約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 52/94 段

All reserve being removed, so that if not perhaps in word, yet at least in fact he had been made a disciple through the miracle, and had already paradoxically come to faith, having received the gift of sight in the manner of instruction.

For in saying to them 'Do you also wish to become His disciples?' he as it were laid bare his own mind, as of one who had already both willed it and become such;

and he asserts most unhesitatingly that he will even say many times over the things concerning the miracle, if they would truly make their inquiry a matter of discipleship.

He therefore observed, and that very well, the saying in the book of Proverbs: 'Speak into the ears of those who hear.' And through these things he seems somehow to hint at something latent and hidden.

And what this is, I will tell in few words.

There were some among the rulers who had discerned that in truth it was Christ who was working the wonders, but who, hiding as it were in birth-pangs the knowledge they had concerning Him, still escaped the notice of many.

And the wise Evangelist himself will also bear us witness, saying that the rulers indeed knew that He is the Christ, yet on account of the Pharisees they did not confess it. And Nicodemus too will somehow contend in the arguments concerning this, crying out plainly and saying to our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, and that no one can do these signs which You do, unless God be with him.' Some of the rulers, then, did indeed know, and the report concerning this was somehow noised abroad throughout all Jerusalem.

The multitude of the Jews suspects that the rulers indeed knew, but did not, as they wished, also confess it, through malice and envy.

And that this too is true, we shall demonstrate from the very writings of the Gospel.

For the blessed John himself somewhere says that Jesus was standing teaching in the very temple, and expounding such things as seemed to grieve the Law, at least according to the surmise of His hearers.

But the rulers of the Jews, stirring up absolutely nothing, and not even daring to utter so much as a word saying, 'You there, cease teaching things discordant with the ancient laws,' came to be regarded among the crowds according to that suspicion just now spoken of by us.

And indeed, as it is written: 'Some of the people of Jerusalem said, Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And behold, He speaks openly, and they say nothing to Him;'

'can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ?' For it all but says thus: 'Those who have obtained the office of guiding know that He truly is the Christ;'

'behold, though they are thought to thirst for His blood, yet to Him who speaks with such very great openness they lay not even a bare charge in words.'

Such a suspicion, then, being scattered abroad throughout all Jerusalem, the blind man too once heard of it, and had in his ears the report concerning these things.

Gracefully then, in a certain way convicting them, he says: 'Do you enjoin me to reel off the same words in vain, and to hymn the wonder, or rather to make my account according to your pleasure—you who already thirst for discipleship under Him, yet are abashed before one another, and prefer a thankless shame to so admirable a knowledge?' And they reviled him and said: 'You are that man's disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.'

The Evangelist, in saying this, is in a certain way smiling.

They assign Christ to the blind man, but Moses to themselves;

and indeed in very truth the Gentiles were enlightened by Christ through the evangelical instruction, but Israel died away amid the types given through Moses, and was buried in the shadow of the letter.

For this reason Paul too says somewhere concerning them: 'For until this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart.' And that we have inscribed the history concerning the blind man as it were in an image, also as a type of the Gentiles—transferring the things concerning him, as in a figure, into the truth concerning them—is not in doubt.

But this must be noted, that a delightful thing and full of all good repute is the reproach endured for Christ's sake;

for through those very things by which they suppose they ought to grieve—those who do not decline to persecute His lovers—by these very things, without knowing it, they gladden them, and rather make them more illustrious than they are truly able to wrong them.

But the utterly ruined Pharisees, belittling their own heads, as was to be expected—that I may not say Christ—concerning Him say 'that man's,' but puffing themselves up as it were into overweening arrogance, they senselessly say: 'But we are disciples of Moses.'

We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man, we know not whence he is.

Once again they wax insolent, wielding as their weapon that arrogant folly so habitual and dear to them, and swaggering in their unbreakable shamelessness they cry aloud, 'We know.'

And they add that God has spoken to Moses; yet while by this they seem to honour him as is fitting and to have known him well, in another way they again offer him insult, counting his teachings as nothing.

For senselessly they condemn one whom as yet they do not know; or rather, even after coming to know him, they impiously dishonour him — and this though the Law altogether forbids that any should be permitted to do or to pass judgement upon anyone unjustly.

And they assert something of this kind also by these words: 'Admittedly, God has spoken to Moses.'

There is no argument on this point that could persuade anyone to doubt it: through him He appointed laws, and laid down the bounds for each of the things that must be done.

