Commentary on John 1 part 72/94

'For to whom,' he says, 'will it not be clear that our body does not hang from the flesh of the Savior, as the branches from the vine, nor indeed is the fruit of the saints fleshly, but spiritual? Therefore,' he says, 'setting the flesh aside for the present, we shall attribute the power of the word to the very Godhead of the Son, and shall say that this is the vine from which we hang through faith.'

These things it fell to that man to babble, thrusting aside in various ways—according to what seemed good to him—the rectitude of the divine doctrines, and with much malice twisting them toward the aim he had set before himself.

...with understanding, we shall follow the doctrines of the truth.

How it may be fitting to understand the force of the passage set before us, we have already investigated not inelegantly, at least so far as is possible for us.

But we must again consider how and in what manner we ought to arm ourselves, and to strip for the contest against their arguments.

For if, passing it by in silence, no harm were to be seen from it stealing into the minds of the simpler folk, we might reasonably have counted it as nothing to be worn down with vain arguments, and swum on to the contemplation of the things set forth next.

But since it would bring no small loss if such doctrines were accepted by anyone, how is it not fitting, moved by a God-loving zeal, to enter the battle in reasonings and words? For thus the craftiness of the adversaries would be entirely easy to descry.

And come, let us first say this: that to take what is received in the rank of an example, and brought in for the likeness of the matter, in the manner of a natural investigation—that is, as a declaration of essence—is entirely foolish and out of season.

For I myself think that those who wish rightly to understand each of the things said ought to look to the aim of the passage, and to consider with much prudence what the author of the discourse has in hand as he makes his exposition.

And consider again for us from the very things set before us, whether we do not seem to you to speak most excellently.

It was not the Savior Christ's business to teach the disciples that He Himself was other in nature and the Father of a different kind; nor for this reason did He think it necessary to call the one who begot Him a vinedresser and Himself a vine.

For if this were His aim, why did He not stop the discourse at this point, bringing in nothing else at all? For He would have made the declaration of His own aim unconfused—at least according to what seems good to you—if He had only named Himself and the Father.

But as it is, having first laid down Himself as the vine, and saying that we hang after the manner of branches, and then attaching the occupation of husbandry to the Father, He would be clear and, I think, evident to all, that He signifies nothing of the sort you have supposed. Rather, through gross examples—such as fall, as it were, under the eyes of the body—He wishes to persuade His hearers that the power of all our spiritual fruit-bearing is from Him, just as indeed the quality of the branches grown upon the root comes from the root itself.

For everything good that we have in us is given, but not so with God;

for He Himself is in Himself the originating source of His own excellences, of the glory and the authority befitting Him and Him alone.

For this reason Christ is a root, as it were a vine, and we are branches.

But if He named the Father a vinedresser, do not say that He is of a different essence.

For He does not wish to signify this, as we have said, but wishing to show that the divine nature has become both root and beginning of the spiritual fruit-bearing and life within us—in addition to the good things already mentioned—bestowing it in the rank of a certain vinedresser, and bringing to those called through faith into communion with it the visitation of love.

Therefore the dissimilarity of the examples will have absolutely nothing to do with the account of the essence;

for it is not now the Savior Christ's purpose to say anything about this, but the manner of the teaching has another aim.

But since the senseless one, out of the ill counsel that is in him, wishes to say things that are not right, and says that no argument will permit us—dragging, as it were, the aim of the passage from its straight course—to turn it toward the incarnation of Christ,

'for we were not joined to Him according to the body, nor did the apostles abide as branches, as it were, in the body of Christ, nor indeed were they joined to Him according to this account, but by disposition and sincere faith'—come, let us say something brief also to these things, showing him to be everywhere raving and not walking straight with the sacred writings.

For that we are spiritually united to Christ by a disposition conceived according to perfect love, by right and undistorted faith, and by a virtue-loving and sincere mind—this the account of our doctrines will in no way deny;

for we shall agree that indeed they say this quite rightly.

But as for being so bold as to say that there is for us no account of a union with Him according to the flesh—this we shall show to be wholly discordant with the God-inspired Scriptures.

For how could it be disputable, or who at all among those accustomed to think well would ever doubt, that in this respect Christ is a vine,

and we, taking the form of branches, receive into ourselves the life that is from Him and out of Him?—and this though Paul says: 'For we, being many, are one body in Christ, because we the many are one bread;'

'for we all partake of the one bread.' For let someone tell us the reason, and let him come forward and teach the power of the mystical blessing.

