Commentary on John 1 part 91/94

And one might inquire, and quite reasonably, for what cause the blessed angels said nothing to the holy disciples, nor indeed were seen by them at all, whereas they both appear and speak to the woman.

We shall say, then, that it was the Saviour Christ's purpose to sow the full assurance concerning the mystery pertaining to Himself into the souls of those who loved Him; but the manner of the assurance was accomplished differently, being suited and befitting the condition of those receiving assurance.

For the holy disciples the very outcome of events, coinciding with the hope held forth in the divine Scriptures, sufficed for full assurance, and implanted a faith in no way doubtful.

For having believed, they withdrew relying on the Holy Scriptures, and it was somehow superfluous for those who thus held so secure a faith to be taught also through the voice of the holy angels;

but the thing was most necessary for the woman, who neither knew the sacred and divine Scripture, nor in any other way understood the deep mystery of the resurrection.

'She says to them: Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.'

'When she had said this, she turned back, and beholds Jesus standing, and she knew not that it was Jesus.'

The woman is somewhat slow of understanding, or rather the whole race of women is.

For she does not yet learn that which was intimated by the vision, yet nevertheless she declares the occasion of her lament.

She did not cease to name Christ 'Lord,' and thereby showed her love toward Him; and now, with good reason, she enjoys the very sight of Him whom she longed for.

For she sees Jesus, even though she does not yet perceive that He is present—and for what cause?

Either because our Saviour Christ was still hiding Himself by a power befitting God, and was not offering Himself very readily to the recognition of the eyes of the beholders, she undergoes the ignorance;

or else, since it was still deep dawn, she could not easily attain the discernment of what appeared, the night in a manner not permitting this to be done, and scarcely showing forth the form of one going near.

Wherefore our Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the Song of Songs somehow makes mention of the walkings-about in this night, and of the moistures from the early dew, saying thus: 'For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.' 'Jesus says to her: Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing that it was the gardener, says to Him: Sir, if thou hast borne Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.'

While it was still dark and the night not yet wholly loosed, she scarcely beholds Jesus who had come near, and knows not who He is, being unable to distinguish the likeness of His body and the character of His face;

but she hears Him saying: 'Woman, why weepest thou?' And the Saviour's word is truly gentle, yet nonetheless sufficient to beget the suspicion that it most befits one of those set in charge of the garden;

and again it follows reasonably that the Lord said such things not at all as one inquiring into the grounds of her weeping, nor as one wishing to learn who was being sought by her, but rather as one drawing her away from wailing—just as, of course, the pair of blessed angels also did, for it was He who was speaking in them as well.

'Why then dost thou weep, O woman?' He says;

'Whom seekest thou?' That is: restrain thy tear, since thou hast the one thou seekest.

'I,' He says, 'am the occasion of thy lament,' as being manifestly dead and having suffered irremediable things, and, besides this, as having been carried off from the tomb.

But since I live and am present, lay aside your wailings and pass over into good cheer.

So then, the question He asks serves to curb her mourning.

For it was necessary—yes, necessary—that the Lord should become the restorer of this part also.

For on account of the transgression in Adam it had been said to the whole nature of man, as to the first man in the firstfruits of the race, 'You are earth, and to earth you shall return'; but to the woman it was said also individually, 'In sorrows you shall bear children.' Thus to be fruitful amid sorrows hung over the woman as though in the order of a penalty.

It was therefore necessary that, through the voice of the very One who had condemned, the burden of that ancient curse should be loosed, our Saviour Christ now taking away the tears even of woman—or rather of the whole female race—as in Mary its firstfruits.

For she was the first of women who, grieving over the Saviour's Passion and taking sorrow upon His account, was counted worthy of the word that stayed her weeping—the power of that word plainly reaching out unto the whole female race, provided that she, honouring her faith in Him, should be pained at the outrages committed against Christ, all but uttering that saying in the Psalms: 'Did I not hate those who hate You, O Lord, and was I not grieved over Your enemies? With perfect hatred I hated them; they became enemies to me.' But our Lord Jesus Christ, releasing her from mourning, spoke such things; while she, supposing the one who spoke to be one of the gardeners, most readily promised to convey the Saviour's remains to another place, if only it were shown to her where he had laid Him.

For not yet comprehending the great mystery of the Resurrection, she was assailed by the suspicions that led her toward that conclusion.

