約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 68/94 段

What, then, Christ teaches us through the passage before us I will set forth in a few words.

Saying that Another shall be sent to us from God the Father, He again secures dispensationally the word concerning the faith.

For it was likely that some, not rightly understanding what was said, would suppose Him to mean that the Holy Spirit is not of the essence of God—as indeed it seemed to some of the foolish—but is by nature something other;

For to say 'Another,' at least among the more ignorant, might bring in the appearance of some such notion.

In order, therefore, that He might clearly show that He does not wish the notion of otherness to be understood in any other way, but only in respect of its subsisting distinctly as its own;

For the Spirit is Spirit and not Son, just as the Son is Son and not Father;

Having said that the Paraclete shall be sent, He Himself promises to come, showing the Spirit to be nothing other than what He Himself is, since it is the Spirit proper to the Father and is understood also as His own;

And for this reason it has also been named His mind;

And indeed Paul, signifying this very thing, says: 'But we have the mind of Christ.' Understanding rightly, then, and without error, and thrusting away as unseemly all turning aside from what is fitting, and following the words of the God-inspired Scripture, we say that the Spirit is not something other than Him—so far as concerns natural identity—being divided off and existing in its own hypostasis;

For this, I think, the all-wise Paul also perceived, and he often intermingles them, and brings in each as being the same thing—I mean the Paraclete and the Son.

And let no one suppose that we mean either that he does away with the distinct standing of the names, that is, of the Persons, in each; or that he says the Son is not Son but Spirit, or that he does not know the Spirit to be Spirit, but says it is the Son;

For this was not his aim in that place, nor do we so believe.

For he knows the enumeration of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, and teaches that each of those signified subsists individually;

Yet he clearly proclaims that the holy Trinity rests in an unvarying identity.

The Only-Begotten, showing the Spirit to be of His own nature—having said that the Paraclete is sent forth to the saints from the Father—Himself promises to come and to fulfil for them the office of the Father, so that they might not, like certain orphans bereft of the help of one who presides, thereby become easy prey to the snares of the devil and very readily assailed by the offences in the world, and that too when these are many and come as it were of necessity through the unrestrained fury of those who bring them on.

As a weapon, then, and an unbreakable security to our souls, the Father has given the Spirit of Christ, fulfilling in us His grace and presence and power.

For it is impossible for the soul of man to accomplish any good, or to master its own passions, or to escape the greatness of the devil's swift snare, unless it be fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and thereby have Christ Himself within it.

And indeed our divinely inspired psalmist, composing through the wisdom that was in him thanksgiving for this, cried aloud unto God: 'Lord, as with a shield of good pleasure You have crowned us'—saying that the shield of good pleasure is nothing other than the Holy Spirit that shields us and holds us together with unforeseen strength toward that which seems good to God.

Therefore, that He will be present and will help through the Spirit those who believe in Him, He no less promises, even though He ascend into the very heavens; after the rising again from the dead, He will now appear before the face of God on our behalf, according to Paul's word.

'Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you see Me, because I live, and you shall live.'

With the Passion at the doors, and bringing in along with it the season of the Ascension, He says that He will be out of sight to the world—that is, to those who have preferred the enjoyment of things temporal to the divine goods, and who reckon earthly things better than heavenly.

And weaving a thought sister to and running together with what has already been said, we shall reasonably say that the Paraclete—that is, the Holy Spirit—has been given by God the Father, evidently through the Son;

For all things are from the Father through Him.

It has come, however, not upon all indiscriminately, both the wicked and the good, but upon those unto whom it was fitting for it to go.

For so far as concerns the most rich and ungrudging grace of the Giver, no one of those upon the earth has remained without a share;

For 'I will pour out,' He says in the prophets, 'of My Spirit upon all flesh'; yet each becomes to himself the cause of possessing the God-given good, or else of not laying hold of it at all.

For those who in no way purify their own mind through all fair-mindedness, but rather dwell overmuch in the evils that are in the world, will remain without a share of the divine grace; they will not see Christ within themselves, having their heart bereft of the Spirit.