For why does it come to be in us? Is it not because it settles Christ within us also bodily, by the partaking and communion of His holy flesh? But I think I speak rightly.

For Paul writes that the Gentiles have become fellow-members of the body, fellow-partakers, and fellow-heirs of Christ.

In what manner, then, were they declared to be of the same body? For, having been deemed worthy to partake of the mystical blessing, they became one body with Him, just as indeed did each of the holy apostles.

Otherwise, for what reason did he name his own members—or rather the members of all—as members of Christ? For he writes thus: 'Do you not know that your members are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God forbid!' And the Savior Himself says: 'He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.' For in this above all it is worth observing that Christ says He will be in us not according to some mere relation conceived in disposition, but also according to a natural participation.

For just as if someone, intertwining wax with another wax and melting them together by fire, makes one thing out of both, so through the partaking of the body of Christ and of His precious blood, He is united in us, and we again in turn in Him.

For that which is by nature subject to corruption could not otherwise be made alive, unless it were bodily interwoven with the body of the Life that is by nature, that is, of the Only-begotten.

And if you are not persuaded by my words, grant your faith to Christ Himself, who cries out: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.'

'He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.' Do you now at last hear Him clearly declaring that, unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we do not have eternal life in ourselves, that is, in our own flesh? And the eternal life might very justly be understood as the flesh of the Life, that is, of the Only-begotten.

And this raises us up on the last day; how or in what manner, you shall surely hear in every case, and I will not shrink from telling.

For since it became the flesh of the Life—that is, of the Word who shone forth from God and the Father—it passed over into the power of Life, and it is among things impossible that Life should be conquered by death.

Therefore, since Life has come to be in us, it will not endure the bonds of death, but will altogether conquer corruption, since it does not know how to submit to the things that come from corruption.

For corruption does not inherit incorruption, according to the voice of Paul.

For even though Christ most emphatically says, 'I will raise him up,' He did not attribute to His own flesh alone the power to raise up those who have fallen asleep; but the God-Word who is in it, being one with His own flesh, says 'I'—and very rightly.

For Christ is not divided into a duality of sons, nor would anyone suppose His body to be foreign to the Only-begotten, just as, indeed, no one, I think, would call the body foreign to our own soul.

Since, then, through these considerations also it has been made evident to us that in this respect Christ is a vine and we branches—seeing that we hold to communion with Him not only spiritual but also bodily—

why does he vainly babble against us, saying that, since we hang from communion with Him not bodily but rather by faith and by the disposition of the love according to the law, He therefore named as the vine not His own flesh but rather the Godhead?

And yet why ever, one might say, do you abandon the more fitting and more proper manner suited to these considerations, and hasten toward what is greatly disjoined? For is it not more fitting, even according to the communion of the flesh, that we should grant Jesus to be a vine and ourselves branches, on account of kinship of nature? For the things that come from the vine are of the same nature as the vine.

And we say these things, not attempting to do away with the fact that we can be united to Christ through right faith and sincere love, but rather demonstrating that both spiritually and bodily Christ is a vine and we are branches.

But indeed the word of truth is simple and transparent, whereas the adversary craftily refuses to confess that Christ was a vine also bodily, inasmuch as He bestows His own life upon the branches, that is, upon us,

just as the perceptible and earthly vine does for the branches that have grown upon it; and he twists and forces the power of the meaning onto His Godhead alone.

For he supposed that he could thus again slander it, ignorantly putting forward that argument: 'For if the Son,' he says, 'is a vine, and the Father a vinedresser, and if the vinedresser again is of another nature as regards the vine, then the Son will not be consubstantial with the Father.'

And he thinks that he is fortifying against the doctrines of the Church some deep and bitter and hardly-refutable proposition; but he will be caught here too, no less driveling.

For first, maintaining that the Son is of a different nature and placing Him outside the essence of the one who begot Him, how could he still call God Father, and the Son a Son at all? For if he says that the Son was not begotten—that is, did not come forth from the essence of the Father, just as also among men the offspring come from them—how could He be in truth a Son? And then, how will he set aside the blessed John, who says: 'He who denies the Son will deny the Father also;

he who confesses the Son confesses the Father also'? And the word is true;

for in the one the other is altogether both taken away together and subsists together.

