Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–124
Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–124
continued
Tractate 109
John XVII. 20. 1 The Lord Jesus, in the now close proximity of His passion, after praying for His disciples, whom He also named apostles, with whom He had partaken of that last supper from which His betrayer had taken his departure on being revealed by the sop of bread, and with whom, after the latter's departure, and before beginning His prayer in their behalf, He had already spoken at length, conjoined all others also who were yet to believe on Him, and said to the Father, "Neither pray I for these alone," that is, for the disciples who were with Him at the time, "but for them also," He adds, "who shall believe on me through their word." Whereby He wished all His own to be understood: not only such as were then in the flesh, but those also who were yet to come. For all that have since believed on Him have doubtless believed, and shall yet believe till He come, through the word of the apostles; for to themselves He had said, "And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning;" and by them was the gospel ministered even before it was written, and every one assuredly who believeth on Christ believeth the gospel. Accordingly, those who He says should believe on Him through their word, are not to be understood as referring only to such as heard the apostles themselves while they lived in the flesh; but others also after their decease, and we, too, born long afterwards, have believed on Christ through their word. For they that were then with Him preached to the others what they had heard from Him; and so their word, that we too might believe, has found its way to us, and wherever His Church exists, and shall yet reach down to posterity, whoever and wherever they be who shall hereafter believe on Him.
2. In this prayer, therefore, Jesus may seem to have omitted praying for some of His own, unless we carefully examine His words in the prayer itself. For if He prayed first for those, as we have already shown, who were then with Him, and afterwards for those also who should believe on Him through their word, it may be said that He prayed not for those who were neither with Him when He so spake, nor afterwards believed through their word, but had done so at some previous time either of themselves, or in some other supposable manner. For was Nathanael with Him at that time? Was Joseph of Arimathea, who begged His body from Pilate, and of whom this same evangelist John testifies that he was already His disciple? Were His mother, Mary, and other women who, we know from the Gospel, had been prior to that time His disciples? Were those with Him then, of whom this evangelist John frequently says, "Many believed on Him"? For whence came the multitude of those who, with branches of trees, partly preceded and partly followed Him as He sat on the ass, saying, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord ; and along with them the children of whom He Himself declared that the prophecy had been uttered, "Out of the mouth of babes and of sucklings Thou hast perfected praise"?
Whence the five hundred brethren, to all of whom at once He would not have appeared after His resurrection had they not previously believed on Him? Whence that hundred and nine who, with the eleven, were a hundred and twenty, when, being assembled together after His ascension, they waited and received the promise of the Holy Spirit? Whence came all these, save from those of Whom it was said, "Many believed on Him"? For them, therefore, the Saviour did not at this time pray, seeing it was for those He prayed who were then with Him, and for others not who had already, but who were yet to believe on Him through their word. But these were certainly not with Him on that occasion, and had already believed on Him at some previous period. I say nothing of the aged Simeon, who believed on Him when an infant; of Anna the prophetess; of Zachariah and Elisabeth, who prophesied of Him before He was born of the Virgin; of their son John, His forerunner, the friend of the Bridegroom, who both recognized Him in the Holy Spirit, and preached Him in His absence, and pointed Him out when He was present to the recognition of others; -I say nothing of these, as it might be replied that He ought not to have prayed for such when dead, who had gone hence with their great merits, and having met with a welcome reception were now at rest; for a similar answer is also given in connection with the righteous of olden time.
For which of them could have been saved from the damnation awaiting the whole mass of perdition, which has been caused by one man, had he not believed, through the revelation of the Spirit, in the one Mediator between God and men as yet to come in the flesh? But behoved He to pray for the apostles, and not to pray for so many who were still alive, but were not then with Him, and had already at some previous period been brought to the faith? Who is there that would say so? 3. We are therefore to understand that their faith in Him was not yet such as He wished it to be, inasmuch as even Peter himself, to whom, on making the confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," He had borne so excellent a testimony, was disposed rather to hinder Him from dying than to believe in His resurrection when dead, and hence was called immediately thereafter by the same of Satan. Those, accordingly, are found to be the greater in faith who were long since deceased, and yet, through the revelation of the Spirit, had no manner of doubt that Christ would rise again, than those who, after attaining to the belief that He should redeem Israel, at the sight of His death lost all the hope they previously possessed regarding Him. The best thing for us, therefore, to believe is, that after His resurrection, when the Holy Spirit was bestowed, and the apostles taught and confirmed, and from its outset constituted teachers in the Church, others, through their word, attained the proper faith in Christ, or, in other words, that they then got firm hold of the faith of His resurrection. And in this way also, that all those who seemed to have already believed on Him really belonged to the number of those for whom He prayed, when He said, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word."
4. But we have still in reserve for the further solution of this question the blessed apostle, and that robber who was a villain in wickedness, but a believer on the cross. For the Apostle Paul tells us that he was made an apostle not of men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ: and speaking of his own gospel, he says, "For I neither received it of man, neither did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." How then was he among those of whom it is said, "They shall believe on me through their word"? On the other hand, the robber believed at the very time when in the case of the teachers themselves such faith as they previously possessed had utterly failed. Not even he, therefore, believed on Christ through their word, and yet his faith was such that he confessed that He whom he saw nailed to the cross would not only rise again, but would also reign, when he said, "Remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom."
5. Accordingly it remains that if we are to believe that the Lord Jesus, in this prayer, prayed for all of His own who either then were or should thereafter be in this life, which is a state of trial upon earth, we must so understand the expression, "through their word," as to believe that it here signified the word of faith itself which they preached in the world, and that it was called their word because it was primarily and principally preached by them. For it was already in the course of being preached by them in the earth when Paul received that same word of theirs by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Whence also it came about that he compared the Gospel with them, lest by any means he had run, or should run, in vain; and they gave him their right hand because in him also they found, although not given him by them, their own word which they were already preaching, and in which they were now established. And in regard to this word of the resurrection of Christ, it is said by the same apostle, "Whether it were I, or they, so we preach, and so ye believed; and again, "This is the word of faith," he says, "which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
And in the Acts of the Apostles we read that in Christ, God hath marked out [the ground of] faith unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead. Accordingly, this word of faith, because principally and primarily preached by the apostles who adhered to Him, was called their word. Not, however, on that account does it cease to be the word of God because it is called their word; for the same apostle says that the Thessalonians received it from him "not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God. "Of God," for the very reason that it was freely given by God; but called "their word," because primarily and principally committed to them by God to be preached. In the same way also the thief mentioned above had in the matter of his own faith their word, which was called theirs precisely because the preaching of it primarily and principally pertained to the office they filled. And once more, when murmuring arose among the Grecian widows in reference to the serving of the tables, previous to the time when Paul was brought to the faith of Christ, the reply given by the apostles, who before then had adhered to the Lord, was: "It is not good that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Then it was that they provided for the ordination of deacons, that they themselves might not be drawn aside from the duty of preaching the word.