Wherefore also, being ranked with the one who presides over orphans, they are, so to speak, plundered by everything that has power to overreach—whether passion, or demon, or some other worldly desire—and by every thing that drags them down and as it were forces them toward sin.

But to the holy and to those fittingly disposed to receive Him, He reasonably said—since they were to endure none of these things—'I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.' Therefore He says that He will become altogether unseen and unbeheld to those who are minded on the things in the world, after His departure hence—I mean His going up into the heavens;

But He says that He will be found visible to the saints, since the Holy Spirit implants a certain divine and spiritual radiance in the eyes of their heart, and sows in them every good knowledge.

For either we shall suppose Him to mean thus by 'Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more, but you see Me'—or, inclining toward some other interpretation, especially because there is joined to what He has said the words 'Because I live, and you shall live,' we reckon something of the following kind.

He went up to the Father and God who is in the heavens;

But having continued only a short time in between, He will come down again, as we believe, and will return once more to us in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, and will set before all—both wicked and good—that most awesome judgment seat.

For the whole of that which has been made will come unto judgment;

For that those who have practised a God-loving and exceptional life will unceasingly be with Christ, beholding, that is, His divine and unspeakable beauty, Paul will make plain, saying: 'For the Lord Himself, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' And again, to those who have chosen to put to death the passions that are in the world: 'For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God; when Christ, who is your life, shall be made manifest, then shall you also be made manifest with Him in glory.' Therefore—

For I will recapitulate the force of the discourse;

Those who love the evils in the world shall pass away unto Hades, and shall become removed from the face of Christ;

But those who love virtue shall be with Him and shall dwell together with Him through all time, and, having kept unharmed the pledge of the Spirit, and being with Him, that is, they shall also gaze upon His God-befitting beauty unhindered;

For 'the Lord,' He says, 'shall be to you an everlasting light, and God your glory.' And it is likely that the Lord means to signify this when we hear Him saying, 'Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more, but you see Me, because I live, and you shall live.'

He will in no way speak falsely in saying that the intervening time until, as it were, His revelation is short.

For to God, who ever is, even the time long according to our reckoning is set altogether as nothing;

And the psalmist will bear witness, saying: 'For a thousand years in Your eyes, O Lord, are as yesterday which is past, and as a watch in the night.' 'In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.'

Now some—and these among those once reputed to be pre-eminent among the unholy heretics—wickedly refusing to confess that the Son is of the essence of God the Father, on this account suppose that there exists in Him some relative and not natural union; and indeed they have written, belching forth things from their own opinion, not the things of the Holy Spirit, to the effect that, since the Son is loved by the Father, and He in turn again loves the Father, it is after this manner that He is in Him.

And those senseless men bring forward, as some sort of irrefutable proof, that which is joined to the saying set before us, concerning both us and Himself;

And indeed they say, having set up as it were a staff of reed to prop up their own blasphemies, that just as we are said to be in Him and have Him in ourselves, and are not united according to the principle of essence—but the manner of the union is according as it is our nature to love and to be loved in return;

Utterly so—as regards, at least, the principle of nature—and being in a wholly different condition, He is understood, they say, to be in the Father only according to the ordinance of love.

For their aim, as we said just now, is to declare the Only-Begotten to be a thing made and a creature and generate, honoured only by pre-eminences over the other creatures, but existing outside the essence of God the Father.

But since a long discourse has already been made by us concerning this—by which, according to the power that is in us, we showed that the Son is by nature in the Father and has an essential union with Him—we will forbear for the present to extend the argument on this point any further.

Nevertheless we shall not wholly allow our adversaries to run down the argument as it were unopposed, but we will set ourselves against them in a few words, showing their pernicious and at once ignorant device of their wickedness to be both malicious and unlearned; and indeed we will say: If the Son is in the Father only on account of being loved and loving, then according to this same reasoning both we are in Him and He in us, and no other bond is seen joining either the Son to the Father, or us to Him and Him to us;

How, or in what manner, tell me, He says, shall we in that day know the mystery concerning this? For we have not yet, as would be fitting, come to know that the Father loves the Son, and that He Himself also loves the Father;

But perhaps we do not even yet know the things concerning ourselves, and an empty reasoning mocks us who suppose that the Son loved us and on this account gained us for the Father, and that we too loved Him.

