Commentary on the Gospel of John 13 part 2/6

It is possible, then, even now to worship the Father in spirit and truth, when not only is the hour coming, but it is also now — even if we should be thought to be in Jerusalem, on account of those who reach only that far.

At any rate, where it is written, 'the hour is coming and now is,' it is no longer said, 'You will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem,' as is said where 'the hour is coming' is recorded without 'and now is.'

Still further, the Samaritan woman, in saying these things, holds a false opinion similar to the one expressed concerning the so-called well. For there too she says: 'Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and he himself drank from it, and his sons, and his flocks?'; and here she says: 'Our fathers worshiped on this mountain.'

But Heracleon, on these same words, says that the Samaritan woman acknowledged in a fitting manner the things spoken to her by him; 'for,' he says, 'it belongs to a prophet alone to know all things' — being false on both counts; for the angels are able to know such things, and the prophet does not know all things: 'for we know in part, and we prophesy in part,' even when we prophesy or know.

After this, he praises the Samaritan woman as having acted fittingly according to her own nature, having neither lied nor confessed outright her own shame; and he says that, being convinced that he was a prophet, she was at the same time asking him a question that revealed the cause on account of which she had fornicated — namely, that through ignorance of God and of the service due to God she had neglected it, and also all the things necessary to her in life, and otherwise †...always being in worldly life; for, he says, she would not otherwise have come to the well, which was outside the city.

But I do not know how he supposed that the cause of her having fornicated was thereby made manifest, or that a cause pertaining to God was implicated in the failures of the service due to God; but he seems to have improvised these things at random, without any plausibility.

And he adds to these remarks that, wishing to learn how, and by pleasing whom, and by worshiping God, she might be delivered from fornicating, she says, 'Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,' and so on. But what has been said is very easily refuted; for on what basis does he claim that she wishes to learn by pleasing whom she might be delivered from fornicating? — Jesus says to her: 'Believe me, woman, that the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.'

At the point where Heracleon seemed to have made a most plausible observation here — that in the former instances it had not been said to her, 'Believe me, woman,' but that now this was enjoined upon her — at that very point he muddied the not-implausible observation, saying that 'mountain' means the devil, or his world, since the devil, he says, is one part of all matter, while the world is the whole mountain of wickedness, a desert dwelling-place of wild beasts, which all who were before the law, and the Gentiles, worshiped; and that 'Jerusalem' means the creation, or the Creator, whom the Jews worshiped.

But secondly he also supposed that 'mountain' was the creation which the Gentiles worshiped, and 'Jerusalem' meant him whom the Jews served.

'You, then,' he says, 'as spiritual people, will worship neither the creation nor the Demiurge, but the Father of truth'; and he takes her along, he says, as already faithful and numbered among the true worshipers.

But we suppose that the piety existing among the heterodox — in the imagination of gnostic-sounding words and things reputed lofty — is signified by 'neither on this mountain'; while the rule according to the majority of the Church — which even the perfect and holy man will himself rise above, worshiping the Father in a more contemplative, clearer, and more divine manner — is signified by 'you will worship the Father neither in Jerusalem.'

For just as — just as the Jews too would say — the angels do not worship the Father in Jerusalem, but worship the Father in a manner superior to those in Jerusalem, so also those who already, in their disposition, have come to be equal to angels will not worship the Father in Jerusalem either, but better than those in Jerusalem, even if, for the sake of those in Jerusalem, they conduct themselves along with those in Jerusalem, becoming to the Jews as Jews, that they may win the Jews. And let 'Jerusalem' be understood by me as we have further explained it, and likewise also 'the Jews.'

Yet when a person worships neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, once the hour has come he worships the Father with boldness, having become a son. For this reason it is not said, 'Neither in Jerusalem will you worship God,' but rather, 'Nor on this mountain will you worship the Father.' 'You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews.'

'You,' as far as the letter goes, are the Samaritans; but as far as the anagogical sense goes, are those who hold heterodox views about the scriptures. And 'We,' as far as the plain sense goes, are the Jews; but as far as the allegory goes, are I, the Word, and those who have been formed according to me, having salvation from the Jewish teachings. For the mystery now made manifest has been made manifest both through the prophetic scriptures and through the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But see whether Heracleon, taking 'You' in a peculiar way and contrary to the sequence of the words, has not interpreted it as meaning 'the Jews and the Gentiles.'

