence, and from the kingdom that belongs to him from no rightful source?

And the word 'out' signifies the punishment and the descent into Hades.

'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself.'

Since Christ gave Himself to the Father on behalf of our salvation as an unblemished victim, and all but paid the penalties on our behalf, we were ransomed from the charges of sin.

And indeed, when the beast was taken out of the way and the tyrant was pulled down, then Christ leads to Himself the race that had gone astray, calling not only the Jews but all men to salvation through faith in Him.

For the calling through the Law was partial, but that through Christ is universal.

For Christ alone was able, as God, to procure for us all good things.

And very reverently, instead of 'to be crucified,' He says 'to be lifted up.'

For to those bent on murder He kept the mystery hidden from view;

for they were not worthy to learn it;

but to those of greater understanding He granted to perceive that He would suffer for all and on behalf of all.

Moreover, one might say, and I think very rightly, that the 'lifting up' which is understood as pertaining to renown and glory is the death upon the cross.

For Christ is glorified also on this account, having procured through it many good things for mankind;

through which He draws men to Himself,

and not, as the disciples do, does He bring them to another.

He shows therefore that He is by nature God, not thereby setting the Father outside.

For through the Son one is drawn unto the knowledge of the Father.

'But this He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die.'

And He named the cross 'death.'

'The multitude therefore answered Him: We have heard out of the Law that the Christ abideth for ever;

and how sayest Thou that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?' And they say these things, as we have said, having understood that by 'to be lifted up' He meant 'to be crucified.'

For it was their custom to signify by more auspicious names those things that looked very much toward unmixed calamities.

They attempt, therefore, to prove from Scripture that Christ was lying.

'For this,' they say, 'does not speak of the Christ as temporary, saying concerning Him: Thou art a priest for ever. How then dost Thou say that Thou art the Christ, while calling Thyself one who is to die?' But indeed, not understanding, the Jews say that He is not the Christ because of His suffering;

yet they do not say that it was written that the Christ must suffer and rise again and ascend to the Father, being about to be a minister of holy things and a high priest of our souls, when also He rose again mightier and incorruptible.

...for it foretells this not in the common and human form, but that He will also die before the life of all and will live again, having burst asunder the bonds of death; from which it is altogether well established that Christ abides for ever.

For having been shown mightier than death and corruption, He ascended to the Father.

'Jesus therefore said unto them: Yet a little while is the light among you.'

'Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness overtake you.'

And he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Inasmuch as the Jews were without understanding and without faith, Christ does not plainly set forth to them the deep mystery of the discourse,

but leaps to another point, at once expounding what is profitable for them, and showing the reason why they do not understand the things in the Scriptures, and that, if they will not believe in Him who is Light, the darkness of ignorance will wholly seize them, and they will be deprived of the good things that come from the Light.

For so far as the Scripture is concerned, they looked for the Messiah as a light;

but when He came, their hope turned out for them into the very opposite;

for darkness seized them because of their unbelief.

Therefore rouse yourselves quickly, He says, while it is yet possible for you to partake a little of the radiance of the divine light, lest the darkness of sin seize you.

And well did He say 'the darkness' after 'the light';

for the darkness walks close upon the footsteps of the light's departure.

And by saying 'the light' with the article, He revealed Himself;

for He alone is truly the Light.

While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may become sons of light.

He therefore showed faith in Himself to be the way of salvation, through which one also comes to know the Father;

and He names them sons of light, that is, either of Himself or of the Father;

for He calls the Father light, after having called Himself light, so that He might show one nature of Himself and of the Father;

and we become sons of the Father whenever, through faith in Christ, we receive the Father, who is light;

for then we also shall be called children of God.

These things spake Jesus, and departing He was hidden from them.

And He withdraws by dispensation, since the Passion was near;

showing that it was not His will to be slain by the Jews, even though of His own accord He gave Himself up to suffer, giving Himself as a ransom for our life, and He accepted death—death which is fitly likened to sorrow—and transformed the sorrow into gladness.

But though He had done so many signs before them, they believed not in Him.

