約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 14/94 段

for those who dwell in the city above come to us from the heavens, and they ascend and descend, as the Saviour somewhere says, upon the Son of man.

Why, then, should it attribute the coming down from above as authority to the Son alone, by way of special prerogative, and say of Him alone, as of one who comes down from above, 'He that cometh from above'? For surely it ought to have made the dignity common to the others also, saying: Those who come from above are above all.

But it knows that the saying is owed to the Son alone, as to Him who has sprung from the highest root.

'From above,' therefore, does not signify 'from heaven';

but it will rather be understood, as we have already said before, both piously and truly.

For how at all will He be also above all, if 'from above' does not signify 'from the Father' but rather 'from heaven'? For, if it were so, each of the holy angels also will be above all, as coming from there;

and when each escapes being reckoned among the all, from what will 'the all' henceforth be gathered together? Or how could the meaning of 'all' remain for us intact, accurately preserving what it wishes to signify, when so great a multitude of angels departs and dissolves the definition of 'all'? For they are no longer all, when those who were among all remain outside.

But the Word, who has shone forth ineffably from God the Father, having a generation from above that is peculiarly His own, and being, as it were, from a fountain—the essence of the Father—as one who comes, will not do violence to the term 'all,' having escaped being ranked in all as a part;

but He will rather be above all, as being other than they, both in nature and in a power befitting God and in the other properties of the Begetter.

But perhaps, shrinking from the absurdities arising from the inquiry, they will say that 'from above' signifies not 'from the heavens,' but 'from the pre-eminence over all things that is in Him.'

Come then, let us, examining more accurately the force of what is said, see again to what end their undertaking will turn out for them.

First of all, then, it is utterly ignorant and unintelligible to say that the Son comes from His own dignity, and that, as though from some place, or as from one thing, one and the same person walks from His own pre-eminence into being above all.

And in addition to this, I too would most gladly inquire of them: this pre-eminence over all things—will they grant it to the Son as essential and inalienable, or as procured from without after the manner of an accident?

If, then, they shall say that He has the pre-eminence as acquired, and is dignified by dignities brought in from without, it is necessary to confess further that the Only-begotten is able at some time to be destitute of glory, and, as they say, to strip off the acquired grace, and, being deprived of being above all, to appear bare of the very pre-eminence they now admire—if indeed the accident is something that can be cast off, since it does not touch the essence of the subject.

There will consequently be some change and alteration concerning the Son, and the melodist will be found to be lying who idly sings of Him in the words: The heavens shall perish, but Thou remainest;

and they all shall wax old as a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed;

but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail. For where is 'the same,' if He shifts along with us, and that by changes for the worse? And in vain, as it seems, does He too glory in Himself, saying: See, see that I am He, and I am not changed, and there is no God beside Me. And how shall not the sufferings of the offspring ascend even to the Father Himself, if indeed He is His express image and unvarying likeness? God and Father, then, will be for us subject to alteration, and possesses the pre-eminence over all things as something supervening;

for the archetype will of necessity appropriate to itself the things that are in the image.

But they will not say that He has the pre-eminence as acquired, shuddering back from such difficulties and absurdities of reasoning alike, but rather as essential and inalienable.

Standing essentially outside the multitude of created things, and having run beyond being ranked by nature among created things, what else henceforth could He be but God? For we see nothing intervening, so far as pertains to the account of subsisting essence.

For the creation is that which is ruled, and God is conceived as over it.

If, then, the Son is God by nature, and was ineffably begotten of God the Father, 'from above' signifies the nature of the Begetter;

and on this account the Only-begotten is above all, inasmuch as He is seen to be from that very nature.

He that is of the earth is of the earth, and speaketh of the earth.

He will not act with equal measure, he says, in respect of the power to persuade—the earth-born compared with the God who is over all.

For he that is from the earth will speak as a man, and will be placed only in the rank of a counsellor, entrusting to those under instruction the entire reins of willing to believe;

but He that cometh from above, as God, by a certain divine and ineffable grace imparting mastery to the word, sets it into the ears of those who draw near.

And by as much as He is better by nature, by so much altogether will He act the more vigorously.

And most usefully does the blessed Baptist say such things to his own disciples.

