約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 87/94 段

For he ran out contrary to custom from the judgment hall, thereby saying to the Jews, so far as the force of the act went, that the law ought to be kept;

but they, minded contrary to the divine injunctions and caring exceedingly little for the things ordained through Moses, work an unjust murder; and he who is outside their law inquires into the charges and busies himself about the causes, showing that to arraign, or rather to exact some penalty from, those who have sinned in nothing is among the things most absurd;

but they, having nothing to say, bring Him forward as one of the savage robbers.

The saying is true, if indeed the Greeks would not offer their accustomed sacrifices with defiled and unwashed hands to the stones and wood they esteem as gods, nor would they slay anyone unless he had been convicted of the utmost crimes;

yet these men, though about to sacrifice the Passover to God who is God by nature, make their own soul guilty of innocent blood, and are eager unjustly to slay Him who is a stranger to all sin.

'They answered and said unto him, If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.'

They are at a loss for any reasonable charge, and they somehow try to cloak the shame of their impiety and the appearance of having unjustly resolved to murder, arguing sophistically that they would in no way have brought Jesus forward as one who would pay no penalty, had He not also been caught in some fault, so they say.

For they still counterfeit the keeping of the law, which enjoins the making of a holy judgment in all cases; and, what is astonishing, they even take up arms in defence of the very reverence for the law —

for they claim to be believed as guardians of the law, they who did not shrink from accusing the Lawgiver.

And they say that He who came to abolish wickedness did evil, so that once again Christ may be shown to have spoken concerning them through the voice of the prophet Isaiah: 'Woe unto them, for they have started away from me; they are wretched, for they have been impious against me;

but I redeemed them, and they spoke lies against me.' 'Pilate therefore said unto them, Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.'

'To subject to the penalties of the laws,' he says, 'one who has been convicted of nothing absurd, but who undergoes at your hands an indiscriminate denunciation, is not lawful for me; but rather judge him yourselves according to your own law, if indeed,' he says, 'it has ordained that even one who is wholly blameless must be punished.'

And it is truly no small matter for laughter, or rather worthy of perpetual lamentation, if the laws that prevail among the Greeks acquit the Lord — so that Pilate shrinks even from punishing Him, brought before him on such insignificant charges — while these men, though boasting to be trained by the divine law, say that He must even die.

'The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying by what death he should die.'

They say that a hindrance had arisen for them, and as it were a most violent impediment to their unholy murder, namely the purification fulfilled at the slaying of the lamb — if indeed there was any such thing at all among those who had dared such deeds.

For otherwise they would have been most ready to be the perpetrators of the impiety themselves, needing in no way another's collaboration.

For the mind of the Jews is most facile toward working every kind of wickedness whatsoever, and toward sparing none of the outrageous deeds, or rather toward blushing at none of the things that are out of tune with God.

They ask, then, that Pilate lend them his own cruelty, and become an imitator of Jewish madness, and serve them, at least for the present, since they do not have altogether free rein to rush off into their frenzy.

But they say that in this too Christ was again shown to be truthful, having both foreknown how and by what manner He should die, and having foretold it to His holy disciples.

For what did He say to them? 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man is delivered into the hands of sinners, and they shall crucify him, and shall kill him, and on the third day he shall rise again.' And the remembrance of these things too is necessary.

For it was needful that He should suffer as one who foreknew, so that no one might think that He, to whom all things are naked and laid open, had fallen into things against His will, but rather that it might be believed that as a willing one He endured the cross for us and on our account.

'Pilate therefore entered again into the praetorium, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?' Having nothing at all to lay to His charge, that is, to bring forward of the things that seem justly to draw down punishment upon those who have done them, but Pilate being somehow insistent and demanding the causes of the arraignment, they say that Jesus had offended against Caesar, seizing to Himself the rule that had been assigned to Caesar over the Jews, and transferring the glory of the kingdom into His own claim.

For they knew that Pilate, even unwillingly, would in every way provide for his own safety, and would perhaps punish all the more readily the one so vociferously accused on these grounds.

For since the region inhabited by the Jews was ever agitated by tumults and seditions and readily turned to the manner of insurrection, the judges appointed by Caesar became somehow more harsh in this regard, and were more careful guardians of good order, but inflicted the most precipitate punishments on those denounced for this, sometimes even in vain.