'Therefore,' they say, 'he is a transgressor of the sacred writings who holds views contrary to those given through Moses; and plainly the ordinance concerning the sabbath has been abolished by him,'

'for you were healed on the sabbath;'

'it is not right to acknowledge one who has been caught and convicted in such matters.'

'With good reason, then, we now say that he has not kept the divine Law.'

Therefore, when they say concerning Christ, 'We know not whence he is,' they do not speak thus as though ignorant who or whence such things are; for they are convicted elsewhere of having expressly confessed that they knew the facts about him.

'Is not this the carpenter's son, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, I have come down from heaven?' Let us therefore not take the words 'We know not whence this man is' as indicating ignorance, but let us regard them as the fruit of the arrogance that is in them.

For, heaping abuse upon their own heads and reckoning him as utterly nothing, they utter such a saying against him.

But it is likely, no doubt, that they also mean to signify this:

for what befits the subject somehow persuades us to proceed also to a subtler examination.

'We know,' he says, 'that God has spoken to Moses; let us therefore believe without delay the things given through him, and let us keep what has been divinely ordained;'

'but this man we know not, for God has not spoken to him, nor have we learned anything of the kind concerning him.'

But the Pharisees, though accustomed to give themselves airs of wisdom and greatly to pride themselves on their knowledge of the divine oracles, ought to have reckoned this: that God the Father, foretelling through the all-wise Moses that Jesus would come in due season, spoke thus: 'I will raise up for them a Prophet from among their brethren like you, and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them whatsoever I command him.'

'The words that I speak are not mine, but the Father's who sent me'; and again, 'I speak not of myself, but the Father who sent me, he has given me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak.' The words of the Pharisees, therefore, are but a pretext and inventions of idle reasonings.

For if they say that Moses must rather be followed on this account, because God has spoken to him, why do they not think the same concerning Christ, who plainly says the very things we have just mentioned? But honouring the Law in part, and pretending to hold in reverence what seems good to God, they strike in another and worse way, dishonouring him by refusing to accept the more timely proclamation —

and this was that which was proclaimed concerning Christ in the rank of a prophet, on account of the dispensation in the flesh.

The man answered and said to them: 'Why, herein is the marvel, that you know not whence he is, and yet he opened my eyes.'

'I am astounded,' he says, 'and with very good reason, if you declare that you have not known one attested by such holiness and by a power befitting God through the things he has wrought — you who are reputed to attend upon God without distraction, who preside over the Law, who revel in the sacred letters, who have obtained rule, or rather most of all the reputation of being good stewards.'

'For to whom would it befit to know well those who work wonders through God, if not to those who have been appointed to the priesthood, and to whom the venerable mystery has been assigned for their care? But in saying that I am astounded, as though you had been utterly ignorant of one who wrought upon me so admirable and strange a divine sign, he strikes secretly, showing that they had so far departed from sanctification and from fairness towards piety, that they even shamelessly confess that they do not at all know the truly Holy One, that is, Christ.'

For, that we may exercise our own argument:

if that saying, well spoken somewhere, is true — 'Every living creature loves its like, and a man shall cleave to his like' — how is it that, if they were holy and good, they turned away from loving to cleave to the Holy and Good One? The saying, then, is in travail to bring to light a refutation of the abominable conduct, or way of life, of the Pharisees.

But I think it also intimates something further besides this.

For I think that one who brings a diligent mind to bear upon these contemplations ought to discern more keenly what seems to lie hidden in each thing.

What, then, is this? Much talk resounded throughout all Judaea concerning our Saviour Christ, yet only as concerning a prophet.

For thus the Law had foretold in oracle that he would come, saying, 'The Lord our God will raise up a Prophet from among your brethren'; and they cherished the hope that, when he was manifested in his own season, he would discourse to them things surpassing the Law, and, expounding most excellently the truer will of the Lawgiver, would re-educate them in what was more fitting.

And do not wonder if among the Jews there was such a hope and such talk, seeing that even among the foreigners a report of the same tenor had been spread abroad.

For indeed that Samaritan woman: 'We know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us all things.' The Jews therefore knew, and very clearly, that Christ would come;

for this is what 'Messiah' signifies.

For certain of those of Jerusalem said, 'Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And behold, he speaks boldly, and they say nothing to him.'

'Can it be that the rulers have truly known that this is the Christ? But we know whence this man is;'

'but when the Christ comes, no one knows whence he is.' Since, then, the Jews were dogmatizing thus senselessly concerning Christ, the man who had once been blind now swiftly forms, from the miracle, his conceptions about him, and all but seizes upon the very word of the Pharisees for the confirmation of his own reasonings.