For since they saw him surpassed by the glory of the Saviour, and were on this account moreover stumbled not a little—wherefore also they came to him saying: Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to Him—of necessity the Spirit-bearer, cutting short the passion of stumbling, and implanting in his own disciples a sound apprehension concerning the most necessary matters, expounds the Saviour's pre-eminence over all things, and teaches no less the reason why all men now went to Him; and, passing by the baptism that is by water only, they came to the more divine and more perfect one—that, namely, which is by the Holy Spirit.

He that cometh from heaven is above all.

This bears witness, he says, that the difference is very great and incomparable between those from the earth and the God the Word who comes down from above and out of heaven.

If I am not worthy to teach, and if my word alone will not suffice for you, the Son Himself will confirm it, bearing witness that the earth-born is separated by an incomprehensible measure from the sovereignty that is above all;

for discoursing somewhere with the unholy Jews, the Saviour said: Ye are from beneath;

I am from above. For 'beneath' He says the nature of created things is, as being subject and as of necessity in bondage to God who calls it into being.

And once more he sets on high the divine and ineffable and sovereign Nature, as having all created things beneath its feet and as having subjected them to the yoke of its authority.

Not without purpose did the blessed Baptist add these words to what he had said above.

For lest his own disciples should suppose that he was inventing groundless reasonings, and that out of modesty—so as not to seem to be reasonably worsted by Christ—he was calling Him greater and from above, and himself lowly and from the earth, he necessarily seals the force of what has been said by the very words the Saviour Himself had spoken; and thus he shows that his interpretation is no empty pretext, as they imagined, but rather a demonstration of the truth.

But since another reading of the verse is also current—'For what He has seen and heard, this He testifies'—come, let us discuss this reading also in a few words.

It is by nature, and by habit, that we receive the full assurance concerning each of things chiefly through the two more sovereign senses—I mean sight and hearing.

For when we have become eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of certain things, we come to speak of them without hesitation.

Therefore, persuading them to come running to believe in Christ, he says: 'For He speaks that which He knows exactly.'

'For He speaks,' he says, 'that which He knows exactly.'

And again he takes an expression, as it were from a likeness to ourselves, that we may understand it in a manner more befitting God, and he says: 'What He has seen and heard, this He testifies.'

'And no one receives His testimony.'

Not as though no one received His testimony does the blessed Baptist say such things—seeing that Christ is by nature God, coming forth from above and from the Father, and is above all.

But rather, as one who, more exactly than all others, had grasped the great dignity of the Speaker, all but shaking his head and smiting his thigh with his right hand, he marvels at the madness of those who disobey Him.

That Christ is God and is by nature from God.

'He who receives His testimony has set his seal that God is true.'

There was no other way to display the impiety of the disobedient, save if the splendid achievement of those who believe were unveiled.

For by the contrast with good things the base is easily discerned, and the knowledge of the better things convicts the more shameful.

'If anyone, then,' he says, 'has assented to the words of Him who has come from above, he has both sealed and made sure through his understanding that never to lie is ever customary and most dear to the divine Nature.'

From this, then, the opposite becomes plainly evident to those who see.

For he who thrusts faith away altogether bears witness against himself that God is not true.

But we must observe again that he draws the Son out of any consubstantiality with the creation, and by what has been said shows Him to be God by nature.

For if he who is persuaded by the things spoken by Him, and who receives the testimony which He would make concerning Himself, has thereby well sealed and confirmed by his vote that God is indeed true;

how could Christ not be conceived of as God by nature—He who is also attested to be true through faith in the things just spoken? Or let our adversary tell us again, how is the divine Nature honoured as speaking truth, when it is the Saviour's testimony that has been received?

For if He is not at all God by nature, then he who believes in Him as speaking truth is not showing piety toward the divine Nature, but rather, according to those men, toward one of the creatures—the most excellent one.

But since the verdict of speaking truth extends to God when Christ is believed, it is surely quite plain that, being God, He does not usurp for Himself, under a false name, the honour that comes from those who assent.

But the enemy of the truth will not, as is likely, agree with these words of ours, but will leap up mightily, refusing to accept that the Son is God by nature.

And he will say again: 'You are quibbling with the argument, my good sir, and devising the twistings of intricate speculations, ever declining the meaning that is in a manner simple and straightforward.'

'For since the Word of God has come down from heaven, crying aloud: "Of Myself I speak nothing, but the Father who sent Me, He has given Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak"; and again: "All things that I have heard from the Father I will declare to you"; or as the holy Baptist himself testified in what follows: "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God"; on this account he says concerning Him: "He who receives His testimony has set his seal that God is true."'