Hence that was properly enough called their word which is the word of faith, whereby all, from whatever quarter they had heard it, believed on Christ, or, as yet to hear it, should thereafter believe. In this prayer, therefore, all whom He redeemed, whether then alive or thereafter to live in the flesh, were prayed for by our Redeemer when, praying for the apostles who were then with Him, He also conjoined those who were yet to believe on Him through their word. But what, after such conjunction, He then proceeds to say, must be reserved for discussion in another discourse.
Tractate 110
John XVII. 21-23. 1. After the Lord Jesus had prayed for His disciples whom He had with Him at the time, and had conjoined with them others who were also His own, by saying, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word," as if we were inquiring what or wherefore He prayed for them, He straightway subjoined, "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, [art] in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us. And a little above, while still praying for the disciples alone who were then with Him, He said, "Holy Father, keep in Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are" ver. 11). It is the same thing, therefore, that He now also prayed for in our behalf, as He did at that time in theirs, namely, that all-to wit, both we and they-may be one. And here we must take particular notice that the Lord did not say that we all may be one, but, "that they all may be one; as Thou Father, in me, and I in Thee" (where is to be understood are one, as is more clearly expressed afterwards); because He had also said before of the disciples who were with Him, "That they may be one, as we are. The Father, therefore, is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, in such a way as to be one, because they are of one substance;
but while we may indeed be in them, we cannot be one with them; for they and we are not of one substance, in as far as the Son is God along with the Father. But in as far as He is man, He is of the same substance as we are. But at present He wished rather to call attention to that other statement which He made use of in another place, "I and the Father are one," where He intimated that His own nature was the same with that of the Father. And accordingly, though the Father and Son, or even the Holy Spirit, are in us, we must not suppose that they are of one nature with ourselves. And hence they are in us, or we are in them, in this sense, that they are one in their own nature, and we are one in ours. For they are in us, as God in His temple; but we are in them, as the creature in its Creator.
2. But then after saying, "That they also may be one in us," He added, "That the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. What does He mean by this? Is it that the world will then be brought to the faith, when we shall all be one in the Father and Son? Is not such a state the everlasting peace, and the reward of faith, rather than faith itself? For we shall be one not in order to our believing, but because we have believed. But although in this life, because of the common faith itself, all who believe in one are one according to the words of the apostle, "For ye are all one in Christ Jesus ; even thus we are one, not in order to our believing, but because we do believe. What, then, is meant by the words, "That they all may be one, that the world may believe"? This, doubtless, that the "all" are themselves the believing world. For those who shall be one are not of one class, and the world that is thereafter to believe on this very ground that these shall be one, of another; since it is perfectly certain that He says, "That they all may be one," of those of whom He had said before, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on me through their word," immediately adding as He does, "That they all may be one. And this "all," what is it but the world;
not certainly that which is hostile, but that which is believing? For you see here that He who had said, "I pray not for the world," now prayeth for the world that it may believe. For there is a world whereof it is written, "That we might not be condemned with this world. For that world He prayeth not, for He is fully aware to what it is predestinated. And there is a world whereof it is written, "For the Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved ; and hence the apostle also says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. For this world it is that He prayeth, in saying, "That the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. For through this faith the world is reconciled unto God when it believes in the Christ whom God has sent. How, then, are we to understand Him when He says, "That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me," but just in this way, that He did not assign the cause of the world believing to the fact that those others are one, as if it believed on the ground that it saw them to be one; for the world itself here consisteth of all who by their own believing become one; but in His prayer He said, "That the world may believe," just as in His prayer He also said, "That they all may be one;
and still further in the same prayer, "That they also may be one in us. For the words, "they all may be one," are equivalent to "the world may believe," since it is by believing that they become one, perfectly one; that is, those who, although one by nature, had ceased to be so by their mutual dissensions. In fine, if the verb which He uses, "I pray," be understood in the third clause, or rather, to make the whole fuller, be everywhere supplied, the explanation of this sentence will be all the clearer: I pray "that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee ; I pray "that they also may be one in us ; I pray "that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And, mark, He added the words "in us" in order that we may know that our being made one in that love of unchanging faithfulness is to be attributed to the grace of God, and not to ourselves: just as the apostle, after saying, "For ye were at one time darkness, but now are ye light," that none might attribute the doing of this to themselves, added, "in the Lord."
3. Furthermore, our Saviour in thus praying to the Father showed Himself to be man; while He now also shows that He Himself, as being God along with the Father, doeth that which He prayeth for, when He says, "And the glory which Thou gavest me, I have given them. And what was that glory but immortality, which human nature was henceforth to receive in Him? For not even He Himself had as yet received it, but in His own customary way, on account of the absolute fixedness of predestination, He intimates what is future in verbs of the past tense, because being now on the point of being glorified, or in other words, raised up again by the Father, He Himself is going to raise us up to the same glory in the end. What we have here is similar to what He says elsewhere, "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. And "whom," but just the same as the Father? "For what things soever the Father doeth," not other things, but "these also doeth the Son," not in a different way, but "in like manner. And in this way He also raised up even His own self. For to this effect he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. Accordingly the glory of immortality, which He says had been given Him by the Father, He must be also understood as having bestowed upon Himself, although He does not say it.
For on this very account He more frequently says that the Father alone doeth, what He Himself also doeth along with the Father, that everything whatever He may attribute to Him of whom He is. But sometimes also He is silent about the Father, and says that He Himself doeth what He only doeth along with the Father: that we may thereby understand that the Son is not to be separated from the working of the Father, when He is silent about Himself, and ascribes some work or other to the Father; as, on the other hand, the Father is not separated from the working of the Son, when the Son is said, without any mention being made of [the Father] Himself, to be doing some work in which nevertheless both are equally engaged. When, therefore, in some work of the Father, the Son says nothing of His own working, He commends humility, that He may become the source of sounder health to us; but when, in turn, in the case of some work of His own, He says nothing of the working of the Father, He commends His own equality, that we may not suppose Him to be inferior. In this way, then, and in this passage, He neither estranges Himself from the Father's working, although He has said, "The glory which Thou gavest me ; for He also gave it to Himself: nor does He estrange the Father from His own working, although saying, "I have given to them ; for the Father also gave it to them.