Wishing to convict their boundless perversity, the Evangelist added also the words 'before them,' showing that they did not believe even in the things which they saw.

That the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled which he spake: Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this cause they could not believe;

because Isaiah had said long before: He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their heart and be converted, and I should heal them.

It was not, then, in order to fulfil the prophecies that the Jews slew the Lord;

for otherwise they would not even have been impious;

but they did it through their own malice.

For even though the prophets foretold the things that were altogether going to come to pass because of their willing evil counsel, they foretold them for this reason: that those who are watchful might leap over the pitfalls of the devil;

for it is altogether possible for those who hear also to guard themselves.

Wherefore the prediction also was necessary.

Again, the solution of another question.

That it was not God who blinded the Jews;

for otherwise He would not have demanded an account from them;

seeing that He pardons even involuntary faults.

For Isaiah utters these words as spoken by God: Should I become a man and by My own voice set before you the things that are profitable, not even so will ye hearken to Me, just as ye hearkened not to the prophets;

nor when ye see the signs that surpass reason will ye receive any benefit from the seeing.

And this is what the words 'Ye shall in no wise see' declare.

For He did not say, 'I will harden their hearts and blind their eyes,' but rather, 'Though ye hear, ye shall in no wise hear';

lest, being converted, I should heal them.

For if they had heard and seen in the way they ought, they would altogether have obtained benefit.

The word, then, does not carry the declaration of a necessary punishment, nor a sentence condemning and passing judgement against the Jews, but is a foretelling of things useful.

For He knew what kind of men they were going to become, and declared it concerning them.

Nevertheless the word does not apply against all, but only against the unbelieving;

for many of them believed.

Thus, then, the Seventy have rendered it.

And so far as the plain wording goes, he has not said that God blinded them.

But it is likely that another did this, to the end that the Jews should not be converted and obtain healing.

But if we should also accept that God blinded them, it must be understood thus: that He permitted them to suffer the blinding at the hands of the devil, since they were not good in their disposition.

For thus He delivers over to a reprobate mind and to passion those who are of like character.

And while they were such as this, it was not just that they should know the depth of the mystery and its hidden things—they who had not even kept the commandments of the Law.

Since, then, they received neither the Law nor the evangelical ordinances, closing the eye of their understanding, therefore they do not receive the instruction that is able to enlighten them.

Nevertheless even of the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue;

for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.

Now, indeed, being urged on by the signs toward believing, and no longer daring to gainsay the Lord, they fall away from eternal life by their persistence in their own abomination, having preferred the shame before men to their familiarity with God, and being slaves of transient glory, deeming it an unbearable loss to fall from the honour that comes from the Pharisees.

Since, then, this was what hindered them from believing at that time, hear what Christ says:

But Jesus cried and said: He that believeth in Me believeth not in Me, but in Him that sent Me; and he that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that sent Me.

And He cries out contrary to His custom, and the cry convicts those who had indeed believed in Him but were yet veiling their untimely shame;

for He does not wish to be honoured secretly by those who have chosen to marvel at Him, but openly.

For He deemed that faith ought indeed to be laid up in the heart, but that the most wise confession concerning it should be made with much boldness.

But since, being God by nature, He had put on our form, He declines for the present to say nakedly into the ears of those who hated Him that one must believe in Him, although He had said this many times;

and most wisely by dispensation He gradually accustoms the mind of those who were diseased against Him with untamed envy to reach toward the depth of the mysteries concerning Him—not toward a human person, but toward that of the divine essence, the Godhead being conceived wholly in the person of God the Father;

for He has in Himself the Son and the Spirit.

Most wisely does He restore them, saying: He that believeth in Me believeth not in Me, but in Him that sent Me; for He does not set Himself outside of being believed on by us as being God by nature and having shone forth from God the Father;

but skilfully, as has been said, He handles toward godliness the mind of the weak, that thou mayest understand Him to say something of this sort: When ye believe in Me, who am man for your sakes and like you, but God in Myself and by reason of the Father from whom I am, do not suppose that ye are entrusting your faith to a man.

