Commentary on John 1 part 77/94

He therefore pardons them, as suffering this also out of love, and, having not seasonably chosen silence out of affection, which did not suffer them to learn the cause of his departure—although the knowing of it held great profit.

But I tell you the truth: it is profitable for you that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you.

For a burning sorrow has devoured you, he says, and a bitter grief has troubled you.

For you have judged, and with excellent good sense, that my departure from you will not be without hardship for yourselves.

For you shall assuredly fall into those trials of which I have already forewarned you, and you shall endure the savagery of the ungodliness of those who persecute you.

Therefore, reckoning that one ought always to set what is profitable ahead of what is most pleasant, I will speak to you the truth: 'It is expedient for you that I go away.'

Now all these conceptions we shall yield to Christ our Saviour, who is above us; nevertheless, I think that what has been said might not moderately trouble some of the simpler sort.

For such a one will surely reason within himself and inquire thus: if it were indeed better for Christ to depart, then His being present was not altogether free from some measure of loss;

and if what is profitable for us lies in His going up, how shall not the opposite result from His not departing? And the question will perhaps disturb some of the guileless;

yet he who is guided by the divine understanding unto an exact grasp of what is said would not, I think, ever be scandalized at all, but would rather examine the sense befitting the words.

I say, then, that before all else one must both consider and clearly know this: that, according to what is written, 'There is a time for every matter, and all things are beautiful in their season.'

The Lord, then, was present in this world in the flesh, seasonably, at the fitting times;

and again, in the due and fitting season, adjusted to the dispensations accomplished in each of these matters, He profitably ascended to the Father.

And His presence with the disciples shall by no means be wholly disparaged as not being very profitable, on account of the departure that of necessity took place afterward; nor, on the other hand, shall the profit arising from His departure be in any way at all reviled, on account of the benefit that came from His presence;

for each was profitably performed in its befitting season.

But that we may briefly unfold the sense of the contemplation and set it more perspicuously before the brethren, come, let us in cursory fashion recount in our discourse the occasion of the Only-begotten's dispensation in the flesh, and besides this the profit of His departure.

In order, therefore, that He might deliver from corruption and death the one condemned by that ancient curse, He became man, as it were implanting Himself into our nature, being by nature life.

For thus was the might of death overthrown, and the power of the corruption introduced among us was undone.

And since the divine nature is wholly free from any inclination toward sin, He bore us through His own flesh;

for in Him we all were, inasmuch as He appeared as man;

that He might mortify the members which are upon the earth—that is, the passions of the flesh—and abolish the law of sin that had tyrannized in our members; and, besides this again, that He might sanctify our nature, and be found our pattern and guide of the way unto godliness, and a pure knowledge of the truth that is according to knowledge and of an unerring manner of life.

All these things, then, having become man, Christ set aright.

It was needful, therefore, to raise up the nature of man unto the height of every good, and not only to deliver it from death and sin, but already to bring it up into the very heavens, and to display man as sharing table and dance with the angels;

and as He had, through His own resurrection, opened for us a new way to be able to escape corruption, so also to open for us the passage upward, and to set in the sight of the Father the one who had, on account of the transgression in Adam, been cast out from His presence.

For He entered, not into figures of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God on our behalf. Do you hear that, being ever in the sight and in the nature of His own Begetter, by reason of the identity of essence, He now appears not for His own sake but on our behalf? For what I have already said, this I will say again:

He sets us in the sight of the Father, being the firstfruits of humanity, having departed into the heavens.

For just as, being by nature life, He is said both to die and to rise for our sake, so also, ever beholding His own Father, and being in turn beheld by His own Father, He is now said to appear—that is, when He became man—not for His own sake but on our behalf, as man; and He appeared, therefore, as though something were still lacking to the dispensation concerning us, namely, that we too should ascend into the very heavens, as in the firstfruits and first Christ.

For as a forerunner He has ascended even into them on our behalf, as the inspired Paul also somewhere says;

and inasmuch as He is man, He is perhaps understood to be still a high priest of our souls, and an advocate and propitiation for our sins;

but inasmuch as He is God and Lord by nature, He is co-enthroned with His own Begetter; yet nonetheless the glory arising from this will pass over again even unto us ourselves.

Wherefore Paul also said concerning the Father, that He both raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. Now, when the things upon the earth had been accomplished, it was needful to fulfill what was lacking—that is, the ascent to the Father.