For the works not only of the Father and the Son, but also of the Holy Spirit, are inseparable. But just as, because of His praying the Father in behalf of all His people, it was His own pleasure that this should be done, "that they all may be one; so also on the ground of His own beneficence, as expressed in the words, "The glory which Thou gavest me, I have given them," the doing of that was none the less His pleasure; for He immediately added, "That they may be one, as we also are one." 4. And then He added: "I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. Here He briefly intimated Himself as tim Mediator between God and men. Nor was this said in any such way as if the Fatherwere not in us, or we were not in the Father; since He had also said in another place, "Wewill come unto him, and make our abode with him; and a little before in this present passage He had not said," I in them and Thou in me," as He said now; or, They in me, and I in Thee; but, "Thou in me, and I in Thee, and they in us. Accordingly, when He now says, "I in them, and Thou in me," the words take this form in reference to the person of the Mediator, like that other expression used by the apostle," Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. But in adding, "That they may be made perfect in one," He showed that the reconciliation, which is effected by the Mediator, is carried to the very length of bringing us to the enjoyment of that perfect blessedness, which is thenceforth incapable of further addition. Hence the words that follow, "That the world may know that Thou hast sent me," are not, I think, to be taken as if He had again said, "That the world may believe; for sometimes, to know, is also used in the same sense as to believe, as it is in the words He uttered some time before:
"And they have known truly that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me. He expressed the same thing by the later words, "they have believed," as He had done by the earlier, "they have known. But inasmuch as He here speaks of the consummation, the knowledge must be taken for such, as it shall then be by sight, and not, as it now is, by faith. For an order seems to have been preserved in reference to what He said a little before, "that the world may believe; while here it is, "that the world may know. For although He said there, "that they all may be one," and "may be one in us," yet He did not say, "they may be made perfect in one," and so subjoined the words, "that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me; but here He said, "That they may be made perfect in one," and then added, not, "that the world may believe," but, "that the world may know that Thou hast sent me. For so long as we believe what we do not see, we are not yet made perfect, as we shall bewhen we have merited the sight of that which we believe. Most correctly, therefore, did He say in that previous place, "That the world may believe," and here "That the world tray know ; yet both there and here, "that Thou hast sent me ;
that we may know, so far as belongs to the inseparable love of the Father and the Son, that at present we only believe what we are on the way, by believing, to know. And had He said, That they may know that Thou hast sent me, it would be just of the same force as what He actually does say, "that the world may know. For they are the world that abideth not in enmity, as doth the world that is foreordained to damnation; but one that out of an enemy has been transformed into a friend, and on whose account "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Therefore said He, "I in them, and Thou in me; as if He had said, I in those to whom Thou hast sent me; and Thou in me, reconciling the world unto Thyself through me. 5. In close relation to these come also His further words: "And Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me. That is to say, in the Son the Father loveth us, because in Him He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world. For He who loveth the Only-begotten, certainly loveth also His members which, through His instrumentality, He engrafted into Him by adoption. But we are not on this account equal to the only-begotten Son, by whom we have been created and re-created, that it is said, "Thou hast loved them as [Thou hast] also [loved] me. For one does not always intimate equality when he says, As this, so also that other; but sometimes only, Because this is, so also is the other; or, That the one is, in order that the other may be also. For who could say that the apostles were sent by Christ into the world in exactly the same way as He Himself was sent by the Father? For, to say nothing of other differences, which it would be tedious to mention, they at all events were sent when they were already men; but He was sent in order that He might be man; and yet He said above, "As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world ; as if He had said, Because Thou hast sent me, I have sent them. So also in the passage before us He says, "Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me ;
which is nothing else than this, Thou hast loved them because that Thou hast also loved me. For He could not but love the members of the Son, seeing that He loveth the Son Himself; nor is there any other reason for loving His members, save that He loveth Himself. But He loveth the Son as regards His Godhead, because He begat Him equal with Himself; He loveth Him also in regard to what He is as man, because the Only-begotten Word was Himself made flesh, and on account of the Word is the flesh of the Word dear to Him; but He loveth us, inasmuch as we are the members of Him whom He loveth; and in order that we might be so, He loved us on this account before we existed. 6. The love, therefore, wherewith God loveth, is incomprehensible and immutable. For it was not from the time that we were reconciledunto Him by the blood of His Son that He began to love us; but He did so before the foundation of the world, that we also might be His sons along with His Only-begotten, before as yet we had any existence of our own. Let not the fact, then, of our having been reconciled unto God through the death of His Son be so listened to or so understood, as if the Son reconciled us to Him in this respect, that He now began to love those whom He formerly hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that thereafter they become friends, and mutual love takes the place of their mutual hatred; but we were reconciled unto Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity because of our sin. Whether I say the truth on this, let the apostle testify, when he says: "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He, therefore. had love toward us even when we were practising enmity against Him and working iniquity; and yet to Him it is said with perfect truth, "Thou hatest, O Lord, all workers of iniquity. Accordingly, in a wonderful and divine manner, even when He hated us, He loved us; for He hated us, in so far as we were not what He Himself had made;
and because our own iniquity had not in every part consumed His work, He knew at once both how, in each of us, to hate what we had done, and to love what He had done. And this, indeed, may be understood in the case of all regarding Him to whom it is truly said, "Thou hatest nothing that Thou hast made. For He would never have wished anything that He hated to exist, nor would aught that the Omnipotent had not wished exist at all, were it not that in what He hated there was also something that He loved. For He justly hateth and reprobateth vice as utterly repugnant to the principle of His procedure, yet He loveth even in the persons of the vitiated what is susceptible either of His own beneficence through healing, or of His judgment by condemnation. In this way God at the same time hateth nothing of what He has made; for as the Creator of natures, and not of vices, it was not He who made the evil that He hateth; and of these same evils, all is good that He really doeth, either by mercifully healing them, or by judicially regulating them. Seeing, then, that He hateth nothing that He hath made, who can worthily describe how much He loveth the members of His Only-begotten, and how much more the Only-begotten Himself, in whom are hid all things visible and invisible, which were ordained in their various classes, and which He loves in fullest harmony with such ordination?
For the members of His Only-begotten He is leading on by the liberality of His grace to an equality with the holy angels; while the Only-begotten Himself, being Lord of all, is doubtless Lord of angels, being by nature, as God, the equal not of angels, but rather of the Father Himself; while through grace, in respect of which He is man, how can He otherwise than surpass all angelic excellence, seeing that in Him human flesh and the Word constitute but one personality? 7. Nevertheless there are not wanting some who place us likewise before the angels; because, they say, Christ died for us and not for angels. But what else is such a notion than the desire to glory over our very impiety? For "Christ," as the apostle says, "in due time died for the ungodly. Where it is not any desert of ours, but the mercy of God, that is commended. For what can be the character of the man who wishes himself to be lauded, because he has become so abominably diseased through his own wickedness, that he can only be healed by the death of his physician? That surely is not the glory of our deserts, but the medicine of our diseases. Or do we prefer ourselves to the angels on this account, that, while there are angels also who have sinned, there has been no such labor expended on their healing? As if something that was at least small in amount had been undertaken for them, and what was greater for us. But had even such been the case, it might still be a subject of inquiry whether it was so because we had once stood in a position of superior excellence, or because we were now lying in a more desperate condition.
