In S. Joannis Evangelium expositio

EXPOSITION ON THE GOSPEL OF ST JOHN.

COMMENDATION OF THE AUTHOR.

This is John the evangelist, one of the disciples of God, who was chosen by God as a virgin: whom God called away from his wedding when he was wishing to marry. To him a twofold testimony of virginity is given in this in the Gospel, that both above

the others he is said to be loved by God, and to him the Lord from the cross commended His mother, that a virgin might keep a virgin. Then, more plainly in the Gospel, in that he himself, beginning the work of the incorruptible Word, alone, that the Word

was made flesh, and that the light was not comprehended by the darkness, he testifies: setting down as the first the sign which God did at the wedding, so that, showing what He was, he might himself demonstrate to his readers that where the Lord is invited the wine of the wedding must fail, so that, the old things being changed, all things that are instituted by Christ may appear new. Now he wrote this Gospel in Asia, after he had written the Apocalypse on the island of Patmos, so that to him on whom He had laid the incorruptible beginning at the start of the canon, the incorruptible end too might be rendered through a virgin in the Apocalypse, as Christ says, I am the α and the ω. This is John, who, knowing that there had come

SUMMARY OF THE GOSPEL OF ST JOHN.

I. The Levites of the Pharisees question John. John, seeing Jesus, calls Him the Lamb of God, and Andrew says to Peter: We have found the Messiah.

II. Jesus at a supper makes wine from water; He casts the money-changers out of the temple; He says: Destroy this temple. He speaks to Nicodemus about baptism, and about many other things.

III. Jesus baptizes in Judaea, and John in Aenon; who also says that Christ increases, but that he himself is made less.

IV. Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman; He says that a prophet is without honour in his own country, and He raises the son of the ruler from death.

V. At the pool of Bethesda He heals a man's infirmity of thirty-eight years, and says: Search the Scriptures; and: If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe Me also.

VI. Of the five loaves and the two fishes, and that they wished to make Him king. Jesus walks upon the sea; and He speaks of the manna and of the heavenly bread; and when disciples withdraw from Him, He calls one of the twelve a devil.

VII. Going up into the temple on the middle day of the feast of Tabernacles, He teaches many; and to those of the crowd who now believe He likewise cries: If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink. The chief men contend with the officers and with Nicodemus. Of the woman

HERE BEGINS THE EXPOSITION.

CHAPTER I.

You ought to know that above all the pages of divine Scripture the authority of the Gospel deservedly excels, because what the law and the prophets foretold as to come is shown in the Gospel to be rendered and fulfilled; and that among the very writers of the Gospels the most blessed John is the more eminent in the depth of divine mysteries, who, as they also relate, as is read in the ecclesiastical history, preached the Gospel by word of mouth alone, without the tokens of any writing, almost to the last time of his life. For indeed from the time of the Lord's passion, resurrection and ascension up to the last times of the emperor Domitian, for about sixty-five years, he preached the word of God without any aid of writing. But when

the day of his departure, having called together his disciples at Ephesus, setting forth Christ through many proofs of signs, going down into the dug place of his burial, having made a prayer, was laid with his fathers, found as much a stranger to the pain of death as he was free of the corruption of the flesh. Yet he wrote the Gospel after all the rest; and this was owed to the Virgin. But the arrangement of these, whether of the writers in time or of the books in order, is for this reason not expounded by us point by point: that, the thirsting desire being put off, both the fruit of labour may be kept for those who seek, and for God the teaching of the mastership. Amen.

taken in adultery. Jesus proclaims that He is the light of the world.

VIII. Jesus, questioned about Himself, answers that He is the beginning. That every sinner is a slave, and that Jesus is before Abraham. He heals the man blind from birth.

IX. Of the door and the sheepfold; walking in the temple at the Dedication, He says that He and the Father are one. Of the raising of Lazarus.

X. Mary anointed the feet of Jesus, and wipes them with her hair. Jesus sits upon an ass; and when Greeks wish to see Jesus, He speaks of the grain of wheat which is cast into the earth. And the voice from heaven to Jesus, and that many of the chief men believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees did not confess Him.

XI. He washes the feet of the disciples. He foretells the betrayal of Judas and the denial of Peter, and of the love of the brethren, and that He is in the Father and the Father in Him, and of keeping the commandments, of the Paraclete Spirit.

XII. Of the vine and the branches, and of love, and of the promise of the Paraclete, and that all things of the Father are His, and the other commandments.

XIII. Jesus commends the disciples to the Father. Jesus is betrayed by Judas. Of Pilate's address to the Jews concerning Jesus and concerning Barabbas.

XIV. The passion of Christ, and His burial, and His resurrection.

he had been sent into exile on Patmos by Domitian, who was the second persecutor of the Christians after Nero, heretics, having seized the occasion of that holy Father's absence, breaking into the Church like wolves into sheepfolds bereft of a shepherd, Marcion, Cerinthus and Ebion, and the other Antichrists, who denied that Christ existed before Mary, stained the simplicity of the Gospel faith with perverse doctrine. But when he himself, after the killing of Domitian, by permission of the pious emperor Nerva, was returning to Ephesus, being compelled by almost all the bishops of Asia at that time and by the delegations of many Churches to discourse more loftily on the divinity of Christ coeternal with the Father, because in the writings of the three Evangelists, namely Matthew, Mark and Luke, concerning His humanity and the things which He did through the man,

they seemed to themselves to have sufficient testimony. He answered that he would not do it otherwise than if, a fast being proclaimed, all should pray to the Lord in common, so that, by His gift, he might be able to write worthy things. And this being so accomplished, instructed by heavenly revelation and inebriated with the grace of the Holy Spirit, he dispelled all the darkness of the heretics by the light of truth suddenly laid open, saying:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). And when knowledge of the three Gospels, namely of Matthew, Mark and Luke, had reached him, he is said indeed to have approved the faith and truth of what was said; yet he saw that some things were lacking to the history of the deeds done, chiefly those which the Lord had done in the first time of His preaching. For it is certain that in the three earlier Gospels only those things seem to be contained which were done after John the Baptist was delivered up and shut in prison. Because, I say, these things seemed to have been left out by them, John the apostle is said to have been asked to write down those deeds of the Saviour before the delivering up of John which the earlier writers had passed over; and therefore he says in his Gospel: This beginning of His signs Jesus made (John 2:11). And likewise in another place he points it out, saying: For John had not yet been sent into prison (John 3:24). From which it is plain that he wrote down the things which had been done by Jesus before John was delivered up. But beyond doubt he intended above all to declare the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which He is equal to the Father, and he took care to commend it especially in his Gospel, as far as he believed would suffice among men. And so he is raised far more loftily than the three earlier evangelists, so that you may see them in a manner dwelling on earth with Christ the man, but him to have passed beyond the cloud by which [F., by which it is covered] the whole earth is covered, and to have reached the clear light of heaven, whence with the sharpest and firmest gaze of the mind he might see: In the beginning the Word, God from God, light from light, through whom all things were made, and might recognize that He Himself was made flesh, that He might dwell in us; that He took flesh, not that He was changed into flesh. For unless the taking up of the flesh had been done with the divinity kept unchangeable, it would not be said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). For the Father and the flesh are not one. And this testimony of the Lord about Himself John alone recorded. And: He who sees Me sees the Father also (John 14:9). And: I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me (ibid. 14:10). And: That they may be one, as We also are one (John 17:22). And: The things the Father does, these same the Son also does likewise (John 5:19). And whatever other things there are that make known to those who understand rightly the divinity of Christ, in which He is equal to the Father, John alone set down more fully in his Gospel, as though from the breast of the Lord Himself, on which he was wont to recline at His supper, he drank the secret of His divinity more richly and in a manner more intimately. Whence it is given to be understood, if you attend carefully, that the three evangelists, having followed out more copiously the temporal deeds of the Lord and the sayings which were most effective for forming the manners of the present life, were occupied about that active life; John

but [that] John, narrating far fewer of the Lord's deeds, but writing down more carefully and more richly His sayings, especially those which convey the unity of the Trinity and the happiness of eternal life, held his purpose and his preaching to commending the contemplative virtue. For this is that John, one of the disciples of Christ, whom the Lord called as a virgin out of the storm of marriage, tossed on its waves: to whose virginity a twofold testimony is given in this in the Gospel, that he is said to be loved by God above the others, and that God commended His mother to him from the throne of the cross, that a virgin might keep a virgin. He merited by the singular privilege of chastity to grasp and at the same time lay open the secret of the divine Majesty more loftily than all the other writers of the miracles of Christ. For not in vain is he related to have reclined upon the breast of Jesus at the mystical supper (John 13:23, 21:20), but by this it is most truly taught that he drank the draught of heavenly wisdom more excellently than the others from the most holy fountain of that same breast. Whence also he is rightly compared, in the figure of the four living creatures, to a flying eagle. For the eagle is wont to fly higher than all birds, and to fix its gaze more clearly than all living things on the rays of the sun. So the blessed John beheld more loftily the mysteries of Christ's eternal birth. So the other evangelists describe Christ born in time, John testifies that He already was in the beginning, saying: In the beginning was the Word. This is understood in two ways. For the Father is the beginning: as if he had said, In the Father is the Son: whom this evangelist named the Word. Nor ought it to trouble us that in what follows in this Gospel, when the Jews ask who He was, God the Son of God Himself answered: The beginning, who also speak to you (John 8:25). For if the Son, who has a Father, is the beginning, how much more readily is God the Father to be understood to be the beginning, who indeed has a Son, to whom He is Father? For the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Father is surely the Father of the Son, and the Father is God, but not God from God; but the Son is God from God, and the Father is called light, but not from light: the Son is called light, but light from light. So the Father is the beginning, but not from a beginning; the Son is the beginning, but a beginning from the beginning. For what was in the beginning is not bounded by time, is not preceded by a beginning. But if you wish to refer what he says, In the beginning was the Word, to the beginning of creatures or of times, whatever beginning of creatures there was, of whatever kind, for it to exist, the Word of God, through which all things are, was then already. Therefore the evangelist says four times, was, was, was, was, that you might understand that the Word, coeternal with God the Father, went before all times. The other evangelists show the Son of God suddenly appearing among men; the blessed John declares that He was always with God, saying: And the Word was with God. The others show Him true man; he confirms that He is true God, saying: And the Word was God. The others show Him as a man dwelling in time among men; he shows Him God abiding with God in the beginning, saying: This was in the beginning with God. For if above the beginning [is referred] to the Father

it pleases to refer, and this following beginning to the creatures, the Word, that is, the Son of God, is understood to be eternally in the Father, and by His essence to have gone before every beginning of creatures. Let the others relate the mighty works which He did in the man; he teaches that God the Father made every visible creature through Him, saying:

All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing (John 1:3). For if nothing of creatures was made without Him, it is plain indeed that He through whom every creature was made is not Himself a creature. And lest anyone, hearing that the creature was made through the Son of God, should believe His will to be changeable, as of one who suddenly willed to make a creature which from eternity He had never made before, the evangelist plainly teaches that the creature was indeed made in time, but that in the eternal wisdom of the Creator it was always disposed when and of what kind it should be created, and this is what he says:

What was made, in Him was life (John 1:3–4). That is, whatever, made in time, appeared either living or lacking life, all this had as it were always lived, and lives, in the spiritual plan of the Maker: not because what He created is coeternal with the Creator, but because the plan of His will is coeternal with Him, in which from eternity He had and has what and when He should create, how He should govern what is created so that it abides, to what end He should bring each of the things He created. Therefore it is to be punctuated thus, and added as if with another voice: In Him was life, because whatever was made through Him also lives in Him, as the art lives in the mind of the craftsman, although a chest or any other thing made by him perishes.

And the life was the light of men (John 1:4). By which word it is openly taught that that very living plan, through which all things are disposed and ruled, enlightens not every creature but only the rational, so that it may be wise. For men, who were made to the image of God, can perceive wisdom; animals cannot. But whatever man is animal does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). Whence, having rightly said: And the life was the light of men, he added also concerning those who, departing far from the honour of the human condition, have been compared to senseless beasts, and made like them (Ps. 48:13), and are therefore deprived of the light of right will.

And the light, he says, shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5). For Christ is the light of men, because He illumines with the presence of His knowledge all the hearts of men that deserve to be enlightened. But the darkness is the foolish and the wicked, whose blind hearts the light of eternal Wisdom plainly knows for what they are, although they themselves can by no means grasp the rays of that same light by understanding, as if some blind man were bathed in the radiance of the sun, and yet did not himself behold the sun with whose light he is bathed. Yet the divine mercy took counsel for such, how they might come to discern that true light, and that they who were sons of darkness might be sons of light, and the beginning of this knowledge was what follows.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness, to bear witness

of the light, that all might believe through him (John 1:7). He does not say, That all might believe in him. For cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm (Jer. 17:5); but that all, he says, might believe through him, that is, that through his testimony they might believe in the light, which they did not yet know how to see, namely the Lord Jesus Christ, who testifies of Himself: I am the light of the world; he who follows Me does not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).

He was not the light, but [was sent] to bear witness of the light. That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:8–9). And holy men indeed are rightly called light, as the Lord says to them: You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14), and the apostle Paul: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). But there is a great difference between the light which is enlightened and the light which enlightens; between those who by participation in the true light receive the power to shine, and the perpetual light itself, which is able not only to shine in itself, but also by its presence to illumine whatever it touches. In comparison with this true light, not only any lesser elect, but even John himself, than whom no greater has arisen among those born of women (Matt. 11:11), is declared not to be the light, so that, namely, he may be shown not to be the Christ (as he was thought to be). For he, as it is written, was a burning and shining lamp (John 5:35): burning, that is, with faith and love, shining with word and deed. But to pour the grace of light into hearts belongs to Him alone of whom it is said: That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. Every man, namely, who is enlightened, whether by natural talent or by divine wisdom. For as no one can be from himself, so no one can be wise from himself, but by His enlightening, of whom it is written: All wisdom is from the Lord God (Sir. 1:1). Both His natures, namely the divine, by which He abides always and everywhere whole, and the human, by which, born in time, He appeared enclosed in a place, the evangelist describes in sequence, saying:

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (John 1:10–11). For He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, because He was God, because He was whole everywhere, because by the presence of His majesty He rules without labour and holds together without burden what He made. And the world did not know Him, because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. For in this place he calls the world men deceived by love of the world and, by clinging to the creature, turned back from knowing the majesty of their Creator. He came to His own, because to the world, which He made through His divinity, He appeared born through His humanity. He came to His own, because He deigned to be incarnate in the Jewish nation, which He had joined to Himself above the other nations by a special grace. So He was in the world, and He came into the world through the Incarnation. For to come or to go away belongs to humanity; to abide and to be, to divinity. Because, then, when He was in the world through His divinity, the world did not know Him, He deigned to come into the world through His humanity, that even so

the world might know Him. But let us see what follows: He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. For Him whom they had not known creating and ruling all things in the power of the Godhead, they would not receive when He shone with miracles in the weakness of the flesh; and what is graver, His own did not receive Him, namely the men whom He Himself created. The Jews, whom He had chosen for Himself as His peculiar people, to whom He had revealed the secret of the knowledge of Himself, whom He had glorified by the wonderful deeds of the fathers, on whom He had conferred the teaching of His law, from whom He showed Himself incarnate, as He had promised, they themselves for the great part refused to receive Him when He came; for not all refused, otherwise no one would be saved, and His Incarnation would be superfluous. But now, while many of both peoples rejected Him by not believing, many received Him by believing, of whom the evangelist next makes mention, saying:

But as many as received Him, He gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in His name (John 1:12). Let us consider, dearest brethren, how great is the grace of our Redeemer, how great the multitude of His sweetness. He was born the Only-begotten of the Father, and He did not wish to remain alone. He came down to earth, that there He might gain for Himself brothers to whom He could give the kingdom of His Father; He was born God from God, and did not wish to remain only the Son of God; He deigned to become also the son of man, not losing what He was, but taking up what He was not, so that by this He might carry men over into sons of God, and make them coheirs of His glory, who should receive by grace what He Himself always had by nature. Let us consider how great is the power of faith, by whose merit power is given to men to become sons of God. Whence it is well written: For the just man lives by faith (Hab. 2:4). For the just man lives by faith, not that which is put forth only by the confession of the lips, but that which works through love (Gal. 5:6). Otherwise faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself (Jas. 2:17). Let no one despise himself, let no one despair of his salvation. Let us all take care, let us each take care, that we who were far off may deserve to be made near in the blood of Christ. Let us see what is said: As many as received Him, He gave them power to become sons of God. As many (he says) as received Him. For God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), but in every nation he who fears God and works justice is acceptable to Him. But in what order believers could become sons of God, and how far this generation differs from the carnal, the evangelist next sets out.

Who not of bloods (he says), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God (John 1:13). For the carnal generation of each of us, from bloods, that is, from the seed of male and female, took its origin from the embrace of wedlock; but the spiritual is ministered by the grace of the Holy Spirit; distinguishing it from the carnal, the Lord says: Unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:5–6). But lest anyone doubt that man is a son of God and a coheir

of Christ, the evangelist gives an example, that the Son of God Himself also deigned to become man and to dwell among men, so that by existing as a sharer in human frailty He might grant men to be sharers of His divine power.

And the Word, he says, was made flesh, and dwelt in us (John 1:14). That is to say: the Son of God was made man and lived among men. For Scripture is wont to designate the whole man now by the word soul, now by the word flesh. By soul, namely, as it is written: For Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy souls (Deut. 10:22). By flesh, as again it is written: And all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Luke 3:6). For neither can souls go down into Egypt without bodies, nor can flesh see anything without a soul; but here the whole man is signified by the soul, there by the flesh. So in this place, what is said: And the Word was made flesh, ought to be understood as nothing other than if it were said: And God was made man, namely by putting on flesh, and a soul, so that, as each of us consists as one man of flesh and soul, so from the time of the Incarnation Christ consists as one of divinity, flesh and soul, God existing from eternity to eternity: true as He was, taking up in time into the unity of His person a true man, whom He had not had.

And we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The glory of Christ, which before the Incarnation men could not see, they saw through the Incarnation, beholding the humanity rising again with miracles and understanding the divinity hidden within, those above all who also merited to contemplate His glory before the passion when He was transfigured on the holy mountain, when a voice of this kind came down from God out of the magnificent glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 17:5); and after the passion, having seen the glory of His resurrection and ascension, they were wonderfully refreshed by the gift of His Spirit (Acts 2:4); by all which they plainly knew that glory of this kind befitted not any one of the saints, but that one man alone who in divinity was the Only-begotten from the Father. But as to what follows: Full of grace and truth; the man Christ Jesus was and is full of grace, to whom by a singular gift beyond other mortals it was given that, from the moment He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, He should begin to become man while being true God. Whence also the same glorious ever-virgin Mary is rightly to be believed and confessed the mother not only of the man Christ but also of God. The same was and is full of truth, namely by the very divinity of the Word, which deigned to take up that singularly chosen man, with whom there should be the one person of Christ: not changing anything of its divine substance, as the heretics would have it, into the making of the nature of man, but, remaining with the Father all that it was, taking up from the seed of David the whole nature of true man, which it did not have.

John bears witness of Him (John 1:15). The forerunner of our Redeemer, bearing witness of Him

the loftiness of His humanity, and likewise the eternity of His divinity, he proclaims with a clear voice.

For he cries out, saying: This was He of whom I said to you, He who is to come after me was made before me, because He was before me. For in saying, He who is to come after me, he intimates the order of the human dispensation: that, born after him, He was also after him to preach, to baptize, to work signs, and to suffer death. But in adding, Was made before me, he designates the sublimity of that same humanity, which was deservedly to be preferred to all other creatures. For when he says, Before me, it pertains not to the order of time but to the distinction of dignity, according to what is written of the sons of Joseph when Jacob blessed them: And he set Ephraim before Manasseh (Gen. 48), where Manasseh could rightly have said: He who comes after me was made before me, that is, he who was born after me has, by reigning, given way to me in power; [perhaps: has surpassed me in kingship] just as John says of the Lord: He who is to come after me, He says, was made before me, that is, He who is to come after me to preach surpasses me by the height of an everlasting kingship and priesthood. And why He who was to come after him should surpass him in dignity, he disclosed when he added: Because He was before me, that is, He was God coeternal before the ages; therefore, though born later, He will go before me in the glory of majesty even in the humanity He assumed. Now, the testimony of the Lord's forerunner which he bore concerning Him having been set out, the evangelist returns at once to his own assertion as well, since he had begun to give Him testimony; for there follows:

And of His fullness we have all received, grace for grace. For above he said: That the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And when His forerunner too had confirmed this by his testimony, saying: This was He of whom I said to you, He who is to come after me was made before me, because He was before me, he himself again pursues what he had begun, saying: And of His fullness we have all received, grace for grace. For the Lord was full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and truth, because, as the Apostle says, In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2). Of His fullness we have all received according to the measure of our capacity, because to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ (Eph. 4). For of the one Mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, alone could it truly be said: And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill Him (Isa. 11). But all the saints receive, not the fullness of His Spirit, but of His fullness, as much as He gives, because to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healings in the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of words. But all these things are worked by one and the same Spirit

dividing to each as He wills (I Cor. 12). Since, then, we have received from the fullness of our Maker not some particular thing but whatever good we have, the greatest care must be taken that no one carelessly exalt himself over his own good deed or thought, lest, if he remains ungrateful to the Giver, he lose the good he received. Now when the evangelist had said that we have all received of the fullness of Christ, he at once added, saying: Grace for grace. He testifies, then, that we have received a twofold grace, namely one in the present and the other in the future. In the present, indeed, faith, which works through love (Gal. 5); in the future, eternal life. For faith, which works through love, is the grace of God, because that we believe, that we love, that we do the good works we know, we have received through no preceding merits of ours, but by the bounty of Him who says: You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that you should receive life on account of faith, love and good works (John 15). It is eternal grace, because, lest we stray from the good road, we always need Him as our guide, to whom it is said: Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth (Ps. 85). It should be noted that certain books have: We have all received of His fullness, and grace for grace. First we received something of His fullness, and afterwards grace for grace; that is, of His fullness we received the remission of sins, and grace, that is, eternal life, in return for the grace of faith, which works through love. That all these things come to us from the one fountain of Christ's fullness is most certain. What, then, have we received of the fullness of His goodness? Namely, the remission of sins, that we may be justified in faith. What besides? And grace for grace; that is, for the grace in which we live by faith, we shall receive another — yet what, except grace, that is, eternal life? There follows:

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The law indeed was given through Moses, in which what is to be done and what avoided is decreed by heavenly right; but what it commanded is fulfilled only by the grace of Christ. For it had power to show sin, to teach righteousness, and to prove its transgressors guilty; but the grace of Christ, poured forth through the spirit of charity in the hearts of the faithful, brings it about that what the law commanded is fulfilled. Hence that which is written, You shall not covet (Exod. 20), is law through Moses, because it is commanded; but it becomes grace through Christ when what is commanded is fulfilled. And truth came through Christ, because the law had a shadow of the good things to come (Heb. 10), not the very image of the things; and as the Apostle says elsewhere: All things happened to them in figure (I Cor. 10). But in place of the shadow Christ displayed the light of truth, in place of the figure of the law the very image of the things that were figured, when, the grace of the Spirit having been given, He opened the understanding of His disciples, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24). The law was given through Moses when the people was commanded to be cleansed by the sprinkling of the lamb's blood. Grace and truth, which was figured in the light, came through Jesus Christ,

when He Himself, having suffered on the cross, washed us from our sins in His own blood. The law was given through Moses, because it instructed the people with saving precepts, foretelling that if they kept them they would enter the land of promise and live in it for ever, but otherwise would be laid low by the enemy. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, because, having given the gift of His Spirit, He granted that the law could be understood and kept spiritually, and He leads those who keep it into the true blessedness of the heavenly life, which the land of promise signified. And what the sum of the grace and truth is which came through Jesus Christ, the evangelist makes plain by what he adds.

No one has ever seen God: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. For no grace greater can be given to men, no truth higher can be known by men, than that of which the only-begotten Son of God, telling His faithful, says: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5), and of which, praying to the Father, He says: Now this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the true and only God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent (John 17). And since this most blessed reception of grace and truth cannot take place in the life of this world, it is rightly said: No one has ever seen God; that is, no one still clothed in corruptible and mortal flesh can behold the uncircumscribed light of the Godhead. Hence the Apostle says more plainly: Whom no man has seen, nor can see (I Tim. 6). For no one among men has seen God, no one still weighed down by the human condition, frail in human life. For this is why Moses, who saw God in an angel and desired to see Him in His very nature, prayed: If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thy glory (Exod. 33). He heard: You cannot see My face; for man shall not see Me and live (ibid.). And by what means one must come to the vision of the unchangeable and eternal light, the evangelist set out next, saying: The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him; to which is like what the Lord Himself says: No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14), and elsewhere: No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matt. 11). For under His guidance we must come to the Father; by His teaching we must know the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit as one God and Lord; because He Himself, made man for us, speaking to us in the condition of a man, has revealed in clear light what is rightly to be thought of the unity of the Holy Trinity, how the faithful are to hasten to its contemplation, and by what deeds it is to be reached. He Himself, imbuing us with the sacraments of His Incarnation and sanctifying us with the gifts of His Spirit, helps us to be able to come to it. He Himself, when the last judgement has been carried out in the form of a man, will lead us on high to the vision of the divine Majesty, and will wonderfully declare to us the secrets of the heavenly kingdom. Indeed, when he says, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He is to be thought of, by a proverbial expression, as in the secret of the Father. For after the likeness of the bosom which we have

in our clothing, God, who is not joined together in the form of human members, is by no means to be thought to sit as we do; but because our bosom is within, Scripture, speaking after our manner, says that He is in the bosom of the Father, meaning Him to be understood as abiding always in the secret of the Father, where human sight cannot reach. Nor will the only-begotten Son declare God only then — that is, manifest to men the glory of the holy and undivided Trinity, which is one God — when after the universal judgement He will lead all the elect together to the vision of His brightness; He declares it daily too, when He begins to fulfil what He promised for each of the perfect among the faithful as soon as they are loosed from the corruption of the flesh: He who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him (John 14). I will manifest Myself, He says, to those who love Me, so that they whom they knew as mortal in their nature may now be able to see Me in My own nature as equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This is the testimony of John, and so on. By these words John's humility is commended, who, though he was of such great virtue that he could have been believed to be the Christ, chose to stand firmly within himself, lest he be carried away vainly above himself by human opinion.

For he confessed and did not deny; he confessed, I am not the Christ. But because he said I am not, he denied what he was [not], so that, speaking the truth, he might become a member of Him whose name he did not falsely usurp for himself. So while he does not openly want the name of Christ, he was made a member of Christ, because while he was eager humbly to acknowledge his weakness, he deserved truly to obtain His height. Who he is, he expresses straightway when he adds:

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. You know that the only-begotten Son is called the Word of the Father, as John attests, for he says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From your own speech you know that the voice sounds first, so that the word may afterwards be heard; John therefore asserts that he is the voice, because he goes before the Word. Running before the Lord's coming, then, he is called the voice, because through his ministry the Word of the Father is heard by all. He also cries in the wilderness, because he announces to forsaken and desolate Judaea the consolation of the Redeemer. And what he cries, he intimates when he adds:

Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. The way of the Lord is made straight to the heart when the life is made ready for His commandment. Hence it is written: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. Whoever, then, lifts up his mind in pride, whoever pants with the heats of avarice, whoever defiles himself with the pollutions of lust, shuts the door of his heart against the truth, and, lest the Lord come to him, bars the gates of his soul with the bolts of vices. But those who were sent still go on questioning.

Why then do you baptize, if you are not Elijah, nor the Christ, nor the prophet? And that this is said not out of eagerness to know

the truth, but out of malice, to exercise envy, the evangelist made known tacitly when he added, saying:

And those who had been sent were of the Pharisees. As if he were saying openly: They question John about his actions who know not how to seek teaching, but only to envy it. But every holy man, even when questioned with a perverse mind, is not turned from his zeal for goodness. Hence John too answered the words of envy with the teachings of life. For he adds at once:

I baptize in water, but in the midst of you there has stood One whom you do not know. John washes the bodies of the baptized not with the spirit but with water, and yet he does not wash them by forgiveness. Why then does he baptize who does not release sins by baptism? Only so that, keeping the order of his forerunning, as by being born he had gone before Him who was to be born, so by baptizing he might also go before the Lord who was to baptize; and he who by preaching was made the forerunner of Christ might by baptizing also become His forerunner through imitation of the sacrament. Meanwhile, announcing the mystery of our Redeemer, he asserts that He both stood in the midst of men and was not known, because the Lord, appearing in the flesh, both stood visible in body and invisible in majesty. Of Him he also adds:

He who comes after me was made before me. For was made before me is said as if it were said, set before. He comes after me, then, because He was born later; but He was made before me, because He was preferred to me. But in saying this a little above, he also disclosed the reasons for that preference when he added: Because He was before me. As if he were saying openly: Though born after me, He surpasses me in this, that the times of His birth do not confine Him. For He who is born of a mother in time was begotten of the Father without time. And how much reverence and humility he owes Him, he makes plain by what he adds.

The strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to loose. It was a custom among the ancients that if anyone was unwilling to take as wife her who fell to him, that man would loose his sandal to whom the right of bridegroom came by kinship. What, then, did Christ appear among men, if not as the Bridegroom of Holy Church? Of whom John himself also says: He who has the bride is the bridegroom (John 3). But because men thought that John was the Christ, which John himself denies, he rightly declares himself unworthy to loose the strap of His sandal. As if he were saying openly: I am not able to bare the Redeemer's footprints, because I do not usurp for myself the name of bridegroom in merits. Yet this can also be understood otherwise. For who does not know that sandals are made from dead animals? But the Lord, coming incarnate, appeared as it were shod, He who in His divinity took on the dead flesh of our corruption. But the human eye is not able to penetrate the mystery of this Incarnation. For it can in no way be searched out how the Word is embodied, how He is quickened, is animated by the Spirit within His mother's womb; how He who has no beginning both exists and is conceived. The strap of the sandal, then, is the binding of the mystery. John therefore to loose the strap

of His sandal is not able, because even he who recognized this Incarnation by the spirit of prophecy is not able to search out its mystery. What then is it to say, I am not worthy to loose the strap of His sandal, but openly and humbly to profess his own ignorance? As if he were saying openly: What wonder if He is preferred to me, whom I see indeed born after me, but the mystery of whose birth I do not grasp.

These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. Fittingly is our Lord's forerunner said to have baptized in Bethany; for Bethany is interpreted house of obedience, so that he might show that all must come to the baptism of Christ through the obedience of faith. For just as the Magi were commanded to return to their country by another way (Matt. 5), so we are commanded to come by another way to the joys of paradise; for our first parents were cast out of it through the guilt of disobedience, but we must come to the paradise of eternal blessedness through the good of obedience and through keeping the commandments of God.

On the next day John saw Jesus coming to him. John is interpreted the grace of the Lord. The next day belongs to the Christian people under grace, which was redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. The other day belonged to the former people under the law, which was redeemed from Egyptian slavery by the mystical blood of the lamb. That lamb signified this Lamb, whom the blessed Baptist pointed out present with his finger, saying:

Behold the Lamb of God. Behold One innocent and free from all sin, as being He who drew bone indeed from the bones of Adam and flesh from the flesh of Adam, but no stain of guilt from sinful flesh.

Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Behold Him who, appearing just among sinners, meek among the ungodly, that is, as a lamb among wolves, has the power even to justify sinners and the ungodly. And how He takes away the sins of the world, in what order He justifies the ungodly, the apostle Peter shows, who says: You were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with the precious blood as of a Lamb unspotted and undefiled, Jesus Christ (III Pet. 1). John continues, bearing testimony concerning the Lord.

This is He of whom I said: After me comes a man who was made before me, because He was before me. After me comes a man: He who was born into the world after me will begin to preach to the world after me. Who was made before me: who, though appearing after, surpasses me in the power of majesty as much as a judge surpasses a herald, as much as the sun the morning star. Because He was before me: because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. After me comes a man designates the time of His human birth, in which understand Christ to be later than John. Who was made before me: behold the primacy of royal power, by which He presides even over the angels. Because He was before me: understand the majesty of divine eternity, by which He is equal to the Father. After me comes a man who was made before me, because He was before me. He comes after me of human

birth, who therefore excels in dignity, because He was before me in dignity.

And I did not know Him, he says. It is certain that John knew the Lord to whom he was sent to bear testimony, whom he preached as the Judge of all who was to come, saying: Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His floor (Luke 3); by whom he testified that the Holy Spirit was to be given, saying: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3); by whom he desired to be washed himself, saying: I ought to be baptized by Thee, and comest Thou to me? (ibid.). How then does he say, And I did not know Him, unless because Him whom he had known before he now recognized more perfectly when He was baptized; and Him whom he had known as Saviour and Judge of the world, he came to know more deeply in the power of His majesty when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him? For there is no doubt that blessed John, when he saw the Holy Spirit, albeit in bodily form, and when he was found worthy to hear the voice of the Father, albeit sounding bodily, profited much from this sight and hearing, and, the eyes of his mind being opened, received much heavenly knowledge of the excellence of the divine goodness, so much so that, compared with the understanding by which he then began to be enlightened, he seemed to himself to have been until then altogether ignorant of how great He was. Bearing to the Lord with diligence the testimony for which he was sent, he adds:

But that He may be made manifest in Israel, therefore have I come baptizing in water. Which is to say openly: I have not come baptizing in water because I could take away the sins of the world by baptizing, but that by baptizing and preaching I might make Him manifest to the people of Israel, who, baptizing in the Holy Spirit, is able to take away the sins not only of Israel but of the whole world, if they will believe in Him. Therefore I have come baptizing unto repentance, that by so baptizing I might prepare the way for Him who would baptize unto the remission of sins.

And John bore testimony, saying: I saw the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and He remained upon Him. Fittingly did the Spirit descend upon the Lord in the form of a dove, that the faithful may learn that they become His members in no other way, and can be filled with His Spirit in no other way, than if they are simple, than if they have true peace with their brethren, which the kisses of doves signify. Ravens too have kisses, but they tear, which the dove never does; they signify those who speak peace with their neighbour, but evils are in their hearts (Ps. 27). The nature of the dove, which is innocent of tearing, fits most aptly those who follow peace with all men and holiness, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4). And therefore the Spirit, descending in a dove, designates not only His own innocence and simplicity, or that of Him upon whom He descended, but equally that of those who think of Him in goodness and seek Him in simplicity of heart (Wis. 1).

And I, he says, did not know Him. Understand: so precisely as I came to know Him in the Spirit descending upon Him.

But He who sent me to baptize in water said to me: He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is He who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. The Lord baptizes in the Holy Spirit by forgiving sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit. For whether He Himself first baptized with water some of His disciples, through whom the stream of baptism might flow on to the rest of the faithful, He was also baptizing those same disciples with the Spirit, releasing their sins and bestowing the gifts of the Holy Spirit; or whether His faithful, having invoked His name, baptize the elect with water and anoint them with holy chrism, He Himself none the less baptizes them with the Holy Spirit, because no one but He is able to loose the bonds of sins and to bestow the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it must be considered more carefully that, when he had said, upon whom you see the Spirit descending, he added, and remaining upon Him. For the Spirit descends upon His saints also; but because, as long as they are in the body, they cannot be without sin, and are not able always to direct the eye of the mind to the contemplation of heavenly things, but more often bend it to the care of earthly life, the Spirit without doubt sometimes comes into their hearts and sometimes withdraws. Hence it is said: The Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know whence He comes or whither He goes (John 3). For the Holy Spirit comes to the saints and goes from them, so that those who are not fit to have Him always may be refreshed by the frequent light of His returning from time to time. But in the one Mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, the Spirit abides truly and perpetually, for in Him He found no stain of unclean thought at all from which to flee. And He remained wholly in Him, not only from the time when John saw Him descending upon Him, but from the time when He, beginning to become man, was conceived by His ministry and work. And He is shown descending upon Him after His baptism, in whom He was always abiding, for this reason: that the Baptist himself might now recognize more loftily Him whom he was preaching, and that a sign might be given to believers that they could by no means merit the baptism of the same Spirit unless they were baptized with water. Meanwhile it must be asked how it was a special sign for recognizing the Son of God that the Spirit descended and remained upon Him, since He Himself promises Him to the disciples too, saying: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth (John 14). And a little after: For He will abide with you, and will be in you (ibid.). For if the Spirit abides with the elect servants of God and will be in them, what great thing is it for the Son of God that the Spirit is affirmed to abide in Him? It must be noted, then, that the Holy Spirit always abode in the Lord; but in holy men, as long as they bear a mortal body, He in part abides for ever and in part withdraws, to return. For He abides with them so that they persevere in good actions, love voluntary poverty, follow meekness, mourn out of longing for eternal things, hunger and thirst for righteousness, and embrace mercy, cleanness of heart and the tranquillity of peace; but also for the keeping of righteousness

they may not fear to suffer persecution; that they may desire to persevere in almsgiving, prayers, fasts and the other fruits of the Spirit. But He withdraws for a time, lest they should always be able to have the power of healing the sick and casting out demons, or even of prophesying. He abides always, that they themselves may live wonderfully. He comes for a time, that they may shine out to others too, through the signs of miracles, as what they are within.

And I, he says, saw, and bore testimony that this is the Son of God. Above he had said: After me comes a man who was made before me; now he bears testimony that this is the Son of God, plainly designating the reality of both natures, namely the human and the divine, in one and the same person of Christ. Let the Manichee blush when he hears: A man comes. Let Photinus fall silent when he hears: This is the Son of God. Let the meek hear and rejoice, that after John there comes a man stronger than John, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and that this is the Son of God. For because through pride we departed from God, the Son through mercy was made man, so that He Himself might accord both with the Father through His divinity and with us through His humanity; and that through a humanity like ours He might fight the enemy for us, and through a divinity consubstantial with the Father might worthily restore [recitare] us to the image and likeness of God which we lost by sinning; that through the death of our frailty He might destroy him who had the dominion of death, and through the impassible power of His divinity might reconcile us to God the Father.

John was standing, and two of his disciples. John was standing, because he believed in the Lord, and two of his disciples. For they believed at once, and followed Him as He walked. We ought to examine the individual words of the Scriptures: why John is said to be standing and the Lord walking.

And looking at Jesus walking, he says: Behold the Lamb of God. The Lamb unspotted, the lamb of a year, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, the Lamb who does not let the destroyer of Egypt strike the people of Israel. Behold the Lamb of God; and the disciples heard him; that is why he chose to say, behold. When behold is said, he who is shown is in a manner pointed out with the finger. He says to his disciples: Why do you follow me? Why do you think you have a master in me? Behold the Lamb of God; follow Him: He must increase, but I must decrease. No prudent man follows one who is decreasing and leaves one who is increasing.

And the two disciples heard him speaking. They followed their master's command. John's testimony is the disciples' faith.

And they followed Jesus. Following Jesus, they left John; following the Gospel, they let go the law. Yet they so followed the Gospel as to make use of the testimony from the law.

And Jesus, turning and seeing them. John's disciples could not see Jesus face to face and close at hand as He went ahead, but they followed His back, that they might see. So those disciples could not see the Lord's face. He turned round, and in a manner from His majesty

He came down, so that the disciples could gaze upon His face. He turned round, so that they might be seen by the disciples according to the law. And turning, and seeing them following Him,

He said: What do you seek? He asks not as if He did not know, but asks so that they may have a reward for answering. What do you seek? He did not say, Whom do you seek?, lest He should seem to be pointing to Himself; but, What do you seek? He asks about a thing, so that they may indicate a person. What do you seek?

They said to Him: Rabbi. The very form of address in their answer is a sign of faith. For when they say Rabbi, which is understood as master, and follow Him, they are surely following a master, and they say:

Where do You dwell? He says to them: Come and see. They want to know Jesus' dwelling-place, they want to be shown what kind of dwelling the Saviour has, so that, when He has shown in whom Christ dwells, they may present themselves as such that the Lord can dwell in them; and He said to them: Come and see. Do you wish to see My dwelling-place? It cannot be set forth in words; it is shown by deed. Come and see. These men had come by the testimony of the law, for at once, in the very name, they confess Him and say Rabbi, which is interpreted master. And Jesus, answering them, said: But you who are disciples of John, who show your confession by the very name, and say Rabbi, come and see where I abide.

They came, and saw where He abode, and they abode with Him that day. Because they believed, they abode not in the night but in the day. That night had no darkness where there was faith in the true light, and they abode with Him that day.

And it was about the tenth hour. They were coming from the law to the Gospel; the Decalogue of the law was sending them to faith in Christ.

And Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who had heard from John and had followed Him. In faith there is no order of rank. Wherever there is a faithful soul, neither many years nor few are asked for. Andrew was younger than Simon Peter, and yet the question now is not of age but of faith. He found Jesus first. And Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two. Unless perhaps this too is Andrew's dignity, that he is called the brother of Peter, upon whom the Church was afterwards to be founded.

Who had heard from John and had followed Him. He first finds his own brother. O true love of kin! As soon as he found Jesus, as soon as he found the pearl, as soon as he found the treasure, he tells his brother, he calls his brother Simon, a brother not so much by blood as by the spirit. Him whom he had as a brother by kinship and blood, he wished to have as a brother in faith also; and he says to him:

We have found the Messiah. No one finds but he who seeks. He who says he has found shows that he has sought long.

We have found the Messiah, which is interpreted Christ. Long have we sought Christ in Moses, in all the prophets; and He whom we longed to find has Himself found us, and being found we have found.

And he brought him to Jesus. The elder does not disdain to follow the younger, because there was no order of age where there was the merit of faith.

But Jesus, looking upon him, said: You are Simon the son of Jona; you shall be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter. Peter had not yet done anything, and already he merited to change his name. Had he believed more than Andrew? What greater thing did he do, that he should receive more than his brother? What greater thing had he done? He followed his younger brother; and him whom he had as disciple he did not disdain to have as master. You are Simon the son of Jona. Jona in our tongue is called "dove". You are therefore the son of Jona, you are the son of the Holy Spirit. He is therefore called son of the Spirit, because he had received humility from the Holy Spirit.

On the morrow He would go forth into Galilee, and He finds Philip, and says to him: Follow Me. It is already clear from what precedes whence Jesus wished to go forth into Galilee, namely from Judaea, where John was baptizing and, bearing Him witness that He was the Lamb of God, stirred two of his disciples to follow Him: of whom one, Andrew, brought to Him his brother Peter as well. It is clear according to the spiritual sense, and through frequent exposition it is already known to your fraternity, who it is that follows the Lord. For he follows the Lord who imitates Him. He follows the Lord who, as far as human frailty allows, does not forsake those examples of humility which the Son of God showed in [His] manhood; who, by being a companion of His sufferings, earnestly longs also to attain to the fellowship of His resurrection and ascension. But it is not without a definite meaning of mystery that it is related that Jesus, being about to say to Philip, Follow Me, wished to go forth into Galilee. For Galilee is interpreted "a migration made", or "revelation". In that it is called "a migration made", it signifies the progress of the faithful, by which they strive either to migrate from vices to the height of the virtues, or to advance little by little in the virtues themselves, and to climb daily from lesser things to greater, until, with the Lord's help, they come from this vale of tears to the citadel of heavenly gladness. And in that it means "revelation", it points to that very blessedness of eternal life for which the saints labour in the present. Both interpretations of this name the Psalmist comprises in one short verse, where he says: They shall walk from virtue to virtue; the God of gods shall be seen in Sion (Ps. 83:8). For this is the vision of which the Apostle says: But we, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (II Cor. 3:18). Fittingly, then, Jesus, when about to call a disciple to follow Him, wished to go forth into Galilee, that is, into "a migration made" or "revelation", so that, just as He Himself, as the Gospel witnesses, advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men (Luke 2:52), as He suffered and rose again, and so entered into His glory, so also He might show that His followers ought to advance in virtues, and through passing sufferings to migrate to the gifts of eternal joys.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew

and of Peter. The evangelist must not be thought to have wished by chance and without mystical reason to show the name of the city from which Philip came, and that the same was also Andrew's and Peter's; rather, by the name of the city, he took care to show figuratively what Philip already was then in mind, what he was to be in office, and what Peter and Andrew too were. For Bethsaida is called "House of hunters"; and hunters indeed they were who heard from the Lord: Come after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). A hunter he too was, who, before he was ordained by the Lord to the office of preaching, at once showed by preaching of his own accord how intent he was on capturing souls for life.

For he finds Nathanael, and says to him: Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the prophets, we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth. How great a net of faith, how woven with the capacious bonds of devout preaching, does he cast around the brother he has found, whom in his foresight he longs to capture for eternal salvation! He says that He has been found whom Moses and the prophets marked out in their writings as to come, so that by this it may be understood by all who followed that He it is whose coming all the writings of the ancients served by heralding it. He calls Him Jesus, because the oracles of the prophets sang in concord that this would be the name of the Christ. He calls Him son of Joseph, not to assert that He was born of the union of man and woman, He whom he had learned in the prophets would be born of a Virgin, but to teach that He had come, according to the prophecies of the prophets, from the house and family of David, from which he knew Joseph had sprung. Nor is it to be wondered at if Philip calls Him son of Joseph, since His mother herself, the ever-inviolate virgin Mary, who had not known a man, following the custom of the common people, is read to have spoken thus: Son, why have you done so to us? Behold, your father and I sought you sorrowing (Luke 2:48). He adds His homeland too, From Nazareth, to signify that He was the one of whom they had read in the prophets: For He shall be called a Nazarene (Matt. 2:23). It is no wonder, then, if Philip at once captured Nathanael for consent to believe and to come to Christ, since he spread before him such great nets of truth on every side.

Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, and the prophets, we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Not without cause is he declared to have sprung from Bethsaida, that is, from the house of hunters, who is shown to have received so great a care, and grace as well, for a hunting beloved of God. For there follows:

And Nathanael said to him: From Nazareth can something good come. Nazareth is interpreted "of purity", or "its flower", or "separated". Nathanael, then, assenting to the words of Philip who was bringing him the good news, said: From Nazareth can something good come. As if he said openly: It may be that from a city of so great a name something of the highest grace will arise for us, namely either the Lord Himself, the Saviour of the world, who alone is holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and who speaks in the Song of Songs: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys (Song 2:1), and of whom the prophet says: There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a Nazarene, that is, a flower, shall rise up from his root (Isa. 11:1); or at least some outstanding teacher,

who has been sent to preach to us the flower of the virtues and the purity of holiness. We can also rightly understand this place thus, as that which follows when Philip says: Him of whom Moses wrote in the law, the prophets. Nathanael says to him:

Whence do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him: Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered and said: Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God. Because Nathanael recognized that the Lord had seen and known things that were done in another place, that is, how and where he was called by Philip, when He Himself was not bodily there, considering here the gaze of divine majesty, he at once confessed Him not only Rabbi, that is, master, but also Son of God and King of Israel, that is, Christ. And it is pleasing to observe how wisely the servant's confession answers the Lord's praise. He declared this man a true Israelite, that is, a man who could see God, because he had no guile at all. This man confesses Him with religious devotion not only as a master who would teach useful things, but also as the Son of God who would bestow heavenly gifts, and as King of Israel, that is, of the people that sees God, so that by this confession he signifies that He is his King too, and himself a soldier of His kingdom. Now this saying of the Lord, in which He said that He had seen Nathanael, before he was called by Philip, when he was under the fig tree, can be understood mystically of the election of the spiritual Israel, that is, of the Christian people: which the Lord, while it was not yet called by His apostles to the grace of faith but still hidden under the covering of oppressing sin, deigned mercifully to see, as Paul attests, who says: Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity (Eph. 1:3–4). And indeed the fig tree sometimes in the Scriptures suggests the sweetness of heavenly love; whence it is written: He who keeps the fig tree shall eat its fruit: and he who is the keeper of his lord shall be glorified (Prov. 27:18). But since our first parents, confounded by the guilt of transgression, made themselves aprons of fig leaves (Gen. 3:7), this fig tree can, not unfittingly, signify the habit of sinning, wickedly sweetened to the human race: under which the Lord sees His elect still placed, though not yet knowing the grace of their election, as He sees Nathanael set as it were under the fig tree, and not yet seeing Him. For the Lord knows who are His (II Tim. 2:19). To their salvation the very name Nathanael also most aptly corresponds. For Nathanael is interpreted "gift of God"; and unless each one is called by the gift of God, he never escapes the guilt of the first transgression, never the wickedly alluring shades of sins that grow daily, never merits to come to Christ to be saved. Whence the Apostle says: For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should glory (Eph. 2:8–9). There follows:

Jesus answered and said to him: Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, you believe; greater things than these shall you see. Of what He speaks, He Himself discloses immediately afterwards, by promising to believers the future

opening of the heavenly kingdom, and the twofold nature of His one Person to be preached to the world, which is truly a far more excellent mystery than that He foresaw that we, still set in the shadow of sin, were to be enlightened by Him. For it is a greater thing that the Saviour has imbued us with the knowledge of His grace, that He lays open to us the joys of heaven, that He has scattered the preachers of His faith into the world, than that by the power of His majesty He foreknew before the ages that we were to be saved.

Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. We already see the effect of this promise fulfilled. For we see heaven opened, because after God made man entered heaven, we know that entrance into the heavenly homeland has been laid open to us also who believe in Him. We see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man, because we know that His preachers proclaim both the sublimity of Christ's divinity and the weak things of His humanity. The angels ascend upon the Son of man when the preachers teach that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The angels descend upon the Son of man when the same add that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Nor without cause are the holy preachers figuratively called angels, to whom the name of evangelists, derived from "angels", is customarily granted, so that, as these are messengers, so those, because of the same office of the highest preaching, are named messengers of good. And it is to be noted that the Lord calls Himself the son of man, while Nathanael proclaims the same to be the Son of God. Like this is that among the other evangelists He Himself asks the disciples: Whom do they say that the son of man is? And Peter answered: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mark 8:27–29). And indeed it was done by the governance of a just dispensation, since both substances of the same Mediator, our God and Lord, were to be recorded either by the Lord Himself or by a mere man, that God made man should declare the frailty of the humanity He had assumed, the mere man the power of the eternal divinity in Him; He His own lowliness, the other His loftiness. For it is to be noted that the Lord, who calls blessed Nathanael truly an Israelite, in this word that He says: You shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending upon the Son of man, brings back to memory the vision of the patriarch Jacob, who through a blessing was called Israel. For he, wishing to rest in a certain place, had put a stone under his head, and saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and its top touching heaven; the angels of the Lord also ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord leaning upon the ladder, saying to him: I am the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac (Gen. 28:13). And rising in the morning, and rendering praises to God with due fear, he took that stone and set it up for a monument, pouring oil upon it. Of this place, then, the Lord makes mention, and testifies most plainly that it was a figure of Himself and His faithful.

CHAPTER II.

And on the third day a marriage was made in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there. It is not void of mystery that the marriage is related to have been made on the third day after those things which the preceding discourse of the Gospel had described; rather it signifies that the Lord came in the third age of the world to adopt the Church to Himself. For the first age of the world shone, up to the law, by the examples of the patriarchs; the second, under the law, by the writings of the prophets; the third, under grace, by the proclamations of the evangelists, as by the light of the third day; in which our Lord and Saviour appeared, born in the flesh for the redemption of the human race. And this too, that the same marriage is declared to have been made in Cana of Galilee, that is, in the heaven [zeal] of a migration accomplished, figuratively announces that those are most worthy of the grace of Christ who know how to burn with the zeal of pious devotion, and to emulate the better gifts, and to advance from vices to virtues by doing good, and to migrate from earthly things to eternal by hoping and loving. Now while the Lord reclined at the marriage, the wine failed, so that, a better wine being made by Him in wonderful order, the glory of God hidden in man might be made manifest, and the faith of those who believed in Him might increase and advance. But if we seek the mystery: when the Lord appeared in the flesh, that undiluted sweetness of the sense of the law had little by little begun to sink from its ancient strength because of the carnal interpretation of the Pharisees; and He soon changed, as it were, the surface of the letter of the law by the evangelical power of heavenly grace, which is to have made wine in water. But first let us see what it means

that, when the wine failed and the mother of Jesus said to Him: They have no wine, He answered: What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour is not yet come. For He would not dishonour His mother, who bids us honour father and mother (Exod. 20:12); nor would He deny that she was His mother, from whose virgin flesh He did not disdain to take flesh, as the Apostle too testifies, who says: Who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3). For how of the seed of David according to the flesh, if not from the body of Mary according to the flesh, who descended from the seed of David? But in this, that when about to work a miracle He says: What is it to Me and to you, woman? He signifies that the divinity by which [quam] the miracle was to be accomplished He had not received in time from His mother, but had always had through eternity from the Father. What is it to Me, He says, and to you, woman? My hour is not yet come. [That is:] The divinity which I have always had from the Father I do not have in common with your flesh, from which I took flesh; the hour has not yet come for Me to show by dying the frailty of the humanity taken from you. First I must lay open the power of the eternal Deity by working mighty deeds. But the hour came for Him to show what was common to Himself and His mother when, about to die on the cross, He took care to commend the virgin to the virgin disciple (John 19:26–27). For, having suffered the weaknesses of the flesh, He commended the mother from whom He had taken these, lovingly acknowledged, to the disciple whom He loved most: her whom, when about to do divine things, He feigns as it were not to know as one unknown, because He knows that she is not the author of His divine birth.

knows. But the Lord, hanging on the cross, calling this hour to mind, said to His mother: Mother, behold your son; as if He had said: Behold, what I took from you is now shown, by dying, for what it is: a nature which nevertheless was afterwards to be glorified in the glory of the resurrection.

His mother said to the servants: Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye. His mother indeed knew the kindness of her son, although He seems in this way to refuse what was asked; yet the mother, knowing the tenderness of her son, that He would not wish to refuse what was asked, confidently bade the servants fulfil the commands of her son when He gave them.

Now there were set there six stone water-pots according to the purification of the Jews, containing two or three measures apiece. Hydriae is the name for vessels made ready for receiving water. For in Greek water is called ὕδωρ. Now water signifies the knowledge of sacred Scripture, which is wont both to wash its hearers from the filth of sins and to give them drink from the fountain of divine knowledge. The six vessels by which it was held are the devout hearts of the saints, whose perfection of life and faith has been set before the human race as an example of right believing and living through the six ages that the world has, that is, up to the time of the Lord's preaching. And fittingly the vessels are of stone, because the hearts of the just are strong, inasmuch as they are made solid by faith in and love of that stone which Daniel saw cut from the mountain without hands, and made into a great mountain, and filling the whole earth (Dan. 2:34–35); and of which Zechariah says: Upon one stone are seven eyes (Zech. 3:9), that is, in Christ dwells the whole of spiritual knowledge. Of whom the apostle Peter also makes mention, saying thus: To whom coming, a living stone, be you also, as living stones, built up thereon (I Pet. 2:4–5). Fittingly were the water-pots set according to the purification of the Jews, because the law was given through Moses to the people of the Jews only. For the grace and truth of the Gospel came through Jesus Christ to the Gentiles no less than to the Jews. Containing, it says, two or three measures apiece, because the authors and ministers of holy Scripture, the prophets, at one time speak only of the Father and the Son, as in this: Thou hast made all things in wisdom (Ps. 103:24). For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom. At another time they also make mention of the Holy Spirit, according to that of the Psalmist: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their host by the spirit of His mouth (Ps. 32:6). In the Word, the Lord and the Spirit, understand the whole Trinity, which is one God. But as far as water is from wine, so far does that sense by which the Scriptures were understood before the Saviour's coming differ from that which He Himself at His coming revealed to the apostles and left to their disciples to be followed perpetually. And indeed the Lord, who at the beginning of the world's creation created all things out of nothing, could have filled the empty water-pots with wine; but He preferred to make wine out of water, that He might teach figuratively that He came not to destroy and reject but rather to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matt. 5:17); and that through the grace of the Gospel He does and teaches nothing other than what the Scripture of the law and the prophets signified that He would do and teach. We see, then, six water-pots of the Scriptures

filled with saving water. Let us see the same water turned into the sweetest fragrance and taste of wine. In the first age of the world his envious brother slew the just Abel (Gen. 4:8); and for this he, blessed with the perpetual glory of martyrdom, received the praise of justice even in the writings of the Gospels and Apostles, while the impious fratricide paid the penalty of eternal malediction. Whoever, having heard these things, fearing to be damned with the impious and longing to be blessed with the pious, cast away all the kindling of hatred and envy, and take care to please God through the sacrifice of justice, the modesty of innocence, the virtue of patience: they have indeed found in Scripture a vessel of water by which they may rejoice to be healthfully washed and given drink. But if they understand that Cain's murder is the faithlessness of the Jews, the slaying of Abel the passion of the Lord Saviour, the earth which opened its mouth and received his blood from the hand of Cain the Church, which receives the blood of Christ shed by the Jews into the mystery of its own renewal, then surely they find the water changed into wine, because they understand the sayings of the sacred law more sacredly. When the second age of the world began, the world was destroyed by the waters of the flood because of the greatness of its sins (Gen. 7); but Noah alone, because of his justice, was delivered with his house in the ark. Whoever, having heard of the horrible devastation of this plague and the wonderful deliverance of the few, has begun to live more amended, desiring to be delivered with the elect, fearing to be destroyed with the reprobate, has indeed received a water-pot of water by which to be cleansed or refreshed. But when he has begun to understand more deeply, and has understood in the ark the Church, in Noah Christ, in the water destroying sinners the water of baptism which washes away sins, in the men and animals which the ark contained the manifold diversity of the baptized, in the dove which after the flood brought an olive branch into the ark (Gen. 8:11) the anointing of the Holy Spirit with which the baptized are imbued, he surely marvels at wine made from water, because in the history of an ancient deed he beholds his own washing, sanctification and justification foretold. In the third age of the world God, testing the obedience of Abraham, commanded him to offer to Him as a holocaust his only son, him whom he loved (Gen. 22:2). Abraham does not delay to do what he is bidden, but a ram is sacrificed in place of the son. Yet he himself, for the virtue of obedience, is endowed with an outstanding, perpetual inheritance of blessing. Behold, you have the third water-pot. For hearing how great is the virtue of obedience, with how great a reward it is repaid, you too are eager to learn and to have obedience. But if in the sacrifice of the beloved only son you understand the passion of Him of whom the Father says: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:17); in which, because the impassible divinity remained, the humanity alone suffered death and pain, as the son is offered but the ram is slain: if you understand that the gift of the blessing which was promised to Abraham (Gen. 22:18) is fulfilled in you who believe from among the Gentiles, then surely He has made wine for you out of water, who has opened the spiritual sense by whose fragrance you are inebriated. At the beginnings of the fourth age David obtains the kingdom of the Israelite nation in place of Saul, humble, innocent,

and a meek exile (Gen. 18). Moreover he by whose unjust persecution he was tormented was cast off. Behold the fourth water-pot, filled from the saving spring. For whoever, hearing these things, has begun to be zealous for humility and innocence and to drive pride and envy from his heart, has found, as it were, a draught of the clearest water by which to be refreshed. But if he has recognized that in Saul the persecuting Jews are signified, in David Christ and the Church, and that their faithlessness and their carnal dominion together were destroyed, but that the kingdom of Christ's Church will abide for ever, then indeed he perceives wine made from water, because he knows that he is reading himself, his own life and kingdom, and indeed the King Himself, written for him, where before he read an old history as if about others. In the fifth age of the world the sinning people, Nebuchadnezzar taking them captive, is carried away to Babylon (Ezra 1); but after seventy years, penitent and corrected, it is brought back to its homeland through Jesus the high priest; where it rebuilds the house of God, which had been burned, and the holy city, which [had been] destroyed (Sir. 49). Whoever, reading or hearing these things, is seized with fear of sinning and flees to the remedy of penance, has been washed with the water of a purifying water-pot. But if he has learned to understand that Jerusalem and the temple of God are the Church of Christ; Babylon, the confusion of sins; Nebuchadnezzar, the devil; Jesus the high priest, that Jesus Christ is the true and eternal High Priest; the seventy years, the fullness of good works which are bestowed through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that is, on account of the Decalogue and the sevenfold grace of the same Spirit; and has seen this happen daily, some indeed being snatched from the Church by the devil through sinning, others being reconciled by the grace of the Holy Spirit through Jesus by coming to their senses and doing penance: he has wine made from water, who, understanding that the things written pertain to himself, soon grows warm as it were with the great new wine of compunction, and whatever sin holding him captive he has detected in himself, he begs to be freed from it through the grace of Christ. When the sixth age of the world began, the Lord, appearing in the flesh, was circumcised on the eighth day from His birth, according to the law (Luke 1); thirty-three [days] after this He was brought to the temple, and the gifts of the law were offered for Him (Luke 2). Considering these things according to the letter, we learn plainly with how great diligence the mysteries of the Gospel faith are to be undertaken by us, when He Himself, bringing the blessing of grace, who gave the law of the letter, first consecrated it by the rite of its ceremonies, He who established all things divinely; and so took care both to receive and to hand on the sacraments of the new grace. Behold the sixth water-pot, furnishing a wave purer than the rest for washing away the contagions of sin and for bearing the joys of life. But if in the circumcision of the eighth day you understand baptism, which has redeemed us from the death of sins into the mystery of the divine resurrection, [and] in the bringing into the temple and the offering of the purifying victim you recognize it prefigured that the faithful too must pass from the baptistery to the holy altar and be consecrated by the singular victim of the Lord's body and blood: then you have been given wine made from water, and wine most pure indeed.

Further, if you interpret the day of circumcision of the general resurrection of the human race, when mortal propagation will cease and all mortality will be changed by immortality, and understand the circumcised being brought into the temple with victims [as the time] when after the resurrection, the universal judgement being completed, the saints, now made incorruptible, will enter with the gifts of good works to contemplate for ever the beauty of the divine majesty, you will see wine made from water so great that you may rightly declare to its Maker and say: Thy cup that inebriates, how goodly it is (Ps. 22:5)! The Lord, then, did not wish to make wine for the joys of the marriage out of nothing, but, commanding the six water-pots to be filled with water, He wonderfully turned this into wine, because He had endowed the six ages of the world with the bounty of saving wisdom. Yet this He Himself at His coming made fruitful by the power of a loftier sense. For carnal men understood only carnally; He disclosed to the spiritual the things to be perceived spiritually. Do you wish to know how He made wine from water? After His resurrection He appeared to two disciples walking on the way, and went with them; and beginning from Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things that were about Himself (Luke 24:27). Do you wish to hear again how they were inebriated with the same wine? Afterwards, recognizing who it was that had poured them the word of life, they said to one another: Was not our heart burning within us, while He spoke on the way, and opened to us the Scriptures (ibid. 24:32)?

Jesus therefore says: Fill the water-pots with water; and they filled them up to the brim. What is signified by the servants who did this, if not the disciples of Christ? who filled the water-pots with water: not that they themselves filled the past ages of the world with the writings of the law and the prophets, but by understanding those writings wisely and opening them faithfully, because [the water] of Scripture, which was ministered by the prophets, is both wholesome for the draught of heavenly wisdom and useful for the correction of works. And they filled them up to the brim, because they rightly understood that no age of the world was without holy teachers, who by words, or by examples, or even by writings, laid open the way of life to mortals.

And He says to them, it says: Draw out now, and carry to the chief steward of the feast, and they carried it. For the chief steward is the man learned in the law of that time, perhaps Nicodemus, or Gamaliel, or his then disciple Saul, but now Paul the apostle, master of the whole Church; and when the word of the Gospel, which lay hidden in the letter of the law and of prophecy, is entrusted to such men, wine made from water is indeed served to the chief steward. And fittingly in the house of this marriage, which figured the sacraments of Christ and the Church, a triclinium, that is, three ranks of those reclining, differing in height, is described as present, because there are indeed three ranks of the faithful of which the Church consists, namely of the married, of the continent, and of teachers. The first rank of those reclining at the marriage of the heavenly Bridegroom, that is, of those rejoicing in the Church in faith and works, is the grade of the faithful married; the second of the continent; the highest

of preachers. Hence it is fittingly reported that the chief steward, having called the bridegroom, said:

Every man at first sets forth good wine, and when they have drunk well, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now. Because it belongs to teachers to know the difference between the law and the Gospel, between the truth and the shadow, and to prefer to all the old institutions and to all the promises of an earthly kingdom the new grace of the Gospel faith and the gifts of the everlasting heavenly homeland.

This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory. By this sign [He manifested] that He was the King of glory, and therefore the Bridegroom of the Church, who came to the marriage as an ordinary man, but, as Lord of heaven and earth, changed the elements as He willed. And it is a beautiful fittingness of things that He who, at the beginning of the signs which, made now immortal through the resurrection, He would show to those who pursue only the aims of immortal life, first imbued their carnal and as it were tasteless mind with the savour of heavenly knowledge, was afterwards, after the glory of the refreshment, to fill them with a greater gift of spiritual grace. For there follows the wonderful sacrament of this aforesaid sign: how Jesus Himself with His mother and brethren went up to Jerusalem, and found there those selling and buying in the temple, and how He cast them out from there, the evangelist saying:

Jesus went down to Capharnaum, He and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples, and they stayed there not many days; and the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Well does the evangelist say that Jesus went down into Capharnaum. For Capharnaum is interpreted "most beautiful village", signifying this world, into which our Lord Jesus Christ, never departing from the Father's seat, is said to have descended for the salvation of the human race. But what is read at the beginning of this Gospel reading is wont to trouble some: that, when the Lord went down to Capharnaum, not only His mother and disciples but also His brethren followed Him. Nor have heretics been lacking who thought that Joseph, the husband of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, begot by another wife those whom Scripture calls the brethren of the Lord. Others, with greater faithlessness, thought that he begot others from Mary herself after the Lord was born. But we, dearest brethren, must know and confess without the scruple of any question that not only the blessed Mother of God, but also Joseph, the most blessed witness and guardian of her chastity, remained altogether free from every conjugal act; and that not their sons but their kinsmen are called, by the customary usage of Scripture, brothers or sisters of the Saviour. Thus Abraham speaks in this way to Lot: Let there be no quarrel, I pray, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brethren (Gen. 13:8). And Laban to Jacob: Because you are my brother, shall you serve me for nothing (Gen. 29:15)? And indeed it is established that Lot was the son of Aran, the brother of Abraham, and that Jacob was the son of Rebecca, the sister of Laban; but on account of kinship they are called brothers. This rule, then, being, as I have said, very frequent in the holy Scriptures, [teaches us to call] also the kinsmen of Mary or Joseph brothers

of the Lord must be understood as called. But that, as the Pasch drew near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem gives us indeed an example of how great the vigilance of mind with which we ought to submit to the Lord's commands, since He Himself, appearing in the weakness of man, keeps the same decrees which He established by the authority of the Godhead. For lest the servants should think that without frequent offerings of prayers and good deeds they could either escape the scourges or receive the rewards, the Son of God Himself also went up among the servants to pray and to sacrifice. Let us see, when He came to Jerusalem, what He found them doing there, and what He Himself did in that same place.