For what sense would it make to say to the Samaritan woman, 'You Jews,' or to a Samaritan woman, 'You Gentiles'? But the heterodox indeed do not know what they worship, because it is a fabrication and not truth, a myth and not mysteries; whereas the one who worships the Creator, especially according to the Jew who is one in secret and the spiritual Jewish teachings, this person worships what he knows.

It would take too long now to set out Heracleon's citations, taken from the work entitled the Preaching of Peter, and to pause to examine them, including the question of the book itself, whether it is genuine or spurious or mixed. Therefore we willingly postpone this, only noting this much, that he adduces it as teaching, on Peter's authority, that one ought not to worship as the Greeks do, who accept material things and serve wood and stone, nor yet to revere the divine as the Jews do, since they too, though thinking themselves alone to know God, are ignorant of him, serving angels and the month and the moon.

Yet we must inquire, with a view to the truth, to whom the bodily worship offered by the Jews was directed. For that it was set before them to offer sacrifices to the Creator of the universe is clear.

It is worth seeing what is written in the Acts of the Apostles: 'But God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven.' I do not know how, when the Savior plainly declares that 'salvation is from the Jews,' the heterodox deny the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the fathers of the Jews.

Furthermore, if the Savior fulfills the Law, and if this and that occur, according to the Lord's coming among us, so that what is written in the prophets might be fulfilled, how is it not clear in what manner salvation comes from the Jews?

For God is the same God of Jews and Gentiles, if indeed God is one, who will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith (for we do not abolish the Law through faith, but we establish the Law through it). 'But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.'

Those who do not at all profess to worship the Father should not even be called worshippers of God; but among all who profess to worship the Creator, if some are no longer in the flesh but in the spirit, walking by the spirit and not carrying out the desire of the flesh, while others are not in the spirit but in the flesh and campaign according to the flesh, then it must be said that the true worshippers are those who worship the Father in spirit and not in flesh, and in truth and not in types, while those not so disposed are not true worshippers.

And also the one who is enslaved to the letter that kills, and has not partaken of the spirit that gives life, nor follows the spiritual things of the Law—this person would be the one who is not a true worshipper and does not worship the Father in spirit. This same person, being wholly given to types and bodily things, even when he seems especially to succeed, at that very moment worships God in type and not in truth, and therefore cannot rightly be called a true worshipper.

Perhaps it has sometimes reasonably been granted even to the true worshipper, who worships in spirit and truth, to perform certain typical acts, so that, by most fittingly freeing those who are enslaved to the type, he might bring them from the types to the truth—just as Paul appears to have done in the case of Timothy, and perhaps also at Cenchreae and in Jerusalem, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles.

It must be observed that the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth not only in the age to come but also in the present age. But those who worship in spirit worship, as they have received it, in the down payment of the Spirit for the present; but it is in […] spirit, when they shall receive the whole Spirit, that they will worship the Father.

But if the one who sees through a mirror does not see the true thing itself, as is shown by those skilled in matters concerning mirrors, while Paul and those like him now see through a mirror, it is clear that if he worships God in this manner, he also worships God through a mirror. But when the hour comes which is to arrive after the present one, then the worship will be in that truth which is face to face, and no longer beheld through a mirror.

As for 'We worship,' Heracleon supposes it to be spoken by him who is in the aeon and those who came with him; for these, he says, knew whom they were worshipping, worshipping in accordance with truth.

But also that 'salvation is from the Jews' is said, [he holds,] because it came to be in that nation, though not in them (for it was not well-pleasing for all); and because it was out of that nation that salvation and the Word went forth into the inhabited world. But according to the sense he intends, he explains that salvation has come to be 'from the Jews' inasmuch as these are considered to be images of those who are in the Pleroma itself.

But he, and those who follow him, ought to have shown, for each element of the worship, how it corresponds to what is in the Pleroma—if indeed they say this not merely with the voice but also hold it in truth.

In addition to this, explaining 'that God is worshipped in spirit and truth,' he says that the earlier worshippers worshipped in flesh and in error one who was not the Father, so that, according to him, all who had worshipped the Demiurge had been in error.

And Heracleon further adds that they served creation, and not the true Creator according to truth, who is Christ—since 'all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being.' 'For indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.'