But knowing as we do that the Creator of all good has imparted no grace for the reparation of angelic evils, why do we not rather draw the inference that their fault was judged all the more damnable, that the nature of those who committed it was of a loftier sublimity? For to the same extent as they less than we ought to have fallen into sin, were they superior in nature to us. But now in offending against the Creator they became all the more detestably ungrateful for His beneficence, that they were created capable of exercising the greater beneficence; nor was it enough for them to become deserters from Him, but they must also become our deceivers. This, therefore, is the great goodness of which we are to be made the subjects by Him, who hath loved us even as He hath loved Christ, that, for His sake, whose members He wished us to he, we may be equal to the holy angels, to whom we were created with an inferiority of nature, and have by our sin fallen into such greater depths of unworthiness, as to make it incumbent that we should be in some sort their associates.
Tractate 111
John XVII. 24-26. 1. The Lord Jesus raises up His people to a great hope, than which there could not possibly be a greater. Listen and rejoice in hope, that, since the present is not a life to be loved, but to be tolerated, you may have the power of patient endurance amid all its tribulation. Listen, I say, and weigh well to what it is that our hopes are exalted. Christ Jesus saith, The Son of God, the Only-begotten, who is co-eternal and equal with the Father, saith: He, who for our sakes became man, but became not, like every man besides, a liar, saith: the Way, the Life, the Truth saith: He who overcame the world, saith of those for whom He overcame it: listen, believe, hope, desire what He saith: "Father," He says, "I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am. Who are these who He says were given Him by the Father? Are they not those of whom He says in another place, "No man cometh unto me, unless the Father, who hath sent me, draw him"? We already know if we havemade any beneficial progress in this Gospel, how it is that the things which He says the Father doeth, He Himself doeth likewise along with the Father. They are those, therefore, whom He has received from the Father, whom He Himself has also chosen out of the world, and chosen that they may be no more of the world, even as He also is not of the world;
and yet that they also may be a world that believeth and knoweth that Christ has been sent by God the Father that the world might be delivered from the world, and so, as a world that was to be reconciled unto God, might not be condemned with the world that lieth in enmity. For so He says in the beginning of this prayer: "Thou hast given Him power over all flesh," that is, over every man, "that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. Here He makes it clear that He has indeed received power over all men, that, as the future Judge of quick and dead, He may deliver whom He pleases, and condemn whom He pleases; but that these were given Him that to all of them He should give eternal life. For so He says: "That He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. Accordingly they were not given Him that from them He should withhold eternal life; although over them also the power has been given Him, inasmuch as He has received it over all flesh, in other words, over every man. In this way the world that has been reconciled will be delivered from the hostile world, when He putteth into exercise His power over it, to send it away into death eternal; but the other He maketh His own that He may give it everlasting life.
Accordingly, to every one, without fail, of His own sheep the Good Shepherd, as to every one of His members the great Head, hath promised this reward, that where He is, there also we shall be with Him; nor can that be otherwise which the omnipotent Son declared to be His will to the omnipotent Father. For there also is the Holy Spirit, equally eternal, equally God, the one Spirit of the two, the substance of the will of both. For the words that we read of Him as uttering on the eve of His passion, "Yet not, Father, as I will, but as Thou wilt," as if the Father has or had one will, and the Son another, are the echo of our infirmity, however faith-pervaded, which our Head transfigured in Hisown person, when He likewise bare our iniquities. But that the will of the Father and the Son is one, of both of whom also there is but one Spirit, by including whom we come to the knowledge of the Trinity, let piety believe, even though our infirmity meanwhile permitteth us not to understand.
2. But as we have already, in a way proportionate to the brevity of our discourse, spoken of the objects of the promise, and of its own stability; let us now look at this one point, as far as we are able, what it is that He was pleased to promise when He said, "I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am. As far as pertains to the creaturehood wherein He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, not even He Himself was yet where He would afterwards be: but He could say in this way, "where I am," to let us understand that He was soon to ascend into heaven, so that He spake of Himself as being already there, where He was presently to be. He could do so also in the same way as He had said on a former occasion, when speaking to Nicodemus, "No man ascendeth into heaven, save He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven. For there also He did not say, Will be, but "is," because of the oneness of person, wherein God is at once man, and man God. He promised, therefore, that we should be in heaven; for thither the servant-form, which He received of the Virgin, has been elevated, and set at the right hand of the Father. Because of the same blessed hope the apostle also says:
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace we are saved; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And so accordingly we may understand the Lord to have said, "That where I am, there they may be also. He, indeed, said of Himself that He was there already; but of us He merely declared that He wished us to be there with Him, without any indication that we were there already But what the Lord said that He wished to be done, the apostle spake of as already accomplished. For he said not, He will yet raise us up, and make us sit in heavenly places; but, "hath raised us up, and made us sit in heavenly places: for it is not without good grounds, but in believing assurance, that he reckons as already done what he is certain will yet be done. But if it is in respect of the form of God, wherein He is equal to the Father, that we would be inclined to understand His words, "I will that they also be with me, where I am," let our mind get quit of every thought of material images:
whateverthe soul has had presented to it, that is endowed with length, or breadth, or thickness, tinted by the light with any sort of bodily hue, or diffused through local space of any kind, whether finite or infinite, let it, as far as possible, turn away from all such notions the glance of its contemplation on the inward bent of its thoughts. And let us not be making inquiries as to where the Son, the Father's co-equal, is, since no one has yet found out where He is not. But if any one would inquire, let him inquire rather how he may be with Him; not everywhere as He is, but wherever He may be. For when He said to the man that was expiating his crimes on the tree, and making confession unto salvation, "Today shall thou be with me in paradise," in respect to His human nature His own soul was on that very day to be in hell, His flesh in the sepulchre; but as respected His Godhead He was certainly also in paradise. And therefore the soul of the thief, absolved from his by-gone crimes, and already in the blessed enjoyment of His grace, although it could not be everywhere as He was, yet could on that very day be also with Him in paradise, from which He, who is always everywhere, had not withdrawn. On this account, doubtless, it was not enough for Him to say, "I will that they also be where I am; but He added, "with me.
For to be with Him is the chief good. For even the miserable can be where He is, since wheresoever any are, there is He also; but the blessed only are with Him, because it is only of Him that they can be blessed. Was it not truly said to God, "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; and if I go down into hell, Thou art present? or is not Christ after all that Wisdom of God which "penetrateth everywhere because of its purity"? But the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not. And similarly, to take a kind of illustration from what is visible, although greatly unlike, as the blind man, even though he be where the light is, is yet not himself with the light, but is really absent from that which is present; so the unbeliever and profane, or even the believer and pious, because not yet competent to gaze on the light of wisdom, although he cannot be anywhere that Christ is not there likewise, yet is not himself with Christ, I mean in actual sight. For we cannot doubt that the true believer is with Christ by faith; because in reference to this He saith, "He that is not with me is against me. But when He said to God the Father, "I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am," He spake exclusively of that sight wherein we shall see Him as He is.