And He found, it says, in the temple those selling sheep and oxen and doves, and the money-changers sitting; and when He had made as it were a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen; and He poured out the money of the money-changers, and overturned the tables. The oxen, sheep and doves were bought for this purpose, that they might be offered in the temple. The money-changers sat at the tables for this purpose, that between the buyers and sellers of the victims the reckoning of money might be ready to hand. It seemed, then, that those things were lawfully sold in the temple which were bought for this purpose, that they might be offered to the Lord in that same temple. But the Lord Himself, not willing that any earthly trading be carried on in His house, not even such as was thought honest, drove out the unjust traders, and cast them all out together with the things in which they traded. What then, my brethren, what do we think the Lord would do if He found people quarrelling in strife, if He found them given to idle tales, dissolute in laughter, or ensnared in any other sin whatever, He Who saw people in the temple buying victims to be sacrificed to Him, and hastened to put them out? We have said these things on account of those who, having entered the church, not only neglect the intent to pray but even increase the very things for which they ought to have prayed; and moreover they pursue those who rebuke them for such folly with abuse and hatred or even with slanders, adding, that is, sins to sins, and as it were heedlessly weaving for themselves a very long rope by their increase, and not fearing to be condemned for it by the examination of the strict Judge. For twice indeed we read in the holy Gospel that the Lord, coming into the temple, cast out traders of this kind: now, that is, in the third year before His passion, as we learn from the later writings of this evangelist, and in the very year in which He suffered, when five days before the Pasch He had come to Jerusalem sitting on an ass (Matt. 21). But everyone who is rightly wise understands that He does this same thing in the temple of the holy Church, and in the scrutiny of His daily visitation. Hence these things are greatly to be trembled at, dearly beloved, and to be dreaded with fitting fear, and we must take care with diligent effort lest He, coming unforeseen, should find in us something perverse for which we ought deservedly to be scourged and cast out of the Church; and above all in that which is specially called the house of prayer we must take heed that we do nothing unfitting, lest with the Corinthians we hear from the Apostle: Have you not houses for doing or speaking about temporal things? Or do you despise the Church of God (1 Cor. 11)? And from the prophet, with the Jews: My beloved in my house

has done many wicked things (Jer. 11). And indeed we must rejoice that we ourselves were made the temple of God in baptism, as the Apostle bears witness, who says: The temple of God is holy, which you yourselves are (1 Cor. 3). [We are] the city of the great king, of which it is sung: Its foundations are on the holy mountains (Ps. 86), that is, the foundation of the Church, in the solidity of the faith of the apostles and prophets. But it is greatly to be trembled at that the Apostle said beforehand: But if anyone violates the temple of God, God will destroy him (1 Cor. 3); and the just Judge Himself says: I will destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity (Ps. 100). We must rejoice that the solemnity of the Pasch is celebrated in us when we strive to pass over from vices to virtues. For Pasch means passing over. We must rejoice that the Lord deigns to visit our hearts, that is, His city, since He deigns to illumine that same Pasch of our good action with the presence of His goodness. But we must fear greatly lest He find us in His city doing something other than what He loves, and show Himself to us a strict requiter, such as we do not love. Lest, finding us in the temple as money-changers, as sellers of oxen, sheep or doves, He condemn us. For the oxen signify the teaching of the heavenly life, the sheep the works of purity and goodness, the doves the gifts of the Holy Spirit, since a field is usually worked with the help of male oxen. And the field is the heart cultivated by heavenly teaching and duly prepared for receiving the seeds of the word of God. Sheep, innocent creatures, provide their own garments for clothing men; the Spirit descended upon the Lord in the form of a dove. Now they sell oxen who spend the word of the Gospel not out of divine love but with an eye to earthly gain, such as the Apostle rebukes because they do not proclaim Christ sincerely (Titus 1). They sell sheep who perform works of goodness for the sake of human praise, of whom the Lord says: For they have received their reward (Matt. 6). They sell doves who give the grace of the Spirit they have received not freely, as was commanded (Matt. 10), but for a reward; who bestow the laying on of hands, by which the Spirit is received, if not for monetary gain, yet for the favour of the crowd. [Those] who confer holy orders not for merit of life but as a favour. They lend money in the temple who in the Church serve not heavenly things in pretence but earthly things openly, seeking their own things, not those of Jesus Christ. But what wage awaits workers of this deceitful kind the Lord showed when, having made a scourge of small cords, He cast them all out of the temple. For those are cast out from their portion of the lot of the saints who, placed among the saints, either do good feignedly or do evil openly. He cast out the sheep also and the oxen, because He showed the life of such men to be reprobate. The small cords with which, scourging, He drove the ungodly from the temple are the growths of evil actions, from which the Judge is given matter for condemning the reprobate. For hence Isaiah says: Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity (Isa. 5); and Solomon in Proverbs: His own iniquities, he says, take the ungodly, and he is bound fast with the ropes of his sins (Prov. 5). For he who [adds] sins to sins, for which

is condemned the more strictly, heaps up and lengthens [the cord]. He also poured out the money of the money-changers whom He had driven out, and overturned the tables, because, when the reprobate are condemned at the end, He will take away even the form of the very things which they loved, according to what is written: And the world shall pass away, and its concupiscence (1 John 2).

And to those who sold doves He said: Take these things hence; do not make the house of My Father a house of trade. He commands the selling of doves to be taken out of the temple because the grace of the Spirit, freely received, ought to be freely given. Hence that Simon Magus, who wished to buy it with money in order to sell it at a higher price, heard: Your money perish with you. You have no part nor lot in this word (Acts 8). But it must be noted that not only are they sellers of doves, and make the house of God a house of trade, who in conferring holy orders seek the price of money or of praise or even of honour, but those also who exercise a spiritual rank or grace in the Church, which they received by the Lord's bounty, not with a single intention but for the sake of some human recompense, against that saying of the apostle Peter: He who speaks, [let him speak] as the words of God; he who ministers, as from the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be honoured through Jesus Christ. Whoever then are such, if they do not wish to be taken out of the Church when the Lord comes, let them take these things away from their actions, lest they make the house of God a house of trade. Nor must we pass over that Scripture carefully commends to us both natures of our Saviour, that is, the human and the divine. For that He might be understood to be the true Son of God, let us hear what He Himself says:

Do not make the house of My Father a house of trade. For He openly shows Himself the Son of God the Father, Who calls the temple of God the house of His Father. That again He may be perceived to be the true Son of man, let us recall that at the head of this reading He is said, going down to Capharnaum, to have had His mother as companion. There follows:

And His disciples remembered that it is written: The zeal of Thy house has eaten me up. With zeal for His Father's house the Saviour cast the ungodly out of the temple. Let us too, dearest brethren, be zealous for the house of God, and press on, as far as we can, that nothing wrong be done in it. If we see a brother who belongs to the house of God swollen with pride, if accustomed to slanders, if a slave to drunkenness, if unnerved by lust, if troubled with anger, if laid low by any other vice, let us strive, so far as our means allow, to chastise him, to correct what is polluted and perverse; and if we cannot amend anything in such men, let us bear it not without the keenest grief of mind; and above all in the very house of prayer, where the body of God is consecrated, where the presence of angels is not doubted to be always at hand, let us act with all our strength that nothing unfitting be done, that nothing hinder our own or our brethren's prayer. There follows:

The Jews therefore answered and said to Him: What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three

days I will raise it up. Of which temple He was speaking the evangelist afterwards made plain, namely of the temple of His body, which, destroyed by them in the passion, He Himself raised up from death after three days. Since, then, they were seeking a sign from the Lord as to why He should have cast the customary commerce out of the temple, He answered that He was driving the ungodly out of the temple most rightly for this reason, that the temple itself signified the temple of His body, in which there was no stain whatever of any sin. And not undeservedly did He cleanse the figurative temple of crimes, Who could by the power of the divine majesty raise from the dead the true temple of God, destroyed by men through death.

The Jews therefore said: Forty-six years was this temple in building, and will you raise it up in three days? As they understood, so they answered. But lest we too should take the Lord's spiritual saying carnally, the evangelist thereafter explained of which temple He was speaking. Now when they say that the temple was forty-six years in building, they mean not its first but its second building. For first Solomon completed the temple in the greatest peace of his reign, by a most seemly work of seven years (III Kgs. 6); and when it had been destroyed by the Chaldeans, after seventy years, by the command of Cyrus the Persian, the captivity having been released, it was begun to be rebuilt (II Paralipomenon 36); but the sons of the transmigration could not complete the work, which they were doing under the leaders Zorobabel and Jesus, before forty-six years, because of the attacks of the neighbouring nations (I Esdras 2, 5); and this number of years also accords most aptly with the perfecting of the Lord's body. For writers on natural things relate that the form of the human body is perfected in the space of so many days, namely that in the first six days from conception it has the likeness of milk; in the following nine it is turned into blood; then in twelve it is made solid; in the remaining eighteen it is strengthened up to the perfected outlines of all the limbs; and from then on, for the rest of the time until the time of birth, it is increased in size. Now six and nine and twelve and eighteen make forty-five; and if to these we add one, that is, the very day on which the body, now divided into limbs, begins to take growth, we find assuredly as many days in the building of the Lord's body as years in the construction of the temple; for that temple made by hand prefigured the most holy flesh of the Lord which He took from the Virgin, as we learn from this passage, since it equally signified His body, which is the Church, since [it signified] the body and soul of each of the faithful, as we find in very many places of the Scriptures. Now the first Adam heard after his sin: Earth you are, and into earth you shall go (Gen. 3). But the second Adam says of Himself: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The first Adam was scattered through the whole world, and was gathered together in the second: which the name Adam signifies, which is written with four letters, that is α, δ, again α, and μ, which four letters signify the four parts of the world, into which Adam was scattered in his sons: therefore

these four letters are read at the beginnings of the names of the parts of the world. For ἄρκτος, which is the North, begins with α; and δύσις, which is the West, begins with δ; and ἀνατολή, which is the East, begins with α; μεσημβρία, which is the South, begins with μ. These are the four parts of the world, beginning with these four letters; and these letters, if they are considered in Greek reckoning, make forty-six: for α is one, δ four, and again α one, μ forty, which taken together [make] forty-six, and mystically signify the forty-six days in which the temple of Christ's body was built in the virginal womb. Now the flesh of Christ, which was taken from that same [womb], was destroyed by the Jews and built again by Himself according to the Scriptures of the prophets; and therefore the evangelist says:

For He was speaking of the temple of His body. When therefore He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture. That is, [the Scripture] of the Prophets, who had foretold that Christ would rise on the third day.

And the word which Jesus had spoken, that is, what He said: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up; that is, on the third day I will raise again what you destroy on the cross. There follows:

Now when Jesus was at Jerusalem at the pasch, on the festal day, many believed in His name; but Jesus Himself did not trust Himself to them, because He Himself knew what was in man. For they did not so believe in Him as to be worthy that Christ should dwell in them; their faith may be compared to that of catechumens, who believe in Christ, but Christ does not entrust Himself to them, because unless one is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3). And Christ entrusts Himself to no one except him who is worthy to enter into the kingdom of God. And no one is worthy to enter into the kingdom of God except him who is born again of water and the Spirit. Hence the custom of the Church does not give catechumens the communion of the body and blood of Christ, because they are not born again of water and the Spirit, to whom alone the participation of the body and blood of Christ is entrusted. Now of these many who believed in Jesus, this Nicodemus was one; and therefore he came by night and not by day, because he was not yet enlightened by the light of heavenly grace.

CHAPTER III.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night. The ruler of the Jews, that is, came to Jesus by night, desiring by private conversation with Him to learn more fully the mysteries of the faith, whose first rudiments he had already to some extent received through the open display of signs; and because he wisely asked of Him the things he did not know, he deserved to find them out.

Rabbi, he said, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs which you do unless God be with him. He confessed, then, that Jesus had come from God to bring a heavenly teaching to the world; that the Lord was with Him he wisely understood from the miracles; yet he did not know that He, with God, was Himself God; but because the one whom he knew as teacher, of truth

he still offered himself zealously to be taught, he deservedly, being perfectly taught, came to the knowledge of His divinity; deservedly he received the secrets of both His births, namely the divine and the human, and also of His Passion and ascension, and learned besides the manner of the second birth, the entrance of the heavenly kingdom, and very many other mysteries of doctrine, the Lord revealing them.

Jesus answered and said to him: Amen, amen, I say to you: Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This sentence shines the more plainly for all the faithful as it is certain that without its light they cannot be faithful. For who without the laver of regeneration can obtain remission of sins and enter the kingdom of heaven? But Nicodemus, who came to the Lord by night, did not yet know how to grasp the mysteries of the light. For the night too in which he came signifies the very ignorance by which he was weighed down. For he was not yet joined to the number of those to whom the Apostle says: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5), but rather remained among those to whom Isaiah speaks: Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you (Isa. 6). He answered the Lord, therefore, and said:

How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born again? For since he still remained ignorant of the second birth, but had already become anxious for his salvation, he necessarily asked about the one birth which he knew, whether it could be repeated, or in what order a regeneration could be accomplished, lest, remaining without it, he should be unable to be a partaker of the heavenly life. But it is to be noted that what he said of the carnal [birth] is to be understood also of spiritual regeneration: namely that it can by no means be repeated once it has been accomplished. For whether a heretic, or a schismatic, or any criminal baptizes in the confession of the Holy Trinity, the one who has been so baptized cannot be rebaptized by good catholics, lest the confession or invocation of so great a name should seem to be annulled. And because Nicodemus, anxious at the Lord's first answer, diligently asks how it is to be understood, he deserves now to be instructed more plainly, and to hear that the second birth is not carnal but spiritual.

For Jesus answered: Amen, amen, I say to you: Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Afterwards, setting out the manner of this birth, and distinguishing it altogether from the carnal, He says:

What is born of the flesh is flesh; and what is born of the spirit is spirit. The nature of spirit is invisible, that of flesh visible; and therefore the carnal birth is carried out visibly (for he who is born in the flesh advances by visible increments through the stages of the ages), but the spiritual birth is wholly accomplished invisibly. For the one who is baptized is indeed seen to go down into the font, is seen to be dipped in the waters, is seen to come up from the waters; but what the laver of regeneration has worked in him cannot be seen at all. But only the faith-

-ful's devotion knows that the sinner goes down into the font but comes up purified. A son of death goes down, but a son of the resurrection comes up. A son of transgression goes down, but a son of reconciliation comes up. A son of wrath goes down, but a son of mercy comes up. A son of the devil goes down, but a son of God comes up. Mother Church alone, who gives birth, knows this. For the rest, to the eyes of the foolish a man seems to come out of the font such as he went in, and the whole thing that is done seems a game. Hence at the end, seeing the glory of the saints, they will say, groaning in torments: These are they whom we once held in derision and for a byword of reproach. How then are they numbered among the sons of God (Wis. 5)? The apostle John says: Dearly beloved, he says, now we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be (John 3). What is born of the Spirit is spirit, because he who is regenerated of water and the Spirit is invisibly changed into a new man, and from carnal is made spiritual. And therefore he is rightly called not only spiritual but even spirit, because, just as the substance of spirit is invisible to sight, so he who is renewed through the grace of God becomes invisibly spiritual and a son of God, while to all he visibly appears flesh and a son of man. There follows:

Do not wonder that I said to you: You must be born again. The Spirit breathes where He will, and you hear His voice; but you do not know whence He comes and whither He goes. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. The Spirit breathes where He will, because He Himself has it in His power whose heart He will enlighten by the grace of His visitation. And you hear His voice when one who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in your presence. But you do not know whence He comes and whither He goes, because even if the Spirit fills someone for an hour in your presence, you cannot see how He entered or how He went back, because His nature is invisible. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. For he too, by the invisible working of the spirit, begins to be what he was not; so that unbelievers do not know whence he comes and whither he goes; that is, that through the grace of regeneration he comes into the adoption of the sons of God, and goes on into the receiving of the heavenly kingdom. And as Nicodemus still asks how these things can be done, the Lord adds, saying:

You are a teacher in Israel, and do you not know these things? Not as wishing to mock one who should be called a teacher while ignorant of the heavenly mysteries, but calling him to the way of humility, without which the heavenly gate cannot be found.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? He spoke earthly things to them, as we find in the earlier reading, when He was speaking of the passion and resurrection of His body, which He had taken from the earth, saying: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up; yet they did not believe the word which He said; indeed they could not even understand this, that He was speaking of nothing other than the temple of His body. Those, then, who did not grasp earthly things when they heard them, how much less are they able to grasp heavenly things, that is, the mysteries of the divine generation? But the Lord goes on further to instruct concerning both heavenly and earthly mysteries him whom He saw wisely and diligently

attending to the things he heard. For His ascension to eternal life is heavenly; but His lifting up to temporal death is earthly. He speaks, then, of heavenly things:

And no one has ascended into heaven except He Who descended from heaven, the Son of man, Who is in heaven. (And He adds concerning earthly things:) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up. Now it is rightly asked how the Son of man is said either to have descended from heaven, or, at the time when He was saying these things on earth, to have been already in heaven. But the confession of the catholic faith is well known: that the Son of God, descending from heaven, took up the son of man in the virginal womb, and, the dispensation of His passion completed, raised him from the dead and took him up into heaven. Christ, then, as flesh did not descend from heaven, nor was He in heaven before the time of the ascension, except in that the person of Christ is one, existing in two natures. And therefore the Son of man is rightly said both to have descended from heaven and to have been in heaven before the passion, because what He could not have in His own nature He had in the Son of God, by Whom He was assumed; just as, on account of the same single person of Christ, which subsists from two natures, the Apostle says: The Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops to rule the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood (Acts 20). For God did not have blood to shed for the Church in His own sententia, but in the man He assumed. For hence the Psalmist says: God has ascended with jubilation (Ps. 46). For how would God ascend, except in man, He Who in the majesty of His own nature is always present everywhere? But this too must be asked, how it is said: And no one has ascended into heaven except He Who descended from heaven, when all the elect trust truly that they will ascend into heaven, since the Lord promises them: For where I am, there also shall My minister be (John 12). Yet a most plain reasoning loosens the knot of this question, namely that the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is the head of all the elect; and likewise all the elect are members of the same head, as the Apostle says: And He gave Him as head over all the Church (Eph. 1); and again: For you are the body of Christ, and members of member (Eph. 5). No one, then, has ascended into heaven except He Who descended from heaven, the Son of man, Who is in heaven. No one ascends into heaven except Christ in His body, which is the Church. He ascended indeed in Himself first, while the apostles, His more eminent members to be sure, looked on, and thenceforth, ascending daily in His members, gathers Himself into heaven. For hence it is that His very body, caught amid the adversities of this world, glories and says: But now He has lifted up my head above my enemies (Ps. 29). As if to say openly: He Who raised from the dead Christ, slain by the Jews, my head, that is, and, having frustrated all the plots of His enemies, lifted Him up into heaven, will, I hope, also rescue me from present dangers and join me to my head in the kingdom; for no one ascends into heaven except He Who descended from heaven. Whoever desires to ascend into heaven, to Him Who descend-

-ed from heaven and is in heaven, let him join himself in true unity of faith and love; plainly understanding that by no other order can he ascend into heaven except through Him Who descended from heaven. Hence He Himself says elsewhere: No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14). These things are said in [the person of] Nicodemus to all catechumens, so that they may learn to be incorporated by rebirth into the members of Him through Whom they can ascend into the kingdom of God. And because the ascent into, or entrance of, the kingdom cannot take place without faith in, and the sacraments of, the Lord's passion, there is rightly added:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life. By the wonderful art of heavenly teaching the Lord leads the teacher of the Mosaic law to the spiritual sense of that same law, recalling the old history and explaining that it was done as a figure of His passion and of human salvation. For the book of Numbers relates that the people of Israel, weary in the wilderness of the long journey and of the toil, murmured against the Lord and Moses (Num. 23); and that therefore the Lord sent fiery serpents among them; and when, at their bites and the deaths of very many, they cried out to Moses and he prayed, the Lord commanded him to make a bronze serpent and set it up for a sign. Whoever is bitten, He said, and looks at it, shall live; and so it was done. The bites of the fiery serpents, then, are the poisons and incitements of the vices, which slay with spiritual death the soul they touch. And fittingly the people murmuring against the Lord was laid low by the bites of serpents, so that from the course of the outward scourge it might recognize how great a ruin it was suffering within by murmuring. But the lifting up of the bronze serpent, by looking at which the bitten were healed, signifies the passion of our Redeemer on the cross, by faith in Whom alone the reign of death and sin is overcome. For rightly are sins, which draw soul and body together to destruction, expressed by serpents, not only because they are fiery, because venomous, because cunning to kill, but also because through a serpent our first parents were persuaded to sin (Gen. 3), and by sinning were made mortal from immortal. Rightly is the Lord shown by the bronze serpent, because He came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8); for just as the bronze serpent had indeed a form like the fiery serpents, but had in its members no burning of harmful venom at all, but rather healed by its lifting up those bitten by the serpents, so surely, so the Redeemer of the human race put on not sinful flesh but the likeness of sinful flesh, in which, by suffering the death of the cross, He might free those who believe in Him from all sin and even from death itself. As, then, Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so, He says, must the Son of man be lifted up; because just as those who looked at the bronze serpent lifted up for a sign were healed for a time from temporal death and from the wound which the serpents' bite had inflicted, so too those who look upon the mystery of the Lord's passion by believing, confessing and sincerely imitating it are saved for

ever from all death, which by sinning they contracted in soul and flesh alike. Hence there is rightly added: That whoever believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life. The sense of this saying is plain: that he who believes in Jesus not only escapes the perdition of punishments but also receives eternal life. And this is the difference between the figure and the truth: that by the former temporal life is prolonged, by the latter a life is given that will endure without end. But we must take careful heed that a worthy practice carry out what the understanding rightly perceives, so that the confession of our right faith, by sober living, may deserve to attain to the perfection of the life promised us. But because these things are said of the Son of man, that He had to be lifted up on the cross, that is, to suffer death, lest Nicodemus should think that He from Whom eternal life was to be expected was only a son of man, the Lord took care to disclose to him the mystery of His divinity also, and to show one and the same to be both the Son of man and the Saviour of the world. For there follows:

For God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life. Whence it must be noted that He repeats of the only-begotten Son of God the same things which He had said before of the Son of man lifted up on the cross, saying: That whoever believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life. For assuredly the same Son of God, our Redeemer and Maker, existing before the ages, was made Son of man at the end of the ages, so that He Who by the power of His divinity had created us to enjoy the blessedness of everlasting life might Himself, through the frailty of our humanity, restore us to receive again the life which we lost. And there follows:

For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Him. So, as far as lies with the physician, He came to heal the sick man. He kills himself who will not observe the physician's precepts. The Saviour came to the world. Why was He called the Saviour of the world, if not to save the world, not to judge the world? You do not wish to be saved by Him? You will be judged by yourself. And why do I say, you will be judged? See what He says:

He who believes in Him is not judged; but he who does not believe.... What did you expect Him to say, if not "is judged"? Already, He says, he has been judged. The judgement has appeared to be noted, but the judgement has already been made. For the Lord knows who are His (2 Tim. 2:19). He knows who remain for the crown, who remain for the flame. He knows on His threshing-floor His wheat, He knows also the chaff; He knows the crop, He knows the cockle.

He who does not believe is already judged. Why judged? Because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

And this is the judgement: that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. My brethren, whose good works did the Lord find? No one's; for He found all works evil. How then did some do

the truth, and come to the light? For this follows:

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they have been done in God. How then did some do a good work, so as to come to the light, that is, to Christ; and how did some love the darkness, if He found all men sinners, and heals all from sin? And that serpent, in which the death of the Lord was figured, healed those who had been bitten, and because of the bites of the serpent a serpent was lifted up, that is, the death of the Lord because of mortal men, whom He found unjust. How is this judgement understood, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil? For what is this? Whose works were good? Didst Thou not come to justify the ungodly? But they loved, He says, the darkness rather than the light; there He laid the weight. For many loved their sins, for he who confesses his sins, and accuses his sins, already acts with God. God accuses your sins; if you also accuse them, you are joined to God. There are, as it were, two things, man, and sinner. What you hear as "man", God made; what you hear as "sinner", man himself made. Destroy what you made, that God may save what He made. You must hate in yourself the one work, and love in yourself the work of God. But when what you have done begins to displease you, from there your good works begin, because you accuse your evil works. The beginning of good works is the confession of evil works. You do the truth, and you come to the light. What is it, you do the truth? You do not stroke yourself, you do not coax yourself, you do not flatter yourself. You do not say, I am just, when you are unjust, and you begin to do the truth. But you come to the light, that your works may be made manifest, because they have been done in God: because this very thing too, that your sin has displeased you, would not displease you unless God shone upon you, and His truth showed you to yourself. But he who even when warned loves his sins hates the light that warns him, and flees it, that his evil works, which he loves, may not be reproved. But he who does the truth accuses his evil deeds in himself; he does not spare himself, he does not pardon himself, so that God may pardon; he himself acknowledges, and comes to the light: to which he gives thanks, that it showed him what he should hate in himself; he says to the Lord: Turn away Thy face from my sins (Ps. 50). And with what face does he say it, unless he says again: for I acknowledge my crime, and my sin is ever against me (ibid.)? But if you have put your sin behind you, God twists it back before your eyes; and He twists it back at a time when there will no longer be any fruit of penance. Run, lest the darkness overtake you. And there follows:

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judaea; and there He stayed with them, and there He baptized. The baptized one baptizes; He does not baptize with the baptism with which He was baptized: the Lord, baptized by a servant, gives baptism, showing the way of humility, and leading to the baptism of the Lord, that is, to His own baptism, by offering an example of humility, because He Himself

did not reject the baptism of the servant; and by the servant's baptism the way was prepared for the Lord, and the Lord was baptized; He made Himself the way for those coming to Him; let us hear Him: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14). If you seek the truth, hold to the way; for He is the truth, Who is the way. Let us hear John: Jesus was baptizing: We have said that Jesus baptizes, as Jesus, as Lord, as Son of God, as Word. But the Word was made flesh.

And John was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. What the place is, is understood from the name, because there were many waters there. Aenon near Salim is the place where John was baptizing; and the place is shown even now at the eighth milestone from Scythopolis to the south, near Salim and the Jordan.

For John had not yet been sent into prison. Why does John baptize? Because it was fitting that the Lord should be baptized. Why was it fitting that the Lord should be baptized? Lest anyone, though endowed with great grace or power, should disdain to be baptized. The Lord Himself did not disdain the sacrament of baptism, although there was nothing in Him to be cleansed in baptism, Who had no sin to be forgiven in the washing of baptism. The Lord was baptized by a servant, lest the servant should disdain the baptism of the Lord. For John had not yet been sent into prison. The evangelist says this so that it may be understood that these miracles, which he set down before, were done in the first year of the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, which began from His baptism: the deeds of which year the evangelist understood that the others chiefly did [not] relate.

Now a question arose between the disciples of John and the Jews about purification. For the disciples of John, jealous for their master, because they heard that more were flocking to the baptism of Christ, and that the Jews preferred the baptism of Christ to the baptism of John, at last came to John himself, that he might resolve the question which they had had with the Jews about the distinction between the baptism of Christ and his own baptism.

And they said to him: Rabbi, He Who was with you beyond the Jordan, behold, He baptizes, and all come to Him. As if indignant that more had come to the baptism of Christ, they said: All come to Him, and leave you. He was baptized with your baptism, to Whose baptism all now flock.

He answered and said: A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said: I am not the Christ. If you believe my testimony, know that I am not the Christ, but that it is His, His baptism, in which there is remission of sins and the Holy Spirit is given, not mine: in which only penance was given, and faith in Him about Whom you now make complaint. A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven. I am the herald, He the judge. I then am servant, He Lord. He is the bridegroom, I the friend of the bridegroom. He must increase, but I decrease. I came to prepare the way for Him, not to exalt myself. I am the voice of one crying

the word of the Father. He Who comes after me was made before me, that is, He has been preferred to me in dignity. The strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. That is, to tell the mystery of His birth, by which, born of the Virgin, He came into the world. You have heard my testimony; believe my testimony; run together to Him in Whose baptism is the remission of sins. This John was held to be of such authority that he was thought by the people to be the Christ; but he rejected the false honour, that he might be able to hold the solid truth. He would not boast of himself to be what he was not, lest he be without Him Who always was. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. I am not the bridegroom. But what am I? The friend of the bridegroom, rejoicing at the voice of Him Who is the bridegroom, of Whom it is said: God the King of all the earth: and all the kings of the earth shall adore Him; all nations shall serve Him (Ps. 71). He is the true bridegroom; and the bride is the holy Church, gathered from all nations, of which the Apostle says: I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11). She is a virgin, and has a bridegroom, she who daily gives birth, and remains a virgin forever. This virginity is integrity of mind, perfection of charity, unity of the catholic faith, the concord of peace, chastity in body and soul, because chastity of the body is worth nothing without the integrity of the catholic faith. Of this virgin, that is, of the universal Church, the friends are the preachers of the gospel truth. And therefore this John says: The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice. For he stands who remains in the right faith, and preaches what he believes. Why does he stand? Because he does not fall. Why does he not fall? Because he is humble. This forerunner of the Lord stood on solid rock when he said: I am not the Christ, I am not the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom. He who seeks the glory of Him Who sent him rightly does not fall, rightly stands, rightly hears the voice of the bridegroom, and rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice. The voice of the bridegroom, then, is: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28). John therefore confessed, as you heard above, that I am not the Christ. For when Jesus was making many disciples, and it was reported to him, as if to provoke him (for they told it as to one who was jealous: Behold, He makes more disciples than you), he confessed what he was, and thereby merited to belong to Him, because he did not dare to say that he was what He is. This then John said: A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven. So Christ gives, and man receives. You yourselves bear me witness that I said: I am not the Christ, but that I have been sent before Him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, and rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice, does not make a joy for himself out of himself. For he who wishes to rejoice in himself will be sad. But he who wishes to rejoice in God will always rejoice, because God is everlasting. Such John said he was: the friend of the bridegroom, he says, rejoices because of the bridegroom's voice, not because of his own voice, and he stands, and hears Him. If then he falls, he does not hear Him. For of him who once fell it was said: And he did not stand in the truth (John 8);

it was said of the devil. Therefore the friend of the bridegroom must stand and hear. What is it to stand? To remain in His grace, which he has received. And he hears the voice at which he may rejoice. So was John: he knew from what he rejoiced; he did not claim for himself what he was not. He knew that he was one enlightened, not the enlightener. For He was the true light, says the evangelist, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1). If every man, then John himself too, since he was one of men. It follows. And John says:

This my joy therefore is fulfilled. What is his joy? To rejoice at the voice of the bridegroom. For many have become foolish for this reason, that they said they were wise: whom the Apostle rebukes in the Epistle to the Romans, saying: Thinking themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1). So what God gives to those who give thanks, He takes away from those who do not. John did not wish to be this; he wished to be grateful: he confessed that he had received, and said that he rejoiced because of the bridegroom's voice, and says: This my joy therefore is fulfilled.

He must increase, but I decrease. What is this: He must be exalted, but I humbled? This is a great Sacrament; before the Lord Jesus came, men gloried in themselves: that Man came, that the glory of man might be lessened and the glory of God increased. He came without sin, and found all with sin. If He came thus, to forgive sins: let God bestow, let man confess. For the confession of man is the lowliness of man; the compassion of God is the height. If then He came to forgive sins, let man acknowledge his lowliness, and God will show His mercy. He must increase, but I decrease. That is: He must give, but I receive. He must be glorified, but I confess. Let man understand his rank, and confess to God, and hear the Apostle saying to the man who is proud and puffed up and wishes to exalt himself: For what have you that you have not received? But if you have received, why do you glory as if you had not received? Let the man therefore who has received, who wished to call his own what is not his, understand, and be lessened. For it is good for him that God be glorified in him, that he himself be lessened in himself, that he may be increased in God (1 Cor. 4). These testimonies, this truth, Christ and John signified even by their passions. For John was lessened by the head, so that there too it might appear what is He must increase, but I decrease. That is, He must be exalted, but I humbled; for the very creature of light signifies this too. For Christ was born when the days were growing longer, but John when they were growing shorter, so that it might be shown what Christ is, that is, the true light; and what John is, that is, one enlightened by Him. Let us grow in Him, and through Him, that He may grow in us, until we come to the perfect day. Let us hear further what John said of Christ, or what of himself. For he says:

He Who comes from above is above all; and he who is of the earth speaks of the earth. He Who comes from above is above all, that is, Christ. But he who is of the earth is earth, and speaks of the earth, that is, John. When then

every man speaks of the earth; he is earthly; and while he speaks earthly things, he speaks of the earth. But he who has been enlightened by Him Who is the true light speaks of divine things. So the grace of God is above, the nature of man below. The carnal man judges carnally, surmises carnally. When the grace of God comes enlightening man, he speaks heavenly things, as it is said: Thou Who lightest my lamp, O Lord my God, enlighten my darkness (Ps. 17), that is: He must increase, but I decrease. So John, as far as concerns John, is of the earth, and speaks of the earth. If you have heard anything divine from John, it belongs to the one who enlightens, not to the one who receives. He Who comes from heaven is above all; and what He has seen and heard, to this He testifies.

And no one receives His testimony. That which came from heaven is above all, our Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom it was said above: No one has ascended into heaven, except He Who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, Who is in heaven. And He is above all; and what He has seen and heard, this He speaks. For He Himself, the Son of God, has also a Father, and He has heard from the Father. And what He has heard from the Father, what is it? Who explains this? When can my tongue, when can my heart suffice, either the heart to understand, or the tongue to utter? What is it that the Son has heard from the Father? Perhaps He is Son, He has heard the Word of the Father. Nay rather, the Son is the Word of the Father. Since then the Word of God is the Son, and the Son has spoken to us, He willed to speak to us not His own word, but the word of the Father, He Who was speaking the word of the Father. This, then, as was fitting and necessary, John said: He Who comes from heaven is above all; and what He has seen and heard, that He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. If no one, he says, receives it, why then did Christ come? Because there is a certain people prepared for the wrath of God, to be condemned with the devil. Of these no one receives the testimony of Christ. For if absolutely no one, no man at all, what is it that follows:

He who receives His testimony has sealed that God is true? Certainly, then, no one, except, as you yourself say, he who receives His testimony has sealed that God is true. Perhaps, then, John, being asked, answered as if he would tell us why he said "no one": for there is a certain people born for the wrath of God, and foreknown for this. For who are going to believe, and who are not going to believe, the Lord knows; who are going to persevere in what they have believed, and who are going to fall away, God knows; and all who are to come into eternal life are numbered by God. The testimony of Him Who came from heaven no one receives. But he who receives His testimony has sealed that God is true. He said "has sealed", that is, he sets a seal in his heart, as something singular and special, that this is the true God, Who was sent for the salvation of the human race. What is "has sealed that God is true", except that man is a liar, God is true, because no man can say what belongs to truth unless he be enlightened by Him Who cannot lie? God then is true, and Christ is God. Do you wish to prove it? Receive His testimony, and you find: For he who receives His testimony has sealed that God is true

Who? He Who comes from heaven, and has descended, is above all; He is the true God.

For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God. He is the true God; He is God and our Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom the Apostle says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal. 4).

For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God. This he was surely saying of Christ, to distinguish himself from Him. For what? Did God not send John? Did he not himself say: I have been sent before Him? and: He Who sent me to baptize in water (John 1). And of him it was said: Behold, I send My angel before your face, and he shall prepare your way (Mal. 3). Does not he too speak the words of God, of whom it was even said that he is more than a prophet (Matt. 12)? If then the Lord sent him too, and he speaks the words of God, how do we take him to have said, by way of distinction concerning Christ: For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God? But see what he adds.

For God does not give the Spirit by measure. Hear the Apostle saying: According to the measure of the giving of Christ (Eph. 4). To men He gives by measure; to the only Son He does not give by measure. How to men by measure? To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another gifts of healings (1 Cor. 12). Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all [workers of] mighty works? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? That one has one thing, this one another; and what this one has, that one does not have. There is measure; there is a certain division of gifts. So to men measure is given, and concord, where it makes one body. As the hand receives one thing, that it may work, the eye another, that it may see, the ear another, that it may hear, the foot another, that it may walk: yet the soul is one, which does all things; in the hand, that it may work, in the foot, that it may walk, in the ear, that it may hear, in the eye, that it may see; so too the gifts of the faithful are diverse, distributed by measure, as to members, each its own. But Christ, Who gives, did not receive by measure. For hear further what follows, since he had spoken of the Son.

For God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. That you might know how distinctly it is said here too: The Father loves the Son. For why? Does the Father not love John? And yet He has not given all things into his hand. Does the Father not love Paul? And yet He has not given all things into his hand. The Father loves the Son, but as a Father the Son, not as a master a servant; as the only one, not as one adopted. And so He has given all things into His hand. What is "all things"? That the Son should be as great as the Father is.

CHAPTER IV.

When therefore Jesus had heard that the Pharisees had heard, etc. Surely the Lord, if He knew that the Pharisees had come to know of Him that He was making more disciples, and that

baptized more disciples, so that it might serve for their salvation by following Him, that they too might be disciples and that they too might rather wish to be baptized by Him, He would not have left the land of Judaea, but would have stayed there for their sake. But because He knew their knowledge, He knew at the same time their envy too, because they had not learned this in order to follow: He went away from there. He could indeed, even while present, not be held by them, if He did not will it; but because in everything He did as man He gave an example to men who were to believe in Him, because any servant of God does not sin if he withdraws to another place, seeing the strong fury of those persecuting him, or his life sought for harm; but the servant of God would seem to sin in this if he did it, had not the Lord gone before in doing it: that good Master did this to teach, not because He feared. Perhaps this too may trouble someone, why it was said: Jesus was baptizing more than John, and after it was said "was baptizing", it was added: although Jesus did not baptize, but His disciples. What then? Was something false said, and corrected? Or are both true? Because Jesus both baptized and did not baptize. For He baptized, because He Himself cleansed; He did not baptize, because He Himself did not dip. The disciples supplied the ministry of the body; He supplied the aid of majesty. For when would He cease from baptizing, Who does not cease from cleansing? Of Whom it was said by the same John, through the person of John the Baptist speaking: This is He Who baptizes (John 1). So Jesus still baptizes. And as long as those who are to be baptized are to be baptized, Jesus baptizes. Let a man approach the lower minister without anxiety, for he has a higher master. But perhaps someone may say: Christ baptizes indeed in the spirit, not in the body. As if anyone were imbued even with the sacrament of bodily and visible baptism by the gift of another than Him. Do you wish to know that He Himself baptizes not only with the spirit but also with water? Hear the Apostle: As Christ, he says, loved His Church, and delivered Himself up for her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word, that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Cleansing her, by what? By the washing of water in the word (Eph. 5). Take away the water, there is no baptism. Take away the word, there is no baptism. For it is often asked whether in this baptism of Christ's disciples the Holy Spirit was given, because of the words which are read in a later place of this gospel, where it is said: The Holy Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not been glorified (John 7). Certainly the Holy Spirit was given in this baptism of Christ's disciples, though not with that manifestation with which He was given in fiery tongues on the tenth day after the ascension of Christ. For that God works some things hiddenly, and some visibly through a visible creature, belongs to the government of His providence, by which all divine actions are carried out with a most beautiful distinction of the order of places and times. But how the Lord Himself certainly had the Holy Spirit with Him in the very Man Whom He bore, when He came to John to be baptized, and yet after He was baptized, [the Spirit was seen] to descend upon Him in the form of a dove

the Holy Spirit was seen, is to be understood thus: that before the manifest and visible coming of the Holy Spirit, any saints whatever could have had Him hiddenly. We indeed say this so that we may understand that also through the very visible showing of the Holy Spirit (which is called His coming) His fullness was poured more abundantly into the hearts of men in an ineffable, or even an unthinkable, manner. It follows:

He left Judaea, and went away again into Galilee. What is "He left Judaea", except: He left [it] because of the unbelief of those who would not receive Him, and rejected the stone which they ought to have built upon? And He went away through the apostles into Galilee, that is, into the revolving changeableness of this world, commanding the apostles: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28). For He had to pass through Samaria. In the reading of the Gospel, the holy evangelist has shown us most fully that the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself the weakness of the human race. For when he had said that the Lord came to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar, near the estate which Jacob gave to his son Joseph, on which estate was Jacob's well, he added:

Jesus, he says, wearied from the journey, was sitting thus on the well. This estate holy Jacob had left to his son Joseph; I think it was left not so much to Joseph as to Christ, Whose figure the holy patriarch Joseph bore, Whom the sun truly adores, and the moon and all the stars bless. To this estate the Lord came for this reason, that the Samaritans, who desired to claim for themselves the inheritance of the patriarch Israel, might recognize their owner and be converted to Christ, because He has become the lawful heir of the patriarch. For the evangelist says: But Jesus, wearied from the journey, was sitting thus on the well. The Gospel Sacraments, sealed in the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ, are not open to [all] men, and some, interpreting them less carefully and less soberly, often assert ruin instead of salvation, and error instead of the knowledge of the truth. And hence is that sacrament which is written, that the Lord came to Jacob's well at the sixth hour of the day, and, tired from the journey, sat down, asked a drink of the Samaritan woman, and the other things written in the same place which are said to be for discussion and thorough treatment. On which matter this must first be held, which must be guarded with the greatest vigilance in all the Scriptures: that the exposition of a divine sacrament be according to the faith. At the sixth hour of the day, then, our Lord came to the well. I see in the well a dark depth; I am therefore prompted to understand the lowest parts of this world (Eph. 4), that is, the earthly ones, to which Jesus came at the sixth hour, that is, in the sixth age of the human race, as in the old age of the old man, whom we are commanded to put off, that we may put on the new, who has been created according to God. For the sixth age is old age, because the first is infancy, the second childhood, the third adolescence, the fourth youth, the fifth maturity. So the life of the old man, which is lived according to the flesh in the condition of time, is closed by the sixth age, that is, old age, because in

in the old age (as I have said) of the human race our Lord, Creator and Restorer, came to us, so that, the old man dying, namely, He might establish the new in Himself, whom, stripped of the earthly mire, He might carry over into the heavenly kingdoms. So now the well, as has been said, by its dark depth signifies the earthly toil and error of this world. It has been said by the Apostle: And though our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner is renewed from day to day (2 Cor. 4). Most rightly altogether, since all visible things belong to the outer man, which Christian discipline renounces, the Lord came at the sixth hour, that is, at midday, when this visible sun now begins to decline towards its setting, since for us too, called by Christ to the love of invisible things, the inner man, re-created, returns to the inner light, which never sets, according to the apostolic discipline, seeking not the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4). That He came wearied to the well signifies the weakness of the flesh; that He gave humility, because He both took upon Himself the frailty of the flesh for us, and as man deigned to appear so humbly to men. Of this weakness of the flesh the prophet says: A man set in affliction, and knowing how to bear infirmity (Isa. 53). Of the humility the Apostle speaks, saying: He humbled Himself, made subject even unto death (Phil. 2). Although that He sat, since teachers are accustomed to sit, may by another understanding show not the modesty of humility, but the person of the master. But it may be asked why He asked to drink from the Samaritan woman, who had come to be filled with grace, when He Himself afterwards proclaimed that He could give the abundance of the spiritual fountain to those who asked Him? But God of course knew that woman's faith, she who, since she was a Samaritan, was accustomed to bear the image of the idolatry of Samaria. For they, separated from the people of the Jews, had made over the honour of their souls to images of dumb animals, that is, to golden calves. But Jesus our Lord had come to bring the multitude of the nations, which had served images, to the unity of the Christian faith and of uncorrupted religion. For they who are well, He says, have no need of a physician, but those who are sick (Matt. 9). So He thirsts for the faith of those for whom He shed His blood.

Jesus therefore said to her: Woman, give Me to drink. And as our Lord knew [the things] for which He thirsted, after a little while His disciples came, who had gone into the city to buy food; who say to Him:

Rabbi, eat. But He said to them: I have food to eat which you do not know. His disciples say to one another: Has anyone brought Him something to eat? Jesus says to them: My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me, to accomplish His work. Is anything else understood here by the will of the Father Who sent Him, and by His work which He answered that He willed to accomplish, but that He should turn us to His faith from the pernicious error of the world? As His food is, then, such also is His drink, because for this He thirsted in that woman, that He might do in her the will of the Father

and accomplish His work. But understanding carnally, she answered

Though You are a Jew, how do You ask to drink from me, since I am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not associate with the Samaritans. To whom our Lord said: If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would rather have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water. So that He might show her from this that He had not asked for such water as she had understood. But because He thirsted for her faith, He desired to give to her, as one who would know, the Holy Spirit. For this we rightly understand as the living water, which is the gift of God, as He Himself says: if you knew the gift of God; and as the same John testifies in another place, saying that Jesus stood and cried out: If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink (John 7), and quite in sequence: He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (ibid.). For first we believe, that we may merit these gifts. This river of living water, then, which He wished to give to that woman, is the reward of the faith for which He first thirsted in her. Of the interpretation of this living water he adds thus: Now this He said, he says, of the Spirit which those who were to believe in Him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified (ibid.). This then is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which after His glorification He gave to the Church, as another Scripture says: Ascending on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men (Ps. 67). But that woman still thinks carnally, for she answered thus:

Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from where then do You have living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave this well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle? But now the Lord explains what He had said:

Everyone, He says, who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water which I shall give will not thirst forever; but that water which I shall give will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. But the woman embraces the prudence of the flesh. For what did she answer?

Sir, give me this water, that I may neither thirst nor come here to draw. Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband, and come here. Since He knew that she had no husband, it is asked why He said this, for when the woman said:

I have no husband, Jesus says to her: You have said well that you have no husband, for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly. But these things are not to be taken carnally, lest we seem to be like this very Samaritan woman still, but, if we have already tasted something of that gift of God, let us treat this spiritually. Some take the five husbands as the five books which were ministered through Moses. And what was said, And he whom you now have is not your husband, they understand the Lord to have said of Himself, so that this is the sense: First you served the five books of Moses as five husbands; but He Whom you now have, that is, Whom you hear, is not your husband, because you have not yet believed in Him. But since not yet

believing in Christ, she was still in any case held in union with those five husbands, that is, the five books, it may raise the question how it could be said: You have had five husbands, as though she no longer had them now, when she was still in any case living subject to them. Then, since the five books of Moses preach nothing other than Christ, as He Himself says: If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe Me also, for he wrote of Me (John 5:46), how can a person be understood to depart from those five books in order to pass over to Christ, when he who believes in Christ embraces those five books far more blessedly, not to be left behind but to be understood spiritually? There is therefore another understanding, that the five husbands be understood as the five senses of the body: one which belongs to the eyes, by which we perceive this visible light, and every kind of colour, and the shapes of bodies. The second is that of the ears, by which we perceive the movements of voices and of all sounds. The third that of the nostrils, by which we delight in the varied sweetness of odours. The fourth, the taste in the mouth, perceives sweet and bitter, and holds the testing of all flavours. The fifth, through the whole body, judges by touching hot and cold, hard and soft, smooth and rough; and whatever else there is, we perceive by touching. With these five carnal senses, then, the first age of man is imbued, by the necessity of mortal nature, since after the sin of the first man we are so born that, before the light of the mind is restored, subject to the carnal senses, we pass a carnal life without any understanding of truth. Such of necessity are infants and little children, who cannot yet receive reason. And because these senses which rule the first age are natural, and have been bestowed on us by God as maker, they are rightly called husbands, that is, spouses, as being lawful, since it was not error by its own fault but nature, with God as maker, that supplied them. But when anyone has come to that age in which he can be capable of reason, if he has been able to grasp the truth at once, he would not use those senses as his rulers, but will have as husband the rational spirit, to which he may bring those senses into service, subjecting his body to servitude, when the soul is no longer subject to five husbands, that is, to the five bodily senses, but has the divine Word as lawful husband, to Whom joined and clinging, when the spirit of man too has clung to Christ, since the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor. 11:3), having embraced spiritual things, it enjoys eternal life without any fear of separation. For she was held by five apart, she who signified the multitude of the world being subjugated to vain superstitions, after those times of the five carnal senses by which, as we said, the first age is ruled: the Word of God had not taken her in marriage, but the devil held her in adulterous embrace. And so the Lord says to her, seeing that she was carnal, that is, of carnal mind: Go, call your husband, and come here, that is: Remove yourself from the carnal affection in which you are now placed, from which you cannot understand what I say; and call your husband, that is, Be present in the spirit of understanding. For the spirit of a man is in a certain way as it were the husband of the soul

of man, which rules the animal affection as a wife: not that Holy Spirit Who is given unchangeably with the Father and the Son; but the spirit of man, of which the Apostle says: No one knows what is in a man, except the spirit of the man (1 Cor. 2:11), for that Holy Spirit too is the Spirit of God; of Whom he says again: So also the things that are of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God (ibid.). When therefore this spirit of man is present, that is, is attentive, and subjects itself to God in piety, the man understands the things that are spoken spiritually. But when the error of the devil holds sway in the soul, the understanding being as it were absent, it is an adulterer. Call therefore, He says, your husband, that is, the spirit which is in you, by which a man can understand spiritual things. For if the light of truth illumines, the husband is understood to be present. Call therefore your husband, so that he may be present when I speak to you, so that you may receive the spiritual water. To her, as she denied that she had a husband: You have said well, He says. For you have had five husbands, that is, five carnal senses ruled you in your first age; and he whom you now have is not your husband, because there is not in you the spirit which understands God, with whom you could have a lawful marriage: but rather the error of the devil holds sway, which corrupts you with adulterous defilement. And perhaps, to show those who understand that the five bodily senses mentioned are signified by the name of five husbands, after five carnal answers this woman names Christ in her sixth answer. For her first answer is: How is it that you, being a Jew, ask to drink from me? the second: Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; the third: Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw; the fourth: I have no husband; the fifth: I see that you are a prophet: our fathers worshipped on this mountain. For this answer is carnal, since to the carnal an earthly place had been given where they should pray, whereas the Lord said that the spiritual would worship in spirit and truth. After He had said this, the woman in her sixth answer confesses that Christ would teach the account of all things.

For she says: I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when therefore he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. But she still errs, because she does not see that he whom she hopes is to come has come. Yet, by the mercy of the Lord, this error is now driven out like an adulterer.

For Jesus says to her: I am He, Who speak with you. Having heard this, she answered nothing, but at once, leaving her water jar, went off hastening into the city, so as not only to believe the Gospel and the coming of the Lord, but also to proclaim it. Nor is this, that she went away leaving the water jar, to be passed over carelessly: for the water jar perhaps signifies the love of this world, that is, cupidity: because men draw pleasure for themselves out of a dark depth, whose image the well bears, that is, out of an earthly way of life: and having tasted it, they burn again with desire for it, just as whoever drinks of that water will thirst again. It was fitting, then, that believing in Christ she should renounce the world, and by leaving the water jar show that she had left behind worldly cupidity, not only believing with the heart unto righteousness, but

but also, being about to confess it unto salvation, she believed as one who would preach it.

The woman says to Him: Sir, I see that you are a prophet. The husband has begun to come, he has not yet fully come; she thought the Lord a prophet: He was indeed a prophet, for He says of Himself: A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country (Luke 4:24). Likewise it was said of Him to Moses: I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like you (Deut. 18:18): like, that is, in the form of the flesh, not in the eminence of majesty. We find, then, that the Lord Jesus is called a prophet; accordingly this woman is no longer far astray. I see, she says, that you are a prophet; she begins to shut out the adulterer: I see that you are a prophet, and she begins to ask about what used to trouble her. For there had been a dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews, because the Jews worshipped God in the temple built by Solomon; the Samaritans, placed far from there, did not worship in it; and so the Jews would have it that they were better, since they worshipped God in the temple. For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans, because these said to them: Because you worship in the temple, and on that account declare yourselves better than us, since we do not have it: did our fathers, who pleased God, worship in that temple? Did they not worship on this mountain, where I now am? We therefore do better, they say, to petition God on this mountain, where our fathers petitioned Him. Both sides contended in ignorance, because, not having the husband, the one for the temple, the other for the mountain, they were inflamed against each other. Yet what does the Lord now teach the woman, as one whose husband has begun to be present? The woman says to Him: Sir, I see that you are a prophet; our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem one ought to worship. Jesus says to her:

Woman, believe Me. For the Church believes the Bridegroom, as it is written in the Song of Songs: Behold, my beloved speaks to me: Arise, make haste, my love, and come. For now the winter is past, the rain is gone, the flowers have appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come, the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land (Song 2:10–12). Rightly, now that the husband is present, the woman hears: Believe Me, for now there is in you one who may believe, because your husband is present. You have begun to be present in understanding, when you called Me a prophet. Woman, believe Me, because unless you believe, you will not understand. Therefore, woman, believe Me:

For the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when. What hour, then?

When the true worshippers will worship not on this mountain, not in the temple, but in spirit and truth. God is spirit. If God were a body, He would have had to be worshipped on a mountain, since a mountain too is bodily; He would have had to be worshipped in a temple, since a temple is bodily.

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit. We worship what we know; you worship what you do not know, since salvation is from the Jews. He granted much to the Jews, but do not take these to be the reprobate. Take that wall to which another has been joined

a wall, so that they might be joined together alike in the corner-stone, which is Christ. For one wall is from the Jews, one from the gentiles. These walls are far from each other, but only until they are joined in the corner. The foreigners, however, were strangers, and aliens from the covenants of God. In this sense, then, it was said: We worship what we know. It was said, to be sure, in the person of the Jews, but of such as the apostles were, such as the prophets were, such as were all those saints who sold all that they had, and laid the prices of their goods at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:34–35). For God has not cast off His people whom He foreknew (Ps. 93:14). This woman heard this, and added something more. Long since she had called Him a prophet. She saw that He with Whom she was speaking said other things, such that He was already more than a prophet; and see what she answered. The woman says to Him:

I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When therefore he comes, he will show us all things. What is this? Now, she says, the Jews contend about the temple, and we contend about the mountain. When he comes, he will spurn the mountain and overturn the temple; he will teach all things, so that we may know how to worship in spirit and truth. She knew who could teach her, but she did not yet recognize Him already teaching her. Now, therefore, she was worthy that He should be made manifest to her. Now Messiah means anointed; anointed in Greek is Christ, in Hebrew Messiah. So the woman says to Him: I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When therefore he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.

Jesus says to her: I am He, Who speak with you. She has called her husband; her husband has become the head of the woman; Christ has become the head of the husband. Now the woman is set in order in faith, and is ruled so as to live well. After she had heard this: I am He, Who speak with you, what more could she say, when Christ the Lord had willed to manifest Himself to the woman to whom He had said: Believe Me?

And at once the disciples came, and they marvelled that He was speaking with a woman. That He Who had come to seek what was lost (Luke 19:10) was seeking the lost woman, this they marvelled at. For they marvelled at something good; they did not suspect evil.

Yet no one said: What do you seek, or why do you speak with her? So the woman left her water jar, having heard: I am He, Who speak with you. And having received Christ the Lord into her heart, what should she do but now put down the water jar and run to preach the Gospel? She cast away cupidity, and hastened to proclaim the truth. Let those who wish to preach the Gospel learn: let them cast away the water jar at the well. Remember what I said above about the water jar. It was a vessel with which water was drawn. In Greek it is called hydria, since in Greek water is called hydor; as if one were to say aquarium. She casts away the water jar, therefore, which was now no longer a use but a burden. For she eagerly longed to be filled with that water, so as to proclaim Christ. Having thrown off the burden, she ran to the city.

And she says to those people: Come and see a man who told me all that I have done; can he be the Christ? They went out of the city and were coming to Him, and the disciples were asking Him, saying: Rabbi, eat. For they had gone to buy food, and had come back. But He said:

I have food to eat which you do not know. So the disciples said to one another: Has anyone brought Him something to eat? What wonder if that woman did not understand the water? See, the disciples do not yet understand the food. But He heard their thoughts, and now instructs them as a master, not in a roundabout way, as He did her whose husband He was still seeking, but now openly.

My food, He says, is to do the will of Him Who sent Me. So this too was His drink in that woman, to do the will of Him Who sent Him. That is why He said: I thirst, give Me to drink, namely, that He might work faith in her, and drink her faith, and take her over into His body. For His body is the Church. So, He says, this is My food, to do the will of Him Who sent Me.

Do you not say that there are yet four months, and the harvest comes? He was burning for the work, and was arranging to send labourers. You count four months to the harvest; I show you another harvest, white and ready.

Behold, I say to you: Lift up your eyes, and see, for the fields are already white for the harvest. So He is about to send reapers. For in this the saying is true, that one is he who reaps, another he who sows, so that he who sows may rejoice together with him who reaps. I sent you to reap what you did not labour for. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour. Why then did He send reapers, not sowers? Where were the reapers sent? Where others had already laboured. For where the labour had already been done, and the sowing done, it had now become ripe and wanted the sickle and the threshing. Where then were the reapers to be sent? Where the prophets had already preached, for they were the sowers. For if they were not the sowers, from where had it reached that woman: I know that the Messiah is coming? That woman was already ripe fruit, and the harvests were white and were seeking the sickle. I sent you. Where? To reap what you did not sow; others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours. Who laboured? Abraham himself, Isaac and Jacob. Read their labours: in all their labours there is a prophecy of Christ. And so the sowers, Moses and the other patriarchs and all the prophets, how much they endured in that cold when they were sowing! So Judaea was already a harvest made ready: rightly was there, as it were, a ripe crop there, when so many thousands of men brought the prices of their goods, and laying them at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:34–35), having lost from their shoulder their worldly burdens, followed Christ the Lord. Truly a ripe harvest. What was done afterwards with that harvest? A few grains were cast out, and they sowed the whole world; and another harvest is rising, which is to be reaped at the end of the world. Of that harvest it is said: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy (Ps. 125:5). To that harvest, then, not apostles but angels are sent. The reapers, He says, are the angels. This harvest, then, grows among tares, and waits to be cleansed at the end. But that harvest was already ripe, since the disciples were sent first to where the prophets too had laboured. But yet, brethren, see

what has been said: That he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. They had unequal labours in time, but they will enjoy the joy alike, being about to receive their reward together, eternal life.

And from that city many believed in Him on account of her word, on account of the word of the woman bearing witness: He told me all that I have done. So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days; and many more believed on account of His word; and they said to the woman: It is no longer on account of your talk that we believe. For we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. And this too must be noticed a little, since the reading is finished: the woman first brought the news, and on the woman's testimony the Samaritans believed, and they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days; and more believed; and when they had believed, they said to the woman: It is no longer on account of your word that we believe, but we ourselves have come to know, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. First through report, afterwards through presence. So it is done today with those who are outside and are not yet Christians: Christ is announced through Christian friends, just as that woman, that is, the Church, announces it, so that they may come to Christ. They believe through this report; He stays with them for two days, that is, He gives them the two precepts of charity; and many more believe in Him more firmly, since He is truly the Saviour of the world.

After two days He went out from there. For Jesus Himself bore witness that a prophet has no honour in his own country. Now, the Samaritans, that is, the gentiles, having been strengthened in faith and charity, He returns in the last days of this world to His own country, in which He has not yet had honour; of which He Himself testifies in this place that a prophet has no honour in his own country. In His own country He worked miracles, and they did not believe in Him; in Samaria He did not work them, yet they believed on the testimony of one woman. For the Church believed in the Son of God through the apostolic preaching, which was rejected by the Synagogue; hence in His earthly country, though Christ Himself preached, only a few believed. And this is what one evangelist says in another place: He who believes in Me, the works that I do he too will do, and he will do greater than these (John 14:12). Greater works were the faith of the whole world through the apostolic preaching than that of Christ, Who in Judaea saved very few, so few indeed that His disciples, apart from the twelve, left Him, as it is said: Many of His disciples went back, and no longer walked with Him (John 6:67).

The Galileans welcomed Him, having seen all that He had done in Jerusalem on the feast day; for they too had gone up to the feast day. Perhaps stirred by curiosity about the miracles, not by the wish to hear His preaching.

So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine. As if he were saying: Although the house was full of guests reclining at table, where Christ worked the miracle in their sight, yet few believed in Him, as the evangelist says: And His disciples believed in Him

And perhaps it was said to the shame of His fellow citizens, and to the praise of the foreigners. For the Galileans were Christ's fellow citizens, and the Samaritans were foreigners. In the sacred history one reads:

Now there was a certain official whose son was sick at Capernaum. Regulus is a diminutive noun from rex, king; and perhaps this man is called a regulus, a little king, for this reason, that he asked health for his son while he did not have full faith: he had it and did not have it. Therefore he heard: Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe. For one who sought health for his son without doubt believed. Nor would he seek health from one whom he did not believe to be the Saviour. Why then is it said: Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe, to one who believed before he saw a sign? But remember what he asks, and you will plainly recognize that he wavered in faith. For he asked that He should come down and heal his son. So he sought the bodily presence of the Lord, Who by the Spirit was absent nowhere. He therefore believed less in Him Whom he thought unable to give health unless He were present in body too. For if he had believed perfectly, he would without doubt have known that there is no place where God is not. He was therefore divided in great part, because he gave honour not to the majesty but to the fleshly presence. And so he both asked health for his son and yet wavered in faith, because he believed Him to Whom he had come to be powerful to heal, and yet thought God to be absent from his dying son. But the Lord, being asked to go, shows that He is not absent where He is invited, and by His command alone restored health, He Who by His will created all things. In this matter we must carefully observe this, that, as we have learned from the testimony of another Evangelist: A centurion said to the Lord: Lord, my servant lies paralysed at home, and is grievously tormented (Matt. 8:6). To whom Jesus at once replied: I will come and heal him. Why is it that the official asks Him to come to his son, and yet He declines to go in body; while to the centurion's servant He is not invited, and yet He promises to go in body? He does not deign to be present in body to the official's son; He does not disdain to go to meet the centurion's servant. What is this, except that our pride is beaten down, we who in men, who are made in the image of God, venerate not the nature but honours and riches; and when we weigh what surrounds them, we surely do not perceive what is within at all. While we consider what is despised in bodies, we neglect to weigh what they are. But our Redeemer, to show that what is lofty among men is to be despised by the saints, and what is despised among men is not to be despised, would not go to the official's son, and was ready to go to the centurion's servant. Our pride, therefore, is rebuked, which does not know how to weigh men for the sake of men, but, as we said, weighs only the things that surround men. It does not look at the nature; it does not recognize the honour of God in men. See, the Son of God will not go to the official's son, and yet is ready to come for the healing of a servant. This is what the Apostle says: God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong (1 Cor. 1:27).

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and went his way. For he was beginning to have faith in the word of Jesus, and so he merited the health of his son; and he who came in part doubting went away faithful; and so he merited the health of his son.

Now the servants met him, announcing that his son was living. So he asked the hour in which he had grown better; and they said to him: Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him. The number seven is hallowed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in Whom health consists for men who believe, because in the Holy Spirit, Who is the gift of God, there is the remission of all sins for those who believe. The number seven too, if it is divided into three and four, signifies the Holy Trinity in the number three, and the whole of all creatures in the number four, because of the four elements, the four living creatures, the four quarters of the world and the four seasons of the year, all of which were created from Him, and through Him, and in Him (Col. 1:16), and subsist and are governed; since in Him we live, and move, and are (Acts 17:28).

He himself believed, and his whole household. Because his son was announced to him as healed. At the word alone, then, many Samaritans believed; but at that miracle only that household believed. This foreshadows, in the multitude, the faith of the gentiles, and in the fewness, the faith of the Jews: for the gentiles believed by the word alone, that is, by the apostolic preaching; but the Jews saw signs, and the Son of God Himself working them, and yet few of them believed.

CHAPTER V.

The love of the divine sayings, and the sweetness of understanding Holy Scripture, and above all of the humble truth of the Gospel, in which an honourable simplicity of words lies open and a lofty depth of meanings lies hidden, exhorts both us to speak and you to listen, the Lord Himself helping, Who gives sweetness, so that our land may yield its fruit. And would that the sense for speaking were as effective in us as the understanding for eager listening has been given to you, while I see you listening without weariness, and with the quiet joy of your heart, by which what is wholesome is not spat out but taken in with eagerness and profitably retained. Let us speak to you, then, now too about the Gospel reading. Two miracles of human healing are read together, one shown invisibly through the ministry of an angel, the other visibly through the presence of the Lord. But the mysteries of both must be expounded to us briefly, lest a long explanation of a long reading should perhaps be burdensome to anyone. The sheep pool, which was surrounded by five porches, is the people of the Jews, fortified on every side by the guard of the law, lest it should sin. For rightly the law, which was written in the five books of Moses, is figured by the number five. Rightly the people, which in some things kept purity of life, but in others was wont to be tossed by the temptations of unclean spirits, is signified through water by the pool, which used now to lie calm under the winds, now to be stirred up when they rushed upon it. And well is that pool called the sheep pool: for probata

in Greek means sheep, because there were indeed in that people those who could say to the Lord: But we are Thy people, and the sheep of Thy flock; we will give praise to Thee for ever (Ps. 78:13). Commonly, however, it is said to have been called the probatica, that is, the cattle pool, because the priests were accustomed to wash the victims in it. The multitude of the sick who lay in the porches mentioned, waiting for the movement of the water, signifies the crowds of those who, hearing the words of the law, grieved that they could not fulfil it by their own strength, and therefore implored the help of the Lord's grace with all the affections of their soul. The blind were those who did not yet have perfect faith; the lame, those who could not carry out with the steps of action the good things they knew; the withered, those who, having some eye of knowledge, yet lacked the richness of hope and love. Such lay in the five porches, but were not healed except in the pool when the angel came, because through the law comes the knowledge of sin, but the grace of remission came only through Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:20). Him the angel designates, who, descending invisibly into the pool and imparting the power to heal, stirred the water. For the angel of great counsel, clothed in flesh, that is, the messenger of the Father's will, descended among the people of the Jews, and stirred sinners by His teaching, being made such that He Himself should be slain, He Who by His bodily death was sufficient not only to heal one spiritually sick but also to bring the dead to life. The movement of the water, then, intimates the Lord's passion, which was brought about when the Jewish nation was moved and stirred up; and because through that same passion believers have been redeemed from the curse of the law, those who had until then lain sick in the porches are healed, as it were going down into the water when the pool is stirred. For the letter of the law, which taught those who did not know what was to be done and what avoided, and yet did not help those it had taught to fulfil its decrees, held the sick within its porches, as though led out from the seats of their former ignorance, and did not heal them. But the grace of the Gospel, through faith and the mystery of the Lord's passion, heals all the infirmities of our iniquities, from which we could not be justified in the law of Moses. He Who washes away through the water of baptism the sins which the law had shown sends the sick, as it were cast out of the porches of the law, into the stirred water of the pool so that they may be healed, as the Apostle testifies that all of us who have been baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death, buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:3–4). And well is it said that whoever went down first after the movement of the water was made whole of whatever infirmity he was held by, because there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God (Eph. 4:5–6), and he who is imbued with the mysteries of Christ in catholic unity is made whole of whatever infirmity of sins he is held by. But whoever disagrees with the unity cannot obtain the salvation which is from the One. This much we have said about the first miracle of the Gospel reading, which the Spirit gave. Now let us speak to your fraternity about the second, which He Himself gave. In which also

one healer alone is commended, not because the loving kindness of the almighty Saviour could not heal all the sick whom He found there, but in order to teach that apart from the unity of the catholic faith no place of salvation lies open to anyone.