'For truly the God and Father is true;'

'but you are trying to turn over to the Son what is owed to another.'

What, then, shall be said by us in reply to these things? Will the Only-begotten, then, be ranked by us among the prophets, fulfilling the ministry that befits prophets and doing nothing beyond this? For to whom of existing beings is it not admitted without hesitation that the prophets conveyed to us the utterances from God? Then what is the special excellence in the Son, if He too fulfils only this same thing? And how is He above all, if He is still ranked with the prophets and clothed in a servile measure? And how, as excelling them in glory, does He say in the Gospels: 'If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, "You blaspheme," because I said, "I am the Son of God"?' For in these words He clearly distinguishes Himself from the flock of the prophets, and says that they were named gods because the Word of God came to them, while He confesses Himself to be Son.

For to the holy prophets a partial grace was distributed through the Spirit;

but in the Saviour Christ all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell bodily, as Paul says;

'of His fulness we have all received,' as John affirmed.

How, then, is the Giver on equal terms with those who receive; or how shall the fulness of the Godhead be ranked in the portion of one who ministers? Let them therefore consider from this into how great a blasphemy their argument runs the risk of falling.

And in what manner it is fitting to understand the words 'Of Myself I speak nothing, but the Father who sent Me, He has given Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak,' will be interpreted more fully in its own proper time and place.

But I think that for the present we ought to make the objections of our adversaries into a foundation for piety, and, from the very things which they put forward, to contend on behalf of the doctrines of the Church.

They maintain, then, that the Son has received commandments from the Father, and speaks nothing of Himself;

and that whatever He has heard, as He Himself somewhere says, this He hastens to speak to us as well.

For we shall agree—since it does Him no wrong, at least as regards the manner of the reality's being—that the Son is of the matter;

and rather that He is introducing a most excellent dispensation, especially in the present case.

Whenever, therefore, they hear Him saying: 'I and the Father are one; he who has seen Me has seen the Father';

'I am in the Father and the Father is in Me'—let them receive His testimony, let them set their seal that the God and Father is true, seeing that He persuades the Son to speak that which He knows exactly;

let them not disbelieve the words of the Saviour, who interprets to us the things that come from the Father.

'For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God.'

The Father, then, knows His own Son within Himself as being by nature the same as He;

for this, I think, is what 'We are one' signifies, and nothing else;

He knows Him to be Son, and not a thing made;

and by Son I mean the One who is of His very substance, and not one honoured with the bare name of sonship;

He knows Him to be the unvarying image of His own proper being, so as to be seen perfectly in Him, and to portray within Himself the One who from Him ineffably shone forth by nature; and to have the Son within Himself, and again to be Himself in the Son, on account of the identity of substance.

If you think thus, O heretic, you will both rid yourself of a bitter disease, and rid us of the toil that lies in words and disputations.

'For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God.'

When the matter before us is understood in its most obvious sense, what again will be the wonder in the Son? For was not each of the holy prophets also sent by God, and did he not proclaim the words that came from Him? Indeed, to the hierophant Moses it is said somewhere: 'And now come, I send you into Egypt, and you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord'; and to Jeremiah the most holy: 'Say not, I am too young, for to all to whom I shall send you, you shall go, and according to all that I command you, you shall speak.' What, then, is the more in the Son who is such by nature, speaking the words of God because He has been sent by Him? A prophet, it seems, will be shown to us once again, and nothing else, as far as concerns the manner of ministry.

Therefore you will understand the 'He sent' in these words either according to the account of the incarnation and His visitation with flesh in this world;

or again you will take it in a manner more befitting God and more worthy of consideration.

For the Father did not hide the Son within Himself, but caused Him to shine forth from His own nature, as a radiance from light, according to the unutterable and inexplicable manner of the divine begetting;

which indeed the Only-begotten Himself also made plain to us, saying: 'I came forth from the Father and am come'; for the Son came forth from the Father into His own existence, even though He is by nature in Him;

and what in that passage the 'I came forth' signifies for us, this again here the being sent makes plain.

'He, then,' he says, 'the Word who has appeared and flashed forth from the Father, inasmuch as He is God from God, will use words befitting God;

and words befitting God would be those that are true and that shun the stain that comes from lying.'

