Commentary on John 1 part 89/94

Christ therefore carries not the cross proper to Himself, but the one hanging over us and owed by us, so far as concerns the condemnation through the law.

For just as He became among the dead, not for His own sake but for ours, that He might be found for us the Author of life eternal, having through Himself destroyed the power of death, so also He takes upon Himself the cross proper to us, condemning in Himself the condemnation from the law, that thereafter all iniquity may stop its mouth, according to what is sung in the Psalms—since He who has no sin was condemned on behalf of the sin of all.

And what was accomplished in Christ will greatly benefit our souls, as a pattern, I mean, of the courage that is according to godliness.

For it will, I think, in no other way be possible for us to attain the perfection of good things, and the wholly complete union with God, unless we make our love toward Him better than the earthly life, and are most eagerly willing to face danger for the truth's sake, when the occasion calls us to this.

And indeed our Lord Jesus Christ says: 'Everyone who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.' And to take up the cross, I think, signifies nothing else than to renounce the world for God's sake, and to make even life in the body, should that be one's lot, secondary to the good things held in hope.

But our Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to carry the cross proper to us, suffering this too because of His love toward us;

whereas we wretched men—though we have as our mother this earth beneath our feet, which is without feeling, and though we were called from nothingness into being—sometimes do not even dare so much as to touch the sweat of toil for godliness; but even if anything should happen to be suffered for the piety toward Christ, we straightway make the shame unbearable, and, as though it were some deadly thing, we shrink from the laughter of adversaries, that is, of those accustomed to be fond of censure. Setting behind this little and temporary love of glory what seems good to God, we are sick with contempt—the mother, so to speak, of all evils—and we fall into the accusations that follow from it.

As slaves we think and act above our Lord, and as disciples above our Teacher.

But alas for such dreadful weakness, lying, I know not how, at our very feet, and making the mind miss its aim in the pursuit of what is fitting!

And one should know that the inspired Peter also once found the prediction unbearable, when our Saviour Christ foretold beforehand the sufferings on the cross;

for the Lord said: 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners, and they shall crucify Him and kill Him'; but Peter, not yet understanding the mystery of the divine economy—being one who loved God and loved his Teacher, and moved out of reverence—said: 'Be it far from You, Lord; this shall never be to You.' And what does Christ say to this? 'Get behind Me, Satan; you are a stumbling-block to Me, for you do not mind the things of God but the things of men.' And from this it is possible for us to gather no small benefit;

for we shall know that, when the occasion calls to a display of the courage that is according to God, and for those entering upon the contests on behalf of virtue, it is necessary to endure suffering; but even if those who greatly honour and love us should hinder us from doing any of the things that lead to the accomplishment of virtue—putting forward, it may be, the ill-repute among men, or having in mind something worldly—no heed is to be paid to them at all.

For they in no way differ from Satan, whose delight, well-worn and habitual, is to set snares, and by certain deceits and words sometimes soft to drag away from the pursuit of what is profitable the one who has been roused to it out of a God-loving mind.

And it seems to me that Christ wishes to make plain something of this sort when He says: 'If therefore your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you.' For that which does harm is no longer one's own, even if it be bound to us by the bond of love unto unity, even if nature bestows upon it the claim of kinship toward us.

And a pair of robbers was crucified together with Christ, the malice of the Jews devising this too.

For, showing the death of the Saviour to be, as it were, most dishonourable, they condemn the just one together with the lawless.

And the condemned men attached to the Saviour would be a sign of the two peoples very soon to be joined to Him—I mean, that from Israel and that from the nations.

But why is the type of such men one of condemnation? For the law showed the Jews to be condemned, since they were guilty of transgressions; and error [showed] the Greeks;

for they served the creation instead of the Creator.

And in another way, too, those who cleave to Christ are altogether crucified together with Him;

for enduring, as it were, the death that comes from the old manner of life, they are transformed into a new and evangelical life.

And indeed Paul said: 'And they who are of Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts'; and again, as in his own case, concerning all: 'For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.' And he writes also to certain ones: 'If therefore you died from the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to ordinances?' For the death of a worldly manner of life leads to the beginnings of the polity and life that is in Christ.

And it in no way harms the force of the image that those crucified together were evildoers;

for we were by nature children of wrath before faith in Christ, and all liable to death, just as we said at the beginning.