3. Let no one disturb the clearness of the meaning by any cloudy contradiction; but let what follows furnish its testimony to the words that precede. For after saying, "I will that they also be with me where I am," He went on immediately to add, "That they may behold my glory, which Thou gavest me: for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. "That they may behold," He said; not, that they may believe. This is faith's wages, not faith itself. For if faith has been correctly defined in the Epistle to the Hebrews as "the assurance [conviction] of things that are not seen," why may not the wages of faith be defined, the beholding of things which were hoped for in faith? For when we shall see the glory which the Father hath given the Son, even though we may understand what is spoken of in this passage, not as that [glory] which the Father gave His co-equal Son in begetting Him, but as that which He gave Him, when become the Son of man, after the death of the cross;-when, I say, we shall see that glory of the Son, then of a certainty shall take place the judgment of the quick and the dead, and then shall the wicked be taken away that he may not behold the glory of the Lord; and what [glory], save that of His Godhead? For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God:
and because the wicked are not pure in heart, therefore they shall not see Then shall they go away into everlasting punishment; for so shall the wicked be taken away, that he may not behold the glory of the Lord: but the righteous shall go into life eternal. And what is life eternal? "That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (ver. 3): not, indeed, as those knew Him, who although impure in heart, yet were able to see Him as He sat in judgment in His glorified servant-form; but as He is yet to be known by the pure in heart, as the only true God, the Son along with the Father and Holy Spirit, because the Trinity itself is the only true God. If, then, it is in reference to His Godhead as the Son of God, equal and co-eternal with the Father, that we take the words, "I will that they also be with me where I am," we shall be with Christ in the Father; but He in His own way, we in ours, wherever we may be in body. For if localities are to be understood, and such as contain incorporeal beings, and everything has a place where it is, the eternal place of Christ where He always is, is the Father Himself, and the place of the Father is the Son; for "I," He said, "am in the Father, and the Father in me;
and in this prayer, "As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee: and they are our place, because there follows, "That they also may be one in us: and we are God's place, inasmuch as we are His temple; even as He, who died for us and liveth for us, also prayeth for us, that we may be one in them; because "His [dwelling] place was made in peace, and His habitation in Zion," which we are. But who is qualified to think on such places or what is in them, apart from the idea of space-defined capacities and material masses? Yet no little progress is made, if at least, when any such idea presents itself to the eye of the mind, it is denied, rejected, and reprobated: and a certain kind of light is, as far as possible, thought of, in which such things are perceived as deserving only to be denied, rejected, and reprobated; and the certainty of that light is known and loved, so that from thence an upward movement is begun in us, and an effort made to reach into places farther within: and when the mind through its own infirmity and still inferior purity has failed to penetrate them it is driven back again, not without the sighings of love and the tears of ardent longing, and continues to bear in patience until it is purified by faith, and prepared by the holiness of the inward life to be able to take up its abode therein.
4. How, then, shall we not be with Christ where He is, when we shall be with Him in the Father in whom He is? On this, also, the apostle is not without something to say to us, although we are not yet in possession of the reality, but only cherishing the hope. For he says, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God: set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye have died," he adds, "and your life is hid with Christ in God." Here, you see, our life is meanwhile in faith and hope with Christ, where He is; because it is with Christ in God. That, you see, is as if already accomplished for which He prayed, when He said, "I will that they also be with me where I am;" but now only by faith. And when will it be accomplished by actual sight? "When Christ," he says, "[who is] your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Then shall we appear as that which we then shall be; for it shall then be apparent that it was not without good grounds that we believed and hoped we should become so, before it actually took place. He will do this, to whom the Son, after saying, "That they may behold my glory, which Thou gavest me," immediately added, "For Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." For in Him He loved us also before the foundation of the world, and then foreordained what He was to do in the end of the world.
5. "O righteous Father," He saith, "the world hath not known Thee." Just because Thou art righteous it hath not known Thee. It is as that world which has been predestined to condemnation really deserved, that it hath not known Him; while the world which He hath reconciled unto Himself through Christ hath known Him not of merit, but by grace. For what else is the knowing of Him, but eternal life which, while He undoubtedly withheld it from the condemned world, He bestowed on the reconciled. On that very account, therefore, the world hath not known Thee, because Thou art righteous, and hast rendered unto it according to its deserts, that it should not know Thee: while on the same account the reconciled world hath known Thee, because Thou art merciful, and, not for any merit of its own, but by grace, hast supplied it with the needed help to know Thee. And then there follows, "But I have known Thee." He is the Fountain of grace, who is by nature God, and, by grace ineffable, man also of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin: and then on His own behalf, because the grace of God is through Jesus Christ our Lord, He adds, "And these have known that Thou hast sent me." Such is the reconciled world. But it is because Thou hast sent me that they have known: by grace, therefore, have they known.
6. "And I have made known to them," He says, "Thy name, and will make it known. I have made it known by faith, I will make it known by sight: I have made it known to those whose present sojourn in a strange land has its appointed end, I will make it known to those whose reign as kings shall be endless. "That the love," He adds, "wherewith [literally, which] Thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them. (The form of speech is unusual, "the love, which Thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them; for the common way of speaking is, the love wherewith thou hast loved me. Here, of course, it is a translation from the Greek: but there are similar forms also in Latin; as we say. He served a faithful service, He served as a soldier a strenuous soldier-service; when apparently we ought to have said, He served with a faithful service, he served as a soldier with a strenuous soldier-service. But such as the form of expression is, "the love which Thou hast loved me; one similar to it is also used by the apostle, "I have fought a good fight;
he does not say, in a good fight, which would be the more usual and perhaps correcter form of expression. ) But how else is the love wherewith the Father loved the Son in us also, but because we are His members and are loved in Him, since He is loved in the totality of His person, as both Head and members? Therefore He added, "and I in them; as if saying, Since I am also in them. For in one sense He is in us as in His temple; but in another, because we are also Himself, seeing that, in accordance with His becoming man, that He might be our Head, we are His body. The Saviour's prayer is finished, His passion begins; let us, therefore, also finish the present discourse, that we may treat of His passion, as He granteth us grace, in others to follow.
Tractate 112
John XVIII. 1-12. 1. When the grand and lengthened discourse was concluded which the Lord delivered after supper, and on the eve of shedding His blood for us, to the disciples who were then with Him, and had added the prayer addressed to His Father, the evangelist John began thereafter the narrative of His passion in these words: "When Jesus had so spoken, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples. And Judas also, who betrayed Him, knew the place; for Jesus oft-times resorted thither with His disciples. What he here relates of the Lord entering the garden with His disciples did not take place immediately after He had brought the prayer to a close, of which he says, "When Jesus had spoken these words: but certain other incidents were interposed, which are passed over by the present evangelist and found in the others; just as in this one are found many things on which the others are similarly silent in their own narratives. But any one who desires to know how they all agree together, and the truth which is advanced by one is never contradicted by another, may seek for what he wants, not in these present discourses, but in other elaborate treatises; but he will master the subject not by standing and listening, but rather by sitting down and reading, or by giving his closest attention and thought to one who does so.