For the minds of women are somehow rather slow to learn, and are unpractised in the ability readily to grasp even things not overly difficult—much more so the miracles that surpass reason.

Jesus says to her, 'Mary.'

And she, turning, says to Him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni,' which means 'Teacher,' and ran forward to touch Him.

...the woman's mind; and offering Himself unhindered to her sight, inasmuch as she loved Him the more ardently, He all but reproaches her, in no small degree, for having been slow to be able to understand that He Himself was the Christ.

For He hints at something of this sort by calling her by name.

Jesus says to her, 'Do not touch Me.'

'For I have not yet ascended to My Father.'

The power of this saying is not easy for the many to discern, for a mystery lies hidden within it.

Yet it must nonetheless be examined, on account of its usefulness.

For the Lord will graciously grant us the knowledge of His own words.

For He wards off the woman as she runs to Him, and does not permit her, eager as she is to embrace His feet;

and, making the reason for the matter plain to us, He says, 'For I have not yet ascended to My Father.'

But we must inquire what we are to suppose this signifies.

For what if He had not yet ascended to the Father in the heavens—how could this be a sufficient pretext for why those who love Him ought not to touch His holy flesh? Could anyone suppose without blame that the Lord said this to her either as declining the defilement that comes from contact, or that He might ascend pure to the Father in the heavens? Then how would He not be convicted of being utterly senseless and out of His mind? For the divine nature could never be defiled.

For just as, at times, when the light of the sun's ray falls upon mire and other uncleannesses upon the earth, it suffers no harm—for it remains what it is, plainly unstained, and wholly free of the stench of the things it encounters—so too the divine and all-pure nature could never receive the filth that comes from being defiled.

What then is the reason for Mary's being hindered as she approaches Him and longs to touch His holy flesh? And what would the Lord wish to signify by saying, 'For I have not yet ascended to the Father'? This must now be examined, so far as is possible for us.

We say, then, that the occasion of our Saviour's sojourn among us is manifold and various, yet this one is chief and most necessary, and was shown forth by His own voice: 'For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' Before the saving Cross, then, and the Resurrection from the dead, while the dispensation concerning us had not yet reached its fitting end, He mingled with the righteous and the unrighteous alike, and ate with tax-collectors and sinners, and granted free access to His holy flesh to those who wished to touch it, that He might sanctify all and call them to the recognition of the truth, and restore to sound health those who were sick, and those crushed by the maladies that come from sins.

Wherefore also He said again to them, 'They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.' So then, before the Resurrection from the dead He mingled indiscriminately with the righteous and with sinners;

and He drove away none at all of those who came to Him.

And indeed, when He was once reclining in the house of the Pharisee, a woman stood by weeping, one who was a sinner in the city, as it is written; and loosing her hair that was ever fond of adornment, and scarcely letting go of her former evils, she wiped His feet—and He is not seen to have hindered her;

But also, when He was going away to raise the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, again a woman who had an issue of blood came up and touched the hem of His garment, and we shall by no means find Him vexed, but rather counting her worthy of a kindly word;

for He said, 'Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace.' But at that time it was according to the dispensation, and it was permitted, without hindrance, even for those who were still unclean and had both body and mind defiled, to touch the very holy flesh of our Saviour Christ, and to enjoy every blessing from Him;

...death, and rose again, and showing His own nature to be stronger than death, He thenceforth hinders, and no longer readily grants to those who approach Him the touching even of His holy flesh, making the matter a type for the holy Churches and for the mystery concerning Himself—which the Law also, given through all-wise Moses, made plain to us, when it prescribed that the lamb be slain as an image of Christ;

for it says, 'Every uncircumcised person shall not eat of it,' calling the unclean 'uncircumcised.'

And humanity, according to its own nature, might reasonably be understood as unclean.

For what is the nature of man in comparison with the purity that is in God? It is therefore fitting that those who are no longer uncircumcised—that is, no longer unclean—should touch the holy Body, but rather those shown to be pure, through the circumcision understood in the Spirit.

For circumcision of the heart is in the Spirit, according to the word of Paul.

But circumcision in the Spirit could not come to be in us, unless the Holy Spirit were made to dwell in us, through faith and holy baptism.

