Commentary on John 1 part 61/94

More nakedly, that which He has said elsewhere, that is, 'He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father either' — He has rather advanced to the more favourable form of speech, leaving it to the hearers to understand from this the contrary; since indeed the occasion was one of threat rather than of exhortation, the audacious deed being at the doors, and the outrage against Him being already meditated.

For Satan had already cast his design into the heart of the betrayer.

'Even as therefore,' He says, 'one who receives him that is sent from me, if he should take him, receives me altogether, and none other;

so he that has received him that is sent from God the Father would fittingly receive the Father Himself.'

But in these words of His one might behold what is signified through the favourable expression;

yet transferring the contrary to the contemplation, one will see the impiety of the betrayer passing over not to the Son alone, but also to the Father Himself.

The saying, therefore, is a mode of threat, though put forward in more favourable words, presenting the thing signified as it were through the left hand.

For in the very manner in which one of us shall receive him that is sent from God, by assenting to the words that come from him, and by honouring the one proclaimed through keeping what has been divinely ordained;

in accordance with that same principle, I think, one would receive the Lord, and through Him the Father, by believing in the Son.

For the manifestation of the offspring runs together with that of the one who begot it.

For he that has believed Him at all to be the Son will assuredly confess Him that begot Him.

Fearful, therefore, is the judgement of the betrayer, who insulted even God the Father Himself through his impiety toward the Son.

For either he would have received and honoured Him, holding a genuine mind toward Him as toward the Lord, if with an undoubting faith he had confessed the Son to be God of God, and the wretched man had made his love toward Him mightier than shameful gains; or else, I think, having been caught as a betrayer, he would have contrived for himself the better thing, never to have come into being at all.

'When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.'

And to which of existing beings would it not be clear that our nature is well-supplied neither with thoughts nor indeed with words whereby it might perchance be able, without blame and without stumbling, to utter the things proper to the divine and ineffable nature? For this cause it is served by words suited to itself, toward a moderate exposition of things that are above the mind.

For how could one clearly express that which rises above even our very conception? It is needful, therefore, that we, receiving the grossness of human words as a kind of impress of the notions, should endeavour to advance toward the very things that are proper to the Godhead, according at least to the manner that is possible.

The divine is therefore terrible unto reproofs, and is moved with unmixed hatred of evil against those upon whom it should be fitting that this come to pass by the sentence given from Him, even though beyond reason it bears long with evil.

Whenever, then, the divine Scripture wishes to signify the movement, as it were, against the impious, again taking from the things that are with us, and making use of human words, it names it anger and wrath — although the divine substance, even after the likeness of ours, undergoes nothing of such passions, but is only moved to indignation, as it Itself knows and as is natural to It;

for the things concerning God are altogether ineffable;

but from our customary usages, as we said just now, it is the wont of the divine Scripture to describe the things that are above us.

The inspired Evangelist therefore says that here too Christ was troubled in spirit, naming the Spirit's movement of hatred against evil a 'troubling';

for it was not possible, as it seems, to speak otherwise.

It is likely, indeed, that the flesh, unable to bear the movement of the Godhead, shuddered a little and suffered the semblance of a disturbance, and displayed a sign of anger, just as also it is written concerning Lazarus, that Jesus, groaning within himself, went to the tomb.

For just as in that passage he called the fierce threat against death a 'groaning,' so also here he signified by the word 'troubling' the movement against the impious traitor.

And he was troubled, with good reason, being indignant at the perversities of Judas.

For this man, honored on equal terms with the disciples and beyond nature, and ranked among the chosen, exchanged the whole of his love for Christ for a paltry sum of silver, and eating his bread he lifted up his heel against him, reckoning as nothing neither honor, nor glory, nor the law of love, nor the reverence owed as to God, nor any other of the things done for him, but looking only to the abominable denarii of the Jews, and having sold his own soul for a mere handful of silver, and delivered up the innocent and righteous blood into the hands of the bloodthirsty.

Most reasonable, therefore, was the occasion of his being troubled.

There follows a sharp reproof, thus directed individually at the person of one of the twelve, yet encompassing them all in so most dreadful an accusation, and all but charging each of the hearers to guard his own soul, lest somehow through negligence he be caught in such terrible snares, and become sweet prey to the bitterness of the devil.

Beneficial, then, is the power of reproofs; yet the mind of the betrayer, holding it as nothing, clung to its own designs.