For I am no less God by nature, even though I appear as one of you;

and I have in Myself Him who begat Me.

Since, therefore, I am of one substance with Him who begat Me, the faith will altogether pass over also unto the Father Himself.

As we have said, then, the Lord, gradually re-educating them toward the better, and usefully interweaving the human with the divinely fitting, said: He that believeth in Me, and what follows.

In the flesh, by the fact that the nature is not directed unto Himself, He has very well made it manifest;

and that He is in complete identity with God the Father, by reason of the natural resemblance and the, as it were, sameness of form of the essence, He made plain, saying:

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in the darkness.

Behold, once again he draws faith to himself, and at one and the same time accomplishes two things most profitable.

For by confessing himself to be light, he proves that he is God by nature; for it belongs to God alone by nature to be so called.

For it befits none but him who is God by nature to be called thus.

And by adding the reason for his coming, he induces to shame the one who has made light of his love toward him.

And it is surely necessary to understand that those who have not yet believed remain for the present in darkness, if indeed it belongs to those alone who have believed in him to come to be in the light which is from him.

And he leads them also to the remembrance of the many things spoken concerning him in many places, through which it was foretold that he would come to give light to the whole inhabited earth;

such as this: 'Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem;'

'for thy true light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee;' and this: 'Send forth thy light and thy truth.' It is therefore as though he said: I am the light which in the Scripture was expected to come for the salvation of the world, to enlighten those who wander in darkness as in the night.

The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

He says therefore that those who disobey him and have not received the saving faith will be self-condemned.

For he who came to enlighten came not that he might judge, but that he might save.

Let him therefore who disobeys and subjects himself to the greatest evils blame himself, as one justly punished.

For I am not the cause of this, I who wish to save those who are about to fall into judgment;

for he who lays down a law punishing the disobedient does not lay it down for the sake of punishing the transgressors, but that those who hear it, by keeping it, may be saved.

I therefore, having come to save, charge you to believe and not to despise my words, since the present time is one of salvation and not of judgment.

For in the day of judgment the word which called you to salvation will bring upon you the punishments of your disobedience.

And what was the word which I spoke? CHAPTER, THE ONE IN THE NINTH BOOK.

That, because of the identity of nature, the Son is in the Father;

and again, in turn, the Father is in the Son.

For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who sent me, he himself gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak;

and I know that his commandment is life everlasting;

whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak.

He leads the people of the Jews to the remembrance of the things proclaimed beforehand concerning him through Moses; and by these he skillfully rebukes them, and, exhibiting the impiety that is in them, plainly refutes them, showing that they have no excuse for outraging even the Law itself, which they were believed to have received as given from God.

For what did Moses say concerning Christ, which is indeed familiar to all, yet I will state it nevertheless because of the usefulness of the thought: 'A prophet shall he raise up unto them from the midst of their brethren, like unto thee;' that is, a lawgiver and a mediator between God and men;

'and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them according to all that I shall command him.'

He corrects the arrogant populace of the Jews, as fighting against God the Father himself; and through the words in which he says that he has received commandment from him and does not speak of himself, he plainly shows himself to be the prophet foretold through the Law, proclaimed aloud beforehand through the voice of God the Father from many ages past.

And he somehow calls them to remembrance, dull though they are, so that, if they should be unwilling to be persuaded by his words, they shall assuredly be subject to inescapable punishment, and shall endure the very things which God foretold.

For those who transgress the divine commandment of God the Father, and who thrust away the life-giving Word of God, our Saviour Christ, how shall they not lie in the uttermost evils, or how shall they not remain without share in the life that is from him, hearing with good reason that which is spoken through the voice of the prophet: 'O earth, earth, hear, hear the word of the Lord;'

'Behold, I bring evils upon this people, the fruit of their apostasy, because they gave no heed to my law, and my word they rejected.' For we shall find the Jews guilty of a twofold accusation;

for neither did they honour the Law, august and dear though it seemed to be, in that they did not receive him who was proclaimed through it; nor yet did they give heed to the words of our Saviour Christ, though he cried openly that he himself was plainly the prophet oracularly foretold through the Law, in the words wherein he said that he ministered the words that came from God the Father.