'For herein,' he says, 'is the wonder, that you know not whence he is, and yet he opened my eyes.'

'I have,' he says, 'two signs, and very clear ones, that he is the Christ.'

'For neither do you know whence he is, and moreover he opened my eyes.'

'This man, therefore, is plainly he who was proclaimed beforehand through the Law and attested through the voice of the prophets.'

We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone be God-fearing and does his will, him he hears.

Having first revelled, as it were, in the proclamations given through the prophets and the Law — as though these were now brought to perfection in the fact both that it was unknown whence Christ is and that the eyes of the blind were opened — gathering to himself from every quarter the aids toward faith, he devises yet something further.

For from necessary and admitted premises he shapes his advance to an inquiry into what is useful and fitting, and gathers together, as it were, a certain God-loving syllogism.

For he most excellently affirms and stoutly maintains that the righteousness-loving and virtue-loving God never at any time hears those who love sin; and setting this in the rank of things undoubtedly admitted, he introduces on the other side the contrary as true, as in no way to be gainsaid — I mean, that the Lord of all altogether and in every way hearkens to those who are wont to be God-fearing.

And the aim of his conclusion looks to Christ alone, yet it has somehow been framed in a more general manner and bears a universal declaration.

For, as I have already indicated before, the once-blind man holds a lowlier apprehension concerning Christ; not having yet learned exactly that he is by nature God, he thinks and speaks of him as of a prophet, to whom the being God-fearing might be ascribed without reproach;

but to Christ it will in no way be suitable;

for he is by nature God, receiving the worship offered by the God-fearing as in the rank of a spiritual sacrifice.

Since the world began it was never heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind.

Stung, as it seems, no little, and grieved as it were intolerably by the revilings against Christ — since they had said as though in reproach, 'You are that man's disciple, but we are disciples of Moses' — he hastens to plead for his own teacher, and in a manner sets over against the things accomplished through Moses the brilliant achievements of our Saviour, showing that by how much he is greater in wonder-working, by so much he stands among the more excellent.

For is it not necessary that the accomplisher of the greater deed be altogether superior also in glory? But it is beyond doubt.

And at the same time, as is likely, he intimates something of this kind: a most ancient prophecy having sung beforehand, and having spoken thus concerning the coming of Christ, 'Then,' it says, 'shall the eyes of the blind be opened' — no one before had ever been wondered at for doing any such thing, but it has been fulfilled through this one alone, whom you, he says, I know not how, did not shrink from calling a sinner.

And yet a great choir of holy prophets has been shown forth, and not a few of the righteous are borne in record for me through the sacred writings; but 'since the world began it was never heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind.'

Is not this man, then, the Christ, who has brought fulfilment to the declarations of the prophets, who has carried to their end the things long ago proclaimed? For if no one else besides him opens the eyes of the blind, what remains to withstand faith?

And what shall overturn assent to him? Or how shall the mystery of the knowledge concerning him not run, as it were, along a most smooth road, once all doubt has been removed out of the way? Accordingly, the healed man too, by these things, pleads for the Saviour Christ.

Skilfully does he weave the argument of his defence.

For it would indeed have been the mark of altogether free and unfettered boldness to say that Christ is both better and more illustrious than Moses and the prophets; but it was not unlikely to imagine that the Pharisees, chafing at this, would craftily pretend to contend on behalf of the holy ones as though they had been insulted, and then, seizing a convenient pretext, would attempt to punish the man, lest, living and being seen, he should appear as a memorial of Christ's glory, and, as it were, an image of the God-befitting authority that resided in him.

For this reason, both averting the wrath that would thence arise, and shutting off the further advance of their bloodthirsty designs, he turns the aim of his discourse toward the general and less pointed, saying that since the world began nothing at all such as Christ has wrought upon him has been done by anyone.

But this was nothing other than to indicate that Christ is greater than all and more glorious — he who displays through deeds such power and authority residing in him as none of the holy ones ever bore.

Accordingly, he crowns his own physician with the pre-eminence over all, taking as his proof the wonder that to others was both unachievable and unattemptable — and this was the reversal of blindness.

This man, were he not from God, could do nothing.

More keen-sighted toward the truth than those instructed through the Law is the man who now sees, and who has been marvellously delivered from his former blindness;

for behold, behold, he has employed many exceedingly wise words, showing the mind of the Pharisees to be most counterfeit.

For since they said foolishly concerning Christ, 'We know not whence this man is,' he again vigorously refutes them as thinking amiss, when they say that they do not at all know one so wonder-working — it being plain to all that it is impossible for one who is not from God to do any of the things accomplished through divine energy.

