約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 92/94 段

To the Saviour's words the blessed Evangelist here again bears witness to the truth, saying that the disciples were filled with gladness and joy, since they saw Jesus.

For we remember that, weaving in enigmatic fashion the words concerning the precious cross and the resurrection from the dead, He said to them: 「A little while, and you no longer behold Me; and again a little while, and you shall see Me, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you.」 For the Jews, having their minds full of every stupor, rejoiced when they saw Jesus nailed to the cross;

but with unmingled and most grievous sorrow the heart of the holy disciples was weighed down.

But since He is by nature life, having dissolved the might of death He came to life again; and the joy of the Jews was quenched, while for the holy apostles the lamentation was changed into joy, and a gladness altogether not to be cast away and not to be taken away sprang up.

For Christ shall no longer die, having once died unto the abolition of sin, as it is written.

For living always and existing, He will evidently preserve unending joy for those who hope on Him.

And He greets them again, saying that customary word, that is, 「Peace to you,」 laying down, as it were, even a certain law concerning this for the children of the Church.

Wherefore also, especially in the holy assemblies or gatherings, at the very beginnings of the mystery, we too say this to one another.

For our being at peace both with one another and with God would be conceived as a kind of fountain and beginning of every good thing.

Wherefore also Paul, praying that the best of all things might be present to those who are called, says: 「Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ」; and again, exhorting to peace, the peace toward God, those who have not yet believed: 「On behalf of Christ,」 he says, 「we are ambassadors, as though God were entreating through us;

we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.」 And no less does the prophet Isaiah also urge us on, crying: 「Let us make peace with Him, let us make peace, we who are coming.」 Fitting therefore is the power of the word to Him who bestows peace, or rather to the peace of all, that is, to Christ;

For He Himself is our peace, according to the Scriptures.

「And He said to them again, 『Peace to you;

as the living Father sent Me, I also send you.』」

True therefore is Paul when he says that no one takes the honour to himself, but he who is called by God. For our Lord Jesus Christ called His own disciples, before all others, to a most glorious apostleship, and, so to speak, He fixed firm the whole earth as it shook and was falling, showing forth as God its supports and those who are able to give it counter-support.

Wherefore also He said, through the voice of the psalmist, concerning both the earth and the apostles, that 「I have established its pillars」; for as pillars and a support of the truth the blessed disciples became, whom indeed He says He sent, just as the Father sent Him—showing at once both the dignity of the apostleship and the incomparable glory of the authority given them;

and at the same time, as is likely, also indicating the way of the apostolic pursuits.

For if He thought it necessary to send His own disciples in the same way as the Father sent Him, how is it not necessary to see—since they were to be imitators of the same things—for what purpose the Father sent the Son to act? Therefore, expounding to us in various ways the manner of His own mission, at one time He said: 「I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance」; and again: 「They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick」; and still further to these, at one time: 「Because I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me」; and at another time again: 「For God sent not His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.」 Having therefore in a few words gathered up the pursuits of the apostleship, He says that He sends them thus, just as the Father sent Him, that they might know from this that they ought to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who are sick, both bodily and spiritually, and in the dispensations of affairs to seek not at all their own will, but that of Him who sent, and to save the world, as far as is possible, by their teachings.

And indeed, through all these things we shall find the holy disciples themselves striving to be preeminent; nor is the labor of full assurance great for one who has once bent down to examine the record of the Acts and the utterances of the holy Paul.

And having said this, He breathed on them and says to them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'

'If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;'

'if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'

Having declared them illustrious with the great dignity of apostleship, and having appointed them, as I said just now, both stewards and ministers of the divine altars, He at once sanctifies them, giving them His own Spirit through a visible breathing, so that we too may firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is not foreign to the Son, but consubstantial with Him, and that through Him proceeds that which is from the Father.

He showed that to those who are appointed by Him to the divine apostolate, the gift of the Spirit necessarily follows.

And for what reason? For they could not do anything pleasing to God, nor could they triumph over the snares of sin, unless they had first been clothed with power from on high and been transformed into something other than what they were.