For there could be no father if there were no son, nor could a son ever be conceived without the one who begot him being altogether conceived together with him.

If, then, he denies the Son,

for he asserts that the Son is of a different kind,

he has thereby denied the Father Himself as well.

What, then, most excellent sir, will you say to these things? In whom, henceforth, is our faith to rest? Where is the glory of the Holy Trinity? For that Nature which reigns over all things is undone and gone from us, that Nature which the Holy Scripture had signified to us in but bare words.

For their derangement and false mythmaking compels us to proceed even by way of such most jarring arguments.

But perhaps, dreading the magnitude of such blasphemy, he says that the Son is indeed of another kind, yet that He was begotten of God the Father.

But we shall in turn demand that he tell us: In what sense does he grant and confess that the Son was begotten? For if he means it as one of the creatures, according to a relation such as exists in love and according to will—

for all things are said to be from God—

then by these same words he will arrive at nothing less than blasphemies.

But if he calls the begetting true, and firmly maintains that the Son is of another origin, and still, even after this, calls Him of a different kind, he will assuredly commit impiety against the very One who begot Him.

For that which even the nature of created things itself has refused to suffer, this he would in every way represent God as having undergone.

For does not that which has been truly begotten of something according to nature manifestly appear to be consubstantial with the one who begot it? And how is this not evident to all? Therefore the creation proceeds according to the fitting principle;

but we shall find that God alone has suffered the contrary, if indeed He has begotten the Son as of another kind and not out of His own nature.

Now it would have been fitting that our opponent should wish to say nothing further to these things; but since he does not depart from his inherent perversity of counsel, and supposes that the Son who is from God the Father is of another kind, we, being advocates of the doctrines of truth, will not yield.

For we shall show that God the Father calls Himself of the same kind as the creation;

and how and from where, you may now hear again.

He plainly insists and declares that He is a vine—not the flesh rather, but that the very Godhead of the Only-begotten has been so named.

one holding but a spurious dignity that lies in bare titles.

For if he says that the Only-begotten is not God by nature, let him accept the Only-begotten Himself as a witness concerning Himself, who says, 'I am the truth.' For truth, in the one and only sense, does not admit of the spurious and falsely-named.

Let him accept upon this point also the most wise John himself, who plainly cries aloud and says, 'And we are in the true God, in Jesus Christ;

this is the true God and eternal life.' But if perhaps he blushes even at this, and, laying aside his contention, will confess the Son to be true God, we shall proceed to no other place, but will use the very words spoken by him to overturn what he says: Is not the vinedresser of another kind from the vine? For the one is a man, but the other is wood.

In this way the vine would rightly and truly be understood as of the same nature with its own branches. But I think, indeed, that no one would be willing to descend to such folly as to dare to deny what is so manifest.

Since, therefore, being true God, He is consubstantial with Him who is true God by nature—that is, with the Father—and He is the vine, while we are the branches, evidently for this reason of the same nature with the vine, how shall we not, then, also ourselves be gods by nature, having as it were laid aside our own nature? But to think thus belongs to those who have come to the utmost extremity of impious evils.

For we have been made, but the Son is God by nature.

How, then, shall this be? And how is that which is said of Him true, if indeed the branches are of the same nature with the vine? For it is necessary either that we ourselves also be raised up into the nature of the true Godhead, or else that that Nature be brought down to us.

For the branches are of the same nature with the vine.

And since the Son evidently says, 'I and the Father are one,' we too shall ascend together with Him into a likeness in every respect whatsoever to the Father; or else the Father Himself will be dragged down together with the Son, who is of the same nature with us, into a likeness to us.

See, then, how great a tumult of blasphemies arises for us from this.

For this reason, therefore, we shall rather follow the reasonings that are from the truth, believing that the Son spoke by way of an illustration when He said, 'I am the vine, you are the branches, my Father is the vinedresser.'

'Every branch in me that bears not fruit, He takes it away;

and every one that bears fruit, He cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit.'

Our adhesion to Christ is a matter of habit, and it possesses the power of the union by way of deliberate choice, being brought to perfection by love and faith.

And faith is settled in our souls, furnishing the pure manifestation of the knowledge of God;

while the mode of love demands the keeping of the commandment that has been defined for us by Him.

For thus somehow He too, pointing out the one who loves, said, 'He who loves me will keep my commandments.'