The charge, therefore, which the Jews make against Christ is that of having reigned over Israel.

Therefore justly were they cast out, and the Gentiles were taken in and brought under the yoke, and have been placed under the kingdom of Christ.

'Ask of me,' He says, 'and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.' For when the one nation of Israel raged madly, all the nations are given to Christ, and in place of one land — I mean that of the Jews — the ends of the whole world.

For as Paul says: 'Their trespass is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles.' What, therefore, Pilate heard from the Jews as they murmured, he now says openly, and bids the Lord make His defence, whether in truth He were the King of the Jews.

He is in anguish, as is likely, and thinks that Caesar's authority is even in danger; and for this reason he inquires all the more eagerly, intending, as it were, to bring the needful correction to what has been done, so that he may render the government entrusted to him by the Romans free from all blame.

Jesus answered: 'Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell you about me?' Since no one, He says, has plainly laid any such charge against me before you, whence then does this account of these matters come to you? Yet it is in no way doubtful that this is the mischief of the Jews' malice, and that this bitter deceit has been contrived by them.

For surely, He says, you will not be at once both judge and accuser.

Christ spoke these things, bringing Pilate to the reflection that nothing—not even the more obscure things contrived and spoken in secret—could escape His notice, so that, considering His nature which is above man, Pilate might come somewhat more hesitantly to serve the cruelty of those who had brought Him; and at the same time teaching this also, that he greatly wrongs justice who is forced to render account for the words of others, being the man who has been convicted of nothing of the sort.

Pilate answered: 'Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me.'

'What have you done?' He now makes manifest the Jews' band of robbers, and all but brings the multitude of accusers into the midst.

For it is as though he were perhaps saying: 'It does not so much befit me to know your affairs, for I am no Jew; rather it would most fittingly belong to your own countrymen and those brought up with you, who perhaps, knowing that you are to die, are leading you along.'

Therefore he brings an accusation against his own head.

For to say 'What have you done?' hints at nothing else than precisely this.

Great was the diligence of the holy Evangelist to recount in detail also the things concerning the trial itself, and that Pilate asked Jesus, 'What have you done?'

For it was chiefly through this that one might learn the utter lack of any charges, and that, since nothing was demonstrated—that is, since our Saviour Christ was convicted of nothing—the sentence of death that followed proved impious and most unjust.

Jesus answered: 'My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have striven that I should not be delivered to the Jews;

but now my kingdom is not from here.'

He dispelled Pilate's fear, inasmuch as Pilate had been appointed guardian of Caesar's kingdom;

for Pilate supposed that a rebellion was being plotted by Christ against the law that prevails among us—the Jews having babbled this too.

For this indeed they were insinuating when they said, 'If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you,' calling the rebellion 'the evil.'

For they feigned that they wished to be so well-disposed toward the Romans that they could not at all endure even to have the very name of rebellion on their tongue.

They say that they have brought Him forward and produced Him to pay the penalty.

But Christ, defending Himself against these things, did not deny that He is a king;

for it was needful to speak the truth;

yet He clearly refutes the notion that He was an enemy of Caesar's kingdom, signifying that His own dominion is not earthly, but one that in a manner befitting God presides over heaven and earth and things still greater.

What then, finally, is the demonstration, and whence the removal of the suspicion concerning these things? It is that He had never made use of any spearmen or shield-bearers—indeed, that He had none at all who might choose to take up arms in His defence; and not merely that He might not fall from His kingdom, but not even that He might escape the danger that was suspended over Him and hurled at Him by the hand of the Jews;

let alone against the very ruler of the Jews, that is, against Caesar.

Therefore, the outcry against this having been dissolved by so evident a demonstration, Pilate's audacity against Christ now appears to be without excuse.

For with no one compelling him, nor drawing him to this by any necessity of consequence, he gives over the destruction of his own soul to the pleasures of the Jews, and shares with them the guilt of Christ's murder.

Christ, having said that His kingdom is something above the world, not only frees Pilate from fear and releases him from the suspicion concerning rebellion, but also persuades him to conceive something great about Himself, and in a way, through His defence, He begins the catechizing of him.

Then Pilate said to Him: 'So then you are a king?' He makes the truth into a charge against Christ.