Wherefore it was also said to one of the ancients: 'The Spirit of the Lord shall leap upon you, and you shall be turned into another man'; and the prophet Isaiah too promised us that those who wait upon God shall change their strength.

And Paul the most wise, though he said that he had labored beyond certain others—namely in the apostolic accomplishments—immediately added that 'it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me.' Moreover, we say this too: that they would not have understood at all the mystery concerning Christ, nor would they have become exact initiators into the mysteries, had they not, passing by the torch-bearing of the Spirit into the revelation of things surpassing mind and word, been made strong so as to teach in this way those things which they ought to ascend to.

'No one can say Lord Jesus,' according to Paul's utterance, 'except in the Holy Spirit.' Since therefore they were about to say 'Lord Jesus'—that is, to proclaim Him as God and Lord—they now necessarily receive, yoked to the dignity of apostleship, the grace of the Spirit, Christ giving it, and not as though ministering it out of another's largesse, but rather supplying it from Himself.

For it could not pass into us from the Father otherwise than through the Son.

The ancient law, then, which was in written letters, having shadows and types of the true realities, commanded that the consecration of priests be accomplished in a more bodily manner, so to speak, and in things perceived through grosser objects.

For the blessed Moses, when God again commanded him, ordered that both Aaron himself and the Levites be washed with water;

then, having slaughtered the ram of consecration, he anointed with the blood the tip of the right ear, as it is written, and put it also upon the thumb of the right hand and upon the great toe of the right foot, painting as in an image the type of the mystery according to Christ.

For where there is water and blood—the things through which sanctification comes—how or whence is it doubtful that the beauty of the truth was still being fashioned in more obscure types? But our Lord Jesus Christ, transferring the figure of the law into the power of the truth, perfects the ministers of the divine altars through Himself.

For He Himself is the ram of consecration.

And He perfects them through sanctification according to truth, showing them to be partakers of His own nature through participation in the Spirit, and refashioning, as it were, the nature of man into the power and glory that is above man.

But that the discourse which we have made concerning these matters will not appear to be at all outside the truth, is not in doubt.

Yet perhaps someone will come forward saying this and inquiring in a manner eager to learn, and will say perhaps: Where then and when did the disciples of our Savior receive the grace through the Spirit? Was it when the Savior shone upon them in the house immediately after the resurrection, and breathed on them saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'?

Or was it in the days of holy Pentecost, when again, they having been gathered into one place, 'suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a rushing violent wind, and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them, and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance'? For, he says, we shall either suppose that a twofold grace was given them, or we shall be ignorant of the time at which they truly became partakers of the Holy Spirit—if indeed both the word of our Savior and what is written in the Acts concerning the holy disciples are found to be true.

But the matter is worthy of hesitation, especially because Christ Himself also said somewhere: 'It is expedient for you that I go away;'

'for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you;'

'but when I go away, I will send Him to you.' For perhaps he who seeks those things will say: The Truth, that is, Christ, does not know how to speak falsely;

when therefore He plainly said that the Comforter would not come to you unless He were taken up to the Father, but that He would send Him then and assuredly, when He should be above with Him—how is He found giving the Spirit, though He had not yet set out on His departure hence? Nevertheless, even if the thing sought is very unclear and the argument intricate, quite capable of disturbing greatly, yet it has the solution most fitting to itself, whenever we believe that Christ is not one of us, but rather God as from God, and exercising authority over His own words on account of the dispensation most fitting to the matters at hand.

For He promised to send down to us the Comforter from heaven, when He should be above with God and the Father, which indeed He also did, having departed to the Father and granted to those willing to receive it the most abundant outpouring of the Spirit;

and one may receive it, that is, through faith in Him and through holy baptism.

That the Son is shown to be the bestower of the Spirit and joint-giver with the Father, those who believe in Him must understand that He Himself is the power of the Father which created this universe and brought man from non-being into being.

For God and the Father, through His own Word, in the beginning took dust from the earth, as it is written, and having formed the living creature—I mean man—and having ensouled it as He Himself knows, adorned it also with the participation of His own Spirit;

for 'He breathed into his face the breath of life,' as it is written.