For in saying, 'In that day you shall know,' He shows that the time of the knowing is not yet present;

Then why in vain did the Lord ring in our ears, saying, 'The Father loves the Son'? For that He too loves the Father, who will not say it? And how, tell me, did He also make plain proof of His love toward us by choosing to suffer on our behalf? For 'Greater love,' He says, 'has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.' And why did He plainly seek from us love toward Himself, and for this reason urge us to press on to fulfil the things that seem good to Him? For 'he that loves Me,' He says, 'will keep My commandments.'

For when shall we keep the divine commandment, if we make no account of the present? Since, then, it is worthy of belief that the Son loves the Father, and loves us and is loved by us, how is it not consistent to conclude that the Son intended to indicate something else, and that He does not define the manner of the union by the law of love, but rather has plainly introduced it according to some other manner, when He says to us, 'In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you'? But perhaps to this the adversary will say that before the Passion Christ spoke such things to us—that He loves the Father and is loved in return by the Father, and loves us and we Him;

But after the Passion and the rising again from the dead, since we saw Him burst the bonds of death, we came to know that He is in the Father, inasmuch as He is indeed loved, and for this reason also rose again from the dead;

For this reason both He is in us and we in Him, according to this same principle of love.

But to this we say: Most of all, the objection you raise is silly and utterly senseless, and proceeds by rotten arguments;

Nevertheless, O noble sirs, consider again that what we truly knew before the resurrection from the dead, we did not need to learn after the resurrection.

For if we had believed imperfectly that the Son is loved by His own Father, and that He too loves the Father, then indeed we ought to have awaited the resurrection, that thence we might have the perfection of the knowledge.

That the Only-Begotten loved us, and that we too loved Him, will lie before everyone, and very readily to be seen, for anyone willing to look upon the very nature of the truth.

For 'being in the form of God the Father, He counted it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.' Then what, tell me, is the occasion of such things? Is it not the principle of love toward us? And how is it possible to doubt it? And our being willing on Christ's behalf, and having it ready even to yield up our very life to those who persecute it, so that we may not deny our own Lord—would this not bring in plain proof of our love toward Him? But either one will altogether say this too to be true, or he will condemn the holy martyrs as having striven for nothing profitable through Christ, and having endured so great a danger without reward.

Since, then, it has been demonstrated, and that most clearly, that the Father has perfect love toward the Son, and that He too in like manner loves the Father, and that we love Him and He us—what reason could there be to suppose that the coming to know this is perhaps to be referred to other times, when the Lord says, 'In that day you shall know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you'? But away, then, with their nonsense and the sophistry of their God-hating reasonings;

But we, taking courage by the torch-bearing light of the Spirit, will not hesitate to say what has seemed to us to be rightly held, for the clearing up of the things in question.

Having said beforehand, therefore, 'Because I live, you also shall live,' He is found immediately to have added to these words, 'In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.'

Then to whom? To those who exist and are accustomed to think rightly it could not fail to be perfectly clear that He appoints as the day for the knowledge of this matter the season in which we ourselves also, being refashioned toward Him, shall ascend to eternal life, having escaped the curse of death. And it seems to me that Christ signifies some such thing when He says:

when, revealing to us the divine mystery, He writes to certain ones: For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God;

when therefore Christ, who is your life, shall be made manifest, then you also shall be made manifest with Him in glory. For He shall transform the body of our lowliness — this very body assuredly, and no other — to be conformed to the body of His glory, and by ineffable power shall refashion the nature of man to its ancient state, easily transposing all things to whatever He may will, with none hindering;

for He is the true God, who makes all things and transforms them, according to that which is written.

Therefore in that day, or rather in that season, in which you yourselves also shall live;

for I live, He says, even though I have become a man according to you, and have put on a body which, according to its own nature, is subject to corruption;

you shall clearly know, He says, that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

And we shall understand the Lord to say these things to us not in order that we should suppose Him to be in the Father merely according to the principle of love — as indeed it seemed to those who think the contrary — but according to the power of a deep mystery, which is hard even to comprehend and not easy to express;

nevertheless, so far as I am able, I shall attempt to explain it.