Yet let him believe before he know, whether he be able also to come to such a knowledge in this life, or find it impossible through some existing entanglements, that there is nothing written by any one evangelist, as far as regards those who have been received by the Church into canonical authority, that can be contrary to his own or another's equally veracious narrative. At present, therefore, let us look at the narrative of the blessed John, which we have undertaken to expound, without any comparison with the others, and without lingering over anything in it that is already sufficiently clear; so that where it is needful to do so, we may the better answer the demand. Let us, therefore, not take His words, "When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples," as if it were immediately after the utterance of these words that He entered the garden; but let the clause, "When Jesus had spoken these words," bear this meaning, that we are not to suppose Him entering the garden before He had brought these words to a close.
2. "Judas also," he says, "who betrayed Him, knew the place; for Jesus oft-times resorted thither with His disciples." There, accordingly, the wolf, clad in a sheep's skin, and tolerated among the sheep by the profound counsel of the Father of the family, learned where he might opportunely scatter the slender flock, and lay his coveted snares for the Shepherd. "Judas then," he adds, "having received a cohort, and officers from the chief men and the Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons." It was a cohort, not of Jews, but of soldiers. We are therefore to understand it as having been received from the governor, as if for the purpose of securing the person of a criminal, and by preserving the forms of legal power, to deter any from venturing to resist his captors: although at the same time so great a band had been assembled, and came armed in such a way as either to terrify or even attack any one who should dare to make a stand in Christ's defense. For only in so far was His power concealed and prominence given to His weakness, that these very measures were deemed necessary by His enemies to be taken against Him, for whose hurt nothing would have sufficed but what was pleasing to Himself; in His own goodness making a good use of the wicked, and doing what was good in regard to the wicked, that He might transform the evil into the good, and distinguish between the good and the evil.
3. "Jesus, therefore," as the evangelist proceeds to say, "knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth and saith unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am [He]. And Judas also, who betrayed Him, stood with them. As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground. Where now were the military cohort, and the servants of the chief men and the Pharisees? where the terror and protection of weapons? His own single voice uttering the words, "I am [He]," without any weapon, smote, repelled, prostrated that great crowd, with all the ferocity of their hatred and terror of their arms. For God lay hid in that human flesh; and eternal day was so obscured in those human limbs, that with lanterns and torches He was sought for to be slain by the darkness. "I am [He]," He says; and He casteth the wicked to the ground. What will He do when He cometh as judge, who did this when giving Himself up to be judged? What will be His power when He cometh to reign, who had this power when He came to die? And now everywhere through the gospel Christ is still saying, "I am [He]; and the Jews are looking for antichrist, that they may go backward and fall to the ground, as those who have abandoned what is heavenly, and are hankering after the earthly.
It was for the very purpose of apprehending Jesus that His persecutors accompanied the traitor: they found the One they were seeking, for they heard, "I am [He]. Why, then, did they not seize Him, but went backward and fell, but just because so He pleased, who could do whatever He pleased? But had He never permitted them to apprehend Him, they would certainly not have done what they came to do, but no more would He be doing what He came to do. They, verily, in their mad rage, sought for Him to put Him to death; but He, too, in giving Himself to death, was seeking for us. Accordingly, having thus shown His power to those who had the will, but not the power, to hold Him; let them now hold Him that He may work His own will with those who know it not. 4. "Then asked He them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am [He]. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: that the saying might be fulfilled which He spake, That of those whom Thou hast given me I have lost none." "If ye seek me," He says, "let these go their way." He sees His enemies, and they do what He bids them: they let those go their way, whom He would not have perish. But were they not afterwards to die? How then, if they died now, should He lose them, were it not that as yet they did not believe in Him, as all believe who perish not?
5. "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. And the servant's name was Malchus. This is the only evangelist who has given us the very name of this servant, as Luke is the only one who tells us that the Lord touched his ear and healed him. The interpretation of Malchus is, one who is destined to reign. What, then, is signified by the ear that was cut off in the Lord's behalf, and healed by the Lord, but the renewed hearing that has been pruned of its oldness, that it may henceforth be in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter? Who can doubt that he, who had such a thing done for him by Christ, was yet destined to reign with Christ? And his being found as a servant, pertains also to that oldness that gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. But when healing came, liberty also was shadowed forth. Peter's deed, however, was disapproved of by the Lord, and He prevented Him from proceeding further by the words: "Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? For in such a deed that disciple only sought to defend his Master, without any thought of what it was intended to signify. And he had therefore to be exhorted to the exercise of patience, and the event itself to be recorded as an exercise of understanding.
But when He says that the cup of suffering was given Him by the Father, we have precisely the same truth as that which was uttered by the apostle: "If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. But the originator of this cup is also one with Him who drank it; and hence the same apostle likewise says, "Christ loved us, and gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor." 6. "Then the cohort, and the tribune, and the officers of the Jews, took Jesus, and bound Him." They took Him to whom they had never found access: for He continued the day, while they remained as darkness; neither had they given heed to the words, "Come unto Him, and be enlightened." For had they so approached Him, they would have taken Him, not with their hands for the purpose of murder, but with their hearts for the purpose of a welcome reception. Now, however, when they laid hold of Him in this way, their distance from Him was vastly increased: and they bound Him by whom they themselves ought rather to have been loosed. And perhaps there were those among themwho then fastened their fetters on Christ, and yet were afterwards delivered by Him, and could say, "Thou hast loosed my bonds." Let this be enough for to-day; we shall deal, God willing, with what follows in another discourse.
Tractate 113
John XVIII. 13-27. 1. After that His persecutors had, through the treason of Judas, taken and bound the Lord, who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and whom the Father spared not, but gave Him up for us all: that we may understand that there was no praise due to Judas for the usefulness of his treachery, but damnation for the willfulness of his wickedness: "They led Him," as John the evangelist tells us, "to Annas first." Nor does he withhold the reason for so doing: "For he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was the high priest that same year. Now Caiaphas was he," he says, "who gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." And properly enough Matthew, when wishing to say the same in fewer words, tells us that He was led to Caiaphas; for He was also taken in the first place to Annas, simply because he was his father-in-law; and where we have only to understand that such was the very thing that Caiaphas wished to be done.