Most emphatically, therefore, Christ says, 'One of you shall betray me.'

For by this he either accuses the ingratitude of the one who dares it, or shows the magnitude of the devil's malice, as being so powerful as to snatch away even one of the apostles themselves.

The disciples therefore looked one upon another, doubting of whom he spoke.

Astonishment together with fear rushes upon the disciples, and they gaze at one another, travailing under a twofold turmoil from the things that were said.

For each one, as was natural, being anxious over his own soul, was in no small dread; but also for the sake of the suspicion that looked to the whole company, they received an agony no less than the other.

For they believe that what was said will assuredly be true in every way.

For they know that the word of the Savior could in no way fall empty; and reckoning it terrible and unbearable that one of those numbered among the disciples should have slipped into such impiety, they examine each one's own conscience, and search anxiously upon whom the lot of perdition will fall, and whence, or how Satan could have such strength as to steal away even one of the genuine ones.

There was reclining one of his disciples in the bosom of Jesus, whom Jesus loved.

Simon Peter therefore beckons to him to inquire who it might be of whom he speaks.

And that one, leaning back thus upon the breast of Jesus, says to him, 'Lord, who is it?' Jesus therefore answers, 'It is he to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it.'

We might reasonably marvel in this too, once more, at the holy disciples' keenness for the love of God, and their exceeding exactness in reverence.

For not being able of themselves to know anyone as culpable, and not even daring to take confidence in the deceits of conjectures, they again seek to inquire, and are urgent to learn through the one who is preeminent; and this is Peter, who by no means brought forward the inquiry through himself, but entrusts the questioning to his neighbor, who was both beloved and more radiant in purity.

And this is John, the author of the present book, who, since he says that he was beloved, concealed his own name, consigning it to silence, lest he should seem to anyone to boast.

For the mind of the saints is free from love of glory.

Gently, then, leaning toward the Teacher, he whispers secretly, and asks to learn who is the son of perdition.

But the Savior gives him no other sign of the matter than that which had long ago been proclaimed through the voice of the prophet: 'He that eats my bread has magnified his heel against me.' For having dipped it, he gives the morsel, showing thereby the one who eats his bread.

The traitor, being enrolled among the other holy disciples, who, having the same aim as the Savior and traversing the region of the Jews together with him, became keen ministers of the miracles, and were eager to do everything that made for his honor and glory,

but he, the familiar one and equal in soul, exchanged for shameful gains the grace of the One who had honored him.

Observe again how well the most wise Evangelist spurs us on to be willing to live as rationally as possible, and to train the sharpness of the understanding, so as to be able even very easily to attain to the divine contemplations, and to press on to make the discourses of the vision of God as exact as may be.

He says that he was honored and beloved by our Savior Christ in distinguished ways, so as even to recline near him, and in the very bosom of the Master, making this fact a proof of the surpassing love shown toward him.

Near to God, then, and in the foremost places as it were with him, above all others, will be those who have a pure heart, to whom the Savior himself also apportions an exceptional prize, saying that the pure in heart shall be blessed, for they shall see God. And we shall bring forward, as a demonstration that the word is truly spoken, this very most wise Evangelist himself.

For he beheld the glory of Christ, according to his own word: 'For I have beheld his glory,' he says, 'glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.' For one could not with the eyes of the body gaze upon the nature that is wholly invisible to all creation.

For no one has seen the Father, according to the Savior's word, except he who is from God; that is, the Son.

This one has seen the Father. But to those who have their mind freed from worldly stain and from vain care—I mean the care in this present life—Christ reveals his own glory through a subtle and perhaps supra-rational contemplation, showing in it also the glory of the Father.

For on account of this he said, 'He that has seen me has seen the Father.' Having then dipped the morsel, he gives it to Judas of Simon Iscariot, and after the morsel Satan entered into that man.

Most clearly did the Savior show to his own disciples the sign of the betrayer.

For having dipped it, he gave the morsel, making manifest thereby the one who ate his bread and who was about to lift up his heel against him.

The most wise Evangelist says that the leader and chief of the impiety and murder against Christ, and the contriver of it all, leapt into the heart of the traitor, and that Satan came to be wholly within him after the giving of the morsel.

And let no one again suppose that the traitor's receiving of the morsel became the cause of Satan's entering.