How then was it not fitting that Mary should for the time be kept back from the touch of the Body—the holy Body, that is—she who had not yet received the Spirit? For even though Christ had been raised from the dead, yet the Spirit had not yet been given to humanity from the Father through Him.

For having ascended to God and the Father, He sent it down to us; wherefore also He said, 'It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you;

but if I go away, I will send Him to you.' Since therefore the Holy Spirit had not yet been sent down to us—for He had not yet ascended to the Father—He wards off Mary, as one who had not yet received the Spirit, saying, 'Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father'—that is, 'I have not yet sent down the Holy Spirit to you.'

Herein is the type for the Churches.

Wherefore also we exclude from the sacred Table even those who have indeed come to know His Godhead and have already confessed the faith—that is, those who are still catechumens—but who have not yet been enriched with the Holy Spirit.

For He does not dwell in those not yet baptized.

But when they have been shown to be partakers of the Holy Spirit, then there is nothing to hinder them from touching also our Saviour Christ.

Wherefore also, to those who wish to partake of the mystic blessing, the ministers of the divine mysteries proclaim, 'THE HOLY THINGS FOR THE HOLY,' teaching that the partaking of holy things is most fitting for those who have been sanctified in the Spirit.

That the Son is God by nature, even though He is found calling the Father His God for our sake.

'But go to My brethren, and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'

And He recompenses her for her perseverance, and rendered a double reward for so intense a faith and love, showing that piety toward Himself is not unfruitful for those who practise it.

And what is yet more illustrious than these—for in her, and first, I mean Mary, well-nigh the whole female race is crowned with a twofold honour, and received the dissolution of its ancient infirmities.

For she who first thus mourned, and had Christ as the occasion of her tears, changed her grief into gladness, having heard that she ought not to weep from Him who long ago had also condemned her and had rendered her easily overcome by the assaults of sorrow.

For it had somewhere been said by God to the woman, 'In sorrows you shall bear children.' But just as He then subjected her to sorrows in Paradise, when she had served the serpent's words and had ministered to the devil's mischief, so now again in a garden He commands that she should no longer weep.

And releasing her even from that very curse under which she had been ordered to grieve, He commands her to become the first messenger of great good things, and to bring the good news of the ascent on high to the disciples;

...the race; so too she herself, having ministered to the words of our Saviour, and having proclaimed the things that lead up to eternal life, might deliver the whole female race from the charge.

The Lord therefore graciously grants to Mary that she should no longer weep, nor have a heart prone to sorrows, and that she should possess beautiful feet.

For according to the word of the prophet, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings of good things'—although that first woman did not have beautiful feet, for she brought no tidings of good things, but rather counselled the forefather toward the transgression of the divine commandment.

And that Mary is worthy of admiration, you will understand from this also;

for she was counted worthy of prophetic mention.

For what did he say concerning her and the women with her, who brought the good news of the Saviour's Resurrection to the holy disciples? 'You women who come from the sight, draw near;

for it is not a people that has understanding.' For the divine oracle in these words all but bids these truly Christ-loving women to be borne along with a swifter course, that they might also announce the things of which they had become beholders;

and it condemns the senselessness of the Jews, seeing that they even mocked the very word concerning the Resurrection of our Saviour Christ.

But even though there were other women also;

for this too seems to be the case with the other evangelists;

the wise John made mention of Mary alone—yet we shall not find the words of the saints contrary to one another.

For it is likely that John made mention of Mary Magdalene alone, inasmuch as she had a warmer impulse toward love for Christ, and leaped forward before the others—both to see the tomb, and to come to be in the garden, and to roam about every place neighbouring the tomb in search of the body.

For she truly thought that the Lord had been removed.

And the ends of the outcomes are somehow always ascribed especially to those who take the lead both in counsel and in deed, even though there be certain others who join in deliberating and in acting.

So then, unto honour and glory and unto a perpetual boast the Saviour graciously granted to Mary to bring the good news to the brethren, that 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'

But do you again receive for me this deep and great mystery, not permitting your heart to leap beyond the rule of the rectitude of the divine doctrines.

You hear how the Only-begotten Word of God became as we are, that we too might become according to Him—so far as is possible to our nature, and so far as one may speak of the renewal that comes through grace. For He humbled Himself, that He might lead up to His own height that which is lowly by nature, and He bore the form of the servant, although being by nature both Lord and Son, that He might transfer that which is by nature servile unto the glory of adoption, after His own likeness and in relation to Himself.