For this reason He says, 'It is expedient for you that I go away;

for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come unto you.'

Come now, let us devise besides these yet another thing profitable and true for our contemplations.

For all the rest of the things upon the earth had now been set aright, even as we just now assuredly affirmed;

but it was altogether needful that we should become partners and partakers of the divine nature of the Word, forsaking as it were our own life to be transformed into another, and to be re-elemented unto the newness of the life pleasing to God;

yet it was not possible to attain this in any other way, save through the fellowship and participation of the Holy Spirit.

And the most fitting and most proper season for the sending forth of the Spirit and His descent unto us was, accordingly, that which ran in seasonably thereafter, namely, that which followed upon the departure hence of Christ our Saviour.

For while He was yet present in the flesh, even with those who believed in Him, He was, I think, shown forth as the giver of every good;

but since the season and the need summoned that He should be brought back to the Father who is in the heavens, how was it not needful that He should be with those who worship Him through the Spirit, and dwell in our hearts through faith, that having Him within ourselves we might cry with boldness, 'Abba, Father,' and might go readily unto every virtue, and moreover be found mighty and invincible against the wiles of the devil and against the insurrections of men, seeing that we possess the Spirit who is powerful in all things?

For that the Spirit transfers into another disposition those in whom He may come to be and take up His dwelling, and moulds them anew unto newness of life, how could one not easily demonstrate both from the ancient and from the new Scripture? For the inspired Samuel, when he was making his words to Saul, says, 'And the Spirit of the Lord shall leap upon you, and you shall be turned into another man'; and the blessed Paul: 'But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.'

And the Lord is the Spirit. Do you see that the Spirit remoulds unto another image, as it were, those in whom He may appear as dwelling? For He easily transfers them from being willing to be minded on the things upon the earth, unto looking upon those things alone that are in the heavens, and from unmanly cowardice unto a most valiant frame of mind.

And that we shall find the disciples also to have experienced this, and to have been forged through the Spirit so as neither to grow numb before the insurrections of their persecutors, but also to cling fast with all their might to the love toward Christ, is in no way doubtful.

For that was the season of the descent of the Spirit.

'And when He is come, He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment:

concerning sin, because they believe not in Me;

concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you behold Me no more;

concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.'

Having pointed out the needful season of the descent and sending forth of the Spirit, namely, His departure to the Father, and having sufficiently thereby healed the grief that was raging in the holy disciples, He usefully also shows besides of what things the Comforter shall be the worker.

For 'when He is come,' He says, 'He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.'

And in what manner the conviction shall be with respect to each of the things mentioned, He has accurately declared;

yet since it is likely that some will not very easily engage with the contemplation, I judge that we must interpret it part by part, and set forth more clearly the force of what is signified.

First, then, is set the conviction concerning sin.

How, then, will He convict the world? For when, among those who love Christ, He comes to be as among such as are already worthy and have believed, then, precisely then, will He condemn the world—that is, the untaught and yet unbelieving, who are still mastered by the pleasure-loving ways in the world—by the very deed itself, as liable for their own sins, and as ones who will die in their own trespasses.

For God will by no means show partiality; nor will He, without reasonable cause, bestow the Spirit upon some of those on the earth while withholding it from others, but will indwell the Comforter only in the worthy, who through sincere faith have honoured Him as truly God, and have confessed Him the Maker and Lord of all.

Therefore that which the Saviour Himself had already said to the Jews—that 'unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins'—the Comforter, when He is come, will show by deeds to be true.

'And again He will convict the world,' He says, 'concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you behold Me no more;'

for He will justly bear witness together with those who have believed in Christ after His ascension into the heavens, as with those justly justified.

For they received Him as true God, whom they have in no wise beheld, yet whom they have believed to sit enthroned with His own Father.

For that Christ called those who so believe blessed, one might learn very easily by calling to mind those things which Thomas both said and did.

For while he was still in doubt concerning the Son's coming back to life, 'Unless I put,' he says, 'my hand into His side, and see the marks of the nails, I will by no means believe.' But when he had believed, having done what he wished, Christ permitting him, what words did he hear? 'Because you have seen Me, you have believed;

blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.' Justly, therefore, have those who believed even without sight been justified; but the world slipped away from attaining the like, not having welcomed the righteousness that is of faith, but of its own will having lingered fondly in its own evils.