If the Father seeks, he seeks through the Son, who has come to seek and to save that which was lost, purifying and instructing those whom he seeks by his word and by sound doctrines, and forming them into true worshippers.

But Heracleon says that what is akin to the Father has been lost in the deep matter of error, and it is this that is sought, so that the Father may be worshipped by his own kindred.

If, then, he had perceived the account concerning the loss of the sheep, and of the son—one of the Father's own—who fell away, we would even have welcomed his exposition.

But since those who follow his opinion, fashioning myths, present—I do not know what—concerning the lost spiritual nature, without teaching us anything clear about the times or ages prior to its loss (for they cannot even render their own account clear), for this reason we will willingly pass them by, having raised this much of a difficulty. 'God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.'

Since many have declared many things concerning God and his substance—so that some have said that he too is of a corporeal nature, fine-textured and ethereal, while others have said he is incorporeal, and of another substance surpassing those in dignity and power—it is worth our while to see whether we have grounds from the divine scriptures for saying anything about the substance of God.

Here, then, it is said that his substance is, as it were, spirit: for 'God is spirit,' it says; but in the Law, fire: for it is written, 'Our God is a consuming fire'; but in John, light: for 'God,' it says, 'is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'

If, then, we hear these things too simply, without inquiring at all beyond the letter, it is time for us to say that God is a body. But what absurdities await us when we say this is not for the many to know; for few have understood accurately concerning the nature of bodies, and especially of those ordered by reason and providence. And yet, saying that the one who exercises providence is of the same substance, in a generic sense, as those for whom providence is exercised—perfect, but not of the same kind as that which is provided for. Those who wish God to be a body have accepted the absurdities that follow from their own reasoning, since they are unable to look directly at the things clearly established by reason.

I say this with the exception of those who speak of a fifth nature of bodies besides the elements.

But if every material body has a nature that, in its own proper account, is without quality, yet mutable and alterable and completely changeable, and receptive of qualities which the Maker, if he wishes, imposes upon it, then it is necessary that God too, if he is material, be mutable and alterable and changeable.

And they are not ashamed to say that he is also perishable, being a body—though a spiritual and ethereal body, especially with respect to his ruling faculty; and they say that, although he is perishable, he is not perishing, because there is no one to destroy him.

But we, if, because we do not see the logical consequences, we say that he is a body—also on account of the scripture calling him such a body, spirit, and consuming fire, and light—while not accepting what necessarily follows from these, will behave disgracefully, like fools speaking against what is evident. For all fire that needs fuel is perishable, and all spirit—if we understand 'spirit' too simply—being a body, admits, so far as its own nature is concerned, of change into something coarser.

It is time, then, in these matters, either to hold to the mere words and accept so many absurd and blasphemous things concerning God, or to investigate thoroughly, as we do also in many other cases, and examine what can be signified by God being said to be spirit, or fire, or light.

And first it must be said that, just as when we find eyes and eyelids and ears, hands and arms and feet, and moreover even wings, written of God, we transpose what is written into allegory, scorning those who ascribe to God a form resembling that of humans—and we do this reasonably—so too must we do the corresponding thing with regard to the names mentioned. And it is clear from what appears to us the more practicable course: for, 'God is light,' according to John, 'and in him is no darkness at all.'

Let us then examine, as intelligently as is possible for us, how God should be understood as light: for 'light' is spoken of in two ways—the corporeal and the spiritual, which is intelligible; and as the scriptures might call it, invisible, or as the Greeks would name it, incorporeal.

And of the corporeal, an example acknowledged by those who accept the historical narrative is: 'But all the sons of Israel had light in all the places where they dwelt.' And of the intelligible and spiritual, an example is found in one of the Twelve: 'Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, gather in the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge.'

Likewise, darkness too will be spoken of by analogy in the same twofold way. And of the more commonly spoken sense, an example is: 'And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.' And of the intelligible sense: 'The people sitting in darkness […] and in the shadow of death, light has dawned.'

These things being so, it is worth seeing what is fitting for us to think concerning God, who is called light, in whom there is no darkness at all. Is it, then, that God, illuminating bodily eyes, is light, or that he illuminates the intelligible eyes, concerning which the prophet also says: 'Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep unto death'?