And let no one suppose that the Lord's saying—that of himself he does nothing, but is spoken through the Father—can in any way at all wrong him, either in respect of his very substance or in respect of his God-befitting dignity;

but let him first consider this again, and let him tell us when we ask: Would anyone suppose that the name and reality of prophecy befits him who wholly is, and is conceived by nature, as God? And yet I think that even one of the very rash would deny it, saying that it is implausible that God, who speaks in the prophets, should be called a prophet;

for he himself multiplied visions, according to that which is written, and in the hands of the prophets was he likened.

Since therefore, having taken upon himself the name and form of servitude belonging to his likeness to us, he was called prophet after our likeness, the Law necessarily invested him also with the things befitting a prophet—that is, to inquire something of the Father, and to have received commandment what he should say and what he should speak.

And in addition to this I think I ought to say this also:

the Jews, being in great prepossession concerning the Law, believing it to have been spoken by God, would not have received the words of the Saviour, who was transforming the things of old that had been ordained into a spiritual worship.

And what was the pretext for their unwillingness to receive the transformation of the types into truth? They did not know that he was God by nature, nor did they have it in mind that the Only-begotten, being the Word of the Father, had borne our flesh for our sake;

for otherwise, immediately submitting to God, changing to whatsoever it might be without delay, they would have preserved the glory befitting him.

But the wretched men supposed rather that he was one of us, and that being a mere man he had presumed so greatly as even to attempt to abolish the laws that came from God the Father.

And indeed they said to him without restraint: 'For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.' Through much and careful dispensation, therefore, our Lord Jesus, removing his hearers from the suspicion that was in them, transfers the discourse, as it were, from the bare and mere human person to him who is indisputably and confessedly worshipped—I mean God the Father—thinking that in every way he ought to conciliate the untaught heart of the Jews, and endeavouring by various means to handle the senseless so as to make them willing to learn the true things and the more fitting.

namely, that he does nothing of himself, but that commandment has been given, and that he speaks even thus, just as he heard.

And I think these things too will suffice; nevertheless I will say something further to lay bare the insolence of their unbridled tongue.

For come now, if it seems good, having briefly set aside for the present the discourse concerning the dispensation with the flesh, let us show that this saying—'that I speak not of myself, but the Father who sent me, he himself gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak'—is rightly and well said of the Only-begotten himself.

For being himself the living and self-subsistent Word of God the Father, he necessarily interprets the things that are in him, and, bringing forth into the light that which seems good, as it were in will, to his own Begetter, he says that he has received the power of a commandment;

and one might see the matter to be true even in the case of ourselves, and not otherwise.

For the uttered word, that which is in composition of terms and phrases, resounding outward through the articulate voice, our mind, as it were, commanding it, reveals the things that are in the mind—and this even if the matter comes about in no long time;

for as soon as the mind conceived something, it also set it before the voice;

and the voice, going forth outward, interprets the things in the depth, the things in the mind, transgressing in nothing the things commanded it.

What then is the strange thing, O ye men?—one might say very fittingly to them—if the Son, being the Word of God the Father, though not like ours,

for the things concerning God are greater than every example;

interprets the will of him who begot him? For does not the prophet say that a name most fitting is given him, that he is called the Angel of Great Counsel? But I think this too is clear.

In no way, therefore, in respect of the account of his substance, or of his dignity, will the Only-begotten endure any harm, even if he be said to have received commandment from God the Father;

since we ourselves also often enjoin something upon others and command them to do it, but not for this cause will they deny their natural likeness to us, nor will they cast away being of the same kind as we, becoming any the less of the same substance, both before the commandment and after the commandment.

But you will say that they remain indeed of the same substance, yet, being inferior in dignity, they serve those among us.

And to this I too say to you concerning the Only-begotten: If indeed it had not been written concerning him that, being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself, you would have had even a not implausible argument for the pretext of your contradiction;

but since the manner of his subjection and humiliation is plain, why do you recklessly reproach him who endured to suffer even this for our sake? Bringing round the discourse, therefore, on every side to the rectitude of doctrines, we say that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke by way of dispensation the things in the passage set before us.

Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own who were in this world, he loved them unto the end.

The consideration in what is set before us is rather obscure to the many, and not very clear for exposition, nor does it have a simple meaning, as one might suppose.

For with what purpose does the divine Evangelist now signify, and, as though watching over something necessary, say: 'But before the feast of the passover, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father'? And again, what is 'Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end'? Since therefore the saying has no small obscurity, I think he means to say something of this kind: that before the saving passion, though he knew, he says—the Saviour—that the time of his removal into the heavens was now at the doors, he displayed the most perfect love toward his own who were in this world.

And if it is somehow needful to conceive a broader contemplation upon what is set before us, as I said just now, I will say it also hereafter.

For the Saviour's own are all the things that have come into being through him—the rational and intellectual creatures, the powers above, and thrones, and dominions, and whatsoever is akin to these—inasmuch as it pertains to the account of being made;

he loved therefore his own who were in the world.

For he takes not hold of angels, according to the word of Paul, nor was it for the sake of the nature of angels that he, being in the form of God the Father, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but rather for our sake, who are in the world, the Lord of all emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant, called to this by love toward us.

Having loved therefore those in this world, he loved them unto the end, though even before the feast and before the passover he knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father.

For it would have belonged to one who did not love unto the end, to become man indeed, yet not to be willing also to face danger before all for the life of all; but he loved unto the end, not begging off from suffering even this, though he foreknew that he would suffer.

For the passion was not out of sight to the Saviour.

It being possible therefore, he says, to escape the drunken outrages of the Jews and the impiety of those who crucified him, he displayed the most perfect love toward his own who were in the world; for he in no way begged off from being handed over even for the life of all.

For that it is in this above all that the most perfect measure of love is to be seen, I will bring forward as witness our Lord Jesus Christ himself, saying to his holy disciples: 'This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.'

'For greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' And in another way too it has always somehow been an object of zeal to the holy evangelists to show that our Lord Jesus the Christ foreknew the time of his passion.

This was so that none of those accustomed to holding heterodox opinions might exalt themselves against His divine glory, saying that He was taken through weakness, and that, having fallen unwillingly into the snares of the Jews, He thus underwent so utterly dreadful a death.

The saying of the saints, therefore, is both providential and profitable.

'And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him;'

'knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God and went to God, He rose from supper and laid aside His garments; and took a towel and girded Himself.'

'Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.'

The Saviour utterly overturns from our minds—as the most shameful of maladies, and worthy of the uttermost abomination of all—the vice of arrogant disdain.

For 'the Lord resists the proud,' according to the word of Solomon.

It was therefore fitting above all that the holy disciples should have a moderate and humble mind, and a reasoning that took no great thought for empty honour;

for having no small occasions for being sick with such a disease, they might easily have slipped into it, had they not obtained much help.

For somehow the bitter beast of boastfulness is always fond of running upon those who possess distinction.

And then, what was more illustrious than the holy apostles? Or what more worthy of note than their friendship with God? For the passion would not enter into one who was nothing in life.

For somehow it always flees from him who has nothing to be envied, and cannot mount upon those who are reckoned among the nothing;

for how could the least measure of boasting come upon any such person at all? But one who is worthy of emulation is prone to arrogant disdain, on this account setting himself before his neighbour, and imagining without understanding that he far surpasses

the rest, as though he had accomplished some choice and most extraordinary virtue, and had traversed a path of conduct both unwonted and untrodden by others.

And should they themselves reshape their own mind according to what seems good to God? It was, then, impossible to remove the disease in any other way than by teaching them clearly to think themselves so far inferior to the rest in glory, that they ought even to be ranked in the position of a slave, not shrinking even from fulfilling the service that befits a household servant—by washing the brethren's feet, and girding themselves with a towel for the need.

For consider how servile a thing this is—I mean as regards the customs in the world and the practices outside.

It is therefore a pattern of a moderate and lowly mind for all who are in this life;

for it was not for the disciples alone.