'And Pilate also wrote a title and put it upon the cross;'

[the Jews] having fallen away from their own dominion.

For even if the Saviour did not Himself affix the title, but rather the fellow-worker and servant of the madness of the Jews, nevertheless, inasmuch as He permitted this also to come to pass, it is recorded as though He Himself had wrought it.

And He triumphed over the principalities in it.

For it was set forth for those willing to read it, signifying the One who suffered on our behalf, and who gave His own soul as a ransom in exchange for the life of all.

For all of us who dwell upon the earth have fallen within the very nets of sin;

for all have turned aside, they have together become unprofitable, according to that which is written;

having become liable to the accusations of the devil, we passed our life in gloom and joylessness;

and he held against us a bond, namely the curse hanging over transgressors from the divine Law, and the sentence pronounced against him who slipped away from that ancient commandment, a sentence which, after his likeness, came upon the whole race, inasmuch as by all men that which seemed good to God was set at nought.

For surely God was not grieved when Adam fell, and yet no longer such toward those after him who dishonoured what seemed good to their Creator; rather, as in the case of the one man, so upon all was extended the Law that hangs over those who offend.

We were therefore accursed and condemned by the divine sentence, both because of the transgression in Adam and because of the Law appointed after him;

but this bond against us the Saviour blotted out, nailing the title to His own cross, which very plainly signified the death upon the tree that He endured on behalf of the life of those who had been condemned.

For He paid on our behalf the penalties due for our crimes.

For though the one who suffered was but one, yet He was above all creation, as God, and more worthy than the life of all men.

Therefore, as the Psalmist also says, all iniquity stopped its mouth, and in a manner the tongue of sin was made powerless, having no more the power to reckon up the sins of those who had sinned.

For we have been justified, since Christ paid on our behalf our debts;

for by His stripes we were healed, according to that which is written.

And just as through the tree the evil from our fall was contrived against us, so again through a tree came about the return to that which we were in the beginning, and the thrice-longed-for recovery of the heavenly goods, when Christ, as it were, summed up in Himself for our sake the very beginning of the malady.

This title, then, many of the Jews read, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city;

and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.

One might say that very skilfully, and again by a certain divine and ineffable dispensation, the title was set up bearing a threefold inscription, in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek;

for it stood forth plainly confessing the kingdom of our Saviour through the three languages that were then the most illustrious of all, and offering, as it were, a kind of firstfruits to the Crucified of the prophecy spoken concerning Him.

And in another way also it was an accuser of the Jews' lack of love for God, all but crying out openly to those who ran together to read it, that they had crucified their own King and Lord, having utterly disregarded love toward Him, and having fallen, wretched men, into the uttermost insensibility of all.

The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate: Do not write, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the Jews.

Pilate answered: What I have written, I have written.

The teachers of the Jews are intolerably vexed at the inscription upon the title, and a bitter envy rushed in upon them.

They say that He never at any time accepted such a thing, but rather made use of such a word, being ignorant even of this—out of the exceedingly great foolishness that is in them—that the nature of truth could never speak falsehood;

He is therefore indeed King of the Jews, if He is thus convicted of having so called Himself, even as they themselves confirm this by their own utterance.

But Pilate shakes off those who wished to demand that the inscription be altered, not consenting to injure the glory of our Saviour to the very end, plainly by a divine and ineffable prompting.

For the kingdom of Christ is firmly fixed and free from all calumny, even though the Jews should be unwilling, attempting to falsify the confession of the glory that belongs to Him.

The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the coat.

Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.

They said therefore to one another: Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be;

the soldiers therefore did these things.

For it is in some sort a custom with those who inflict punishment to have the least compassion upon the miseries of the condemned, and at times to carry out what is commanded more harshly than is fitting, and to play the man over the calamities of those who suffer, and, as though a certain lot had fallen to them by a necessary and lawful reckoning, to make the appropriation of the garments their own.

Having therefore divided the plunder into four parts, they keep the one whole and undivided;

for it did not seem good to them to tear apart that which they would not thereby render wholly useless;

they therefore made it a gift to be assigned by lot.