For we shall not come to such a measure of stupefaction; nor, unless bereft of the sense that befits us, shall we suspect that the blessing was given as an occasion of entrance to the evil one. Rather we shall say this, setting down the account concerning it not outside the truth: Since, when all love had been perfected toward him, and nothing whatever was lacking of the things that tend to honor and to good disposition, he clung to the same designs, neither correcting by repentance what he had ill resolved, nor removing his heart from the lawless counsel, nor shedding a single tear over the things he had dared even merely to conceive, but rather, thirsting yet more wickedly for the consummation of impiety, to be overcome by evil deeds of daring—then at last Satan entered, having found his heart thrown open like some gate left empty of the vigilance of a guardian, and having observed his mind to be without a door, and already heated toward willing to do whatever he might wish and devise.

That this is, as it were, a well-worn practice for the evil one, we shall find as we go, so to speak, through the whole of the God-inspired Scripture.

For he approaches at the outset, testing the heart of those who worship God, and first of all sows evil thoughts, and by pleasures leading to what is base incites us to every kind of fault.

But most heavily of all he falls upon that toward which he sees us already predisposed and already defeated beforehand.

For, as it were, he ever somehow takes up our weakness with his own crooked devices, and the passion that has already done wrong to our mind.

As, for instance, the most loathsome movement of fleshly pleasure troubles a certain man perhaps, and brings on a burning sensation;

while to another, to be overcome by the love of gains, and the procuring of unholy monies seems somehow best, and this too is held in honor.

Whenever, then, he draws near to do battle, he makes his fellow-armed ally of the passion that has already gained the mastery in us and fought first, and through it he altogether contrives for us the manner of our destruction.

For just as if one of those wont to command excellently in war, having encircled some city, and urgent by every device to enter at the weakened parts of the wall, orders the siege-engines to be brought up, knowing that he will conveniently take it from there;

in the same way, I think, does Satan, when he wishes to lay siege to a person's soul, advance toward the enfeebled part in it, thinking thus easily to overthrow it, especially when he sees that it admits no benefit through those things by which the passion was likely to be checked—such as good exhortations, the incitements to manliness, the reminders unto piety, and the mystical blessing.

For this above all nullifies the man-slaying venom of the devil.

Therefore the traitor was not shamed by the reproofs still secretly and covertly brought forward, nor even by the invincible strength of love, nor by honor and glory and grace, nor by the blessing that came from Christ;

but looking heedlessly, and as it were with unbreakable intensity, toward that one thing alone by which he had already been defeated—I mean the disease of the love of gain—he was thereafter captured entire and fell.

For he no longer has Satan as a counselor, but now makes him master and absolute lord over his whole heart, over his own mind—him who at the outset was but whispering.

For he entered into him, according to the word of the Gospel.

We must therefore be on guard, and with all our strength ward off the harms that arise from prior passions;

and we must always keep in mind him who says, 'If the spirit of the ruler rise up against you, leave not your place, for healing will lay to rest great sins.' For it is necessary that in some way, by the power of right reasonings, the spirit of the ruler be built up again within our hearts.

For if the power to hinder is in us—this at least is in us—namely, to chastise immediately the thing that has risen up, and not to permit it to take root through the concessions born of negligence, but to hasten to cut off, as it were, a beginning of bitterness, and to be willing that the mind proceed untroubled;

or rather, to know clearly that Satan, flattering little by little, will conquer, and we should suffer such a thing as the Psalmist speaks of: 'Before I was humbled I went astray.' For before we perfectly commit the sin, we transgress beforehand by the consent of our thoughts, honoring it and receiving it, and thereby giving Satan a place of entrance.

And the fate of the traitor will be a type and image of the matter.

Jesus says to him, 'What you do, do more quickly.'

But no one of those reclining knew for what purpose he said this to him.

The passage before us might perhaps seem to someone to be discordant and not very consistent with the things already said.

For 'wherefore, then,' one might say, and not off the mark, 'while reproving covertly and not openly, and turning away from the murder against him the one eager to betray him, does the Lord now appear to be whetting him toward it, and enjoin him to walk without delay toward so abominable and unholy an undertaking? And yet why was it necessary,' he says, 'to urge on to this one who was already sick from within and whetted of himself, and not rather to rein him back by admonitions unto the better, and to check him from the counsel he had set before himself?' And one might grant that the outcry over this greatly misses the fitting reasoning; yet whoever fixes his mind more keenly upon the matter set before us in contemplation will find nothing said absurdly, but rather a sharp discernment present in the words, which I shall try, as best I can, to state in brief.