One must know, then, that if, being united to Him through faith and practicing the form of adhesion in bare and mere confessions, we do not, however, also tighten the bond of union by deeds proceeding from love, we shall indeed be branches, yet dead and fruitless ones.

For faith apart from works is dead, according to the voice of the holy one.

If, therefore, one be seen to be, and actually be, a branch after this manner—hanging, so to speak, in vain from the trunks of the vine—let him know assuredly that he will encounter the pruning-knife of the vinedresser.

For He will assuredly cut it off, and will give it, like worthless refuse, to be consumed by the fire;

for this is the judgment of the fruitless.

Just as, I think, also in the case of the fig tree that was taken up in the form of a parable, the master of the field says to the husbandman, 'Cut it down; why does it also cumber the ground?' So here too I suppose that the God and Father of all reaps away the barren and unfruitful throng of the branches, which hangs upon the spiritual vine for none of the useful purposes.

And I myself think that the Caretaker of our souls—that is, God—wishes to show through the parable in these words what kind and how great a harm the soul endures which has been cut off from communion with Him.

And indeed through the prophet Ezekiel again, interpreting this very thing most plainly, He said: 'Son of man, what would the wood of the vine become out of all the woods that are among the trees of the forest? Shall they take wood from it to make it fit for work? Or to hang upon it any vessel? The fire consumes its yearly cleansing, and it fails utterly; shall it be useful for work?' Understand, then, that which has once been cut off and wholly torn away is altogether useless and no longer able to be taken up for any of the necessary purposes, but is fit perhaps only for fire.

Is it not, then, quite manifest that even if we should become a branch, having been torn away from the error of polytheism and having confessed the faith in Christ, yet should we become deserted through the failure of adhesion in works, we shall assuredly undergo the lot of the worthless branches? And what remains? For we shall be wholly cut off, we shall be given over even to fire, and we shall besides cast away the life-giving sap which we once had from the vine—that is, the Spirit.

For what Christ said concerning the one who buried his talent, this one might behold fulfilled also in those who have wholly endured the cutting off.

For just as the talent is taken away from that man, so too, I think, from the branch also—by way of a certain sap or, as it were, quality—the Spirit is taken away.

And on account of what cause is it taken away? So that the Lordly Spirit may not seem to be condemned together by the Judge with those who are about to depart into the fire.

For if those who hold sway over earthly affairs do not lightly pass sentence against things that have once been honored and glorified by royal decrees, but even if someone should perhaps be caught in matters for which he might reasonably pay the penalty, he would not suffer this before the stripping away of his dignities;

how is it not necessary that the soul which has been condemned to undergo punishment by the sentence from above should first, in a certain manner, lay aside and strip off the grace of the Spirit from the experience of evils? He says, then, that the fruitless branch will suffer such things, thereby very well securing our minds so as to love to cling to the love toward Him, both through active virtue and, evidently, through unimpaired faith.

But He says that the fruit-bearing branch will not be wholly untried by the vinedresser's care, for it shall be thoroughly cleansed so as to be able to bear fruit even more abundantly.

For with those who have altogether chosen to live in the best way and as befits nobility, and have determined to do good as much as possible and to walk through every God-loving manner of life, God works together, using the energy of the Spirit as a kind of pruning-knife, and cutting away in them—at one time the pleasures which ever call toward love of the flesh and bodily passions, and at another time again all those things which He knows befall the souls of men, staining the mind through the manifold forms of evils.

For we say that this is the circumcision not made with hands and understood in the Spirit, concerning which Paul at one time says: 'For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter;

whose praise is not from men but from God.' And at another time again: 'In whom also, having believed, you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.' And they say to some concerning these things, that if any cleansing should come to pass for the branches of the spiritual vine, it will not, I think, take place without pain; for the wood grieves as much, and in such manner, as it knows how to grieve.

Analogously, then, it would be fitting for us to understand also in the case of the saints; and we shall assent and agree, having considered the matter very well.

For our virtue-loving God instructs us through pain and affliction.

And indeed the prophet Isaiah says to us: 'When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the sons and of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood from their midst, by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.' And besides this, the divine Paul himself: 'If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons;

for what father chastens not?' Moreover, even the choir of saints, which is beyond all wonder, does not shake off the instruction that comes by means of the holy natures, but rather most gladly receives it, saying: 'Chastise us, O Lord, yet in judgment and not in wrath, lest You make us few.' For in wrath will be the entire cutting off of the fruitless branches, since He sends them into punishment;

but in judgment rather—that is, in discernment and measure—is the thorough cleansing of the fruit-bearing branches, having but very little pain as an incitement to fruitfulness and as an occasion thence of a more flourishing recovery.