Now there was a certain man there, he says, who had been thirty-eight years in his infirmity. This man, held by an infirmity of many years, signifies any sinner weighed down by the enormous greatness or number of his crimes: and to the signifying of his guilt even the span of time during which he was sick is fitting, for he had been thirty-eight years in infirmity. Now the number forty, which is made by multiplying ten four times, is commonly taken in the Scriptures for the perfection of an upright way of life, because whoever conducts himself with a perfect way of life fulfils, surely, the decalogue of the law through the four books of the holy Gospel. From this perfection he certainly lacks two who goes on empty of the love of God and of neighbour, which the Scripture of the law and of the Gospel alike commends. This too the Lord taught mystically when healing the sick man, as He says:

Rise, take up your bed and walk. For Rise is said, that is, shake off the torpor of the vices in which you have long been sick, and raise yourself to the exercise of the virtues, by which you may be saved for ever. Take up your bed; carry, that is, love your neighbour, bearing his weaknesses patiently, he who has long and patiently borne with you while you were still weighed down by the bundle of temptations. For bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). And as he says elsewhere: Bearing with one another in charity, careful to keep the unity in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:2–3). But Walk: love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength; and so that you may deserve to attain to the vision of Him, advance from virtue to virtue by the daily steps of good works; neither abandoning, for love of Him to Whom you are going, the brother whom you lead by bearing with him, nor, for love of your brother, turning aside the intention of your straight course from seeking Him with Whom you long to abide. But so that you may be perfectly saved, rise, take up your bed, and walk. That is, leave behind your former sins, come to the aid of your brethren's needs, and in all that you do see that you do not fix your mind on this world, but hasten to see the face of your Redeemer. Rise, by doing good; carry your bed, by loving your neighbour; and walk, by awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God (Titus 2:13). But wondrous is the madness of the faithless, who at so unexpected a healing of one long sick ought to have believed and been spiritually healed, but on the contrary are scandalized, and contrive calumnies against both the one saved and the Saviour: against the one saved, because he carried his bed on the Sabbath; against the Saviour, because on the Sabbath He commanded both that man to be saved and the bed to be carried. Who could know better about the Sabbath than so great a power of the Godhead?

The Jews, he says, said to him who had been healed: It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. They foolishly defended the letter of the law, not knowing the dispensation of Him Who, having once decreed the edicts of the law through a servant, now coming Himself, the same law

[the Lord] might change by grace, so that what the carnal had long observed carnally according to the letter, they might thenceforth, as spiritual men, know was to be observed spiritually. For on the carnal Sabbath, which they kept according to the Decalogue, the people were commanded to rest from all servile work on the seventh day. But the spiritual Sabbath is, in the light of spiritual grace, which is received as sevenfold, to remain at rest from the restlessness of vices not on one day but on every day. For if, according to the Lord's word, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34), it is plainly evident that sins are rightly understood as servile works: from which we are bidden to go free as on the seventh day in the receiving of spiritual grace, and not only to refrain from wicked deeds but also to persevere in good ones, which the Lord showed figuratively in this reading too, when He commanded the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years not only to rise on the Sabbath day but also to take up his pallet and walk: implying, namely, that those who waste away in the long sickness of vices and, empty of the love of God and of neighbour, have as it were two less than the perfect sum of the virtues, can now through the gift of the Holy Spirit rise up from [their] ways, and, their body shaken off, must hasten with the honour of brotherly love to the vision of their Maker. And that the man who was healed recognizes Jesus not while still in the crowd but afterwards in the temple teaches us mystically that, if we truly desire to know the grace of our Maker, to be strengthened in His love, to come to His vision, we should carefully flee the crowd, not only of thoughts and wicked affections that disturb us, but also of worthless men who could hinder the purpose of our sincerity, whether by showing evil things by their example, or by mocking our good works or even forbidding them. Let us flee diligently to the house of prayer, where, calling upon the Lord in secret freedom, we may both give thanks for the benefits received from Him and pray with humble devotion for those yet to be received. Nay rather, let us take care ourselves to be a holy temple of God, into which He may deign to come and make His dwelling, hearing from the Apostle: That your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you (1 Cor. 6:19). Among these things it is to be observed more carefully, my brethren, that the Lord, finding in the temple the man whom He had healed, says to him:

Behold, you are made whole; sin no more now, lest something worse befall you. By these words it is openly shown that he was ill because of sins, and could not be healed unless they were forgiven. But He who saved him outwardly from infirmity also saved him inwardly from wickedness, and so He warned him carefully beforehand lest by sinning further he bring upon himself the sentence of a heavier condemnation. This is not to be understood as though everyone who is ill is ill on account of sins. Often a man is made ill lest he be lifted up in the gifts of God, as is read of Paul the apostle (2 Cor. 12:7). Often too he is afflicted that he may be proved, as the patience of blessed Job was afflicted; and infirmity is often proved to be given for chastisement: God scourges every son whom He receives (Heb. 12:6). But to some infirmity is given for the glory of God, as of the man born blind and

as is read of Lazarus (John 9:3; 11:4). The Lord knows for what reason He bids anyone be made ill, often by a judgement hidden from men, but never unjust. But let us learn to submit humbly to the most loving scourges of our Redeemer, reckoning that we suffer less than we deserve, ever mindful of that saying, that blessed is the man who is corrected by the Lord (Job 5:17). And He Himself says in the Apocalypse: Those whom I love I rebuke and chastise (Rev. 3:19). Now when the long-sick man had been healed inwardly and outwardly, that is, rescued both from the scourges of open chastisement and from the sins by which he deserved them, the Jews, on the contrary, sick within with an evil sickness, now begin to grow worse, namely by persecuting Jesus for doing these things on the Sabbath. And they persecuted Him as though following at once the authority of the law and the example of the divine working, because the Lord too, having completed the creation of the world in six days, rested on the seventh from all His works (Gen. 2:2); and commanded the people to work six days and to rest on the seventh (Exod. 35:2). They did not understand that the carnal decrees of the law were gradually to be changed by spiritual interpretation, when He appeared Who is not only the lawgiver but also the end of the law, Christ, unto justice for everyone who believes (Rom. 10:4). Nor did they observe that the Maker on the seventh day ceased not from the work of governing the world, and from the yearly, nay daily, replacement of created things, but from the new establishing of creatures. For what is said, God rested on the seventh day from all His works (Gen. 2:2), is to be understood to mean that God ceased from the making of new creatures. But as for what the Truth Himself says here:

My Father works until now, and I work. The Father and the Son work, so that the diversity of natures which were established in the first establishing of the world may endure. The same is said in the Psalms: Who fashioned their hearts one by one (Ps. 32:15); He does not form unknown kinds of souls, but souls of the same substance as that which was established in the first man. Therefore the Psalmist, when he referred not only the primordial creation of the world but also the daily governance of the creature to the praise of the Creator, said among other things: Thou hast made all things in wisdom (Ps. 103:24). And if we rightly confess Christ to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, and God made and rules all things in wisdom, it is certainly clear that the Father works until now, and the Son. Therefore, He says, My Father did not work only in the first six days, as you suppose, but works until now, not by establishing a new kind of creature, but by propagating what He had created in the beginning, lest they fail. And I work, understood: until now, ordering, ruling, increasing all things with Him. As if He were saying openly: Why do you envy me? Why do you revile me, teachers of the law of heaven, because in the form of man I have worked the health of one man on the Sabbath, I who in the nature of the Godhead, together with God the Father, ever at rest, work the whole human race, nay the whole fabric of the world, and all things visible and invisible? But they, little capable of so great a mystery, therefore sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also [said] His own Father

was saying that God [was His Father], making Himself equal to God. They grieved most at this, that He whom they had known through the weakness of the flesh to be a true man had wished to be believed the true Son of God, that is, not adopted by grace, like the other saints to whom the Prophet speaks: I have said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High (Ps. 81:6), but equal to the Father by nature in all things; differing not in substance but in person: they thought that Jesus Christ by preaching was making Himself what He was not, not truly making known what He was. So the Jews were moved, and were indignant: rightly indeed, in that a man dared to make himself equal to God; but therefore wrongly, because in the man they did not understand God. They saw the flesh, they did not know God. They perceived the dwelling, they were ignorant of the dweller. For that flesh was a temple; God dwelt within. So Jesus did not make the flesh equal to the Father, He did not compare the form of a servant to the Lord; not what was made for our sake, but what He was when He made us. For who Christ is, I speak to Catholics. You know, who have believed well, that not the Word only, but the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14); in this flesh the Father is greater. Thus He is the Father's equal, and the Father is greater. Equal to the Word, greater than the flesh; equal to Him through Whom He made us, greater than He who was made for our sake. But when the Jews were moved and disturbed because Christ made Himself equal to the Father, they who understood Him to be only a man, not God, who saw the flesh and did not believe the Godhead, He said to them: The Son cannot do anything of Himself except what He sees the Father doing. The Father does not do some works which the Son sees, and the Son other works when He has seen the Father doing them, but the Father and the Son Himself [do] the same works. For it follows: For whatever He does, these things the Son also does likewise. Not that when He has done other things, the Son does likewise. If the Son does these things which the Father does, the Father does not do some and the Son others, but the works of the Father and the Son are the same; how does the Son too do them? Both the same, and likewise, lest perhaps [it be thought] the same but unlike. The same, He says, and likewise; for all things that the Father does, He does through the Son, as it is said: All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made (John 1:3). He said likewise for this reason, that the Son does the same things which the Father also does; because of the Father and the Son there is in the Godhead one substance and working, one will and power, one life and essence; and all things are equal in the Father and the Son, except that the Father is father and the Son is son: the distinction is in the persons, but the unity in the nature. For the Son cannot do anything of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing. We ought not to understand this saying carnally, as of two men, a father and a son, one showing, the other seeing, one speaking, the other hearing, all of which are phantasms of the heart. Such a thought is to be driven far from Christian breasts. Therefore the example of the present reading teaches concerning the Son and the Father that neither the Father nor the Son has any difference of Godhead, but one majesty. For when He says that the Son does nothing except what He sees the Father doing, this is not to be understood bodily, because God does not see in bodily ways, but His sight

is wholly in the power of His nature. For there can be no division in the simple nature of the Godhead, but for the Son to see and to be are the same. Therefore He added:

For whatever the Father does, the Son also does the same likewise. Showing the meaning of one nature and of one working, because the working of the Father and the Son is common, Whose nature is one, and Whose working also is one. Therefore He added in consequence:

The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does. To show that this whole showing of the Father is a teaching for our faith, namely lest the Father and the Son be confounded for us; and lest any ignorance be understood here in the Son or the Father (for He would show all the works which He Himself did), He at once says:

And greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom He will. For He says the Father will show the Son things at which they will marvel. And what those same things were, He soon taught: For as the Father raises the dead, so the Son also gives life to whom He will. The power is made equal through the unity of an unlike-less nature; the showing of the works carries no instruction of ignorance, but [an instruction] of our faith, which brought in not knowledge of unknown things for the Son but the confession of unity for us. For the Father's showing is to do through the Son what He is going to do. For greater works are the resurrection of the dead, which will be on the last day, than the healing of this sick man, who was healed by the word of Christ, from which the whole occasion of this discourse arose. For He says, that you may marvel; and this is hard to see, how the eternal Father should show some things, as if in time, to the coeternal Son, Who knows all things that are with the Father. Yet what things are greater than that, this is easy to understand. For as the Father, He says, raises the dead and gives life, so the Son too gives life to whom He will. Greater works, then, are to raise the dead than to heal the sick. But as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son too gives life to whom He will. Does the Father then [raise] some, the Son others? No, but all things through Him. So the Son [raises] the very ones the Father [raises], because the Son does not do other things, nor otherwise, but these same things likewise. So it is plainly to be understood, and so held. But remember that the Son gives life to whom He will. Hold fast here, then, not only the power of the Son but also His will. The Son gives life to whom He will, and the Father gives life to whom He will, and the Son to the very ones the Father does; and hence the power and the will of the Father and the Son are the same. The same too is the life and the giving of life to the dead. And therefore He says: As the Father raises the dead and gives life to whom He will, so the Son too gives life to whom He will. For the Son does not give life to some, the Father to others, but one power works one giving of life: which power too is to be honoured with one mouth. And therefore He added in consequence:

For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. The Father judges no one, because the person of the Father did not take up man, nor will He be seen in the judgement, but the person of the Son alone, in that form

in which He was unjustly judged, He will justly judge the living and the dead. For the Son will not be seen in the judgement in that nature in which He is consubstantial with God the Father, but in that in which He is of one substance with His mother, and was made man. So it is to be understood: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, as if it were said: No one will see the Father in the judgement of the living and the dead, but all will see the Son, because He is the Son of man, so that He can be seen even by the wicked, when they too shall see Him Whom they pierced (John 19:37). And lest we seem to conjecture rather than openly demonstrate this, let us bring forward a sure and clear saying of the same Lord, by which we may show that this was the very reason why He said: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, namely that the judge will appear in the form of the Son of man: which form is not the Father's but the Son's: and not that [form] of the Son in which He is equal to the Father, but that in which He is less than the Father, so that in the judgement He may be visible to the good and the wicked, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father, because no one honours the Father except in that He has a Son. For what is it to honour the Father, except [to honour Him] in that He has a Son? For it is one thing when God is commended to you because He is God, and another when God is commended to you because He is Father. When He is commended to you because He is God, a creator is commended to you, an almighty one is commended to you, a certain supreme spirit, eternal, invisible, unchangeable, is commended to you. But when He is commended to you because He is Father, nothing else is commended to you than that the Son too [is], because He cannot be called Father if He has no Son; just as neither [can He be called] Son if He has no Father. But lest perhaps you honour the Father indeed as greater, but the Son as less, so as to say to me: I honour the Father, for I know that He has a Son and I do not err in the name of Father, for I do not understand the Father without the Son, yet I honour the Son as less, the Son Himself corrects you and calls you back, saying: That all may honour the Son, not lower, but as they honour the Father. He then who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father Who sent Him. I, you say, wish to give greater honour to the Father, less to the Son. There you take honour from the Father where you give less to the Son. For what else does that opinion mean, except that the Father either would not or could not beget a Son equal to Himself? If He would not, He begrudged; if He could not, He failed. Do you not see, then, that one must think thus? Where you wish to give greater honour to the Father, there you are insulting towards the Father. Therefore honour the Son in the same way as you honour the Father. If you will, honour both the Son and the Father.

Amen, amen, I say to you, that he who hears My word and believes Him Who sent Me has eternal life; and he does not come into judgement, but has passed. He does not pass now, but has already passed from death to life. And attend to this: He who hears My word, and (He did not say, believes Me, but) believes Him Who sent Me. Let him therefore hear the word of the Son, that he may believe the Father. Why does he hear Your word, and believe another? When we hear someone's word, do we not believe the very one who utters the word? Do we not give our trust to the one speaking to us? What then did He mean to say: He who hears My word

and believes Him Who sent Me, except: Because the word is in Me? And who is it that hears My word, except he who hears Me, who believes Me? But he believes Him Who sent Me, because when he believes Him, he believes His word. When then he believes His word, he believes Me, because I am the Word of the Father. For he would not pass from death to life unless he were first in death, and were not in life. When then he has passed into life, he will not be in death. He was dead, then, and has come to life again; he was lost, and is found (Luke 15:32). There comes about, therefore, already a kind of resurrection, and men pass from a certain death to a certain life: from the death of unbelief to the life of faith, from the death of falsehood to the life of truth, from the death of iniquity to the life of justice. This too, then, is a resurrection of the dead. Let Him open it more fully, and let it dawn upon us as it has begun.

Amen, amen, I say to you, that the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live. This is proper to the godly, who so hear of His Incarnation that they believe that He is the Son of God, that is, they so receive Him, made for their sake, less than the Father in the form of a servant, that they believe that He is equal to the Father in the form of God. And therefore it follows, and commending this very thing He says:

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself. What then He says, He has given to the Son to have life in Himself, let it be put briefly: He begot a Son having life in Himself. For He was not without life and then received life, but by being born He is life. The Father is life, and not by being born; the Son is life by being born. The Father is of no father, the Son of God the Father. The Father is on account of the Son, but the Son, both in that He is Son, is on account of the Father, and in that He is, is from the Father. This then He said: He gave life to the Son, that He might have it in Himself, as though He said: The Father, Who is life in Himself, begot the Son, Who is also life in Himself. For in place of He begot, He wished dedit [He gave] to be understood, as if we were to say to someone, God gave you to be. For it follows, and He says:

And He has given Him power to execute judgement, because He is the Son of man. I think nothing is plainer. For because the Son of God is equal to the Father, He does not receive this power of executing judgement, but has it with the Father in secret. But He receives it so that the good and the wicked may see Him judging, because He is the Son of man. For the sight of the Son of man will be shown to the wicked also. For the sight of the form of God will be shown only to the clean of heart (because they shall see God [Matt. 5:8]), that is, to the godly alone, to whose love He promises this very thing, that He will show Himself to them. And therefore see what follows: Do not marvel at this, He says. What does He forbid us to marvel at, except that at which we truly marvel? Everyone who understands, as I see it, would not have said that the Father gave Him power to execute judgement because He is the Son of man, when this rather would have been expected to be said: because He is the Son of God; but because the wicked cannot see the Son of God according to that in which, in the form of God, He is equal to the Father, and yet it is fitting that the judge of the living and the dead

when they are judged in His presence, both the just and the wicked may see [Him].

Do not marvel at this, He says, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice; and those who have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life: those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement. It was needful, then, that He should receive that power for this reason, because He is the Son of man, so that all as they rise might see Him in the form in which He can be seen by all, but some to damnation, others to eternal life. And what is eternal life, except that vision which is not granted to the wicked? That they may know Thee, He says, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent (John 17:3). [That is], in the way in which [they know] the one true God, Who shows Himself to them, not as He will show Himself even to those who are to be punished. In the form of the Son of man, He is good according to that vision, the vision which God, appearing, shows to the clean of heart, since how good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart (Ps. 72:1). But when the wicked see the judge, He will not seem good to them, because they will not rejoice in heart towards Him, but then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn (Matt. 24:30), in the number, that is, of wicked and unbelieving men. For this reason too, to the one who had called Him good master, seeking counsel of Him for attaining eternal life, He answered: Why do you ask about the good? No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18). Though in another place the Lord Himself calls a man good: The good man, He says, out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things (Luke 6:45). But because that man sought eternal life, and eternal life is in that contemplation in which God is seen not unto punishment but unto everlasting joy, the Lord Christ Himself shows us in these words two resurrections. The first, which is in faith, by rising from sins, of which He says:

Amen, amen, I say to you, that the hour is coming, and now is, in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; the other, where He says: Amen, amen, I say to you, that the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God. That former is the resurrection of souls; this following one will be the resurrection of bodies. He who rises in this first, will rise in the second to glory. But he who does not rise in this first, will still rise in the second, but to punishment. God does both through Christ. He who rises here through Him, will rise there to Him; he who does not rise here through Him, will not rise there to Him either. Now is the hour for the dead to rise. The hour will be at the end of the world for the dead to rise; but let them rise now in mind, then in flesh. Let them rise now in mind through the Word, the Son of God; let them rise then in flesh through the Word of God made flesh, the Son of man. For the Father Himself will not come to the judgement of the living and the dead, and yet the Father does not withdraw from the Son. How then will He Himself not come? Because He Himself will not be seen in the judgement. They shall look on Him Whom they pierced (John 19:37). That form will be judge which stood beneath a judge. That will judge which was judged. For it was judged unjustly; it will judge justly. Such

will the judge appear, such as can be seen both by those whom He is to crown and by those whom He is to condemn. There is a distinction between that word which He said above, that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and that which He says here: The hour is coming that all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God. For there He adds, and those who hear shall live; but here He says simply, they shall hear the voice of the Son of God. Therefore that resurrection is to life, but this which is to come, of which He says: They shall hear the voice of the Son of God, they shall hear, I say, so as to rise to judgement, He did not here add to life, because not all will rise to glory, but many to punishment; therefore He added concerning the future resurrection: Those who have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement; that is, of damnation, because here He put judgement for punishment. Then will be the last chaff, and He will separate the good from the wicked, the wheat from the chaff. Then the wicked will go into everlasting fire, but the just into eternal life. And it follows:

I cannot do anything of Myself; but as I hear, I judge. Perhaps He said, I cannot do anything of Myself, for this reason, as if He had said: I am not from Myself, but from the Father. For the Father is from no other, the Son is from the Father. Therefore He said: As I hear, I judge, because the work of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one. As He hears, He judges; He hears, namely, through unity of substance and the property of knowledge. He does not judge of Himself, because He is not from Himself. For the Father alone is not from another; the Son is begotten of the Father, as we have said. For the Son hears from Him by Whom He was begotten, because He is not from Himself, but from Him by Whom He was begotten. From Whom He has understanding, from Him surely also knowledge. Therefore hearing from Him is nothing other than knowledge. This very thing which He said, as I hear, I judge, can also be understood of the nature of the manhood which the Son of God took from the Virgin. When He was treating of the resurrection of souls, He did not say I see, but I hear. For I hear [is said] as of the command of a Father giving orders. Now then as man, as One than Whom the Father is greater, now from the form of a servant, not from the form of God, [He says] as I hear I judge.

And My judgement is just. Whence is the judgement of a man just? It follows: Because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me. This sending is the incarnation of Christ, which was brought about for this, that the Father's will for the salvation of the human race might be accomplished through Him. For in this place, from these words of our Saviour, He seems to wish to suggest to us that there are two natures in Him, and that He has a true soul, in which the will is wont to be: which indeed is mingled with the Godhead in so great a union that the whole will in it becomes spiritual, not animal, that is, carnal. For there follows:

If then I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true, (and a little after:) The Father Who sent Me, He bears witness of Me. Now showing the nature of man in Himself, now signifying that He is equal to the Father in the majesty of God. Now claiming for Himself the unity of the Godhead with God the Father, now showing the frailty

of human flesh. Now [signifying] that He does not teach His own doctrine, now that He does not seek His own will. Now signifying that His witness is not true, now that it is true. For here He says: If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true (John 8 [5:31]); and a little after: If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true (ibid. [8:14]). How then is Thy witness not true, Lord, except according to the frailty of the flesh? For that too which He said: I did not come to do My own will (John 6:38); and: The Son can do nothing of Himself (here, above); and many other things of this kind; all these do not weaken the Son, nor lower His worth, nor separate Him from the Father. For these too were set down so that His true incarnation might be known. For in that He says: I came forth from the Father; I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; I and the Father are one; and, He who sees Me sees the Father also; and, As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son also gives life to whom He will: His true Godhead is proved, because the will of the Father and of the Son is one working, one grace in short, and the same governance, as the teacher of the Gentiles teaches, writing thus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:3).

There is another who bears witness of Me. In what follows He shows who that other is who bears witness of Him, where He says: The Father Who sent Me, He bears witness of Me (Matt. 3). The Father's witness concerning the Son is at the baptism, where a voice came from heaven: This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. A like witness too the Father bore concerning His Son on the holy mountain, in the hearing of three disciples.

And I know that His witness is true (John 14 [5:32]). Everything true is true from the truth. For God is truth; and whatever is true is true from God. And He said what that witness is.

The works, He says, which I do bear witness of Me (then He added): And the Father Who sent Me bears witness of Me. The very works too which He did, He says He received from the Father. So the works bear witness; the Father Who sent Him bears witness. John bore witness concerning Christ as a lamp, not to heal friends but to confound enemies. For this had been foretold earlier in the person of the Father: I have prepared a lamp for My Christ; his enemies I will clothe with confusion (Ps. 131:17–18); but upon Himself shall My sanctification flourish. Suppose you were set as in the night: you gave heed to the lamp, and wondered at the lamp, and exulted at the light of the lamp; but that lamp says there is a Sun in which you ought to exult; and though it burns in the night, it bids you await the day. Not, then, that the witness of that man was not needed (for why would he have been sent, if it was not?), but lest a man remain at the lamp and think the light of the lamp enough for him, for this reason the Lord neither says that lamp was superfluous, nor yet does He decree that one ought to remain at the lamp. The Scripture of God speaks another witness, where surely God bore witness to His Son, and in that Scripture the Jews had placed their hope, in the law,

that is, God's [law], ministered to them through Moses the servant of God.

Search, He says, the Scripture, in which you think you have eternal life; it bears witness of Me; and you will not come to Me, that you may have eternal life. You who think you have eternal life in the Scripture, ask it to whom it bears witness, and understand what eternal life is. And because they seemed to reject Christ on account of Moses, as an adversary of the ordinances and precepts which Moses handed down, He convicts them again as from another lamp. For all men are lamps, because they can both be lit and be put out. And lamps indeed, when they are wise, shine and are fervent in spirit. For if they were burning and have been put out, they now even stink. For the servants of God remained good lamps by the oil of His mercy, not by their own strength. For the free grace of God, that is the oil of the lamps. For I have laboured more than all of them, says a certain lamp; and lest he seem to burn by his own strength, he added: Yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor. 15:10). So every prophet before the Lord's coming is a lamp, of which the apostle Peter says: We have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts (2 Pet. 1:19). So the prophets are lamps, and all prophecy is one great lamp. What of the apostles? Are not they too lamps? Lamps plainly. For He alone is not a lamp. For He is not lit and put out, but is the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). Of John it is said: He was not the light, but [came] to bear witness of the light (ibid. 1:8). But of Christ: That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. What is it that the Truth Himself says of the apostles: You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14)? And of John the Evangelist: He was not the light (John 1:8)? Neither was John a lamp of himself, nor the apostles light of themselves; but from Christ the light he was a lamp, and they were enlightened, [Christ] Who is the true Sun rising in the hearts of believers.

But I have a greater witness than John. For the works which the Father has given Me, the very works which I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me; and the Father Who sent Me, He bears witness of Me. Above He said: I do not receive witness from man. Here He gives the reason why He did not receive witness from man, because He has the witness of the Father, and the witnesses of the works, but He has a greater than those of men. So this sending is the incarnation of Christ, it is our redemption. And our redemption is in the very Truth, Who says: I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). And to this witness of the Father He joined, concerning the Father Himself, that the Jews, or rather all unbelievers, their minds blinded, cannot receive the truth of the Godhead, saying:

For neither have you ever heard His voice, nor seen His form, and you do not have His word in you

abiding. The Apostle says: For not the hearers of the law have been justified, but the doers of the word of God (Rom. 2). That is, the Son of God does not abide in the hearts of those who do not keep what they hear. But in saying: Neither have you heard His voice, nor have you seen His form, He shows that the substance of the Godhead is incomprehensible and invisible, and that His voice could not be heard by carnal ears, but by spiritual understanding through the grace of the Holy Spirit could be understood or loved, according as was given to each one.

Search the Scriptures, for you think that in them you have eternal life; and they are what bear witness of Me; and you will not come to Me, that you may have life. You will not come, that is, you will not believe, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11). Our coming to Christ is this: to believe that He is the true Son of God, and that through Him we have true salvation. For all holy Scripture bore witness to Christ, whether through figures, or through prophecies, or through the ministries of angels. So Moses too bore witness to Christ, and John bore witness to Christ, and the other prophets and apostles bore witness to Christ. Before all these testimonies He sets the testimony of His own works, because through them none but God bore witness to His Son.

I do not receive glory from men. That is, I do not seek human praise, because I came not to be ministered to, but to minister (Matt. 20); that is, I did not come to receive carnal honour from men, but to give spiritual honour to all.

But I have known you, that you have not the love of God in you. They did not have the love of God for this reason, that they did not believe in Him Who came not to do His own will, but the will of Him Who sent Him (John 6). Therefore He added:

I have come in the name of My Father, and you have not received Me. That is, you have not believed in Me, Who was coming into the world for this purpose, that the name of the Father might be glorified.

If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. Who is this who comes in his own name, if not he who seeks his own glory, and not that of him who sent him? Who is it that the Jews were to receive, if not Antichrist, who is to come to seek his own glory? And this will be the penalty of their sin for them: because they would not believe the truth, they will also believe a lie.

How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone? We must consider more attentively how great an evil is the craving for boasting and human praise, on account of which the Truth Himself [declares] that certain people either could not believe [Supply: declares], because they were men of worldly glory. What is the desire for human praise but the uplifting of a proud mind? It wants to be thought of as having what it does not take pains to have in itself. It is one thing within, and desires to be seen as another without. Humility seeks glory from God alone, pride from men. Hence John the Baptist was praised excellently by the Truth Himself, for not being a reed shaken by the wind (Matt. 11): because not of human praise, nor

of odious blame did he bend when the breeze blew, therefore he had glory from God Christ, because he did not seek human glory.

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you most hope. I do not accuse for this reason, that I came not to condemn but to save. But Moses accuses, because you are unbelieving towards his voice. He wrote of Me, when he says: The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren; you shall hear him as myself (Deut. 18). But mark what follows: It shall be that every soul that does not obey that prophet shall be destroyed from the people of God. — If you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words? For whatever the law or the prophets wrote, all of it signified that Christ was to come. For if the Jews had believed the law or the prophets, they would surely have believed Christ too. After these mystical words, of the most profound understanding, of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which He willed to show, whether to those who heard then or to those who read now, the hidden mysteries partly of His divinity and partly also of His humanity, He willed to show by the miracle of the five loaves Who He was. For this reason the evangelist next added:

CHAPTER VI.

After these things Jesus went across the sea of Galilee, etc.

Jesus went across the sea of Galilee, which is distinguished by many names according to the diversity of the regions lying round it; it is called the sea of Tiberias only in those places where it shows the city of Tiberias, a healthful dwelling-place on account of its (as they say) hot waters. For, with the Jordan flowing through it, it extends eighteen thousand paces in length and five in breadth. Mystically, however, the sea signifies the turbid and swelling rolling waves of this world, in which all the wicked, unjustly delighted, like fish given over to the depths, do not direct their mind to the joys above. Hence the same sea is well named of Galilee, that is, the wheel, because the love of the passing world sends hearts into a whirl, and does not allow them to be raised to the desires of everlasting life; of such the Psalmist says: The wicked walk round about (Ps. 11). But a very great multitude was following Jesus as He went away across the sea of Galilee, to receive from Him the highest gifts of heavenly teaching, healing and refreshment. The Jewish nation alone followed Him by believing: but after He had approached the waves of corruptible life through the dispensation of His incarnation, trodden on them and crossed them, a very great multitude of believers from the nations soon followed Him, desiring to be spiritually instructed, healed and filled, and saying with the Psalmist: Lord, I have fled to Thee, teach me to do Thy will (Ps. 124); and again: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak; heal me, Lord, for all my bones are troubled (Ps. 6); and again, trusting to receive from Him the nourishment of everlasting life: The Lord, it says, feeds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a place of pasture there He has set me (Ps. 22). But that Jesus, going up onto the mountain, was sitting there with His disciples, but when the multitude came to Him, came down, and this

[that] He refreshed in the lower places [the multitude] which a little before He had healed in the lower places, let us by no means believe was done in vain, but to signify mystically that the Lord distributes His teaching and gifts according to the capacity of those who receive them: to minds still weak and little in spirit entrusting simpler counsels, and entrusting more open sacraments; but to all who are loftier and more perfect in understanding unlocking the more hidden secrets of His majesty, suggesting the loftier paths of devout living, and promising the loftier gifts of heavenly rewards. So to a certain man who asked what he should do to possess eternal life, as to one still placed lower, He offered the common gifts of His bounty, saying: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness. Honour your father and mother (Matt. 19). To him afterwards, when he asked for greater things and as it were desired to climb the mountain of the virtues, He said: If you would be perfect, go and sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me (ibid.). This discernment in governing the Lord not only showed Himself when teaching in the flesh, but even now does not cease to show through the ministers of His word. Hence He testifies to them under the person of the one good servant that they should give their fellow servants their measure of wheat in due season, that is, offer the dishes of the word opportunely and in measure, according to the capacity of the hearers. But that the Lord teaches, heals and refreshes the crowds as the Pasch draws near, we can interpret mystically thus: that our Pasch is called a passing over; and whomever the Lord recovers into the eternal sweetness of His gifts, He surely prepares for a healthful passing over: namely, that they may pass beyond carnal lusts by loftiness of mind, may tread underfoot alike the weak desires and the adversities of the world by hope and love of the heavenly kingdom, and even if they cannot yet reach the things above in soul or in flesh, because this is promised in the future. Yet whatever carnal men are seen to embrace as lofty, let them despise as nothing in comparison with eternal things, after the example of him who, seeing the wicked exalted above measure and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon (Ps. 36), passed beyond temporal things in contemplation, and saw as already not existing him whom he foresaw would soon be taken away.

When Jesus had lifted up His eyes. And that He is said to have seen the multitude coming to Him is a sign of divine kindness: namely, that to all who seek to come to Him the grace of heavenly mercy is wont to come to meet them, and, lest they should be able to go astray in seeking, to open the light of His Spirit to those who run. For that the eyes of Jesus mystically designate the gifts of His Spirit, John testifies in the Apocalypse, who, speaking of Him figuratively, says: And I saw a Lamb standing as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes (Rev. 5): which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth.

That the Lord, testing Philip, says: Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? He does it surely by a provident dispensation, not that He Himself may learn what He did not know, but that Philip may [recognize] the slowness of his faith, which

since the master knew, he himself did not know, he may recognize when tested, and may chastise it when the miracle is done. For he ought not to have doubted, in the presence of the Creator of things, Who brings forth bread from the earth, and with wine gladdens the heart of man (Ps. 103), that loaves of a few denarii would suffice for not a few thousands of the crowds, so that each one should receive sufficiently and go away now filled. The five loaves with which He filled the multitude of the people are the five books of Moses; when these are laid open by spiritual understanding, and now multiplied by a more abundant sense, He refreshes daily the hearts of faithful hearers. They are well reported to have been of barley, on account, surely, of the more austere edicts of the law and the coarser coverings of the letter, which hid the inner marrow, as it were, of the spiritual sense. But the two fish which He added signify, not unfittingly, the writings of the psalmists and the prophets, since the one by singing, the other by speaking, told their hearers the coming sacraments of Christ and the Church. And well are the heralds of that age figured by creatures of the water, an age in which the people of the faithful could by no means live without the waters of baptism. There are some who think that the two fish, which gave a sweet savour to the bread, signify the two persons by whom that people was ruled, so that through them it received the governance of counsels, namely the royal and the priestly, to which also that most holy anointing belonged: whose office it was never to be broken and corrupted by the storms and waves of the populace, and often to break the violent contradictions of the crowds like opposing waves, at times to yield to them, their own integrity kept safe: altogether after the manner of fish as in a stormy sea, so to move in the turbulent government of the people: yet these two persons prefigured our Lord. For He alone bore them both, and alone fulfilled them, not figuratively but properly. The boy who had the five loaves and two fish, and yet did not distribute them to the hungry crowds but offered them to the Lord to be distributed, is the people of the Jews, childish in its literal sense, which kept the sayings of the Scriptures shut up with itself: these the Lord, appearing in the flesh, received, and showed what usefulness and sweetness they had within, and made plain with what manifold grace of the spirit the things that seemed few and despised abounded: these He held out through His apostles and the apostles' successors to be ministered to all nations. Hence the other evangelists well relate that the Lord [gave] the loaves and fish to His disciples, and the disciples ministered to the crowds (Matt. 14; Mark 16; Luke 9). For when the mystery of human salvation had begun to be told by the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. So He broke the five loaves and two fish and distributed them to the disciples when He opened their understanding, that they might understand all things that were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms concerning Him (Luke 24). The disciples set them before the crowds when they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with the signs that followed (Mark 16). The hay on which the crowd lies down and is refreshed is understood as carnal lust, which everyone who [desires] to be nourished

desires to be filled with spiritual food must tread down and press. For all flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass (Isa. 40). Let him therefore lie down on the hay, let him crush the flower of the hay, that is, chastise his body and bring it into subjection, tame the pleasures of the flesh, restrain the looseness of luxury, whoever desires to be refreshed with the sweetness of the living bread. Whoever desires to be renewed with the dishes of grace from above, let him fall away from his weak oldness. The five thousand men who ate suggest the refreshment of the life of those who are refreshed by the word. For by the name of men the more perfect are wont to be figured in the Scriptures, whom no womanish softness corrupts: such as the Apostle desires those to be to whom he says: Watch, stand fast in the faith, act manfully, and be strengthened (1 Cor. 16). The number a thousand, beyond which none of our reckoning grows, is wont to indicate the fullness of the things that are spoken of. By the number five are expressed the five best-known senses of our body: namely sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Whoever in each of these takes pains to act manfully and be strengthened, living soberly and justly and godly, so that they may deserve to be restored by the sweetness of heavenly wisdom, are figured, surely, by the five thousand men whom the Lord filled with mystical dishes. Nor must we pass over that, being about to refresh the multitude, He gave thanks. He gave thanks, indeed, both to teach us always to give thanks for gifts received from heaven, and to make known how much He Himself rejoices at our progress and is glad of our spiritual refreshment. For do you wish to know, brethren, how much our Saviour rejoices in our salvation? The evangelist Luke relates that He gave the disciples power to tread upon all the might of the enemy, and indicated that their names were written in heaven; and at once he adds: In that very hour He exulted in the Holy Spirit, and said: I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones (Luke 10). It is clear, then, that He rejoices together at the salvation and life of the faithful Who, giving thanks, praises the Father because He had revealed to the humble in spirit the secrets that He hides from the proud. But that, when the multitude was filled, He commanded the disciples to gather up what remained of the fragments, lest they be lost, surely signifies that there are many hidden things in the divine oracles which the understanding of the common people does not grasp, some which the less learned cannot by themselves attain. These, therefore, those who are able must gather by more diligent searching, and cause to reach the instruction of their lesser brethren by word or by writing, lest the foods of the word perish through their sloth and be taken away from the peoples, [they] who, by the Lord's gift, know how to gather them by interpreting.

They gathered therefore, he says, and filled twelve baskets with fragments. Since by the number twelve the sum of any perfection is wont to be figured, rightly by the twelve baskets full of fragments is expressed the whole choir of spiritual teachers, who are bidden both to gather by meditation the obscure things of the Scriptures, which the crowds cannot [grasp] by themselves, and, committed to writing, to preserve them for their own use and the crowds' alike. This they themselves did,

the apostles and evangelists, by inserting into their own works not a few sayings of the law and the prophets, with an interpretation added; this the teachers of the Church throughout the whole world who followed them [did], some even examining entire books of both Testaments with more diligent explanation, books which, however much despised by men, are yet fruitful with the bread of heavenly grace. For servile works are wont to be done with baskets. Hence of the people who served in clay and bricks in Egypt the Psalmist says: His hands served in the basket (Ps. 20).

Those men, therefore, when they had seen the sign that He had done, said: This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. Rightly indeed did they call the Lord a great prophet, the herald of a great salvation who would now be [given] to the world. For He Himself too deigns to call Himself a prophet, where He says: For it cannot be that a prophet perish outside Jerusalem (Luke 13). But they had not yet advanced to full faith, who did not know to call Him God as well. So they, seeing the sign that Jesus had done, said: This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. Let us, seeing with a surer knowledge of truth and faith the world that Jesus made, and the signs with which He filled it, say: This is truly the Mediator of God and men, Who was in the world by His divinity, and the world was made through Him; Who came to His own in His humanity to seek and to save what had perished, and to re-create the world that He had made: Who is with His faithful in the world through the presence of His divinity all days, even to the consummation of the age.

But Jesus, when He knew that they would come to seize Him and make Him king, fled again into the mountain, Himself alone. We are given to understand, then, that the Lord, when He was sitting on the mountain with His disciples and saw the crowds coming to Him, had come down from the mountain and had fed the crowds about the lower places. For how could it be that He fled there again unless He had first come down from the mountain? It signifies something, then, that the Lord came down from on high to feed the crowds: He fed them, and went up. But why did He go up when He knew that they wanted to seize Him and make Him king? What then, was He not a king, Who feared to be made king? He was altogether, and not such a king as would be made by men, but such as would give a kingdom to men. Does Jesus perhaps signify something to us here too, Whose deeds are words? So in this, that they wanted to seize Him and make Him king, and that for this reason He fled into the mountain, Himself alone, is this, done in Him, silent, saying nothing, signifying nothing? Or perhaps was this to seize Him: to wish to forestall the time of His kingdom? For He had come now, not yet to reign, in the way in which He is to reign in that we say: Thy kingdom come (Matt. 6; Luke 6). He indeed always reigns with the Father, according as He is the Son of God, the Word of God, the Word through which all things were made. But the prophets foretold His kingdom also according as Christ was made man and made His faithful Christians. There will be, therefore, a kingdom of Christians, which is now being gathered, which is now being acquired, which is now being bought with the blood of Christ: there will one day be a manifest kingdom, when

there will be the open glory of His saints, on account of the judgement done by Him, the judgement that He Himself said above the Son of Man would execute; of which kingdom the Apostle also says: When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father (I Cor. 15). Hence He Himself also says: Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Matt. 25). But the disciples and the crowds believing in Him thought that He had come in such a way as to reign at once. This is to wish to seize Him and make Him king: to wish to forestall His time, in which He, the Head, was hiding Himself, so as to come forth at the right time, and at the right time, at the end of the world, to declare Himself. But why is it said He fled? For had He not willed, He would not have been held; had He not willed, He would not have been seized; Who, had He not willed, would not even have been recognized. But this was done as a sign. He fled alone, lest He should reign carnally: because He alone ascended into heaven, whence He might reign spiritually in His saints. He fled into the mountain, Himself alone: the firstborn from the dead, ascending above all the heavens, and interceding for us. Him the priest signified, who once a year entered the Holy of Holies not without blood, to intercede for the people, the Lamb alone being set above on the mountain, Who entered into the inner part of the veil, while the people stood outside (Col. 1; Ps. 71; Rom. 8; Lev. 16; Heb. 9). But let us see, while He tarries within the veil of the heavenly height, what the disciples suffered in the little boat. What is the little boat that is tossed by the waves but the Church, which is wearied by persecutions both without and within? Without, by the pagans with open persecution; within, by false brethren with hidden sedition. Therefore he added:

And when evening had come, His disciples went down to the sea: and when they had gone up into a boat, they came across the sea to Capharnaum. He quickly told as finished what was done afterwards. They came across the sea to Capharnaum; and he went back to explain how they came, that they crossed by sailing over the lake: and while they were sailing to the place to which he had already said they came, he explains by recapitulation what happened.

It was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them. The more the end of the world approaches, errors grow, terrors grow, iniquity grows, unbelief grows; in short the light, which in John the Evangelist himself is shown quite plainly to be charity, so that he said: He who hates his brother is in darkness (I John 2), is very often extinguished. When charity grows cold and iniquity abounds, these are the waves that trouble the ship, and the storms and winds are the clamours of curses: thence charity grows cold, thence the waves increase, the ship is troubled. As a great wind blew the sea rose up, the darkness grew, understanding lessened, iniquity increased. Yet amid all these things the ship went on, hastened to land, sought the harbour. So amid all kinds of temptations the Church went forward. She labours, but is not sunk. She waits for Christ, when through Him she may come to the harbour of tranquillity. When therefore they had rowed twenty-five or thirty furlongs, the waves grow, the darkness increases, the storms rage; yet the ship goes on.

He who perseveres to the end will be saved (Matt. 10). Nor does the very number of the furlongs seem to be despised; for why should the evangelist have said: About twenty-five or thirty furlongs? It would have sufficed to say twenty-five, or thirty. These numbers the same evangelist uttered in the voice of one estimating, not of one affirming. Let us ask from what the number twenty-five consists, from what it is made. From five. That number five belongs to the law: these are the five books of Moses, these are the five porches holding those sick folk, these the five loaves feeding five thousand men. So the number twenty-five signifies the law, since five by five, that is five times five, make twenty-five, the square of five. But this law, before the Gospel came, lacked perfection. And perfection is comprised in the number six. For six is a perfect number, and is filled up by its parts, that is 1, 2, 3, and no other parts can be found in it, nor can those parts joined together make anything else than the number six; therefore God finished the world in six days (Gen. 2), and the five themselves are multiplied by six, that the law may be fulfilled through the Gospel, that six fives may make thirty. To those, then, who fulfil the law Jesus came, and He came as one treading the waves, having all the swellings of the world under His feet, pressing down all the heights of the age; and yet so great are the tribulations that even those who have believed Jesus, and who strive to persevere, are terrified lest they fall away from Christ, as they tread the waves of the world. Why does a Christian fear, while Christ says: It is I, do not fear; have confidence, I have overcome the world (John 16)?

They wished, then, to take Him into the ship, recognizing Him and rejoicing, made secure, and at once the ship was at the land to which they were going. An end was made at the land: from the wet to the solid, from the troubled to the firm, from the journey to the faith, that is, to perfect tranquillity, which will not be except in the harbour of eternal calm; where there is all charity and no iniquity; all happiness and no disturbance; where they will reign without end who here labour bravely to the end of their life.

On the next day, the crowd that stood across the sea saw that there was no other boat there but one, and that Jesus had not gone into the ship with His disciples, but that His disciples alone had gone away. But other ships came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread, the Lord giving thanks. When therefore the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they went up into the boats and came to Capharnaum, seeking Jesus. Yet so great a miracle was made known to them. For they saw that the disciples alone had gone up into the ship, and that the ship was not there. But other ships also came from there near that place where they had eaten the bread, in which the crowds followed Him with the disciples: so He had not gone up [in them]; another ship was not there. How then was Jesus suddenly across the sea, unless because He walked on the sea, to show a miracle? And when the crowds had found Him. Behold, He presents Himself to the crowds by whom He had feared to be seized, and into the mountain

He had fled. He altogether confirms and suggests to us that all those things were said in a mystery and done in a great sacrament, that they might signify something. Behold, He Who had fled the crowds into the mountain, does He not speak with those very crowds? Now let them hold Him, now let them make Him king.

And when they had found Him across the sea, they said to Him: Rabbi, when did You come here? After the sacrament of the miracle He also brings in discourse: that, if it can be done, those who were fed may be fed; and that He may fill with words the mind of those whose belly He filled with loaves, but if they grasp it; and if they do not grasp it, let them take what they grasp, lest the fragments perish. Let Him speak, then, and let us hear.

Jesus answered and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of My loaves. You seek Me for the flesh's sake, not for the spirit's. How many seek Jesus only that He may do them good in temporal things! One has a business affair, he seeks the intercession of the clergy; another is oppressed by one more powerful, he flees to the Church; another wants someone to intervene for him with one with whom he has little influence; this one so, that one so. The Church is filled daily with such people. Scarcely is Jesus sought for Jesus' sake. You seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of My loaves.

Labour not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life. You seek Me for that? Seek Me for My own sake. For He suggests that He Himself is this food, as will shine forth in what follows.

Which the Son of Man gives you. They were expecting, I believe, to eat loaves again, to recline again, to be fattened again: but He said: Food, not that which perishes, but that which endures to eternal life. We said above that the ship signifies the Church of Christ, which is troubled by the storms of this world, and carries those who labour in it, that they may labour manfully, until Christ, quelling the waves of persecutions, restores calm. But here he says:

On the next day, the crowd that stood across the sea saw that there was no other boat there but one. What is the crowd standing by the sea on the next day, if not, after the ascension of Christ, the crowd standing in good works, not lying in earthly pleasures, but waiting for the place whence Jesus may come to them? And here one ship is spoken of, just as before there was one Church of Christ, in which He was present in body. Now too there is one, [whose members] likewise wait in hope for His coming. But what does it mean that other ships came from Tiberias, if not the conventicles of heretics, who seek Jesus not with sincere faith, seeking under the deceit of cunning their own things, not the things that are Jesus'? Hence, consequently, Jesus answered them: Amen, amen, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of My loaves and were filled (Luke 6). Of those who are filled He says in another Gospel: Woe to you who are filled (ibid.). But of those who hunger for the bread of life and the knowledge of justice it is said: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice (Matt. 5). To this food Christ soon exhorted them in the discourse that followed, saying: Labour

not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life. Carnal food perishes, but spiritual food endures, which the Son of Man will give you.

For Him has God the Father sealed. Do not take this Son of Man as you take other sons of man, to whom it is said: But the children of men shall hope under the protection of Thy wings (Ps. 35). This son of man, set apart by a certain grace, is a son of man excepted from the number of men: this son of man is the Son of God, this man is also God. Hence the Truth Himself, Who then spoke to the Jews and now speaks to all through the words of the Gospel preaching, also shows Who He is, not what most then supposed Him to be, or even now suppose. And He added: For Him has God the Father sealed. What is to seal but to set something as one's own? This is to seal: to set something that may not be confused with the rest. To seal is to set a sign on a thing. On whatever thing you set a sign, you set the sign so that it may not be confused with others and become unrecognizable to you. The Father, then, sealed Him. What is "sealed"? He gave Him something His own, so that He should not be compared with other men; therefore it is said: God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows (Ps. 44). So what is to seal? To have Him excepted, that is, above Thy fellows. Therefore, He says, do not despise Me because I am a son of man: and seek from Me the food not that which perishes, but that which endures to eternal life. For I am a son of man in such a way that I am not one of you; I am a son of man in such a way that God the Father has sealed Me. What is to seal? To give Me something My own, by which I should not be confused with the human race, but through Whom the human race should be set free.

They said therefore to Him: What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? For He had said to them: Labour for the food, not that which perishes, but that which endures to eternal life. What shall we do, they say, by observing which we may be able to fulfil this precept?

Jesus answered and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent. This, then, is to eat the food not that which perishes, but that which endures to eternal life. Why do you make ready tooth and belly? Believe, and you have eaten. Faith is indeed distinguished from works, as the Apostle says: We reckon that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law (Rom. 3). And there are works which seem good without the faith of Christ, and they are not good, because they are not referred to that end from which they are good. For Christ is the end of the law unto justice for everyone who believes (Rom. 10). Therefore He would not distinguish faith from work, but said that faith itself is the work. For it is that faith which works through love (Gal. 5). Nor did He say: This is your work; but He said: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent; that he who glories may glory in the Lord (I Cor. 1). Since, then, He was inviting them to faith, they were still asking for signs by which to believe. See whether the Jews do not ask for signs.

They said therefore to Him: What sign, then, do You do, that we may see and believe You? What do You work? Was it too little that they were fed from five loaves? They knew this

indeed, but to this food they preferred the manna from heaven. But the Lord Jesus declared Himself to be such that He was set above Moses. For Moses did not dare to say of himself that he would give food, not that which perishes, but that which has eternal life. He was promising something more than Moses. For through Moses were promised a kingdom, and a land bringing forth milk and honey, temporal peace, abundance of children, health of body, and all the other things, temporal indeed, yet spiritual in figure, because they were promised to the old man in the Old Testament. Now they considered the things promised through Moses himself, and they considered the things promised through Jesus. The one promised a full belly on earth, but food that perishes; this One promised food, not that which perishes, but that which endures to eternal life. They looked on Him as promising more, and as it were did not yet see Him doing greater things. They certainly considered what sort of things Moses had done, and they still wanted some greater things to be done by Him who was promising such great things. What, they say, do You do, that we may believe You? And that you may know that they were comparing those miracles with this miracle, and therefore judged these things that Jesus was doing to be as it were lesser.

Our fathers, they say, ate manna in the desert. But what manna is, perhaps you despise, as it is written, He gave them manna to eat (Exod. XVI). Through Moses our fathers received bread from heaven, and it was not said to them by Moses, Work for the food that does not perish, but that endures to eternal life. And You do not work such things as Moses did. He did not give barley loaves, but manna from heaven.

Jesus therefore said to them: Amen, amen I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gave you the bread from heaven. For the true bread is that which came down from heaven and gives life to the world. True then is that bread which gives life to the world: and it is itself the food of which I spoke a little before: Work for the food that does not perish, but that endures to eternal life. So that manna too signified this, and all those signs were Mine. You have loved My signs; what was signified, you despise. It was not, then, Moses who gave bread from heaven. God gives the bread. But what bread? Manna perhaps? No, but the bread which the manna signified, namely the Lord Jesus Himself. My Father gives you the true bread. For the bread is God who came down from heaven and gives life to the world.

They said therefore to Him: Lord, give us this bread always. Just as that Samaritan woman, to whom it was said: Whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst (John 4), at once taking it in a bodily sense, yet wishing to be rid of want, Give me, she says, Lord, of this water; so these too: Lord, give us this bread, which may refresh us and not fail.

Jesus therefore said to them: I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. He who comes to Me is the same as what He says, and he who believes in Me; and what He said, shall not hunger, is to be understood as and shall never thirst. For by both of these is signified eternal fullness, where there is no want.

You desire bread from heaven? You have it before you, and you do not eat.

But I said to you that you have both seen Me, and have not believed. But not for that reason have I lost the people. For has your unbelief made void the faithfulness of God (Rom. III)? For see what follows.

All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me: and him who comes to Me I will not cast out. What sort of inside is that, from which there is no going out? A great inner chamber, and a sweet secret place. O secret place without weariness, without the bitterness of evil thoughts, without the interruption of temptations and sorrows. Is not that the secret place into which he shall enter to whom God will say: Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt. XXV)?

And him who shall come to Me I will not cast out; because I came down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. Therefore, then, him who shall come to Me I will not cast out, because I came down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. It is a great mystery that He says: Him who comes to Me I will not cast out. Adding at once the reason why He would not cast out one coming to Him, that is, believing in Him, He said: Because I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. Who is it that is cast out from that sweet and most delightful secret place, into which the servant doing his lord's will is bidden to enter, but the proud man? but the soul that trusts in itself and seeks to be its own master? Nor would the prophet, having such a soul, say: Shall not my soul be subject to God (Ps. LXI)? But the soul subject through humility to the grace of God is never cast out, but enters into the joy of its Lord. Therefore, that the cause of all diseases, that is, pride, might be cured, the Son of God came down and was made humble. Why are you proud, O man? God for your sake was made humble. You would perhaps be ashamed to imitate a humble man; at least imitate the humble God. The Son of God came in man, and was made humble. You are commanded to be humble; you are not commanded to become a beast instead of a man. He, God, was made man; you, man, acknowledge that you are man. Your whole humility is this, that you know yourself. Therefore, because God teaches humility, He said: I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me (John VI). For this is the commendation of humility. For pride does its own will; humility does the will of God. Therefore him who comes to Me I will not cast out. Why? because I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. I came humble; I came to teach humility. I came as the Master of humility. He who comes to Me is incorporated into Me; he who comes to Me becomes humble. He who cleaves to Me will be humble, because he will not do his own will, but God's; and so he will not be cast out; for Adam, being proud, was thrown out (Gen. III): but Christ, made humble, was exalted above every name that is named, whether in heaven or on earth (Eph. I). He came as the teacher of humility, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. Let us come to Him, let us enter into Him, let us be incorporated into Him, so that we too may not do our own will,

but the will of God; and that He may not cast us out, because we are His members, because He willed to be our head by teaching humility. To Him none can come but the humble; by Him none is sent out but the proud.

This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I should lose nothing. He himself was given to Him who keeps humility; this one He receives. He who does not keep humility is far from the Master of humility. That of all that He has given Me I should lose nothing. So it is not the will in the sight of your Father that one of these little ones should perish (Matt. XVIII). Of the swollen some may perish; of the little ones nothing perishes: because unless you become like this little one, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; of all that the Father has given Me I will lose nothing, but I will raise him up on the last day (John VI). See how here too He outlines that twofold resurrection. He who comes to Me rises now, made humble in My members: but I will raise him up on the last day according to the flesh.

For this is the will of My Father who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life: and I will raise him up on the last day. Above He said: Hears My word, and he who believes Him who sent Me. But now, He who sees the Son and believes in Him. He did not say, Sees the Son and believes in the Father. For to believe in the Son is the same as to believe in the Father, because as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given also to the Son to have life in Himself: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life (John V): by believing, and passing over to life, that is, that first resurrection. And because it is not the only one, And I will raise him up, He says, on the last day. There follows:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Bread, therefore, because life; and life, therefore, because He came down from heaven, as He Himself says, I am the way, the truth and the life (John XIV). He is the supersubstantial bread, which we are bidden to pray daily may be given to us (Matt. VI). When our Lord Jesus Christ said that He was bread come down from heaven,

The Jews murmured, and said: Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does He say that He came down from heaven? They murmured for this reason, that they did not understand this bread, did not hunger for this bread, did not love this bread; for if they loved it, they would surely not murmur: therefore they were far from the heavenly bread, and did not know how to hunger for it, because they had the jaws of the heart languid. With ears open they were deaf. They saw, and stood blind. For this bread seeks the hunger of the inner man. Hence in another place He says, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled (Matt. V). They said, Whose father and mother we know. His mother they knew, the earthly one. His Father they did not know, the heavenly One, since they had not been drawn by the heavenly Father; which the Lord Himself soon made known by the following word, saying:

Do not murmur among yourselves: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. He comes whom the grace of God goes before; to whom let us say with the Prophet, His mercy shall go before me. And again: His mercy shall follow me (Ps. XXII). It goes before the willing; it follows the accomplishing. The Father draws to the Son those who believe in the Son for this reason, that they think of Him as having God for His Father. For God the Father begot a Son equal to Himself: and whoever thinks, and in his faith perceives and ponders, that He in whom he has believed is equal to the Father, him the Father draws to the Son. For whoever says of Christ, He is not true God, him the Father does not draw, but a perverse thought draws him not to consent to the truth. He was drawn by the Father who says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. XVI). To whom the Lord says, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but My Father who is in heaven (ibid.). That revelation is itself the drawing. For when He had said: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, He at once added, And I will raise him up on the last day. I will render what he hopes for; he shall see what, not yet seeing, he has believed. He shall eat what he hungers for; he shall be filled with that for which he thirsts. Where? In the resurrection of the dead, because I will raise him up on the last day.

For it is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught by God. Why did He say this? O Jews, has the Father not taught you how you can know Me? All the men of that kingdom shall be taught by God. They shall not hear from men: and even if they hear from men, yet what they understand is given within, flashes within, is revealed within. Men can sound the word outwardly, but they labour in vain unless God, teaching within, opens the understanding. He is taught by God whom God instructs within in the knowledge and love of truth.

Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to Me. How does the Father draw? By teaching He delights, not compelling by necessity: for no one believes by necessity, but by will. The Son was teaching, the Father was teaching; the man who was seen was speaking, but as God He was teaching inwardly in the heart of the hearer. Therefore He added:

Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. I am from the Father, and therefore I see the Father. What is it to be taught by the Father, but to hear the Word of the Father, that is, Me? Lest perhaps, then, when I say to you, Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, you should say among yourselves, But we have never seen the Father; how then could we learn from the Father? Hear it from Me Myself: not that anyone has seen the Father; but he who is from God, he has seen the Father. I know the Father; I am from Him. But how? As a word is from him whose word it is; not one that sounds and passes, but one that abides with the speaker and draws the hearer.

Amen, amen I say to you, he who believes in Me has eternal life. He willed to reveal what He was; for He could have said in brief, He who believes in Me has Me. For Christ Himself is true God and eternal life. He, then, who believes in Me, He says, comes to Me; and he who comes to Me has Me. But what is it to have Me?

to have eternal life. Eternal Life took on death, willed to die; but of what is yours, O man, not of what is His. He received from you that by which He might die for you. Life therefore took on death, that life might slay death. For he who believes, He says, has eternal life, not what is open to view, but what is hidden. For the eternal life of the Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God, and the light was the life of men (John I). He came to die, but on the third day He rose again.

I am, He says, the bread of life. And whence were they proud? Your fathers, He says, ate manna, and they died. Why did they eat and die? Because what they saw they believed; what they did not see they did not understand. Therefore your fathers, because you are like them. Moses, and Aaron, and the other saints who were among the people ate the manna, and did not die, because they understood the visible food not [carnally], they hungered for it spiritually. But others ate and remained in unbelief: just as the Jews heard Christ speaking, but did not understand His words spiritually. Therefore He said to them, Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they died; by what death, if not that of unbelief? For by the common death the saints who were among them also died. Therefore the Lord Jesus by these words marked out a spiritual death, not a bodily one. The fathers, then, of these men, that is, evil fathers of evil men, unbelieving fathers of unbelievers, murmuring fathers of murmurers; for that people is said to have offended God by nothing more than by murmuring against God. Therefore the Lord too, wishing to show them to be the sons of such men, began with them from this point: Why do you murmur among yourselves, murmurers, sons of murmurers? Your fathers ate manna, and they died; not because the manna was evil, but because they ate it evilly.

This is the bread which came down from heaven. This bread the manna signified; and this bread the altar of God signified. Those were sacraments in signs: they are different in the thing [itself]; the things signified are alike. Hear the Apostle: For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, he says, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food (I Cor. X). Spiritual, that is, not bodily. They one [food], because manna, we another; but the same spiritual [food] as we, yet our fathers, not their fathers; those whom we resemble, not those whom these resembled. This is, then, the bread coming down from heaven, that if anyone eats of it, he may not die. But this belongs to the power of the sacrament, not to the visible sacrament: he who eats within, not without; he who eats in the heart, not he who presses with the tooth. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. Living, therefore, because I came down from heaven. The manna too came down from heaven; but the manna was a shadow, this is the truth.

If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live for ever. And the bread that I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. When [perhaps: how] could flesh grasp this, that He called

bread "flesh"? That is called flesh which flesh does not grasp; and flesh grasps it the less for this, that it is called flesh: for this they shuddered at, this they said was feigned, this they thought could not come to pass. It is My flesh, He says, for the life of the world. The faithful know the body of Christ, if they do not neglect to be the body of Christ; let them become the body of Christ, if they wish to live by the Spirit of Christ. None lives by the Spirit of Christ but the body of Christ. Whoever wishes to live, let him believe in Christ, let him eat spiritually the spiritual food. Let him be incorporated into the body of Christ, and not be a rotten member that deserves to be cut off: let him be comely, let him be sound, let him be fitted to his head.

The Jews therefore disputed among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They disputed among themselves, of course, because they did not understand the bread of concord, nor wish to take it. For those who eat such bread do not dispute among themselves, since we, being many, are one bread, one body (I Cor. X): and through this [bread] God has made such men to dwell in a house. But as for their disputing among themselves and asking how the Lord could give His flesh to be eaten, they are not at once told, but it is said to them further:

Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. How indeed it is given, and what the manners are of eating this bread, you do not know: nevertheless unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He was saying this not, of course, to corpses, but to the living. Hence, lest understanding this [present] life they should dispute about the matter, He went on and added:

He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life. This, then, he does not have who does not eat this bread nor drink this blood. For temporal life men in this world who are not through faith in His body can somehow have without any [of it]: but eternal [life], which is promised to the saints, never. But lest they should think that in this food and drink eternal life is promised in the end, in such a way, to those who receive carnally and do not understand spiritually, He at once added, and said:

I will raise him up on the last day. So that meanwhile he may have, according to the spirit, eternal life in the rest which receives the spirits of the saints. And as concerns the body, not even its eternal life is defrauded, but in the resurrection of the dead on the last day the flesh will be raised up.

For My flesh, He says, is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. For whereas men seek this by food and drink, that they may neither hunger nor thirst, nothing truly affords this but this food and drink, which makes those by whom it is taken immortal and incorruptible, that is, the very fellowship of the saints, where there will be peace, and unity full and perfect; for this reason indeed, as men before us also understood it, our Lord Jesus Christ commended His body and blood in those things which out of many are reduced to some one thing: for the one into one

is made out of many grains, the other flows together into one out of many grapes. Then at length He explains how what He speaks of comes to pass, and what it is to eat His body and to drink His blood.

And he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. This, then, is to eat that food and to drink that drink: to abide in Christ, and to have Him abiding in oneself. And by this, he who does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, without doubt neither eats His flesh spiritually, although carnally and visibly he presses with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; but rather he eats and drinks the sacrament of so great a thing to his own judgement, because, being unclean, he presumes to approach the sacraments of Christ, which no other receives worthily but he who is clean; of whom it is said: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. V).

As the living Father has sent Me, He says, and I live because of the Father: so he who eats Me, he too shall live because of Me. For the Son is not made better by participation in the Father, being born equal, as participation in the Son, through the unity of His body and blood, which that eating and drinking signifies, makes us better. We, then, live because of Him by eating Him, that is, by receiving Him, the eternal life which we do not have of ourselves. But He Himself lives because of the Father, sent by Him, because He emptied Himself, made obedient even to the wood of the cross (Phil. II). As the living Father has sent Me, and I live because of the Father: so he who eats Me, he too shall live because of Me. As if He said: I too live because of the Father; that is, I refer My life to Him as to the greater, which My self-emptying brought about; in which He sent Me. But that each one lives because of Me, the participation by which he eats Me brings about. I, then, being humbled, live because of the Father; he, being raised up, lives because of Me. He did not say this of that nature by which He is ever equal to the Father, but of that in which He was made less than the Father. He it is who also said above: As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John V), that is, He begot a Son having life in Himself.

This is the bread which came down from heaven. That by eating it we may live, who cannot have eternal life of ourselves.

Not as your fathers ate manna, He says, and died. He who eats this bread shall live for ever. These things He said in the synagogue, teaching at Capharnaum. That they died, then, He wishes to be understood thus: that they do not live for ever. For in time those too who eat Christ will certainly die; but they will live for ever, because Christ is eternal life. The sign that one has eaten and drunk is this: if he abides and is abided in; if he dwells and is dwelt in; so it will be that he is not forsaken. This, then, He taught us and admonished us in mystical words: that we should be in His body, under the Head Himself among His members, eating His flesh, not forsaking His unity. But those who were present,

many, by not understanding, were scandalized. For in hearing these things they thought of nothing but flesh, which they themselves were. But the Apostle says, and says truly: To be wise according to the flesh is death (Rom. VIII). The Lord gives us His flesh to eat: and yet to be wise according to the flesh is death, although He says of His flesh that eternal life is there. Therefore we ought not to be wise even about the flesh according to the flesh, as in these words.

Many therefore, hearing [not of His enemies, but] of His disciples, said: This saying is hard; who can hear it? If the disciples found this saying hard, what of His enemies? And yet so it had to be, that something should be said which would not be understood by men. The secret of God ought to make men attentive, not averse. But these fell away while the Lord Jesus was saying such things: they did not believe Him to be saying something great, and covering some grace under that word; but as they wished, so they understood, and after the manner of men to whom Jesus was not the head, as though Jesus were arranging this: to distribute to those who believed in Him the flesh with which the Word was clothed, cut up as it were into pieces. This saying, they say, is hard; who can hear it?

But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were murmuring at it. For they said these things among themselves in such a way that they would not be heard by Him: but He who knew them in themselves, hearing in Himself, answered and said:

Does this scandalize you? Because I said: I give you My flesh to eat and My blood to drink: this, surely, scandalizes you.

What then if you should see the Son of man ascending where He was before? What is this? Hence He resolves what had disturbed them; hence He brings to light that by which they had been scandalized; hence plainly, if they understood: for they thought that He would dispense His body; but He said that He would ascend, into heaven of course, whole. When you see the Son of man ascending where He was before, surely then at least you will see that He does not dispense His body in the way you think. Surely then at least you will understand that His grace is not consumed by bites. In these words it is clearly understood that Christ is one Person, since He said that the Son of man was before in heaven. He was speaking on earth, and He said that He was in heaven. To what does this tend, but that we should understand Christ, God and man, to be one Person, not two? lest in our faith there be not a trinity but a quaternity. Christ, then, is one: Word, soul, flesh. One Christ, Son of God and Son of man. One Christ, Son of God always, Son of man from a point in time; yet one Christ, according to the unity of Person, was in heaven when He was speaking on earth. The Son of man was in heaven in the same way as the Son of God was on earth. The Son of God was on earth, having taken flesh, in the same way as the Son of man was in heaven, in the unity of Person. This He soon sets out more fully: what difference there is between the spirit and the flesh, and what between wishing to eat Christ carnally and receiving [Him] spiritually. For He says:

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. A little before He said: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you; and now He says: The flesh profits nothing, that is, if you wish to understand carnally what I say, the flesh profits nothing; if you understand it so carnally, as something to be eaten like other food, like the meats that are bought in the markets, [know that] it is the Spirit that gives life. Through the spirit the flesh profits, which of itself does not profit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (II Cor. III). For through the flesh the spirit did something for our salvation: the flesh was the vessel that held what it had, through which the spirit saved us, using the instrument of the flesh for the salvation of the human race, because the devil used the serpent as an instrument for the overthrow of our first parent (Gen. III). It is the spirit that gives life, but the flesh profits nothing. Not as they understood flesh do I give My flesh to be eaten. Accordingly:

The words, He says, that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. For we have said, brethren, that the Lord commended this in the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood: that we should abide in Him, and He in us. And we abide in Him when we are His members. And He abides in us when we are His temple. But that we may be His members, unity knits us together. That unity may knit together, what brings this about but charity? Whence is the charity of God? Ask the Apostle. The charity of God, he says, is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. V). Therefore it is the spirit that gives life. For the spirit makes the members living. Nor does the spirit make any members living but those it finds in the body which it itself quickens; for the spirit which is in you, O man, by which you subsist so as to be a man, does it give life to a member it finds separated from your flesh? By your spirit I mean your soul. Your soul gives life only to the members that are in your flesh. If you take one away, it is no longer given life by your soul, because it is not joined to the unity of your body. These things are said that we may love unity and fear separation. For a Christian ought to dread nothing so much as to be separated from the body of Christ. For if he is separated from the body of Christ, he is not His member: if he is not His member, he is not quickened by His spirit. But whoever, the Apostle says, does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not His. It is the spirit, then, that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. What is are spirit and life? They are to be understood spiritually. Have you understood spiritually? They are spirit and life. Have you understood carnally? Even so they are spirit and life, but not to you, O man, who do not understand them spiritually, nor know how to revere them by faith.