But having heard 'My kingdom is not from here,' he is now indeed released from the fear concerning rebellion;

yet nonetheless he presses Him to a confession of the matter, and construes as having the force of an accusation the mere fact of His saying at all that He has a kingdom, even though He insists that it is not earthly.

Driving Jesus, as it were, to this, he says: 'You have already confessed that you are a king.'

Jesus answered him: 'You say that I am a king.

For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.'

Pilate said to Him: 'What is truth?' He does not deny the glory of His own kingdom, nor does He assign the confirmation of this to Pilate's words alone;

for He is a king, as God, even if perchance someone should be unwilling that He be so;

but He showed once again the power of the truth, which persuaded even the unwilling Pilate to declare the glory of the one being judged;

for 'you have said,' He declares, 'that I am a king.'

For this very reason He says that He was born and came, evidently into this world, when He became man, that He might bear witness to the truth—that is, that by removing the falsehood of the world and overthrowing the demon who tyrannized through deceit, He might show forth the truth as reigning over all things; that is, the nature that is truly and by nature royal, to which the power of ruling and holding sway over heaven and earth and, simply, all that has been brought into being belongs not by usurpation, nor is it something acquired or from without, but is seen to be present essentially and by nature.

But that Christ might again make plain that He was not ignorant of the hardness of Pilate's obtuseness and of his being difficult to lead into willing to think rightly, He usefully adds: 'Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.'

For the word of truth is readily received by those who have already learned and love it, but by those who are not such, no longer.

And indeed the prophet Isaiah said to certain people: 'Unless you believe, neither will you understand.' And Pilate, straightway proving this to be true, said: 'What is truth?' For just as, to those maimed in the sight of the body and wholly fallen away from perception through the eyes, there is reckoned as nothing at all—so far as the power of good color goes—whether one should bring gold, or display a bright and precious stone;

but even the very light of the sun's radiance will be a thing of no wonder to them, since the object instills in them no perception, nor is it possible for them to derive any benefit from such things;

[so it is with the truth,] which instills a spiritual and divine radiance into the souls of those who behold it.

And having said this, he again went out to the Jews, and said to them: 'I find no fault at all in him.

But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover;

do you wish then that I release to you the King of the Jews?' To the condemnation of the Jews' irreverence together with their cruelty, he sets forth the knowledge of what is just and fitting—he who prides himself not on the divine teachings, but is a keeper of human ordinances, and is most of all in awe of the decrees of that authority from which he held his office as a gift.

And if the leaders of the Jewish ranks had chosen both to do and to think this, it would surely have been very likely that they would have escaped the snare of the devil and turned aside from the most abominable of all evils—I mean, of course, the blood-guilt against Christ.

Pilate therefore declines to condemn Christ, who had been caught or convicted of nothing improper, and says that one who is as far as possible from all guilt ought not to have penalties exacted from him; and he most firmly maintains that this is altogether discordant even with the laws that obtain among them, shaming the Jews out of their most horrifying madness against the divine law.

For he supposed that those who professed to champion the principle of the just and the equitable would forthwith be persuaded by the setting forth of what is just and fitting.

But reflecting again, as was likely, that the acquittal of one accused of every charge would no small measure accuse the recklessness of the Jews, lest perhaps on this account they should press in the more shamelessly and contend perversely, he devises, as it were, a path for the matter and a most excellent pretext, saying: 'You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release to you the King of the Jews?' And in naming Jesus 'King of the Jews,' he both jests and, by the raillery, slackens the wrath of those who were raging, while at the same time showing very clearly that Jesus is accused of this very thing in vain;

for the Roman governor would never have deemed worthy of release one who had been condemned for tyranny and revolt against the Romans.

Therefore, by the very words with which he urges that He be set free, he has borne witness that He is altogether free from blame.

These things, then, I think, have made plain the aim of the passage before us;

but as I considered and pondered within myself whence it had become customary for the Jews to ask the release of one man—whether a robber or perhaps a murderer—a thought came to me: that not everything was being done by them according to the divine law, but that, seeming rather to make use of their own customs, they had turned to a degenerate polity, not much in harmony with what had been decreed through Moses.

But as I searched the divine Scripture and hunted on every side for the cause of the matter, there fell in my way a certain passage of the divine oracles, which somehow calls our mind to a surmise: whether perhaps, in fulfilling something of the law—even though the Jews were exceedingly hard to govern—they were seeking the release of the wrongdoer.