Therefore, he who receives the Saviour's testimony has set his seal that God is true;

for He is indeed by nature God.

'For not by measure does He give the Spirit.'

Lend your ear, O noble one, that once again you may join us in marvelling at the vigilance of the saints;

he said, then, that the Son was both sent by God and speaks the words of God;

but he somehow perceives, so far as pertains to the ready and obvious force of the saying, that a prophetic measure was being attributed to Him, just as indeed we discussed a moment ago.

He therefore raises Him above equality with those men by these words, and by this one sign gives us to understand that great indeed, or rather already even incomparable, is the difference;

for it is impossible, he says, that those who have obtained the Spirit in measure should be able also to bestow this upon another;

for never has one holy man become a supplier of the Holy Spirit to another holy man;

but the Son supplies to all, as out of His own fulness.

Therefore He does not give by measure, nor, like those men, does He possess some small portion of the Spirit, and that only by participation;

But since He has been shown to be also the Supplier, it would surely be plain that He possesses the whole essentially within Himself.

Therefore He who has so great a pre-eminence over those men will not, as one of them, speak the things that are from God, but as being God from God will He pour forth words befitting God.

Nor will it in any way contradict what has been said, that some suppose the Spirit to have been given to certain persons through the hands of the apostles;

for we shall believe them to be summoners of the Spirit rather than truly suppliers of the Holy Spirit.

Since even the blessed Moses was not himself commanded to take from the spirit that was upon him, but God kept this too within His own sole authority, saying that Moses indeed should assemble the seventy, but Himself promising to take of the spirit that was upon him and to place it upon them;

for He knew that to accomplish things befitting God belongs to God alone.

That the things proper to God and the Father are in the Son not by participation, but essentially and according to nature.

"The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand."

"For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God," he says;

he necessarily elaborates through what lies before us and says, "The Father loveth the Son";

we shall not grieve God the Father, he says, by investing Him who is begotten of Him with equal honour; we shall not give offence by crowning with godly glory the One who is essentially heir of the Father's good things.

Therefore He will be pleased when the Son is glorified by us, but grieved at the contrary.

And let no one suppose, he says, that His own Son is heir of this one and only godly dignity;

"for He hath given all things into His hand," that is, whatever is essentially good in the Father, this is entirely in the power of the Son.

For by "hand" in these passages He names the power, just as when through some prophet He says, "My hand hath established the heaven," instead of "My power";

and the Son has the whole of what is proper to the Father in Himself, not by participation, even if the Father is said to have given;

for otherwise He would have a divinity that is acquired and not natural.

The Father gives to the Son all that is His own in such a way as a man too might be conceived to give to the child born of him the properties of humanity, or as fire too might be said to give to the heat that proceeds from it in its operation the distinctive property of its own nature.

And in such cases, to bestow is also without loss to those who bestow; for the procession of those things conceived as bestowed is not by division or by cutting off.

And the very fact of appearing to receive is also without reproach to those who receive;

for solely on account of the "from whom" are such things said, and there is conceived, so to speak, a certain natural quality of the begetters in the begotten, which manifests what the begetter is according to essence, and makes resplendent the natural operation of its own source.

And these things again are as by way of examples, but far above these, plainly, is God.

And if we see through a mirror and in a riddle, and know in part, how should we not much more greatly fail in the words uttered by the tongue? Thou wilt therefore understand piously, either after this manner, that all things have been given by the Father to the Son;

or thou wilt again take up the account of the dispensation with the flesh, no longer applying the giving and receiving to the natural properties, but placing the Son over the authority above all created things, so that thou mayest again understand something of this kind.

"The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand."

Let not the disobedient one, he says, behave insolently, seeing the Lord of all as man, nor let him suppose that the truth lies, refusing to believe on Him as God because of the flesh.

Let him receive His testimony, and let him readily set his seal that God is true, lest he grieve the Father who is in the heavens.

For He loveth His own Son, and the proof of the love toward Him is that authority over all things has been given to Him.

For after what manner did He humble Himself, or how is He said to have descended from equality with God the Father? For dost thou not see in these things the one giving in a manner befitting God, and the other said to receive in a human and servile manner the very things which He possessed as God? And it is not properly a gift, that which was appointed by the Father to set the Son at the beginning of the lordship over all things;

but rather a returning and a resumption, even with the flesh, to the authority He had before the flesh.