For God works such things through the holy alone;

but to one who is a stranger and has not yet walked in piety toward him, he would never grant the power to glory in such renown.

Since otherwise, let the crazed Pharisee come forward and say what difference there remains before God between the holy and the profane, the righteous and the sinner, the unholy and the God-beloved.

For if it is permitted that each shine forth undistorted through the same signs, there is no longer anything to intervene between them, but all is already confounded, and we shall with good reason say what is written: 'What profit is it that we serve him, or what advantage that we should meet with him?' For if, as one of the poets among the Greeks said, 'An equal lot awaits the man who stays behind, and him who fights his hardest, and in equal honour are the coward and the brave' — how is it not vain to make trial of bitter toils for the sake of virtue? But we shall reckon that these things are not so.

How so? 'For those who glorify me,' says God, 'I will glorify, and he who despises me shall be despised.' But I for my part would ask the conceited Pharisees: if God works such things indiscriminately even through sinners, why did not the magicians among the Egyptians do the same as the great Moses? Why, going through equal wonders, did they not carry off the same glory as he? But you will say that Moses' rod, falling to the ground, became a serpent, and that no less did those of the magicians also become serpents.

You will hear in reply from us that those of the magicians were not transformed into a serpent, but it was a deception and a phantom, cheating the accuracy of human sight; and there was a certain magical art displaying the rod as a serpent.

But the rod of Moses was truly transformed into a serpent, and passed over into the nature of the beast.

And from the distinction that has been laid down in the sacred writings you will perceive the truth of what has been said.

For the rod of Moses devoured the rods of those men.

For since the others were serpents merely in outward figure, while his was truly and by nature that which it appeared to be, it was brought even to wrath, so that it might appear a living creature and no longer a rod; and it bites, even beyond the power of a serpent, with an unspeakable power, God rendering easy that which was in itself so difficult.

For being just and a lover of the just, He works marvellous gifts of grace through the saints, but by no means through transgressors.

Most reasonably, then, does the man who had once been blind rebuke the loose-tongued babblings of the Pharisees, and convict them of thinking amiss, since they say that He is not from God, though He is by His very nature attested to be from God by the power He has of working the marvellous deeds that come from God.

'They answered and said to him: You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us? And they cast him out.'

For rebukes are bearable and even sweet to the wise, since they contain within themselves much profit and a restoration to what is better, even if the sting comes in along with them.

But they are bitter to those who love sin. And for what cause? Because, having rooted their mind in the pleasures that lead to evil, they turn away, as from something painful, the admonition that would cut them off from these; and they regard the departure from pleasures as a loss, making no account of that which is by nature profitable.

For just as those who fall from a ship and are caught in the current of a river have no strength to resist, but reckoning it perilous to swim against the waters, are borne along by the flood alone;

in the same way, I think, do these men also, concerning whom our discourse has just been, being overcome by the tyranny of their own pleasures, surrender to them all the reins, having given up resisting even in the least degree.

The wretched Pharisees, therefore, are grieved, and gnashing at the Teacher of what is best in a beast-like manner, they rejoice in the preludes of wrath; and gushing forth an inaccessible first-fruit of madness, they revile lawlessly, and leaping up, as it were, to the arrogance native to them, they say that the blind man was born in sins, being mocked into this by Jewish suppositions, and ignorantly upholding an untenable dogma.

For that no one of existing beings is born blind, either properly on his own account or on account of his parents, or afflicted with any other bodily suffering, and further that God does not bring the sins of the fathers upon the children, we have shown, not inelegantly, as it seems to me, in a lengthy discourse, when the question was set before us for interpretation: 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?' Since, then, the man who had once been blind resolved to confute the Pharisees, he was not only reviled but even cast out by them.

And receive again, as a type of a true reality, that which has been accomplished.

For that those of Israel were going to abhor those from among the Gentiles as being nurtured in sins because of the deception that had gone before, anyone may recognize from what the Pharisees said to that man.

And they send him out; for cast out and rejected among the Jews are those who champion the word concerning Christ.

'Jesus heard that they had cast him out.'

The divinely inspired Evangelist says that our Lord Jesus Christ heard—by no means, however, necessarily through someone reporting to Him what had happened, but rather, since, as one of the wise men somewhere said, 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world,' and the ear that listens hears all things. For He hearkens, as the psalmist says: 'He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? and He that formed the eye, shall He not consider?' Whenever, then, we are insulted for His sake, or endure any of the things that are wont to grieve at the hands of those who are accustomed to fight against God, it follows that we should believe that God will surely be an overseer, and that He hears, as it were, the temptation as it befalls.