Now there is written, at the end of the book called Numbers, the law concerning the one who kills, whether involuntarily or voluntarily;

and the penalty concerning the deliberate murderer having been clearly defined, the discourse straightway passes to the one who kills involuntarily, and then, after other matters, it says thus: 'But if suddenly, not through enmity, he thrust him, or cast upon him any vessel not from ambush, or with any stone by which he might die, not knowing it, and it fell upon him and he died, though he was not his enemy nor seeking to do him harm—then the congregation shall judge between the one who struck and the avenger of blood according to these judgments, and the congregation shall deliver the slayer from the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of refuge whither he had fled.' Such, then, being the written commandment, when afterwards, as was likely, certain people fell into such offenses, in order that they might somehow seem not utterly to disregard the things there decreed, the Jews, gathering in a multitude, would ask for the release of one such person.

The law commanded that this should be the act of the congregation.

It being permitted them, then, according to what seemed good to the law, to release, they ask Pilate to do this.

For having once accepted the Roman dominion, they thereafter yielded most of their own affairs to the laws of those rulers.

And so, it being permitted to put to death one condemned for certain improprieties, they brought Jesus to Pilate as one of such persons, saying: 'It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.' For even if they perhaps feigned the purification connected with the sanctifying of the Passover, yet precisely in this they most of all flatter, as though yielding to the laws of the Romans even those things which from above the divine ordinance had given them.

They therefore cried out again, saying: 'Not this man, but Barabbas.'

The Jews are again convicted of having in this too grievously transgressed the law, yielding rather to their own pleasures than honoring what had of old been decreed;

for whereas the law given through Moses commanded that the one caught as an involuntary slayer be released, [they ask] not one of such persons;

how so? Rather, they ask for a notorious robber.

And that the one mentioned was harsh and savage and is seen to have had no small share in the charges of murder, the inspired Peter will make plain, saying to the peoples of the Jews: 'But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked that a man who was a murderer be granted to you.' For Him who on this account despised His equality with God and the Father and put on our poverty, that He might deliver us from the true murderer—that is, Satan—they rank behind their love for a single robber, these men resplendent with the priesthood according to the law and raising high their brow thereupon; and passing by and thrusting aside as nothing at all the word 'Judge righteous judgment,' they justify the murderer while condemning Christ, and with one voice they say: 'Not this man, but Barabbas.'

The Jews, then, will pay the penalty for their impiety in this;

yet it is needful to marvel at the divinely inspired Scripture, as having foreknown, from the person of Christ, even this outcry so utterly desperate;

for thus says the prophet Jeremiah: 'I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance, I have given my beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.'

'My inheritance has become to me like a lion in a forest; it has uttered its voice against me.' What, then, does the lion do in the forests? It is well, it seems, to speak of this.

They say, accordingly, that whenever this great and most terrifying beast wishes to hunt one of the animals dwelling in the woodlands, it climbs upon some crag among the mountains and roars something great and prodigious, and works such terror in those who hear it that, unable to bear the grievous crash of its threat, they fall down at once—whether it be a man or some other living thing—and that which falls becomes, by mere voice, the beast's prey.

God in some way confirms the account of this through the prophet, speaking thus: 'The lion shall roar, and who shall not fear?' The synagogue of the Jews, therefore, became like a lion in a forest to Christ the Saviour, at least as regards its enterprise of railing against Him;

for the divine nature does not in any way submit to terror or fear.

For by its clamour it put Him to death, even though Pilate offered them the choice of releasing Him, so that even those not yet instructed in the divine law might be found, by their very deeds, better than those trained under the Law.

'Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it upon His head, and clothed Him with a purple garment, and came to Him and said, Hail, King of the Jews!'

'And they struck Him with the palms of their hands.'

He scourges Him unjustly, and lets loose the swarm of soldiers to mock Him, to encircle Him with the crown of thorns, to cast the purple robe upon Him, and to abuse Him with blows and with the other insults.

He was scourged unjustly, that He might release us from the just stroke; He was mocked and buffeted, that we might mock Satan who mocked us, and might escape the sin fastened upon us through the transgression.

For we shall rightly hold, if we think aright, that all the sufferings of Christ came to pass for us and on our behalf, having power to loose and to avert the things that have justly befallen us because of our apostasy from God.