For there are some among you who do not believe. And therefore they do not understand, because they do not believe. For the Prophet said, Unless you believe, you shall not understand (Isa. VI). By faith we are joined; by understanding let us be given life. First we believe by faith, that so afterwards we may be given life by understanding.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who were believing, and who would betray Him. For Judas too was there among those who were scandalized, whom Christ neither passed over in silence nor openly pointed out, so that all might fear, although only one would perish. But after He had spoken and had distinguished the believers from the unbelievers, He set out the cause why they did not believe.

Therefore I said to you, He says, that no one can come to Me unless it is given him by My Father. For faith is given by the Father to those who believe, so that no one may glory in his faith, which is not from himself as his own, but given by God, as a grace.

After this many of His disciples went back, and no longer walked with Him. They went back, not after Christ, but after Satan. And these went back in such a way as men cut off from the body of Christ, no longer returning to Him, because perhaps they had not been faithfully in His body: and these were not few, but many. Let us see, then, what He said to the few who remained.

Jesus therefore said to the Twelve: Do you also wish to go away? Not even Judas departed: but why he was staying was already apparent to the Lord; afterwards it was made manifest. Peter answered for all, one for many, unity for the whole.

Simon Peter therefore answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You drive us away from You: give us another You. To whom shall we go, if we withdraw from You? To whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life. See how Peter, the Lord granting it and the Holy Spirit renewing him, understood; whence? but because he believed the words of eternal life. For You have eternal life in the ministering of Your body and blood, and we have not known and believed, but we believe and have known. For we have believed, that we might know. For if we wished first to know and then to believe, we would be able neither to know nor to believe. What do we believe, and what have we known?

That You are the Christ, the Son of God. That is, that You are eternal life itself, and You give in Your flesh and blood nothing but what You are.

Jesus answered: Have I not chosen you twelve? and one of you is a devil. Now He spoke of Judas Iscariot, son of Simon: for he was to betray Him, although he was one of the Twelve. He was one of the Twelve, not in faith but in number; not in truth but in pretence. But how is Have I not chosen you twelve to be understood, when that one is said to be a son of the devil? but that those eleven were chosen in one way, and that one in another. Those were chosen that they might abide in Christ, and that their sound might go out through the whole world (Ps. 18:5). That one was chosen that through him the dispensation of divine mercy might be fulfilled in the salvation of the human race: hence the goodness of God made good use of his malice: just as in the selling of Joseph God made good use of the malice of his brothers (Gen. 37:28), so that from their evil work the goodness of God might be shown in the salvation of many. So the evil of Judas was turned to our good. What the wicked man does by using God's goods wickedly harms himself; it will not be able to destroy the goodness of God. Why did Christ choose twelve?

The twelvefold number is consecrated. For it is not because one perished from it that the honour of that number was taken away; for in the place of the one perishing another was substituted, and the consecrated number remained, the number twelve: because they were to announce the Trinity through the whole world, that is, through the four quarters of the world. Therefore they were chosen in fours, that the holy Trinity might be preached through the four parts of the world. For the year too runs in the number twelve, and the order of the signs in the heavens, through which the sun and moon are known to run, is divided by the number twelve. Therefore Christ sent the first preachers into the world in this number. Nor was the number violated when Judas perished, but another is substituted in his place. Of the most sacred meaning of this number Christ Himself speaks in the Gospel, concerning the most exalted glory of the saints: But when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28).

CHAPTER VII.

After these things, he says, Jesus walked in Galilee. For He would not walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. This He offered as an example for our weakness; He Himself had not lost His power, but He was consoling our frailty. For it was to come about, as I said, that some of His faithful would hide themselves, so as not to be found by the persecutors; and so that their hiding-place should not be charged against them as a crime, He went before in the Head, so that it might be confirmed in the members. For Christ could have walked into Judaea and not been killed, He Who says: I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again (John 10:18). This power He showed when He willed, when at His voice those who had come with arms to seize Him fell backwards (John 18:6).

Now the feast day of the Jews, the Scenopegia, was at hand. The Scenopegia is the feast day on which the Jews were commanded to dwell for seven days in the seventh month in tents under the branches of trees (Lev. 23:42), in memory of their dwelling in the desert. This was the feast day which the Jews celebrated with great solemnity, as though recalling the benefits of the Lord, Who led them out of the land of Egypt. The feast day of the Unleavened Bread of the Jews is spoken of not as one day, but however many days there were of that festival, they were accustomed to name them as one feast day, by the custom of a single festival.

His brethren therefore said to Him: Pass from here, and go into Judaea. The brethren of the Lord, by the most usual custom of holy Scripture, were so called as kinsmen of holy Mary ever virgin. For Abraham and Lot, and Laban and Jacob, were called brothers, though Laban was Jacob's uncle. When therefore you hear of the brethren of the Lord, think of the kindred of Mary, who did not again bring forth any offspring. We have said who the brethren were; let us hear what they said: Pass from here, and go into Judaea.

That Thy disciples also may see Thy works which Thou doest. The works of the Lord were not hidden from the disciples, but they were hidden from these. For these brethren, that is, kinsmen, could have Christ as a kinsman; but to believe in

Him, by that very nearness they disdained; therefore the evangelist at once followed on:

For neither did His brethren believe in Him. Why did they not believe in Him? Because they were seeking human glory, saying to Him:

Pass from here and go into Judaea, that Thy disciples also may see Thy works. For no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be in the open. If Thou doest these things, manifest Thyself to the world. For by these words it is shown that they sought His glory carnally, as if they had said: You do wonders, but in hiding. Pass into Judaea, so that the rulers of the nation and the city that is the head of the kingdom may see your wonders. Make yourself known, appear to all, so that you may be praised by all. To them, then, in answer to this the Lord Jesus says:

My time has not yet come; but your time is always ready. The Apostle says: After the fullness of time came, God sent His Son (Gal. 4:4). But the time of Christ's glory had not yet come when He spoke these things. What do they seem to be seeking, who were urging Him to go into Judaea, to do miracles, to become known to the world? That He should not, by hiding, be thought obscure. But He willed that humility should go before loftiness, and to come to that very height by the way of humility. But your time, that is, the glory of the world, is always ready: for there will be a time of glory. He Who came in humility will come in loftiness. He Who came to be judged will come to judge. He Who came to be killed by the dead will come to judge the living and the dead.

Go you up to this feast day. What is this? Where you seek human glory. What is this? Where you wish to prolong carnal joys, not to think of eternal ones.

I go not up to this feast day, because My time is not yet fulfilled. On the feast day you seek human glory; but My time, that is, the time of My glory, has not yet come. That will be My feast day, not running through and passing away in these days, but abiding for ever. That will be the festival: joy without end, eternity without stain, serenity without cloud.

When He had said these things, He Himself stayed in Galilee. But when His brethren had gone up, then He too went up to the feast day, not openly, but as it were in secret. [He went] not to this feast day for this reason, that He was not seeking glory in a temporal way, but to teach something for salvation, to correct men, to admonish them about the eternal feast day, to turn love away from this world and turn it to God. But what does it mean, that He went up to the feast day as it were secretly? This work of the Lord too is not without meaning. For all the feast days of the Jews were in figure. Therefore He went up secretly in them, because Christ lay hidden in them: hidden from the former people, but now manifest to a better people; because what that people did in shadow, we now do in open light. Hence one may understand that this answer of the Lord also, in which He says: I go not up to this feast day, pertains to His Passion, because Christ ascended the cross not at the festival of the Scenopegia, but at the Paschal festival, at which the lamb used to be slain. But the Jews were seeking

Him on the feast day before He went up, for the brethren had gone up first. He did not go up then, when they thought and wished, so that what He said might now be fulfilled, Not to this, that is, to the one you wish, the first or second day. But He went up afterwards, as the Gospel says, when the feast day was half over, that is, when as many days of that feast had passed as remained. For they celebrated that festival, so far as is to be understood, over a great many days.

They said therefore: Where is he? And there was much murmuring about Him in the crowd. Whence the murmuring? From dispute. What was the dispute?

For some said: He is good; but others: No, but He leads the crowds astray. This is said now of all His servants. Whoever is eminent in some grace, some say, He is good; others, No, but he leads the crowds astray. Why is this? Because our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). The body of Christ suffers this from the lovers of the world until the end of the age, which He suffered then from the murmurers of the Jews; the wheat is not yet separated from the chaff, so that the grains of wheat may be gathered into the barn, and the chaff burned in eternal fire. What was said of the Lord, then, avails as consolation for any Christian of whom this may have been said.

Yet no one spoke openly of Him, for fear of the Jews. [That is,] those who said, He is good. For of those who said, He leads the crowds astray, their sound was heard like that of dry leaves. He leads the crowds astray, they sounded out more clearly. He is good, they whispered more quietly. But now, brethren, although that glory of Christ has not yet come which will make us eternal, yet now His Church so grows, He has so deigned to spread it through all things, that even if He leads the crowds astray is whispered, He is good rings out more clearly; for a new heresy whispers secretly in corners, Christ is adoptive; but the voice of the universal holy Church resounds more clearly, Christ is the proper Son of God. They hiss too with a serpent's mouth, Christ is God in name only; but the unanimity of all the faithful cries out more expressly and more firmly, Christ is good God, as the excellent preacher bears witness, who says: Whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ, Who is over all things God blessed (Rom. 9:5).

So Jesus went up to the temple in the middle of the feast, and was teaching; and the Jews marvelled, saying: How does this man know letters, when he has not learned? He Who was hiding was teaching, and He was not seized and was speaking openly. For the one, His hiding, was for an example; the other, of power. But when He taught, the Jews marvelled. All indeed, so far as I judge, marvelled, but not all were converted. Why the wonder? Because many knew where He was born and how He had been brought up. They had never seen Him learning letters, yet they heard Him disputing about the law, bringing forward testimonies of the law, which no one could bring forward unless he had read them; no one would read, unless he had learned letters; and therefore they marvelled. But their wonder became for the Master an occasion of instilling the truth more deeply. For from their wonder and words the Lord said something profound,

and to be looked into more carefully. What then did the Lord answer to them as they wondered how He knew letters which He had not learned?

My doctrine, He says, is not Mine, but His Who sent Me. For this is the depth. For He seems in a few words to have spoken as it were contrary things. For He does not say, this doctrine is not Mine, but My doctrine is not Mine. How [it is] Mine and not Mine is the question: how can both be, both Mine and not Mine? For if we look carefully at what the holy evangelist himself says at the opening: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), on that hangs the solution of this question. What then is the doctrine of the Father, if not the Word of the Father? Christ Himself therefore is the doctrine of the Father, if [He is] the Word of the Father. But because a word cannot be no one's, but must be someone's, He both called Himself His own doctrine, and not His own, because He is the Word of the Father. This then is what the Lord Christ seems to have said: My doctrine is not Mine; as if He said, I am [not] from Myself. For although we say and believe that the Son is equal to the Father, and that there is in them no distance of nature or substance, and that no interval came between the one begetting and the one begotten, yet, keeping and guarding this, we so say that the one is Father, the other Son. But He is not Father, if He has no Son; He is not Son, if He has no Father; but yet the Son is God from the Father, while the Father is God, but not Father from the Son, not God from God. But the Son is God from God, light from light. The Father is light, the Son is light: not two lights, but one light. The Father is God, the Son is God: not two gods, but one God, Father and Son. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is Himself God too; as the Father is God, as the Son is God, so also the Holy Spirit is God: not three gods, but one God, one light, one substance, one nature, one majesty, one eternity, one greatness, one power, one goodness. And so the Lord Christ Himself, the wisdom of God, saw that not all would understand so deep a mystery, and in what follows He gave counsel. Do you wish to understand? Believe. For God, prophesying, said: Unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa. 7:9). To this belongs what the Lord here also added in what follows:

If anyone wills to do His will, he knows of the doctrine whether it is from God, or whether I speak from Myself. What is this, if anyone wills to do His will? But I had said, If anyone believes, and I had given this counsel: If you have not understood, I said, believe. For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand; since unless you believe, you will not understand. Since then, for the possibility of understanding, I have given the counsel of the obedience of believing, and have said that the Lord Jesus Christ joined this very thing, we find in the following sentence that He said: If anyone wills to do His will, that is, to believe. But that he knows means he understands, all understand; but that what He says, If anyone wills to do His will, pertains to believing, so that it may more carefully be under-

we need our Lord Himself as expositor, to show us whether to do the will of His Father really pertains to believing. Who does not know that to do the will of God is this: to work His work, that is, what pleases Him? For the Lord Himself says openly in another place: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent (John 6:29). That you believe in Him: not, that you believe Him. For it does not follow that whoever believes Him believes in Him; for the demons too believed Him, and did not believe in Him (Matt. 17; Jas. 2:19; Rom. 4). Again, of His apostles we can say, We believe Paul; but not, We believe in Paul; We believe Peter, but not, We believe in Peter. To him who believes in Him Who justifies, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. What then is it to believe in Him? By believing to love, by believing to cherish, by believing to go to Him and be incorporated into His members. This then is the faith which God requires of us, which works through love (Gal. 5:6). If you understand the words of God, understand that Christ is the Son of God, and the doctrine of the Father: He is not from Himself, not from nothing, not from other subsisting things, but from the Father alone, abiding in the Father, equal to the Father.

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. This will be he who is called Antichrist, exalting himself, as the Apostle says, above all that is called God, or that is worshipped (2 Thess. 2:4). For the Lord, announcing that this very one would seek his own glory, not the glory of the Father, says to the Jews: I have come in the name of My Father, and you did not receive Me; another will come in his own name, and him you will receive (John 5:43). He signified that they would receive Antichrist, who will seek the glory of his own name, puffed up, not solid, and therefore not stable, but altogether ruinous. But our Lord Jesus Christ gave us a great example of humility. Surely He is equal to the Father. Surely in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Surely He Himself said, and said most truly: Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known Me? Philip, he who sees Me sees the Father also (John 14:9). Surely He Himself said, and said most truly: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). If then, one with the Father, equal to the Father, God from God, God with God coeternal, immortal, equally unchangeable, equally without time, equally Creator, the disposer of times, yet because He came in time, and took the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man (Phil. 2:7), He seeks the glory of the Father, not His own: what must you do, O man, who when you do something good seek your own glory, but when you do something evil devise a slander against God? Attend to yourself: you are a creature. Acknowledge the Creator: you are a servant. Do not despise God: you are adopted, but not by your merits. Seek the glory of Him from Whom you, an adopted man, have this grace, Whose glory He sought Who is His only-begotten.

But He Who seeks the glory of Him Who sent Him, He is true, and there is no injustice in Him. But in Antichrist there is injustice, and he is not true, because he will seek his own glory, not that of Him by Whom he was sent. He was not sent, but comes by permission. All therefore who belong

to the body of Christ, so that we may not be led into the snare of Antichrist, let us not seek our own glory. But if He sought the glory of Him Who sent Him, how much more [should] we [seek the glory] of Him Who made us? There follows:

Did not Moses, He says, give you the law, and none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me? For you seek to kill [Me] for this reason, that none of you keeps the law. For if you had kept the law, you would recognize Christ in the very letters, and would not kill Him when present; and they answered. For the crowd answered. It answered like a crowd, with things belonging not to order but to disorder. See, then, what the troubled crowd answered.

You have a demon: who seeks to kill you? As if it were not worse to say you have a demon than to kill Him. For it was said to Him Who cast out demons that He had a demon. What else could a turbulent crowd say? What else could stirred-up mud smell of, but stench? The crowd was troubled. By what? By the truth. The brightness of the light troubled the crowd of bleary eyes. For eyes that do not have health cannot bear the brightness of light. But the Lord is not troubled at all, but, tranquil in His truth, He did not render evil for evil, nor curse for curse: if He had said to them, You have a demon, He would have spoken the truth. For whence would they say this of the Truth, You have a demon, unless the falsehood of the devil were provoking them? Let us hear, then, what the tranquil One answered, and let us live tranquilly.

I have done one work, and you all marvel. As if saying: What if you saw all My works? For they were His works which they saw in the world; and Him Who made all things they did not see. He did one thing, and they were troubled, because He made a man whole on the Sabbath: not understanding that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, Who established the Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath. Nor did He destroy the Sabbath Who made a man sound on the Sabbath, because the keeping of the Sabbath was given to men for the salvation of men.

Therefore Moses gave you circumcision. It was well done that you received circumcision from Moses.

Not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers. For Abraham first received circumcision from the Lord.

And on the Sabbath you circumcise. Moses convicts you in the law. You received [the command] to circumcise on the eighth day; you received in the law to rest on the seventh day (Lev. 12:3). If the eighth day of one who is born falls on the seventh day, the Sabbath, what will you do? Will you rest, to keep the Sabbath, or will you circumcise, to fulfil the Sacrament of the eighth day? But I know, He says, what you do. You circumcise a man. Why? Because circumcision pertains to a certain sign of salvation, and men ought not on the Sabbath to rest from salvation. Therefore do not be angry with Me either, because I made a whole man well on the Sabbath.

If a man receives circumcision, He says, on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken. For something was salutarily instituted

tuted, why are you indignant with Me for working salvation on the Sabbath? For perhaps that circumcision signified the Lord Himself, with Whom they were indignant as He healed and cured. For it was commanded to be applied on the eighth day. And what is circumcision, but a stripping-off of the flesh? This circumcision, then, signifies the stripping of carnal desires from the heart. Not without cause, therefore, was it given, and commanded to be done on that member, since through that member the creature of mortals is begotten: And by one man death, as by one man the resurrection of the dead; and by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death. Therefore each one is born with a foreskin, because every man is born with the fault of his descent; and God does not cleanse, whether from the fault with which we are born or from the faults which we add by living ill, except by the knife of stone, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ. For the rock was Christ. For they circumcised with knives of stone, and by the name of rock they prefigured Christ, and yet did not recognize Him when present, but moreover desired to kill Him. But as to your circumcising a man on the Sabbath, understand that this signifies a good work.

That I made a whole man well on the Sabbath. Because he was both cured, so as to be sound in body, and believed, so as to be sound in soul.

Judge not according to persons, but judge right judgement. What is this, unless that if you circumcise on the Sabbath through the law of Moses, you are not angry with Moses; and because I made a man well on the Sabbath day, you are angry with Me: you judge according to persons; attend to the truth, and judge just judgement. If you judge according to the truth, you will condemn neither Moses nor Me; and when the truth is known, you will know Me, because I am the truth. To escape this fault, brethren, which the Lord noted in this place, is in this world a matter of great labour: not to judge according to persons, but to hold to right judgement. The Lord admonished the Jews indeed, but He warned us. He convicted them, He instructed us. He reproved them, He sharpened us. Let us not think that this was not said to us because we were not there then. Let us therefore hear the Gospel as if the Lord were present: let us not say, O happy they who were able to see Him! Many among them who saw Him in the flesh killed Him; but many among us who have not seen have believed. Who is it that does not judge according to persons, but he who loves equally? He who loves all equally judges equally of all. Nor let us think this said of those whom we honour in different ways according to the honour of their ranks, but of those whose cases we are bidden to judge. The Lord Jesus, then, went up to the feast day not openly but secretly, not because He feared to be seized, He Whose power it was not to be seized, but to signify that even in that very feast day which was celebrated by the Jews a mystery was hidden and shut up; but soon the power appeared which was thought to be timidity. For He spoke openly on the feast day, so that the crowds marvelled, and said what we heard when the reading was read,

Is not this He Whom they sought to kill? And behold

He speaks openly, and they say nothing to him. Have the rulers truly known that this is the Christ? Those who knew with what savagery He was sought marvelled by what power He was not seized. Hence, not plainly understanding His power, they thought it was the rulers' knowledge: that they had recognized Him to be the Christ, and had therefore spared Him at the time when they sought to kill Him. Then those very ones who had said among themselves, Have the rulers indeed known that this is the Christ? raised a question for themselves by which it seemed to them that He was not the Christ. For they added and said:

But we know this man, whence he is; but when the Christ comes, no one knows whence He is. How is it that the Jews said, When the Christ comes, no one knows whence He is (Matt. 2:4–6), when, as Herod asked the place of His birth, they pointed it out according to the prophecy of Micah the prophet (Mic. 5:2), and from this it is certain that they knew the place of His birth? But we must consider what they thought they knew, and what they said they did not know. For they knew the place of His birth through the sayings of the prophets, but His divine birth, by which He was eternally born of God the Father, they did not know because of the impiety of their heart, as Isaiah says: Who shall declare His generation (Isa. 53:8)? Accordingly the Lord Himself answered to both, speaking both of the frailty of the humanity and of the majesty of the divinity:

Jesus therefore cried out, teaching in the temple: You both know Me, and you know whence I am. Rightly then He said, You both know Me and know whence I am; that is, according to the flesh you know My birth, and you know the nobility of My parents and the likeness of My face. But according to the divinity you do not know [Me].

Because I have not come of Myself, but He is true Who sent Me, Whom you do not know. But that you may know Him, believe in Him Whom He sent; and may you know that no one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father; He has declared [Him] (John 1:18); and, No one has known the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal [Him] (Luke 10:22). Accordingly, when He had said, But He is true Who sent Me, Whom you do not know, to show them whence they could know what they did not know, He added:

I know Him. Seek then from Me, that you may know Him. But why do I know Him? Because I am from Him, and He sent Me. He showed both magnificently. I am, He says, from Him: because the son is from the father; and whatever the son is, he is from him whose son he is. Therefore we call the Lord Jesus God from God; we do not call the Father God from God, but only God; and we call the Lord Jesus light from light; we do not call the Father light from light, but only light. To this, then, pertains what He said: I am from Him; but that you see Me in the flesh, He sent Me. When you hear, He sent Me, do not understand a dissimilarity of nature, but the authority of the One begetting.

They sought therefore to seize Him, and no one laid hands on Him, because His hour had not yet come. That is, because He did not will it. For He Who was born by His will also suffered by His will. As He had foreseen the hour of His birth, so He predestined the hour of His Passion. If the hour

of our death is His will, how much more did the hour of His Passion come at the decision of His will? Great, then, is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He through Whom times were made was made in time for our sake; that He through Whom all things were made was made among all things; that He was made what He made. He became what He had made. For He Who had made man became man, lest what He had made should perish. According to this dispensation the hour of His birth had already come, and He had been born; but the hour of His Passion had not yet come: therefore He had not yet suffered, because the hour had not yet come in which He would will to suffer. Therefore we read that on the cross, when all things had been accomplished according to the Scriptures of the Prophets, He said, It is finished; and bowing His head He gave up the spirit (John 19:30). When He willed, the things written of Him were finished; and when all were finished, by His own power He sent forth His spirit.

But of the crowd many believed in Him. The Lord was saving the humble and the poor (Ps. 33:19): the rulers were raging, and therefore they not only did not recognize the physician, but even desired to kill Him. There was a certain crowd which quickly saw its own sickness and without delay recognized His medicine, which, moved by the miracles, believed, while the rulers remained in unbelief. Therefore, having heard of the faith of the multitude, they murmured because Christ was glorified; and quickly they sent officers to arrest Him: Him they could not seize, since He was not yet willing to be arrested; but those who had come to seize Him heard Him teaching.

Jesus therefore said: Yet a little while I am with you. What you now wish to do, you will do, but not now. As for what I do not now will, why do I not yet will it now? Because yet a little while I am with you.

And then I go to Him Who sent Me. I must fulfil My dispensation, and so come to My Passion.

You will seek Me, and you will not find [Me]; and where I am, you cannot come. Here He already foretold His resurrection. For they would not recognize Him when present, and afterwards they sought Him, when they saw the multitude already believing. For great signs were done, and the Lord had already risen and ascended into heaven: then great things were done through the disciples, but He did them through them Who also [did them] through Himself. For He Himself had said to them: Without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Why could they not come? Because they would not believe: because no one can be saved without faith.

The Jews therefore said, not to Him, but among themselves: Where will this man go, that we shall not find Him? Will He go into the dispersion of the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? For they did not know what they said: but because He willed it, they prophesied. For the Lord was to go to the Gentiles, not by the presence of His body, but by divine power in His disciples, of whom the prophet said: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings of peace, who bring good tidings of good things (Isa. 52:7)! On these feet Christ was to go to the Gentiles, and to teach them

the Gentiles who had received [F. would receive] the faith, the Gentiles whom the Jews spurned, who prophesied without knowing the truth, because they had not understood Christ saying: And where I am, you cannot come. Why can you not come? Because you will not believe. What is it that He said: Where I am? Except: in the bosom of the Father, I am co-everlasting with the Father. He was speaking on earth, but He showed that He was in the bosom of the Father. Among the other dispensations of our Lord, and the teachings of our salvation, and the doubts of the Jews concerning the Lord Jesus Christ which He spoke (sic), by which some were confounded and others taught, on the last day of that festival (for then these things were being done) which is called the Scenopegia, that is, the building of tabernacles, of which festival your charity remembers it has already been discussed, the Lord Christ calls, and this not in any manner of speaking but by crying out, that he who thirsts should come to Him. Do we thirst? Let us come, not with feet but with affections: let us come not by travelling but by loving; although, as regards the inner man, he who loves also travels; and it is one thing to travel in body, another in heart. He travels in body who by motion of the body changes place: he travels in heart who by motion of the heart changes affection. If you love one thing and used to love another, you are not where you were. The Lord therefore was crying out to us: for He stood, and cried out:

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. What this might be we need not dwell on, since the evangelist has explained it. For why the Lord said, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink; and, He who believes in Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, the evangelist explained in what follows, saying

But this He said of the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive. Let us know only this, that the Lord Jesus cried this out concerning charity. He cries out, then, and says that we should come and drink, if we thirst within, because when we have drunk, rivers of living water will flow from our belly. The belly of the inner man is the conscience of his heart. When this liquid is drunk, then, the cleansed conscience revives; and drawing, it will have a spring: it will itself also be a spring. What is the spring, or what is the river that flows from a man's belly? Benevolence, by which he wishes to provide for his neighbour. For if he thinks that what he drinks suffices for himself, he dries up, and living water does not flow from his belly. But if he hastens to provide for his neighbour, he does not run dry for this reason, that he flows. Let us see what it is that those who believe in God drink: for surely if we are Christians and believe, we drink; and each one ought to recognize in himself whether he drinks: so that, if he drinks, it may flow from him, from what he drinks. For the spring will not desert us, if we do not desert the spring. The evangelist explained, and said why the Lord had cried out, to what drink He had invited, what He had offered to those who drink, saying: But this He said of the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive.

For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. What Spirit does he mean, if not the Holy [Spirit]? For every man has a spirit in himself, his own spirit, that is, the mind. For the mind

of each one is his own spirit, of which the apostle Paul says: For who among men knows the things that are of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him (1 Cor. 2:11)? But what is it that he says: For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified? Was not the Spirit in the holy prophets and patriarchs of God, who foretold many things to come through the Holy Spirit? So too Elizabeth is read to have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and likewise of Zachary, as the evangelist says: And Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying (Luke 1:67). What is it that he says: The Holy Spirit had not yet been given? For we have many signs of the Holy Spirit going before, before the Lord was glorified by the resurrection of His flesh; for the prophets too, who foretold that Christ would come, had no other spirit. But there was to be a certain manner of this giving which had not appeared at all before. Of this it is spoken here: for nowhere do we read that before this men gathered together, having received the Holy Spirit, spoke in the tongues of all nations (Acts 2:4). But after His resurrection, first, when He appeared to His disciples, He said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Of this, then, it was said: The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified; and He breathed into their face (John 20:22), by which breath He quickened the first man whom He made, and raised him up from the clay: by which breath He gave a soul to his members (Gen. 2:7). For, signifying that it was the same Spirit which He breathed into their face, so that they might rise up from the mud and renounce works of mud, then first after His resurrection the Lord (which the Evangelist (John 20) calls glorification) gave the Holy Spirit to His disciples; then, having stayed with them forty days, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles shows, while they themselves watched, and escorted Him with their eyes, He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9). There, ten days having passed, on the day of Pentecost, He sent the Holy Spirit from above upon those who, as I have said, had been gathered in one place; having received Him, they spoke in the tongues of all nations (Acts 2:4). Someone will perhaps ask why those baptized in Christ, and living in the charity of His commandments, do not speak in the tongues of all nations, when it is certain that they have received the Holy Spirit? Because the Church herself, which is the body of Christ, speaks in the tongues of all nations: which was then foreshadowed in the primitive Church, which was begun in Judaea in one nation only, but is now gathered from all nations. And as then one man spoke in tongues, so now the unity of holy Church speaks in all tongues. We too, then, receive the Holy Spirit if we love the Church, if we are joined together by charity, if we rejoice in the catholic name and faith. Therefore, as much as each one loves the Church of Christ, so much does he have the Holy Spirit. We have, then, the Holy Spirit if we love the Church; and we love her if we stand fast in her bond and in charity, which the Apostle confidently set above all the virtues (1 Cor. 13:13). Whoever has it will have all good things: because without

it, nothing will profit whatever a man may be able to have: of which the blessed apostle James says: But whoever offends in one point has become guilty of all (Jas. 2:10). Of this the Truth Himself also says: For by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35). When, therefore, Christ was saying these things on the last day of the feast, which we have just set out and treated as we could, there arose a division in the crowd concerning Him, some thinking that He was the Christ, others saying that the Christ will not arise from Galilee. But those who had been sent to seize Him returned free of the crime, and full of wonder. For they even bore witness to His divine teaching, when those by whom they had been sent said to them:

Why have you not brought Him? For they answered that they had never heard a man speak so. For no man speaks so: but He spoke so because He was God and man; yet the Pharisees, rejecting their testimony, said to them:

Have you also been led astray? For we see that you have been delighted by His words.

Has any of the rulers believed in Him, or of the Pharisees? But this crowd which does not know the law are accursed. Those who did not know the law, they believed in Him; and those who taught the law despised Him who had sent the law, so that what the Lord Himself had said might be fulfilled: I have come so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind (Mark 4:12). For the Pharisees, the teachers, became blind; the peoples who did not know the law, and believed in the author of the law, were enlightened. Nicodemus, however, one of the Pharisees, who had come to the Lord by night, and was himself indeed not unbelieving but fearful (for that is why he had come to the light by night, because he wished to be enlightened and feared to be known), answered the Jews:

Does our law judge a man unless it first hears from him, and knows what he does? For those perverse men wished to be condemners before they were investigators. But Nicodemus knew, or rather believed, that if only they were willing to hear Him patiently, they might perhaps become like those who were sent to seize Him, and who preferred to believe Him rather than to seize Him.

They therefore answered him. Out of the prejudgement of their heart, which [they had said] to the others also:

Are you also a Galilean? That is, as though led astray by the Galilean? For the Lord was called a Galilean because His parents were from the city of Nazareth. I have said His parents with regard to Mary, not with regard to the seed of a man. For He sought on earth only a mother, who already had a Father above. For each of His births was wonderful, the divine without a mother, the human without a human father. What, then, do they say to Nicodemus, as teachers of the law?

Search the Scriptures and see that a prophet does not arise from Galilee. But the Lord of the prophets arose from there. They went back, says the Evangelist, each one to his own house.

CHAPTER VIII.

Then Jesus went on to the Mount of Olives. For the mount

of Olives signifies the loftiness of the Lord's goodness and mercy, because in Greek too mercy is ἔλεος, oil is called ἔλαιον, and the very anointing with oil is wont to bring relief to weary and aching limbs. And this too, that oil excels both in strength and in purity, and whatever liquid you may wish to pour over it, it is wont at once to rise above it and to be borne on top of it, not unfittingly suggests the grace of heavenly mercy, of which it is written: The Lord is sweet to all, and His mercies are over all His works (Ps. 144:9). The time of dawn, too, shows the rising of the same grace, because, the shadow of the law being removed, the light of the Gospel truth was to be revealed. Jesus therefore goes on to the Mount of Olives, to declare that the stronghold of mercy stands firm in Him. He comes again at dawn into the temple, to signify that the same mercy, with the beginning light of the New Testament, was to be opened and offered to the faithful, that is, to His temple.

And all the people, he says, came to Him: and sitting down He taught them. The Lord's sitting suggests the lowliness of the incarnation, through which He deigned to have mercy on us. And it is well said that when Jesus taught sitting, all the people came to Him: because after He had been made near to men through the lowliness of His incarnation, His word was more gladly received by many. By many, I say, His word was received, and by more it was despised with proud impiety. For the meek have heard, and have rejoiced (Ps. 33:3).

Then the Jews, testing Him, brought a woman caught in adultery. They asked what He would order to be done with her, since Moses had commanded such a woman to be stoned (Lev. 20:10): so that if He too decreed that she be stoned, they might mock Him as forgetful of the mercy He always taught; if He forbade her to be stoned, they might gnash their teeth at Him, and condemn Him, as though deservedly, as an abettor of crimes and an opponent of the law.

But Jesus, bending Himself down, was writing with His finger on the ground. By the bending of Jesus, lowliness is expressed; by the finger, which is flexible through the jointing of its joints, the subtlety of discernment too. Further, by the earth is shown the human heart, which is wont to yield the fruits of either good or evil deeds. The Lord, then, being asked to judge concerning the sinful woman, does not give judgement at once, but first, bending Himself down, writes with His finger on the ground; and only then, when He is pressed with entreaty, does He judge: teaching us, that is, in figure, that when we see any faults of our neighbours, we should not judge them by rebuking before we have humbly turned back to our own conscience and carefully carved it out with the finger of discernment; and that we should determine by diligent examination what in it pleases the Creator and what displeases Him, according to that saying of the Apostle: Brethren, even if a man has been overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted (Gal. 6:1).

But when they persisted in questioning Him, He raised Himself up and said to them: Let him of you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her. Because on this side and on that, to the Lord

the Scribes and Pharisees were laying the snares of their plots, thinking that He would be either unmerciful in judging or unjust, He, foreseeing their deceits, passes through them as through the threads of a spider, showing in all things the judgement of justice and the gentleness of goodness. Behold the restraint of showing mercy: He of you who is without sin. Behold again the justice of judging: Let him be the first to cast a stone at her. As if He had said: If Moses commanded you to stone a woman of this kind, see that he commanded not sinners but the just to do this. First fulfil the justice of the law yourselves, and so, innocent of hand and clean of heart, run together to stone the guilty woman. First accomplish the spiritual decrees of the law, faith, mercy and charity, and so turn aside to judging carnal things. And when judgement had been given:

But the Lord, again bending Himself down, was writing on the ground. And indeed, according to the manner of human custom, it can be understood that the Lord willed to bend down before the wicked tempters and to write on the ground for this reason: that, turning His face elsewhere, He might leave them free to go out, whom, struck by His answer, He had foreseen would sooner go out than ask anything more.

Then, hearing, they went out one after another, beginning from the elders. But He admonishes us figuratively in that both before and after giving sentence He bent down and wrote on the ground, so that both before we rebuke a neighbour who sins, and after we have rendered him the service of due correction, we should weigh ourselves with a fitting scrutiny of humility: lest perhaps we be entangled either in the same deeds that we rebuke in them, or in any other crimes: as it may perhaps happen that one who has judged a murderer guilty of death is himself, in himself, found before the eye of the Creator guilty of death through hatred of a brother; likewise one who accuses a brother of the crime of fornication may not see in himself the crime of pride (John 3). Therefore the judge of another's crime is bidden to write with the finger of discernment in his own heart, lest perhaps he be found guilty in himself. What remedy, then, have we in perils of this kind? What way of salvation remains? Only that when we see another sinning, we at once bend down, that is, humbly consider how cast down we should be through the frailty of our condition, if divine goodness did not uphold us. Let us write with the finger on the ground, that is, let us weigh with careful discernment whether we can say with blessed Job: For our heart does not reproach us in all our life (Job 27:6). Fittingly He who, bending down, wrote on the ground, utters, when raised up, words of mercy: because what He promised through fellowship with human weakness, He bestows on men as a house of goodness through the strength of divine power.

Jesus, raising Himself up, he says, said to her: Woman, where are those who were accusing you? Has no one condemned you? She said: No one, Lord. No one dared to condemn the sinful woman, because each of them had begun to see in himself what they knew to be more worthy of condemnation. But since He put to flight the crowd of accusers by bringing forth the weight of justice, let us see with how great a gift of mercy He raises up the accused woman. There follows:

And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn you. Go,

and sin no more. Because He is merciful and kind, He remits what is past: because He is just and loves justice, He forbids her to sin any more. But since some could doubt whether Jesus, whom they knew to be a true man, could forgive sins, He Himself deigns to show more openly what the Godhead can do. For after the wickedness of the tempters had been repulsed, after the sinful woman's guilt had been loosed,

Again He spoke: I am the light of the world: he who follows Me does not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Here He plainly teaches not only by what authority He forgave the woman her sins, but also that He Himself is the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world. Its everlasting splendour human frailty could not have seen had it not been covered by the cloud of flesh, through which, as through a most bright mirror, the brightness of the divine light might become known to human minds: which [mind] must be cleansed by faith, so that it may be made worthy of the sight of so great a light. Hence He went on to say: He who follows Me does not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. He who now obeys My commands and examples will not fear the darkness of damnation in the future, but will rather have the light of life, where he will never die at all. Therefore, my brethren, let us follow Christ the light of the world, lest we walk in darkness. The darkness to be feared is of the morals, not of the eyes; and if of the eyes, not of the outer but of the inner, by which is discerned not white and black but just and unjust. When, then, our Lord Jesus Christ had said this:

The Jews answered: You bear witness about Yourself: Your witness is not true. Before our Lord Jesus Christ came, He lit and sent before Him many prophetic lamps. Among these was also John the Baptist, to whom the Light itself, so great, which is Christ, bore such witness as to none of men. For He says: Among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). Yet this man, than whom none was greater among those born of women, says of our Lord Jesus: I indeed baptize you in water, but He who comes after me is mightier than I: whose sandal I am not worthy to loose (John 1:26–27). See how the lamp humbles itself before the day. And that John himself was a lamp the Lord Himself testifies. He was, He says, a lamp burning and shining; and you were willing for an hour to rejoice in his light. The Jews therefore answered: You bear witness about Yourself: Your witness is not true (John 5:35). Let us see what they hear; let us hear too, but not as they did; they despising, we believing; they wishing to kill Christ, we desiring to live through Christ. Meanwhile let this difference set apart our ears and minds, and let us hear what the Lord answered the Jews.

Jesus answered and said to them: Even if I bear witness about Myself, My witness is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. Light shows both other things and itself; Christ shows both Himself and the Father, and what was to come upon the Jews. So the Lord says, and says truly: Even if I bear witness about Myself,

My witness is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. He wished the Father to be understood. The Son gave glory to the Father; the equal glorifies Him by whom He was sent: how much ought man to glorify Him by whom he was created! I know where I came from, and where I am going. He who speaks to you in [His] presence has that which He did not forsake, and yet He came. For by coming He did not depart from there, nor by returning did He forsake us. Why do you wonder? He is God; this cannot [read perhaps: can, affirmatively] be done, but by man this cannot be done. The sun goes from the East to the West, and forsakes the East. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not [absent] in the East, and He came; and He is there, and He returned, and He is here. Hear the evangelist himself saying in another place, and if you can, grasp it; if you cannot, believe: No one, he says, has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18). He did not say, He was in the bosom of the Father. He was speaking here, and said that He was there: and when He was about to depart from here, what did He say? Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28:20). Therefore the witness of the light is true, whether it shows itself or other things: because without light light cannot be seen, and without light nothing else whatever that is not light can be seen. So light shows both itself and the things around it. So too Christ both shows Himself and enlightens others, who are around Him by charity, and follow Him not with the steps of their feet but with the duties of charity. We read in the holy Scriptures that two comings of our Lord Jesus Christ were foretold by the prophets: one of mercy, which has been accomplished; the other of judgement, which is to come. The first dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, is one of healing, not of judging. For if He had come first to judge, He would have found no one to whom He could render the rewards of justice. Since, then, He saw that all were sinners, and that no one at all was free from the death of sin, His mercy had first to be bestowed, and judgement to be exercised afterwards, because the Psalmist had sung of Him, Mercy and judgement I will sing to Thee, O Lord (Ps. 100:1). For he does not say, Judgement and mercy: for if judgement were first, there would be no mercy; but first mercy, afterwards judgement. What is the first mercy? The Creator of man deigned to be man: made what He had made, lest what He had made should perish. What can be heard [beyond] this mercy? Yet He added: for He was rejected by men, for whose salvation He had come into the world. He endured mockeries, scourges, spittings, the reproaches of enemies, the most shameful death of the cross. All these things He endured because He willed it. He willed it in order to save man whom He had created. No kind of death was more unbearable than the cross, because of its long torments. But nothing is now more glorious than to bear the sign of the cross on the forehead. Hence the Apostle says, proclaiming the glory of the cross: But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6:14). Since He came to judge no one, He consequently answered the Jews:

You judge according to the flesh: I judge no one. He bore an unjust judgement, in order to carry out a just one

but that He bore an unjust one was of mercy. In short, He was made so lowly that He came to the cross. He held back His power, indeed, but made His mercy known. How did He hold back His power? Because He would not come down from the cross, He who could rise again from the tomb (Mark 15:32). How did He make His mercy known? Because hanging on the cross He said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Whether, then, He said I judge no one for this reason, that He had not come to judge the world but to save the world; or, as I have recalled, because He had said: You judge according to the flesh, He added: I judge no one; so that we may understand that Christ does not judge according to the flesh, as He was judged by men. For that you may now recognize Christ as judge too, hear what follows:

And if I do judge, My judgement is true. See, He has judgement too. But acknowledge the Saviour, lest you feel the Judge. But why did He say that His judgement is true?

Because I am not alone, He says, but I and the Father who sent Me. What is the sending of Christ but His incarnation? Christ was sent: it is the same as if you were to say, Christ was made flesh. And He was sent by the Father, and never withdrew from the Father; and He was here through the incarnation: and He is here now through the Godhead. Let faith, then, cleanse our hearts: so that understanding may fill our hearts, and that we may understand the mystery of our salvation. It is high, it is deep, it is hidden. There is one substance, one Godhead, one majesty of the Father and the Son. The Father did not suffer, but the Son alone. Let us understand, then, that the incarnation of the Son is named the sending of the Son. But do not believe that the Father was made flesh. Whence, then, is His judgement true, except because He is the true Son of the Father? Therefore He said: My judgement is true, because I am not alone; but I and the Father who sent Me. The same therefore said in another place: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); one in substance, two in persons. He said one because of the unity of substance; He said are because of the distinction of persons. Hear what He said, I, and the Father who sent Me. Distinguish the persons, acknowledge that the Father is father, acknowledge that the Son is son, lest you come into the pit of the Sabellian; and do not say, One thing and another thing, but say, One and another. Not another thing in substance, but another in person; the Father not greater, the Son not less in the glory of the Godhead. But believe: we are one. Therefore, that the Truth Himself said one frees you from Arius: that He said are frees you from Sabellius. If one, then not diverse; if are, then not a single one. He had spoken of judgement when He said, I judge no one: now He wishes to speak of witness:

In your law, He says, it is written. He said Your, as if He were saying, In the law which was given to you by God, as we say our daily bread, which we ask to be given to us by God. What is it that is written in your law?

That the witness of two men is true. I am He who bears witness about Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness about Me. They said, etc.

Do two men of themselves speak true witness? Did not two false witnesses bring false witness against Susanna? And when the Jews were seeking false witness against Christ, the evangelist says, At last there came two false witnesses (Matt. 26:60). Because they were two, were they therefore not false witnesses? What do we say of two or three? The whole people lied against Christ. If, then, the whole people, which consists of a great multitude of men, was found to speak false witness, how is it to be understood, in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand? Unless it is that in this way the Trinity is commended through a mystery, in which there is the everlasting stability of truth. If you wish to have a good case, have two or three witnesses, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, when Susanna, a chaste woman and a faithful wife, was accused by two false witnesses, the Trinity supported her in her conscience and in secret; the Trinity raised up for her out of secret one witness, Daniel, and he convicted the two. Therefore, since it is written in your law that the witness of two men is true, accept Our witness, lest you feel judgement. But I, He says, judge no one: I bear witness about Myself; I put off judgement. Let us choose, brethren, the witness of God, because the witness of God is true. And since He is witness of all that we do, He will be judge of all that we have done; and He seeks no other witness but Himself: because He considers all the secrets of our heart, and what proceeds from what source: therefore He is a witness, because He does not seek another from whom to learn who you are, or what your life is like, He who will render to each according to his works. The Jews therefore answered the Lord as He spoke of His Father, and said:

Where is your father? They took the Father of Christ in a carnal sense, because they judged the words of Christ according to the flesh. But He who spoke was, in the open, flesh; in secret, the Word: man manifest, God hidden. Let us see, then, what the Lord answered to this. Where, they say, is your Father? For we have heard you say, I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent Me. We see you alone; we do not see your father with you. How do you say that you are not alone, but are with your father? Or, Show us that your father is with you. And the Lord: Do you see Me, and not see My Father? for this follows; with these words He Himself answered. The explanation of which words we have set out before. For see what He said.

You know neither Me nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would know My Father also. You say, then, Where is your Father? as though you already knew Me, as though I were wholly what you see. Therefore, because you do not know Me, I do not show you My Father. For you think Me a man, and so you seek My father as a man, because you judge according to the flesh: but because I am one thing according to what you see, and another according to what you do not see: and I speak of My Father as hidden; it comes first that you should know Me, and then you will know My Father also. For if you knew Me, you would perhaps know My Father also. He who knows all things, when He says perhaps

does not doubt, but rebukes. For note how the very word perhaps, which seems to be a word of doubt, is said by way of rebuke; but it is a word of doubt when it is said by a man, doubting because not knowing: but when a word of doubt is said by God, since surely nothing is hidden from God, by that doubt unbelief is reproved, the Godhead does not conjecture. For men sometimes doubt by way of rebuke about things that they hold certain, that is, they use a word of doubt when in heart they do not doubt: as if you were angry with your servant and said, Do you despise me? Consider: perhaps I am your Lord God. Hence also the Apostle, speaking to certain men who despised him, says: But I think that I too have the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 7:40). In saying I think, he seems to doubt; but he rebukes, he does not doubt; and the Lord Christ in another place, rebuking the future unbelief of the human race, says: When the Son of man comes, do you think He will find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8.) He, then, through whom all things were made, knows all things, and yet rebukes by doubting. If you knew Me, you would perhaps know My Father also. He rebukes the unbelieving, He admonishes the faithful: that they may know that the knowledge of the Father and of the Son is one: so that they may know that the knowledge of the Son is the knowledge of the Father too. Therefore to the chosen disciple who asked that the Father be shown to them, He answered: Have I been with you so long, and you have not known Me? Philip, he who sees Me sees the Father also (John 14:9). If the Son were unlike the Father, would He say to His disciples, He who sees Me sees the Father also? Would He say to the Jews, If you knew Me, you would know My Father also?

These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, teaching in the temple. Great confidence, without fear: for He would not suffer if He did not will it, just as He would not have been born if He did not will it. What does it mean that Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, teaching in the temple? The treasury is a place where treasures are stored. Jesus spoke to the Jews in the treasury when He spoke to the crowds in parables. For Christ was the treasury, in whom all mysteries lay hidden, to be opened then, when He who lay hidden in the letter spoke not in proverbs, but openly declared all things to His faithful. For the treasuries too adjoined the temple, because Christ Himself is the temple, of which He Himself says, Destroy this temple (John 2:19). To Him all the mysteries of the old law adhered, and all looked towards Him, until He should come to open the treasuries of each of the mysteries, opening the understanding of His faithful so that they might understand the things that lay hidden, as the Evangelist says: Then He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). Then what follows: No one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come: that is, the hour of His ordering, the hour of His will: because He who was born by His will suffered by His will. If, then, He had not willed to suffer, He would not have suffered, that blood would not have been shed, the world would not have been redeemed. Let us therefore give thanks both to the power of His Godhead and to the compassion of His weakness for the hidden patience which the Jews did not know, whence it was just now said to them, You know neither Me nor

My Father; and for the flesh He had taken, which the Jews knew, and whose homeland they knew, whence He said to them in another place, You both know Me, and you know where I am from (John 7:28). Let us know both in Christ: both whereby He is equal to the Father, and whereby the Father is greater than He. The one is Word, the other flesh: the one is God, the other man; but one Christ, God and man. Now let us hear what Christ said of His passion.

I go, He says, and you will seek Me. Not with longing, but with hatred. For after He had departed from the eyes of men, both those who hated Him and those who loved Him sought Him: the former by persecuting, the latter by desiring to have Him. It is good to seek the soul of Christ, but as the disciples sought it; and it is evil to seek the soul of Christ, but as the Jews sought it. For the former [sought] to have it, the latter to destroy it. Accordingly, these, because they were thus seeking [Him] to die with an evil and perverse heart: which He went on to add. You will seek Me; and lest you think that you will seek Me well:

You will die in your sin. This is to seek Christ wrongly: to die in one's sin. He will die in his sin who remains in sin until death. He does not seek Christ who does not seek the salvation of his soul through penance. To him the prophet cries: Seek the Lord while He can be found (Isa. 55:6). He who does not seek the Merciful One while he has time will find Him angry. He said to the Jews, You will die in your sin, because He foreknew that they would remain in their sin. He said in sin in the singular, and your in the plural (John 13), because He knew that all those to whom He was speaking had one will, an equal malice to destroy Him who had come to save them. But in another place He said to His disciples:

Where I am going, you cannot come now. He did not take away their hope, but foretold a delay. For when the Lord was saying this to the disciples, they could not then come where He was going, but they were to come afterwards. These, however, never: to whom in His foreknowledge He said, You will die in your sin. But having heard these words, as those are wont to do who think carnal thoughts, and judge according to the flesh, and hear and understand everything carnally, they said: Will He kill Himself, since He says, Where I am going, you cannot come? Foolish words, and wholly full of folly. For why could they not come there where He went, if He were to kill Himself? Were they themselves not going to die? What, then, does it mean, Will He kill Himself, since He said, Where I am going, you cannot come? If He were speaking of the death of a man, which of men does not die? Therefore He said where I am going not of the going to death, but of where He Himself was going after death. Since, then, they did not understand these things, the Lord answered them, who savoured of the earth. What does He say?

He said to them, You are from beneath. That is why you savour of the earth, because like the serpent you eat earth. What is, You eat earth? You feed on earthly things, on earthly things

you delight, you gape after earthly things, you do not have the heart lifted up. You are from below:

I am from above. You are of the world, I am not of this world. How then was He not of this world, through Whom the world was made, and Who always is where it is, and all are of the world (sic)? But first the world, afterwards man; and Christ before the world, before Christ nothing, because in the beginning was the Word, and all things were made through Him. Thus, then, was He from above. From what above? Christ from the Father Himself. Nothing is higher than He, because [the Father] begot the Word equal to Himself, co-eternal with Himself, only-begotten of Himself, without time, through Whom He might found the times. Therefore Christ is before all creatures and before all times: because from the Father He was begotten co-eternal with the Father. I am from above, you are of this world. I am not of this world.

I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins. He has explained to us, brethren, what He wished to be understood by You are of this world. For He said You are of this world for this reason, because they were sinners, because they were wicked, because they were unbelievers, because they savoured earthly things. Were the apostles and saints of God not of this world? They were indeed, because they were born of Adam; but the Truth Himself says of them: I have chosen you out of the world (John 15); that is, out of the carnal way of life, which in this place seems to be signified by the name of world. Those, then, who were of the world were made not of the world, and began to belong to Him through Whom the world was made. But these remained in the world, to whom it was said: You will die in your sins. Let no one say, I am not of this world. Whoever you are, O man, you are of this world. But He Who made the world came to you, and freed you from this world. If the world delights you, you wish always to be unclean. But if this world no longer delights you, you will now be clean, and you will not hear what the Jews heard, You will die in your sins; and he who sins more is more in the world, and more unclean: and the more anyone cleanses himself from sin, the more he declares himself not to be of the world. Deservedly did the Jews hear, You will die in your sins: because you can in no way not have sin, you who were born with sin; but yet if you believe in Me, He says, you were indeed born with sin, but you will not die in your sin. The whole unhappiness, then, was not to have sin but to die in sins; this is what every Christian ought to flee. For this one runs to baptism. For this, if anyone is in danger from sickness or from some other cause, he desires to be helped. For this too the little one, rising, is carried by his mother in loving arms to the Church, lest he go out without baptism and die in the sin in which he was born. For He added, saying: If you do not believe, you will die in your sins. Hope has been restored to the despairing, an arousing has been made for sleeping hearts; they awoke, and from this very many believed, as the sequel of the Gospel itself testifies, where it says:

As He spoke these things, many believed in Him. In this people, then, to whom the Lord was speaking, there were those who were to die in their sin, and those who in Him Who

was speaking, were going to believe, and to be freed from every sin. Yet attend to this, which the Lord Christ says: If you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sin. What is if you do not believe that I am? He Who added nothing, much is it that He commended. He said I am, and did not add what: whether the Christ, or the Son of God, or He Whom the prophets foretold, or the Saviour of the world, or anything else that is read of Him in the Scriptures. Much is it that He says just this, I am: for God had said to Moses, I am Who am (Exod. 3), and here now, Unless you believe that I am, He used towards the people of the Jews the same word of everlasting being as He used then to Moses through the angel in the bush, in the flame of fire, Moses whom He was about to send to free His people. What is it that He said here, I am? Only this: I Myself, Who then came in an angel to send Moses My servant to free My people, I Myself now through My own self have come incarnate, made man, to free men whom I created, to save those who had been lost. For whatever can in any way be changed, whether for the better or for the worse, in a certain manner dies to what it was before, when it begins to be something else, or to be otherwise than it was. God alone is always the same, unchangeable truth, unchangeable goodness, unchangeable everlastingness, unchangeable nature, unchangeable substance; and whatever can be said of Him is always the same, what it was and will be. Absolutely nothing else seems better to be understood in this word which the Lord says, I am, than: I am God.

You will die in your sin. But they, always savouring earthly things, and always hearing and answering according to the flesh, what did they say?

Who are you? For when you said, Unless you believe that I am, you did not add who you were. Who are you, that we may believe? And He:

The Beginning. Behold what He is. To be the beginning cannot be changed. The Beginning remains in itself, and renews all things. He is the Beginning to Whom it was said: But Thou art the selfsame, and Thy years shall not fail.

The Beginning, He says, Who also speak to you. Believe Me the Beginning, lest you die in your sins. For as if in saying, Who are you? they had said nothing else than, What are we to believe you to be?, He answered, Believe Me to be the Beginning, and added, Who also speak to you, that is, I Who, made humble for your sake, have come down to these words. For if the Beginning, as He is, had so remained with the Father as not to receive the form of a servant, and as man to speak to men, how would they believe Him, since weak hearts could not see the intelligible Word without a voice, as they see things of sense? Therefore, He says, believe Me to be the Beginning: because, that you may believe, I not only am, but also speak to you. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ which He held with the Jews, so tempering His speech that the blind should not see and the faithful should open their eyes. The Jews therefore said, Who are you? because the Lord had said above: Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins

you will die in your sins. To this, then, they said, Who are you? As though seeking to know in Whom they ought to believe, lest they die in their sin. He answered those who said Who are you? and says: The Beginning, Who also speak to you (Ps. 103). Why does the Lord Jesus call Himself the Beginning? The Beginning, because all things were made through Him, as the Psalmist says: Thou hast made all things in wisdom. If, then, God made all things in wisdom, that is, in His Son, co-eternal and consubstantial with Himself, the Son is assuredly the beginning of all things. Assuredly it is rightly said that both the Father is the beginning and the Son is the beginning: yet not two beginnings: just as the Father is God and the Son is God, yet we must speak not of two gods but of one God. So the Father is the beginning and the Son is the beginning, yet not two beginnings, but one beginning must be confessed. Therefore the Holy Spirit too is the beginning; yet not three beginnings, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but one beginning: just as the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; yet not three Gods but one God; the Father almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty, yet not three almighties but one Almighty. For the same Father, in respect of Himself, is God; in respect of the Son, is Father: the Son, in respect of Himself, is God; in respect of the Father, is Son. The Holy Spirit, in respect of Himself, is God; in respect of the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit, because He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, proceeding from the Father and the Son, of one substance, power and majesty with the Father and the Son. Let us hear, then, what the Beginning speaks to us.

I have many things, He says, to say and to judge concerning you. But in another place He said: I judge no one (John 8): showing His present coming, in which He came to save, not to judge: because He had come to save the world, not to judge the world. But what He now says, I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, speaks of the judgement to come. For He ascended for this, that He may come to judge the living and the dead. No one will judge more justly than He Who was unjustly judged. I have many things, He says, to say and to judge concerning you.

But He Who sent Me is true. See how the Son, equal to the Father, gives glory to the Father. For He offers us an example, to give glory to God, to seek the glory of God, not our own: as if He were saying, O faithful man, if I, the Son of the Father, equal to the Father, consubstantial with the Father, co-eternal with the Father, give glory to Him from Whom I am, how are you proud before Him Whose servant you are? I have many things, He says, to say and to judge concerning you; but He Who sent Me is true; as if He were saying, I therefore speak the truth because, Son of the True One, I am the Truth. The Father is truth, the Son is truth. For the Lord Himself says most plainly, I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14). If, then, the Son is truth, what is the Father but what He says, truth? He Who sent Me is true. The Son is truth; the Father is true, but not from the truth. The Son is truth, but from the Father, because the Son is from the Father, not from Himself; and therefore He says in another place: I have not come of Myself (John 8), that is, I am not of Myself. The Father assuredly is true, not by partaking of the truth but by begetting the Truth, because the Father begot the Son, Who says of Himself:

I am the way, and the truth. But when the Lord Jesus had said: He Who sent Me is true, they did not understand that He was speaking to them of the Father; they did not yet have the eyes of the heart opened, so as to be able to understand the equality of the True One and the Truth. He said to them:

When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am: and I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father has taught Me, these things I speak. What is this? For He seems to have said nothing else than that they would know Who He was after His passion. Without doubt, then, He saw there some whom He Himself knew, whom He Himself, together with the rest of His saints, had chosen by foreknowledge before the foundation of the world, who would believe after His passion. These are they whom we constantly commend and set forth for imitation with great exhortation. For when the Holy Spirit had been sent from above after the Lord's passion and resurrection and ascension, when miracles were done in the name of Him Whom the Jews, persecuting Him, had despised as one dead, they were pierced to the heart: and those who in their rage had killed Him were changed and believed; and the blood which they had shed in raging, they drank in believing, those three thousand and those five thousand of the Jews (Acts 2 and 4): this is what He meant when He said: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am. As if saying: I put off your knowing, that I may fulfil My passion. In your own order you will know Who I am, not because all of those who were listening were then going to believe, that is, after the Lord's passion. For a little before it said: As He spoke these things, many believed in Him, and the Son of Man had not yet been lifted up. For He means the lifting up of the passion, not of glorification: of the cross, not of heaven. For there He was lifted up when He hung upon the wood. But that lifting up was a humiliation. For then He became obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross, wherefore God has exalted Him (Phil. 2). One lifting up was when He was raised on the cross. The other, when He ascended into heaven. That one of humiliation, this one of glorification. But the lifting up of the cross had to be fulfilled through the hands of those who were afterwards to believe: to whom He says: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am (John 8). Why this? Only that no one, wickedly conscious of whatever crime, might despair, when he saw murder forgiven to those who killed Christ the Lord. He added: Then you will know that I am. What is I am? Only: of one substance with the Father, as we said above was spoken to Moses: I am Who am (Exod. 3), and thus you shall say to the children of Israel: He Who is has sent me to you. The Lord uses a word of substance of Himself, that the substance may be understood to be eternal, and the substance of the Father and the Son to be one. Yet lest He Himself should be understood to be the Father, He at once added: And I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father has taught Me, these things I speak. But what He says, I do nothing of Myself, what is I do nothing of Myself? That is, I am not of Myself. But what He added, as the Father has taught Me, these things I speak: the sense is most lofty, for the heart must be cleansed (for neither will wisdom enter into a malicious soul, nor

They answered and said to Him: Our father is Abraham. As if to say: What are you going to say against Abraham? Or if you can say anything, dare to find fault with Abraham: not that the Lord did not dare to find fault with Abraham, but Abraham was such that he would not be found fault with by the Lord, but rather praised: yet these seemed to be testing Him, so that He might say something evil of Abraham, and there might be an occasion for doing what they were plotting. Our father, they say, is Abraham. Let us hear how the Lord answered them, praising Abraham to their condemnation.

Jesus says to them: If you are children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I heard from God: this Abraham did not do. See, he is praised, they are condemned. Abraham was not a murderer. I do not say, He says, I am the Lord of Abraham: though if I said it, I would say the truth. For He said in another place, Before Abraham I am (John 8): and then they wanted to stone Him. He did not say this; meanwhile, what you see, what you behold, what you think Me to be and no more, I am a man. Why do you wish to kill a man who tells you what he has heard from God, unless because you are not children of Abraham? And yet above He says, I know that you are children of Abraham. He did not deny their origin, but He condemns their deeds. Their flesh was from him, but their life was not. Therefore Christians have been made the seed of Abraham by the grace of God: not made his co-heirs from the flesh of Abraham; God disinherited those, He adopted these. These are they of whom it was said in another place by John the Baptist: God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham (Matt. 3). For they are the children of Abraham who imitate the faith of Abraham. Therefore the Lord added, saying: If you are children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. Prove your nobility by deeds, not by words. But you seek to kill Me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do.

You do the works of your father. And still He does not say who this father of theirs is. Now what did they answer? For they began somehow to recognize that the Lord was speaking not of the begetting of the flesh but of the ordering of life. And because it is the custom of the Scriptures, which they read, to call it fornication, in the spiritual sense, when the soul subjects itself as a harlot to many false gods, to this they answered.

They said therefore to Him: We were not born of harlotry; we have one father, God. Now Abraham has grown cheap; they have been repulsed in respect of him, as they deserved to be repulsed, by the truthful mouth, because Abraham was such a one that they did not imitate his deed and yet gloried in his race; and they changed their answer, I suppose, saying among themselves: Whenever we name Abraham, He will say to us: Why do you not imitate him in whose race you glory? We cannot imitate so great a man, holy, just, innocent; let us call God our father: let us see what He will say to us. Did falsehood find what to say, and would truth not find what to answer?

Let us hear what they say, let us hear what they hear. We have, they say, one father, God.

Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your father, you would surely love Me: for I proceeded from God and came, for neither did I come of Myself, but He sent Me. You call God father; acknowledge at least your brother. Here He touched on what He is often wont to say: I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me; I proceeded from God, and came. Christ's sending, then, is His incarnation. But that the Word proceeded from God the Father is an eternal procession, having no time, He through Whom time was made. Therefore He proceeded from Him as God, as equal, as only Son. As the Word of the Father He came to us: because the Word was made flesh, that He might dwell in us. His coming, His humanity: His abiding, His divinity.

Why, He says, do you not know My speech? Because you cannot know My word. They could not know for this reason, because they could not hear. But why could they not hear, unless because they were unwilling to be corrected by believing? And whence this?

You are of your father the devil. How long do you go on recalling your father? How long do you keep changing your father, now Abraham, now God? Hear from the Son of God whose sons you are: You are of your father the devil. God, the Creator of all creatures, created man: how does He say here, you are of your father the devil? Whatever has been created by God is good; and every man, in so far as he is God's creature, is good. But in so far as he subjects himself through free will to the devil, he is of his father the devil. For the nature of man is good, but it has been vitiated through an evil will, and from that he is of his father the devil. What God made cannot be evil, if man himself be not evil to himself. Hence, then, the Jews were called sons of the devil, not by being born but by imitating. It is indeed the custom of holy Scripture often to name sons from the imitation or likeness of works, as the prophet says to the Jews: Your father was an Amorrhite, and your mother a Cethite. The Amorrhites were a certain nation from which the Jews did not draw their origin. The Cethites too had their own race, altogether foreign to the stock of the Jews. But because the Amorrhites and Cethites were impious, and the Jews imitated their impieties, the sons had found parents, not of whom they were born, but by following whose ways they would be equally condemned. But perhaps you ask whence the devil himself is? From the same source, surely, as the rest. The angels persisted in their obedience; he, by disobeying and by pride, fell, an angel, and became the devil. But now hear what the Lord says. You, He says, are of your father the devil.

And the desires of your father you wish to do. You seek to kill Me, a man who tell you the truth. He too envied man, and killed man: for he is the devil. For the devil, when he envied man, clothed in the serpent, spoke to the woman, and through the woman poisoned the man too; they died by listening to the devil (Gen. 3): whom they would not have listened to if they had been willing to listen to God. For man, set between God, Who created him, and the serpent, who was deceiving him, whom ought he to have obeyed? The Creator, not the deceiver. Therefore he

was a murderer from the beginning. See the kind of murder, brethren. The devil is called a murderer, not armed with a sword, not girt with steel. He came to man: he sowed an evil word, and killed. Do not think, then, that you are not a murderer when you persuade your brother to evil. If you persuade your brother to evil, you kill. Hear the Psalmist: The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps. 56). You, then, wish to do the desires of your father: therefore you rage against the flesh, because you cannot against the mind.

He was a murderer from the beginning. Assuredly in the first man; from then on he was a murderer. From when could murder be done? From when man was made: for man could not be killed unless man were first made. A murderer, then, he was from the beginning; and whence a murderer?