Now I consider that every mind of those upon earth falls very far short of an exact exposition; yet, sharpened by the warmth of love to see and to speak even moderately, let us now behold the aim of the Incarnation of the Only-begotten;

come, let us examine the cause for which, being in the form of God the Father as God, He counted it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and endured the cross, despising the shame. For thus, and only with difficulty, according to what is possible, the depth of the matters before us will become clearly visible.

And we shall come to know how the Son is in the Father — naturally, that is to say, and not according to that relation of being loved and loving which is imagined by those of the opposite opinion;

and how we again are in Him in the like manner, and He Himself in us.

Paul, expounding to us, declared:

For God the Father was pleased to gather up all things in one head in Christ; and that the name and reality of this 'recapitulation' signifies the bringing back again and taking up into that which was in the beginning of the things which had fallen away to a contrary end;

then, wishing to make clear to us one by one the modes of this recapitulation, at one time he said: For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit; and at another time again: Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And Paul expounded these two modes of the recapitulation as being necessary components of the account of the Incarnation of the Only-begotten;

and a mode comprehensive of the others besides these, the wise evangelist John;

for thus he writes concerning Christ: He came to His own, and His own received Him not;

but as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It is therefore plain, and I think manifest to all, that it was chiefly for these causes that the Only-begotten, being God and of God according to nature, became man, in order, that is, that He might condemn sin in the flesh, and by His own death might put death to death, and might declare us sons of God, regenerating in the Spirit those who are upon the earth unto a dignity above nature.

For it was indeed altogether good, in this manner, again to gather up in one head and to take up into the ancient state the race that had slipped away — that is, the human race.

Again, setting each of the causes just now mentioned by us before our discourse, let us say concerning it what is fitting.

For we must inquire how it could be fitting to understand that God the Father condemned sin in the flesh, having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

For being God according to nature, and having shone forth from His essence, and possessing naturally the unchangeableness proper to His own identity, and on this account being utterly incapable of slipping into sin or of being turned aside to that which is not right, He of His own will prepared to descend into the sin that lies under the dominion of the flesh, in order that, having made it His own flesh, He might transpose it toward His own and natural condition, that is, toward not sinning.

For assuredly we shall not, if we think rightly, be disposed to hold that the Only-begotten became man in order to set this right in His own temple alone;

for where would the magnificence and profit of His coming to us be seen at all, if He preserved His own body only? Rather we shall believe that the Only-begotten became like us in order that, through Himself and in Himself first, as in a firstfruits of humanity, He might procure good things for the whole nature.

For just as we followed after not death only, but all the passions of the flesh, having suffered this in the first man, on account both of the transgression and of the divine curse;

in the same manner, I think, we all shall follow after Christ, who in manifold ways preserves and sanctifies the nature of the flesh in Himself.

Wherefore Paul also said: And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly. For the image of the earthy — that is, of Adam — is to come to be in passions and corruption;

but the image of the heavenly — that is, of Christ — is to come to be in impassibility and incorruption.

Therefore the Word, being God according to nature, condemned sin in His own flesh, commanding it to be idle, and rather refashioning it to be moved toward that which seems good to God, and no longer toward its own will;

and thus He fashioned the body, which was natural (animate), to be spiritual.

This then is one mode of recapitulation; but that which is especially fitting and owed to the contemplation of the matters before us shall enter in after it;

and it shall be set before us to speak concerning eternal life and the putting to death of death, and how the Only-begotten removed from the nature of man the corruption that came from the transgression.

Since, therefore, the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also in like manner partook of the same, that He might put death to death, and that He who created all things unto incorruption, and who made the generations of the world to be for salvation, according to that which is written, might again refashion the form of things to their ancient state.

And again my discourse, more curiously than was necessary yet nonetheless of necessity, will be brought forward, demonstrating the antiquity of our estate.