For surely no one of sound mind will suppose that the Saviour Himself would have endured, according to the senselessness of the Jews, to strain out the gnat—that is, to foretell the slight and most trifling of sufferings, so as even to make mention of the distribution of the garments—yet to swallow the camel—that is, to count as of no great account the great and surpassing acts of daring toward impiety; but He foretold these things also along with those;

first, that we might know that, being God by nature,

He was ignorant of nothing of the things that were to come to pass; and then, besides this, that we might believe that He is truly the One foretold, being led toward the knowledge of the truth by the many things that were accomplished concerning Him.

But if it is needful once more to say something also, upon careful consideration, concerning the distribution of the garments—something which will bring no harm at all, but will perhaps profit those who read—I will say this too.

Having divided the Saviour's garments into four parts, they keep the one undivided, the ineffable wisdom of the Only-begotten so ordering it, as if even through this there were a sign of a mystical dispensation, through which the four parts of the world were to be brought to salvation.

For the four parts of the world shared among themselves, as it were, and yet indivisibly possess the truly holy vesture of the Word, that is, His body.

For being parcelled out among individuals, and sanctifying the soul of each together with the body through His own flesh, the Only-begotten is nevertheless wholly and indivisibly one, present entire everywhere in all;

for He is in no way divided, according to the word of Paul.

Such a power of the mystery concerning Him the shadow of the Law also records for us.

One lamb, but rather according to households and according to number;

for each one, it says, shall take with him his neighbour and the one near to him.

And He commanded the lamb to be divided in this way among many, but, lest again, when the flesh had been carried from house to house, it should for this reason seem in a manner to be divided, He further enjoins, saying: In one house shall it be eaten;

you shall not carry any of its flesh outside. For observe how, just as I said just now, in types and shadows also the Scripture has preserved for it both the being divided among many—whoever they might happen to be in each several house—and yet again, most providently, the not seeming to be divided, but being found perfectly and wholly as one in all, at once dividedly and indivisibly.

Some such thing, then, you will understand also concerning His garments;

for these were distributed into four parts, but the coat remained undistributed.

And it grieves nothing to add this also: that if anyone should choose, as far as the power of contemplation goes, to turn the coat, woven from the top and without seam, into a signification of the holy body of Christ—because it came to be apart from union and, as it were, from any conjunction of man and woman, but was woven by the operation of the Spirit and by the power from on high into the form befitting Him—let this too be accepted.

For the fruits of contemplation, bringing no harm at all against the necessary things, but rather travailing to bring forth that whereby one might perhaps be profited—how is it not ignorant not to shake them off, or rather how is it not fitting to praise them, being as they are the discoveries of an excellent understanding? Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

But what shall we say once more concerning this? For I will set it forth.

He brings in as standing by the cross both His mother and, together with her, the others—weeping, it is plain.

For the race of women is somehow ever prone to tears, and very greatly inclined to lamentations, especially when they have rich occasions for the shedding of tears.

What, then, was it that persuaded the blessed Evangelist to enter into such detail, as even to make mention of the women's remaining there? For his aim was to teach this also, that even the Lord's mother herself, as was likely, was scandalized by the suffering that unexpectedly befell, and was almost driven out of fitting reason, exceedingly bitter as was the death upon the cross;

and in addition to this, the mockeries of the Jews, and the soldiers, too, sitting perhaps close by the cross and jeering at Him who hung upon it, and daring, in the very sight of His mother, the division of the garments.

For do not doubt that she admitted some such thoughts: I gave birth to Him who is mocked upon the tree;

but though He said that He was the true Son of God who rules over all, perhaps He was somehow mistaken, He was deceived, as it seems, in saying, I am the Life; how then was He crucified? In what manner was He caught in the snares of the murderers? How has He not prevailed over the plotting of His persecutors? How does He not come down from the cross, though He commanded Lazarus to run back to life, and astounded all Judaea with His wonders? And it is very likely indeed that the woman, not knowing the mystery, slipped into some such reasonings;

for we must rightly consider that the nature of things that befall is terrible in its power to overthrow even the sober mind.

And it is no wonder if a woman somehow slipped into this;

for if even Peter himself, the foremost of the holy disciples, was once scandalized, when Christ was saying and plainly teaching that He must be delivered into the hands of sinners, and endure the cross and death, so that he cried out too rashly, Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall never be unto Thee—what is strange if the tender mind of the woman was carried away toward weaker thoughts? And we say these things not idly conjecturing, as someone might suppose, but proceeding to our surmise from what is written concerning the Lord's mother.