But since it came to pass that man fell through disobedience into death and slipped away from that ancient honor, God and the Father created him anew again and brought him back into newness of life through the Son, just as in the beginning;

and how did the Son bring him back? By putting death to death through the death of His holy flesh, and by raising up the human race to a return to incorruption;

for Christ has been raised on our behalf.

Therefore, in order that we may learn that He is that very One who from the beginning became the Creator of our nature and sealed us with the Holy Spirit, the Savior again bestows the Spirit upon the holy disciples through a manifest breathing, as in the first-fruits of the nature that is being renewed.

For Moses writes concerning our ancient creation, that 'He breathed into his face the breath of life.'

As therefore he was formed and came into being from the beginning, so also is he renewed; and just as he was then shaped according to the image of the Creator, so now also, by the participation of the Spirit, he is refashioned into the likeness of his own Maker.

For that the Spirit impresses the form of the Savior upon the souls of those who receive it—how is this not beyond dispute, when Paul plainly writes to those who through slothfulness had slipped into legal observance: 'My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you'? For he says that Christ will be formed in them in no other way than through partaking of the Holy Spirit and living according to the evangelical law.

Therefore, as in the first-fruits of the creation that is being made new unto incorruption and glory and unto the God-like image, Christ again causes His own Spirit to dwell in His own disciples.

For it was necessary, yes necessary, to understand this also in addition: that He is the supplier and giver of the Spirit.

Therefore He also said that 'all things whatsoever the Father has are Mine.' Now the Father has from Himself and in Himself His own Spirit; the Son also has this in Himself, since He is consubstantial with Him and has shone forth from Him essentially, having in Himself by nature all that belongs to the One who begot Him.

But that, although He often promised to do many things at the fitting time, He nevertheless did them even before the appointed time, for our full assurance, so that we might truly believe that what was spoken by Him will assuredly come to pass—this we shall show from what follows.

He promised to raise the dead and to bring back again to life those who lie in earth and dust.

'For an hour is coming,' He says, 'in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth; those who have done good unto the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment.' And that He would easily accomplish this too, hastening to give full assurance, He taught, saying: 'I am the resurrection and the life.' But since the excess of the matter made it somehow incredible that the dead should ever come to life again, He usefully anticipates the time of the resurrection and displays the sign, raising Lazarus and the son of the widow and the little daughter of Jairus.

And what other thing besides these? Saying that the resurrection of the saints would be most glorious: 'For then,' He says, 'the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father'—so that again He might be believed as speaking the truth, He granted the disciples the sight of this too before its time.

Promising as it were certain pledges of that universal and most general event which is expected to be over all, He wrought the particular things even before the necessary time, so that He might be believed without any hesitation;

in the same manner, I think, having said that He would send the Comforter to us when He should depart to the Father, and having appointed this time for the grace that is over all and upon all, He wrought as it were a first-fruit of the promise among the disciples, on account of many reasonable and necessary occasions which we have previously mentioned.

Therefore they receive the participation of the Holy Spirit, when He also breathed on them saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit;'

for it was not possible for Christ to speak falsely, nor would He have said 'Receive' if He were not giving;

but in the days of holy Pentecost, God setting forth the more manifest proclamation of the grace and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit that had made its dwelling in them, there appeared the tongues through fire, not signifying the beginning of the gift in them, but rather referring back to the beginning of the word.

At all events it is written that 'they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.' You hear how they began to speak—not began to be sanctified—and that a distribution of tongues descended upon them, the Spirit that was in them working this too? For just as the Father cried out from heaven, bearing witness to His own Offspring and saying, 'This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,' and did this for the full assurance of the hearers, breaking forth as it were an instrumental voice falling upon our very ears, that is, causing it to come to be—so also in the case of the holy apostles He set forth the more manifest declaration of the grace, letting fall upon them the tongues in the form of fire, and by the sound of the rushing violent wind causing the descent of the Spirit to be imitated.

And that this very thing too was given to the Jews as it were in the manner of a sign, you will readily understand when you hear the Lord God of all saying through the voice of the prophet: 'For with men of other tongues and with the lips of others will I speak to this people, and not even so will they believe.'