But it is necessary to know that this pair of convictions just now spoken of by us will come to pass through the Comforter not against the Jews alone, but rather against every hard and disobedient man;

for the appellation 'the world' signifies both him who unceasingly wallows in pleasure-loving ways and does not depart from the diabolical abomination, and it signifies no less those who are scattered abroad and dwell throughout all the world.

Generic, therefore, and against all, is this double conviction that has gone forth.

For Christ has drawn in His net not Judaea alone, as at the beginning, nor the seed from Israel only, but the whole race that slipped away from Adam.

For the grace is not upon a part, but the good that is of faith has come upon the whole inhabited world.

A third conviction shall come to pass through the Comforter, according as the Saviour says—namely, the most righteous condemnation of the ruler of this world.

But how, once more, or in what manner, I will expound.

...God, but has worshipped and served that which is not by nature God—that is, Satan.

For sufficient, I think, to show that the nature of the matter is thus, is the judgment that came to pass against him.

For he would not have been condemned and made weak, nor would he have been exacted the penalties of fighting against God, cast down into Tartarus in chains of gloom, if he were by nature God, having the immovability that is in strength and glory;

but as it is, we see so great a lack in him—the being unable to preserve his own honour—so that he has even been placed under the feet of the Spirit-bearers, that is, of the faithful, who have also confessed Christ to be God.

For they trample him underfoot, both when he tempts and when he wars against them.

And when a man beholds the very swarm of unclean demons cowering in terror and being cast out through the prayer of the saints, and through the operation and power of the Holy Spirit, how shall he not with good reason declare that Satan has been condemned? For he has been condemned in that he can no longer prevail over those who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit unto righteousness and sanctification, through faith in Christ.

For tell me, how else could we have trampled down all his power, according to that which is spoken in the Psalms to every man that dwelleth in the help of the Most High: 「Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample the lion and the dragon underfoot」? Whenever, therefore, the Comforter from heaven comes to be in holy souls, and appears rightly sent to them because of their unfeigned faith, then shall He show the world to have become guilty of its own sins and to have been deprived of the grace from above, since they turn themselves away from the Redeemer.

And again He will convict him, in that he brings the charge of sin unreasonably against those who have already believed.

For they have with good reason been justified, having honoured Christ by faith, even though they did not behold Him working miracles after He had departed to God.

And I think that Paul too, conceiving some such thought, said: 「Who shall lay any charge against God's elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?」 For all iniquity has stopped its own mouth, according to the voice of the psalmist, having nothing to charge against those who have been chosen through faith and are clothed with the boast of the righteousness that comes therefrom.

And He will convict the world as gone astray, and as having set its hopes on him who is thus condemned, so that it must fall from all its ancient glory, and must be counted as vile and be reckoned as nothing in the estimation of those who worship God.

Now God has called him the ruler of this age, not as though he were truly such, nor as possessing an essential dignity—I mean the power to hold dominion—but as one who has, through deceit and greed, gained for himself the reputation attached to this, and as still holding sway and ruling among those who are led astray, because of the most wretched purpose that is in them, according to which, having bound their own mind to error, they hold the noose of captivity inescapable, though it were possible for them to slip away by their own authority, if they were translated through faith in Christ unto the knowledge of Him who is truly God.

Spurious, therefore, is the name of rule as applied to Satan—not naturally with respect to God, but preserved amid the abomination of those who go astray.

「I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.」

「But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth.」

「For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will declare unto you the things that are to come.」

Finding them already overwhelmed with the despondency that came from learning what should be, and unbearably distressed at the things expected to happen—

for 「sorrow」, He says, 「has filled your heart」—

and He did not think it right to burden them with the addition of yet other things, but buries them, as it were, in a timely silence, since these things too would in all likelihood have struck them not moderately; and He reserved what was still lacking to them for knowledge, entrusting it to the revelation and illumination through the Spirit that would come at the fitting time as need required.

And perhaps seeing them as yet still too weak for the comprehension of the mystery, because they had not yet been illumined through the Spirit, nor indeed become partakers of the divine nature—

the Evangelist adds such things as: 「because Christ was not yet glorified」; wishing altogether to intimate this, that though He still had mysteries both very profound and transcending the human mind to reveal, yet He now declined—and quite reasonably—seeing them not yet well fitted for this.