And a sword shall pass through your own soul also;

that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. For by a sword he meant the sharp assault of the suffering, cutting through toward strange reasonings the mind of the woman.

For temptations test the hearts of those who suffer, and lay bare the thoughts that are in them.

Jesus therefore, seeing His mother and the disciple standing by whom He loved, says to His mother: Woman, behold your son.

Then He says to the disciple: Behold your mother.

And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

He took forethought for His mother, disregarding, as it were, the very height of the suffering;

and He delivers her to the beloved disciple—now this was John, the writer of the book—and bids him lead her home and hold her in the rank of a mother; and again He charges her to consider that the genuine disciple is nothing other than truly a son, plainly out of tenderness and affection, fulfilling and imitating the office of a natural son.

But just as some of the foolish supposed—Surely Christ does not say these things out of any love for the flesh?—away with such ill counsel;

for it befits only those whose understanding is palsied to slip down into such folly regarding this.

What useful purpose, then, did Christ accomplish through this? First we say this: that He wished to confirm a lesson which had been honoured also by the Law.

For what did the ordinance given through Moses say? 'Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you.' And He did not merely make His argument concerning this by way of exhortation to what is required, but He had already added the threat of the ultimate penalty against those who chose not to do this.

He set it down, as it were, on an equal footing—to sin against God and to sin against those who begot us according to the flesh.

For the Law commanded that the blasphemer should submit to the sentence of death.

For it says, 'Whoever names the name of the Lord, let him be put to death.' And the one who arms his tongue, uncontrolled and unbridled, against his parents, it subjected to penalties of equal weight.

For it says, 'He who curses father or mother, let him die the death.' Then, since the Lawgiver had ordained that so great an honour must be rendered by us to those who begot us, how was it not fitting that so renowned a commandment should be confirmed also by the sentences of the Saviour? And since the very idea of every good thing and of all virtue proceeded first through Him, why should this too not be joined with the rest? For truly the most precious mode of virtue is honour toward parents.

But that we should not treat as a secondary matter our love toward them, even if unbearable calamities engulf us—tell me, from where was this to be learned, if not in the first place and through Christ who is first? For truly best is he who keeps the holy commandments in remembrance and is not driven from the pursuit of what is fitting—not the one who does so in calm circumstances, but the one who does not suffer this even in tempest and surging waves.

In addition to what has been said, I say this also: since His own mother had fallen into a stumbling-block and was entangled in the disorders of troubling thoughts, how was it not fitting that the Lord should make provision for her? For being true God, and looking upon the movements of the heart, and knowing the things in its depths, how could He have been ignorant of the thoughts that troubled her especially at that very moment, at the precious Cross? Knowing therefore the reasonings within her, He entrusted her to the best of mystagogues, the disciple who was well and not inadequately able to expound the depth of the mystery.

For he was truly wise and a theologian, who both receives her and rejoicing takes her home, ready to fulfil concerning her the whole will of the Saviour.

A vessel full of vinegar was set there.

So, putting a sponge full of vinegar on hyssop, they brought it to His mouth.

And so, with nothing now lacking for the cruelty beyond all words to appear in its perfect completeness, the flesh suffers once more, in its final moments, something proper and natural to it.

For it admits thirst, being parched by manifold torments.

For sufferings are terrible in their power to compel thirst, consuming by a certain innate and unspeakable heat the moisture in the depths, and inflaming the inner parts of the sufferer with certain fiery assaults.

Now it was not difficult for God the Word, who is able to do all things, to ward off this also from His own flesh; but just as He willingly allowed it to suffer other things, so too He suffers this according to His voluntary will.

But they were so devoid of compassion and so far from the love that loves God, that in place of a drink which by nature helps, they offered what does harm, and made even this very act of love an addition to their impiety.

For to offer anything at all to one who asks—how was it not feigning the outward form of love? But it was not possible ever for the God-inspired Scripture to be proven false, since, speaking as it were in the person of our Saviour Christ concerning them, it says: 'And they gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' Now the blessed Evangelist John says that they put the sponge of vinegar on hyssop and brought it to Him.

Luke, however, mentioning nothing at all of such a thing, only affirmed that they offered vinegar.