As therefore, having become as we are—that is, man—that we too might become according to Him, I mean gods and sons, He receives into Himself the things that are ours in an individual manner, and gives us in return the things that are His—how and in what manner, you will altogether reasonably wish to ask.

For first, being in the rank and nature of household servants;

for the things made are servants of the Maker;

He calls them His own brethren, and He names God the common Father of Himself and of us; and appropriating human things because of His likeness to us, He called our God His own God, although He is Son by nature, so that just as we ascend to the dignity that is above nature through our likeness to Him,

for we who are not sons by nature have been called sons of God, since He cries out within us through His own Spirit, 「Abba, Father」; even so He too, since He received our fashioning—for He became man according to the Scriptures—has God as His God, though He exists as God from God by nature and truly.

Do not therefore be offended, even if you hear that He calls His own God 「God」; rather examine it carefully, as one eager to learn, and consider prudently the exactness of the saying.

For He says that God is His own Father, and also our God, speaking in each case something that is true.

But to us He is no longer Father by nature, but rather God, as Maker and Lord;

but the Son, blending Himself as it were with us, bestows upon our nature the dignity that properly and peculiarly belongs to Himself, naming His own Begetter the common Father;

and that which is proper to our nature He receives again into Himself, because of His likeness to us.

For He names His own Father His God, not wishing to dishonour His likeness to us, on account of the love for man and gentleness that is in Him.

If therefore out of ignorance you should wish to find fault with such an utterance, and it should somehow seem unbearable to you that the Lord calls His Father God and His own God, you will senselessly blame the dispensation that came about for your sake; and when you ought to give thanks, you will dishonour your Benefactor, and foolishly slander the manner of the love shown toward us.

For if He humbled Himself, despising shame and becoming man for your sake, the reproach, O man, is that of your own lowliness;

but to Him who chose to suffer even this for your sake, a great and extraordinary wonder is owed.

And I am astounded that, even hearing at all of an emptying—

for He emptied Himself for our sake—

you do not reckon the fullness, and, beholding the humbling, you do not consider the height.

For how has He emptied Himself, unless you conceive Him to be perfect, as God? And in what manner has He humbled Himself, unless you reckon the heights of His ineffable nature? Therefore, being full and altogether perfect as God, He emptied Himself for your sake, bringing Himself down to your likeness; and being exalted as Son and from the very substance of the Father, He humbled Himself, since He became man—He who was diminished from the heights of the divine glory only so far as the (human) nature knows.

When therefore He is at once both God and man—exalted, on the one hand, because of Him who begot Him;

for He is God from God, and truly Son from Father;

and lowly, on the other, for our sake, for He became man like us for our sake;

keep your mind undisturbed when you hear Him say, 「I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.」

For it would be most fitting and altogether reasonable that, as God and Son by nature, He should call His Begetter Father, but as man like us, He should name His own God 「God.」

Mary Magdalene comes, announcing to the disciples that she has seen the Lord, and that He had said these things to her.

The race that had been most sickened—I mean that of women—is healed through the love-for-man of our Saviour, who in a certain manner sums up in Himself the beginning of the maladies that afflict us, and transfers them for the better to those who come after.

For Mary announces that she has beheld the Lord escaped from the bonds of death, and what she heard Him saying she conveyed to the disciples—the words of life and the firstfruits of the divine Gospels.

「When therefore it was evening on that day, the first of the week, and the doors being shut where the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and says to them, 『Peace to you.』」

「And having said this, He showed them His hands and His side.」

On that very day on which He was seen by and conversed with Mary, He also shone upon the holy disciples themselves, who were shuddering at the unbearable assaults of the unholy Jews, and had for this reason gathered together into a certain house.

For it was not likely that men so instructed should ever be bereft of fitting reflection, having been often commanded to hasten to escape the wrath of the murderous.

But He appears to them in a paradoxical manner.

For the doors being shut, as it says, unexpectedly Christ stood in their midst, by a certain ineffable and God-befitting power flying over even the natural sequence of things, and showing Himself superior to the reasoning and the fashion that befit ordinary events.