And he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him. Not as truth is in Christ, so that Christ Himself is the truth. If, then, he had stood in the truth, he would have stood in Christ. But he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, because he is a liar, and the father thereof. What is this? You have heard the words of the Gospel, you have received them attentively. See, I repeat them, that you may recognize what you are to examine. Of the devil the Lord was speaking to him the things which deserved to be said of the devil by the Lord. He was a murderer from the beginning; it is true: for he killed the first man. And he stood not in the truth, because he fell away from the truth. When he speaks a lie, assuredly the devil himself speaks of his own. A lie, assuredly, the devil himself speaks of his own, because he is a liar and the father thereof. For the devil was a liar of himself, and he himself begot his lie. From no one did he first hear a lie. As God the Father begot the Son, the Truth, so the devil begot, as it were a son, the lie. He begot a lie because he stood not in the truth. For everyone who abides in God, since God is truth, stands in the truth. But if anyone withdraws from God, he will be a liar, as the Psalmist says: Every man is a liar (Ps. 115). And in so far as man withdraws from God, so far will he be a liar, as long as he turns aside from the truth; and from that he will be a sinner: because every sin is not truth but a lie, since in withdrawing from God it does not have the truth. The devil, indeed, was created good, but became evil through himself, by turning aside from the highest good. Therefore he spoke a lie of his own, because he found in himself that by which he was a liar. But man, deceived by the devil, was made a liar by the devil: and so he is a son of the devil not by nature but by imitation. Let us withdraw, then, from the father of lies; let us run to the Father of truth. Let us embrace the truth, that we may receive true freedom. The Jews had seen with their father what they spoke. What, but a lie? But the Lord saw with His Father what He should speak. What, but Himself? What, but the eternal Word of the Father, co-eternal with the Father? Therefore He added:

I tell you the truth, and you do not believe Me. For a liar speaks a lie, but the truth brings forth the truth. The devil is a liar, but Christ is truth and

the asserter of truth, because from the mouth of truth nothing else can proceed but truth. There follows, then:

Which of you shall convict Me of sin? As I convict you and your father of sin and lying. See what the gentleness of Christ is like. He had come to forgive sins, and He said: Which of you shall convict Me of sin? He does not disdain to show by reason that He is not a sinner, He Who by the power of His divinity could justify sinners. He asks them why they will not believe the truth, saying:

If I have spoken the truth to you, why do you not believe Me? Unless because you are sons of the devil, and not of the truth? Sons of the devil not by nature but by imitation. And He gives the reason why they did not believe the truth, when He says: Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. Again, do not attend to the nature, but to the vice. Thus these are of God, and are not of God. By nature of God, by vice not of God. Now the nature, good, which is from God, sinned by the will, by believing what the devil urged; and it was vitiated: therefore let it seek the physician, because it is not healthy. Let the nature be acknowledged, for which the Creator may be praised: let the vice be acknowledged, on account of which the physician may be called. Terrible is what He adds:

He who is of God hears the words of God: therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God. For if he who is of God hears the words of God, and whoever is not of Him cannot hear His words, let each one of you ask himself whether he has taken in the words of God in the ear of the heart, and he understands whence he is. The truth bids us desire the heavenly homeland, crush the desires of the flesh, shun the glory of the world, not seize what belongs to others, give away our own. Let each of you, then, weigh within himself whether this voice of God has grown strong in the ear of his heart, and he recognizes that he is now of God. The Jews therefore said:

Do we not say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon? But having received so great an insult, let us hear what the Lord answers.

I have not a demon, but I honour My Father, and you have dishonoured Me. For since Samaritan is interpreted guardian, and He is truly the guardian, of Whom the Psalmist says: Unless the Lord guard the city, they watch in vain who guard it (Ps. 126); and since He says through Isaiah: Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night (Isa. 21)?, the Lord would not answer: I am not a Samaritan; but, I have not a demon. For two things were laid against Him: one He denied, and the other He assented to by silence. For He had come as the guardian of the human race; and if He said He was not a Samaritan, He would be denying that He was the guardian. But He kept silent about what He acknowledged, and patiently repelled what He heard said falsely, saying: I have not a demon. Here indeed the Lord in His own person gave us an example of patience; for if He had wished to answer the Jews, You have a demon, He would have spoken the truth, since unless they were filled with a demon they could not speak so perversely of God. But having received the injury, the Truth would not say even what was true, lest He should seem not to have spoken the truth but, provoked, to have returned an insult. What is hinted to us by this?

Only that at the time when we receive insults from our neighbours out of falsehood, we should keep silent even about their true wrongs, lest the ministry of just correction be turned into the weapons of rage. But what we are to do in the face of these things He further teaches us by example, when He adds:

But I do not seek My own glory: there is One Who seeks and judges. We know for certain that it is written that the Father has given all judgement to the Son (John 5); and yet, see, the same Son, receiving injuries, does not seek His own glory. The unlawful insults He reserves to the Father's judgement, so as surely to impress on us how patient we ought to be, while even He Who judges does not yet wish to avenge Himself. But when the perversity of the wicked grows, preaching ought not only not to be broken off, but even to be increased: which He teaches us by His own example, Who, after He had been said to have a demon, bestowed the benefits of His preaching more generously, saying:

Amen, amen I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will not see death for ever. But just as it is necessary for the good to become better even through insults, so the reprobate always become worse from a kindness, for having received the preaching they say again:

Now we know that you have a demon. For because they clung to eternal death, they did not see the very death to which they clung; while they looked only at the death of the flesh, they were in darkness at the word of truth, saying:

Abraham is dead, and the Prophets: and you say, If anyone keeps My word, he will not taste death for ever? Hence they even prefer to the Truth Himself that same Abraham and the prophets, as though revering them; but a plain reason is shown us, that those who do not know God revere God's servants too falsely. You, He says, say, You have a demon; I call you to life: keep My word, and you will not die. They heard: He will not see death for ever who keeps My word, and they were angry, because they were already dead with that death which was to be avoided: for that death they could not avoid by which Abraham died, and the prophets, that is, the death of the flesh. For Abraham lived in the Spirit: and therefore the Truth Himself says of him in another place: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22). What is it that He says, He will not see death for ever? That is, the death of damnation with the devil and his angels. For this death of the body is a kind of passing over, for the saints to a better life, but for the impious to everlasting punishments: which the Truth here wished to designate by the name of death. But by that death which the Lord wishes to be understood, neither did Abraham die nor did the prophets die. For they died, and they live: these were living, and were dead. Whom do you make yourself, they say, that you should say, He will not see death for ever who keeps My word, when you know that both Abraham is dead and the prophets dead?

Jesus answered: If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing: it is My Father Who glorifies Me. He says this on account of what they said: Whom do you make yourself? For He refers His glory to the Father, from Whom He has it that He is God. The Lord Jesus calls His Father

Christ [the Father], Whom they called their Lord, and did not know. For if they had known Him, they would have received His Son.

But I, He says, know Him. To those judging according to the flesh He could seem arrogant here too, because He said: I know Him. But see what follows:

If I say, I do not know Him, I shall be like you, a liar. Therefore arrogance is not to be avoided in such a way that the truth is abandoned.

But I know Him, and I keep His word. He spoke the word of the Father as the Son, and He Himself was the Word of the Father which He spoke to men. And it is to be noted that the Lord saw them resisting Him with open assault, and yet He does not cease to preach Himself to them with repeated voice, saying:

Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see My day; he saw it, and was glad. For Abraham saw the Lord's day then, when in the figure of the supreme Trinity he received three angels in hospitality (Gen. 28): and having received them, he spoke thus to the three as to one: because, although in persons there is the number of the Trinity, yet in nature there is the unity of the Godhead. But the carnal minds of the hearers do not lift their eyes from the flesh: in Him they weigh only the age of the flesh, saying:

You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? These our Redeemer kindly draws away from looking at His flesh, and draws to the contemplation of His divinity, saying:

Amen, amen I say to you, Before Abraham was made, I am. For before belongs to past time, am to present. And because the Godhead has no past or future time but always has being, He does not say: Before Abraham I was, but, Before Abraham I am. Hence also it is said to Moses, I am Who am: and Thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He Who is has sent me to you (Exod. 3). Abraham, then, had before or after, he who could both come forward by the showing of his presence and withdraw by the course of his life. But the Truth always has being, because for Him nothing either begins in a prior time or ends in a following one. But the minds of the unbelievers, unable to bear these words of eternity, run to stones; and Him Whom they could not understand they sought to overwhelm. But what the Lord did against the fury of those stoning Him is shown when it is at once added:

But Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple. It is very wonderful, dearest brethren, why the Lord avoided His persecutors by hiding Himself, Who, if He had wished to exercise the power of His divinity, could by a silent nod of His mind have bound them in their very blows, or overwhelmed them in the penalty of sudden death. But because He had come to suffer, He did not wish to exercise judgement. Certainly at the very time of His passion He showed both how much He could do and yet endured that for which He had come. For when He said to His persecutors as they sought Him: I am He (John 18): by this word alone He struck down their pride, and laid them all on the ground. He, then, Who in this place could have escaped the hands of those stoning Him without hiding Himself, why did He hide Himself, unless because, as man among men, and made Redeemer

our [Lord], says some things to us by word, others by example? And what does He say to us by this example, except that even when we are able to resist, we should humbly turn aside from the anger of the proud?

CHAPTER IX.

After the Lord had gone out of the temple of the Jews, let us hear what He did among the people of the gentiles, nay rather of the whole human race. For the Evangelist continues, and says:

Passing by, He saw a man blind from birth. For the things which our Lord Jesus Christ did, astonishing and marvellous, are both works and words. Works, because they were done; words, because they are signs. If therefore we consider what this thing that was done signifies, this blind man is the human race. For this blindness befell the first man through sin, from whom we have all drawn our origin, not only of death but also of iniquity. For if blindness is unbelief, illumination is faith; whom did Christ find faithful when He came? Therefore the Evangelist says of Christ, And passing by. For so Christ passes by, and did not stand in the way of our sins, as the Lord Himself says in a certain parable: For a Samaritan came along the way (Luke 19). He Who came to heal the half-dead wounded man, passing by gives light to the blind man. He who in the parable is called wounded is here, in the deed done, the blind man given light. He saw, then, a man blind; not blind in just any way, but blind from birth. For all men except Him alone Who was born of the virgin are blind by original sin, that is, they were born with the sin which they drew from the sinful root of the first parent. His disciples asked Him, Rabbi. You know that Rabbi is teacher. They called Him Teacher because they desired to learn. For they put the question to the Lord as to a teacher.

Who sinned? this man, or his parents? Jesus answered: Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, that he should be born blind. What is it that He said? If no man is without sin, were the parents of this blind man without sin? Was he himself born without original sin, or had he added nothing by living? If then both his parents had sin and this man had sin, why did the Lord say, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents? Unless He answered the matter about which He was asked, why he was born blind. For his parents had sin, but it was not by that sin that it came about that he was born blind. If then it was not by the sin of the parents that it came about that he was born blind, why was he born blind? Hear the Teacher teaching. He seeks a believer, to make him one who understands. He Himself tells the cause why that man was born blind: Neither has this man sinned, He says, nor his parents.

But that the works of God may be made manifest in him. Not only what I am going to do in this blind man alone, but that it may be made manifest what is to be done through Me in the blindness of the whole human race. Then He went on and added:

I must work the works of Him Who sent Me, while it is day. Remember how all glory to Him

He gives, from Whom He is, because the One has a Son Who is from Him, [while] He Himself has none from whom He is. What are the works of the Lord, for which the Son of God came into the world? What but to give light to the blindness of the human race, to heal all that is wounded, to seek what is lost, to reform what is deformed? But what is it that He said: I must work the works of Him Who sent Me, while it is day?

For the night comes, in which no one can work. It is plain that in this place the Lord spoke of Himself as the day, expressly and definitely, that is, as the light of the world.

As long as, He says, I am in this world, I am the light of the world. Therefore He Himself works. But how long is He in the world? Do we think, brethren, that He was here then and is not here now? If we think this, then that night has already come after the ascension. What is it that He says to the disciples as He ascends into heaven: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28)? He Who was then in the world by bodily presence is now present everywhere in the world by divine power. We have heard of the day; let us hear what that night is. What then? What shall we say of that night, when it will be, when no one will be able to work? That night will be the night of the wicked; that night will belong to those to whom it will be said at the end: Go into the everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25). But it was also called night, not flame, not fire. Hear that it is also night: He says of a certain servant: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness. Let a man therefore work, lest he be overtaken by that night where no one can work. Now is [the time] for faith to work through love. And if we work now, this is the day, this is Christ. Hear Him promising, and do not think Him absent: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. For there will be night where no one can work, but only receive what he has worked. One is the time of working, another of receiving. For He will render to each according to his works (Rom. 2). Let us hear with attentive mind the Apostle exhorting us to work while we have time; for he says: While we have time, let us do good (Gal. 6). We have heard, then, what Christ said in admonishing the good and terrifying the wicked. But let us see what He did.

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and spread the clay upon his eyes, and said to him: Go, and wash in the pool of Siloe, which is interpreted Sent. What the Lord did is plain. For an illumination was wrought in the blind man, but a great mystery is set forth in the human race. He spat on the ground; from the saliva He made clay, because the Word was made flesh; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man; he had been anointed, and did not yet see. He sends him to the pool which is called Siloe. And it was the Evangelist's concern to set before us the name of this pool, and he says: which is interpreted Sent. You know already Who is the Sent One. For unless He had been sent, none of us would have been released from iniquity. He washed his eyes, then, in that pool which is interpreted Sent: he was baptized in Christ. If therefore, when He in a manner baptized him in Himself, then

He gave him light; when He anointed him, perhaps He made him a catechumen. The depth of so great a sacrament can indeed be expounded and treated in one way and another; but let this suffice for your charity. The catechumen is anointed, that is, he is taught to believe in Christ; he is sent to the pool of baptism, to be enlightened, to know the true light, to receive the remission of sins, to be made from a son of wrath a son of God, and, enlightened, to come and preach Christ.

So the neighbours, and those who had seen him before, that he was a beggar, said: Is not this he who sat and begged? Some said: This is he; but others: By no means, but he is like him. The opened eyes had changed his face.

He said: I am he. A grateful voice, lest an ungrateful one condemn him.

They said therefore to him: How were your eyes opened? He answered: That man who is called Christ made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me: Go to the pool and wash; and I went and washed, and I see. Behold, he has become a herald of grace. Behold, he proclaims the gospel; seeing, he confesses. That blind man confessed, and the heart of the wicked snarled, because they did not have in their heart what he now had in his face.

They said to him: Where is he? He said: I do not know. In these words his mind was still like one anointed and not yet seeing. But let us suppose, brethren, that he had that anointing, as it were, in his mind: he both preaches, and does not know Whom he preaches.

They bring him who had been blind to the Pharisees. Now it was the Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Again therefore the Pharisees asked him how he had received his sight. And he said: He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees therefore said. Not all, but some; for some were already being anointed. What then did those say who neither saw nor were anointed?

This man is not from God, who does not keep the Sabbath. Rather He kept it, Who was without sin. For this is the spiritual Sabbath: to have no sin. Indeed, brethren, God admonishes this when He commends the Sabbath: You shall do no servile work (Lev. 23). These are the words of God commending the Sabbath: You shall do no servile work. Now ask the earlier readings what servile work is, and hear it from the Lord: Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin (John 8). But these men, neither seeing, as I said, nor anointed, observed the Sabbath carnally and violated it spiritually.

Others said: How can a man who is a sinner do these signs? See, these are anointed.

And there was a division among them. That day was divided between light and darkness.

They say therefore to the blind man again: What do you say of Him Who opened your eyes? What do you feel about Him? What do you think? What is your judgement? They were seeking how they might bring a false charge against the man, so that he would be driven out of the synagogue, but found by Christ. But he steadfastly expressed what he felt. For he says:

That He is a prophet. Still only anointed in heart, he does not yet confess the Son of God, and yet he does not lie. The Lord Himself says of Himself: A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country (John 4).

The Jews therefore did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight, and asked them, saying: Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said: We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees we do not know. And they said: Ask him; he is of age; let him speak for himself. We know that he is our son; but we should rightly be compelled to speak for an infant, because he could not speak for himself. He has long spoken; now he sees. We knew him blind from birth. We know he has long been speaking; we see him now seeing; ask him himself, that you may be instructed.

These things his parents said because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. It was no longer an evil to be put out of the synagogue. They expelled, but Christ received. Therefore his parents said: He is of age; ask him.

They therefore called again the man who had been blind, and said to him: Give glory to God. What is "give glory to God"? Deny what you have received. This is plainly not to give glory to God, but rather to blaspheme God. Give, they say, glory to God.

We know that this man is a sinner. He therefore said: Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see. They said therefore to him: What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes? And he, now indignant at the hardness of the Jews, and from blind become seeing, not bearing the blind,

answered them: I have told you already, and you have heard; why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples? What is "Do you also"? What but "because I already am"? "Do you also want?" I now see, but I do not see you seeing.

They reviled him and said: Be you His disciple. Such a curse be upon us and upon our children. For it is a curse if you search the heart, not if you weigh the words.

But we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses. Would that you knew that God spoke to Moses! You would know that God was foretold through Moses. For you have the Lord saying: If you believed Moses, you would believe Me also; for he wrote of Me (John 5). Is it so? You follow the servant, and turn your back against the Lord? But you do not even follow the servant, for through him you would be led to the Lord.

The man answered and said to them: Herein is a marvellous thing, that you do not know whence He is, and He opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does His will, him He hears. He still speaks as one only anointed; for God does hear sinners too. For if God did not hear sinners, in vain would that Publican, casting his eyes down to the ground

and striking his breast said: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18); and by this confession he merited justification, as this blind man [merited] illumination. But sinners must wash the heart with the tears of penitence, that they may be heard; and there will be done in their heart what was done in the face of this blind man; and they will feel that God hears them, Who came into this world to save sinners.

Since the world began it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind. Unless this man were from God, he could do nothing. Freely and steadfastly he confessed the truth. For these things which were done by the Lord, by whom would they be done, if not by the Lord? Or when would such things be done by the disciples, unless the Lord dwelt in them?

They answered and said: You were wholly born in sins. What is "wholly"? With eyes closed; but He Who opened the eyes saves the whole as well. He Who gives illumination in the face will give resurrection in the heart. You were wholly born in sins.

And do you teach us? And they cast him out. They themselves had made him a teacher; they themselves, that they might learn, had questioned him so often, and having questioned him they threw out the one teaching them. But [recall] what I said a while ago, brethren. They drive out, the Lord receives; indeed, all the more because he was expelled, he was made a Christian. Certainly this man was thrown out of the synagogue.

Jesus heard, and came to him, and said to him: Do you believe in the Son of God? And he: Who are you, Lord, that I may believe in him? He saw, and he did not see. He saw with the eyes only, but with the heart he did not yet see. The Lord says to him: You both see Him, that is, with the eyes, and it is He Who speaks with you. Jesus therefore heard that they had cast him out, and when He had found him He said to him: Do you believe in the Son of God? Now He washes the face of the heart. He answered and said: Who are you, Lord, that I may believe in him?

And Jesus said to him: You have both seen Him, and it is He Who speaks with you. Then, prostrate, he worshipped Him. Now He washes the face of the heart. At last, with the face of his heart now washed and his conscience cleansed, recognizing Him not only as Son of man, which he had believed before, but also as the Son of God Whom he was seeing, he says: I believe, Lord. But it is little to say I believe; do you wish to see what kind of belief he has? Falling down, he worshipped Him. Had he not believed Him Whom he saw to be the Son of God, he would by no means have worshipped Him. Apply yourselves therefore to prayer, sinners; confess your sins, pray that they be blotted out, pray that they be lessened, pray that as you advance they may fail; yet do not despair, and pray, sinners though you are. For who has not sinned? Begin with the priests. To the priests it was said: First offer sacrifices for your own sins, and then for the people (Ezek. 9; Heb. 7). It follows:

For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. What is it that He says, For judgement I came into this world, when in another place He says: For I came not to judge the world? Unless it is that the judgement of discernment is one thing, the judgement of condemnation another, of which the Lord Himself says elsewhere: He who does not believe in Me is already judged (John 3), that is, condemned. For here in this place, as

is plain from the words that follow, He means the judgement of discernment, when He says: That those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. What is "that those who do not see may see"? That is: those who confess that they do not see, and seek the physician, that they may see; and those who see may become blind. What is "those who see may become blind"? That is, those who think they see, and do not seek the physician, but remain in their blindness. So He called judgement this discernment, by which He distinguishes the humble from the proud, believers from unbelievers, those seeking the physician from those who disdain to seek the physician. O Lord, Thou didst come that those who do not see might see; rightly, because Thou art the light; rightly, because Thou art the day; rightly, because Thou freest men from darkness. Let every soul receive this, let every soul understand this, so that they may not remain in darkness, but be enlightened by Him Who enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1). Some of the Pharisees therefore were stirred by these words:

And they said to Him: Are we also blind? Hear now what it was that moved them: And those who see may become blind.

Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you would not have sin. Though blindness is itself sin, "if you were blind", that is, if you perceived yourselves to be blind, if you called yourselves blind, and ran to the physician; if then you were blind in this way, you would not have sin.

But now, because you say, We see, your sin remains. Why? Because by saying We see, you do not seek the physician; you remain in your blindness.

CHAPTER X.

Amen, amen I say to you: He who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber. As far as the place: This proverb Jesus spoke to them.

But they did not understand what He was saying to them. Because of the venomous, proud and incurable arrogance of the Pharisees (who boasted that they saw, though they were blind), the Lord Jesus composed these things that are read in this parable, which He Himself deigned to expound to them as they understood: in which He has wholesomely admonished us, if we pay heed, not to glory in human wisdom, nor in the worth of our morals, if the humility of the catholic faith in Christ is lacking. For there are many pagans who, according to a certain custom of this life, are called good men, innocent, and as it were observing the things that are commanded in the law: showing honour to their parents, not committing adultery, not committing murder, not stealing, not bearing false witness against anyone, and the other things commanded in the law they observe after a fashion; and they are not Christians, and they generally boast, as did these Pharisees, saying: Are we also blind? But all these things they do in vain, because they do not enter by the door, but seek with swollen pride to climb up another way, as it were by themselves. Therefore the Lord set forth a similitude of His flock, and of the door by which one enters the fold. For what does the empty puffing-up of those who boast of living well profit, while their life does not reach the end of living well for ever?

For to this end ought living well to profit each one, that it be given him to live well for ever. For if it is not given to someone to live well for ever, what does it profit him to live well? Therefore those are not to be called even living well for a time who either through blindness do not know the end of living well, or through puffed-up pride despise it. Nor has anyone a true and certain hope of living well for ever unless he acknowledges the Life, which is Christ, and enters the fold by the gate. For there are certain men who glory in their own morals and seek to draw others after them, not instructing their followers in the precepts of Christ, but persuading them to live by their own examples; of whom the Truth Himself says in another place: Teaching the doctrines of men, and despising the commandments of God (Matt. 15). These seek to climb up by another part, to steal and to kill, not, like the shepherd, to save and preserve. Of such it is said here: But climbs up another way, that one is a thief and a robber. And such teachers are found not only among those who are without the name of Christ, like many of the philosophers, who blew about their wisdom with puffing cheeks and promised a blessed life to their followers; but also very many who were reckoned by the Christian name and boasted that they had been enlightened by Christ, inventing for themselves all sorts of new names concerning Christ, and those contrary to the catholic faith, as countless heretics did, supposing that under a false name they were entering by the gate, which is Christ. Sabellius says: «He Who is the Son is Himself the Father, but the Son is not the Father.» He does not enter by the door who calls the Son the Father. Arius says: «The Father is one thing, the Son another thing.» He would speak rightly if he said: another [Person], not another thing; for when he says "another thing", he contradicts Him from Whom he hears: I and the Father are one (here, below). So neither does he enter by the door. For he preaches a Christ such as he paints for himself, not such as the truth holds. Photinus says: «Christ is only a man, not God.» Neither does he enter by the door, for Christ is both man and God. For a new heresy which has arisen in our times seems to agree with him, affirming and preaching: Christ, like any of the saints, is God in name, and not true [God]. What need is there to run through many things and to count up the many vanities of the heresies? Hold this: believe that the fold of Christ is the catholic Church. Whoever wishes to enter the fold, let him enter by the door, that is, by Christ, and let him preach Christ as true God and true Son of God. And let him not only preach Christ, but also seek the glory of Christ, not his own. For many, by seeking their own glory, have scattered the sheep of Christ rather than gathered them. For Christ, our Lord God, is a lowly gate, Who says: Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt. 11). He who enters by this gate must humble himself, so that he may enter with his head unhurt. These are they who hear the voice of the true shepherd. These are they, His own sheep, whom the true shepherd calls by name; of these it is said: Rejoice and exult, because your names are written in heaven (Luke 10). Hence He calls them by name. And who else leads them out, except He Who their

forgives sins, so that, freed from hard chains, they can follow Him? And who goes before them, where they follow Him, except He Who, rising from the dead, dies now no more, and death shall no more have dominion over Him? These He leads out from faith to sight; and He goes before them, because He first of all ascended into heaven; and those that are His sheep follow Him, because they know the voice of His teaching. But strange leaders they do not follow, but flee from them, because they do not know the voice, that is, the teaching, of strangers. But when the Lord Jesus spoke, those who heard did not understand (Isa. 6); for they had a heart made gross, and they heard heavily (Acts 28). He names the door, He names the fold, He names the sheep; He sets forth all these things, but does not yet expound them. Let us read on, then, since He is coming to those words in which He deigns to expound to us some of the things He said; from the exposition of which He will perhaps give us to understand also those that He did not expound. For He feeds with plain things, He exercises with obscure ones. Let us hear Him expounding, we who have heard Him propounding.

Jesus therefore said to them again: Amen, amen I say to you, that I am the door of the sheep. Behold, He has opened the very door which He had set before them shut. He Himself is the door. We have recognized it; let us enter, that we may rejoice to have entered.

All, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers. What is this, Lord? All, as many as have come. What then? Thou didst come. But understand: All, as many as have come, He said, that is, apart from Me. Let us call to mind, then. Before His coming the prophets came; were they thieves and robbers? Far from it. They did not come apart from Him, but came with Him. With Him, I say, they came, because when He was about to come He sent heralds, and He possessed the hearts of those whom He had sent. They came with Him, then, because they came with the Word of God. I am, He says, the way, the truth and the life (John 4). He Himself is the truth. They came with Him, because they were truthful and preached the truth. But as many as came apart from Him are thieves and robbers. They came of themselves, because they were not sent by Him, as the Apostle says: How shall they preach unless they be sent (Rom. 10)? And because they came of themselves and were not sent by Him, they are thieves and robbers. For before the coming of Christ there were false prophets among the people of God, false teachers, just as after His coming very many under the Christian name were false teachers; not teachers but seducers; not preachers but plunderers, practising robbery, not holding to sound teaching but to false, of whom it was said: They are thieves and robbers, that is, they came to steal and to kill. But those who are true sheep did not hear them, [those] not hiding a wolf's heart under a sheep's skin. Therefore those who preached before the coming of Christ preached in the same Spirit as the Apostles and holy teachers who after the coming of Christ showed the world the way of truth. And as many as in that time believed, whether Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Moses, or the other patriarchs and the other prophets foretelling Christ, were sheep, and believed in Christ; they heard not a stranger's voice but that of Christ Himself. For the Judge was crying out

in the herald, while the herald announced the Judge who was to come. Others, therefore, are those whom the sheep did not hear, in whom was not the voice of Christ: wanderers, teachers of falsehood, babblers of empty things, inventors of vanities, seducers of the wretched, like the false prophets, like the scribes and Pharisees in the times of the Lord Himself. These are they who came of themselves and were not sent by the Judge. Now, with these and their teachings driven far off, let us see whom the Good Shepherd calls. For He says:

I am the door; by Me, if anyone enters in, he shall be saved, and he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures. And by this He shows plainly that not only the shepherd but also the sheep enter by the door. But what is "he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures"? To go into the Church by the door, Christ, is very good indeed. But to go out of the Church, as John the Evangelist himself says in his Epistle: They went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2), is certainly not good. Such a going out, then, could not be praised by the Good Shepherd, so that He should say: And he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures. There is, then, not only a good going in but also a good going out by the good door, which is Christ. But what is that praiseworthy and blessed going out? I could indeed say that we go in when we think something inwardly, and go out when we do something outwardly; and since, as the Apostle says, Christ dwells by faith in our hearts, to go out through Christ is to work according to that same faith outwardly as well, that is, before men; whence also it is said in the psalm: Man shall go forth to his work (Ps. 103); and the Lord Himself says: Let your works shine before men (Matt. 5). But it pleases me more that the Truth Himself, as the Good Shepherd and therefore the good Teacher, has in a manner admonished us in what way we ought to understand what He said, He shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures, when He went on to add:

The thief comes not but to steal, and to slaughter, and to destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. For He seems to have said "that they may have life" of those going in. But no one can go out through the door, that is, through Christ, to eternal life, which will be in sight, unless through that same door, that is, through the same Christ, he has entered into His Church, which is His fold, unto the temporal life which is in faith. Therefore He says: I came that they may have life, that is, faith, which works through love; by which faith they enter into the fold that they may live, for the just man lives by faith (Hab. 2). And that they may have it more abundantly: those who, persevering to the end, go out through that door, that is, through the faith of Christ, since they die true believers; and they will have life more abundantly by coming where that Shepherd has gone before, where they shall never die thereafter. Although, then, pastures are not lacking even here in the fold itself (since we can understand what was said, And shall find pastures, of both, that is, of the going in and of the going out), yet they will truly find pastures where those who hunger and thirst for justice are filled (Matt. 15). A certain man found pastures, to whom it was said: Today

you shall be with Me in paradise (Luke 23). There follows the Lord's sentence on the perfection of the good shepherd and on the flight of the bad shepherd, whom He names the hireling.

I am, He says, the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep; but the hireling flees, because he is a hireling; he has no concern for the sheep. The Lord Jesus, speaking to His sheep, both present and to come, who were then at hand, since His sheep were already there, [and] there were those who were to be His sheep, shows both in the present and in the future, both to them and to us, and to as many as shall be His sheep even after us, how much He loves His own. All therefore will hear the voice of their shepherd saying: I am the Good Shepherd; He would not add "good" unless there were bad shepherds. But the bad shepherds are themselves thieves and robbers, or at the most, hirelings. For we ought to examine, distinguish and know all the persons here that He could [name]. For the Lord has opened the way to two things which He had in a manner set before us shut. We know now that He Himself is the door; we know that He Himself is the shepherd. Who the thieves and robbers are was made clear by the earlier sentence. But now we have heard of the hireling, we have heard also of the wolf; the doorkeeper too has been named. Among the good, then, there are the door, the doorkeeper, the shepherd and the sheep; among the bad, thieves and robbers, the hireling and the wolf. The door we take to be the Lord Jesus Christ, [and] the shepherd Himself. The doorkeeper He has left for us to seek; and what does He say about the doorkeeper?

To him, He says, the doorkeeper opens. To whom does he open? To the shepherd. What does he open to the shepherd? The door. And who is the door itself? The shepherd Himself too. The names are different, shepherd, door, sheep, signifying one and the same thing. For we heard the words of the Lord Himself a little before: I am the door. And here it has just been read to us: I am the shepherd; He Who is also named the lamb by the friend of the bridegroom, as we have heard in this present Gospel: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1); of Whom the prophet foretold long before: As a sheep He was led to the slaughter (Isa. 53); although His whole body is understood as His sheep. He can also be understood as the doorkeeper, because no one goes in or goes out unless He opens, for He has the key of David; Who opens, and no one shuts; shuts, and no one opens (Rev. 3). Let it not irk us, then, by a certain likeness to take Him as the doorkeeper whom [we take] also as the door. Who is the doorkeeper, but He Who opens? Who opens, but He Who sets Himself forth? as He Himself says: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14). If perhaps you wish to look for another person as doorkeeper, it is the Holy Spirit, of Whom the Lord Himself says to His disciples: He will teach you all truth (John 16). The door indeed is Christ, Christ indeed is the truth. Who opens the door, but He Who teaches all truth? When the Lord wished to show the work of the good shepherd, He set Himself forth as an example, saying: The Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. He did what He counselled; He showed what He commanded. He laid down His life for His sheep. The way of contempt for death has been shown us, that we may follow it; the mould has been set before us, that we may be impressed upon it. Our first [duty is], mercifully, our outward goods

to expend upon His sheep; and lastly, if need be, to render even our death for those same sheep. Who does not give his substance for the sheep, when he is going to give his life for them? We have set forth, or rather we have understood with the Lord teaching us, who is the shepherd, who the door, who the doorkeeper; we have learnt also who are the sheep, and who are the thieves and robbers; but now let us consider the hireling and the wolf, of whom the Lord Himself said:

But the hireling, and he who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees (John 10:12). He is called not a shepherd but a hireling, because he feeds the Lord's sheep not out of inward love but for temporal wages. He is indeed a hireling who holds the shepherd's place but does not seek the gain of souls; he gapes after earthly advantages, rejoices in the honour of prelacy, feeds on temporal gains, delights in the reverence paid him by men. For these are the hireling's wages: that for the very labour he spends in governing he finds what he seeks, and hereafter stands a stranger to the inheritance of the flock. For the wolf comes upon the sheep when any unjust man and plunderer oppresses the faithful and the lowly. But he who seemed to be the shepherd, and was not, leaves the sheep and flees, because, while he fears danger to himself from him, he does not dare to resist his injustice. He flees, however, not by changing his place but by withdrawing his support. He flees, because he saw injustice and kept silent. He flees, because he hid himself under silence. But there is another wolf, who without ceasing, daily, tears to pieces not bodies but minds: the malignant spirit, namely, who goes round the folds of the faithful lying in wait, and seeks the deaths of souls (1 Pet. 5); of which wolf it is added at once:

And the wolf snatches and scatters the sheep (John 10:12). The wolf comes and the hireling flees, because the malignant spirit tears the minds of the faithful in temptation, and he who holds the shepherd's place has no care of concern. Souls perish, and he rejoices in earthly advantages. The wolf snatches and scatters the sheep when he drags one into lust, kindles another to avarice, lifts another up into pride, divides another through anger, goads this one with envy, trips that one up in deceit. As a wolf, then, scatters a flock, so the devil kills the faithful people through temptations; but against these things the hireling is kindled by no zeal, roused by no fervour of love, because, while he seeks only outward advantages, he carelessly suffers the inward losses of the flock; whence it is added at once:

But the hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and the sheep are no concern of his (John 10:13). The only reason, then, that the hireling flees is that he is a hireling; as if it were said openly: He cannot stand firm in the danger of the sheep who, in being set over the sheep, does not love the sheep but seeks earthly gain. For while he embraces honour, while he delights in temporal advantages, he is afraid to set himself against danger, lest he lose what he loves. But since our Redeemer has made known the faults of the feigned shepherd, He shows again the pattern on which we ought to be stamped, saying:

I am the good shepherd (John 10:14). And He adds: And I know Mine, that is, I love them, and Mine know Me. As if He were saying plainly: loving, they obey. Whence He added at once:

As the Father knows Me, and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for My sheep (John 10:15). As if He were saying openly: Herein it is established that I both know the Father and am known by the Father, that I lay down My life for My sheep; that is, by the charity with which I die for the sheep I show how much I love the Father. And because He had come to redeem not only Judaea but the Gentiles too, He adds:

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd (John 10:16). The Lord had looked upon our redemption, since we have come from the Gentile people, when He said that He would bring other sheep as well. This, brethren, you see happening daily; this you see accomplished today in the reconciliation of the nations. He makes as it were one fold out of two flocks, because He joins the Jewish and the Gentile people in His faith; as Paul testifies, who says: He is our peace, Who has made both one (Eph. 2:14). For while He chooses the simple out of both nations for eternal life, He leads the sheep into His own fold; of which sheep indeed He says again:

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life (John 10:27–28). Of whom He says also a little above: By Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures (John 10:9). He will go in, that is, to faith, and go out from faith to sight, from believing to contemplation. And he will find pastures in the eternal refreshment. His sheep, then, will find pastures, because whoever follows Him with a simple heart is nourished with the fodder of eternal greenness. And what are the pastures of these sheep but the eternal joys of the ever-green paradise? For the pasture of the elect is the countenance of God present, and while it is beheld without failing, the mind is filled without end with the food of life. There follows:

Therefore does the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again (John 10:17). What does He say? Therefore the Father loves Me, because I die that I may rise again. For it was said with great weight: I: Because I, He says, lay down My life. I lay it down. What is I lay it down? I, He says, lay it down. Let not the Jews glory. They were able to rage; they were not able to have power. Let them rage as much as they can; if I am unwilling to lay down My life, what will they accomplish by raging? They were laid low by a single answer, when it was said to them: Whom do you seek? They said, Jesus; and He said to them, I am He; they went backward, and fell (John 18:4–6). Those who fell at one word of Christ when He was about to die, what will they do under the voice of Him when He is about to judge? I, He says, lay down My life. Let not the Jews glory, as though they prevailed; He Himself laid down His life. As He had the power of laying it down, so He had also the power of taking it up again: which He shows in other words in this very Gospel, saying: Destroy this temple, and in three

days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Which the evangelist, following on, explained: For He spoke of the temple of His body (ibid. 2:21); and he added that His disciples remembered these words when Jesus had risen from the dead. That was raised up which was dying. For the Word could not die, nor did that soul die. The flesh alone died, and rose again on the third day. But we must ask what it is that He said: I lay down My life. Who laid it down? What did he lay down? Who is it that laid it down? What is Christ? The Word and man; and not man in such a way as to be flesh alone; but, since man consists of flesh and soul, the whole man is in Christ; for He would not have taken up the worse part and forsaken the better part, since the better part of man is the soul rather than the body. Since then the whole man is in Christ, what is Christ? The Word, I say, and man. The Word was made flesh (John 1:14); that is, God was made man. For He says: I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again (John 10:18). And Christ both laid down His life for us, and laid it down when He willed, and took it up when He willed. To lay down one's life, then, is to die. So too the apostle Peter said to the Lord: I will lay down my life for Thee (John 13:37): that is, I will die in the flesh for Thee. The flesh laid down its soul, and the flesh took up the soul again; yet not by the flesh's own power, but by the power of the indwelling Word of God. But the Word of God never laid down the soul, from the time He assumed it into the unity of His person; rather the soul was laid down by the flesh, and taken up again through the power of the Godhead. The flesh, then, laid down its soul by breathing its last. See the Lord Himself on the cross, what He said: I thirst (John 19:28). Those who stood by dipped a sponge in vinegar, fastened it to a reed, and put it to His mouth. And when He had taken it He said: It is finished (ibid. 19:29–30). What is it is finished? All things are fulfilled which had been prophesied as to come before His death. And because He had the power of laying down His life when He would, after He said It is finished, the evangelist says: And bowing His head He gave up the spirit (ibid. 19:30). What is said there, He gave up, is said here, He lays down, because to give up and to lay down are one. Who gave up? What did he give up? He gave up the spirit; the flesh gave it up. What is the flesh gave it up? The flesh sent it forth, the flesh breathed it out. For to expire is so called because it is to become outside the spirit, just as to be exiled is to become outside one's soil. What He says here, I have power to lay down My life, is said there: Bowing His head He gave up the spirit, which spirit is the soul. When, then, the soul goes out of the flesh and the flesh remains without the soul, then the man is said to lay down his soul. When did Christ lay down His soul? When the Word willed; for the sovereignty was in the Word; there lay the power over when the flesh should lay down the soul and when it should take it up. For as one man is soul and body, so one Christ is Word and man. Soul and body are two things, but one man. Word and man are two things, but one Christ. Let no one then waver in faith when he hears that the Lord said: I have power

to lay down My life. The flesh lays it down, but by the power of the Word. The flesh takes it up, but by the power of the Word. Word, soul, flesh: Christ is one; and when the flesh was slain, Christ was slain; and when the flesh took up the soul again, Christ took up the soul again, because whatever was done there in the dispensation of man's salvation, the whole one Christ did it, one Son of God, His own and perfect, one God true and almighty: man, because of the Word, God; God, because of the man, man: as it is said: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14). But from what source all these things were to be fulfilled He shows in the word that follows.

This command, He says, I have received from My Father (John 10:18). The Word did not receive a command by a word; rather, in the only-begotten Word of the Father is every command. And when the Son is said to receive from the Father what He has substantially, as it is said, As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26), since the Son is Himself life, His power is not lessened but His generation is shown; for the Father did not add something to the Son as though He were born imperfect, but by begetting gave all things to Him Whom He begot perfect. So He gave His equality to Him Whom He did not beget unequal. But as the Lord spoke these things, since the light was shining in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it,

there arose a division again among the Jews because of these words. And many of them said: He has a devil, and is mad; why do you hear Him? (John 10:19–20). These were the thickest darkness.

Others said: These are not the words of one who has a devil; can a devil open the eyes of the blind? (John 10:21). Now the eyes of these had begun to be opened, and to see something of the light and to recognize something of the truth. We have heard the patience of the Lord, and amid the reproaches of the Jews His preaching of salvation. But they, hardened, set about tempting Him rather than obeying His words.

There took place, says the evangelist, the Encaenia at Jerusalem, and it was winter; and Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch (John 10:22–23). Now the Encaenia was the name of the solemnity of the dedication of the temple, which the people of God, by the ancient tradition of the fathers, had been accustomed to celebrate every year. But it is to be noted that this Encaenia which is read of here belongs not to the first dedication of the temple but to the last: which is easily gathered from the fact that it is related as taking place in winter. For the first dedication of that same temple was made by Solomon in the autumn season, the second by Zorobabel and Jesus the priest in the season of spring, the third by Judas Maccabaeus in the season of winter, when, we read, it was specially established that the same dedication should be renewed every year in remembrance with solemn offices (3 Kgs. 6, 8; Isa. 6; 1 Macc. 4); and it was observed even up to the time of the Lord's Incarnation, as we have just heard when the Gospel was read. And this dedication is known to be kept by a wholesome custom in the churches of Christ in modern times also. We must consider why the evangelist

had said that this Encaenia took place in the season of winter. It was wholly because of the hardness of the Jews and their unbelief, which we often read is signified by the name of cold. And Jesus walked in Solomon's porch. If, then, the Son of God willed to walk in the temple in which the flesh and blood of brute animals was offered, much more will He rejoice to visit our house of prayer, where the sacraments of His own flesh and blood are celebrated. If He did not disdain to walk through the porch in which a king, once mortal and earthly, though most mighty and most wise, used to stand to pray, how much more does He desire to visit and enlighten the inmost recesses of our hearts, if only He sees that they are Solomon's porch, that is, if He sees that they have His fear, which is the beginning of wisdom? For it is not to be thought that only the house in which we gather to pray or to celebrate the mysteries is the temple of the Lord, and that we ourselves, who gather in the name of the Lord, are not much more fully called and are His temple, since the Apostle plainly says: You are the temple of the living God, as God says: I will dwell in them, and walk among them (2 Cor. 6:16). The evangelist therefore shows why he had said in the season of winter, when he says:

The Jews surrounded Him (John 10:24). They surrounded Him, then, for the sake of tempting, not with the will to acknowledge the truth, and they said:

How long do You take away our soul? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly (John 10:24). This they said not in inquiring after the truth of faith, but in laying snares for Him Whom they were questioning and in contriving a false charge, so that they might find occasion to accuse Him; for they would not believe Him to be God, but that the Christ would be a mere man only, and would come as a king loftier than other men; in which madness their descendants also do not cease to err up to the present, and until they receive Antichrist in place of Christ. And if the Lord answered that He was Christ Jesus, they meant to hand Him over to the governor's authority to be punished, as one who, rebelling against Augustus, usurped for himself an unlawful rule. But He, providing for our salvation, for whose sake these things were to be written, so tempered His answer as both to shut the mouths of the slanderers and to disclose in open speech to the faithful that He is the Christ. For they were asking about Christ the man, but He openly declares the mysteries of His Godhead, by which He is equal to the Father. Let us see, then, what the Jews said as they surrounded the Lord: How long, they say, do You take away our soul? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly. Christ did not come to take away the soul of those who believe in Him, but to give the soul life. But the Jews took away their own soul through unbelief, for they gathered to tempt Christ, not to believe in Christ.

Jesus answered them: I speak to you, and you do not believe (John 10:25). He showed properly Who He was when He said: I speak to you, that is, the Word of God coeternal with the Father, because the works which He does in the Father's name bear witness that He is the Son of God, Who did not seek His own glory, but the glory of Him Who sent Him, because one is the glory of the Father

and of the Son; but the hearts of the unbelieving could not receive this faith, of whom He says:

But you do not believe (John 10:26). And He gives the reason why they did not believe.

Because you are not of My sheep. They are sheep by believing, they are sheep by following the shepherd, they are sheep by not despising the Redeemer, they are sheep by entering through the door, they are sheep by going out and finding pastures. How then did He say to these: You are not of My sheep? Because He saw that they were destined for everlasting perdition, not purchased for eternal life at the price of His blood.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life (John 10:27–28). For He says, I know them. It is the custom of holy Scripture to say that the Lord knows whatever He chooses, as the Apostle says: The Lord knows who are His (2 Tim. 2:19); and that He does not know what He does not approve as worthy of eternal life. Whence He will say to the wicked: I do not know you (Matt. 7:23). There follows concerning the sheep: And I give them eternal life. These are the pastures which He promised above to His sheep, where no grass grows, all is green, all flourishes, all remains whole, and whatever is once received is always possessed.

And they shall not perish for ever. Here we must understand: as you will perish, because you are not of My sheep.

And no one shall snatch them out of My hand: that is, out of My power.

What My Father has given Me is greater than all (John 10:29). What the Father gave the Son is greater than all: that He should be to Him the only-begotten Son, equal, consubstantial. What is it that He gave? He gave it, surely, by begetting, because He begot Him not less than Himself, not later in time, but coeternal, always God without beginning of time. It must not be said: He was not before He was born. For He Who was coeternal with the Father was never not born. Let him who understands grasp it; let him who does not grasp it believe. Let him be nourished by faith, that he may be able to grasp the Word of God, because the Word is the Son. Always, then, the Son, and always equal. For He is equal not by growing but by being born, He Who is always born of the Father as Son, God from God, coeternal from the eternal. But the Father is not God from the Son; the Son is God from the Father. Therefore the Father by begetting gave that He should be God, by begetting gave that He should be equal; that is, what is greater than all. Therefore this John passes beyond all the heights of creatures, and the thousands of the army of angels, and all great things, and reaches that which is greater than all, and says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). This is what is greater than all, that is, that I should be His Word, that I should be His only-begotten Son, that I should be the brightness of His light. Therefore no one snatches the sheep out of My hand.

And no one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father. The hand of the Father and the hand of the Son are one hand, that is, one power, because there is one Godhead, one majesty, one eternity, one equality. Which equality, namely, the Lord Himself had in His Godhead before the world

was, with the Father (John 17:5), He received in humility from the time of the Incarnation; and no one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father. He gives it openly to be understood that His hand, that is, His power, and the Father's are one and not unlike; and that therefore He is to be believed to be the Christ, Who was not, like the rest, made [son] by grace in time, but has always been the true Son of God; which He also discloses more clearly than light in the following sentence, saying:

I and the Father are one (John 10:30). We are one, He says; ours is one substance, there is one Godhead, one eternity, perfect equality, no unlikeness. By these words He certainly resolved not only the present question of the Jews, in which they were asking whether He was the Christ, but also showed how much the perfidy of the heretics, which He foresaw would come, is to be abhorred. Let Sabellius be silent, hearing I and the Father, who by depraved doctrine discoursed of one person of Father and Son; for I and the Father are two persons. Likewise let Arius blush, hearing We are one, who asserts two natures in the Father and the Son, since one signifies one nature, just as we are signifies two persons. Let us follow the apostolic faith which blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, confessed: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16). The Jews, namely, hearing the words of the Lord, bore them up to this point; but when He said, I and the Father are one, they did not endure it, but, hard after their manner, they ran to stones, as the Evangelist says:

They took up stones to stone Him (John 10:31). The Lord, because He did not suffer what He did not will to suffer, and suffered nothing except what He willed to suffer, still addresses them as they desire to stone Him. The Jews took up stones to stone Him.

Jesus answered them: Many good works I have shown you from My Father; for which of those works do you stone Me? And they answered: For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God (John 10:32–33). They gave this answer to what He had said: I and the Father are one. See, the Jews understood what the Arians do not understand. For they were angry because they perceived that I and the Father are one cannot be said except where there is equality of Father and Son. But see what the Lord answered to the perverse. He sees that they do not bear the splendour of the truth, and He tried them in words.

Is it not written in your law (that is, the law given to you) that, I said: You are gods? (John 10:34). God says to men through the prophet in the psalm: I said: You are gods (Ps. 81:6); and the Lord called all those Scriptures in general the law, although elsewhere He speaks of the law specifically, distinguishing it from the prophets, as in: The law and the prophets were until John (Matt. 11:13); and on these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets (Matt. 28 [as printed; 22:40]). Sometimes, however, He divides the same scriptures into three, where He says: All things had to be fulfilled which are written in the law and the prophets and the psalms concerning Me (Luke 24:44). But here He has called even the psalms by the name of the law, where it is written: I said: You are gods.

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, Him Whom the Father has sanctified

and sent into the world, do you say: You blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God? (John 10:35–36). The word of God came to men, that they might be called gods: the very Word of God, which is with God. If, then, men become gods by participating, is that in which they participate not God? If lights that are illuminated are gods, how is the light that illuminates not God? If, warmed in a certain way by a saving fire, they are made gods, is that by which they are warmed not God? You approach the light, you are enlightened, and you are numbered among the sons of God. If you withdraw from the light, you are darkened, and you are reckoned in darkness. Yet that light neither approaches itself, since it does not withdraw from itself. If, then, the word of God makes you gods, how is the Word of God the Father not God?

Therefore the Father sanctified His Son, and sent Him into the world. Perhaps someone may say: If the Father sanctified Him, then at some time He was not holy. He sanctified Him, then, in the same way as He begot Him. For by begetting He gave Him to be holy, because He begot Him holy. For if what is sanctified was not holy before, how do we say to God the Father: Hallowed be Thy name (Matt. 6:9)?

If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, even if you will not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him (John 10:37–38). How can men say this? For if we think rightly, we are in God; and if we live rightly, God is in us. The faithful, participating in His grace, enlightened by Him, we are in Him, and He in us. But not so the only-begotten Son. He is in the Father, and the Father in Him, as one equal in Him to Whom He is equal. In short, we can sometimes say: We are in God, and God is in us. Can we say: I and God are one? You are in God, because God contains you. God is in you, because you have become the temple of God. But because you are in God and God is in you, can you say: He who sees me? sees God? as the Only-begotten said: He who sees Me sees the Father also (John 14:9)? I and the Father are one? Recognize what is proper to the Lord and what is the gift of the servant. Proper to the Lord is equality with the Father; the gift of the servant is participation in the Saviour.

They sought therefore to seize Him (John 10:39). Would that they had seized Him, but by believing and understanding, not by raging and killing. They sought therefore to seize Him. For when they wanted to seize Him, what did He do to them?

And He went out of their hands. They did not seize Him because they had too little faith; and because He Who had power to lay down His life did not will it, they did not seize Him; but when He willed, He was seized by them, by the hands of iniquity.

And He went away again beyond the Jordan, to the place where John was first baptizing; and He stayed there; and many came to Him, and they said: John indeed did no sign (John 10:40–41; printed "Joan. V"). You remember it was said of John that he was a lamp and bore witness to the day. What, then, did these say among themselves? John, they say, showed no miracle; he did not

drive out demons, he did not expel fever, he did not give light to the blind, he did not raise the dead, he did not fill so many thousands of men from five or seven loaves, he did not walk on the sea, he did not command the winds and the waves. John did none of these things, and all that he said bore witness to this Man. Through the lamp let us come to the day. John did no sign.

But all things whatsoever John said of this Man were true (John 10:41). See those who seized Him: not as the Jews wished to lay hold of Him as He departed; these seized Him as He remained. In short, what follows? And many believed in Him (John 10:42).

CHAPTER XI.

Now there was a certain man sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and Martha (John 11:1). Very many things are plain in this miracle of Lazarus. Let us not seek an exposition of each single point, so that we may treat the necessary things more freely. In the earlier reading you remember that the Lord went out of the hands of those who wanted to stone Him, and departed beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. While the Lord was staying there, then, Lazarus was sick in Bethany, which was a village very near Jerusalem. And Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was she who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair (John 11:2).

His sisters therefore sent to Him, saying (John 11:3). We now understand that they sent to where the Lord was, since He was absent. They sent, that is, to the Lord beyond the Jordan, announcing that their brother was ill, so that, if He would deign, He might come and free him from his sickness. He put off healing, so that He might raise him up again. What, then, did his sisters announce?

Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick. They did not say, Come; for to one who loves, it had only to be announced. They did not dare to say, Come and heal. They did not dare to say: Command there, and it will be done here. For why not this here too, if that centurion's faith is praised on that account? For he says: I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say it with a word, and my servant shall be healed (Mark 8 [as printed; Matt. 8:8]). This one said none of these things, but only: Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick. It is enough that Thou knowest; for Thou dost not love and forsake. Someone will say: How was a sinner signified by Lazarus, and yet he is so loved by the Lord? Let him hear Him saying: I came not to call the just, but sinners (Mark 2:17). For if the Lord did not love sinners, He would not put on the likeness of sinful flesh.

And Jesus, hearing it, said to them: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified (John 11:4). Such glorification did not increase Him, but profited us. This, then, is why He says It is not unto death: because the death itself was not unto death, but rather unto a miracle, by which, once done, men might believe in Christ and avoid the true death. See, indeed, how the Lord as it were obliquely called Himself God, because of certain people who deny it. For there are heretics who deny this, that the Son of God is God; let them hear: This sickness, He says, is not unto death, but for the glory

of God. What glory? Of what God? Hear what follows: That the Son of God may be glorified by it: by what? By that sickness.

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus (John 11:5). He sick, they sad, all of them loved; and He loved them, the Saviour of the sick, nay rather the raiser of the dead and the consoler of the sad.

When therefore He heard that he was sick, He stayed then two days in the same place (John 11:6). So they sent word; He stayed there. The time was drawn out so long that four days might be completed. Not in vain; unless because perhaps, nay because certainly, the very number of the days intimates some mystery.

Then after this He says to His disciples: Let us go into Judaea again (John 11:7): where He had almost been stoned, He Who seemed to have gone away from there for this reason, that He might not be stoned. For He went away as man; but in returning, as if forgetting weakness, He showed power. Let us go, He says, into Judaea. Then see how terrified the disciples were at this saying.

The disciples say to Him: Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again? Jesus answered: Are there not twelve hours of the day? (John 11:8–9). What does this answer mean? They said: Just now the Jews wanted to stone You, and are You going there again, for them to stone You? And the Lord: Are there not twelve hours of the day?

If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if he walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him (John 11:9–10). He spoke indeed of the day, but to our understanding it is as it were still night. Let us call upon the day, that it may drive away the night and enlighten the heart with light. For what did the Lord mean to say? As far as it seems to me, as far as the height and depth of the saying lies open, He meant to rebuke their doubting and unbelief. For they wanted to give counsel to the Lord, that He Who had come to die should not die, lest they themselves should die. So too in a certain other place holy Peter, loving the Lord but not yet fully understanding why He had come, feared that He would die; and he displeased the Life, that is, the Lord Himself (Matt. 16:22–23). When, then, men wished to give counsel to God, disciples to the master, servants to the lord, the sick to the physician, He rebuked them and said: Are there not twelve hours of the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble. Follow Me, if you do not want to stumble. Do not give counsel to Me, you who ought to receive counsel from Me. What, then, does Are there not twelve hours of the day? refer to? That to show that He is the day, He chose twelve disciples. If I am the day, He says, and you the hours, do the hours give counsel to the day? The hours follow the day, not the day the hour. If, then, they were the hours, what was Judas doing there, he too among the twelve hours? If he was an hour, he gave light. If he gave light, how did he hand the day over to death? But the Lord in this word foresaw not Judas himself but his successor. For when Judas fell, Matthias succeeded, and the number twelve remained. For not in vain did He choose twelve disciples, but because He Himself is the spiritual day.

Let the hours therefore follow the day, let the hours proclaim the day, let the hours be made bright by the day, let the hours be illumined by the day; through the preaching of the hours let the world believe in the day. So He says, in brief: Follow Me, if you do not wish to go astray; and after this He says to them:

Lazarus our friend sleeps; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep. He spoke the truth: to the sisters he was dead, to the Lord he was sleeping. He was dead to men, who could not raise him up. For the Lord raised him from the tomb with as much ease as you do not have in waking a sleeper from his bed. So according to His own power He called him sleeping, because others too who were dead are often called sleeping in the Scriptures, as the Apostle says: But I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who sleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). And so he too called them sleeping, because he declared that they would rise again. And in another place: We shall all indeed sleep, but we shall not all rise again (1 Cor. 15:51), signifying our death by the name of sleep. For the body, when it is forsaken by the soul, sleeps in the tomb, to be raised again on the last day. But souls, when they forsake their bodies, have different receptions: the good, joy; the wicked, torments. But when the resurrection has taken place, both the joy of the good will be greater and the torments of the wicked heavier, when they are tormented together with the body. When the Lord spoke to the disciples about the sleep of His friend, they answered as they understood:

Lord, if he sleeps, he will be well. For the sleep of the sick is commonly a sign of recovery.

But Jesus had spoken of his death, and they thought that He spoke of the rest of sleep. Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly, for He had said somewhat obscurely he sleeps.

So He says plainly: Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes, that you may believe, that I was not there, but I know that he is dead. For he had been reported sick, not dead. But what could be hidden from Him who had created him, and into whose hands the soul of the dying man had gone forth? This is what He says: I am glad for your sakes, that your faith may be increased, or strengthened; that you may believe, which is to be understood: that you may believe more fully and more firmly.

But let us go to him. Then Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him. So Jesus came, and found him having been already four days in the tomb. Much indeed can be said about the four days, as is the way with the obscure places of the Scriptures, which bring forth many senses according to the diversity of those who understand them. Let us too say what the man four days dead seems to us to signify. For just as in that blind man we understand in some manner the human race, so perhaps in this dead man too we are to understand many. For one thing can signify in different ways. Man, when he is born, is born already with death, because he draws sin from Adam; whence the Apostle says: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned (Rom. 5:12). See, you have the one day of death,

which man draws from the stock of death. Then he grows, he begins to approach the years of reason, so that he may know the natural law, which all have fixed in their heart: What you would not have done to you, do not do to another (Tobit 4:16). Is this said of pagans, and is it not in some manner read in nature itself? Do you wish to suffer theft? Surely you do not wish it. See the law in your heart: What you do not wish to suffer, do not do; and men transgress this law: see the second day of death. When the law also was given from God through Moses, the servant of God, it was said there: You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness; honour father and mother; you shall not covet your neighbour's goods (Exod. 20:12–17). See, the law is written, and it too is despised. Add the third day of death. What remains? The Gospel too comes, the kingdom of heaven is preached, Christ is made known everywhere; He threatens hell, He promises eternal life, and He too is despised. Men transgress the Gospel: see the fourth day of death. Rightly does he now stink: is mercy then to be denied even to such? Far from it: even to such the Lord does not disdain to come, to raise them up.

Now many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Martha therefore, as soon as she knew that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him; but Mary sat at home. Martha then said to Jesus: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died. But now also I know that whatever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give Thee. She did not say: But now also I ask Thee to raise up my brother. For how did she know whether it would be profitable for her brother to rise again? She said only this: I know that Thou canst. If Thou wilt, Thou doest it. But whether Thou doest it is for Thy judgement, not for my presumption. But now also I know that whatever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give Thee. Jesus says to her:

Your brother will rise again. Martha says to Him: I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Of that resurrection I am sure; of this one I am unsure.

Jesus says to her: I am the resurrection and the life. You say: my brother will rise again on the last day. It is true; but He through whom he will rise then can make him rise now, because I am the resurrection and the life. The resurrection, therefore, because the life; because he who believes in Me shall not die for ever. What is this? He who believes in Me, though he be dead, shall live; as Lazarus died, and lives, because He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32). Concerning the fathers long dead, that is, concerning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He gave the Jews such an answer: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Mark 12:26–27), for all of them live. Believe, then; and even if you die, you will live. But if you do not believe, even while you live, you are dead. Whence, then, is death in the soul? Because there is no faith in it. Whence is death in the body? Because the soul is not there. So the soul of your soul is faith: as the soul of the body is the life of the body, so faith is the life of the soul. He who believes in Me, He says, though he be dead in the flesh, shall live in the soul, until the flesh rise again, never afterwards to die. That is, He who believes in Me, though he die, shall live: and everyone who lives in the flesh,

and believes in Me, though he die for a time through the death of the flesh, shall not die for ever, because of the life of the spirit and the immortality of the resurrection. This is what He says:

And everyone who lives and believes in Me shall not die for ever. Do you believe this? She says to Him: Yes, Lord. I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into this world. When I believed this, that Thou art the resurrection, I believed that Thou art the life. I believed that he who believes in Thee, even if he die, shall live; and he who lives and believes in Thee shall not die for ever.

And when she had said these things, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying in silence: The Master is here and calls you. It is to be noticed how he called a hushed voice silence. For how was she silent who said: The Master is here, and calls you? It is to be noticed also how the evangelist did not say where, or when, or how the Lord called Mary, so that this might rather be understood from Martha's words, the truth of the narrative being kept.

She, as soon as she heard, rises quickly and comes to Him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in that place where Martha had met Him. The Jews therefore who were with her in the house and were comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose quickly and went out, followed her, saying: She goes to the tomb, to weep there. Why did it concern the evangelist to relate this? That we may see what occasion brought it about that many were there when Lazarus was raised. For the Jews, thinking that she was hurrying so as to seek in tears comfort for her grief, followed her, so that so great a miracle, of a man four days dead rising again, might find very many witnesses.

Mary therefore, when she had come where Jesus was, seeing Him, fell at His feet and said to Him: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died. Jesus therefore, when He saw her weeping, and the Jews who were with her weeping, groaned in the spirit and troubled Himself, and said: Where have you laid him? He hinted something to us by groaning in spirit and troubling Himself. For who could trouble Him, except He Himself? So first attend here to the power, and then inquire into the meaning. You are troubled unwilling; Christ is troubled because He willed. Jesus hungered, it is true, but because He willed. Jesus slept, it is true, but because He willed. Jesus was sorrowful, it is true, but because He willed. Jesus died, it is true, but because He willed. It was in His power to be affected thus or thus, or not to be affected. For He took a true soul, and the flesh of the whole man, gathering them to Himself into the nature of one person; for the soul of the Apostle too was enlightened by the Word, and the souls of the other apostles and of the holy prophets were enlightened by the Word, but of none was it said: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14); of none was it said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). The soul of Christ and the flesh of Christ, together with the Word of God, are one person, are one Christ; and therefore, where the supreme power is, weakness is troubled at the bidding of the will. That is, He troubled Himself. I have spoken of the power; attend to the meaning. He is a great offender whom a four days' death

and that burial also signifies. What, then, is it that Christ troubles Himself, if not to signify to you how you ought to be troubled, when you are weighed down and pressed by so great a mass of sin? For you have looked to yourself, you have seen yourself guilty, you have reckoned with yourself: I did that, and God spared me; I committed that, and He put me off; I heard the Gospel, and despised it. Say, say it weeping: I was baptized, and I rolled back again into sin. What am I to do? Where am I to go? How am I to escape? When you say these things, Christ already groans, because faith groans. In the voice of one groaning appears the hope of one rising again. Where that faith is within, there is Christ groaning. If faith is in us, Christ is in us. For what else does the Apostle say than that Christ dwells through faith in our hearts (Eph. 3:17)? So if your faith is of Christ, Christ is in your heart; so let Christ groan in your heart. Christ therefore wept for His dead friend, whom He had come to raise again. For why did He weep, if not because He taught man, weighed down by the burden of sins, to weep? Why did He groan, and trouble Himself? if not because the faith of a man rightly displeased with himself ought in some manner to groan in accusing his evil works, so that the habit of sinning may yield to the force of repentance. And He said: Where have you laid him? You know that he is dead, and you do not know where he is buried? This too is a meaning. I have not dared to say: He does not know. For what does He not know? How do we prove this? Hear the Lord, who is to say in the judgement: I know you not (Matt. 7:23). I see in My light; I do not see you in that righteousness which I know. So here too, as though not knowing such a sinner, He said: Where have you laid him? Such is the voice of the Lord in paradise after Adam sinned: Adam, where are you (Gen. 3:9)? They say to Him: Lord, come and see. What is "see"? Have mercy. For the Lord sees when He has mercy; whence it is said to Him: See my lowliness and my labour, and forgive all my sins (Ps. 24:18).

And Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said: See how He loved him. What is He loved him? I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32).

But some of them said: Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man should not die? What did He wish to do that he should not die? What He is going to do is more: that a dead man be raised.

Jesus, again groaning in Himself, comes to the tomb. He groans in you too, if you resolve to come back to life. To every man who is pressed down by a most evil habit it is said: Come to the tomb.

Now it was a cave, and a stone was laid upon it. The dead man under the stone, the guilty under the law. For you know that the law which was given to the Jews was written on stone (Exod. 34:1). But all the guilty are under the law. For those who live well are not in the law. The law is not laid down for the just. What, then, is it to roll back the stone? To preach grace. For the apostle Paul calls himself a minister of the New Testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit. For the letter, he says, kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). The killing letter is as it were a pressing stone. Take away, He says, the stone: take away the weight of the law, preach grace. Martha, the sister of him who had died, says to Him:

Lord, by now he stinks, for he is four days dead. Says

Jesus to her: Did I not say to you that, if you believe, you will see the glory of God? What is You will see the glory of God? That He raises even one who stinks and is four days dead. For all have sinned, and need the glory of God; and where sin abounded, grace has abounded more (Rom. 3:23; 5:20).

So they took away the stone. And Jesus, lifting up His eyes, said: Father, I give Thee thanks, because Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people who stand round I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. When He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, He groaned, and He wept. He cried with a loud voice, because he rises with difficulty whom the mass of evil habit has pressed down; but yet he rises, when he is quickened within by hidden grace. He rises after the loud voice. What was done? He cried with a loud voice.

Lazarus, come forth; and at once he who had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands; and his face was bound with a napkin. You wonder how he came forth with his feet bound, and you do not wonder that he rose again four days dead? In both it was the power of the Lord, not the strength of the dead man. He came forth, and still bound, still wrapped up, yet he has already come forth outside. What does it signify? When you despise, you lie dead; and if you despise things as great as I have said, you lie buried; when you confess, you come forth. For what is it to come forth, if not to be made manifest, as it were going out from hidden places? But that you may confess, God brings about by crying with a loud voice, that is, by calling with great grace. Therefore, when the dead man had come forth still bound, confessing and still guilty, so that his sins might be loosed, He said this to the ministers:

Loose him, and let him go. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 18:18). For He who raised the dead man could have loosed the bonds; but for the sake of the unity of the holy Church of God and undivided charity, it is said to the ministers, that is, to the disciples of Christ: Loose him, because without the unity of the Church of the catholic faith, and the charity of the Church's holiness, sins are not loosed.

Many therefore of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him; but some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Not all of the Jews who had come together to Mary believed, but yet many. But some of them, whether of the Jews who had come together, or of those who had believed, went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done, whether by announcing it so that they too might believe, or rather by betraying Him so that they might rage. But in whatever way, and by whomever, were these things carried to the Pharisees?

The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said: What are we doing? And yet they did not say: Let us believe. For the lost men were thinking more of how they might do harm so as to destroy, than of how they might take counsel for themselves so as not to perish; and yet they were afraid, and as it were took counsel. For they said:

What are we doing? For this man does many signs; if we let him alone thus, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation. They were unwilling to lose temporal things, and they gave no thought to eternal life, and so they lost both. For

and the Romans, after the Lord's passion and glorification, took away from them their place and nation, both by fighting and by deporting them; and that follows them which is said elsewhere: But the children of this kingdom shall go into the outer darkness (Matt. 8:12). Now they feared this: that if all believed in Christ, no one would remain to defend the city of God and the temple against the Romans, since they felt that the teaching of Christ was against the temple itself and against their fathers' laws.