「For whenever」, He says, 「My Spirit shall have refashioned you from one condition into another, and shall have transmuted your mind, so that henceforth you both will and are able to think above the types of the Law, and to choose rather the beauty of the worship in the Spirit, and to prefer the truth above the things in shadows—

then, even then」, He says, 「you will very easily be able to understand the things concerning Me.」

For the word will then find room in you, being now readily received and expansive.

That the Lord, then, must be thought to speak these things to His own disciples, one might well conceive.

It will indeed come to the same thing, and will run together into the same sense as the things just now said, that which He said again, as in the figure of examples: 「No man rendeth a piece from a new garment and putteth it upon an old garment; neither do men put new wine into old wineskins;

otherwise, the wineskins burst and the wine is spilled; but new wine must be put into new wineskins.」 For to those who have not yet been refashioned through the Spirit unto newness of life and of knowledge together, the new instructions of the Gospel proclamations are not fitting, and the mysteries concerning the Holy Trinity are in some way beyond their capacity to contain.

Therefore, unto the renewal that is to come spiritually through the Spirit, the exposition of things still deeper is usefully reserved; for the continuing to attend to the oldness of the letter of the Law is not permitted to the mind of those who believe in Christ, but rather they are to be transformed into newness of reasonings, and into that which instills the contemplations through which it is possible to behold the beauty of the truth.

That before the resurrection of our Saviour Christ from the dead, and before they came to be in the participation of the Spirit, the disciples lived in a somewhat more Jewish manner, and clung to the polity according to the Law—even though the mystery in Christ was strictly greater—one might see, and very easily too.

And indeed the blessed Peter, though set foremost among the holy disciples, when once the Saviour was profitably explaining the passion upon the cross, and that He must be outraged by Jewish acts of insolence, cried out in answer, saying: 「Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee」—and this though the holy prophets had plainly proclaimed aloud, not only that He would suffer, but also what things and how many He would endure.

And indeed this too, besides, must be considered.

For as it is written and as we have read in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter was once hungry and wished to taste food; then, seeing the sheet let down from heaven by four corners, in which all animals were depicted—of the land, and of the water, and of the air—and a voice being brought from above, 「Rise, Peter, kill and eat」, he answered saying: 「By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.」 Wherefore he was justly reproved, hearing again: 「What God hath cleansed, call thou not common.」 And yet he ought surely to have remembered that our Saviour had often said to the Jews: 「Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man.」 See, then, how he too had need of the illumination through the Spirit.

Do you see how it was necessary to be forged anew into another condition, better and wiser than that which was in the Jews? And indeed, when, having grown rich in the grace from above and from heaven, they had 「changed their strength」, according to that which is written, and had become better than before as regards knowledge, then we heard them saying with boldness: 「But we have the mind of Christ.」 And by 「the mind」 of the Saviour they signify nothing other than the Holy Spirit that comes into them, revealing to them, according to the reasoning that befits, all things whatsoever it behoved them to know and to learn.

「When therefore He is come, that is, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you into all the truth.」

But observe how vigilant is the saying;

for He Himself is the truth.

For in order that the disciples might know that it is not the visitation of some alien and foreign power that comes upon them, but that He promises to give Himself to them in another manner, He calls the Comforter 「the Spirit of truth」, that is, His own Spirit.

For the Holy Spirit is not understood as alien to the essence of the Only-begotten, but proceeds naturally from it, being nothing other than He, so far as concerns the identity of nature, even though It may perhaps be conceived as having Its own subsistence.

「The Spirit of truth」, therefore, He says, 「will lead you unto the whole knowledge of the truth.」

For as knowing the truth accurately—of which He is also the Spirit—He will not reveal it in part to those who worship Him, but will rather implant wholly and entirely the mystery concerning it.

For even if now we know in part, as Paul says, yet, as in a small measure of knowledge, the beauty of the truth has flashed upon us whole and unimpaired.

Just as, then, no man knoweth the things of a man, according to that which is written, save the spirit of the man which is in him—in the same way, I think, or rather according to the voice of Paul, no man knoweth the things of God, save the Spirit of God which is in Him. 「When therefore He is come」, He says, 「He shall not speak anything of Himself」—that is to say, He will make you to understand and will reveal the mystery concerning the truth;

He will indeed speak absolutely nothing discordant with Me, nor will He introduce to you any strange teaching;

for He will not bring in laws that are, as it were, His own;

and since He is the Spirit and, as it were, My mind, He will assuredly speak the things that are in Me.