For it was not when He became man that He then began to hold sway over the creation;

but rather, when He became man, then and thus He begins to hold sway, not having cast off the godly dignity because of the flesh, but ascending again, even with the flesh, to that which He was from the beginning.

And to these he added, "And behold, one like a son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even unto the Ancient of days, and was brought before Him, and to Him was given the dominion and the honour and the kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him." Dost thou see how in these words the whole mystery of the Incarnation is accurately described for us?

Dost thou see how the Son is said to receive the kingdom from the Father?

not as a bare Word appearing to the prophet, but as a son of man.

For He humbled Himself, as it is written, being found in fashion as a man for our sakes;

so that, being first taken up into the kingdom, He might again be shown forth to us as the beginning and the way of the glory into the kingdom.

Thus the Lord of glory, being God, is also conformed to our lowliness, that He might also raise up the nature of man to the royal honour.

For He has become in all things Himself pre-eminent, as Paul says, and the way and the door and the firstfruits of the good things of humanity, from death to life, from corruption to incorruption, from weakness to power, from bondage to adoption as sons, from dishonour and inglory to the royal honour and glory.

Therefore, when the Son appears as man to receive the very things which He possessed as God, let us in no way be offended, but rather let us consider the manner of the dispensation that was for our sakes and on our behalf.

For thus shall we keep our own mind unwounded and unharmed.

"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life."

The most wise Baptist testifies that not simply nor without inquiry is life set forth as the reward for those who believe on Christ, but he brings in the proof, so to speak, from the very quality of the things themselves;

for the Only-begotten is Life according to nature;

for "in Him we live and move and have our being." And He wholly takes up His dwelling in us through faith, and abides through the Holy Spirit;

and the blessed John the Evangelist will bear witness, saying in his own epistles, "Hereby we know that He is in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." Christ therefore will make alive those who believe on Him, as being Himself Life according to nature, and moreover dwelling in them.

And that it is through faith that the Son lodges within us, Paul will give full assurance, saying, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of the glory of His simplicity, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." When therefore through faith the Life that is ours according to nature is infused into us, how is he not true who says, "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life"?—meaning plainly the Son Himself, and not some other life conceived apart from Him.

"But he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life."

Will then someone perhaps say that the Baptist advances for us another doctrine and corrupts the account of the resurrection, saying that the believer shall be made alive, but affirming that the one who is not such shall not see life at all? For, according to what is likely, we shall not all be raised, this word having introduced for us this distinction.

Then whither at any time will the saying go that is uttered absolutely and as concerning all, "The dead shall rise"? And what would Paul be doing when he says, "For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body, according to what he hath done, whether good or evil"? I shall think, then, that the lover of learning must be praised, but that nevertheless one must make the most exact scrutiny in the sacred writings.

For observe for me clearly the distinction of what has been said;

for concerning the believer he says that he shall have eternal life, but concerning the disobedient one the word has a different emphasis.

For he did not say that he shall not have life;

for he shall be raised by the common law of the resurrection;

but he says that he shall not see life, that is, he shall not attain even so much as to the bare contemplation of the life of the saints;

he shall not touch that blessedness of theirs, he shall remain untasting of the manner of life spent in gladness;

but to draw breath amid torments is more grievous than any death, holding the soul in the body only for the sensation of evils.

Such a distinction of life Paul too brings in.

Hear what he says to those who have been put to death in wickedness through Christ: "For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

to signify life? But it is, I think, evident to all.

For surely he does not command some to abstain from wicked things in order that they may attain to the future revival of the flesh;

for they shall rise again even if they have not ceased from evil;

but rather he stirs them up toward that life, in which there is assuredly the seeing of good days, spending their long-enduring life in blessedness and glory.

"But the wrath of God abideth on him."

By the addition of these words the blessed Baptist has shown us more nakedly the aim of what has been said.

But let the lover of inquiry again survey the force of the meaning.

"He that obeyeth not the Son," he says, "shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

But if it were really the case that the disobedient one were to conceive of being bereft of the life in the body, he would assuredly also have straightway added, "But death abideth on him."

But since he names the wrath of God, it would henceforth be plain that he is contrasting the punishment of the ungodly with the good cheer of the saints, calling life the true life in glory with Christ, and calling the torments upon the ungodly the wrath of God.