But one of them, Caiaphas, since he was high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish. This he did not say of himself, but since he was high priest that year, he prophesied. Here [the evangelist] taught that the Spirit of prophecy foretells things to come even through evil men: which, however, the Evangelist attributed to the divine Sacrament, because he was pontiff, that is, high priest. But it may give pause how he is called high priest of that year, when the Lord had established one high priest, to whom at his death one should succeed. But it is to be understood that afterwards, through ambitions and contentions among the Jews, it was settled that there should be several, and that they should minister in turn year by year; for of Zacharias this is said: And it came to pass, while he was exercising the priesthood in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord (Luke 1:8–9). From this it appears that they were several, and had their turns. For it was not lawful to offer incense except for the high priest; and by lot also several administered for one year, whom others succeeded in another year, from among whom one came out by lot to offer incense. What is it, then, that Caiaphas prophesied?

That Jesus was to die for the nation; and not only for the nation, but that He might gather together in one the children of God who were scattered. This the evangelist added. For Caiaphas prophesied of the nation of the Jews alone, in which were the sheep of whom the Lord Himself says: I was not sent except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). But the evangelist knew that there were other sheep, which were not of this fold, which had to be brought, that there might be one fold and one shepherd (John 10:16). These things were said according to predestination, since those who had not yet believed were not yet His sheep, nor children of God.

From that day therefore they planned to kill Him. Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went away into the country near the desert, to a city called Ephrem, and there He stayed with His disciples. Not because His power had failed, by which, surely, had He wished, He might both have gone about openly with the Jews and they would have done nothing to Him. But in the weakness of man He was showing His disciples an example of living, in which it appears that it is no sin if His faithful, who are His members, withdraw themselves from the eyes of their persecutors, and rather avoid the fury of the wicked by hiding. Jesus knew that the time of His passion and of our redemption had drawn near. As the time drew near in which He had resolved to suffer, He also drew near to the place in which of that same passion

He willed to accomplish the dispensation. For the evangelist says:

The pasch of the Jews was near. The Jews were unwilling to have that festal day stained with the Lord's blood. On that festal day was slain the Lamb who consecrated that same festal day for you with His own blood. There was a plan among the Jews about killing Jesus. He who had come from heaven to suffer willed to draw near to the place of the passion, because the hour of the passion was at hand.

Many therefore went up to Jerusalem from the country before the Pasch, to sanctify themselves. The Jews did this according to the Lord's command given in the law through holy Moses, that on the festal day which was the Pasch all should gather from every side and be sanctified by the celebration of that day. But that celebration was a shadow of what was to come. What is the shadow of what was to come? A prophecy of Christ who was to come, a prophecy of Him who was to suffer for us on that day, so that the shadow might pass and the light come; so that the sign might pass and the truth be held. So the Jews had the Pasch in shadow, we in light. For what need was there that the Lord should command them to kill a sheep on that very festal day (Exod. 12:6), unless because He was the one of whom it was prophesied: He was led as a sheep to be sacrificed (Isa. 53:7)? With the blood of a slain beast the doorposts of the Jews were marked; with the blood of Christ our foreheads are marked: and that sign, the sprinkling of the lamb's blood, keeping the destroyer away from all who were marked, was shown forth in truth when Christ was slain for us, so that we need not fear the devil, the destroyer, if our heart receives the Saviour.

They were seeking, says the evangelist, Jesus, and they spoke among themselves, standing in the temple: What do you think, that He has not come to the festal day? So the Jews were seeking Jesus, but wickedly. For they were seeking Him so as to kill Him when He came to the festal day. But let us seek Him, standing in the temple of God and persevering with one mind in prayer, and let us speak among ourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles in grace, asking Him that He may deign to come to our festal day, to enlighten us with His presence, and Himself to sanctify His gifts to us.

Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given an order that, if anyone knew where He was, he should tell, so that they might seize Him. The order of the Jews, then, is sin. They were seeking to kill Christ, not to live in Christ. Let us seek to live in Christ, whom they were seeking to kill. They sought wickedly; let us seek well; for now is the time of seeking the Lord, as the prophet says: Seek the Lord while He can be found (Isa. 55:6). Whoever would find Him merciful in the judgement, let him seek Him now in the duty of humility and charity.

CHAPTER XII.

The Lord therefore, knowing that the Jews had conspired about killing Him, did not flee the hands of those lying in wait, but, certain of the glory of the resurrection, came first to Bethany, the town nearest to Jerusalem, where He had raised Lazarus from the dead; then also to Jerusalem, where

He Himself was to suffer and to rise from the dead. To Jerusalem, indeed, that He Himself might die there; but to Bethany, that the raising of Lazarus might be pressed more firmly on the memory of all, and that the impious rulers might be more and more confounded and convicted without excuse, who did not fear to kill Him who could raise from the dead; and who would not hold back their minds from an unjust slaughter, whether moved by the benefits of the raising or terrified by the divine power of Him who raised. Nor is it to be read in passing why Jesus came to Bethany six days before the Pasch; for great is the dignity of the number six in the holy Scriptures, and many works of our Lord are shown to have been perfected in the number six, because the number six, whether divided into its own proper parts or put together from them, is established as most perfect. For it has in itself three named parts, that is, one, two, three: for its sixth part is one, its third two, its half three; and one and two and three are recognized to be six; nor can anything else be made from these three parts put together but six only, nor can the number six be divided into other parts except these three, that is, one, two and three. For it is most well known that the Lord Himself, the Creator of all, perfected the creatures of this world in six days, and it is established that He made man on the sixth day (Gen. 2); to whom, ruined by the serpent's fraud, the Son of God Himself, through whom he was created, came to Bethany six days before the Pasch to set him free; so that he who was created on the sixth day might be set free on the sixth day of the week; for that Christ suffered on the sixth day of the week is, I think, unknown to no one. So too in the sixth month, at the archangel's announcement, the Virgin, by the sacred inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is read to have conceived the same our Redeemer (Luke 1:26–31); who also at the sixth hour, in His full age, sitting by the well, deigned to open to the Samaritan woman the streams of the divine fountain (John 4:6–14); and in the sixth age of the world the Creator Himself is read, according to the faith of sacred history, to have come for the redemption of the world. These three parts too, that is, one, two and three, of which, as we have said, the number six consists, hold something of a mystery in the dispensation of human salvation. In the first time, then, under the law of nature, the holy fathers served God as it were in a kind of unity. In the second time the law was added to nature, so that what evil habit had corrupted in nature, the law might reform in the letter; and there were two, nature and law. In the third time heavenly grace came through Jesus Christ, and there are three: nature, law and grace. Just as the law did not destroy the good of nature, so neither did grace undo the law, but fulfilled it, and restored nature to its former nobility: yet nature and law could not be fulfilled without grace. Nor was free will given to man, or the precept of the law, in such a way that he should not need grace, as the Pelagian heresy affirms. And lest the contrivers of calumnies should say that Lazarus had been raised in appearance only, a supper was made for the Lord there, and he himself was one of those reclining at table with Him, so that, while they saw or heard him living, speaking, feasting, conversing familiarly with his own, they might at least in this way acknowledge the power of Him Who raised him

and receive grace. But mystically this supper of the Lord, where Martha served and Lazarus reclined among the others, is the faith of the Church, which works through love. In this supper Martha serves, when each faithful soul spends on the Lord the labour of its devotion. And Lazarus becomes one of those reclining with the Lord, when those too who after the death of sins have been raised to righteousness, together with those who have remained in their righteousness, rejoicing in the presence of the Truth, penitents together with the innocent, are fed with the gifts of heavenly grace. And fittingly this same supper is held in Bethany, which is a town on the side of the Mount of Olives, and is interpreted House of obedience. For the house of obedience is the Church, which faithfully obeys the Lord's commands; and she is the city which, set upon the mountain of mercy, can never be hidden (Matt. 5:14); and she, built from the side of her Redeemer, has been steeped in the water of washing and the blood of sanctification, which came forth from the side of Him who was dying for her. Where also Lazarus's other sister, Mary, as a sign of great love, as the sequel of the Gospel shows, took a pound of ointment of precious spikenard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. By which not only does a sign of devotion follow, but also the dutiful service of piety of other souls faithful to God is signified. Mary then took a pound of ointment of precious spikenard. For what is expressed by the pound of ointment, if not the perfection of righteousness? That ointment is said to have been made from pistic nard. For what is hinted at by the ointment, if not the good odour of reputation? And this ointment is from pistic nard, that is, faithful nard; for πιστις is said in Greek, fides in Latin. For without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6), nor can there be a good name without the catholic faith. O man, anoint the feet of Jesus by living well, follow the Lord's footsteps, and wipe them with your hair. What is superfluous to you is necessary for the feet of the Lord, that is, for the least ones in the Church, of whom the Lord will say at the end: As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to Me (Matt. 25:40). And the house was filled with the odour, that is, the Church with the good name of a religious life; for a good odour is a good life. Hear the Apostle: We are the good odour of Christ, he says, in every place (2 Cor. 2:15). And in the Song of Songs: Your name is ointment poured out. Again: While the king was at his couch, my nard gave forth its odour (Song 1:2, 11). Where it is shown openly what Mary did once, but figuratively what the whole Church, what each perfect soul, is always doing.

Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was to betray Him, says: Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the needy? Woe to the impious traitor! Woe to the accomplices of his wickedness, who even now persecute the members of Christ, who do not cease to envy their neighbours who have the reputation for virtue which they themselves do not deserve to have. And indeed we might think that Judas had said these things out of care for the poor; but the truthful witness betrays his mind, who says:

Now he said this, not because he cared for the needy,

but because he was a thief, and, having the purse, carried what was put in. So Judas did not perish then, when, corrupted by money, he betrayed the Lord; but he was already lost when he followed the Lord, he who, holding the Lord's purse, carried what was put in for the service of the poor, which he was also accustomed to steal with a faithless mind. The Lord, then, seeing his heart already defiled with the filth of greed, and foreseeing that it would be defiled with the worse filth of betrayal, entrusted to his good faith whatever they had in the bags, and allowed him to do with these what he would, so that the memory either of the honour conferred or of the money held might call back his mind from selling Him. But because the greedy man is always in want, and the faithless man never remembers benefits, the impious man went on from the theft of the money he carried to the betrayal of the Lord, who had entrusted the money to him to keep.

Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it for the day of My burial. To Judas, as though he were asking innocently, the Lord explained simply and gently to what Mary's service pertained: namely, that He Himself was to die, and was to be anointed with spices for burial; and therefore to Mary, who would not be allowed, however much she desired it, to come to the anointing of His dead body, it was granted to render to Him while still living the service which after His death, forestalled by the swift resurrection, she could not. Whence Mark rightly testifies that the Lord said of her: What she had, she has done; she has come beforehand to anoint My body (Mark 14:8). She could not touch Him when dead; she did only what she could. She came beforehand to bestow on Him, still living, the office of burial.

For the poor you have always with you, but Me you have not always. And here, with the restraint of great patience, the Lord does not accuse Judas of avarice, and of speaking about the money not for the sake of the poor, but shows by reasoning that those were not to be blamed who ministered to Him from their means while He lived among men, since He Himself was to remain bodily with the Church for so short a time, whereas the poor, to whom alms could be given, were always to be had in her.

A great crowd of the Jews therefore learned that He was there, and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. Curiosity, not charity, brought these men to Jesus; but let us, the other way about, dearest brethren, if we know where Jesus is, where He makes His dwelling, where He finds a Bethany, that is, the house of an obedient soul, in which to dwell, come there by contemplation, not for the sake only of the man whom, raised from the death of the soul, He has granted to live spiritually, but so that, by imitating the man's good life, we may through this deserve to attain to the vision of Jesus, since we know for certain where Jesus is. For He rose again after death and ascended into heaven, where He has an everlasting dwelling. That is the true Bethany, the heavenly city, namely, which no one can enter unless he is obedient.

But the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were going away on his account and believing in Jesus. O blind cunning of the blind, to wish to kill the man who had been raised, as though He who could raise the dead could not raise the slain! And indeed

taught that He was able to do both, He Who raised both Lazarus when dead and Himself when slain. After the Lord had raised the man four days dead, while the Jews were astounded, and some of them believed, others perished through envy, and Jesus reclined at table in the house, Lazarus too, who had been raised from the dead, reclining with Him, after the ointment poured out over His feet, whereby the house was filled with the fragrance, things of which we have treated above as far as we were able, we must now see what was done before the Lord's passion. For the evangelist says:

But on the next day a great crowd that had come to the feast, when they had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palms and went out to meet Him, and cried: Hosanna, blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. The branches of palms are praises signifying victory, for the Lord was about to overcome death by dying, and by the trophy of the cross to triumph over the devil, the prince of death. Hosanna, blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord. It is indeed to be noted that Hosanna is a Hebrew word compounded of two, one shortened and one whole. For "save," or "make safe," is said among them hosi; anna, on the other hand, is the interjection of one entreating, just as among the Latins heu is the interjection of one grieving, and papae the interjection of one wondering. Accordingly, in the Psalm where the Seventy Translators rendered: O Lord, save me (Ps. 117:25), in the Hebrew it is written: hosanna anna Adonai, which our translator Jerome, explaining it more carefully, rendered thus: I beseech Thee, O Lord, save, I beseech Thee. For the word of beseeching itself has the same meaning. Hosanna therefore means "save, I beseech," the letter or vowel that ends the first word being swallowed up, since it is said in full hosi, by the force of the vowel letter aleph with which the following word anna begins; which the metricians call synaloepha in the scanning of verses, although in scanning they pass over a letter that is written: but in this word hosanna the letter iod is not even written, but, the sense of the speakers being kept intact, it is left out altogether. Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel: this is to be taken so that it is understood as in the name of the Lord God the Father; although it could be understood also as in His own name, since He too is Lord. Hence it is written elsewhere: The Lord rained from the Lord. His own words better direct our understanding, He Who says: I have come in the name of My Father and you have not received Me; another will come in his own name, him you will receive (John 5:43). For Christ is the master of humility, Who humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8). He does not therefore lose His divinity when He teaches us humility. In the one He is equal to the Father, in the other like to us. By that whereby He is equal to the Father, He created us that we might be; by that whereby He is like to us, He redeemed us lest we should perish. These praises the crowd was saying to Him: Hosanna, blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. This cry the princes of the Jews could not endure for the envy of their minds, when so great a multitude was acclaiming Christ as their king. But what was it to the Lord to be King of Israel, to Whom it was a great thing to be King

of the ages, to become King of men? For Christ is not King of Israel for exacting tribute, or for arming an army with iron and subduing enemies in war, but King of Israel in that He rules the mind, in that He takes thought for eternity, in that He leads into the kingdom of heaven those who believe, hope and love. That the Son of God, therefore, equal to the Father, the Word through Whom all things were made, willed to be king of Israel is a condescension, not a promotion; it is a sign of mercy, not an increase of power. For He Who was called King of the Jews is in heaven the Lord of angels.

And Jesus found a young ass, and sat upon it. Here it is said briefly. For how it was done is read most fully in the other evangelists. But a prophetic testimony is applied to this deed, so that it might be evident that the great princes of the Jews did not understand Him in Whom was being fulfilled what they read. Jesus, then, found a young ass, and sat upon it.

As it is written: Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, your King will come, sitting upon the foal of an ass. This daughter of Zion, to whom these things are divinely said, was among those sheep that heard the voice of the shepherd. She was in that multitude which with such devotion praised the Lord as He came, and with so great a throng escorted Him: to her it was said: Fear not, acknowledge Him Who is praised by you, and do not tremble when He speaks, for that blood will be shed by which your sin may be blotted out and life redeemed. But by the foal of the ass on which no one had sat (for this is found in the other evangelists) understand the people of the Gentiles, which had not received the law of the Lord; and by the she-ass (for both beasts were brought to the Lord) that common people which came from the people of Israel, not unbroken, however, but one that acknowledged the manger of the Lord.

These things His disciples did not understand at first, but when He was glorified (that is, when He showed the power of His resurrection) then they remembered that these things were written of Him. For recalling according to the Scripture the things that were fulfilled before the passion, or in the Lord's passion, they found there this too, that according to the oracles of the prophets He should sit on the foal of an ass.

The crowd that was with Him when He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness; for this reason too the crowd came out to meet Him, because they had heard that He had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves: You see that we gain nothing; behold, the whole world has gone off after Him. A crowd troubled a crowd. But why do you envy, blind crowd, that the world goes after Him through Whom the world was made?

Now there were certain Gentiles among those who had come up to worship on the feast day. These therefore came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying: Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip comes and tells Andrew. Andrew and Philip in turn tell Jesus. Let us see what the Lord answered to these things. Behold, the Jews wished to kill Him, the Gentiles to see Him. But those too were of the Jews who cried out: Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. Behold, those from the circumcision, these from the uncircumcision,

like rams coming from different sides, and meeting in the one faith of Christ with the kiss of peace. Let us hear, then, the voice of the corner-stone.

But Jesus, it says, answered them, saying: The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Here someone might perhaps think that He said He was glorified because the Gentiles wished to see Him. It is not so; but He saw that those very Gentiles would believe, after His passion and resurrection, in all nations, because, as the Apostle says, Blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in (Rom. 11:25). On the occasion, then, of these Gentiles who desired to see Him, He announces the fullness of the Gentiles that was to come, and promises that the hour of His glorification is now at hand, which having come to pass in heaven, the nations were to believe. Hence it was foretold: Be Thou exalted above the heavens, O God, and Thy glory above all the earth (Ps. 56:6). This is the fullness of the Gentiles of which the Apostle says: Blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in (Rom. 11:25). But it was fitting that the lowliness of the passion should go before the height of the glorification. Therefore He went on and added:

Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remains alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit. He was saying that He Himself was to be put to death, and multiplied: put to death by the unbelief of the Jews; multiplied by the faith of all peoples. And now, exhorting us to follow the footsteps of His passion,

He who loves his life, He says, will lose it. This can be understood in two ways: he who loves will lose, that is, if you love, lose; if you desire to hold on to life in Christ, do not fear to die for Christ. Again, in another way, he who loves his life will lose it: do not love it in this life, lest you lose it in eternal life. But this which I have said second seems rather to carry the sense of the Gospel. For it follows:

And he who hates his life in this world keeps it unto life eternal. Therefore, in what was said above, he who loves, there is understood "in this world," he will surely lose it; but he who hates, surely in this world, he keeps it unto life eternal. A great and wonderful saying, how a man's love for his life is such that it perishes, his hatred such that it does not perish. If you have loved wrongly, then you have hated; if you have hated rightly, then you have loved. Happy are they who have hated by keeping, lest they lose by loving. Here by the name of "life" (anima) the present life is signified, or even the delight of this life, which is to be lost, so that you may happily find in the kingdom of God your will, which you bravely conquered in this world; for the holy martyrs held this present life in hatred for the name of Christ, since they chose rather to lose this present life than to deny Christ, fulfilling what follows: If anyone ministers, let him follow Me. What is "let him follow Me," but "let him imitate Me"? For Christ suffered for us, says the apostle Peter, leaving us an example, that we should follow His footsteps (1 Pet. 2:21). Behold what has been said.

If anyone ministers to Me, let him follow Me. (With what fruit,

with what reward, with what prize?) And where I am, He says, there also My ministers will be. The reward of love, and the wage of the work by which one ministers to Christ, is to be with Him to Whom one ministers. For where will it be well without Him? Or how will it be able to be ill with Him? Hear it more plainly:

And if anyone ministers to Me, will My Father honour him? With what honour, but that he may be with His Son? For what He said above: Where I am, there also My minister will be, He is understood to have explained when He says: My Father will honour him. For what greater honour could an adopted son receive than to be where the Only-begotten is, not made equal to the Godhead, but made a companion of eternity? But what it is to minister to Christ, the work to which so great a reward is promised, must be considered. If anyone ministers to Me, let him follow Me: He wished this to be understood as though He said: If anyone does not follow Me, he does not minister to Me. They minister, then, to Jesus Christ who seek not their own things, but the things of Jesus Christ; for this is "let him follow Me": let him walk My ways, not his own, as it is written elsewhere: He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as He walked (1 John 2:6). Even if he holds out bread to the hungry, he ought to do it from mercy, not from boasting, to seek nothing else there but the good work, the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, that is, so that the aim of covetousness may be kept far from the work of charity. To him it is said: When you did it to one of the least of Mine, you did it to Me. And not only the works that belong to bodily mercy, but doing all works for Christ's sake, then they will be good, since Christ is the end of the law, unto justice for everyone who believes. The believer is the minister of Christ even to that work of His great charity, which is to lay down one's life for the brethren; for this is also to lay it down for Christ, since this too He will say on account of His members: When you did it for these, you did it for Me (Rom. 10). For of such a work He deigned even to make and to call Himself a minister, where He says: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to lay down His life for many (Matt. 20:28). From this, then, is each one a minister of Christ, from which Christ too is a minister. Thus the Father honours the one who ministers to Christ with that great honour, that he may be with His Son, and that his faith may never fail. But He speaks of all in common: If anyone ministers to Me. For everyone whoever does well ministers to Christ. Therefore let each one, according to his small measure, minister to Christ, by living well, by giving alms, by preaching His name and teaching to whomever he can. And he who exhorts those living well to persevere in living well ministers to Christ. And he who humbly obeys one who admonishes him ministers to Christ; and he who faithfully ministers to Christ in this world reigns happily with Christ in the world to come. When the Lord Jesus had foretold His passion in the grain of mustard seed, and was exhorting His ministers to follow Him, He tempered His feeling once more to our weakness, and said:

Now is My soul troubled. Whence is Thy soul troubled, Lord Jesus? Didst Thou not take a soul, and a perfect manhood, for this very reason, that Thou mightest suffer in it?

I see Thee, O Lord, transferring our weakness into Thyself, and taking up our cause in Thyself. Thou art troubled because Thou didst will it; just as Thou wast born because Thou didst will it; for a little before it was said of Thee, where Thou didst raise Lazarus: He troubled Himself; for by these words He snatched us from our weakness to His own strength. For it is the voice of the Lord's might where He says: The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. It is the voice of our weakness when He says: Now is My soul troubled. O Lord, Mediator, God above us, man for our sake, I acknowledge Thy mercy. For in that Thou, so great, art troubled by the will of Thy charity, Thou consolest many in Thy body who are troubled by the necessity of their weakness, lest they perish by despairing. Hear, then, O soldier of Christ, what He adds next. When He had said: Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say, He says:

Father, save Me from this hour; but for this cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. He has taught you what to think, taught you what to say, Whom to call upon, in Whom to hope, Whose sure and divine will to set before your human and weak will. Let Him not therefore seem to you to fall short of the heights because He wills to look out for you from the depths. For He even deigned to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4), by whom He would surely not have been tempted had He not willed it. And He answered the devil those things which you ought to answer in temptations. And He indeed was tempted, but not imperilled, that He might teach you, when imperilled in temptation, to answer the tempter, and not to go after the tempter, but to come out of the peril of temptation. And as He said here: Now is My soul troubled, so too He says there: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me (Matt. 26:38–39). He took up the weakness of man, so as to teach one thus saddened and troubled to say what follows: Yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt, Father. For thus is man directed from human things to divine, when the divine will is set before the human will. But what is: Glorify Thy name, if not in His passion and resurrection? What else is it, then, but that the Father should glorify the Son, Who glorifies His own name also in the like sufferings of His servants?

There came therefore a voice from heaven: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. I have both glorified it, before I made the world; and I will glorify it again, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. It can also be understood otherwise: I have both glorified it, when He was born of the Virgin (Matt. 1), when He was adored by the Magi through a star pointing from heaven, when He was recognized by holy people full of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 2), when He was declared by the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, when He was shown forth by the voice sounding from heaven (Matt. 3), when He was transfigured on the mountain (Matt. 17), when He worked many miracles, when He healed and cleansed many, when He fed so great a multitude from very few loaves (Matt. 14), when He commanded the winds and the waves, when He raised the dead (Luke 8). And I will glorify it again, when He shall rise from the dead (John 11), when death shall no more have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9), when He shall be exalted above the heavens as God,

and His glory above all the earth (Ps. 56:6).

The crowd therefore that stood and heard said that it had thundered. Others said: An angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered and said: This voice came not for My sake, but for yours. Here He shows that on that occasion what He already knew was not made known to Himself, but to those to whom it needed to be made known. And as that voice was divinely made not for His sake but for theirs, so His soul was troubled by His will not for His own sake but for others'.

Now is the judgement of the world. For we do not think this was said of the future judgement which is to be at the end of the world, where the good and the wicked will be separated by an eternal division, but of the judgement which is wont to take place daily in the holy Church of God. The devil, then, possessed the human race, and held the guilty by the bond of the sins of the more simple; he held sway in the hearts of unbelievers. Those deceived into worshipping the creature by forsaking the Creator he dragged along as captives. But through faith in Christ, which was made firm by His death and resurrection, through His blood, which was shed for the remission of sins, thousands of believers are set free from the devil's dominion, are joined to the body of Christ, and under so great a Head the faithful members are quickened by His one Spirit. This He called judgement, this separation, this expulsion of the devil from His redeemed. Then, mark what He says: as if we were asking what it was that He said, Now is the judgement of the world, He went on and explained it; for He says:

Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. We have heard what kind of judgement He said it was. Not, then, that which is to come at the end, where the living and the dead are to be judged, some separated to the left, others to the right; but the judgement by which the prince of this world shall be cast out. How, then, was he within? Whence did He say he was to be cast out? Now, He says, shall the prince of this world be cast out: this is to be understood of what is being done now, not of what He foresaw would only come hereafter, on the last day. The Lord, therefore, because He knew that after His passion and glorification many peoples throughout the whole world would believe, in whose hearts the devil was within, who, when he is renounced by faith, is cast out, says: Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. But someone says: Was he not cast out from the hearts of the patriarchs and prophets and the just of old? Plainly he was cast out. How, then, was it said: Now shall he be cast out? How do we think, unless that what was then done in very few men is now foretold as about to come to pass in many and great peoples? Just as that which was said: But the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39), can raise a similar question, and have a similar solution. For it was not without the Holy Spirit that the prophets foretold things to come (1 Pet. 1:11); nor was it otherwise than in the Holy Spirit that the aged Simeon and the widow Anna recognized the Lord as an infant (Luke 2), and Zechariah and Elizabeth, who through the Holy Spirit foretold such great things of Him when He was not yet born but already conceived (Luke 1); but the Spirit was not yet given, that is, that abundance of spiritual grace by which those gathered together should speak in the tongues of all, and so

the Church, which was to be in the tongues of all nations, might be foretold: the spiritual grace by which peoples were to be gathered, by which sins were to be forgiven far and wide, and thousands of thousands reconciled to God. What then, says someone; because the devil is cast out from the hearts of believers, does he now tempt none of the faithful? Nay rather, he does not cease to tempt; but it is one thing to reign within, another to assail from without. It is one thing to wound, another to kill. But if he wounds, He is at hand Who heals, for as it was said to those who are fighting: These things I write to you, that you may not sin (1 John 2:1), so those who are wounded hear what follows: And if you have sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and He is the propitiation for our sins (ibid. 2:1–2). For what do we pray when we say: Forgive us our debts (Matt. 6:12), but that our wounds may be healed? And what else do we ask when we say: And lead us not into temptation? but that he who lies in wait, or indeed anyone from without, may not break in on any side, or deceive us by any fraud, or overthrow us by any engines. When he does not hold the place of the heart, where faith dwells, he has been cast out. But unless the Lord keep the city, he watches in vain who keeps it (Ps. 126:1). Do not, then, presume upon yourselves, if you do not wish to call the devil, once cast out, back in again. But far be it from us to think the devil called prince of the world in such a sense as to believe that he can hold dominion over heaven and earth; rather, the world is so named in wicked men, who are spread through the whole circle of the earth, as a house is so named in those by whom it is inhabited, in the sense in which we say: it is a good house, or it is a bad house, not when we blame or praise the building of walls and roofs, but the very manners either of good men or of wicked. Thus, then, it was said: The prince of this world, that is, the prince of the wicked men who dwell in the world. The world is so named also in the good, who likewise are spread through the whole circle of the earth; hence the Apostle says: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 3). These are they from whose hearts the prince of the world shall be cast out. When, then, He had said: Now shall the prince of this world be cast out,

And I, He says, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things after Me. What all things? but those from which he is cast out. And He did not say all men, but all things. For not all men have faith. He did not, therefore, refer this to the whole of mankind, but to the wholeness of the creature, that is, spirit and soul and body, both that by which we understand, and that by which we see, and that by which we are visible and tangible. For He Who said: A hair of your head shall not perish (Luke 21:18) draws all things after Him. Or if by all things men themselves are to be understood, we can say all things predestined to salvation, of all of whom He said that none would perish, when He was speaking above of His sheep. Or surely all kinds of men, whether in tongues, or in all ranks of honours, or in all diversities of talents, or in all the professions of lawful and useful arts, and whatever else can be said

according to the innumerable differences by which men differ among themselves, sins alone excepted, from the most exalted down to the lowliest, from the king down to the beggar: All things, He says, will I draw after Me, so that He may be their Head and they His members. But if I be lifted up, He says, from the earth, that is, when I shall be lifted up. For He does not doubt that what He came to fulfil will come to pass. Let this be referred to what He said above: Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remains alone. But if the grain die, it bears much fruit. For what else did He call His lifting up than His passion on the cross? which the evangelist himself did not pass over in silence. For he added, and said: But this He said, signifying by what death He was to die.

The crowd answered Him: We have heard from the law that the Christ abides for ever; and how do you say: The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this? They held in memory that the Lord constantly said that He was the Son of man. For in this place He does not say: If the Son of man be lifted up from the earth, but, as He had said above, when those Gentiles who desired to see Him were announced: The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Keeping this in mind, then, and understanding the death of the cross in what He now says: When I shall be lifted up from the earth, they asked Him and said:

We have heard from the law that the Christ abides for ever; and how do you say: The Son of man must be lifted up? For if He is the Christ, they say, He abides for ever; if He abides for ever, how will He be lifted up from the earth? that is, how will He die by the passion of the cross? For they understood Him to have said that which they were planning to do. It was not, then, wisdom poured in that opened to them the obscurity of these words, but a goaded conscience.

Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little while the light is in you. Hence it is that you will understand that the Christ abides for ever.

Walk, therefore, while you have the light, that the darkness may not overtake you. Walk, draw near, understand the whole: both that Christ is to die, and that He is to live for ever; both that He is to shed His blood, whereby He may redeem, and that He is to ascend on high, whither He may lead. But the darkness will overtake you if you so believe in Christ's eternity as to deny in Him the lowliness of death.

And he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. So he can stumble upon the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence (Rom. 9:33), which the Lord was to the blind Jews, just as to believers the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner (Matt. 21:42). Hence they disdained to believe in Christ, because their impiety despised Him dead, mocked Him slain; and that very death was the death of the grain that was to be multiplied, and the lifting up of Him Who draws all things after Him.

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be sons of light. When you have heard something of the truth, believe in the truth. And it must be considered that He does not say: See the light, but: Believe in the light, which is to be seen after the way of this life. For He calls Himself (as has been said) the light in which one must believe, signifying by this His deity.

These things Jesus spoke, and went away, and hid Himself from them. Not from those who had begun to believe and to love, not from those who had come to meet Him with branches of palms and with praises, but from those who saw and envied, for they did not even see, but, blinded, stumbled upon that stone. But when Jesus had hidden Himself from those who desired to kill Him (of which you must often be reminded because of forgetfulness), He took thought for our weakness, He did not detract from His own power. When the Lord Christ had foretold His passion in the lifting up of the cross, and the Jews, understanding it, had put the question how He could say that He was to die, since they had heard from the law that the Christ abides for ever, the evangelist then went on, and says:

But though He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He put "who" for rarity, because what the holy prophets heard from God and preached among the people very few believed. Here, in saying: To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? he shows clearly enough that the Son of God Himself is called the arm of the Lord: not that God the Father is bounded by the shape of human flesh, and the Son clings to Him as a member of the body; but because all things were made through Him, He is therefore called the arm of the Lord. For as your arm is that through which you work, so God's word is called God's arm, because through the Word He wrought the world. For why does a man stretch out his arm to work something, unless because what he has said is not done at once? But if he prevailed with such power that what he said were done without that motion of the body, his arm would be his word. But the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, as He is not a member of the Father's body, so neither is He a word that is thought or sounded and passes away, for since all things were made through Him, the Word was God (John 1:1–3). Him Whom the evangelist named the Word that was with God, the prophet named the arm of the Lord. When we hear "the arm of the Lord," let us recognize Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, through Whom all things were made. For Thou hast made all things in wisdom (Ps. 103:24), says the Psalmist. For He is not Himself the one Who is the Father, but He and the Father are one, and He is equal to the Father, whole everywhere. Here a difficult question arises: what had the wicked Jews done, or what fault of theirs was it, that they did not believe, if it was necessary that the word of Isaiah the prophet should be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (Isa. 53:1)? To this question we answer that God, foreknowing things to come, foretold it through the prophet, yet did not cause it. For God does not compel anyone to sin because He already knows men's future sins. For He foreknew their sins, not His own, not anyone else's, but theirs. Wherefore, if the things which He foreknew as theirs are not theirs, He did not foreknow truly. But since His foreknowledge cannot be deceived, without doubt it is not others but they themselves who sin, whom God foreknew would sin. They did

The Jews, then, committed the sin, which He did not compel them to commit, He Whom sin does not please, but He foretold that they would commit it, He from Whom nothing is hidden. But the words of the Gospel that follow press hard, and make the question deeper. For it is said here as though He were the cause of their unbelief Who blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. This is said altogether of God, not of the devil. But the reason must be sought why the prophet said that God did this, and let us set it out, by His gift, as far as we shall be able. They could not believe, because the prophet foretold this, because God foreknew that this would be. But why they could not, if I am asked, I answer: because they would not. For God foresaw their evil will, and He from Whom things to come cannot be hidden foretold through the prophet, and that their evil will deserved this blinding or hardening. For thus God blinds, thus He hardens, by forsaking and not helping, which He does by a judgement hidden from us, but never unjust. When, then, Paul the apostle was treating this very difficult question, he says: Is there injustice with God? Far from it (Rom. 9:14). If, then, it is far from it that there should be injustice with God, whether when He helps or when He does not help, He acts justly, for He does all things not by rashness but by judgement. Moreover, if the judgements of the saints are just, how much more those of God, Who sanctifies and justifies? They are just, then, but hidden. Therefore, when questions of this kind come up for discussion, why one is judged thus and another thus, why this man is blinded when God forsakes him, that man enlightened when God helps him, let us not usurp to ourselves judgement upon the judgement of so great a Judge, but trembling let us cry out with the Apostle: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are His judgements and how unsearchable His ways (Rom. 11:33)! And concerning such questions or judgements of God let us hear the Scripture admonishing and saying: Seek not things higher than yourself, and search not into things stronger than yourself (Sir. 3:22). Let us come, then, into the way of faith, and hold to it most perseveringly. It leads to the chamber of the King, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom (Col. 2:3). For the Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not begrudge His great and especially chosen disciples when He said: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12). We must walk, we must advance, we must grow, that our hearts may be able to hold those things which now we cannot grasp. And if the last day finds us advancing, there we shall learn what we could not here. It is no wonder, then, that they could not believe, whose will was so proud that, ignorant of the justice of God and wishing to establish their own (Rom. 10:3), as the Apostle says of them, they would not be subject to the justice of God. For because they were puffed up not from faith but as from works, blinded by their very fear they stumbled upon the stone of stumbling. But it was said "they could not" where it must be understood that they would not, just as it is said of the Lord our God: If we believe, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). As it is to the praise of the will

of God, that He willed them to be saved, so the fact that they were unable to believe is the fault of human will. This God foreknew concerning the Jews who were blinded and hardened, and the prophet foretold it in His Spirit. But as to what he added: And they be converted, and I heal them, whether it is to be understood as, that is, they are not converted, the sentence joined above shows, where it was said: That they may not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, since here too, assuredly, it was said: they may not understand. For conversion itself is also of His grace, to Whom it is said: God of hosts, convert us (Ps. 79:8). Or perhaps this too is to be understood as done by the mercy of the heavenly medicine, since they were of a perverse and proud will, and wished to establish their own justice, that they were abandoned to this end and blinded; to this end, I say, were they blinded, that they might stumble on the stone of stumbling, and their faces be filled with shame, and so, humbled, they might seek the name of the Lord, and not their own justice, by which the proud man is puffed up, but the justice of God, by which the ungodly man is justified? For this profited many of them unto good, who, pricked with remorse for their crime, afterwards believed in Christ: for whom He Himself also had prayed, saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). There follows:

Nevertheless many of the rulers also believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so as not to be cast out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. See how the evangelist marked and censured certain men whom he nevertheless said had believed in Him, who on this entry into faith, if they made progress, would by progressing overcome even the love of human glory, which the Apostle had overcome, saying: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6:14). For to this end the Lord Himself also fixed His cross, where the madness of proud ungodliness mocked Him, on the foreheads of those who would believe in Him, where is in a manner the seat of shame, so that faith may not blush at His name, and they may love the glory of God more than that of men. When the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking among the Jews, and working such great signs of miracles, some believed, predestined to eternal life, whom He also called His sheep. But some did not believe, nor could they believe, because they had been blinded by the hidden, yet not unjust, judgement of God. Others again believed openly, and went out to meet Him with branches of palms; others again believed secretly, but because of the Pharisees did not confess, whom the evangelist marked when he said: They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. The glory of God is to confess Christ publicly, as the holy martyrs did: of whom the Lord Himself says in another place: Whoever shall confess Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father (Matt. 10:32). He who confesses Christ with the confession of praise will be confessed, that is, will be praised by Christ before God the Father. These things being so, and His passion now drawing near.

Jesus cried out and said: He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me, but in Him Who sent Me. He had already said in a certain place:

My doctrine is not Mine, but His Who sent Me (John 7:16). Where we understood that He called His doctrine the Word of the Father, which He Himself is; and that by saying: My doctrine is not Mine, but His Who sent Me, He signified this, that He Himself was not from Himself, but had One from Whom He was. For the Son of the Father is God from God; but the Father is not God from God, but God the Father of the Son. But now as for what He says: He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me, but in Him Who sent Me; how are we to understand it, unless that He appeared as a man to men, while He lay hidden as God? and lest they should think Him to be only this which they saw, but wishing to be believed such and so great as the Father is: He who believes in Me, He says, does not believe in Me, that is, in what he sees, but in Him Who sent Me, that is, in the Father; whence it is necessary that, when he believes [Him] to have a Son, and while he believes the Father eternal, he should believe also that He has a Son coeternal with Himself, and consubstantial with Himself. Therefore He said: He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me, not wishing that the whole that is believed of Christ should be believed according to the man. He believes well in Me who not only believes in Me according to that which he sees of Me, but according to that which he believes in Me believes [Me] to be equal to the Father. And lest it should be thought that He wished the Father to be understood thus, as the Father of many sons regenerated through grace, not of the only Word equal to Himself, He at once added:

And he who sees Me, sees Him Who sent Me. So far is there no distance between Him and Me, that he who sees Me sees Him Who sent Me. This vision must be understood as of the intellect, not of the flesh, which now is in the praise of the saints, and after the day of the last resurrection will be in the reality of eternal beatitude, of which He says elsewhere: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Let us attend to the rest. I am come a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness. He said in a certain place to His disciples: You are the light of the world. A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden; nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but upon a lampstand, that it may give light to all who are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven (Matt. 5:14–16). Yet He did not say: You are come a light into the world, that whoever believes in you may not remain in darkness. I affirm that this can nowhere be read. All the saints, then, are lights; but by believing they are illuminated by Him, from Whom if anyone withdraws, he will be darkened. But that Light which illuminates cannot withdraw from itself, since it is altogether unchangeable. And when He says: Everyone who believes in Me does not remain in darkness, He shows plainly enough that He found all in darkness; but that they may not remain in that darkness in which they were found, they must believe in the Light which came into this world, since through it the world was made.

And if anyone hears My words, He says, and does not keep them, I do not judge him. Hear how the Son says: I do not judge him, when He says in another place: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son (John 5:22): unless because what follows is to be understood:

For I came not, He says, to judge the world, but to save the world. Now therefore is the time of mercy; afterwards it will be [the time] of judgement, since, he says, Mercy and judgement I will sing to Thee, O Lord (Ps. 100:1). But see what He says also of that future last judgement itself:

He who despises Me, and does not receive My words, has one who judges him. The word that I have spoken, it will judge him on the last day. He does not say: He who despises Me, and does not receive My words, I do not judge him on the last day. For the Son of God came to save, not to judge. Therefore He said: I do not judge him, that is, now in the present, but I do judge him on the last day. For when He had said: He who despises Me, and does not receive My words, has one who judges him, while they waited to learn who that might be, He cautiously added: The word that I have spoken, it will judge him on the last day. He showed plainly enough that He Himself will judge on the last day. For it was Himself that He spoke, Himself that He announced, Himself that He set as the door by which He, the shepherd, might enter to the sheep. So those who have not heard will be judged in one way, and those who heard and despised in another. For as many as have sinned without the law, says the Apostle, will perish without the law; and as many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law (Rom. 2:12).

For I, He says, have not spoken of Myself. Therefore He says that He did not speak of Himself. We have already often said this, that the Son is not from Himself, but from the Father; therefore He added:

But the Father Who sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. For not by intervals of place, not by the utterance of syllables, not by a sound of the voice does the Father speak to the Son, so that the Son should hear the Father's commandment, as a son of man is wont to hear from a man what his father commands him; but the only Son is the Word of the Father, and the Wisdom of the Father; in Him are all the commandments of the Father. For neither was there a time when the Son did not know the Father's commandment, so that He would need to have in time what He received, so as to receive it by being born, and the Father in begetting would have given Him what He did not have; but He begot Him having life, as He says above: As the Father has life, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself (John 5:26), that is, He begot the Son having life in Himself. So He says here: As He gave Me commandment. And since that eternal nativity never was not, the Son Who is life, and as He is eternal life, so He Who was born is eternal life, so also the commandment: the Father did not give what the Son does not have, but, as I have said, in the Wisdom of the Father, which is the Word of the Father, are all the commandments of the Father. For there follows:

And I know that His commandment is life eternal. If therefore eternal life is the commandment of the Father, what else has been said than: I am the commandment of the Father? Accordingly also that which He adds and says:

The things that I speak, as the Father has said to Me, so I speak. Let us not take has said to Me as though He spoke by a word to the only Word, or as though God had need of the words of God. The Father, then, spoke the Word to the Son, as He gave life to the Son, not because He did not know or did not have it, but the Son Himself

was. But what is As He has said to Me, so I speak, except I speak the Word? As that One spoke as truthful, so this One speaks as the Truth. Now the Truthful begot the Truth. What then could He still say to the Truth? For the Truth was not imperfect, that anything true should be added to it. He, then, Who begot the Truth spoke to the Truth. Further, the Truth itself speaks as it was told, but to those who understand, whom it teaches as it was born. But that men might believe what they are not yet able to understand, words sounded from a mouth of flesh, and passed away. The sounds flew by and made their noise, their little spans of time completed; but the things themselves of which the sounds are signs, drawn in a manner into the memory of those who heard, have come even to us through letters, which are visible signs. Not so does the Truth speak: to understanding minds it speaks within; it instructs without sound; it floods them with an intelligible voice. Whoever, then, can see in it the eternity of its birth, he himself hears it speaking just as the Father told it what it should speak. He has stirred us to a great desire for His inward sweetness; but let us grasp by growing, let us grow by walking, let us walk by progressing, that we may be able to arrive through Himself, at Himself, He Himself leading us and promising us: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6): the Way to those who seek, the Truth to those who find, the Life to those who abide.

CHAPTER XIII.

John the evangelist, being about to write of that memorable ministry of the Lord, by which at the Pasch, before He went to His passion, He deigned to wash the feet of His disciples, took care first to disclose what the very name of the Pasch signified mystically, beginning thus:

Now before the festal day of the Pasch, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end. For Pasch is interpreted passing over, having the name of old from this, that on it the Lord passed through Egypt striking the firstborn of Egypt and setting free the children of Israel, and that the children of Israel themselves passed over that night from the Egyptian servitude, to come to the land of the inheritance and peace promised of old (Exod. 12). But it signified mystically that on it the Lord would pass out of this world to the Father, and that by His example the faithful, casting away temporal desires, casting away the servitude of vices, ought by continual pursuits of the virtues to pass over to the promise of the heavenly fatherland. And how Jesus passed out of this world to the Father the evangelist marks with fair speech when he says: Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end (1 Cor. 5), that is, He loved them so much that by that very love He ended His bodily life for a time, being soon to pass from death to life, from this world to the Father. For greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Hence rightly each passing over, both that of the law, namely, and that of the Gospel, was consecrated with blood: the former with that of the paschal lamb, the latter with His of Whom the Apostle says: For Christ our pasch is sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). This one by blood shed on the cross, that one in the shape of a cross in the middle

of the threshold and lintel, [the blood] sprinkled in the midst upon the doorposts. Pasch is not (as some suppose) a Greek name, but a Hebrew one: yet most opportunely there occurs in this name a certain agreement of both languages. For because "he suffers" is said in Greek πάσχη, therefore pascha was thought to be passion; or that this name was so called from passion. But in its own language, that is, Hebrew, pascha is called passing over, because the people of God then first celebrated the pasch when, fleeing from Egypt, they passed over the Red Sea. This name, then, that is, pascha, which in Latin, as I have said, is called passing over, the blessed evangelist as it were interprets for us: Before the festal day, he says, of the pasch, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He should pass out of this world to the Father. Behold the pasch, behold the passing over. Whence, and whither? From this world, namely, to the Father. Hope was given to the members in the head, that they would without doubt follow Him as He passed over. What then of the unbelievers, strangers both to this head and to His body? Do they not also pass, since they do not abide? They too pass, plainly. But it is one thing to pass from the world, another to pass with the world; one thing to pass to the Father, another to the enemy. For the Egyptians too passed over, for they did not remain in their pursuing; yet they did not pass through the sea to a kingdom, but in the sea to destruction (Exod. 14). Jesus therefore, knowing that His hour had come that He should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Assuredly, that they too, by His love, might pass from this world where they were to their head, which had passed hence. For what is unto the end, but unto Christ? For the end of the law is Christ, says the Apostle, unto justice to everyone who believes (Rom. 10:4). An end that perfects, not an end that destroys; an end to which we are to go, not where we are to perish. So altogether is it to be understood: Christ our pasch is sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). For He is our end; into Him is our passing over. It is to be understood: He loved them unto the end, He loved them even to death, since He loved them so much that He Himself died for them.

And supper, he says, being done, when the devil had now put into the heart of Judas, son of Simon, the Iscariot, to betray Him. Supper being done is said to mean now prepared, and brought to the table and use of those feasting together. But as to what he says: When the devil had now put into the heart of Judas, son of Simon, the Iscariot, to betray Him, if you ask what was put into the heart of Judas? This, surely: that he should betray Him. This putting is a spiritual suggestion, which comes not through the ear, but through the thought; and therefore not bodily, but spiritually. For not everything that is called spiritual is always to be taken in praise. The Apostle knows certain spirituals of wickedness in the heavenly places, against which he testifies that we have our wrestling (Eph. 6:12). But there would not also be evil spiritual things, if there were not also evil spirits; for spiritual things are named from spirit.

Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He came forth from God, and goes to God. Since then the Father had given all things into His hands, why did He wash not the hands but the feet of the disciples? He knew that through the humility of the Incarnation He had gone forth from God, and through the victory of the resurrection

He was to return to God, neither leaving God when He went forth from there, nor deserting us when He returned. He knew all these things indeed, and yet, as a sign of His own great humility, as an example of the great humility that is to be ours, He rises from supper, lays aside His garments, washes the feet of the disciples: fulfilling the office not of God the Lord, but of a man, a servant; and humbly washing the feet also of him whose hands He knew would be shamelessly defiled in His betrayal. But if it delights us to handle this most humble mystery of our Saviour with a deeper search, this most holy supper, at which the Lord reclined with His disciples, signifies the whole time in which, dwelling bodily in the Church, He fed all far and wide with the dishes of the saving word and the sweetness of His miracles, and was Himself fed by the faith and love of those who heard, since all whom He converted to the grace of the truth He made into growth through the Church, as it were after the manner of those who eat.

And He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments. When, ceasing to converse any longer in time with men, He laid down the members of the body He had assumed on the cross.

Having taken a towel, He girded Himself. When, having received from the Father the command to suffer for us, in the very exercise of the passion He girded His members about. For by the linen cloth, which is made with manifold labour of torments, the affliction of sufferings is wont to be figured. And the Lord, laying aside His garments, is girded with a towel, to signify that He lays aside the habit of the body which He put on, not without the pressure of pains, but in the long tribulation of the cross.

He put water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. When, dead on the cross, He poured out on the earth water together with blood from His side, with which to cleanse the works of believers; and He deigned not only to sanctify those same works with the sacraments of the passion, but also to strengthen them by its examples.

He came therefore to Simon Peter. As though He had already washed some, and after them had come to the first. For who does not know that the first of the apostles is the most blessed Peter? But it is not to be understood thus, that He came to him after some others, but that He began with him. When, then, He began to wash the feet of the disciples, He came to him with whom He began, that is, to Peter; and then Peter was afraid, as any one of them would have been afraid, and said:

Lord, dost Thou wash my feet? Thou, mine? What is Thou? What is mine? These things are to be pondered rather than spoken, lest perhaps what the soul conceives in some measure worthy from these words, the tongue may not unfold.

But Jesus answered, and said to him: What I do, you do not know now; but you shall know hereafter. Yet he, terrified by the loftiness of the Lord's deed, does not allow to be done what he did not know why it was being done, but he still does not wish to see Christ humbled even to his own feet; he cannot bear it.

You shall not wash my feet, he says, for ever. What is for ever? I will never bear this, never suffer it, never allow it. For this is not to be done for ever

which is never done. Then the Saviour, terrifying the sick man who resisted with the peril to his very salvation:

If I do not wash you, He says, you shall have no part with Me. If I do not wash you was said thus, when the matter concerned the feet alone, as it is customarily said: you are treading on me, when only the sole of the foot is trodden on. But he, troubled by love and fear, and more afraid that Christ should be denied him than that He should be humbled even to his feet:

My Lord (he said), not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. Since Thou threatenest thus, I not only do not withdraw my lowest members from Thee as Thou washest them, but I even spread out my foremost. That Thou mayest not deny me a part to be had with Thee, I deny Thee no part of my body to be washed.

Jesus says to him: He who is washed needs only to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. Wholly, assuredly, except the feet, or save the feet, which he has need to wash. But what is this? What does it mean? What is it necessary for us to inquire here? The Lord says, the Truth speaks, that even he who is washed has need to wash his feet. What, my brothers, what do you think, except that a man in holy baptism is indeed washed wholly, not except the feet, but wholly altogether; yet when afterwards one lives among human affairs, the earth is certainly trodden. Those human affections, then, without which there is no living in this mortality, are as it were the feet, where we are affected by human things: and we are so affected that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). Daily, therefore, He washes our feet Who intercedes for us; and that we daily have need to wash our feet we profess in the Lord's Prayer itself, when we say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12). For if we confess our sins, as it is written, surely He Who washed the feet of His disciples is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity (1 John 1:9), that is, even to the feet with which we walk our way on earth. That washing of the feet signifies indeed the remission of sins; yet not that which is given once in baptism, but rather that by which the daily guilts of the faithful, without which there is no living in this life, are cleansed by His daily grace. For the feet, with which we touch the earth as we walk, and which therefore we cannot keep free from the contagion of the dust as we can the rest of the body, signify the very necessity of dwelling on earth. He, then, who is washed needs only to wash his feet, but is clean wholly, since he who has been washed in the font of baptism unto the remission of all sins does not need, indeed cannot, be washed again in the same way; but it is needful for him that only the daily contagions of worldly conduct be wiped away by the daily indulgence of his Redeemer. For he is clean in the whole body of his actions, except only those things which have clung to the mind by the necessity of temporal care: on account of whose daily soiling and cleansing alike we say daily in prayer: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12). But these things concerning the apostles

and those like them. But we who, often forgetful of divine fear, walk the left-hand road, cannot be freed from the filth of our errors by that light and daily solemnity of prayers; but it is necessary that the greater defilement be purged by a greater exercise of prayers, vigils or fasts, tears and almsdeeds.

But after the Lord had washed the feet of the disciples, He took His garments, and when He had reclined again. He opened by word the mystery of the washing which He had shown them a little before by deed while they did not yet know it; since, after by suffering on the cross He had consecrated for us the laver of remission, He took the members, now immortal, which He had laid down mortal; and when after the resurrection He had appeared to the disciples, and had familiarly conversed with them, even in eating with them, for forty days, He set forth to them the benefit of His passion, whose outcome they had greatly feared up to then, because they did not know its mystical power.

If then, He says, I, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. This sentence, namely, ought to be rightly taken, and devoutly fulfilled, both according to the letter and according to the mystical sense. According to the letter, that through charity we may serve one another, not only in washing the feet of the brethren, but in helping them in any of their needs. But according to the mystical understanding, that as the Lord is wont to forgive us our sins when we repent, we too may hasten to forgive the brethren who sin against us, [even] in life. As He [cleanses] us from our sins by interceding with the Father for us, so we too, if we know our brother to sin a sin not unto death, let us ask that life be given him who sins not unto death. And, as the apostle James admonishes, Let us confess our sins to one another, and pray for one another that we may be saved (Jas. 5:16). As He laid down His life for us, so let us too, when the moment of time presses, lay down our life for the brethren. There follows:

Do you know what I have done to you? Now it is time that that promise be fulfilled to blessed Peter; for it had been deferred, since to him, when he was afraid and said: You shall not wash my feet for ever, it was answered: What I do, you do not know now, but you shall know hereafter. Behold, now is that very time of hereafter, that what was deferred a little before may be told. The Lord, therefore, mindful that He had long since promised the knowledge of His deed, so unexpected, so wonderful, so to be feared, and, had He not Himself vehemently terrified him, in no way to be allowed, that the Master not only of them but also of the angels, and the Lord not only of them but of all things, should wash the feet of His disciples and servants: since He had promised the knowledge of so great a deed, saying, You shall know hereafter, He now begins to teach what it is that He did. You call Me, He says, Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. You say well, because you say what is true; for I am what you say. To man the precept is given: Let not your own mouth praise you, but let the mouth of your neighbour praise you (Prov. 27:2). For it is perilous for him to please himself who must beware of pride. But He Who is above all, however much He may praise Himself, does not exalt Himself, being on high. Nor can God rightly be called arrogant; for it profits us

that we should know Him, not He. Nor does anyone know Him, unless He Who knows Himself makes Himself known. If then, by not praising Himself, He wished to avoid arrogance, as it were, He would deny us wisdom. And indeed no one would find fault with His saying that He is Master, even one who believed Him to be nothing other than a man, since He would be professing what men themselves also profess in any arts whatever, so far without arrogance that they are called professors. But that He calls Himself also the Lord of His disciples, when they are freeborn even according to the world, who would bear it in a man? But God is speaking; here there is no pride of so great a loftiness, no lie of the truth. For us it is profitable to be subject to that loftiness. For us it is profitable to serve the Truth. That He calls Himself Lord is no fault in Him, but a benefit to us. Let Him Who is the Truth speak the truth, lest I should not speak what is profitable, while He is silent about what He is. The most blessed Paul, assuredly not the only-begotten Son of God, but the servant and apostle of the only-begotten Son of God, not the Truth but a partaker of the Truth, says freely and steadfastly: For even if I wish to glory, I shall not be foolish, for I shall speak the truth (2 Cor. 12:6). For not in himself, but in the Truth itself, which is higher than he, would he glory both humbly and truly, since he himself also enjoins that he who glories should glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31). Should then the lover of wisdom not fear folly if he wished to glory, and should Wisdom itself fear folly in its own glory? He did not fear arrogance who said: In the Lord shall my soul be praised (Ps. 33:3); and should the power of the Lord fear arrogance in its own praise, the Lord in Whom the servant's soul shall be praised? You call Me, He says, Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. You say well, therefore, because I am. For if I were not what you say, you would say ill, even though you praised Me. If then, He says, I, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do. This is, blessed Peter, what you did not know when you would not allow it to be done. This He promised you would know hereafter, when your Master and Lord, your God, washing your feet, terrified you into allowing it. For among many there is a custom of this humility, expressed even in a deed that may be seen. Hence the Apostle too, when he commended a well-deserving widow: If she has received in hospitality, he says, if she has washed the feet of the saints (1 Tim. 5:10). And among the saints, wherever this custom is not, what they do not do with the hand they do with the heart, if they are of the number of those to whom it is said in the hymn of the three blessed men: Bless the Lord, you holy and humble of heart (Dan. 3:87). But it is much better, and beyond dispute truer, that one should do it with the hands also; and that the Christian should not disdain to do what Christ did. For when the body is bowed at a brother's feet, the affection of humility itself is either stirred up in the heart too, or, if it was already there, strengthened. But setting aside this moral understanding, we remember that we have commended the height of this deed of the Lord thus: that by washing the feet of disciples already washed and made clean, the Lord signified

on account of the human affections in which we are occupied on earth, that, however far we may have advanced in laying hold of justice, we are not without sin; and He washes us again and again by interceding for us, when we pray to the Father Who is in heaven that He forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. How then can that which He Himself afterwards taught, where He set out the reason of His deed, belong to this understanding, when He said: If I, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do? Can we say that a brother too can cleanse a brother from the thought of sin? Rather, let us know that in the height of this work of the Lord we too have been admonished of this, that, having confessed our sins to one another, we should pray for ourselves, as Christ intercedes for us. We have heard the apostle James most plainly enjoining this very thing and saying: Confess your sins to one another, and pray for yourselves (Jas. 5:16), since it was for this that the Lord gave us an example. For if He Who neither has, nor had, nor will have any sin prays for our sins, how much more ought we to pray for one another's! And if He forgives us, to Whom we have nothing to forgive, how much more ought we to forgive one another, who cannot live here without sin? For what does the Lord seem to signify in this height of the sacrament when He says: For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do? What but that which the Apostle says most openly: Forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another, as the Lord also has forgiven you, so do you also (Eph. 4:32). Let us therefore forgive one another our sins, and pray for one another for our sins, and so in a manner wash one another's feet.

Amen, amen I say to you, the servant is not greater than his lord, nor is an apostle greater than He Who sent him. He said this because the Lord had washed the feet of His servants, and He Who sent [had washed the feet] of those whom He sent. Apostolos in Greek is called in Latin missus, "one sent", to show that the things which the Most High did humbly are much more to be done humbly by the humble and weak. But that in this place too a spiritual understanding might give warning: that if He Himself, Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22), intercedes for us for our excesses, much more ought we ourselves to pray for one another. And if He forgives us, to Whom we have nothing to forgive, much more ought we to forgive one another our debts: which very thing the Apostle also enjoining says: But be kind to one another, merciful, forgiving one another, as God also in Christ has forgiven you (Eph. 4:32).

If you know these things, He says, you will be blessed if you do them. This sentence of our Saviour is most salutary and is to be pondered diligently, that we shall be blessed by knowing the heavenly precepts, provided that we follow by doing what we know. For he who neglects to keep His commandments once known cannot be blessed; he who scorns even to know them, much farther from the blessed

from the lot is he shut out. When therefore the Lord had set these things first, He added:

I do not speak of you all; I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled: He who eats My bread shall lift up his heel against Me. What else is this but, He will trample upon Me? It is known of whom He speaks. That Judas, His betrayer, is touched upon. Him therefore He had not chosen; hence by this saying He sets him apart from those whom He chose. What then I say, He says, "You will be blessed if you do them", I do not say of you all; there is among you one who will not be blessed and will not do them. I know whom I have chosen. Whom, if not those who will be blessed by doing what He commanded and showed was to be done, He Who is able to make [men] blessed? Was Judas the betrayer, then, not chosen? What is it, then, that He says in another place: Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? Or was he too chosen for something? For that, surely, for which he was necessary, but not for the blessedness of which He now says: You will be blessed if you do them. This He does not say of all. For He knows whom He has chosen for the fellowship of this blessedness. Of them that man is not, who so ate His bread as to lift up his heel against Him. They ate the Lord's bread, he the bread of the Lord against the Lord. They [ate] life, he bread. For he who eats unworthily, says the Apostle, eats judgement to himself (1 Cor. 11:29).

From now on, He says, I tell you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may believe that I am [He]. That is, I am He of whom that Scripture went before, where it is said: He who eats My bread shall lift up his heel against Me. Then He goes on and says:

Amen, amen I say to you, he who receives him whom I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him Who sent Me. For if we choose to understand that this was said, He who receives Me receives Him Who sent Me, because the Father [and] the Son are of one nature, it will seem to follow, by the rule of the same words in which it was said, He who receives whomever I send receives Me, that the Son and the apostle are of one nature. This could indeed also be understood not unfittingly, since the giant who exulted to run his way (Ps. 18:6) is of a twofold substance. For the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), that is, God was made man. Accordingly He may seem to have said: He who receives him whom I send receives Me according to [My] manhood; and he who receives Me according to [My] Godhead receives Him Who sent Me. But when He was saying these things, it was not unity of nature that was being commended by Him, but the authority of the sender in the one who is sent. Let each one, then, so receive him who is sent that in him he looks to Him Who sent [him]. If then you look to Christ in Peter, you will find the teacher of the disciple. But if you look to the Father in the Son, you will find the Begetter of the Only-begotten. And so in the one who is sent you receive, without any error, the sender.

When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and says: Amen, amen I say to you, that one of you will betray Me. Was Jesus troubled not in the flesh but in the spirit on this account, because He was about to say: One of you will betray Me? Was it then for the first time that this

came into his mind, or was it then for the first time suddenly revealed to Him, and did the sudden newness of so great an evil trouble Him? Was He not speaking of this a little before, saying: He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me? Had He not also said already, higher up: And you are clean, but not all? Where the evangelist added: For He knew who it was that would betray Him; whom He had also indicated already before, saying: Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? What is it, then, that He is now troubled in spirit, when He testified and said: Amen, amen I say to you, that one of you will betray Me? Was it because He was now about to point him out, so that he should not lie hidden among the rest but be singled out from the rest, that He was therefore troubled in spirit? And because the traitor himself was by now about to go out to bring the Jews, to whom the Lord was to be betrayed by him, was it the passion hanging over Him, and the danger close at hand, and the hand of the traitor impending, whose mind He had known beforehand, that troubled Him? For this, that Jesus was troubled in spirit, is of the same kind as that which He says: Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause I came to this hour (John 12:27). As therefore here His soul was troubled as the hour of the passion drew near, so also now, as Judas was about to go out and to come [back], and as so great a crime of the traitor drew near, He was troubled in spirit. He is troubled, then, Who has power to lay down His life, and has power to take it up again. So vast a power is troubled; the firmness of the rock is troubled; or rather, is it our infirmity that is troubled in Him? Truly, let servants believe nothing unworthy of their Lord, but let them recognize themselves as members in their Head. He Who died for us, the very same was first troubled for us. He therefore Who died by power was troubled by power. He Who transfigured the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21), transfigured in Himself also the feeling of our infirmity, suffering with us by the feeling of His soul. So when the great, the strong, the sure, the unconquered One is troubled, let us not fear that He is failing; He is not perishing, but seeking us. Us, I say, us altogether He is thus seeking; let us see ourselves in His trouble, so that when we are troubled we may not perish by despair. For when He is troubled Who would not be troubled unless willing, He consoles the one who is troubled even unwilling. Let the Christian mind plainly be troubled, not by misery but by mercy. Let it fear lest men perish to Christ. Let it be saddened when someone perishes to Christ. Let it rejoice when men are gained for Christ. Let it long for men to be gained for Christ. Let it fear also for itself, lest it perish to Christ. Let it be saddened that it is a pilgrim away from Christ; let it long to reign with Christ. Let it rejoice while it hopes that it will be a pilgrim with Christ. These certainly are the four that they call perturbations: fear and sadness, love and joy. Christian minds have them for just causes. Most steadfast indeed are those Christians, if there are any, who are in no way troubled when death is imminent. But are they more steadfast than Christ? Who so utterly insane as to say this? What is it, then, that He was troubled, except that He consoled the weak in His body, that is in His Church, by the voluntary likeness of His weakness

was He consoled? So that, if any of His own are still troubled when death is imminent, they may look upon Him, lest, thinking themselves reprobate for this very reason, they be swallowed up by the worse death of despair. How great a good, then, ought we to expect and hope for from sharing in His divinity, Whose very trouble calms us, and Whose infirmity makes us firm? Whether, then, in this place He was troubled in pity for Judas himself as he perished, or was troubled as His own death drew near, it is nevertheless in no way to be doubted that He was troubled not by infirmity of mind but by power, lest despair of salvation arise in us when we are troubled not by power but by infirmity. For He bore the infirmity of the flesh, which infirmity was consumed in the resurrection. But because He was not only man but also God, He surpassed the whole human race in strength of mind by an ineffable distance. He was not therefore troubled by anything compelling Him, but He troubled Himself: which was plainly expressed of Him when He raised Lazarus. For there it is written that He troubled Himself, so that this may be understood also where it is not read written [so], and yet He is read to have been troubled. For He Who took up the whole man by power, by power stirred human feeling in Himself when He judged it fitting. By His trouble the Lord also deigned to signify this to us: namely that false brethren, those tares of the Lord's field, must be so borne among the wheat until the time of harvest (Matt. 13:30) that, when a pressing cause compels some of them to be separated even before the harvest, it could not be done without trouble to the Church. Foretelling in a manner this trouble of His saints which was to come through schismatics and heretics, the Lord prefigured it in Himself when, as Judas, an evil man, was about to go out and, separated by a most open separation, to leave the mingling with the wheat in which he had long been borne, He was troubled not in the flesh but in the spirit. For His spiritual ones are troubled in scandals of this kind not by perversity but by charity, lest perhaps in the separation of some of the tares some of the wheat be rooted up along with them. Jesus therefore was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, that one of you will betray Me (John 13:21). One of you in number, not in merit; in appearance, not in virtue; by bodily mingling, not by spiritual bond; by the joining of the flesh, not by the unity of the whole heart. Hence [He means] not one who is of you, but one who is about to go out from you. For how will what the Lord testified and said, One of you, be true, if what the same man says in his epistle, whose this Gospel is, is true: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us (1 John 2:19)? Judas, then, was not of them; for he would have remained with them if he had been of them. What then is: One of you will betray Me? What but: One of you is about to go out, who will betray Me? For he too who says: If they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us, had already said, they went out from us; and by this both are true, of us and not of us. In

one respect of us, in another not of us. Of us by the communion of the sacraments; not of us by the peculiar character of their own crimes.

The disciples therefore looked at one another, doubting of whom He spoke. For such was the devout love in them towards their Master that human weakness nevertheless stirred them, one about another. Each one's own conscience was indeed known to himself; but because his neighbour's was unknown, each was so sure of himself alone that each was uncertain of the rest, and the rest of each.