Therefore, in order that we may believe that the blessed disciples are truly partakers of the Holy Spirit, and are henceforth crowned from above with the grace that is from Christ, and are competent for the exposition of the truth, and have the enviable boast of their own apostleship, being attested by the gift from on high, the fire descended in the form of tongues.

But since it is fitting that we take every forethought for the discourse, that no scandal may spring up for the brethren through the slander of certain persons, come, let us add this too to what has been said, and let us ward off the loose-tongued cavils that are perhaps to be expected from someone.

Now Christ gave, not to some in part, but to all the disciples together.

Therefore they receive, even if some were not present, since the largesse of the Giver was not restricted to those alone who were present, but reached out to the whole choir of the holy apostles.

And that we have thought nothing forced in these matters, but that such an argument will not appear to you even shameless, I will confirm to you from the sacred writings themselves, adducing for proof the things contained in the books of Moses.

'I will lay upon them.' And indeed Moses gathered them and fulfilled the divine oracle.

Yet two only were left behind of those enrolled in the number of the seventy elders, and there remained in the camp Eldad and Medad.

Then, when God laid the divine Spirit upon all according to the promise already given, those who had been assembled through Moses immediately prophesied, having received the grace;

and the two who were in the camp prophesied no less, the grace from above reaching to them also.

Therefore, even if Thomas was left behind, he did not fall short of receiving, since the Spirit ran to everyone who was bound to receive and was enrolled in the number of those honored.

'If you retain the sins of any, they are retained'—although only He who is by nature God is able and has the authority to loose the sins of those who have sinned;

for to whom would it belong to bestow forgiveness upon any for those things in which they might be convicted of transgressing against the divine law, except to Him who ordained the law? But let us contemplate, if it seems good, the power of this saying from our own affairs;

who authoritatively lays hands upon the decrees of earthly kings and undertakes to annul the things ordained by the vote and judgment of those who rule, unless perhaps it be someone clothed with the royal honor and glory? For among those the charges of transgression have no place.

Wherefore also a wise oracle said: 'Impious is he who says to a king, You transgress the law.' In what manner and by what reason, then, did the Savior clothe His own disciples with the dignity befitting the divine nature alone? But the Word who is in the Father could not miss what is fitting, and He did this exceedingly well.

For He judged it necessary that those who already had within themselves the divine and lordly Spirit should also be lords over the remitting of certain persons' sins, and over the retaining of whomsoever they might will—the Holy Spirit that had made its dwelling in them remitting and retaining according to its own will, even if the thing is perhaps accomplished through men.

Now those who bear the Spirit remit or retain sins in two ways, according to my understanding.

For either they call to baptism those to whom it was already owed to attain even this, on account of the gravity of their life and their being approved unto faith; or they hinder certain persons and shut them out from the divine grace, being as yet not worthy for the time being.

Or also in another manner they remit and retain sins, rebuking those children of the Church who sin, but showing forgiveness to those who repent—just as, for instance, Paul delivered the fornicator in Corinth unto the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, but received him again, that he might not be swallowed up with excessive sorrow, as he himself says in writing.

When therefore the Spirit, having come to be in us as the Spirit of Christ, fulfills the things befitting God alone, how would it not be by nature God, clothed naturally with the splendid dignity of the divine nature, and exercising authority over the sacred laws? 'But Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.'

The other disciples therefore said to him: 'We have seen the Lord.'

But he said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will by no means believe.'

Wonders that surpass all measure are somehow always attended by disbelief, and whatever among the things done outruns the bounds of what is customary is not readily acceptable to those who hear of it;

yet the sight of it can scarcely constrain a man to this, drawing him as though by necessity and force toward assent.

Something of this kind befell even the most wise Thomas, who, concerning the resurrection of our Saviour, did not readily accept the truthful testimony of the other disciples—even though the law given through Moses had clearly declared that 'by the mouth of two and three witnesses every word shall be established.'

But it seems to me rather that the disciple did not so much disbelieve what was said as that his grief was driven to its very height, because he too had not been counted worthy of the sight of our Saviour.

For perhaps he supposed that he would be wholly deprived of it.