And indeed, accepting this, some cry out: 'Lord, in small affliction was Your chastening to us.' For the affliction of being thoroughly cleansed is exceedingly small, yet, furnishing us with the chastening from above, it renders us blessed.

For such a one would in no way come to be among those under judgment and punishment, since he has not become a fruitless branch.

Let there be yoked together, therefore, with the confession of faith also the warmth that comes through works, and let deeds run alongside the words concerning God.

For then, then, shall we be together with Christ, and shall find the power of communion with Him secure and firm, escaping the danger that comes from the cutting off.

Now these things have been said by us at this point, since it seemed good to apply ourselves spiritually to the contemplation of the matters set before us;

but it is likely, indeed, that the Lord wishes to intimate also something else by plainly saying: 'Every branch in me that bears not fruit, He takes it away, and every one that bears fruit He cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit.'

For I think that the branch which has been torn away from the communion with Christ by the Father's severing signifies the people of the Jews, unfit for good fruit-bearing, upon whom the thrice-blessed John says an axe will be laid, saying that the tree which is cut off will be given over to fire;

but those which have not needed a complete cutting away, but which remain in the vine and are about to be thoroughly cleansed by the divine care, signify both those of the Jews who have believed from among them, and those from the Gentiles who turn to Him after them—for whom the cleansing is one;

for it is accomplished in the Holy Spirit, according to the Scriptures;

yet the manner of the cleansing is of another sort and different.

For from those of Israel there is cut away the will to go on living and conducting themselves according to the Law of Moses; while from the heart of the idolaters the aim of the ancient deceit is taken away, and the refuse of the uncleanness of senseless customs, so that they may be able to bear the fruit of the divine and evangelical instruction—a fruit edible, as it were, and truly dear to God.

And that what has been said again appears to us to be true, it is nothing difficult to bring full assurance from the divine writings themselves.

For the divinely-inspired Paul writes to those of the Jews who had believed, at the time when, making light of the evangelical doctrines, they went back again to honouring the shadows of the Law: 'Ye are estranged from Christ, whosoever of you are justified by the Law; ye are fallen from grace'; and again, 'For I say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.' But if the wish to be justified according to the Law declares them to be strangers to Christ, how is it not altogether beyond dispute that the laying aside of the manner of life prescribed by the Law procures the power of union with Christ? Thus, then, is Israel circumcised; and rather is he too who once served the creature more than the Creator further cleansed, casting off his ancient disease.

'the weak and beggarly elements of the world, whereunto ye desire again anew to be in bondage?' Since, then, those who desire to serve the weak elements are estranged from Christ, whereas those who refuse to serve the creature more than the Creator are united to Him, how shall it not be among things acknowledged that the manner of the cleansing away of the ancient deception for those from among the Gentiles will be, through the Spirit, a most profitable excision, bringing in to us in return every kind of good in manifold ways?

For in the laying aside and casting off of base things, the beauty of virtue is admitted in their stead.

For where shamefulness is put out of the way, there dignity rises up and appears.

But it is to be noted that the circumcision is through the Spirit, fulfilling in us the need of cleansing, while the Bestower of the Spirit is the Son; for 'of His fulness have all we received,' according to the voice of John, and it is He who said to us, 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit.' Therefore the Father, through the Son, works the cleansing within us, as in the manner of the circumcision understood to be through the Spirit.

Emptied out, then, is the bitter and unholy audacity of the adversaries, who did not shrink from saying that, since the Son called Himself a vine and the Father God the husbandman, the same Son will not be of like nature with Him.

For no argument, they say, will permit that one and the same be conceived at any time as both husbandman and vine in respect of substance.

When, therefore, the Son is found to be a husbandman through the circumcision in the Spirit, let them henceforth be so disposed as to see that, since husbandmen are of the same kind with one another, inasmuch as they are by nature men, it is plain that the Son is not a stranger to consubstantiality with the Father and God.

'Now ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you.'

As it were a manifest and indisputable proof of the art of Him who cleanses them, He makes His disciples.

For He says that they have already been thoroughly cleansed, not having enjoyed any other thing, but solely because of the word spoken to them, that is, the divine and evangelical instruction.

And this word is from Christ.