And he said that Satan himself entered into the heart of the traitor, so that henceforth our Lord Jesus Christ appears to be saying 'What you do, do more quickly' rather to Satan, than truly and really to the man who through inattention had been mastered by him.

For it is as if he were plainly saying: 'Your own work, which alone you know, and which is ever dear to you to do, O Satan, do more quickly;

you killed the prophets;

for you commanded the Jews as a general unto impiety;

and then, having contrived that those who bore as ambassadors the saving word of Israel should be stoned, you spared none of those sent from God;

you displayed against them every cruelty beyond words and every excess of madness.

I therefore have come after them, granting to those still wandering to wander no more, achieving for those in darkness that they should come to be in the divine light, and bestowing on those who have slipped into your snare and become the prey of your cruelty that they should come to be outside the nets.

I have come to destroy the might of the sin that tyrannizes through you, and to show to every man who is God by nature.

But henceforth I know, and in no moderate measure, your untamed mind.

Therefore, what you are wont to dare against those who wish to accomplish such things, do now also.'

For you will in no way inflict grief by falling upon me sharp and pressing hard with great bitterness, however great the suffering may be that passes through me at the outset.

These words of the Saviour I for my part take to hint in some way at the force of the matter before us.

But why He commands that the daring deeds be hastened, come now, let us again consider.

And indeed the audacity of the impious is found to be utterly terrible, since they chose to rage against Him without restraint like drunken men;

for one had to expect tortures, and an unbearable throng of blasphemies, blows and spittings, and at the last the pitiable death upon the wood, nails and cross, vinegar and gall, and the wounds inflicted by the spear.

Why then, one may ask, does He hasten and wish that the daring deeds concerning the Passion be carried out by the devil without delay? For indeed the Jews became servants and ministers of the evils, yet we shall lay the whole upon him who marshalled them to murder and who from the beginning is the ringleader of evils.

But even though the daring deeds of the impious Jews against Christ were exceedingly dreadful, and the insolence of those who crucified Him unbearable, yet He knew the end of the suffering, and what would result from it.

For through the precious Cross the tyranny of the devil was destined to fall utterly, death too to be abolished, and the power of corruption done away; the human race was to be released from that ancient curse, and it was expected that henceforth, out of the loving-kindness and grace of our Saviour Christ, the sentence 'Dust you are, and to dust you shall return' would be rendered idle. All iniquity, according to the word of the prophet, was destined to stop its mouth, and no longer to accuse those who had come under it; and those throughout the whole world who did not truly know Him who is by nature and alone God were destined to be wholly done away, who have been justified by faith in Christ; and it was expected that thereafter the gate of Paradise would be opened.

The lowest things were destined to be joined to the highest, and the heavens to be opened, according to the word of the Saviour;

and the ranks of the holy angels to ascend and descend upon the Son of Man.

Then, tell me, when so many good things were expected, and so bright a hope was being born for us through the saving Cross,

how could it be that He who thirsted for our salvation, and for this cause became like us apart from sin, should not press eagerly to see already present the moment so thrice-longed-for? And how could it not be fitting that He who knew no evil should despise the things contrived by diabolical malice, and rather press to come to the thrice-longed-for moment of so splendid a feast? Therefore, since Satan did not know that he was warring against his own head, and was wholly ignorant that he was running toward a precipice, the Saviour, having fixed death upon the Cross, said: 'What you do, do more quickly.'

For the saying is one of threat rather than of exhortation.

One who has strength in his body sees someone coming at him at a run, and having fitted his right hand to a sharp axe, and knowing that the man will certainly die if he comes on, might cry out: 'What you do, do more quickly;

for you shall see the strength of my right hand.'

And surely no one will say that the saying belongs to one eager to die, but rather to one who foreknows that he will conquer and prevail over him who wishes to harm him.

Thus our Lord Jesus Christ bids Satan use, as it were, a swifter course toward the daring deeds against Him;

for He will show the wretch already fallen and made a laughing-stock, and the world seen free from him who of old prevailed through greed and had conquered, as by deceit, so as even to draw men away from faith in God.

But the disciples were ignorant of the force of the saying, since Christ, as was fitting, by dispensation did not reveal it to them, seeing that in other places also He appears teaching beforehand that He would be delivered into the hands of sinners, and that He would be crucified and killed, and would rise on the third day;

while charging them to speak such things to no one at all.