For he knew that the Lord is by nature Life, and not incapable of himself escaping death and dissolving the power of corruption;

for he who drove death out of others, how would he not much rather have driven it from his own flesh? But out of exceedingly great joy he comes near to unbelief, and, all but leaping up with a swift and mighty bound, he longs to see him already present, and to be fully assured that he has indeed risen again, according to the promise made by him.

For 'Little children,' said the Saviour, 'a little while and you no longer behold me, and again a little while and you shall see me, and your heart shall rejoice.' And I think again that most providentially the disciple's littleness of faith arose for the season, so that through his full assurance we also who come after him might believe without doubting that the Father, through the Son, made alive the flesh which hung upon the tree and suffered death.

Therefore Paul also says, 'For if you confess with your mouth that the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.' For since it was not the nature of the flesh in itself that became the procurer of life, but rather the deed was accomplished by the operation of the divine and ineffable nature, in which there naturally inheres the power to give life to all things;

the Father was at work, through the Son, upon that divine temple also—not as though the Word were too weak to raise his own body, but because whatever the Father may chance to do, he will do through the Son;

for the Son is his Power, and whatever the Son accomplishes, this assuredly is altogether from the Father.

We are therefore instructed, through the gentle little faith of the blessed Thomas, that the mystery of the resurrection is wrought upon this earthly body of ours, and, as in a firstfruits of the race, in Christ; and that it was neither a phantom nor a shadow, as some say, fashioning the human form and falsifying the features of our appearance, nor yet, as it seemed good to others foolishly to say, a spiritual body—that is, something fine and airy and other than flesh.

For thus it seems to some to conceive and to understand the term 'spiritual.'

But since the whole ground of our hope and the power of our irreproachable faith, after the confession of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, is turned toward and looks to the mystery concerning the flesh, most usefully indeed did the blessed Evangelist set this very matter in the chapters that follow.

For observe how Thomas does not simply desire to see the Lord, but seeks the marks of the nails—that is, the wounds inflicted upon the flesh.

For he very firmly insists that thus he will believe and agree with the others, that Christ truly rose again;

and he rose, evidently, according to the flesh.

For that which had died would fittingly be understood to run back again to life; and about that concerning which death came to be, about that very thing assuredly comes the resurrection also.

'And after eight days his disciples were again within, and Thomas with them;'

'Jesus comes, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace to you.'

'...my side, and be not unbelieving but believing.'

Once more he shone forth upon his own disciples marvellously, as God.

For he did not, as we do, command the doors to be opened for him as he went inside; but, all but disdaining the account befitting the nature of the thing, he came to be within the doors and appeared unexpectedly in the midst of the dwelling, granting, as it seems, the same manner of the wonder to the blessed Thomas himself.

For there was need—indeed there was need—of a remedy for one who had suffered most and had come short concerning the faith.

And he used again the word by tongue that was customary to him, and made the good of peace his solemn greeting, as a pattern for us, even as we have said before.

And one might reasonably be struck with amazement at the exactness in these matters—I mean in what lies before us.

For so exact was the observation of him who composed the book, and so very diligently did he make his observation, that he did not simply say that Christ manifested himself, and that plainly to the holy disciples, but that it was after eight days, and this to them gathered together.

For that they had all been brought together into one house—what else could this be but this? Therefore we say that very thing on account of this exact and admirable observation: that Christ thereby set plainly before us the time of the gatherings, or assemblies, held in his name.

For he assuredly visits and, in a certain manner, dwells together with those gathered on his account, especially on the eighth day—that is, on the Lord's Day.

For let us consider, if it seems good:

at one time he was seen by the other disciples, and at another time again he appears to them while Thomas is present.

It is written, then, a little earlier: 'When therefore it was evening on that day, the first of the sabbaths, and the doors being shut, he stood in the midst.' Understand, then, how on the first of the sabbaths—that is, on the Lord's Day of the sabbaths—he appeared to the disciples gathered together; and again, no less, he is seen shining forth on the following eighth day.

For because he has said 'after eight days,' we are not to suppose that he means the ninth day; rather, by taking into the number the very eighth day on which he appeared, he says such things.

Most fittingly, therefore, do we hold the holy assemblies in the churches on the eighth day.