I think it is evident to everyone that we would not say that God performs the work of the sun, ceding to another the task of illuminating the eyes of those who are not going to sleep unto death. Therefore God illuminates the mind of those whom he judges worthy of his own illumination.

But if it is the mind that is illuminating, according to what is said, 'The Lord is my illumination' — since he is intelligible and invisible and incorporeal, it is necessary that we understand him, on this basis, to be light … perhaps we might also call him a consuming fire … … something bodily … seems to be consuming — such as of wood, and grass, and stubble.

But if … wood and grass and stubble, then perhaps our God is the fire that consumes such matter, being called a consuming fire. And it is fitting for the Lord to consume such things and to make the worse things disappear; and when this happens, I think pains and sufferings occur — not from any bodily contact, but concerning the ruling faculties, where the structure worthy of being consumed has been formed.

God, then, is named 'light,' the term being transferred from bodily light to invisible and incorporeal light, being so called on account of his power of illuminating intelligible eyes; and he is called 'a consuming fire,' being conceived of by reference to bodily fire that consumes such matter.

Something similar seems to me to hold also concerning God as Spirit. For since, when the spirit around us draws in what is called, in a more bodily way, 'breath of life,' into the intermediate and more commonly called life, we are made alive by the spirit — I suppose that from this it has been taken that God is called Spirit, leading us toward the true life. For according to Scripture, the Spirit is said to give life; and it is clear that it gives not the intermediate life but the more divine one. For indeed the letter kills and produces death — not the death that consists in the separation of the soul from the body, but the death that consists in the separation of the soul from God, and from his Lord, and from the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps, too, we might understand better, from this understanding of spirit, the verses: 'You will take away their spirit, and they will fail,' and 'You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth' — if we suppose that the one deprived of the divine Spirit becomes earthy, but having made himself fit to receive it, and having received it, will be recreated and…

…will be saved. Such, too, would be the case with 'he breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul' — so that we should understand the breathing-in, and the breath of life, and the life of the soul, spiritually.

And since the aforementioned power, finding as it were a fitting dwelling in the soul of the holy person, gives itself to abiding — if I may put it so — in it, one must consider that it was written with this in view: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'

We need, however, much further exercise, so that, being made perfect and having, according to what is said by the Apostle, our senses trained, we may become able to discern good and evil, true and false, and to contemplate intelligible things — in order that we may be able, more carefully and in a manner more befitting God, insofar as is possible for human nature, to understand how God is light and fire and spirit.

And in the Third Book of Kingdoms, the spirit-event that came to Elijah suggests certain such things concerning God. For it says: 'You shall go out tomorrow and stand before the Lord on the mountain; behold, the Lord will pass by, and a great strong wind tearing apart mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord — the Lord was not in the wind' (though in other copies we have found 'in the Lord'); 'after the wind, an earthquake — the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, fire — the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, the voice of a gentle breeze.' And perhaps, in the respects in which fire must occur for the apprehension of the Lord, it is indicated through these things — which it would not be the occasion of the present discussion to expound.

But who was fitting to tell us concerning God, who he is, other than the Son? For no one knew the Father except the Son, so that we too, the Son revealing him, might know how God is Spirit, and might be zealous to worship God in the Spirit that gives life, and not in the letter that kills, and to revere him in truth, and no longer with types nor shadows and examples — just as the angels too do not serve God with examples and the shadow of heavenly things, but with the intelligible and heavenly realities, having as guide the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, for the worship of salvation for those who need it, and for mystical and ineffable contemplation.

On the text 'God is Spirit,' however, Heracleon says: 'For his divine nature is undefiled and pure and invisible.'

I do not know, however, whether by adding this he has taught us how God is Spirit. But thinking to clarify that those who worship must worship in spirit and truth, he says: '[Worshipping] worthily of the one worshipped, spiritually, not carnally; and they themselves, being of the same nature as the Father, are spirit — those who worship according to truth and not according to error' — just as the Apostle also teaches, calling such piety 'rational worship.'

But let us consider whether it is not exceedingly impious to say that those who worship God in spirit are of the same substance as the unbegotten and all-blessed nature — those whom Heracleon himself, a little before, said had fallen away, saying that the Samaritan woman, though being of a spiritual nature, had committed fornication.