For let no one say, 「How, being in a gross (material) body, did the Lord drive in unhindered, even though the doors were shut?」

Rather let him consider that the inspired Evangelist says such things not concerning any of the things that pertain to us;

for it was necessary—yes, necessary—that He who is God by nature and true should not be subject to the sequences of things, just as indeed are the things that came into being from Him, but rather should hold authority over necessity itself and over the reasoning that is fitting and most appropriate to each of the things being accomplished.

For in what manner did He put the sea beneath His own feet, and traverse the wave as though upon dry land, though our bodies have no path spread out for them upon the waters? Or how did He accomplish the other wonders in God-befitting authority? But those things, no doubt, you will say are beyond reason.

Place this also, then, together with those; and do not, as it seemed to some who were swept along by the levity in them toward wishing to think what they least ought, suppose on this account that the Lord did not rise together with this body, but bare of flesh and altogether disjoined from the temple He assumed.

For if you are unable to conceive the operation of the ineffable nature, why do you not rather cry out against human weakness? For I say that this is also wiser;

then, contented in silence with the measure appointed you by the Creator, but shaking off, as it were, sober reasoning, you do wrong to the great mystery of the resurrection, on which we have all our hope.

For let one remember Paul crying out: 「If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised;

and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain and you are still in your sins」; then again: 「And we are found also false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if indeed the dead are not raised.」 For what at all is that which was raised, if not that which had fallen? Or what is that which rose again, if not that which had been laid low unto death? And how shall we look for the resurrection, if Christ did not raise His own temple, establishing Himself as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, and the firstborn from the dead on our behalf?

Or how shall this corruptible put on incorruption, if, as some suppose, it shall depart into utter destruction? For how shall it not suffer this, having no hope for a return to life? Do not therefore forfeit rightness in believing on account of what was accomplished in a paradoxical way, but soberly add this too to the other wonders.

For observe how, by having entered in a paradoxical way while the doors were shut, He again showed that He is God by nature, and no other than that One who even of old dwelt among them;

and by baring the very side of His body and displaying the marks of the nails, He clearly gave full assurance that He raised the temple that had hung upon the cross itself, and that the body which He had borne, this same He again raised up, abolishing evidently the death that befits the flesh, since He is by nature life and God.

For what need was there of the showing of the hands and the side, if indeed, according to the folly of certain persons, He did not rise with His own flesh? For if He had wished the disciples to think something else concerning Him, why did He not rather appear to them in another fashion, and, dishonouring the form of the flesh, call them to other conceptions? But as it is, He is seen to have been so concerned that they ought to believe there would be a resurrection of the flesh, that even when the season was already calling to transform His own body into some ineffable and supernatural glory, He consented, in the way of the dispensation, to appear again as He was—lest He should be thought to have some body other than that in which He also suffered the death upon the cross.

For that the glory of the holy body would not have been bearable to our eyes, had Christ wished to unfold it even before ascending to the Father, you will easily understand if you call to mind the transfiguration once displayed to the holy disciples upon the mountain.

For the blessed Evangelist Matthew writes that, having once taken Peter and James and John, He went up into the mountain and was transfigured before them, and His face shone as lightning, and His garments became white as snow; and they, not enduring the sight, fell down.

having transformed His own temple into that (glory) which was owed to Him and befitting Him, He nevertheless still appeared in the former fashion, not wishing the faith of the resurrection to be transferred to some other fashion and body than that into which He was raised—that is, than that which He took from the holy Virgin, in which also, being crucified, He died according to the Scriptures, the power of death running against the flesh alone, from which also it was driven away.

For if His body that had died did not rise, what death has been conquered, and where has the might of corruption been weakened? Not through one of the rational creatures having died—not a soul, not an angel, much less through the very God the Word Himself? When therefore the might of death comes to be only about that which is by nature liable to corruption, about that very thing the power of the resurrection also would reasonably be conceived to be, so that the power of the one who tyrannized may be dissolved.

But the Lord's entering while the doors were shut will be ranked among His other signs, at least by those who are sober-minded.

And He greets the holy disciples.

For 「Peace to you,」 He says, declaring Himself to be the peace.

For to those with whom Christ is present, there will surely follow also the being preserved in an untroubled spirit.

This very thing indeed Paul also prayed might be present from God to those who believe on Him, saying: 「The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts」—declaring the peace of Christ, which is beyond all understanding, to be none other than His Spirit, of which if anyone partakes, he shall be filled with every good thing.

「The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord.」