2. "But Jesus was followed," he says, "by Simon Peter, and another disciple. Who that other disciple is, we cannot affirm with confidence, because it is left unnoticed here. But it is in this way that John usually refers to himself, with the addition, "whom Jesus loved. Perhaps, therefore, it is he also in the present case; but whoever it is, letus look at what follows. "And that disciple," he says, "was known unto the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest; but Peter stood at the door without. Then went out that other disciple, who was known unto the high priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter. Then saith the damsel that kept thedoor unto Peter, Art thou also one of this man's disciples? He saith, I am not. Lo, the pillar of greatest strength has at a single breath of air trembled to its foundations. Where is now all that boldness of the promiser, and his overweening confidence in himself beforehand? What now of those words, when he said, "Why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake. Is this the way to follow the Master, to deny his own discipleship? is it thus that one's life is laid down for the Lord, when one is frightened at a maid-servant's voice, lest it should compel us to the sacrifice? But what wonder, if God foretold what was true, and man presumptuously imagined what was false?
Assuredly in this denial of the Apostle Peter, which had now entered on its first stage, we ought to take notice that not only is Christ denied by one who says that He is not Christ, but by him also who, while really a Christian, himself denies that he is so. For the Lord said not to Peter, Thou shall deny that thou art my disciple; but, "Thou shall deny me. Him, therefore, he denied, when he denied that he was His disciple. And what else did such a form of denial imply, but that of his own Christianity? For although the disciples of Christ were not yet called by such a name,-because it was after His ascension, in Antioch, first that the disciples began to be called Christians, -yet the thing itself, that afterwards assumed such a name, already existed, those who were afterwards called Christians were already disciples; and this common name, like the common faith, they transmitted to their posterity. He, therefore, who denied that he was Christ's disciple, denied the reality of the thing, of which the being called a Christian was only the name. How many afterwards, not to speak of old men and women, whose satiated feelings as regards the present life might more easily enable them to brave death for the confession of Christ; and not merely the youth of both sexes, when of an age at which the exercise of fortitude seems to be fairly required;
but even boys and girls could do-even as an innumerable company of holy martyrs with brave hearts and by a violent death entered the kingdom of heaven-what at that moment he was unable to do, who received the keys of that kingdom. It is here we see why it was said, "Let these go their way," when He, who hath redeemed us by His own blood, gave Himself for us; that the saying which He spake might be fulfilled, "Of those whom Thou hast given me I have lost none. For assuredly, had Peter gone hence after denying the Christ, what else would have awaited him but destruction? 3. "And the servants and officers stood beside the fire of burning coals, for it was cold, and warmed themselves. Though it was not winter, it was cold: which is sometimes wont to be the case even at the vernal equinox. "And Peter was standing with them, and warming himself. The high priest then asked Jesus of His disciples, and of His doctrine. Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I always taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort, and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? ask those who heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said. A question occurs that ought not to be passed over, how it is that the Lord Jesus said, "I spake openly to the world; and in particular that which He afterwards added, "In secret have I said nothing. Did He not, even in that latest discourse which He delivered to the disciples after supper, say to them, "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs; but the hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of my Father? If, then, He spake not openly even to the more intimate company of His disciples, but gave the promise of a time when He would speak openly, how was it that He spake openly to the world?
And still further, as is also testified on the authority of the other evangelists, to those who were truly His own, in comparison with others who were not His disciples, He certainly spake with much greater plainness when He was alone with them at a distance from the multitudes; for then He unfolded to them the parables, which He had uttered in obscure terms to others. What then is the meaning of the words, "In secret have I said nothing"? It is in this way we are to understand His saying, "I spake openly to the world; as if He had said, There were many that heard me. And that word "openly" was in a certain sense openly and in another sense not openly. It was openly, because many heard Him; and again it was not openly, because they did not understand Him. And even what He spake to His disciples apart, He certainly spake not in secret. For who speaketh in secret, that speaketh before so many persons; as it is written, "At tim mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established: especially if that be spoken to a few which he wisheth to become known to many through them; as the Lord Himself said to the few whom He had as yet, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops"?
And accordingly the very thing that seemed to be spoken by Himself in secret, was in a certain sense not spoken in secret; for it was not so spoken to remain unuttered by those to whom it was spoken; but rather so in order to be preached in every possible direction. A thing therefore may be uttered at once openly, and not openly; or at the same time in secret, and yet not in secret, as it is said, "That seeing, they may see, and not see. For how "may they see," save only because it is openly, and not in secret; and again, how is it that the same parties "may not see," save that it is not openly, but in secret? Howbeit the very things which they had heard without understanding, were such as could not with justice or truth be turned into a criminal charge against Him: and as often as they tried by their questions to find something whereof to accuse Him, He gave them such replies as utterly discomfited all their plots, and left no ground for the calumnies they devised. Therefore He said, "Why askest thou me? ask those who heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said."
4. "And when He had thus spoken, one of the officers who stood by gave Jesus a blow with his open hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me? What could be truer, meeker, juster, than such an answer? For it is His [reply], from whom the prophetic voice had issued before, "Make for thy goal (literally, take aim), and advance prosperously and reign, because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness. If we consider who it was that received the blow, might we not well feel the wish that he who struck it were either consumed by fire from heaven, or swallowed up by the gaping earth, or seized and carried off by devils, or visited with some other or still heavier punishment of this kind? For what one of all these could not He, who made the world, have commanded by His power, had He not wished rather to teach us the patience that overcometh the world? Some one will say here, Why did He not do what He Himself commanded? for to one that smote Him, He ought not to have answered thus, but to have turned to him the other cheek. Nay, more than this, did He not answer truthfully, and meekly, and righteously, and at the same time not only prepare His other cheek to him who was yet again to smite it, but His whole body to be nailed to the tree?
And hereby He rather showed, what needed to be shown, namely, that those great precepts of His are to be fulfilled not by bodily ostentation, but by the preparation of the heart. For it is possible that even an angry man may visibly hold out his other cheek. How much better, then, is it for one who is inwardly pacified to make a truthful answer, and with tranquil mind hold himself ready for the endurance of heavier sufferings to come? Happy is he who, in all that he suffers unjustly for righteousness' sake, can say with truth, "My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; for this it is that gives cause for that which follows: "I will sing and I give praise; which Paul and Barnabas could do even in the cruellest of bonds. 5. But let us return to what follows in the Gospel narrative. "And Annas sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest." To him, according to Matthew's account, He was led at the outset, because he was the high priest that year. For both the pontiffs are to be understood as in the habit of acting year by year alternately, that is, as chief priests; and these were at that time Annas and Caiaphas, as recorded by the evangelist Luke, when telling of the time when John, the Lord's forerunner, began to preach the kingdom of heaven and to gather disciples. For he speaks thus: "Under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the word of the Lord came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness," etc. Accordingly these twopontiffs fulfilled their years in turn: and it was the year of Caiaphas when Christ suffered. And so, according to Matthew, when He was apprehended, He was taken to him; but first, according to John, they came with Him to Annas; not because he was his colleague, but his father-in-law. And we must suppose that it was by Caiaphas' wish that it was so done; or that their houses were so situated, that Annas could not properly be overlooked by them as they passed on their way.