There was therefore reclining in the bosom of Jesus one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. What he had called in the bosom he speaks of a little later, where he says on the breast of Jesus. This is John, whose this Gospel is, as he makes plain afterwards. For this was the custom of those who ministered the sacred writings to us: when the divine history was being narrated by one of them, on coming to himself he would speak as if of another, and so would insert himself into the order of his narrative as the writer of things done, not as the proclaimer of himself. Wherefore, that here too the blessed evangelist does not say, I was reclining in the bosom of Jesus, but says, There was reclining one of the disciples, let us recognize it as the custom of our authors rather than wonder at it. For what is lost to truth when the fact itself is told, and boasting is avoided by a certain manner of speaking? For he was narrating what belonged to his own greatest praise. But what is whom Jesus loved? As though He did not love the others, of whom the same John says above: He loved them to the end (John 13:1), and the Lord Himself: Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). And who could count all the testimonies of the divine pages in which the Lord Jesus is shown to be the lover not of him alone, nor only of those who were then, but also of His members who were to be afterwards, and of His whole Church? But surely something lies hidden here, and it pertains to the bosom in which he who said these things was reclining. For what is signified by the bosom but a secret?

Simon Peter therefore beckoned, and says to him. The expression is to be noted: something is said not by sounding but only by beckoning. He beckoned, it says, and says. Surely he says by beckoning. For if something is said by thinking, as Scripture speaks: They said among themselves (John 7:35), how much more by beckoning, when what had been conceived in the heart is now brought out by signs of whatever kind? What then did he say by beckoning? What, but what follows:

Who is it of whom He speaks? These words Peter beckoned, because he said them not by the sound of the voice but by a movement of the body.

So when he had reclined on the breast of Jesus: this surely is the bosom of the breast, the secret of wisdom.

He says to Him: Lord, who is it? Jesus answered: He it is to whom I shall hold out the dipped bread; and when He had dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas [son] of Simon Iscariot. And after the bread, then Satan entered into him. The traitor was pointed out; the hiding-places of darkness were laid bare. What he received is good, but he received it to his own harm, because, evil, he received the good

For it matters much, not what is received but who receives it; nor what kind of thing is given, but what kind of man he is to whom it is given. For both good things harm and evil things profit, according as those are to whom they are given. Sin, says the Apostle, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me through what is good (1 Cor. 11). See, through the good evil was done, while the good is received badly. Why then do you wonder if Christ's bread was given to Judas, through which he was made over to the devil, when you see on the contrary an angel of the devil given to Paul, through whom he was perfected in Christ? So both the good harmed the evil man, and the evil profited the good. Remember of what it is written: Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And it was of these that the discourse was, when the Apostle said this, because they took the Lord's body without discernment and carelessly, like any other food. If then he is rebuked here who does not discern, that is, does not distinguish the Lord's body from other foods, how is he condemned who comes to His table an enemy feigning a friend? If the carelessness of a guest is touched with reproof, with what penalty is the seller of his host struck? And what was the bread given to the seller but a showing of the grace to which he had been ungrateful? After this bread, then, Satan entered into the betrayer of the Lord, so as to possess more fully, as now handed over to himself, the one into whom he had earlier entered to deceive him. For he was not absent from him when he went to the Jews and bargained over the price of betraying the Lord, since Luke the evangelist most plainly testifies and says this: Satan entered into Judas, who is surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve, and he went away and spoke with the chief priests (Luke 25). See where it is shown that Satan had already entered into Judas. He had entered earlier, therefore, by sending into his heart the thought by which he would betray Christ. For such as this he had already come to supper. But now after the bread he entered into him, not in order to tempt one belonging to another, but to possess one his own. But it was not then, as some think who read carelessly, that Judas received the body of Christ. For it is to be understood that the Lord had already distributed to them all the sacrament of His body and blood, where Judas himself also was, as Saint Luke most clearly narrates. And then they came to this point, where according to the narrative of John the Lord most openly points out His betrayer by the morsel dipped and held out, perhaps signifying by the dipping of the bread his feigning. For not all things that are dipped are washed; some are dipped so as to be stained. But if the dipping signifies something good here, condemnation not undeservedly followed the one ungrateful for that same good. Even so, Judas was possessed not by the Lord but by the devil, since, the man being ungrateful, the bread had entered into his belly, the enemy into his mind; still, I say, there remained the full effect of so great an evil already conceived in the heart, whose damnable intent had already gone before. So the Lord, when He, the living bread, had handed bread to the dead man, and by handing the bread had shown the betrayer of the bread:

What you are doing, He says, do more quickly. He did not command the crime,

but foretold it. Evil for Judas, good for us. For what is worse for Judas, and what better for us, than Christ betrayed: by him against him, for us apart from him? What you are doing, do more quickly. O word of One ready rather than angry, not so much raging for the destruction of the faithless one as hastening to the salvation of the faithful; for He was delivered up for our offences (Rom. 4:25), and loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for her. Hence also of this the Apostle says: Who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me (Eph. 5). Unless, then, Christ delivered Himself up, no one would deliver up Christ. What does Judas have but sin? For in betraying Christ he did not think of our salvation, for which Christ was delivered up; but he thought of the gain of money, and found the loss of his soul. What you are doing, do more quickly: not because you are able, but because He wills it Who is able to do all.

But none of those at table knew for what purpose He had said this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the purse, that Jesus was saying to him: Buy what we need for the feast; or that he should give something to the needy. The Lord therefore had a purse, and keeping what was offered by the faithful, He distributed both to the needs of His own and to other needy people. Then for the first time the pattern of the Church's money was instituted, whereby we might understand that what He commands, that we are not to take thought for the morrow (Matt. 6:34), was not commanded to this end, that no money be kept by the saints, but that God be not served for the sake of such things, and justice be not forsaken through fear of want. For the Apostle too, providing for the future, says: If any believer has widows, let him provide for them sufficiently, that the Church be not burdened, so that it may suffice for those who are widows indeed (1 Tim. 5:16).

When therefore he had taken the morsel, he went out immediately. And it was night (and he himself who went out was night. When therefore the night had gone out), Jesus says: Now is the Son of Man glorified. Day therefore utters a word to day (Ps. 18:3), that is, Christ to the faithful disciples, that they might hear Him and love Him by following; and night to night shows knowledge (ibid.), that is, Judas to the unbelieving Jews, that they might come to Him and seize Him by pursuing. What then does the Lord say, after Judas went out to do more quickly what he was about to do, that is, to betray the Lord? What does the day say when the night had gone out? What does the Redeemer say when the seller had gone out? Now, He says, is the Son of Man glorified. Why now? Is it because he has gone out who is to betray, because those are at hand who are to seize and kill? Is He then now glorified because He is near to being humbled further, because it now impends that He be bound, judged, condemned, mocked, crucified, put to death? Is this glorification, or rather humiliation? When He was working miracles, did not this same John nevertheless say of Him: The Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39)? Was He, then, not yet glorified when He was raising the dead, and is He glorified now when He was drawing near to death? Was He not yet glorified while doing divine things, and is He glorified as He is about to suffer human things? It would be strange if that God and Master signified and said this in these words. It is deeper

to search out the saying of the Most High, Who shows Himself a little so that we may find, and hides Himself again so that we may seek, and may lean, as it were by steps, from things found towards things to be found. I see here something that prefigures something great. Judas went out, and Jesus was glorified. The son of perdition went out, and the Son of Man was glorified. For he had gone out on whose account it had been said to them: And you are clean, but not all (here, above). So when the unclean one went out, all remained clean, and remained with their Cleanser. Something like this will happen when this world, conquered by Christ, has passed away, and no one in the people of Christ will remain unclean; when, the tares having been separated from the wheat, the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43). Foreseeing that this was to be, and testifying that it was now signified, as Judas departed, the tares as it were separated, and the holy apostles remaining as it were the wheat, the Lord says: Now is the Son of Man glorified; as if He said: See what there will be in that glorification of Mine, where none of the wicked will be, where none of the good perishes. But it was not said thus: Now the glorification of the Son of Man is signified; rather it was said: Now is the Son of Man glorified; just as it was not said: The rock signified Christ, but The rock was Christ (1 Cor. 19). Nor was it said: The good seed signifies the sons of the kingdom, or the tares signify the sons of the evil one; but it was said: The good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the evil one (Matt. 13:38). As then Scripture is accustomed to speak, calling the things that signify by the names of those that are signified, so the Lord spoke, saying: Now is the Son of Man glorified, since, the most wicked one being separated from there and the saints remaining with Him, His glorification was signified, when, the wicked having been separated, He will abide in eternity with the saints. And when He had said: Now is the Son of Man glorified, He added:

And God is glorified in Him. For this is the very glorification of the Son of Man, that God be glorified in Him. For if not He in Himself but God is glorified in Him, then God glorifies Him in Himself. Finally, as if explaining these things, He adds and says:

If God is glorified in Him, God also will glorify Him in Himself. That is, if God is glorified in Him, because He came not to do His own will but the will of Him Who sent Him, God has also glorified Him in Himself, so that the human nature in which He is the Son of Man, which was taken up by the eternal Word, should be endowed also with immortal eternity; and at once, He says, He will glorify Him: foretelling by this attestation His own resurrection, which was to be not, like ours, at the end of the world, but at once. For this is the glorification of which the evangelist had already spoken, which I mentioned a little before: that the Spirit had not yet been given, namely in that new manner in which He was to be given in that manner to those who believed after the resurrection, because Jesus was not yet glorified; that is, mortality had not yet been clothed with immortality, and temporal infirmity changed into eternal power. It may seem that this too was said of that glorification:

Now is the Son of Man glorified; so that what He says, now, may be believed to refer not to the imminent passion but to the near resurrection, as though what was now so very near to come had been done.

Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Lest they should think, then, that God would so glorify Him that He would no longer be joined to them in that manner of life which is on earth, Yet a little while, He says, I am with you; as if He said: I shall indeed be glorified at once by the resurrection, yet I shall not at once ascend into heaven, but yet a little while I am with you. For as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: He was with them after the resurrection forty days, going in and going out, eating and drinking (Acts 1), not indeed having the need of hunger and thirst, but conveying the truth of the flesh even so far as these things, because He no longer had the necessity of eating and drinking, but the power. Was it this, then, the forty days, that He signified by saying: Yet a little while I am with you; or something else? For it can also be understood thus: Yet a little while I am with you: still, as you are, I too am in this infirmity of the flesh; namely until He should die and rise again. For after He rose He was indeed with them, as has been said, for forty days, by the showing of bodily presence, but He was not with them in the fellowship of human infirmity. There is also another, divine presence, unknown to mortal senses, of which He likewise says: Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28:20). This certainly is not Yet a little while I am with you. For until the consummation of the world is not a little while. Or if this too is a little while (for time flies, and in the eyes of God a thousand years are as one day, or as a watch in the night [Ps. 89:4]), yet He is not to be believed to have meant to signify this now, since He went on to add:

You will seek Me, and, as I said to the Jews, where I am going you cannot come. Surely after this little while in which I am with you, you will seek Me, and where I am going you cannot come. Will they not be able to come where He is going after the consummation of the world? And where then is what He will say a little later in this very discourse: Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me (John 17:24)? It was not, therefore, of that presence of His with His own, by which He is with them until the consummation of the world, that He now spoke when He says: Yet a little while I am with you; but either of the mortal infirmity in which He was with them until His passion, or of the bodily presence in which He was to be with them until His ascension. Whichever of these one chooses, he does not quarrel with the faith. But lest this sense seem to anyone to be at odds with the truth, that we say the Lord could have signified, by saying Yet a little while I am with you, the fellowship of mortal flesh in which He was with the disciples until the passion, let him attend also to His words in another evangelist after the resurrection, where He says: These things I spoke to you while I was still with you (Luke 24:44), as though [Should one read etsi, "although"?] He was then with them, while they stood by Him together, saw, touched and conversed with Him. What then is while I was still

with you, but: While I was still in mortal flesh, in which you too are? For then He was indeed in the same flesh, raised again, but He was no longer with them in the same mortality. Therefore, as there, being now no longer in the mortality of the flesh, He truly says: While I was still with you, where we can understand nothing else than: While I was still with you in the mortality of the flesh; so here too He is understood, not absurdly, to have said: Yet a little while I am with you; as if He said: Yet a little while I am mortal, as you are. Let us look, then, at what follows: You will seek Me; and, as I said to the Jews, where I am going you cannot come. And to you I say now; that is, now you cannot. But when He said this to the Jews He did not add now. These, then, could not then come where He was going, but they could afterwards. For He says this most plainly to the apostle Peter a little later. For when he had said: Lord, where are You going? He answered him: Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you will follow afterwards. But what this means is not to be passed over carelessly. For whither could the disciples not follow the Lord then, but could afterwards? If we say, to death: what time is found for a man once born at which he is not fit to die, since such is the lot of men in a corruptible body that life is not easier for them than death? They were not, then, as yet less fit to follow the Lord to death, but less fit to follow the Lord to the life which has no death. For thither the Lord was going, so that, rising from the dead, He should die no more, and death should no longer have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). For how were they now to follow the Lord, about to die for justice, while they were not yet ripe for martyrdom? Or again, how could they now have followed the Lord to the immortality of the flesh, they who were to die at some time or other, but to rise again at the end of the world? Or again, how were they now to follow the Lord to the bosom of the Father, though He would not leave them, the bosom which He did not leave when He came to them, since no one can be in that happiness unless he is perfect in charity? And so, teaching how they might be fit to go whither He was going before:

A new commandment, He says, I give you, that you love one another. These are the steps by which Christ is to be followed. Was not this already a commandment in the ancient law of God, where it is written: You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Lev. 19:18)? Why then is it called a new commandment by the Lord, when it is proved to be so old? Is it a new commandment for this reason, that, the old man having been put off, it clothes us with the new man? For it renews the one who hears, or rather obeys, not every love, but this love, which the Lord, to distinguish it from carnal love, added: As I have loved you. For husbands and wives love one another, parents and children, and whatever other men human relationship has bound together among themselves; to say nothing of the blameworthy and damnable love with which adulterers and adulteresses, fornicators and harlots, and whatever others not human relationship but the harmful baseness of human life joins together, love one another. Christ therefore gave us a new commandment, that we love one another as He Himself loved us. This love renews us, that we may be new men, heirs

of the new testament, singers of the new song. This love, dearest brethren, renewed the ancient just ones also, the patriarchs and prophets of that time, as afterwards the blessed apostles; it is this that now too renews the nations, and out of the whole human race, which is spread through the whole world, makes and gathers a new people, the body of the new bride, the spouse of the only-begotten Son of God, of whom it is said in the Song of Songs: Who is she that comes up made white (Song 3:6; 8:5)? Made white indeed, because made new. Whence, but from the new commandment, on account of which the members in her are anxious for one another? For they hear and keep: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; not as those love one another who corrupt, nor as men love one another because they are men, but they love one another because they are gods, and all sons of the Most High, so that they may be brothers to His only Son, loving one another with that love with which He has loved them, being about to lead them to that end which may suffice them, where their desire shall be satisfied with good things. For then nothing will be lacking to desire, when God will be all in all. Do not think, then, my brethren, that in what the Lord says, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, that great commandment has been passed over by which we are commanded to love the Lord our God with the whole heart, and with the whole soul, and with the whole mind (Matt. 22:37). But to those who understand well, both are found in each. For he who loves God cannot despise Him when He commands that he love his neighbour; and he who loves his neighbour holily and spiritually, what does he love in him but God? This is the love set apart from all worldly love, which the Lord, distinguishing it, added: As I have loved you. For what did He love in us but God: not that we had Him, but that we might have Him, so that He might lead us, as I said a little before, where God is all in all (1 Cor. 15:28)? So too a physician is rightly said to love the sick; and what does he love in them but health, which he surely desires to call back; not the disease, which he comes to drive out? So then let us too love one another, that, as far as we can, we may by the care of love draw one another to have God in us. This love He Himself gives us, Who says:

As I have loved you, that you also love one another. For this, then, He loved us, that we too may love one another, conferring this on us by loving us: that we be bound together among ourselves by mutual love, and, the members being joined by so sweet a bond, be the body of so great a Head.

By this, He says, all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. As if He said: Others, even those not Mine, have My other gifts along with you: not only nature, life, sense, reason, and that well-being which is common to men and sinners [alike], but also tongues, sacraments, prophecy, knowledge, faith, the distribution of their goods to the poor, and the handing over of their body to be burned; but since, not having charity, they clang like cymbals, they are nothing, it profits them nothing (1 Cor. 11). Not, then, in those gifts of Mine, good though they are, which

even those who are not my disciples can have, but by this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. O bride of Christ, beautiful among women! O you who come up made white, and leaning upon your kinsman, since by His light you are illumined so that you shine, by His help you are propped up so that you do not fall! O how well it is sung to you in that Song of Songs, as in your marriage-song: For love is in your delights (Song 8)! It does not destroy your soul along with the ungodly. It does not judge your cause, and as death is strong, so it is also in your delights. Of what wondrous kind is this death, for which it was too little not to be in punishments, unless it were in delights besides?

Simon Peter says to Him, Lord, where are You going? The disciple said this to the master, and the servant to the Lord, surely as one ready to follow. For that reason indeed the Lord, Who saw in his mind why he had asked this, answered him thus:

Where I am going, you cannot follow Me now. As though He said: For the reason for which you ask, you cannot now. He does not say, You cannot, but, you cannot now. He brought in a delay, He did not take away hope; and that same hope, which He did not take away but rather gave, He confirmed with the following word, adding and saying:

But you shall follow afterwards. Why do you hasten, Peter? The rock has not yet made you firm with His Spirit. Do not be lifted up by presuming: you cannot now. Do not be cast down by despairing: you shall follow afterwards. But what does he say still?

Why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You. He saw what desire was in his mind; what strength there was he did not see. The sick man boasted of his will, but the physician was examining his health. The one was promising, the Other foreknew. He who did not know was hearing; He Who foreknew was teaching how much Peter had taken upon himself, looking at what he willed, ignorant of what he could do; how much he had taken upon himself, that, when the Lord had come to lay down His life for His friends, and hence for him too, he should be confident to offer this to the Lord, and, before the life of Christ had yet been laid down for him, he promises that he will lay down his own life for Christ.

Jesus therefore answered: You will lay down your life for Me. Is it so? Will you do for Me what I have not yet done for you? You will lay down your life for Me? Can you go before, you who cannot follow? Why do you presume so much? What do you think of yourself? What do you believe yourself to be? Hear what you are.

Amen, amen I say to you, the cock shall not crow until you deny Me three times. See how soon you will appear to yourself, you who speak great things and do not know yourself to be a little one. You who promise Me your death will three times deny Me, your life. You who think you can already die for Me, first live for yourself. For by fearing the death of your flesh you will give death to your soul. For He does not say: The cock shall not crow until you deny the man; or, as He was accustomed to speak with a more familiar condescension towards men: The cock shall not crow until you deny the Son of Man three times; but He says, until you deny Me three times. What is "Me", except what He was? and what except

except Christ? Whatever of His, then, he denied, he denied Him Himself: he denied Christ, he denied the Lord his God; for that fellow disciple of his too, Thomas, when he cried out, My Lord and my God (John 20), touched not the Word but the flesh: he handled with curious hands not the incorporeal nature of God but the body of a man. So he touched the man, and yet he recognized God. If then what this one touched, Peter denied, what this one proclaimed, Peter offended against. The cock shall not crow until you deny Me three times. You may say, I do not know the man; you may say, Man, I do not know what you are saying; you may say, I am not one of His disciples: you will be denying Me. If, as it is impious to doubt, Christ said this and foretold truly, beyond doubt Peter denied Christ. Let us not accuse Christ while we defend Peter. Let weakness acknowledge its sin: for truth has no falsehood in it. Peter's weakness plainly acknowledged its sin, acknowledged it fully, and by weeping showed how much evil it had committed in denying Christ. He himself refutes his defenders, and to convict them he brings forth his tears as witnesses. Nor, when we say these things, does it delight us to accuse the first of the apostles; but in looking at him we ought to be warned that no man should trust in human strength. For what else was the purpose of our teacher and saviour but to show us, in the very first of the apostles, an example that no one ought in any way to presume upon himself? So there befell Peter in his soul what he was offering in his body: yet he did go before the Lord, as he rashly presumed, but otherwise than he thought? For which [things], before the death and resurrection of the Lord, he both died by denying and came to life again by weeping. But he died because he himself presumed proudly, and came to life again because that One looked upon him kindly.

CHAPTER XIV.

And He said to the disciples: Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me. Lest they should fear death for Him as for a mere man, and be troubled on that account, He consoles them, testifying that He is also God. You believe, He says, in God, believe also in Me. For it follows that, if you believe in God, you ought to believe also in Me, which would not follow if Christ were not God. You believe in God; believe also in Him Whose nature it is, not robbery, to be equal to God. For He emptied Himself (Phil. 2), yet not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant. Do you fear death for this form of a servant? Let not your heart be troubled: God will raise up that form of God. But what is it that follows:

In My Father's house there are many dwelling-places? unless that they were afraid for themselves too: whence they had to hear: Let not your heart be troubled. For which of them would not have been afraid, when it had been said to Peter, the more confident and readier: The cock shall not crow until you deny Me three times? As though, then, they were to perish away from Him, they were rightly troubled. But when they hear: In My Father's house there are many dwelling-places,

If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare for you

a place, they are restored from their disturbance, sure and confident that even after the perils of temptations they will abide with God together with Christ: for even if one is stronger than another, one wiser than another, one more just than another, one holier than another, in My Father's house there are many dwelling-places. None of them will be estranged from that house, where each is to receive a dwelling-place according to his merit. That penny, indeed, is equal for all, which the householder orders to be given to all who have worked in the vineyard, not distinguishing in this between those who laboured less and those who laboured more (Matt. 20). By this penny, surely, eternal life is signified, where no one lives longer than another, since in eternity there is no differing measure of living; but the many dwelling-places signify the different ranks of merits in the one eternal life. For one is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars. For star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15). Like stars, the saints are allotted different dwelling-places of different brightness, as in the heaven of the kingdom. But because of the one penny no one is separated from the kingdom; and so God will be all in all: so that, since God is love, it may come about through love that what each one has is common to all. For thus each one has, when he loves it in another, what he does not also have in himself. So there was no other envy of unequal brightness, since the unity of love will reign in all. Accordingly they are to be spat out from the Christian heart who think it was said that there are many dwelling-places because outside the kingdom of heaven there will be some place where the innocents who have departed this life without baptism may abide in blessedness, since without it they could not enter the kingdom of heaven. This faith is not faith, since it is not the true and catholic faith. The Lord does not say: In the whole world, or in the whole creation, or in everlasting life or blessedness there are many dwelling-places; but: In the house, He says, of My Father there are many dwelling-places (2 Cor. 5). Is not this the house where we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? Is not this the house of which we sing: Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, they shall praise Thee for ever and ever (Ps. 83)? Will you then dare to separate from the kingdom of heaven not the house of any baptized brother, but the house of God the Father Himself, to Whom all we brothers say, Our Father Who art in heaven (Matt. 6), or so to divide it that some of its dwelling-places are in the kingdom of heaven and some outside the kingdom of heaven? Far be it, far be it, that those who wish to dwell in the kingdom of heaven should wish to dwell with you in this folly. Far be it, I say, that, since the whole house of the reigning sons is nowhere but in the kingdom, any part of the royal house itself should not be in the kingdom.

And if I go away and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will take you to Myself, that where I am, you also may be. How does He go and prepare a place, if there are so many dwelling-places? If it were not so, He would have said, I go to prepare; or, if it is still to be prepared, why would He not rightly have said, I go to prepare? Or are these dwelling-places both in being and to be prepared? For if they were not,

He would have said, I go to prepare; and yet, because they are such as to be prepared, He does not go to prepare them as they are; but if He goes away and prepares them as they are to be, coming again He will take His own to Himself: that where He is, they too may be. How then are the dwelling-places in the Father's house not others but the same, and without doubt already are, in such a way that they are not to be prepared? How do we think, except in the way in which the prophet also proclaims God, that He makes the things that are to be? For he does not say, Who will make the things that are to be, but Who has made the things that are to be; therefore He has both made them and will make them. For neither have they been made if He has not made them, nor will they be if He shall not have made them. He made them, then, by predestining; He will make them by working: just as the Gospel shows clearly enough when He chose the disciples (Matt. 4), namely at the time when He called them; and yet the Apostle says: He chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1), by predestining, surely, not by calling. So too He has prepared the dwelling-places, and prepares them; and not others, but those which He has prepared He prepares, He Who has made the things that are to be. He has prepared them by predestining, He prepares them by working. They are already, therefore, in predestination. If it were not so, He would have said, I will go and prepare, that is, I will predestine. But because they are not yet in operation: And if I go away, He says, and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will take you to Myself. And He prepares the dwelling-places by preparing dwellers for the dwelling-places. For since He has said: In My Father's house there are many dwelling-places, what shall we think the house of God to be but the temple of God? And what that is, let the Apostle be asked, and let him answer: The temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3). This is also the kingdom of God which the Son is to deliver to the Father, whence the same Apostle says: Christ the beginning, then those who are Christ's at His presence, then the end, when He shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father (1 Cor. 15); that is, those whom He redeemed with His blood He shall have delivered, by contemplating, to His Father also.

To this Thomas says to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way? The Lord had said that they knew both: this man said that they knew neither, both the place to which one goes and the way by which one goes. But He does not know how to lie: so these men knew, and did not know that they knew. Let Him convince them that they already know what they think they do not know even now.

Jesus says to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. Could His apostles, with whom He was speaking, say to Him: We do not know You? Accordingly, if they knew Him, and He Himself is the way, they knew the way. If they knew Him, and He Himself is the truth, they knew the truth. If they knew Him, and He Himself is the life, they knew the life. See, they have been convicted of knowing what they did not know that they knew. What then do we too gather from this discourse? What do you think, my brothers? Except that He said: And where I am going you know, and the way you know. And see, we have learnt that they knew the life, and that they knew Him Himself Who is the way. But the way is that by which one goes; is the way that to which one goes? Yet He had said that they knew both, both where He is going and the way. It was needful, therefore, that He should say: I am the way: to show them that, since they knew Him, they knew the way, which they had thought they did not know. But what need was there for Him to say: I am

the way and the truth, and the life: when, once the way by which He went was known, there remained [the need] to know where He was going? Except that He was going to the truth, He was going to the life? He was going, then, to Himself through Himself; and we, where do we go but to Him? And by what way do we go but through Him? He, then, [goes] to Himself through Himself, we to Him through Him: nay rather to the Father, and He to us. For of Himself too He says elsewhere: I go to the Father, and in this place, for our sake.

No one, He says, comes to the Father except through Me. And hence He Himself [goes] both through Himself, and to Himself, and to the Father; and we through Him, and to Him, and to the Father. Tell me, O Lord my God, tell me, I beseech Thee, how dost Thou go to Thyself? Hadst Thou left Thyself, that Thou mightest come to us, especially since Thou didst not come from Thyself, but the Father sent Thee? I know indeed that Thou didst empty Thyself, but [it was] because Thou didst take the form of a servant, not because Thou didst either lay aside the form of God, so as to return to it, or lose it, so as to receive it back; and yet Thou didst come, and didst reach not only to fleshly eyes but even to the hands of men: how, except in the flesh? Through this Thou camest, abiding where Thou wast. Through this Thou didst return, not leaving the place to which Thou hadst come. If then through this Thou didst come and return, through this beyond doubt Thou wast the way, not only for us by which we might come to Thee, but also for Thyself by which Thou mightest come and return. And when Thou didst go to the life which Thou Thyself art, Thou didst surely lead that same flesh of Thine from death to life. For the Word of God is one thing, man another; but the Word was made flesh, that is, man. So there is not one person of the Word and another of the man: since both are Christ, there is one person. And hence, just as when the flesh died Christ died, and when the flesh was buried Christ was buried (for thus with the heart we believe unto justice, thus with the mouth we make confession unto salvation), so when the flesh came from death to life, Christ came to life; and because Christ is the Word of God, Christ is life. Thus in a certain wonderful and ineffable manner He Who never let Himself go or admitted Himself came to Himself. Now God had come, as has been said, through the flesh to men, the Truth to liars. For God is true, but every man a liar. When therefore He took His flesh away from men, and lifted it up to where no one lies: that same One, since the Word was made flesh, returned through Himself, as through the flesh, to the truth, which He Himself is: which truth indeed He kept even in death, though among liars. For at one time Christ was dead, but He was never false. Take an example, however different and far unequal, yet one that in some way helps towards understanding God, from the things that are placed nearer beneath God. See, I myself, as far as concerns my mind, since I am what you also are, if I am silent, am with myself. But if I speak to you something that you may understand, in a certain manner I go forth to you, and do not leave myself, but both draw near to you and do not withdraw from where I go forth. And when I have fallen silent, in a certain manner I return to myself, and in a certain manner I remain with you, if you hold what you have heard in the discourse that I speak. If an image which God made can do this, what can [the Image] do which was not made by God but born of God

the Image of God, God? Whose body, that by which He went out to us and in which He went back from us, did not pass away as my sound did, but remains where it now dies no more, and death shall no more have dominion over it. When therefore He says: That where I am, you also may be; where were they to be, but in Him? And hence He too is in Himself; and therefore they are there where He also is, that is, in Him. This, then, is the eternal way, in which we shall be when He has taken us to Himself: and the eternal life itself, which He is, is in Him. Where He is, let us also be, that is, in Him: as the Father has life in Himself. And surely the life which He has is nothing other than what He Himself is Who has it. So He has given to the Son to have life in Himself, since He Himself is that same life which He has in Himself. But shall we be the life which He is, when we have begun to be in that life, that is, in Him? Surely not, because He, by existing as life, has life, and is Himself what He has; and what life is in Him, He is in Himself. But we are not life itself, but partakers of His life; and so we shall be there in such a way that in ourselves we cannot be what He is, but we ourselves, not being life, may have Him as life, Who has Himself as life, because He Himself is life. In short, He both is in Himself unchangeably and in the Father inseparably: but we, when we had wished to be in ourselves, were troubled towards ourselves: whence that cry: My soul is troubled within me (Ps. 42); and, changed for the worse, we could not even remain what we were. But when through Him we come to the Father, as He says: No one comes to the Father except through Me: abiding in Him, no one will be able to separate us either from the Father or from Him.

If you had known Me, He says, you would surely have known My Father also. This is what He says, No one comes to the Father except through Me. Then He adds

And from now on you know Him, and have seen Him. But Philip, one of the apostles, not understanding what he had heard;

Lord, he says, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. To whom the Lord: Have I been with you so long a time, He says, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who sees Me sees the Father also. How does He now say: Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known Me? when surely they knew both where He was going and the way, for no other reason than that they certainly knew Him? But this question is easily solved if we say that some of them knew Him, some did not know Him, and Philip was among those who did not know; and that what He says: And where I am going you know, and the way you know, should be understood to have been said to those who knew: not to Philip, to whom it was said: Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known Me, Philip? To those, then, who already knew the Son, that too was already said of the Father: And from now on you know Him, and have seen Him. For it was said on account of the likeness in every respect which He has with the Father: that those who knew the Son, Who is like Him, might therefore be said from now on to know the Father. So they already knew the Son, if not all, at least some of them, to whom it is said: And where I am going you know, and the way you know. For He is the way. But they did not know the Father:

therefore they hear: If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also: through Me, surely, Him too. For I am one, He is another. But lest they should think Him unlike, And from now on, He says, you know Him. For they had seen His Son, most like Him. But they had to be reminded that the Father, Whom they did not yet see, is also such as the Son is Whom they saw. And to this end avails what is said afterwards to Philip, He who sees Me sees the Father also: not that He Himself is both Father and Son, which the catholic faith condemns in the Sabellians, who are also called Patripassians; but that Father and Son are so alike that whoever knows the one knows both. For we are accustomed to speak thus of two persons who are very alike to those who see one of them and wish to know what the other is like, so that we say: Have you seen this one? You have seen that one. So then it was said, He who sees Me sees the Father also: not because the Father is the same as the Son, but because the Son differs in nothing at all from the likeness of the Father. For unless the Father and the Son were two, it would not have been said: If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. For surely, since no one, He says, comes to the Father except through Me: if you had known Me, you would have known My Father also: since I, through Whom one comes to the Father, will lead you to Him, so that you may know Him too. But since I am altogether most like Him, from now on you know Him when you know Me: and you have seen Him, if with the eyes of the heart you have seen Me. What then is it that you say, Philip, Show us the Father, and it is enough for us? Have I been with you so long a time, He says, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who sees Me sees the Father also. But if it is a great thing for you to see this, at least believe what you do not see.

For how do you say, He says, Show us the Father? If you have seen Me, Who am in every way like Him, you have seen Him to Whom I am like. But if you cannot see [this], do you not at least believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Philip could have said here: I see You indeed, and I believe You to be most like the Father: but is one to be rebuked and chided who, when he sees one who is like, wishes to see also him to whom he is like? The like one I know indeed, but as yet I know the one without the other. It is not enough for me unless I know also Him to Whom this one is like. Show us, then, the Father, and it is enough for us. But the master rebuked the disciple for this reason, that He saw the heart of the one asking; for Philip desired to know the Father as though the Father were better than the Son, and therefore he did not know even the Son, than Whom he believed something to be better. To correct this sense it was said, He who sees Me sees the Father also: how do you say, Show us the Father? I see how you say it: you do not seek to see another who is like, but you think Him to be better.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Why do you desire to discern a distance between those who are alike? Why do you long to know separately those who are inseparable?

The words that I speak to you I do not speak from Myself. But the Father abiding in Me, He does the works. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Otherwise, etc. So words too are works? Plainly it is so. For surely

he who builds up his neighbour by speaking works a good work. But what is, I do not speak from Myself, except, I Who speak am not from Myself? For He ascribes what He does to Him from Whom He is Who does it.

Amen, amen I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. What is this? We did not find one who would do the works that Christ did; are we to find one who will do even greater? But we had said in the earlier discourse that it was a greater thing to heal the sick by the passing of one's shadow (which the disciples did) than by the touch of the hem of one's garment (which the Lord Himself did) (Matt. 9): and that more believed when the apostles preached than when the Lord preached with His own mouth, so that these might seem to be the works to be understood as greater, not that the disciple was greater than the master, or the servant than the lord, or the adopted than the Only-begotten, or man than God, but that through them He Himself deigned to do those greater things, He Who says to them in another place, Without Me you can do nothing (John 15). For He, to pass over other things, which are innumerable, made them without them, made this world without them: and since He deigned also to become man Himself, He made even Himself without them. But what did they [do] without Him, except sin? Finally here too He at once removed what could have troubled us in this matter. For when He had said, He who believes in Me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do, He went straight on and added, Because I go to the Father:

And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do. He Who had said, he shall do, afterwards says, I will do. Moreover, to do greater things through Him than apart from Him is not a failing but a condescension. For what shall the servants render to the Lord for all that He has rendered to them? since among the other good things He deigned to give them this too, that He should do greater things through them than apart from them. Did not that rich man go away sorrowful from His very mouth, when he rejected, once heard, the counsel of eternal life which he had sought (Luke 18)? And yet, after one man had heard it from Him and not done it, many did it, when the good master spoke through the disciples. See, He did greater things when preached by believers than when He spoke to hearers. But this still troubles us, that He did these greater things through the apostles: yet He did not say, meaning them only: The works that I do you also shall do, and greater than these shall you do; but, wishing all who belong to His household to be understood, He who believes in Me, He says, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do. If then he who believes will do [them], surely he who will not do [them] does not believe; just as it is: He who loves Me keeps My commandments (Matt. 7): whence surely he who does not keep them does not love. Likewise in another place: He who hears, He says, these My words, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. He then who is not like this wise man, beyond doubt either hears these My words and does not do them, or neither hears nor does at all. He who believes in Me, He says, though he die, shall live. He then who does not believe in Me shall surely not live. Such too is this: He who believes in Me shall do (John 11). So he does not believe who will not do.

What is this, brothers? Is he not to be counted among those who believe in Christ who has not done greater works than Christ? It is hard, it is absurd, it cannot be borne, it is not tolerated, unless it is understood. Let us hear the Apostle, then: To him who believes, he says, in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for justice (Rom. 4). In this work we do the works of Christ, because even believing in Christ is itself a work of Christ. This He works in us, though surely not without us. Hear now, then, and understand: He who believes in Me, the works that I do he also shall do. First, then, I do, then he too shall do, because I do [it] that he may do. What works, except that from ungodly a man becomes just? And greater than these shall he do. Than which, I pray? Does he who works out his own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2), which Christ surely works in him, though not without him, do greater things than all the works of Christ? I would say outright that this is greater than heaven and earth and whatever is seen in heaven and on earth. For both heaven and earth shall pass away, but the salvation and justification of the predestined shall remain. In those there are only the works of God, but in these there is also the image of God. But in the heavens thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, archangels, angels are works of Christ: does he who, with Christ working in him, cooperates in his own eternal salvation and justification do even greater things than these works? Here I dare not rush to a judgement. Let him who can understand, let him who can judge, whether it is greater to create the just than to justify the ungodly. For certainly, if both are of equal power, the latter is of greater mercy. For this is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the gentiles, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory. But no necessity compels us to understand all the works of Christ where He says, Greater than these shall he do. For perhaps He said "than these" of the things that He was doing then: and at that time He was doing words of faith, and He had spoken beforehand of these works, saying: The words that I speak to you I do not speak from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me, He does the works. At that time, then, His words were His works. And surely it is a lesser thing to preach words of justice, which He did apart from us, than to justify the ungodly, which He so did in us that we too do it.

Because I go to the Father: and whatever you ask in My name, this I will do. So then He went to the Father in such a way as not to abandon those in need, but to hear those who ask. But what is, whatever you ask, when we see that His faithful often ask and do not receive? Is it perhaps because they ask amiss? For the apostle James reproached this, saying: You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your lusts (Jas. 4). So the man who would make bad use of what he wishes to receive does not receive it, rather by God's mercy. Accordingly, if that is asked of Him by which a man is harmed when heard, it is the more to be feared that what He could withhold in His favour He may give in His anger. Do we not see that the Israelites obtained [their request] to their own harm? For they had lusted to eat flesh, they on whom manna was being rained from heaven (Num. 11). Wake up, then, man of faith, and

listen watchfully to what is set down there: In My name. For He does not say, Whatever you ask, in any way, but in My name. He then Who promised so great a benefit, what is He called? Christ Jesus, surely. Christ signifies king, Jesus signifies Saviour. So it is not any king whatever who will make us safe, but the King Who is Saviour. And hence whatever we ask against the advantage of salvation, we do not ask in the name of the Saviour: and yet He is the Saviour not only when He does what we ask, but also when He does not do it: since, by not doing what He sees is asked against salvation, He shows Himself the more a Saviour. For the physician knows what the sick man asks for his health and what against it: and therefore he does not do the will of the one asking for harmful things, so that he may bring about health. Wherefore, when we wish Him to do whatever we ask, let us ask not in any way but in His name. And if He does it, He does it as Saviour, which is His name for His faithful. For He is also the condemner of the ungodly, He Who deigns to be the saviour of the faithful. He then who believes in Him, whatever he asks in the name which He is for those who believe in Him, this He does, since He does this as Saviour. But if one who believes in Him asks through ignorance something against his salvation, he does not ask in the name of the Saviour, because He will not be his Saviour if He does what hinders his salvation. Whence it is then rather expedient that, by not doing that for which He is invoked, He should do that which He is called. Therefore He, not only Saviour but also good master, in order to do whatever we ask, taught in the very prayer which He gave us what we should ask, so that by this too we may understand that we do not ask in the master's name what we ask outside the rule of His teaching itself. Certain things, indeed, even though we ask them in His name, that is, ask according to the master, He does not do at the time when we ask, but yet He does them. For when we ask also this, that the kingdom of God may come (Matt. 6), He Who does it does not therefore fail to do what we ask because we do not at once reign with Him in eternity. For what we ask is deferred, not denied. Nevertheless, in praying, as in sowing, let us not grow weary (Gal. 6): for in due time we shall reap. But it is not to be heard carelessly that the Lord, lest anyone should think that what He promised to do for those who ask He would do without the Father, when He had said: Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, went straight on to add:

That the Father may be glorified in the Son, if you ask anything in My name, this I will do. In no way then does He do it without the Father, since He does it for this reason, that the Father may be glorified in Him. So the Father does it in the Son, that the Son may be glorified in the Father. And the Son does it in the Father, that the Father may be glorified in the Son: since the Father and the Son are one. Christ promised the Spirit, the Paraclete, to the apostles. But let us note in what manner He promised it:

If you love Me, He says, keep My commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth. Since He says this of the Holy Spirit, without Whom we can neither love God nor [keep] His commandments

to keep [the commandments]: how do we love, in order to receive Him Whom, unless we have Him, we are not able to love? How shall we keep the commandments in order to receive Him Whom, unless we have Him, we cannot keep the commandments? It remains, then, that we understand that he who loves has the Holy Spirit, and by having Him merits to have more, and by having more loves more. So the disciples already had the Spirit Whom the Lord was promising, without Whom they would not have called Him Lord: and yet they did not yet have Him as the Lord was promising Him. So they both had and did not have Him, for they did not yet have Him as much as He was to be had. They had Him, then, in a lesser measure; He was to be given them more fully. They had Him hiddenly; they were to receive Him manifestly: because this too belonged to the greater gift of the Holy Spirit, that what they had should become known to them. Speaking of this gift the Apostle says: But we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God (1 Cor. 2:12). For the Lord also made that manifest imparting of the Holy Spirit not once but twice in number. For as soon as He had risen from the dead, breathing on them He said: Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). Did He then, because He gave Him at that time, therefore not also send afterwards Him Whom He had promised? Or is it not one and the same Holy Spirit Who was both breathed forth from Him then and afterwards sent by Him from heaven? Therefore why that giving of Him which was made evidently was made twice is another question. Perhaps it was on account of the two commandments of love, of neighbour and of God, so that it might be commended that [love] belongs to the Holy Spirit. But when He says: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, He shows that He Himself also is a Paraclete: for Paraclete is said in Latin advocatus [advocate]: and it has been said of Christ: We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just (1 John 2:1). Now He said that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit in the way it has also been said: The wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God: for it is not subject to the law of God: for neither can it be, as if we were to say, Injustice cannot be justice; for He says "the world", meaning in this place the lovers of the world: which love is not from the Father; and therefore to the love of this world, which we are busy to have lessened and consumed in us, the love of God is contrary, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us: the world therefore cannot receive Him;

Because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. For worldly love does not have invisible eyes, through which alone the Holy Spirit, Who cannot be seen except invisibly, [can be seen].

But you, He says, will know Him, for He will abide with you, and will be in you. He will be in them so as to abide; He will not abide so as to be. For to be in someone comes before abiding. But lest they should think that what was said, He will abide with you, was said in the way that a guest is accustomed to abide visibly with a man, He explained what He had said, with you, when He added and said, in you. Therefore He is seen invisibly: nor, if He be not in us, can the knowledge of Him be in us. For thus by us

is seen in us, as our conscience also is. For we see the face of another, but our own we do not see: our own conscience, however, we see, another's we do not see. But conscience is never except in us, whereas the Holy Spirit can be even without us. He is given, indeed, so that He may be in us as well. But to be seen and known in the way He is to be seen and known, He cannot be by us, if He be not in us.

I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. Orphans are wards. For the former is the Greek name of the same thing, the latter the Latin. For in the Psalm too, where we read, Thou wilt be a helper to the ward (Ps. 9:35), the Greek has "to the orphan". Although, then, the Son of God has adopted us as sons to His Father, and has willed that we should have by grace the same Father Who is His Father by nature, yet He Himself too shows towards us in a certain way a fatherly affection, when He says: I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. Hence it is that He also calls us sons of the bridegroom, where He says: The hour will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then the sons of the bridegroom shall fast (Luke 5:35). But who is the bridegroom, if not the Lord Christ? Then He goes on and says:

A little while yet, and the world no longer sees Me. For what? Did the world not see Him then, since by the name of the world He wishes those to be understood of whom He also spoke above, saying of the Holy Spirit: Whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him? The world plainly saw Him with its eyes, visible in the flesh; but it did not see the Word that lay hidden in the flesh. It saw the man, it did not see God. It saw the garment, it did not see the One clothed in it. But since after the resurrection He willed not to show to those not His own even His very flesh, which He showed to His own not only to be seen but also to be handled, perhaps it is to be understood that it was said on this account: A little while yet, and the world no longer sees Me. But you see Me: because I live, you also will live. Why did He say of Himself that He lives in the present, but of them that they will live in the future? Unless because He promised that they too would live with the life of the flesh, namely of the flesh rising again, such as was going before in Himself, and would follow in them as well: and because His own resurrection was soon to be, He put a verb of the present tense, to signify its swiftness: but of theirs, since it is put off to the end of the age, He does not say, You live, but you will live. Two resurrections, then, namely His own soon to be and ours to come at the end of the age, He promised elegantly and briefly with two verbs, of the present tense and of the future: because I live, He says, you also will live. Because He lives, therefore we too shall live. For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead: for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21–22); since no one [goes] to death except through the one; no one to life except through Christ. Because we lived, we died. Because He Himself lives, we shall live. We died to Him when we lived to ourselves. But because He died for us, He lives both to Himself and to us. For because He lives, we too shall live. For just as

we were able [to have] death through ourselves, we could not likewise have life through ourselves too. In that day, He says,

You will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. In what day, if not that of which He says, And you will live? For then it will be that we can see what we believe, for even now He is in us, and we in Him. But this we now believe, whereas then we shall also know it: although even now we know it by believing, yet then we shall know it by contemplating. In that day, therefore, when we shall live that life by which death is swallowed up, we shall know that He is in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us; because then this very thing will be perfected which has now already been begun through Him, that He should be in us, and we in Him.

He who has My commandments, He says, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. He who has them in memory and keeps them in life; who has them in words and keeps them in conduct: who has them by hearing and keeps them by doing; or who has them by doing and keeps them by persevering: he it is, He says, who loves Me. Love is to be shown by deed, lest the use of the name be fruitless.

And he who loves Me, He says, will be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. What is "I will love"? As though He would love him then, and does not love him now? Far from it. For how could the Father love us without the Son, or the Son without the Father? How, since they work inseparably, do they love separably? But He said, I will love him, for this end: for that which follows, and I will manifest Myself to him. I will love, and I will manifest: that is, I will love to this end, that I may manifest. For now He has loved to this end, that we may believe and hold the commandment of faith; then He will love to this end, that we may see, and may receive that very sight as the reward of faith, because we too now love by believing what we shall see, but then we shall love by seeing what we believe. Since, then, the Lord had said, A little while yet, and the world no longer sees Me, but you see Me: Judas questioned Him about this very thing, not that betrayer of His who was surnamed Iscariot, but he whose Epistle is read among the canonical Scriptures.

Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, and not to the world? Let us be with them as disciples asking questions, and let us too hear the common Master. For Judas, the holy one, not the unclean, not the persecutor of the Lord but His follower, sought the reason why Jesus was going to manifest Himself not to the world but to His own? why in a little while the world too would not see Him?

Jesus answered and said to him: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. See, the reason has been set out why He is going to manifest Himself to His own and not to strangers, whom He calls by the name of the world; and the reason itself is that these love, those do not love. This is the cause of which the sacred psalm sounds forth, Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy (Ps. 42:1). For those who are loved are loved because they love; but those who do not love, though they speak with the tongues of men and of angels, become sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal:

and though they have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, they are nothing: and though they distribute all their substance, and give up their body to be burned, it profits them nothing (1 Cor. 13:1–3). Love distinguishes the saints from the world, love which makes men of one mind to dwell in a house (Ps. 67:7). In that house the Father and the Son make their abode, Who give love itself also, to those to whom They are to give in faith Their manifestation as well; about which the disciple questioned the Master, so that not only those who were then hearing [it] from His mouth, but we too through His Gospel might be able to know this. For he had asked about Christ's manifestation, and he heard about love and abode. There is, then, a certain inward manifestation of God which the ungodly do not know at all, for whom there is no manifestation of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit, while of the Son there could be one, but in the flesh: which is neither such as that one is; nor can it be present to them always, of whatever kind it be, but only for a little time, and that to judgement, not to joy; to punishment, not to reward. Now therefore it is for us to understand, as far as He Himself deigns to open it, in what way it was said: A little while yet, and the world does not see Me; but you see Me. It is true indeed that after a little while He was going to withdraw from their eyes even His body, in which the ungodly too could see Him, since after the resurrection none of them saw Him. But since it has been said, with the angels bearing witness, He will come in the same way as you have seen Him going into heaven (Acts 1:11): and we believe nothing other than that He will come in that same body to the judgement of the living and the dead: beyond doubt the world will then see Him, by which name those estranged from His kingdom are signified. And by this it is far better understood that He meant to signify another time already in saying, A little while yet, and the world no longer sees Me, when at the end of the age He will be taken away from the eyes of the damned, so that from then on those may see Him with whom, as they love [Him], the Father and He Himself make Their abode. And He said "a little while", because even that which seems long to men is very short before the eyes of God. Of this little while indeed this John the Evangelist says, Little children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18). Further, lest anyone should think that the Father and the Son only, without the Holy Spirit, make Their abode with those who love Them, let him recall what was said above of the Holy Spirit, Whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him: but you know Him, for He will abide with you, and will be in you. See, the Holy Spirit too makes His abode in the saints with the Father and the Son: within, surely, as God in His temple. God the Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, come to us, while we come to Them. They come by helping, we come by obeying. They come by enlightening, we come by beholding. They come by filling, we come by receiving: so that the sight of Them may be to us not external but internal, and Their abode in us not passing but eternal. Thus the Son does not manifest Himself to the world. For by "world" are meant in this place those of whom He at once added and said:

He who does not love Me does not keep My words. These are they who never see the Father and the Holy Spirit, but see the Son for a little while, not that they may be made blessed but that they may be judged: and not Him in the form of God, in which He is invisible with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but in the form of man, in which He willed to be in the world, contemptible in suffering, terrible in judging. But as to what He added:

And the word which you have heard is not Mine, but His Who sent Me, the Father's, let us not wonder, let us not be afraid: He is not less than the Father, but He is not except from the Father; He is not unequal to Him, but He is not from Himself. For neither did He lie in saying, He who does not love Me does not keep My words. See, He said that the words were His own. Is He then contrary to Himself where again He said: And the word which you have heard is not Mine? And perhaps for the sake of some distinction, where He called them His own, He spoke in the plural, that is, "words". But where He said that the word, that is, the Word, was not His own but the Father's, He wished Himself to be understood. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and surely not His own, but the Father's is the Word: just as He is not His own image but the Father's, nor is that same One His own Son, but the Father's. Rightly, therefore, does He, the equal, ascribe whatever He does to the Author, from Whom He has this very thing, that He is without difference equal to Him.

These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. That abode which He promised for the future is indeed one thing; this one, which He testifies to be present, is another. That one is spiritual, and is rendered inwardly to minds; this one is bodily, shown outwardly to eyes and ears. That one makes the delivered blessed for ever; this one visits in time those who are to be delivered. According to that one the Lord does not withdraw from those who love Him; according to this one, He goes and returns. These things, He says, I have spoken to you while abiding with you, that is, by bodily presence, in which He spoke with them visibly.

But the Paraclete, He says, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all things whatsoever I shall have said to you. Does the Son then speak, and the Holy Spirit teach, so that when the Son speaks we grasp the words, but when the Holy Spirit teaches we understand those same words? As though the Son spoke without the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit taught without the Son? Or rather, does not the Son also teach, and the Holy Spirit speak? and when God says and teaches anything, does not the Trinity itself say and teach it? But since it is a Trinity, it was fitting to make known each of its Persons, and for us to hear them distinctly and understand them inseparably. Hear the Father speaking, where you read, The Lord said to me, Thou art My Son (Ps. 2:7). Hear Him teaching too, where you read, Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to Me (John 6:45). The Son you have just heard speaking; for He says of Himself: Whatsoever I shall have said to you: and if you wish to know Him as teaching too, recall the Master. One, He says, is your Master, Christ (Matt. 23:10). Further, the Holy Spirit, Whom you have just heard teaching, where it is said: He will teach you all things: hear Him speaking too, where you read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Holy Spirit said to blessed Peter: Go with them,

for I have sent them (Acts 10:20). The whole Trinity, then, both speaks and teaches. But unless it were also commended [to us] Person by Person, human weakness could in no way grasp it in any measure at all. Since, then, it is altogether inseparable, it would never be known to be a Trinity if it were always spoken of inseparably. For even when we say Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, we certainly do not say them simultaneously, though They Themselves cannot be other than together. But as to His adding: He will bring to your remembrance, we ought to understand that even the most wholesome admonitions which we are bidden not to forget belong to the grace by which Christ brings [them] to our remembrance.

Peace, He says, I leave to you, My peace I give to you. This is what we read in the prophet: Peace upon peace. Peace He leaves to us as He is going; His own peace He will give us when He comes at the end. Peace He leaves to us in this age; His own peace He will give us in the age to come. Peace He leaves to us, abiding in which we overcome the enemy: His own peace He will give us when we shall reign without an enemy; and what does He leave to us as He ascends from us, if not Himself, since He does not withdraw from us? For He is our peace, Who has made both one (Eph. 2:14). He Himself, then, is peace to us, both when we believe that He is, and when we see Him as He is. But why is it that where He says: Peace I leave to you, He does not add "My": but where He says, I give to you, there He says "My"? Is "My" to be understood also where it was not said, because it was said afterwards, and what was said once can refer to both? Or perhaps here too something lies hidden which is to be asked and sought, and which is to be opened to those who knock? For what if He wished that peace of His own to be understood, such as He Himself has? But this peace which He leaves to us in this age is rather to be called ours than His. For in Him nothing fights against Him in Himself, because He has no sin at all. But we now have such a peace that in it we still say: Forgive us our debts (Matt. 6:12). There is, then, some peace for us, since we delight in the law of God according to the inner man (Rom. 7:22): but it is not full, because we see another law in our members fighting against the law of our mind. Likewise, among ourselves, peace is this very thing for us, that we believe one another that we love one another. But neither is this full, because we do not see one another's thoughts of the heart; and we think certain things of one another, which are not in us, either for the better or for the worse. So this peace, even if it has been left to us by Him, is ours. For unless [we had it] from Him, we would not have even such: but He Himself does not have such. If we hold fast to the end the kind we have received, we shall have the kind He has, where nothing in us will fight against us, and nothing in our hearts will be hidden from one another. Nor am I unaware that these words of the Lord can also be taken thus, so that they seem a repetition of the same statement.

Peace I leave to you, My peace I give to you. So that what He had said, "peace", He repeated, saying, "My peace"; and what He had said, "I leave to you", He repeated, saying: "I give to you". Let each take it as he will: yet it delights me (I believe that it delights you too, my beloved brothers), thus

to hold this peace, in which we overcome the adversary in concord, so that we may long for the peace in which we shall have no adversary. But as to what the Lord added and said:

Not as the world gives do I give to you, what else is it but, [not] as men give who love the world, so do I give to you? They give themselves peace for this reason, that without the trouble of lawsuits and wars they may enjoy, not God, but their friend the world: and when they give peace to the just, so as not to persecute them, it cannot be true peace where there is not true concord, because the hearts are disjoined. For as he is called a consort who joins his lot [sors] [with another], so he is to be called concordant who joins his heart [cor]. Let us therefore, dearly beloved, to whom Christ has left peace, and to whom He gives His own peace not as the world gives but as He by Whom the world was made; that we may be concordant, let us join our hearts to one another, and let us have our heart lifted up, lest it be corrupted on earth.

Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you, I go, and I come to you. If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Their heart could therefore be troubled and afraid on this account, that He was going away from them, although He was to come to them, lest perhaps in this interval the wolf should attack the flock in the shepherd's absence. But those whom He left as man, He did not forsake as God: the selfsame Christ, man and God. So He both went by that which He was as man, and remained by that which He was as God. He went by that whereby He was in one place; He remained by that whereby He was everywhere. Why then should they be troubled and afraid, when He so left their eyes as not to leave their heart? although God too, Who is contained by no place, departs from the hearts of those who leave Him by their conduct, not by their feet, and comes to those who turn to Him not with their face but with faith, and draw near to Him with the mind, not with the flesh. But that they might understand [it to be said] according to that which He was as man, when He had said: I go, and I come to you, He added and said: If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. By that, then, whereby the Son is not equal to the Father, by this He was going to the Father, from Whom too He is to come to judge the living and the dead. Christ Himself, then, the Son of God, equal to the Father in the form of God, because He emptied Himself, not losing the form of God but taking the form of a servant, is greater even than Himself, because the form of God, which was not lost, is greater than that of the servant, which was taken (Phil. 2:6–7). What wonder, then, or what unworthiness, if, speaking according to this form of a servant, the Son of God says, The Father is greater than I? And speaking according to the form of God, the same Son of God says: I and the Father are one (John 10:30)? For They are one according to that whereby the Word was God; and the Father is greater according to that whereby the Word was made flesh. According to this form of a servant, the boy Christ was lesser even than His parents, when as a little one He was, as it is written, subject to His elders (Luke 2:51). For the Son equal to the Father, by Whom man was made, was made man so that He might be less than the Father. And unless this had come to pass, what is man? Let our Lord and Master say plainly:

If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Let us acknowledge the twofold substance of Christ, namely the divine, by which He is equal to the Father; the human, by which the Father is greater: but both together not two, but one Christ, lest God be a quaternity, not a Trinity. For as the rational soul and the flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ. And accordingly Christ is God, rational soul and flesh. We confess Christ in all of these, and Christ in each. Who is it, then, by Whom the world was made? Christ Jesus, but in the form of God. Who is it that was crucified under Pontius Pilate? Christ Jesus, but in the form of a servant. Likewise concerning each of the things of which man consists. Who was it that was not left in hell? Christ Jesus, but in the soul alone. Who, being about to rise again, lay three days in the tomb? Christ Jesus, but in the flesh alone. Christ Jesus, then, is spoken of in each of these: but all these are not two or three, but one Christ. This, then, is why He said: If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father; since human nature is to be congratulated, in that it was so assumed by the only-begotten Word as to be established immortal in heaven: and thus earth became exalted, so that incorruptible dust should sit at the right hand of the Father. For in this way He said that He would go to the Father: for indeed He was going to Him Who was with Him. But this was to go to Him and to withdraw from us: to change and make immortal what He had taken mortal from us, and to lift into heaven that by which He was on earth for us. Who would not rejoice at this, who so loves Christ that he congratulates his own nature, already immortal in Christ, and hopes that this will come to pass [for himself] through Christ?

And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may believe. What is this, since a man ought rather to believe before that which is to be believed comes to pass? For this is the praise of faith, if what is believed is not seen. For what great thing is it if what is seen is believed? according to that saying of the same Lord, when He rebuked the disciple, saying, Because you have seen, you have believed: blessed are they who do not see, and believe (John 20:29). And I do not know whether anyone is to be said to believe what he sees. For faith itself is thus defined in the Epistle which is written to the Hebrews: Now faith is the substance of those who hope, the conviction of things that are not seen (Heb. 11:1). Wherefore if faith is of things that are believed, and that same faith is of things that are not seen, what does the Lord mean when He says: And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may believe? Should it not rather have been said, And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may see? For he too to whom it was said, Because you have seen, you have believed, did not believe what he saw, but he saw one thing and believed another. For he saw a man, he believed God. But even if things that are seen are said to be believed, as each man says that he has believed his own eyes, yet that is not the faith which is built up in us; rather, by the things that are seen, it is brought about in us that those things are believed which are not seen. Wherefore, dearly beloved, as to what we are now speaking of, that the Lord says, And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when

it has come to pass you may believe, He surely means by "when it has come to pass" that they were to see Him living after death and ascending to the Father: and when they had seen this they were to believe that He was the Christ, the Son of God, Who was able both to do this when He had foretold it, and to foretell it before He did it: and to believe this not with a new faith but with an increased one, or at any rate with one that had failed when He died and was restored when He had risen. For it is not that they did not believe Him to be the Son of God before as well: but when that had come to pass in Him which He had foretold, that faith which was small at the time He was speaking to them, and almost none at all when He was dying, both revived and grew. Then what does He say?

I will no longer speak much with you, for the prince of this world is coming. Who, but the devil?

And in Me he has nothing. That is, no sin at all. For thus He shows that the devil is the prince not of creatures but of sinners, whom He now calls by the name of this world. And whenever the name of the world is put in a bad sense, it denotes only the lovers of this world, of whom it is written elsewhere: Whoever wishes to be a friend of this age is made an enemy of God (Jas. 4:4). Far be it, then, that the devil be understood as prince of the world in the sense that he holds the principality of the whole world, that is, of heaven and earth and of all things that are in them: of which world it was said, when the discourse was of Christ the Word, And the world was made through Him (John 1:10). The whole world, then, from the highest heavens to the lowest earth, is subject to the Creator, not to the deserter; to the Redeemer, not to the slayer; to the liberator, not to the captor; to the teacher, not to the deceiver. But how the devil is to be understood as prince of the world the apostle Paul disclosed more plainly, who, when he had said, Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, that is, against men, added and said, but against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the world of this darkness (Eph. 6:12). For by the following word he explained what he had meant by "world", when he added, of this darkness: lest anyone should understand by the name of the world the whole creation, of which the deserting angels are in no way the rulers. Of this darkness, he says, that is, of the lovers of this world. Out of whom, nevertheless, the elect were [chosen], not by their own merit but by the grace of God: to whom he says, For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). All, then, were under the rulers of this darkness, that is, of ungodly men, as darkness under darkness. But thanks be to God, Who, as the same Apostle says, has rescued us from the power of darkness, and has transferred [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. 1:13): in Whom the prince of this world, that is, of this darkness, had nothing, because neither had God come with sin, nor had the Virgin borne His flesh from the stock of sin; and as though it were said to Him, Why then do You die, if You have no sin to which the punishment of death is due? He at once added:

But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given Me commandment, so I do, arise, let us go hence. For He was speaking reclining at table with those reclining.

And He says, Let us go. Where? Except to that place from which He was to be delivered up to death, He Who had no desert of death, but had, in order that He should die, the commandment of the Father, as the One of Whom it had been foretold, What I did not seize, I then paid back: being about, without doubt, to pay death, and to redeem us from the death we owed.

CHAPTER XV.

I am the true vine, etc. This passage of the Gospel, brothers, where the Lord calls Himself the vine and His disciples the branches, He speaks according to this, that the man Christ Jesus, the mediator between God and men, is the Head of the Church, and we His members; for the vine and the branches are of one nature. For this reason, since He was God, of Whose nature we are not, He became man, so that in Him human nature might be the vine, of which we men too can be the branches. What, then, is I am the true vine? Did He, by adding "true", refer this to that vine from which this likeness has been transferred? For He is called a vine by likeness, not in the proper sense, just as He is called sheep, lamb, lion, rock, cornerstone, and the rest of this kind, while those things from which these likenesses are drawn are rather themselves the true ones; these are likenesses, not proper senses. But when He says, I am the true vine, He surely distinguishes Himself from that one to which it is said, How are you turned into bitterness, O strange vine (Jer. 2:21; Isa. 5:4)? For how is that a true vine which was looked to for producing grapes, but produced thorns? I, He says, am the true vine.

And My Father is the husbandman. Every branch that does not bear fruit, He will take it away: and every one that bears fruit, He will prune it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Are the husbandman and the vine one? Christ, then, is the vine according to that whereby He says: The Father is greater than I. But according to that whereby He says: I and the Father are one, He too is the husbandman. And not such as are those who render service by working from outside, but such that He also gives the increase from within. For neither is he who plants anything, nor he who waters, but God Who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:7). And surely Christ is God, for the Word was God (John 1:1), whence He and the Father are one; and if the Word was made flesh, which He was not, He remains what He was. Then, when He had said of the Father as of the husbandman that He takes away the unfruitful branches but prunes the fruitful, that they may bring forth more fruit, at once showing Himself also to be the cleanser of the branches:

Now you are clean, He says, because of the word which I have spoken to you. See, He Himself too is the cleanser of the branches, which is the office of the husbandman, not of the vine: Who has made even the branches His workmen. For though they do not give the increase, yet they contribute some help, but not of their own, for without Me, He says, you can do nothing. Clean, that is, and yet to be cleansed. For unless they were clean, they could not have borne fruit: and yet every branch that bears fruit the husbandman prunes, that it may bring forth more fruit. It bears fruit because it is clean; and that it may bring forth more, it is pruned still. For who in this life is so clean as not to need to be cleansed more and more? where if we say

that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity (1 John 1:8–9). He cleanses the clean, that is, the fruitful, so that they may be the more fruitful the cleaner they are. Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Why does He not say, You are clean because of the baptism with which you were washed, but says: Because of the word which I have spoken to you? Unless because in the water too it is the word that cleanses. Take away the word, and what is the water but water? The word comes to the element, and it becomes a sacrament, itself also as it were a visible word. For He had said this very thing when He washed the disciples' feet: He who is washed has no need except to wash his feet, but is clean all over. Whence this great power of the water, that it touches the body and washes the heart, unless the word brings it about? Not because it is spoken, but because it is believed. For in the word itself the passing sound is one thing, the abiding power another. This is the word of faith which we preach, says the Apostle: that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto justice, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:8–10). Hence also in the Acts of the Apostles we read, Cleansing their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9); and blessed Peter in his epistle: So also you, he says, baptism saves, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience. This is the word of faith which we preach (1 Pet. 3:21): by which, without doubt, baptism too is consecrated, so that it may be able to cleanse. For Christ, the vine with us, the husbandman with the Father, loved the Church and delivered Himself up for her. Read the Apostle, and see what he adds: That He might sanctify her, he says, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word (Eph. 5:26). The cleansing, then, would by no means be ascribed to a fluid and unstable element, unless "in the word" were added.

Abide, He says, in Me, and I in you. Not as they are in Him is He in them; for both profit, not Him, but them. For the branches are in the vine in such a way that they confer nothing on the vine, but receive from it that by which they live. And the vine is in the branches in such a way that it supplies them with life-giving nourishment, not that it takes it from them. And therefore both to have Christ abiding in them and to abide in Christ profit the disciples, not Christ: for when a branch is cut off, another can sprout from the living root; but the one that is cut off cannot live without the root. Then He adds and says:

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. A great commendation of grace, my brethren. It has enlightened the hearts of the humble, it has stopped the mouths of the proud. Whether little, then, or much, it cannot be done without Him without Whom nothing can be done; for even if the branch has borne little when the husbandman prunes it that it may bear more, yet unless it abides in the vine and lives from the root, it cannot bear any fruit whatever of itself.

If anyone, He says, does not abide in Me, he will be cast forth as a branch, and will wither, and they will gather him up, and into the fire

they will cast him, and he burns. The wood of the vine, therefore, is as much the more contemptible if it does not abide in the vine as it is the more glorious if it abides. And indeed, as the Lord says of these also through the prophet Ezekiel, once cut off they are of no use for any of the husbandmen's purposes, they are assigned to no works of the craftsman (Ezek. 15). One of two things befits the branch, either the vine or the fire: if it is not in the vine, it will be in the fire. So that it may not be in the fire, then, let it be in the vine.

If you abide in Me, He says, and My words abide in you: you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. For abiding in Christ, what can they will except what befits Christ? What can they will, abiding in the Saviour, except what is not foreign to salvation? For we will one thing because we are in Christ, and we will another because we are still in this world. For from our dwelling in this world it sometimes creeps upon us that we ask for what we do not know is not expedient for us: but far be it that it should be done for us, if we abide in Christ, Who does not do, when we ask, anything but what is expedient for us. Abiding in Him, then, when His words abide in us, we ask whatever we will, and it shall be done for us; for if we ask and it is not done, we are not asking what abiding in Him holds, nor what His words that abide in us hold, but what the desire and weakness of the flesh holds, which is not in Him and in which His words do not abide: for to His words certainly belongs that prayer which He taught, where we say, Our Father, Who art in heaven (Matt. 6:9); let us not depart in our petitions from the words and meaning of this prayer, and whatever we ask shall be done for us. For His words are to be said to abide in us then, when we do what He commanded and love what He promised. But when His words abide in the memory and are not found in the life, the branch is not cut off in the vine, because it draws no life from the root. In these the words of Christ do not abide, who touch them in a fashion but do not cleave to them: and therefore they will be to them not for benefit but for testimony; and because they are in them in such a way as not to abide in them, they are held by them to this end, that they may be judged by them.