For to wish to grasp rightly the objects of contemplation will, I think, be altogether free from the faults that come of sloth.

This rational living being upon the earth, then — I mean man — was made from the beginning according to the image of the Creator, as the Scriptures say;

and manifold is the account of the image;

for it is an image not in one manner only, but in many;

yet the part of the resemblance to the God who made it that is most conspicuous of all the others is incorruptibility and imperishability.

But I do not think the living being could ever have sufficed of itself to be in this state, at least according to the principle of its own nature;

for how could that which is from the earth be shown to possess in its own nature the boast of incorruption, unless it were enriched with this also — as with the other good things — from God, who is by nature incorruptible and imperishable and who exists truly and ever the same, after the likeness of the other good things? For what have you that you did not receive? Very fittingly indeed and truly the inspired Paul says this to us somewhere.

In order, then, that what had been brought from non-being into being might not, sinking back toward its own beginning, again depart into nothingness, but rather might be preserved perpetually;

for this was the aim of the Creator;

God makes it a partaker of His own nature.

For He breathed into his face the breath of life — that is, the Spirit of the Son; for He Himself is the Life together with the Father, holding all things together unto being.

For in Him and by Him the things capable of receiving life are moved and live, according to the utterance of Paul.

And let none of us in this matter instruct us with a false doctrine, supposing that he says the divine inbreathing became a soul in the living being;

for we do not say this, being governed by so great a reasoning toward the truth of the matter.

For if some suppose that the divine inbreathing became a soul, let them tell us: did it at some point turn aside from its own nature and become a soul, or did it remain in its own selfsameness?

For if they shall say that it was turned aside somewhither and departed from the ordinance of its own nature, they shall be convicted of blasphemy;

for they shall thereby be saying that the nature which is unchangeable and ever the same is altogether changeable;

but if it was in no way turned aside, but His inbreathing, having come forth from God, remained ever that which it was, how did it fall away into sin, and become capable of suffering so great a difference? For surely they would not say that it is at all possible for the divine nature to be able to err.

But since he was self-determining, and had been entrusted with the reins of his own volitions;

for this too is a portion of the image, for God has authority over His own volitions;

but as to how, let the divine Scripture teach, for its word concerning this is clear;

God the Father purposed and undertook again to gather up the nature of man into one head unto its ancient state in Christ, and having willed it, He accomplished it.

How, then, it came to pass, it is fitting to consider in due order.

It was not otherwise possible for man, being of a nature that is corruptible, to escape death, unless he recovered that ancient grace, and partook again of God, who holds all things together unto being and gives them life through the Son in the Spirit.

Therefore He shared in blood and flesh — that is, He became man — being Life according to nature, and having been begotten of the Life that is according to nature, that is, of God the Father, He the Only-begotten Word of Him, in order that, having united Himself ineffably and inexpressibly, and as He alone knows, to the flesh which according to the principle of its own nature is corruptible, He might restore it to His own life, and might through Himself declare it a partaker of God the Father.

For He is the mediator between God and men, according to that which is written, being joined naturally to God the Father as God and as out of Him, and again to men as man, and having in Himself the Father and being Himself in the Father;

for He is the express image and the effulgence of His subsistence — not separated from the essence of which He is the express image and from which He proceeds as an effulgence, but being Himself in it and having it in Himself;

and having us again in Himself, inasmuch as He has borne our nature, and our body has been named the body of the Word.

For the Word became flesh, according to the utterance of John;

and He bore our nature, refashioning it toward His own life.

And He Himself is also in us;

for we all have become partakers of Him, and we have Him in ourselves through the Spirit;

for on this account we have become partakers of the divine nature, and are called sons, thus having in ourselves the Father also through the Son.

And Paul will testify, saying: And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. For His Spirit is not anything other than the Son, according at least to the principle of identity — I mean the natural identity.

And now that our discourse concerning these matters has thus advanced, come, let us set forth the meaning of the matters before us, and fit it to the utterances of the Saviour: For in that day, He says, you shall know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

For I indeed live, He says, for I am Life by nature, and I have shown My own temple to be living;