6. But the evangelist, after saying that Annas sent Him bound unto Caiaphas, returns to the place of his narrative, where he had left Peter, in order to explain what had taken place in Annas' house in regard to his threefold denial. "But Peter was standing," he says, "and warming himself." He thus repeats what he had already stated before; and then adds what follows. "They said therefore unto him, Art thou also one of his disciples? He denied, and said, I am not." He had already denied once; this is the second time. And then, that the third denial might also be fulfilled, "one of the servants of the high priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did I not see thee in the garden with him? Peter then denied again, and immediately the cock crew." Behold, the prediction of the Physician is fulfilled, thepresumption of the sick man is brought to the light. For there is no performance of what the latter had asserted, "I will laydown my life for Thy sake;" but a performance of what the former had predicted, "Thou shall thrice deny me." But with the completion of Peter's threefold denial, let the present discourse be also now completed, that hereafter we may make a fresh start with the consideration of what was done respecting the Lord before Pontius Pilate the governor.
Tractate 114
John XVIII. 28-32. 1. Let us now consider, so far as indicated by the evangelist John, what was done with, or in regard to, our Lord Jesus Christ, when brought before Pontius Pilate the governor. For he returns to the place of his narrative where he had left it, to explain the denial of Peter. He had already, you know, said, "And Annas sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest:" and having returned from where he had dismissed Peter as he was warming himself at the fire in the hall, after completing the whole of his denial, which was thrice repeated, he says, "Then they bring Jesus unto Caiaphas into the hall of judgment (pretorium);" for he had said that He was sent to Caiaphas by his colleague and father-in-law Annas. But if to Caiaphas, why into the hall of judgment? Nothing else is thereby meant to be understood than the place where Pilate the governor dwelt. And therefore, either for some urgent reason Caiaphas had proceeded from the house of Annas, where both had met to give Jesus a hearing, to the governor's pretorium, and had left the hearing of Jesus to his father-in-law; or Pilate had made his pretorium in the house of Caiaphas, which was so large as to contain separate apartments for its own master, and the like for the judge.
2. "And it was morning; and they themselves," that is, those who brought Jesus, "went not into the judgment hall," to wit, into that part of the house which Pilate occupied, supposing it to be Caiaphas' house. And then in explanation of the reason why they went not into the judgment hall, he says, "lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover." For it was the commencement of the days of unleavened bread: on which they accounted it defilement to enter the abode of one of another nation. Impious blindness! Would they, forsooth,be defiled by a stranger's abode, and not bedefiled by their own wickedness? They wereafraid of being defiled by the pretorium of a foreign judge, and had no fear of defilement from the blood of an innocent brother: not to say more than this meanwhile, which was enough to fix guilt on the conscience of the wicked. For the additional fact, that it was the Lord who was led to death by their impiety, and the giver of life that was on the way to be slain, may be charged, not to their conscience, but to their ignorance.
3. "Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee." Let the question be put to, and the answer come from, those who had been delivered from foul spirits, from the sickly who had been healed, the lepers who had been cleansed, the deaf who were hearing, the dumb who were speaking, the blind who were seeing, the dead who were raised to life, and, above all, the foolish who were become wise, whether Jesus were a malefactor. But these things were said by those of whom He Himself had already foretold by the prophet, "They rewarded me evil for good." 4. "Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him. It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. What is this that their insane cruelty saith? Did not they put Him to death, whom they were here presenting for the very purpose? Or does the cross, forsooth, fail to kill? Such is the folly of those who do not pursue, but persecute wisdom. What then mean the words, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death"? If He is a malefactor, why is it not lawful? Did not the law command them not to spare malefactors, especially (as they accounted Him to be) those who seduced them from their God? We are, however, to understand that they said that it was not lawful for them to put any man to death, on account of the sanctity of the festal day, which they had just begun to celebrate, and on account of which they were afraid of being defiled even by entering the pretorium. Had you become so hardened, false Israelites? Were you by your excessive malice so lost to all sense, as to imagine that you were unpolluted by the blood of the innocent, because you gave it up to be shed by another? Was even Pilate himself going to slay Him with his own hands, when made over by you into his power for the very purpose? If you did not wish Him to be slain;
if you did not lay snares for Him; if you did not get Him to be betrayed to you for money; if you did not lay hands upon Him, and bind Him, and bring Him there; if you did not with your own hands present Him, and with your voices demand Him to be slain,-then boast that He was not put to death by you. But if in addition to all these former deeds of yours, you also cried out, "Crucify, crucify [him]; then hear what it is against you that the prophet proclaims: "The sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. These, look you, are the spears, the arrows, the sword, wherewith you slew the righteous, when you said that it was not lawful for you to put any man to death. Hence it is also that when for the purpose of apprehending Jesus the chief priests did not themselves come, but sent; yet the evangelist Luke says in the same passage of his narrative, "Then said Jesus unto those who were come to him, [namely] the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and elders, Be ye come out, as against a thief," etc?
As therefore the chief priests went not in their own persons, but by those whom they had sent, to apprehend Jesus, what else was that but coming themselves in the authority of their own order and so all, who cried out with impious voices for the crucifixion of Christ, slew Him, not, indeed, directly with their own hands, but personally through him who was impelled to such a crime by their clamor. 5. But when the evangelist John adds, "That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which He spake, signifying what death He should die: if we would understand such words as referring to the death of the cross, as if the Jews had said, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," for this reason that it was one thing to be put to death, and another to be crucified: I do not see how such can be understood as a consequence, seeing that this was their answer to the words that Pilate had just addressed to them, "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. If it were so, could they not then have taken Him, and crucified Him themselves, had they desired by any such form of punishment to avoid the putting of Him to death? But who is there that may not see the absurdity of allowing those to crucify any one, who were not allowed to put any one to death? Nay more, did not the Lord Himself call that same death of His, that is, the death of the cross, a putting to death, as we read in Mark, where he says, "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles:
and they shall mock Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall put Him to death, and the third day He shall rise again"? There is no doubt, therefore, that in so speaking the Lord signified what death He should die: not that He here meant the death of the cross to be understood, but that the Jews were to deliver Him up to the Gentiles, or, in other words, to the Romans. For Pilate was a Roman, and had been sent by the Romans into Judea as governor. That, then, this saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, namely, that, being delivered up to them, He should be put to death by the Gentiles, as Jesus had foretold would happen; therefore when Pilate, who was the Roman judge, wished to hand Him back to the Jews, that they might judge Him according to their law, they refused to receive Him. saying, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. And so the saying of Jesus was fulfilled, which He foretold concerning His death, that, being delivered up by the Jews, He should be put to death by the Gentiles: whose crime was less than that of the Jews, who sought by this method to make themselves appear averse to His being put to death, to the end that, not their innocence, but their madness might be made manifest.