For His aim was to escape the notice of the ruler of this age as to who He truly is by nature, so that He might come and be crucified, and being crucified might destroy death, and might accomplish salvation for those who believe in Him.

Therefore by dispensation He hides most of what is said;

for as God He knows all things that are profitable.

But some supposed, since Judas held the money-box, that Jesus said to him: 'Buy the things we have need of for the feast.'

The disciples, not comprehending the force of the saying, run rather too readily to their customary surmises, and what it was the Saviour's habit to command, this again they think He is signifying.

For since the feast was near, they supposed that He was bidding the one who held the money-box to purchase something suitable for it, or rather to accomplish what was especially His earnest concern, that is, the things able to supply the needy, according to the measure of what was contributed.

For the Lord is good and merciful, according to what is written.

And an excellent pattern of the matter will be found for our very own selves.

For I think that those who wish to keep the feast purely and in a way pleasing to God ought not to take account of their own good cheer alone, nor to make provision only that they themselves may pass the time joyfully, but rather to weave together with their own concern also the sparing thought for the needy.

For then, indeed then, fulfilling the law of love toward one another, we shall celebrate a truly spiritual feast to Christ the Saviour.

Therefore also the law of old enjoined upon the Jews in the gathering of the manna, does not permit those who are able to do this to gather for themselves alone;

For, it says, 'Let each one gather also for those sharing your tent.' For if any of those sharing their tent had grown weak, those who had not suffered this, lending as it were their own strength to him, would gather along with their own measure also what sufficed for the others, so that, according to what is written, he who had much should have no excess, and he who had less should have no lack.

For thus it came about, as though a certain commingling had taken place, that the principle of equality was preserved for all.

Therefore he does wrong to the pattern fitting to the holy feasts, who does not mingle the need of the poor with his own concern.

For the combination would truly be a perfect feast.

'And having received the morsel, that man immediately went out.'

But there is nothing at all better in his sight than love of gain, and, what is astonishing, we shall find him profited nothing by the blessing, evidently because of the impulse hard to restrain that was in him toward money-getting.

For being already mastered by the passion, and having the father of all lawlessness whole within himself in travail, the wretch no longer even considers whither at last he is running.

As an arrow to the liver, or as a dog to its chains, not knowing that he runs for his very life. And it seems to me that the divinely-inspired Evangelist did not say without purpose that, having received the morsel, he immediately went out.

For Satan is terribly apt, in the case of those once caught and come under him, to command them at once to accomplish wicked things, and without any delay to work out what seems good to him, and to compel even the unwilling.

He fears perhaps, being ever bitter-minded and sharp toward malice, lest some repentance slipping in during the delays should prepare the man to change his mind toward some good, and, as it were, to lay aside like a drunkenness of the mind the pleasure toward sin, and should draw the one already caught out from his snare.

For this reason, I think, the sinner presses upon those who have come under him, urging them to act, and that very swiftly, in what pleases him.

And so, after the morsel, he at once forthwith compels Judas, having taken him as it were under his hand, to go on to that so impious deed, fearing, as is likely, together with repentance also the power from the blessing, lest somehow, shining forth like light in the man's heart, it should persuade him rather to choose to do good, or should engender the genuine disposition in him who had already been persuaded to betray.

For that it is ever the demon's habit to do this against us, we shall know also from the things that came to pass in type.

For Pharaoh made the Jews subject to his hand while they were still in Egypt, and having commanded that they be bitterly worn down with clay and brick-making and the compulsions of labour, he gave them no time for supplications to God.

And so to the taskmasters over the works he says: 'Let the works of these men be made heavy, and let them not concern themselves with empty words'—calling empty words the return to a free condition and the ardent longing for this, and the lament over the slavery, and the prayer over the noblest things.

For he was not ignorant that through leisure for these things they would find no small benefit.

Passing then from the types to the recognition of truer contemplations, we shall find Satan urging exceedingly that those who have fallen within his nets, and are now wholly mastered, must do wicked things in service of what pleases him.

'When therefore he had gone out, Jesus says: Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.'

'And God shall glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him.'

The betrayer goes out to serve the stratagems of the devil;

and Christ begins His discourse, teaching thereby also, as in a type, that the things fitting only for the genuine ought not to be spoken into the ears of all.

For it is not fitting to give what is holy to the dogs, according to His own word, nor yet to allow the pearls to be trampled by the feet of swine.

Therefore what He had said before, as in a kind of parable, this He attempts to teach, when the moment calls for action and a clearer demonstration.