And the Saviour says this, not that we should conceive the Holy Spirit to be ministerial, according to the ignorance of certain persons;

but rather, wishing to assure the disciples that His Spirit is not other than He, at least according to the principle of consubstantiality, He says that It will assuredly speak and work and will these very things.

「For I have foretold」, He says, 「even though you were not able to learn all things.」

It would not, then, be possible for Him to foretell the things to come as I do, unless He wholly existed in Me and proceeded through Me, and were of the same essence with Me.

That naturally, from God and in the Son, is the Holy Spirit, both through Him and in His essence.

That naturally in the Son and in His essence is His Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, even as also in the essence of the Father.

That one might behold the Son as not lacking in the glory that befits God, even though He be found saying: 「Father, glorify Thy Son.」

That in no way will it wrong the glory of the Son that He is said to have received something from God the Father, since the matter has a pious rationale.

That the Son will not lie outside of being true God, even though He name the Father alone and true God.

That the Son was not stripped of the glory that befits God, even though He be found saying to the Father: 「And now glorify Me with the glory which I had」, and what follows.

That the saying that something has been given to the Son by the Father does not alienate Him from the dignity that befits God, but, being consubstantial and from Him, He is shown forth even if He is said to receive something.

That He will not lie outside the kingdom of Christ, even if something be said to belong to the Father;

for together with Him is the dominion over all things.

That natural in the Son is the dignity of the Godhead, even if He be said to have received this from the Father because of the human and the form of abasement.

That Christ is holy not by participation in another, nor is the sanctification through the Spirit alien to His essence.

That the Son is naturally one with His own Father God, and He Himself is in the Father, and the Father in Him, according to the essential bond and manner of unity;

both bodily and spiritually.

That according to nature the Son is one with His own Father God, even if He says that He received, as in the way of grace, the being one with the Father.

That naturally, from God and in the Son, is the Holy Spirit, both through Him and in His essence.

「He shall glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.」

Since He was about to reveal to those worthy to receive Him the mystery in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and to show forth accurately who He is according to nature, and how great is His power and authority, and that He reigns over all things together with the Father, He says necessarily that 「He shall glorify Me」.

For He raises our mind higher than Jewish notions, and does not suffer us to have so mean and grovelling an apprehension as to suppose Him to be a mere man, or one who but slightly surpasses the measure of the prophets, or even one who falls short of their renown.

For we shall find that the teachers of the Jews held such opinions concerning Him, who, not knowing the mystery of godliness, made continual blasphemies against Christ, and, setting their own folly against the things spoken by Him, at one time said: 「Who art Thou? Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead; and Thou sayest, If any man keep My word, he shall never see death;」

「whom makest Thou Thyself?」 And at another time again, reproaching the meanness of His lineage according to the flesh, and its exceeding obscurity in this respect: 「Is not this the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then doth He say, I am come down from heaven?」 Do you see in these things the wretchedness of Jewish reasonings? Since, then, the many were thus disposed, having supposed in truth that the Lord was not God because of this perishable fashion of the body, and not being afraid to hold a most lowly opinion concerning Him, the Spirit, descending upon the saints, set forth His glory in its brightest form;

and we by no means say that it persuaded them merely by wise words, but also, in the demonstration of deeds, fully assured the mind of each that He is truly God as well, and is the fruit of the essence of God the Father.

What, then, was the demonstration, or how did it make Christ glorious and illustrious? For having an operation in all things marvellous and befitting God, and implanting in the saints an accurate knowledge of all things, it procured for Him the glory.

For to the nature that alone is queen of all things one must ascribe the knowing of all things with none teaching, and the having before one's eyes, naked and laid open, and the being able to accomplish—and that quite easily—everything that it might will.

And how does He glorify? For the things which His Spirit knows and can do, how should He Himself perchance not know them, or how should He not be able? And if, as He Himself says, the Spirit takes of Him, while yet being mighty in all things and accomplishing them, how should He Himself not have that which is mighty over all things? And one must by no means suppose the Comforter, that is, the Spirit, to stand in need of the innate and natural might, as though, unless perchance He received it, He would not even suffice for Himself to be able for the effective operation of the divine accomplishments;