For the very nature of the matter, and the genuineness of those who are dishonoured for His sake, has a great cry in the divine ears.

'And having found him, He said to him: Do you believe in the Son of God?' The man who had once been blind was cast out by the Pharisees; but, no long space of time having intervened, Christ seeks him, and having found him, initiates him into the mysteries.

to him, and to those who do not shudder to face danger beforehand for the faith in Him.

For you hear how, setting Himself forth as manifest, as it were by way of a fair recompense, He hastens to implant in him the most perfect word concerning the faith.

And He puts forward the question that He may receive his assent.

For this is the manner of believing.

For on this very account, those who come to the divine baptism we question beforehand, as a matter of course, whether they have believed; and when they have already assented and confessed, we send them on as now genuine members to grace.

The type of the reality, then, begins for us from here, and from our Saviour Christ Himself we have learned in what manner one ought to make the confession concerning the faith.

On this account also the divinely inspired Paul strongly affirmed that the confession in these matters is made before many witnesses—that is, before the holy angels.

And if it is a fearful thing for one who has spoken before angels to have lied, how much more before Christ Himself? He asks the man who had once been blind, therefore, not simply whether he wishes to believe, but adds also in whom.

For the faith is in the Son of God, and not as in one man among us, but as in God who became man.

For thus is the mystery concerning Christ complete.

And in saying 'Do you believe?' He all but says: Do you wish to be seen as superior to their folly? Do you consent to embrace the faith, having declared yourself strengthened against their disbelief?

For the word 'You' introduces a certain contrast, as it were, over against others.

'And who is He, Lord,' he says, 'that I may believe in Him?' The soul that has been previously furnished with sober reasoning, and that searches out the word of truth with the free eyes of the mind, puts in unhindered upon it as into a harbour, and has an untroubled catch of what is profitable.

And the man who had once been blind will again be a demonstration of what has been said.

For having already marvelled at the mystery concerning Christ through many reasonings and reflections, and moreover being struck with amazement at His unspeakable might—things of which he had made trial, not another, but he himself upon himself—he is thus found ready to believe, and going toward this without delay.

For behold, behold, He asks to whom it might be needful to direct the faith that had already been built up beforehand in him.

For this alone is lacking to him who has been made ready beforehand for that, as we have said.

'And Jesus said: You have both seen Him, and He that speaks with you, He it is.'

Being asked in whom it were fitting to believe, He points to Himself, and not simply saying 'I am,' but says that the One who is seen and who speaks with him is the Son of God, providing in every way for our benefit, and variously weaving the aids to faith that are undeviating and unperverted, so that we may not, while seeming to be pious, fall into the snares and trap of the devil, senselessly turning away from the truth of the mystery.

For already some even of those who seem to be Christians, not accurately understanding the aim of the economy in the flesh, have dared to separate from God the Word the temple that was taken from a woman for our sake, and have parcelled the one and true Son into a pair of sons—and this because He became man.

For through much folly they think it unworthy, as it seems reasonable to them, to confess that which the Only-begotten did not think it unworthy even to do for our sake.

For He Himself, being in the form of God, according to what is written, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, that He might become man like us, that is, without sin.

But they think perversely, in a manner rebuking, as it were, the divine and loving counsel, and thrusting aside, as far as concerns their own notions, the temple taken from a woman from the true sonship, they do not accept the humiliation; but conceiving an opinion far removed from the truth, they say that the Only-begotten Son from God the Father is one—that is, the Word begotten from His substance—and again that the son from a woman is another.

Then, since the God-inspired Scripture proclaims one Son and Christ, how are they not full of all impiety, dividing into two the one and true Son? For inasmuch as He is God the Word, He is conceived as other beside the flesh;

and inasmuch as He is flesh, something other is conceived beside the Word;

but since He who is the Word from God the Father became man, the 'one and another' is entirely done away with, because of the unspeakable union and coming-together.

For there is one and only Son, both before the coming-together with the flesh, and when He came together with flesh;

and through the flesh we name the whole man, I mean the one composed of soul and body.

For this reason, then, the Lord again, most providentially, when asked 'Who is the Son of God?' did not say 'I';

for there would have been some, as was likely, who would senselessly suppose that only the Word who has shone forth from God the Father was signified by this; but having first demonstrated Himself concerning the very things that seemed to be doubted by some, through saying 'You have both seen Him,'