For just as it sufficed to abolish the death of all that He who knew no death should give up His own flesh for our life—

for one died on behalf of all—

so it is right to understand that the Lord's suffering these things on our behalf sufficed in turn to release all from both scourgings and dishonour.

For in what manner were we healed by His stripe, according to what is written? 'For we all went astray, each in his own way,' as the blessed prophet Isaiah says, 'and the Lord delivered Him up for our sins, and He suffers pain for us; for He was bruised because of our trespasses.'

And He gave His own back to the scourges, and His cheeks to blows, as He Himself also somewhere says.

The soldiers, then, having seized Jesus as though He were one of the false pretenders to sovereignty, mock Him in soldierly fashion.

For on this account the crown of thorns was set upon Him—that which hangs at the top of the brow, signifying the token of earthly kingship.

And the purple garment is, as it were, an image and type of the imperial robe; but the occasion for their derision is also added,

for they came to Him, it says, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!'

But I have learned from certain persons—indeed it greatly pleases some—that the crown of thorns signifies the multitude of those still worshipping idols, who are to be taken up, as it were, into a diadem for Christ through faith in Him; and they liken the nations to unfruitful and useless thorns, because they had no fruit of piety, but were rather fit for the fuel of the all-devouring fire, just as, indeed, the refuse in the fields, or the wild thorn that grows without any cultivation.

And the purple vesture, that is, the garment of purple, they say signifies the kingdom that is to be over all the world.

And everything is to be accepted which does not fall away from the straight account, nor will it be unprofitable when it is believed.

This mode of interpretation, then, is not to be rejected, since it holds a most elegant observation.

'And Pilate went out again, and says to them: Behold, I bring Him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in Him.'

He confesses the fault, and is not ashamed.

For he said that he had scourged Him to no purpose, and he promises to display Him even to them, supposing that he would thus glut their untamed wrath by so pitiable a spectacle.

And he does all but accuse them besides, as thirsting unjustly for blood, and that openly, and as compelling to transgress in broad daylight one for whom, according to their own laws, the transgression is not without penalty.

Indeed it is fulfilled in Christ, and that which was said is seen to be true: 'The ruler of this world comes, and in Me he will find nothing.' For consider how Satan, having stirred up all things above and below, finds absolutely nothing of those things that are cast out from God and ranked under the power of sin—which, had it perhaps been found in Christ the Saviour, would have caused Him justly to be condemned and to be liable to the accusations brought by him.

In the very way, then, that in Adam He conquered the whole nature of man in one, showing it prone to sins, so here too it is conquered by Him.

For He was man, even though by nature God, He who had no sin; and just as the condemnation from transgression was accomplished from one, the first, upon all, in the very same manner the blessing from Christ's being justified is extended from one, the second, to all.

—the obedience of the second, and the blessing that comes from it.

For the Lord of the Law, as God, became with us a guardian of the Law, as man.

And indeed we shall find Him saying to us: 'He who loves Me will keep My commandments, even as I have kept the commandments of My Father and abide in His love.' For see how He commands us, as lawgiver and God, to keep His commandments, but as being with us the guardian of the Law He affirms that He Himself also kept that of His own Father.

'Jesus therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment, and he says to them: Behold, the man!'

'When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out, saying: Crucify, crucify!'

He displayed the Lord of all impiously maltreated and unbearably outraged by the soldiers' mockeries, believing that the unmixed fury of the Jews would somehow be sated and would now cease even from this so most pitiable and most dishonouring spectacle alone.

But they are so far from saying or doing anything humane towards Him, or laying hold of any thoughts inclining to kindness, that, having fallen even beyond a savagery befitting beasts, they are stirred up to a greater degree of evil and make their outcry more heated, condemning Him to a most cruel death and compelling Him to suffer the most shameful of all things.

For what punishment could be so bitter as the cross upon the wood? And, as was fitting, the most wise Evangelist attached the beginning of so great an impiety to the teachers of the Jews alone.

For consider how, with a kind of sharp observation, he says: 'When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out, saying: Crucify, crucify!'

For while the common throng at least blushed moderately at the evils done against Christ—

for perhaps they remembered the marvellous things wondrously accomplished by Him—

these very men are the first to begin the denunciation, and they kindle to strange ferocities the wrath of the peoples under their hand.