But they do not see … that every … is also receptive of the same things. But if the spiritual nature received the capacity for fornication, being of the same substance … unholy and godless and impious things follow from their doctrine concerning God — things it is not even safe to imagine.

But we, persuaded by the Savior who says, 'The Father who sent me is greater than I' — and who therefore did not even bear to accept for himself the title 'Good' in its proper, true, and complete sense when it was offered to him, but referred it thankfully to the Father as a rebuke to the one wishing to over-glorify the Son — we say that the Savior, and the Holy Spirit, surpass all begotten things not by comparison but by surpassing pre-eminence, while being surpassed by the Father by as much, or even more, than he himself and the Holy Spirit surpass the rest of beings — who are no ordinary beings. For what need is there even to speak of how great is the glory of the one who surpasses thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come, and besides these, holy angels and spirits and the souls of the righteous?

But nevertheless, though he surpasses so many and so great beings in essence, in dignity, in power, and in divinity (for he is a living Logos), and in wisdom, he is in no way to be compared with the Father.

He is 'the image' of his goodness, and 'the radiance' not of God but of his glory, and of his eternal light; and 'the vapor' not of the Father but of his power; and 'the pure effluence' of his almighty glory; and 'the spotless mirror' of his activity — through which mirror Paul and Peter and those like them see God, the Lord saying: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me.' The woman says to him: 'I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us all things.'

It is worth observing how the Samaritan woman, admitting nothing beyond the Pentateuch of Moses, expects the coming of Christ as proclaimed from the Law alone. And it is likely that they hope for its advent from Jacob's blessing to Judah, which says: 'Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies; the sons of your father shall bow down to you'; and after that: 'A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from between his feet, until what is laid up for him comes; and he is the expectation of the nations.'

It is likely also that they hope for the same thing from the prophecies of Balaam: 'A man shall come forth from his seed, and shall rule over many nations; and the kingdom of Gog shall be exalted, and his kingdom shall be increased.'

'God led him out of Egypt; he has as it were the glory of a unicorn. He shall devour the nations of his enemies, and shall draw the marrow out of their fatness, and with his arrows shall shoot down the enemy. And having lain down, he rested as a lion, and as a lion's whelp — who shall rouse him up? Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed.'

And in what follows, Balaam himself says: 'I will show him, but not now; I bless him as happy, but he does not draw near. A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall arise out of Israel, and he shall crush the princes of Moab, and shall despoil all the sons of Seth. And Edom shall be a possession, and Esau his enemy shall be a possession, and Israel wrought valiantly. And there shall arise one out of Jacob, and shall destroy him that escapes out of the city.'

You will also observe whether the blessing of Moses upon Judah might likewise seem to the Samaritans to refer to Christ; it runs thus: 'Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah, and come to his people; his hands shall contend for him, and you shall be a helper against his enemies.'

Since the Samaritans boast of Joseph as their patriarch, I observe that some might perhaps take both Jacob's blessing upon Joseph and that of Moses as being spoken with reference to the coming of Christ; but for the one who wishes to verify this, it will be possible to take the actual words from the Scripture itself.

And the Savior himself, knowing that Moses had written many things of the prophecy concerning Christ, says to the Jews: 'If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.'

Now, of the things written in the Law that are referred to Christ typologically and enigmatically, one can find a great many; but plainer and clearer ones than these I do not see any others, for the present. 'Messiah,' in any case, is the Hebrew term, which the Seventy rendered 'Christ,' while Aquila rendered it 'Anointed.'

One must also examine the saying, 'When he comes, he will tell us all things' — whether it was said by the Samaritan woman according to tradition, or from the Law. One must not, however, fail to know that, just as Jesus arose from among the Jews, not only saying that he was the Christ but also demonstrating it, so too, from among the Samaritans, a certain Dositheus arose and claimed to be the previously prophesied Christ; and from him until now there exist the Dositheans, who both carry the books of Dositheus and recount certain myths about him, saying that he did not taste death but is somewhere still alive. So much, then, concerning the wording.

But the heterodox opinion, too, at Jacob's spring — supposed by her to be a well — supposing this one to be a more perfect Logos, naming him Christ, says: 'When he comes, he will tell us all things.' And he who was expected and hoped for, being present with her, says: 'I am he, who is speaking to you.'