Matthew and Mark say that the sponge was put on a reed.

And perhaps some will suppose that the holy Evangelists are at variance.

But I think no one of those who are of sound mind would suffer this in matters of this kind.

For it is the form of the impiety that matters, and not by all means and of necessity the manner in which it was carried out that is to be sought. Therefore the divinely-inspired Luke also, deeming the manner of the offering worthy of no account, said more simply that vinegar was brought to Him as He thirsted.

And it is not doubtful that the Evangelists would not have contradicted one another in matters so small and of no account, seeing that they agree and, in the necessary matters especially, concur and speak with one voice.

What then is the difference, and what manner of resolution will it receive? It is in no way doubtful that there were many servants of the impiety against Christ—I mean soldiers—who brought Him to the Cross.

And very many of the Jews also shared in the cruel deed, some putting the sponge on a reed, others on the wood of what is called hyssop (hyssop being a kind of herb), and they gave Jesus to drink; and the wretches did this too against their own head.

For not knowing that they ought in no way to be pitied, they made themselves such, having stripped off every form of gentleness and kindness, and by such irrational deeds of daring vying only with their own impieties.

Therefore through the voice of Ezekiel the prophet, to the mother of the Jews—I mean Jerusalem—God said: 'As you have done, so shall it be to you;

your recompense shall be returned upon your own head'; and through the voice of Isaiah, to the most lawless Israel: 'Woe to the lawless one! Evils shall befall him according to the works of his hands.' In addition, then, to all the unholy and monstrous deeds of daring already accomplished, this too was done against Christ.

Yet nevertheless the example will be for our profit.

For through this too we shall know again that against those who possess a God-loving disposition and are firmly grounded in love toward Christ, there follows, as it were, an unceasing war from those who think the contrary things—who even to their last breath will not put off their madness against them, contriving bitter trials from every side, and eager to devise every kind of what naturally does wrong.

But just as the toil did not cease, so also the length of gladness shall be unceasing.

And just as the terrible things and the affliction that comes from being tempted did not abate, so neither shall the good things of the saints cease, but the grace that comes from their good repute shall abide in every way and shall be perpetual.

When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, 'It is finished';

and bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

The measure, that is, of the impiety of the Jews, and the excess of their outrage against Him.

For what still remained unattempted by the Jews? What deed of inhumanity carried to its extreme was left unpractised? For what manner of torment was omitted? And what did they appear to have left out of the uttermost insolence? Therefore He rightly says 'It is finished'—but now the hour was already calling Him to His will to proclaim, even to the spirits in Hades.

For He came in, that He might have lordship over both the dead and the living, and He Himself entered into death on our behalf, and He undergoes this common suffering of our nature—clearly according to the flesh, although being life by nature as God—so that, having despoiled Hades, He might set right for the human nature the return to life, shown to be the firstfruits of those who sleep and the firstborn from the dead, according to the Scriptures.

He bowed His head, then;

for since this too commonly happens to the dead by custom—because the tensions of the flesh are now relaxed, once the spirit, that is the soul, which holds and stretches it taut, has already departed—the Evangelist used these words.

And indeed to say again that He 'gave up His spirit' will not lie outside our common usage;

for so the many say 'He expired and died.'

But it is likely again that, both in a dispensational and necessary way, the holy Evangelist did not simply say that He died, but that He 'gave up His spirit'—clearly into the hands of God the Father, according to what was said as though by Him: 'Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.' And the power of the word laid down for us ourselves a beginning and foundation of good hope.

For I think we ought to be disposed—and very rightly so—to believe that the souls of the saints, departing from their bodies of earth, are as it were committed into the hands of a most tender Father, to the goodness and love of God; and not, as some of the unbelievers have supposed, that they linger about the tombs awaiting the libations poured out over graves; nor yet, like the souls of those who love sin, are they carried down to the place of measureless punishment, that is, into Hades.

Rather they run into the hands of the Father of all, our Saviour Christ having consecrated this way for us anew;

for He gave up His soul into the hands of His own Begetter, that we also, receiving a beginning as in Him and through Him, might have bright hopes, firmly disposed and having believed that, when we have undergone the death of the flesh, we shall be in the hands of God, and in far, far better conditions than we were while with the flesh.

Wherefore the wise Paul also writes to us that 'it is better to depart and to be with Christ.'