In this, He says, is My Father glorified, that you bear very much fruit, and become My disciples. For what is called δόξα in Greek is gloria in Latin. I have thought this worth mentioning because the Apostle says, If Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God (Rom. 4:2). This is the glory before God (by which not man but God is glorified), if he is justified not by works but by faith, so that even his doing well is his from God, since the branch could not bear fruit of itself. If, then, God the Father is glorified in this, that we bear very much fruit and become Christ's disciples, let us not ascribe this to our own glory, as though we had it from ourselves. For this grace is His: and therefore in this the glory is not ours but His. Hence also elsewhere, when He had said, So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt. 5:16), lest they should think their good works were from themselves, He at once added, And glorify your Father Who is in heaven (Ps. 83). For in this the Father is glorified, that

we bear very much fruit and become Christ's disciples. By whom are we made so, if not by Him Whose mercy has gone before us? For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works (Eph. 2:10). And when He says, As the Father has loved, so I also have loved you, He does not show an equality of our nature and His, as there is of the Father and Himself, but the grace by which the man Christ Jesus is mediator of God and men. For He is shown to be Mediator when He says, The Father loves Me, and I you. For the Father certainly loves us too, but in Him; because in this the Father is glorified, that we bear fruit in the vine, that is, in the Son, and become His disciples.

Abide, He says, in My love. How shall we abide? Hear what follows: If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love. He shows not whence love is begotten, but whence it is made manifest, as though He said: Do not think that you abide in My love if you do not keep My commandments. For if you keep them, you will abide; that is, by this it will appear that you will abide in My love, if you keep My commandments, so that no one may deceive himself by saying that he loves Him, if he does not keep His commandments. For we love Him so far as we keep His commandments. And so far as we keep them less, we love less. Although when He says, Abide in My love, it is not apparent which love He meant, whether that by which we love Him or that by which He loves us; but it is discerned from the word before. For He had said, And I have loved you, and to this word He at once joined, Abide in My love. It is that love, then, with which He loved them. What then is, Abide in My love, but, abide in My grace? And what is, if you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, but, by this you will know that you will abide in My love with which I love you, if you keep My commandments? We do not, then, first keep His commandments so that He may love us, but unless He loves us we cannot keep His commandments. This is the grace that lies open to the humble, and is hidden from the proud. But what is that which is added

As I also have kept the commandments of My Father, and abide in His love. Here too, certainly, He wished that love of the Father to be understood with which the Father loves Him. For thus He had said, As the Father has loved Me, so I also have loved you; and to these words He joined those, Abide in My love: that love, beyond doubt, with which I have loved you. So when He says also of the Father, I abide in His love, it is to be taken of that love, namely, with which the Father loved Him. But is grace to be understood here too, by which the Father loves the Son, as it is grace by which the Son loves us, since we are sons by grace, not by nature, but the Only-begotten by nature, not by grace? Or is this also to be referred to the man in the Son Himself? Just so: for in saying, As the Father has loved Me, so I also have loved you, He showed the grace of the Mediator. But the Mediator of God and men is Christ Jesus, not in so far as He is God, but in so far as He is man. And indeed, according to that which He is as man, it is read of Him: And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men (Luke 2:52). According to this, then, we can rightly say that, although human nature does not belong to the nature of God,

yet human nature belongs by grace to the person of the only-begotten Son of God, and by so great a grace that none is greater, none whatever equal. For no merits went before that taking up of the man, but from that taking up all His merits began. The Son therefore abides in the love with which the Father loved Him, and so He kept His commandments. For what is that man too, except that God is the One Who took him up? For the Word was God, the Only-begotten coeternal with the Begetter. But that a mediator might be given to us, by ineffable grace the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled. What is the joy of Christ in us, but that by which He deigns to rejoice over us? And what is our joy, which He says is to be filled, but to have fellowship with Him? For which reason He had said to blessed Peter, If I do not wash you, you will have no part with Me. His joy in us, then, is the grace which He has bestowed on us: that same is, as it were, our joy; but over this He was rejoicing even from eternity, when He chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). Nor can we rightly say that His joy was not full. For God never rejoiced imperfectly; but that joy of His was not in us, because neither did we yet exist, in whom it could be; nor, when we began to be, did we begin to be with Him. But it was always in Him, Who rejoiced in us as His own to be, by the most certain truth of His foreknowledge. His joy over our salvation, therefore, which was always in Him when He foreknew and predestined us, began to be in us when He called us. And this joy we rightly call ours, by which we too shall be blessed. But this joy of ours grows and advances, and by persevering presses on to its perfection. So it is begun in the faith of those who are reborn, and will be filled in the reward of those who rise again. See, I think, why it is said: These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled. Let Mine be in you, let yours be filled. For Mine was always full, even before you were called, when you were foreknown by Me as to be called. But let it be in you also, when you are made that which I foreknew of you. And let yours be filled, because you will be blessed, which you are not yet, just as you were created who had not been. This is, He says, My precept, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Whether it is called precept or commandment, both render one Greek word, which is ἐντολή. And indeed He had spoken this sentence before also: A new commandment I give to us, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:34). The repetition of this commandment, therefore, is a commendation of it, except that there He says, a new commandment I give to you; but here, this is, He says, My commandment. There, as though there had been no such commandment before; here, as though there were no other commandment of His. But there it is called new, lest we persist in our oldness; here it is called Mine, lest we think it may be despised. But that He said here, This is My commandment, as if there were no other, what do we think, my brethren? Is it only His commandment concerning this

Did God command us concerning love alone, so that we should not seek other things? The Apostle certainly commends three, saying: And there remain faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greater of these is charity (1 Cor. 13:13). Although those two precepts are comprised in charity, that is, in love, yet it was said to be the greater, not the only one. How many things, then, have been commanded us concerning faith, how many concerning hope, who can gather them all? who suffice to count them? But let us look at what the same Apostle says: Charity is the fullness of the law (Rom. 13:10). Where, then, there is charity, what is there that can be lacking? But where it is not, what is there that can profit? The demon believes, and does not love (Jas. 2:19). No one loves who does not believe. In vain indeed, yet he who does not love can hope for pardon. But no one can despair who loves. So where there is love, there of necessity are faith and hope; and where there is love of neighbour, there of necessity is also the love of God. For he who does not love God, how does he love his neighbour as himself? For he is ungodly and wicked. But he who loves iniquity does not love at all, but hates his own soul (Tobit 12:10). Let us hold fast, then, to this precept of the Lord, that we love one another, and whatever else He commands we shall do, since whatever else there is, we have here. For this love is distinguished from that love with which men love one another as men. For that it might be distinguished, it was added: as I have loved you. For to what end did Christ love us, but that we might be able to reign with Christ? To this end, then, let us also love one another, that we may distinguish our love from the rest, who do not love one another to this end, because they do not love at all. The fullness of love, with which we ought to love one another, dearest brethren, the Lord defined, saying: Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends. Since, then, He had said above: This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you, to which words He added what you have now heard: Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends, there follows from this what this same evangelist John says in his Epistle (1 John 3:16), that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, loving one another indeed as He loved us, Who laid down His life for us. Nor let this be said as though we could on that account be equal to the Lord Christ, if for Him we have carried martyrdom even to blood. He had power to lay down His life, and to take it up again. But we neither live as long as we will, and we die even if we will not. He gave Himself to us branches as the vine; apart from Him we cannot have life. Lastly, even if brethren die for brethren, yet no martyr's blood is shed for the remission of the brethren's sins, which He did for us; and in this He bestowed on us not something to imitate, but something to give thanks for.

You, He says, are My friends, if you do what I command you. A great condescension, when a good servant

cannot be [such] unless he does his Lord's precepts, He willed His friends to be understood from that by which good servants can be proved. But, as I said, this is condescension, that the Lord should deign to call those whom He knows to be His servants His friends. For that you may know that doing the precepts of their Lord belongs to the office of servants, in another place He rebukes servants indeed, saying: But why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say (Luke 6:46)? When, then, you say Lord, He says, show by doing what is bidden what you are saying. Will He not say to the obedient servant: Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many: enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt. 25:21)? He can therefore be both servant and friend, because he is a good servant. But let us attend to what follows:

No longer do I call you servants, because the servant does not know what his lord does. He so established the name of friend as to take away that of servant, not that both should remain in one, but that the one should succeed as the other departs. What is this? Even when we have done the Lord's precepts, shall we not be servants? Shall we then not be servants when we have been good servants? And who can gainsay the Truth, Who says: No longer do I call you servants? and He teaches why He said it: Because the servant, He says, does not know what his lord does. Does not his lord commit even his secrets to a good and proven servant? What is it, then, that He says: The servant does not know what his lord does? Granted that he does not know what he does, does he not know even what he commands? For if he does not know this either, how does he serve? or how is he a servant who does not serve? And yet God Himself speaks: You are My friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants. O wonderful thing! Since we cannot serve unless we do the Lord's precepts, how, by doing the precepts, shall we not be servants? If I shall not be a servant by doing the precepts, and unless I do the precepts I shall not be able to serve, then by serving I shall not be a servant. For just as there are two fears which make two kinds of those who fear, so there are two servitudes which make two kinds of servants. There is a fear which perfect charity casts out (1 John 4:18), and there is another fear, chaste, abiding for ever and ever (Ps. 18:10). That fear which is not in charity the Apostle had in view when he said: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear (Rom. 8:15). But that chaste fear he had in view when he said: Be not high-minded, but fear (Rom. 11:20). In that fear which charity casts out, there is also a servitude to be cast out together with the fear itself. For the Apostle joined both, that is, servitude and fear, saying: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear. This servitude, belonging to the servant, the Lord too had in view when He said: No longer do I call you servants, because the servant does not know what his lord does. Not, surely, that servant who belongs to chaste fear, to whom it is said: Well done, good servant, enter into the joy of your lord (Matt. 25:21, 23); but that servant who belongs to the fear to be cast out by charity, of whom He says elsewhere: The servant does not abide in the house for ever

but the son abides for ever (John 8:35). Since, therefore, He has given us power to become sons of God (John 1:12), so that we are not servants but sons: in a certain wonderful and ineffable, yet true, manner we can be servants and not servants. Servants, namely, by chaste fear, to which belongs the servant who enters into the joy of his lord; but not servants by casting out fear, to which belongs the servant who does not abide in the house for ever. And that we may be such servants who are not servants, we know that the Lord does it. This that servant does not know who does not know what his lord does: and when he does something good, he is so lifted up as if he himself did it, not his lord; and he glories in himself, he does not glory in the Lord, since he has deceived himself, because he glories as if he had not received. But let us, dearest ones, that we may be able to be the Lord's friends, know what our Lord does. For He makes us not only men, but also just, and not we ourselves. That we may know this, who makes it but He?

But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. For who would dare to affirm or believe that any man knows all things whatsoever the only-begotten Son has heard from the Father, when no one even grasps this, how He hears any word from the Father, since He is Himself the Father's only Word? What of the fact that a little later, yet in this same discourse, He says: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now? In what way, then, are we to understand that He made known to the disciples all things whatsoever He heard from the Father, when He does not say a good many things precisely because He knows they cannot bear them now? But surely He says He has done what He is going to do, because He has made the things that are to be (Sir. 1). For as He says through the Prophet: They have dug My hands and My feet (Ps. 21:17), so in this place too He says that He has made known to the disciples all things which He knew He would make known in that fullness of knowledge of which the Apostle says: But when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away (1 Cor. 13:10). For there he says: Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known. And now through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face (ibid. 13:12). For the Apostle himself also says that we have been saved through the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5), who yet in another place says: By hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom. 8:24–25). Hence also his fellow apostle Peter says: In Whom now, not seeing, you believe; and when you see Him, you will exult with joy unspeakable and glorified, receiving the reward of faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Pet. 1:8–9). Therefore, as we await the immortality of the flesh and the salvation of souls as yet to come, although, having received the pledge, we are already said to have been saved, so we must hope for the knowledge of all things whatsoever the Only-begotten has heard from the Father as yet to come, although Christ has said that He has already done this.

You have not chosen Me, He says, but I have chosen you. This is that ineffable glory. For what were we

when we had not yet chosen Christ, and therefore did not love Him? For he who does not choose Him, how does he love Him? Was there already in us what is sung in the psalm: I have chosen to be an abject in the house of God, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners (Ps. 83:11)? Surely not. What then were we, but wicked and lost? For we had not yet believed in Him, that He should choose us. For if He chose those who already believed, He chose the chosen. Why then would He say: You have not chosen Me, unless because His mercy has gone before us (Ps. 58:11)? It is not for you to say: Before I believed, I was already doing good works, therefore I was chosen. For what is there of good work before faith, when the Apostle says: Everything that is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23)? What then shall we say on hearing: You have not chosen Me, but that we were evil, and were chosen, that we might be good by the grace of Him Who chose us? For it is not grace if merits went before. But it is grace. This, therefore, does not find merits but makes them. And see, dearest ones, how He does not choose the good, but makes good those whom He has chosen.

I, He says, have chosen you, and have appointed you that you should go, and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. Is not this the fruit of which He had already said: Without Me you can do nothing? He chose us, then, and appointed us that we should go and bear fruit. So we had no fruit for which He should choose us. That you should go, He says, and bear fruit. We go that we may bear, and He Himself is the way by which we go, in which He has set us that we may go. Therefore in all things His mercy has gone before us. And let your fruit, He says, abide.

That whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you. Let love abide, then; this is our fruit, which love is now in desire, not yet in fullness; and by that very desire, whatever we ask in the name of the only-begotten Son, the Father will give us. But what it is not expedient for us, who are to be saved, to receive, let us not suppose that we ask in the name of the Saviour; but we ask this in the name of the Saviour when it belongs to the prayer of salvation.

These things I command you, that you love one another. And by this we ought to understand that this is our fruit, of which He says: I have chosen you that you should go, and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. And as to what He added: That whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you; He will certainly give it to us then, if we love one another, since He has given us this very thing too, Who chose us when we had no fruit, because we had not chosen Him. So, commanding us concerning the fruit, He says: These things I command you, that you love one another. Hence the apostle Paul too, when he wished to commend the fruit of the Spirit against the works of the flesh, put this at the head: The fruit, he says, of the Spirit is charity (Gal. 5:22). And then he wove together the rest as sprung from and bound to this head. Rightly, therefore, does the good Master so often commend love, as though it alone were to be commanded, without which the other good things cannot profit, and which cannot be had without the other good things by which a man is made good. And for this love we ought patiently to bear even the hatred of the world. For it must needs hate us, whom it sees unwilling to have what it loves. But

the Lord consoles us very greatly from His own case, Who, when He had said: These things I command you, that you love one another, added and said:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before you. Why then does the member exalt itself above the head? You refuse to be in the body if you will not bear the hatred of the world with the head.

If you were of the world, He says, the world would love what was its own. He says this, then, to the whole Church, which He often also calls by the name of the world, as in that saying: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). And likewise that: The Son of man came not to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Him (John 3:17). And John says in his Epistle: We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and He is the propitiation for our sins; not for ours only, but also for the whole world (1 John 2:1–2). The whole world, then, is the Church, and the whole world hates the Church. The world therefore hates the world: the hostile hates the reconciled, the condemned the saved, the defiled the cleansed. But this world which God reconciles to Himself in Christ, and which is saved through Christ, and to which every sin is forgiven through Christ, has been chosen out of the world that is hostile, condemned, defiled. For out of the same mass which perished wholly in Adam are made the vessels of mercy, in which is the world that belongs to reconciliation; and this the world hates that belongs, out of the same mass, to the vessels of wrath, which are fitted for destruction (Rom. 9:22–23). Then, when He had said: If you were of the world, the world would love what was its own, He at once added:

But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So they too were from there, from which they were chosen so as not to be of it, not by their own merits, since no good works of theirs had gone before, nor by nature, which had been wholly vitiated by free choice in its very root, but by grace freely given, that is, true grace. For He Who chose a world out of the world made what He should choose; He did not find it, because a remnant has been saved through the election of grace. And if by grace, he says, it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace (Rom. 11:5–6). But if it is asked how the world of perdition, which hates the world of redemption, loves itself, it loves itself, to be sure, with a false love, not a true one; and so it loves itself falsely, and truly hates itself. For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul (Ps. 10:6). But it is said to love itself because it loves the iniquity by which it is wicked. And again it is said to hate itself because it loves what harms it. So it hates in itself its nature, it loves its vice. It hates what it was made through God's goodness, it loves what has been done in it through free will. Hence we too, if we understand rightly, are both forbidden and commanded to love it. We are forbidden, namely, where it is said to us: Do not love the world (1 John 2:15). And we are commanded where it is said to us: Love your enemies (Matt. 5:44). For they are the world, which hates us. So we are forbidden to love in it what it loves in itself, and we are commanded to love in it what it hates in itself. For we are forbidden to love the vice in it, and we are commanded to love

its nature, while it loves in itself its vice and hates its nature, so that we both love it and hate it rightly, while it loves and hates itself perversely.

Remember, He says, the word that I said to you. The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they have kept My word, they will keep yours also. It is manifest, therefore, that that servant who does not abide in the house for ever (John 8:35), that one who belongs to the fear which charity will cast out (1 John 4:18), is to be understood where it is said: No longer do I call you servants (above); but here, where it is said: The servant is not greater than his lord; if they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also, that servant is signified who belongs to the chaste fear, which abides for ever and ever (Ps. 18:10). For this servant is to hear: Well done, good servant, enter into the joy of your lord (Matt. 25:21).

But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him Who sent Me. What are all the things they will do, but those He spoke of: that is, they will hate, and persecute, the word which they despise? For if they kept their word [perhaps "not" should be added], and yet did not hate them nor persecute them; or even if they hated them, and yet did not persecute them, they would not be doing all these things. But all these things they will do to you, He says, for My name's sake. What else is this to say than: They will hate Me in you; they will persecute Me in you; and your word, because it is Mine, they will therefore not keep? For all these things they will do to you for My name's sake; not yours, but Mine. So much the more wretched, then, are those who do these things for this name's sake, as those are the more blessed who suffer these things for this name's sake; as He Himself says in another place: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake (Matt. 5:10); for that is, for My sake, or for My name's sake. If we understand the saying in this way: All these things they will do to you for My name's sake, the whole may be referred to the just, as though it were said: All these things you will suffer from them. But if for My name's sake is taken thus, as though He said: For My name's sake, which they hate in you, it can also be taken thus: and for the justice which they hate in you; and by this the good too, when they persecute the wicked, can rightly be said to do it both for justice's sake, since they persecute the wicked by loving them, and for the iniquity which they hate in the wicked themselves; so, then, the wicked too can be said to suffer both for the iniquity which is punished in them, and for the justice which is exercised in their punishment. Again it can be asked, if the wicked also persecute the wicked, as ungodly kings and judges, though they were persecutors of the godly, certainly punished murderers and adulterers and all evildoers whom they knew to have acted against the public laws, how is that to be understood which the Lord says: If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own? for the world does not love those whom it punishes, by which we see the kinds of crime mentioned above very often punished; unless because the world is in those by whom such crimes are punished, and the world is also in those by whom such crimes are loved. Ma-

that [world], therefore, which is understood in the wicked and ungodly, both hates what is its own, in that part of men by which it harms the criminal, and loves what is its own, in that part of men by which it favours those same people together with their partners in crime. Therefore, "all these things they will do to you for My name's sake" is said either thus, on account of what you suffer; or thus, on account of what they themselves do, because when they persecute this in you, they hate it; and He added: "Because they do not know Him Who sent Me." This is to be understood as said according to that knowledge of which it is written elsewhere too: "But to know Thee is perfect understanding" (Wis. 6). For those who know the Father, by Whom Christ was sent, with this knowledge in no way persecute those whom Christ gathers, since they themselves too are gathered by Christ together with them.

"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin." He points to the Jews more expressly; it was of them, then, that He was saying those things too. The Jews, then, persecuted Christ, as the Gospel shows most plainly. To the Jews Christ spoke, not to other nations. In them, therefore, He wished the world to be understood which hates Christ and His disciples. Nay rather, He showed that not these alone, but these also belong to that same world. What then? "If I had not come, they would not have sin"? Were the Jews without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? Who, even the most foolish, would say this? But He wishes a certain great sin, not every sin, to be understood as though under a general name. For this is the sin by which all sins are held fast: if anyone does not have it, all his sins are forgiven him. And this is that they did not believe in Christ, Who came for this very purpose, that He might be believed in: this sin they would surely not have had, if He had not come. For His coming, as saving as it became to those who believe, so deadly did it become to those who do not believe. But He added, and said:

"But now they have no excuse for their sin." It may trouble those who inquire whether those to whom Christ did not come, nor spoke to them, have an excuse for their sin. For if they do not have one, why is it said that these do not have one precisely because He came and spoke to them? But if they do have one, do they have it to this end, that they be kept apart from punishment, or that they be punished less? To these questions, as far as I am able to grasp, the Lord granting, I answer that they have an excuse, not for all their sin, but for this sin, that they did not believe in Christ, those to whom He did not come and to whom He did not speak; but those are not in that number to whom He came in His disciples and to whom He spoke through His disciples: which He does even then, for through His Church He comes to the nations, and through His Church He speaks to the nations. For to this belongs what He says: "He who receives you receives Me; and he who despises you despises Me" (Luke 10:16). "Or do you wish," says the apostle Paul, "to have proof of Him Who speaks in me?" (2 Cor. 13:3). It remains to inquire whether those who, before Christ came to the nations through the Church, and before they heard His Gospel, were overtaken, or are overtaken, by the end of this life, can have this excuse. They plainly can, but they cannot on that account escape damnation.

For "whoever have sinned without the law will perish without the law: and whoever have sinned in the law will be judged by the law" (Rom. 2). These, certainly, to whom Christ came and to whom He spoke, do not have, concerning the great sin of unbelief, that excuse by which they could say: "We did not see, we did not hear"; whether that excuse would not be accepted by Him Whose judgements are unsearchable, or whether it would be accepted; and if they were not freed from all damnation, they would certainly be damned somewhat more lightly. You have heard the Lord saying:

"He who hates Me hates My Father also." He Who had said above: "These things they will do to you, because they do not know Him Who sent Me." If the Jews were asked whether they loved God, what else would they answer but that they loved Him, not lying from the heart, but rather supposing it in their error? For how could they love the Father of truth, who held the truth in hatred? For they do not wish their deeds to be condemned; and this is the way of truth, that such deeds be condemned. They hate the truth, therefore, as much as they hate their own punishments, which the truth imposes on such men. But they do not know that that is the truth which condemns such men as they themselves are. They hate, then, what they do not know; and when they hate it, they surely cannot but hate Him also of Whom it was born. And on this account, since they do not know that the Truth, by Whose judgement they are condemned, was born of God the Father, they certainly do not know Him either, and they hate Him.

"If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin." That sin, namely the great one, of which He also said above: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin," that is, the sin that they did not believe in Him as He spoke and worked. This sin, by which they did not believe in Him, is mentioned in this way because by that very [or: that] sin the rest also are held fast; for if they did not have this, and believed in Him, the rest also would be forgiven. But what is this, that when He had said, "If I had not done the works among them," He at once added, "which no one else did"? For no works of Christ seem to be greater than the raising of the dead: which we know the ancient prophets also did. For Elijah did it (III Kgs. 17), Elisha did it (IV Kgs. 4), both while he lived in this flesh and when he lay buried in his tomb. Yet Christ did some things which no one else did: that He fed five thousand men from five loaves, and four thousand from seven (Luke 9; Mark 8; Matt. 14); that He walked upon the waters, and granted Peter to do this; that He changed water into wine (John 2); that He opened the eyes of the man born blind (John 9); and many other things which it would be long to recount. But the answer is given by us that others also did things which He Himself did not do, and which no one else did. For who but Moses struck the Egyptians with so many and so great plagues (Exod. 7, 8, 9 and following), led the people through the divided sea (Exod. 14), obtained manna from heaven for the hungry, poured out water from the rock for the thirsty (Exod. 16)? Who but Jesus [son] of Nave divided the streams of the Jordan for the people's crossing, and, sending up a prayer to the Lord, reined in the running sun and fixed it (Josh. 3)? Who besides Samson, on account of his thirst, from the jawbone of a dead ass

overflowing, was satisfied (Judg. 15)? Who besides Elijah was carried up on high in a chariot of fire (IV Kgs. 2)? Who besides the three men, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, walked about unharmed in flames that burned and did not burn [them] (Dan. 3)? I pass over the rest, since I judge these enough to show that other saints too did certain wondrous works which no one else did. But that anyone healed so many infirmities and bad illnesses and afflictions of mortals with such power, of the ancients absolutely none is read. For, to say nothing of those whom by His command He made whole one by one as they came to meet Him, Mark the evangelist says in a certain place: "And when evening had come, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were ill, and those who had demons; and the whole city was gathered at the door; and He cured many who were afflicted with various sicknesses; and He cast out many demons" (Mark 1). And when Matthew had recorded this, he added a prophetic testimony too, saying: "That what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying: He Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses" (Matt. 8; Isa. 53). Again, in another place Mark says: "And wherever He entered into hamlets, or into country estates, or into cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch even the fringe of His garment; and as many as touched Him were made whole" (Mark 6). These things no one else did among them. For so is "among them" [literally: in them], which He says, to be understood: not between them, or before them, but quite simply in them, because He healed them. For He wished those things to be understood which not only caused wonder but also conferred manifest health: and for these benefits they surely ought to have repaid love, not hatred. It surpasses indeed all the miracles of the rest that He was born of a virgin, and He alone was able neither to violate His mother's integrity in being conceived nor in being born. But this was done neither before them nor in them. For the apostles came to know the truth of this miracle not by a sight shared with them, but by a discipleship set apart from them. Now that, too, by which on the third day He restored Himself living from the tomb in the flesh in which He had been slain, never thereafter to die, and with it ascended into heaven, surpasses even all that He did. But neither was this done in the Jews, nor before them: and He had not yet done this when He said: "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did." Doubtless, then, it is those things: the great miracles of health which He showed in their illnesses, such as no one before had bestowed on them; for these they saw, and reproaching them with this He added, and says:

"But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father; but that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: Because they hated Me without cause." He calls it their law, not as found out by them, but as given to them, just as we say "our daily bread" (Matt. 6), which nevertheless we ask from God, adding "give us". Now he hates without cause [gratis] who seeks no advantage from hatred, nor flees any disadvantage. So do the ungodly hate God; so do the just love Him, that is, gratis, so that they expect no other goods on His account, since He Himself will be all in all (Col. 3). But whoever

attends more deeply to Christ saying, "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did," will find that He Himself did it, if any man of God did any such thing. For He Himself can do all things by Himself; but no one can do anything without Him. For Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit is not three gods, but one God; of Whom it is written: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, Who alone does wonderful things" (Ps. 71). No one else, therefore, did whatever works He did among them, since whatever other man did any of them did it with Him doing it; but these He Himself did without their doing them.

"But when the Paraclete comes, Whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness concerning Me; and you will bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning." How does this bear on what He had said: "But now they have both hated both Me and My Father; but that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: Because they hated Me without cause" (here, above)? Is it because the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, when He came, convicted those who saw and hated by a more manifest testimony; nay rather, even converted by His manifestation some of those who had seen and still hated to the faith which works through love? That we may understand this, we recall that it happened so. For on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon a hundred and twenty men gathered together, among whom were all the apostles; and when, filled with Him, they spoke in the tongues of all nations, many of those who were present, astounded by so great a miracle (since they saw, as Peter spoke, so great and divine a testimony borne to Christ that He, Who had been slain by them and was counted among the dead, was proved to have risen and to be alive), pierced in heart, were converted, and received pardon for so great a blood so impiously and savagely shed, redeemed by the very blood which they had shed (Acts 1). For the blood of Christ was so shed for the remission of all sins that it could blot out even the very sin by which it was shed. Looking upon these things, then, the Lord said: "They hated Me without cause. But when the Spirit Paraclete comes, He will bear witness concerning Me"; as if He were saying: They hated Me and killed Me, seeing Me; but the Paraclete will bear such witness concerning Me as to make them believe in Me without seeing. "And you," He says, "will bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning." The Holy Spirit will bear witness; you too will bear witness. For because you are with Me from the beginning, you are able to preach what you know: and that you do not do so now, [it is because] the fullness of that Spirit is not yet present to you. He, then, will bear witness concerning Me, so that you may bear witness. For the charity poured forth in your hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who will be given to you (Rom. 5), will give you the confidence to bear witness. This Peter still lacked when, terrified by the questioning of a woman, a maidservant, he could not bear true witness, but against his own promise was driven by great fear to deny three times (John 18). But that fear is not in charity; rather "perfect charity casts out fear." "He will bear witness concerning

Me, and you will bear witness" (I John 4). So then, because He will bear witness, you also will bear witness. He in your hearts, you in your voices; He by inspiring, you by sounding forth, so that this may be fulfilled: "Their sound has gone forth into all the earth" (Ps. 18). For it would have been too little to exhort them by His example, had He not filled them with His Spirit. Finally the apostle Peter, though he had already heard His words where He had said: "The servant is not greater than his lord; if they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also" (here, above), and though he already saw this being fulfilled in Him, in Whom he ought to have imitated the patience of his Lord, if example were enough, gave way and denied, not bearing indeed what he saw Him bear. But when he received the gift of the Holy Spirit, he preached Him Whom he had denied, and Him Whom he had feared to confess he did not fear to profess. For earlier he had been taught by example, so as to know what was fitting. But he had not yet been propped up by strength, so as to do what he knew. He had been instructed to stand, but he had not been made firm, so as not to fall. After this was done through the Holy Spirit, he proclaimed [Him] even unto death. Therefore the Lord adds:

CHAPTER XVI.

"These things," He says, "I have spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized." For it is sung in the psalm: "Much peace have they who love Thy law, and to them there is no stumbling-block" (Ps. 118). Fittingly, then, having promised the Holy Spirit, by Whose working in them they would become His witnesses, He added: "These things I have spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized." For when "the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us" (Rom. 5), there comes to be much peace for those who love the law of God, so that there is no stumbling-block in them. Then, now expressing what they were to suffer, He says:

"They will put you out of the synagogues." But what harm was it to the apostles to be expelled from the Jewish synagogues, as though they were not going to separate themselves from them anyway, even if no one expelled them? But doubtless He wished to announce this: that the Jews were not going to receive Christ; and therefore it was to come about that those who could not be without Him would be thrown out together with Him by those who would not be in Him. For surely, since there was no other people of God than that seed of Abraham, if they had acknowledged and received Christ they would have remained as natural branches in the olive tree (Rom. 11), and the churches of Christ would not have become one thing and the synagogues of the Jews another; for they would have been the same, had they been willing to be in the same [Christ]: and since they were not willing, what remained, but that, remaining outside Christ, they should put out of the synagogues those who would not forsake Christ? For having received the Holy Spirit and been made His witnesses, they would certainly not be such as those of whom it is said: "Many of the rulers of the Jews believed in Him" (John 12); but for fear of the Jews, lest they be driven from the synagogues, they did not dare to confess Him. "For they loved the glory of men more than [that] of God" (ibid.). They believed in Him, then, but not in the way He wished them to believe, Who said: "How can you believe, who look for glory from one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?" (John 5). To the disciples, then, believing in Him in this way, that prophecy fits which is found fulfilled in them: "O Lord, in the light

of Thy countenance they shall walk, and in Thy name they shall rejoice all the day, and in Thy justice they shall be exalted, for Thou art the glory of their strength" (Ps. 88). Fittingly is it said to them: "They will put you out of the synagogues," namely those who "have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10); nor will they, when expelled by men, be ashamed, since He Himself is the glory of their strength. Finally, when He had said this to them, He added:

"But the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God; and these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father, nor Me"; that is, they have not known God, nor His Son, to Whom they think they are offering service in killing you. These words the Lord added as if they were to be consoled by this, who were being driven out of the Jewish synagogues. For, foretelling what evils they were to endure for His testimony, He says: "They will put you out of the synagogues." What then is this word doing there, where He says, "But the hour is coming," and does not say, "And [the hour] is coming," since He was foretelling that tribulation upon tribulation, not consolation after tribulation, was to come to them? Or was that separation from the synagogues perhaps going to disturb them so much that they would rather die than linger in this life without the congregations of the Jews? Far be it that they should be so disturbed, who sought the glory of God, not of men. What then is "They will put you out of the synagogues; but the hour is coming," when He seems rather to have been bound to say, "And the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God"? For it was not even said, "But the hour is coming when they will kill you," as though death were to befall them as a consolation for that separation; but, He says, "the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God." It seems to me that He wished to signify absolutely nothing else but that they should understand and rejoice that they would gain so many for Christ when they were driven from the congregations of the Jews, that it would not be enough for them to drive them out, but they would not suffer them to live, lest by their preaching they should convert all to the name of Christ and turn them away from the observance of Judaism as though it were divine truth. For we ought to take this as said of the Jews, of whom He had said: "They will put you out of the synagogues." For the witnesses, that is, the martyrs of Christ, even if they were killed by the gentiles, those [gentiles] nevertheless did not think they were offering service to God, but to their false gods, when they did this. But everyone of the Jews who killed the preachers of Christ thought he was offering service to God, believing that whoever were converted to Christ were deserting the God of Israel. For it was by that very reasoning that they were moved to kill Christ Himself too; for their words on this matter also have been written down: "You see that the whole world has gone after Him" (John 11); "if we let Him live, the Romans will come and take away from us both our place and our nation" (ibid.); and what Caiaphas said: "It is expedient that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish" (ibid.). And in this, then, He †instructs His disciples by His own example, to whom He had said: "If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also," so that, just as they thought they were offering service to God by killing Him, so also [by killing] them. This, therefore, is the sense

in these words: "They will put you out of the synagogues"; but do not dread loneliness. For separated from their congregation, you will gather so many in My name that they, fearing lest the temple which was among them and all the sacraments of the old law be deserted, will kill you: so shedding your blood as to think they are offering service to God. Behold, this is what the Apostle said of them: "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge" (Rom. 10). They thought they were offering service to God by killing the servants of God. O horrible error! Is it so, that to please God you strike one who pleases God? And is the living temple of God laid low by your blow, lest the temple of God made of stone be deserted? O accursed blindness! But it has come about in part in Israel, that the fullness of the gentiles might enter (Rom. 11). But, slain for them, He was gathering those whom He had instructed about these things to come before He was slain, so that the unforeseen and unexpected evils, though soon to pass, should not disturb their minds as ignorant and unprepared, but, foreknown and patiently accepted, should lead them on to everlasting goods. For that this was the reason for His foretelling these things to them He Himself also showed, adding:

"But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you." Their hour, a dark hour, a night hour. But "in the day the Lord has commanded His mercy" (Ps. 41), and in the night He made it plain, when the night of the Jews, in that confusion, darkened the day of the Christians, separated from itself, and when it was able to kill the flesh, it was not able to darken faith.

"But these things I did not tell you from the beginning, because I was with you; but now I am going to Him Who sent Me." Here it must first be seen whether He did not foretell to them, beforehand, the sufferings to come. But the other three evangelists show clearly enough that He foretold these things before they had come to the supper, after which was finished, according to John, He spoke these things, where He says: "But these things I did not tell you from the beginning, because I was with you." Or is this question perhaps solved from this, that they too relate that He was close to His passion when He said these things? Not, then, from the beginning, when He was with them, [but] as one now about to depart and now about to go on to the Father did He say these things; and therefore even according to those evangelists what is said here is true: "But these things I did not tell you from the beginning." But what do we do about the trustworthiness of the Gospel according to Matthew, who records that these things were announced to them by the Lord not only when it was already the Pasch, when He was about to sup with His disciples with the passion at hand, but also from the beginning, where the twelve apostles are first set out by name and are sent to the divine works? What then does it mean that He says here, "But these things I did not tell you from the beginning, because I was with you"? Unless that these things too which He says here of the Holy Spirit, that He is to come to them and to bear witness when they are to suffer evils, these He did not tell them from the beginning, because He was with them. That Comforter, then, or Advocate (for the Greek word paraklētos is rendered both ways), had become necessary with Christ's departing; and so He had not spoken of Him from the beginning, when He was with them,

because they were consoled by His presence. But being about to depart, it was fitting that He should say that He would come through Whom it was to come about that, with charity poured forth in their hearts, they would preach the word of God with confidence; and that, with Him bearing witness to Christ within them, they too would bear witness, and would not be scandalized when the Jews, their enemies, put them out of the synagogues and killed them, thinking they were offering service to God; for "charity bears all things," which was to be poured forth in their hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Hence, then, the whole sense is expressed: that He was going to make them His martyrs, that is, His witnesses, through the Holy Spirit, so that, with Him working in them, they might bear whatever harsh things of the persecutions, and not grow cold from the charity of preaching, set alight by that divine fire. "But these things I did not tell you from the beginning, because I was with you"; and I consoled you by My bodily presence, shown to your human senses, which you, as little ones, were able to grasp. "But now I am going to Him Who sent Me, and none of you," He says, "asks Me: Where are You going?" He signifies that He will go in such a way that no one would ask what he would see being done openly by the sight of the body. For above they had asked Him where He was going, and He had answered them that He was going where they could not then come. But now He promises that He will go in such a way that none of them asks where He is going. For a cloud received Him when He ascended from them, and they did not question Him with words as He went into heaven, but escorted Him with their eyes (Acts 1).

"But because I have spoken these things to you," He says, "sorrow has filled your heart." He saw, then, what those words of His were doing in their hearts. For not yet having inwardly the spiritual consolation which they were to have through the Holy Spirit, they feared to lose what they saw outwardly in Christ; and because they could not doubt that they would lose it, since He announced true things, their human affection was saddened, because the sight of the flesh was being made desolate. But He knew what was rather to their advantage, because that inner sight is surely better, by which the Holy Spirit was to console them, not thrusting a human body upon the bodies of those who see, but pouring Himself into the breasts of those who believe. Finally He adds:

"But I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go. For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you. But if I go away, I will send Him to you." As if He were saying: It is expedient for you that this form of a servant be taken away from you. The Word made flesh, I dwell indeed among you, but I do not wish you still to love Me carnally, and, content with this milk, to desire to be infants for ever. "It is expedient for you that I go; for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you." If I do not withdraw the tender nourishment with which I have fed you, you will not hunger for My solid food. If you cling carnally, you will not be capable of the Spirit. For what is "If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you"? Could He not send Him while placed here? Who would say this? For neither had the One withdrawn from where the Other was, and He had so come from the Father as to remain in the Father. Finally, how

could He not send Him even while placed here, Him Whom we know came upon Him when He was baptized and remained (John 1), nay rather, from Whom we know He was never separable? What then is "If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you"? What, unless: You cannot receive the Holy Spirit so long as you persist in knowing Christ according to the flesh? Hence he who had already received [Him] by the Spirit says: "Even if we had known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer" (II Cor. 5). For he no longer knows the very flesh of Christ according to the flesh who knows the Word made flesh spiritually. This, doubtless, is what the good Master wished to signify by saying: "For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send Him to you." For when Christ departed bodily, not only the Holy Spirit but also the Father and the Son were present to them spiritually. For if Christ had so withdrawn from them that the Holy Spirit was [there] in His place, not with Him, where is His promise, when He says: "Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world" (Matt. 28)? And: "We will come to him, I and the Father, and will make our abode with him" (John 14)? Since He promised that He would send the Holy Spirit in such a way that He would be with them for ever; and by this, when from carnal or natural men they were to become spiritual, they would surely have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit more capaciously. In no one, therefore, is the Father to be believed to be without the Son and the Holy Spirit; but where any one of them is, there the Trinity is one God. But it was fitting that the Trinity should be made known in such a way that, though there was no diversity of substances, yet the distinction of Persons should be commended one by one.

"And when He comes, He will convict the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgement." What is this? Did not the Lord Christ convict the world of sin when He said: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin" (John 15)? But lest anyone perhaps say that this belongs properly to the Jews, not to the world, does He not say in another place: "If you were of the world, the world would love what was its own" (Matt. 25)? Did He not convict of justice where He says: "Just Father, the world has not known Thee"? Did He not convict of judgement where He says that He will say to those on the left: "Go into the everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels"? And many other places are found in the holy Gospel where Christ convicts the world of these things. What is it, then, that He assigns this as though properly to the Holy Spirit? Is it perhaps that, because Christ spoke to the nation of the Jews, He does not seem to have convicted the world, since he is understood to be convicted who hears the one convicting him; but the Holy Spirit, in His disciples spread through the whole world, is understood to have convicted not one nation, but the world? For this He says to them when about to ascend into heaven: "It is not for you to know the times which the Father has set in His own power; but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1). This is to convict the world. But who would dare to say that through the disciples of Christ

the Holy Spirit convicts the world, and Christ Himself does not convict the world, when the Apostle cries: "Or do you wish to have proof of Christ, Who speaks in me?" (II Cor. 13). Those, then, whom the Holy Spirit also convicts, Christ surely convicts. But, as far as it seems to me, since through the Holy Spirit charity was to be poured forth in their hearts, which casts out the fear by which they could be hindered from daring to convict the world, which raged with persecutions, He therefore said, "He will convict the world," as if He were saying: He will pour forth charity in your hearts. For so, with fear driven out, you will have freedom to convict. Now we have often said that the works of the Trinity are inseparable, but that the Persons had to be commended one by one, so that both the unity and the Trinity may be understood, not only without separation but also without confusion.

"Of sin, indeed," He says, "because they do not believe in Me." For He set down this sin as though alone before the rest, because while this remains the rest are retained, and when this departs the rest are remitted.

"Of justice, however," He says, "because I am going to the Father, and you will no longer see Me." Here it must first be seen, if anyone is rightly convicted of sin, how he may rightly be convicted of justice too. For if a sinner is to be convicted because he is a sinner, will anyone think that a just man too is to be convicted because he is just? Far from it; for even if a just man is sometimes convicted, he is rightly convicted for this reason, that, as it is written: "There is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin" (Eccl. 7). Wherefore, even when a just man is convicted, he is convicted of sin, not of justice, since in that too which we read was divinely said, "Do not be made overly just" (ibid.), it is not the justice of the wise man that is censured, but the pride of the presumptuous. He, then, who becomes overly just becomes unjust by that very excess. For he makes himself overly just who says that he has no sin, or who thinks that he is made just not by grace but by his own will as sufficient. Nor is he just by seeing aright, but rather puffed up, by thinking himself to be what he is not. In what way, then, is the world to be convicted of justice, unless of the justice of those who believe? For it is convicted of sin, because it does not believe in Christ; and it is convicted of the justice of those who believe. For the very comparison with the faithful is the reproof of the unfaithful. His own exposition too indicates this clearly enough. For, wishing to open up what He had said, "Of justice, however," He says, "because I am going to the Father, and you will no longer see Me." He does not say, "And they will no longer see Me," of those of whom He had said, "Because they do not believe in Me"; but in explaining what He called sin, He spoke of them, saying: "Because they do not believe in Me." But in explaining what justice He meant, of which, He said, the world is convicted, He turned to those very men to whom He was speaking, and said: "Because I am going to the Father, and you will no longer see Me." Wherefore the world is convicted of sin, indeed, its own, but of justice, another's: as darkness is convicted by light. "For all things that are convicted," says the Apostle, "are made manifest by the light" (Eph. 5). For how great an evil it did [perhaps read: was] of those who do not believe, not only by itself, but also

may appear from the good of those who believe. And since this is wont to be the voice of unbelievers: How shall we believe what we do not see? therefore the justice of believers had to be defined thus: Because I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer. For blessed are they who shall not see, and shall believe (John 20:29). For even those who saw Christ, their faith was not praised for this, that they believed what they saw, that is, the Son of man; but because they believed what they did not see, that is, the Son of God. When, therefore, even the form of a servant itself had been withdrawn from their sight, then indeed was it fulfilled in every part: The just man lives by faith (Rom. 1:17). For faith, as it is defined in the Epistle which is to the Hebrews, is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things that are not seen. But what is: You shall see Me no longer? For He does not say: I go to the Father, and you shall not see Me, so that He might be understood to have signified an interval of time in which He would not be seen, whether short or long, yet certainly bounded; but by saying You shall see no longer, the Truth declared as if they would never see Christ thereafter. Is this injustice, never to see Christ, and yet to believe in Him? when faith, by which the just man lives, is praised precisely because the one who believes that Christ, Whom he does not now see, he will one day see? Lastly, as regards justice, are we to say that the apostle Paul was not just, who confessed that he had seen Christ after His ascension into heaven (I Cor. 15:8), of which time indeed He had already said: You shall see Me no longer? Was the most glorious Stephen not just according to this justice, who, while he was being stoned, said: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55)? What then is: I go to the Father, and you shall not see Me? unless that now I am with you. For then He was still mortal in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), Who could hunger and thirst, could grow weary and sleep. This Christ, therefore, that is, such a Christ, when He had passed from this world to the Father, they were no longer to see; and this is the very justice of faith, of which the Apostle says: And if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know [Him so] no longer (II Cor. 5:16). This therefore (He says) will be your justice, by which the world is convicted, that I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer. You shall not see Him lowly, but exalted. You shall not see Him mortal, but everlasting. You shall not see Him about to be judged, but about to judge; and by this faith of yours, that is, by your justice, the Holy Spirit will convict the unbelieving world. He will convict it also

Of judgement, because the prince of this world is judged. Who is this? unless he of whom He says in another place: Behold, the prince of this world comes; and in Me he finds nothing, that is, nothing of his own right, nothing that belongs to him, namely no sin at all; for through this is the devil prince of the world. For the devil is not prince of heaven and earth and of all things that are in them, in which sense the world is understood where it is said: And the world was made through Him (John 1:10); but the devil is prince of the world of which, there, immediately

He adds and says: And the world did not know Him, that is, unbelieving men, with whom the world is full throughout the whole circle of the earth: among whom groans the faithful world, which He chose out of the world, through Whom the world was made: of which He Himself says: The Son of man did not come to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:17). The world is condemned when He judges, the world is saved when He comes to its aid: for as a tree is full of leaves and fruits, as a threshing-floor of chaff and grain, so the world is full of unbelievers and believers. The prince, therefore, of this world, that is, the prince of these darknesses, that is, of the unbelievers, out of whom the world is rescued, of whom it is said: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8), the prince of this world, of whom He said elsewhere: Now the prince of this world is cast out (John 12:31), is certainly judged, since he is irrevocably destined to the judgement of eternal fire. Of this judgement therefore, by which the prince of the world is judged, the world is convicted by the Holy Spirit, since it is judged with its prince, whom the proud and impious man imitates. For if God, as the apostle Peter says, did not spare the angels who sinned, but thrusting them down into the dungeons of the darkness of hell, handed them over to be kept for punishment in the judgement (2 Pet. 2:4), how is the world not convicted of this judgement by the Holy Spirit, when the Apostle speaks these things in the Holy Spirit? Let men therefore believe in Christ, lest they be convicted of the sin of their unbelief, by which sin all things are held fast. Let them pass over into the number of the faithful, lest they be convicted of the justice of those whom, justified, they do not imitate. Let them beware the judgement to come, lest they be judged with the prince of the world, whom, judged as he is, they imitate. For lest the hard pride of mortals think it will be spared, it must be terrified by the punishment of the proud angels. What therefore the Lord says:

I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Things they did not know were to be added for them, not things they had learnt to be overturned. And He indeed could say this so, because those very things which He had taught, if He wished to open them to them as they are beheld in Him by the angels, this human weakness, in which they still were, could not bear. But any spiritual man can teach another man what he knows, if the Holy Spirit, by his progress, makes him more capable, in Whom the teacher himself also will be able to learn something more, so that both may be taught of God (John 6:45). On which occasion certain vain men, with most foolish presumption, have fabricated an Apocalypse of Paul, which the soundness of the Church does not receive, full of I know not what fables, saying that this is what he meant when he said that he was caught up into the third heaven, and there heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter: whereas if he had said: Which it is not yet lawful for a man to utter, the boldness of these men would be in some way tolerable. But since he said which it is not lawful for a man to utter (2 Cor. 12:4), these are the men who dare to utter these things shamelessly and unhappily. What is it that the Lord says of the Holy Spirit, when He promised that He would come, and would teach His disciples all truth, or lead them into all truth? For He will not speak of Himself,

but whatever He shall hear, He will speak. For this is like that which He said of Himself: I cannot do anything of Myself; as I hear, I judge (John 5:30). But when we were expounding that, we said that it could be taken according to the man, so that the Son might seem to have foretold that His obedience, by which He was made obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8), would be present also in the judgement in which He will judge the living and the dead (2 Tim. 4:1), since He will do this by that which makes Him the Son of man, on account of which He said: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son (John 5:22), because in the judgement it is not the form of God, in which He is coequal with the Father, and which cannot be seen by the impious, but the form of man that will appear, in which He was made even a little lower than the angels (Ps. 8:6), although He will come now in glory, not in His former lowliness, yet He will be visible to both the good and the wicked. Hence He says this too: And He has given Him power to execute judgement, because He is the Son of man (John 5:27). In which words of His it is made manifest that the form to be presented in the judgement is not that in which, when He was in it, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but that which He received when He emptied Himself. For He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7). In which He seems to have commended His obedience even for the doing of judgement, when He said: I cannot do anything of Myself; as I hear, I judge. For Adam, by whose disobedience, one man's, many were made sinners, did not judge as he heard, because what he heard he transgressed, and did evil of himself, because he did not do the will of God, but his own. But He, by Whose obedience, one man's, many are made just, not only was obedient unto the death of the cross, in which He, the living, was judged by the dead, but promised that He would be obedient also in the judgement itself, in which He will judge the living and the dead. I cannot, He says, do anything of Myself; as I hear, I judge. But what was said of the Holy Spirit: For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear, He will speak (above, here), shall we dare to think that this was said according to the man, or according to the assumption of any creature? for in the Trinity the Son alone received the form of a servant: which form was fitted to Him unto the reality of the person, that is, so that the Son of God and the Son of man may be one Jesus Christ, lest not a Trinity but a quaternity be preached by us, which far be it from us: on account of which Person, which certainly consists of two substances, divine and human, He speaks sometimes according to that which He is as God, as is that which He says: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); sometimes according to that which He is as man, as also that: Because the Father is greater than I (John 14:28), in accordance with which we take it to have been said by Him, and this too about which I am now disputing: I cannot do anything of Myself; as I hear, I judge (John 5:30). But in the Person of the Holy Spirit, how are we to take what He says: For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear, He will speak, since in it there is not one substance of divinity, another of humanity, or of any other creature whatever, a great

difficulty arises. Since, then, the Holy Spirit was not made man by any taking up of a man, was not made an angel by any taking up of an angel, was not made a creature by any taking up of any creature, how is that to be understood of Him which the Lord says: For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear, He will speak? A hard question, exceedingly hard. May the Spirit Himself be present, so that at least as I am able to think it, so I may be able to speak it, and so it may reach your understanding according to the capacity of my small measure. First, then, you ought to know and understand, you who can, and to believe, you who cannot yet understand, that in that substance which is God the senses are not distributed to their proper places as it were through a bulk of body, as in the mortal flesh of any animals whatever sight is in one place, hearing in another, smell in another, but touch throughout the whole. Far be it to believe this of that incorporeal and unchangeable nature. To hear, therefore, and to see are there one and the same. For when knowing is spoken of, all things are there, both seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching, without any change of this substance, without any bulk which is greater in one part and less in another, as it is conceived even in the senses by a childish breast when God is so conceived. When, therefore, it is said of the Holy Spirit: For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear He will speak, much more is the nature there simple, where it is to be understood or believed as most truly simple, which far exceeds the nature of our mind. For our mind is changeable, which gains by learning what it did not know, and loses by unlearning what it knew; and is deceived by likeness to truth, so as to approve the false for the true; and is hindered by its own obscurity as by a kind of darkness, so as not to reach the truth; and therefore this is not a most truly simple substance, for which to be is not the same as to know. For it can be, and not know. But that divine [substance] cannot be so, because it is what it has, and for this reason it does not so have knowledge that the knowledge by which it knows is one thing for it, and the essence by which it is another; but both are one; although neither should that be called "both" which is simply one; just as the Father has life in Himself, and He Himself is nothing other than the life which is in Him: And He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26); that is, He begot the Son, Who also Himself should be life. So, therefore, we ought to take what was said of the Holy Spirit: For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He shall hear, He will speak, that we may understand that He is not from Himself; for the Father alone is not from another; for both the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Father neither is born of another nor proceeds.

Nor indeed on this account should any inequality in that supreme Trinity occur to human thought. For both the Son is equal to Him of Whom He is born, and the Holy Spirit to Him from Whom He proceeds. But what difference there is there between proceeding and being born is both long to discuss by inquiry, and rash to define when you have discussed it: because it is most difficult both for the mind to grasp in any way, and, whatever the mind may perhaps have grasped of it, for the tongue to set forth, however eminent the teacher who presides, however eminent the hearer. He will not, therefore, speak of Himself, because He is not

of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, He will speak. He will hear from Him from Whom He proceeds. For Him to hear is to know, as was discussed above. Since, therefore, [He is] not from Himself, but from Him from Whom He proceeds, from Whom He has His essence, from Him He has His knowledge also. From Him, then, is His hearing, which is nothing other than His essence. Nor let it disturb [anyone] that a verb of the future tense has been used; for it is not said: Whatever He has heard, or anything else, but, Whatever He shall hear, He will speak. For that hearing is everlasting, because the knowledge is everlasting. But in that which is everlasting, without beginning and without end, whatever tense of verb be used, whether past or present or future, it is used not falsely. For although that unchangeable nature does not admit Was and Will be, but only Is (for it truly is, because it cannot be changed; and therefore to it alone had it been fitting to say: I am Who am; and you shall say to the children of Israel: He Who is has sent me to you [Exod. 3:14]); yet because of the changeableness of the times in which our mortality and our changeableness are engaged, we say not falsely both Was and Is and Will be. He was in past ages, He is in present ones, He will be in future ones. He was, because He was never wanting; He will be, because He will never be wanting; He is, because He always is. For He does not, as one who no longer is, perish with things past; nor slip away with things present, as one who does not abide; nor will He arise with things future, as one who had not been. Accordingly, since human speech varies according to the revolutions of the times, because through no times could He have been wanting, or can He or will He be able, the words of any tense whatever are said truly of Him. The Holy Spirit, therefore, always hears, because He always knows; therefore He both knew, and knows, and will know; and for this reason He both heard, and hears, and will hear, because, as we have already said, for Him to hear is the same as to know; and for Him to know is the same as to be. From Him, then, He heard, hears, will hear, from Whom He is. He is from Him from Whom He proceeds. But what He adds:

He will glorify Me, because He will receive of Mine, and will announce [it] to you, is not to be passed over carelessly. For what He says, He will glorify Me, can be understood thus: that by pouring forth charity in the hearts of believers, and making them spiritual, He would make plain to them how the Son, Whom before they had known only according to the flesh, and Whom, being men, they had thought of as a man, was equal to the Father; or certainly, that, filled with confidence through that very charity, and fear driven out, they announced Christ to men, and so His fame was spread through the whole circle of the earth, so that He would have said: He will glorify Me, as if He were saying: He will take away fear from you, and will give love, by which, preaching Me the more ardently, you will spread the fragrance of My glory through the whole world, you will commend My honour. For what they were to do in the Holy Spirit, this He said that the same Spirit would do, as is also that: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you (Matt. 3). For the Greek word, which is δοξάσει, the Latin interpreters have rendered, each in his own translation, one as clarificabit, another as glorificabit, since that very thing which in Greek is called δόξα, from which δοξάσει is said, [is] both claritas

is rendered, and gloria. For by glory each one becomes bright, and by brightness glorious; and for this reason what is signified by either word is one and the same. And as the ancient most illustrious authors of the Latin tongue defined it, glory is frequent report of someone with praise. When this has come about in this world concerning Christ, it is not to be believed that it has conferred anything great on Christ, but on the world. For to praise the good profits, not the one praised, but those who praise. Wherefore, since nothing is to be said in this place of those who revile and blaspheme Christ, because He is speaking of His glory, by which He was glorified in the world, the Holy Spirit did not glorify Him with true glory except in the holy Catholic Church. For elsewhere, that is, whether among heretics or among certain pagans, there cannot be true glory on earth, even where there seems to be frequent report of Him with praise; His true glory in the Catholic Church is thus sung through the Prophet: Be Thou exalted above the heavens, O God, and Thy glory above all the earth (Ps. 56:6). Since, therefore, after His exaltation the Holy Spirit was to come, and to glorify Him, this the sacred psalm, this the Only-begotten Himself promised would be, which we see fulfilled. But what He says: He will receive of Mine, and will announce [it] to you, hear with Catholic ears, grasp with Catholic minds. For it is not on this account, as certain heretics have thought, that the Holy Spirit is less than the Son, as though the Son receives from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Son, by certain degrees of natures: far be it to believe this, far be it to say this, far be it for Christian hearts to think it. Finally He Himself at once resolved the question, and explained why He had said this.

All things, He says, whatsoever the Father has, are Mine; therefore I said that He will receive of Mine, and will announce [it] to you. What more do you want? Therefore the Holy Spirit received from the Father, from Whom the Son received, because in this Trinity the Son is born of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father; but He Who is born of none, proceeds from none, is the Father alone. But how the only-begotten Son said: All things that the Father has are Mine, since certainly not in the way that it was said to that son who was not only-begotten, but the elder of two: You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours (Luke 15:31), will be treated with careful consideration, if the Lord wills, in that place where the Only-begotten says to the Father: And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine.

A little while and you shall see Me no longer; and again a little while, and you shall see Me, because I go to the Father. These things were so obscure to the disciples before what He says was fulfilled, that, asking among themselves what it was that He was saying, they confessed that they did not know at all. For the Gospel continues:

Then some of His disciples said to one another: What is this that He says to us: A little while, and you shall not see Me, and again a little while and you shall see Me? and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that He says, A little while? We do not know what He is saying. For this is what disturbed them, that He said a little while, and you shall not see Me. For in what preceded, because He had not said a little while, but had said I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer,

He seemed to them to have spoken openly, and they did not ask anything among themselves about this. Now, therefore, what was then obscure to them, and was soon made manifest, is certainly now manifest to us; for after a little while He suffered, and they did not see Him. Again after a little while He rose again, and they saw Him. But as for what He says: You shall see Me no longer, since by this word, that is, no longer, He wished this to be understood, that they would not see Him any further, we have expounded how it is to be taken there, where He said: The Holy Spirit will convict the world of justice, because I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer, namely because they would not see Christ mortal any further.

But Jesus knew, as the evangelist says next, that they wished to question Him, and He said to them: Do you inquire about this among yourselves, that I said: A little while, and you shall not see Me, and again a little while, and you shall see Me? Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. And this can be taken thus, that the disciples of the Lord were made sorrowful by the death of the Lord, and immediately rejoiced at the resurrection. But the world, by which name are signified the enemies by whom Christ was slain, certainly rejoiced then, when Christ was slain, when the disciples were made sorrowful. For by the name of the world can be understood the wickedness of this world, that is, of the men who are friends of this world. Whence the apostle James says in his Epistle: Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world will be made an enemy of God (Jas. 4:4). By which enemies of God it came about that not even His Only-begotten was spared. Then He adds, and says:

A woman, when she is in labour, has sorrow, because her hour has come. But when she has brought forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you therefore now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you. Nor does this likeness seem difficult to understand, since its comparison is ready to hand, He Himself explaining why it was spoken. For the labour is compared to sorrow, but the birth to joy, which is usually greater when not a girl but a boy is born. But what He says: Your joy no one shall take away from you, because their joy is Jesus Himself, signifies [perhaps read: signifies] what the Apostle says: Christ rising from the dead dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). Up to this point in this passage of the Gospel, on which we are disputing today, everything has run on as if with easy understanding. Keener attention is needed in what follows.

For what is it that He says: And in that day you shall not ask Me anything? This word, namely rogare, signifies not only to request but also to question; and the Greek Gospel, from which this was translated, has such a word that either can be understood by it, so that this ambiguity is not resolved from there either; although even if it were resolved, not on that account would no question remain. For the Lord Christ, after

He had risen again, we read both that He was questioned and that He was asked. For He was questioned by the disciples when He was about to ascend into heaven, when He would be made present, and when the kingdom of Israel would be (Acts 1:6). But when He was already in heaven, He was asked by the holy Stephen to receive his spirit (Acts 7:58). And who would dare either to think or to say that Christ sitting in heaven is not to be asked, and that abiding on earth He was to be asked? That immortal He is not to be asked, that mortal He ought to have been asked? Nay rather, dearly beloved, let us ask Him that He Himself may untie the knot of this question, shining in our hearts so that we may see the things that He says. For I think that what He says: But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from you, is not to be referred to that time in which He rose again and showed them His flesh to be seen and touched, but rather to that of which He had already said: He who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. For He had already risen again, He had already shown Himself to them in the flesh, He was already sitting at the right hand of the Father, when the same Apostle John, whose this Gospel also is, was saying in his Epistle: Now we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when it shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (I John 3:2). This vision is not of this life but of the life to come; not temporal, but eternal. This is eternal life, as the Life Himself says: That they may know Thee, He says, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent (John 17:3). Of this vision and knowledge the Apostle says: We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know, even as I am known (I Cor. 13:12). This fruit of all her labour the Church now travails with in desiring, then she will bring it forth in beholding. She travails in groaning, she will bring forth in rejoicing. She travails in praying, she will bring forth in praising; and therefore [it is] a male, since to this fruit of contemplation all the duties of action are referred. For it alone is free, because it is sought for its own sake; it is not referred to anything else; action serves it. For to it is referred whatever is done well, because it is done for its sake. But it is held and possessed not for the sake of anything else, but for its own sake. There, therefore, is the end which suffices us; it will therefore be eternal. For no end suffices us except that of which there is no end. This had been inspired in Philip when he said: Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us (John 14:8). In which showing the Son also made promise, saying: Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? (ibid. 14:10). Of this, therefore, I judge the things that were said above to be better understood: A little while, and you shall see no longer; and again a little while, and you shall see Me. For this whole span in which the present age flies past is a little while. Whence the evangelist himself says in his Epistle: It is the last hour (I John 2:18). For He added: Because I go to the Father; which is to be referred to the former sentence, where He says: A little while, and you shall see Me no longer; and again a little while, and you shall see Me. For by going to the Father,

He was going to bring it about that they would not see Him. And for this reason it was not said because He was going to die and to withdraw from their sight until He should rise again, but because He was going to go to the Father: which He did after He had risen again and, having conversed with them for forty days, ascended into heaven. To them, therefore, He says: A little while, and you shall see Me no longer, who then saw Him bodily, because He was going to go to the Father, and they were not thereafter to see Him mortal, such as they saw Him when He was speaking these things. But what He added: And again a little while, and you shall see Me, He promised to the whole Church, just as He promised to the whole: Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28:20). The Lord does not delay the promise: a little while, and we shall see Him where we shall ask nothing, question nothing, because nothing will remain to be questioned, nothing will lie hidden to be sought. This little while seems long to us, since it is still going on: when it is finished, then we shall feel how little a while it was. Let not our joy, therefore, be such as the world has, of which it was said: But the world shall rejoice. Yet in the travail of this desire let us not be sorrowful without joy, but, as the Apostle says, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation (Rom. 12:12), because the woman in travail herself, to whom we have been compared, rejoices more over the offspring soon to be than she is sorrowful over the present pain.

Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you. It has already been said in the earlier parts of this discourse of the Lord, on account of those who ask some things of the Father in the name of Christ and do not receive: whatever is asked against the principle of salvation is not asked in the name of the Saviour. For it is not only [the name] of letters and syllables, but what the sound itself signifies, and what is rightly and truly understood by that sound, that is to be taken when He says in My name. Hence he who thinks of Christ what is not to be thought of the only Son of God does not ask in His name, even if he does not keep silent [the name of] Christ in letters and syllables, since he asks in the name of him of whom he thinks when he asks. But he who thinks of Him what is to be thought, he asks in His name; and he receives what he asks, if he does not ask against everlasting salvation. But he receives when he ought to receive. For some things are not denied, but are deferred, so that they may be given at a fitting time. So indeed is what He says, He will give you, to be understood, that those benefits may be known to be signified by these words which belong properly to those who ask. For all the saints are heard for themselves, but they are not heard for all, whether friends or enemies or any others whatever, because it was not said in any way whatever, He will give, but He will give you.

Until now, He says, you have not asked anything in My name; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. This that He says, Full joy, is assuredly not a carnal but a spiritual joy. And when it is so great that nothing more is to be added to it, then beyond doubt it will be full. Whatever, therefore, is asked that pertains to the attaining of this joy, this is what is to be asked in the name of Christ, if we understand the divine

grace, if we truly seek the blessed life. But whatever else is asked, nothing is asked, not because it is no thing at all, but because in comparison with so great a thing whatever else is desired is nothing. For man is not altogether no thing, of whom the Apostle says: He who thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing. For in comparison with the spiritual man, who knows that by the grace of God he is what he is, if anyone presumes vain things, he is even nothing. So, then, can rightly be understood: Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you, so that by what He says, If anything, not just anything whatever is understood, but something which in comparison with the blessed life is not nothing; and what follows: Until now you have not asked anything in My name, can be understood in two ways: either, because you have not asked in My name, since you have not known that name as it is to be known; or you have not asked anything, since in comparison with the thing which you ought to have asked, what you have asked is to be held as nothing. So, then, that they may ask in His name not nothing but full joy, since if they ask anything else, that anything is nothing, He exhorts them, saying: Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full, that is, ask this in My name, that your joy may be full, and you shall receive. For of this [joy] the divine mercy will by no means defraud His saints who persevere well in asking.

These things, He says, I have spoken to you in proverbs. The hour comes when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but will announce to you openly of the Father. I could say that this hour of which He speaks ought to be understood as the age to come, where we shall see openly, as the blessed Paul says, face to face (1 Cor. 3 [sic]), so that what He says: These things I have spoken to you in proverbs, may be that which was said by the same Apostle: We see now through a mirror in an enigma (ibid.). But I will announce to you, because the Father will be seen through the Son, according to that which He says elsewhere: Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him (Luke 10:22). But what follows seems to stand in the way of this sense:

In that day you shall ask in My name. For in the age to come, when we have arrived at the kingdom, where we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2), what shall we be going to ask, when our desire shall be satisfied with good things (Ps. 102:5)? Whence also in another psalm it is said: I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall be made manifest (Ps. 16:15). For asking belongs to some want, of which there will be none there, where this satiety will be. It remains, therefore, as far as I am able to understand, that the Lord Jesus be understood to have promised that He would make His disciples spiritual from carnal or animal [men], though not yet such as we shall be when we shall have even a spiritual body, but such as he was who said: We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor. 2:6); and: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal (1 Cor. 3:1); and: We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given us by God, which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the animal man does not

perceives the things that are of the Spirit of God (I Cor. 2:14). Not perceiving, therefore, the things that are of the Spirit of God, the animal man hears whatever he hears about the nature of God in such a way that he cannot think of anything other than a body, however very vast or immense, however bright and beautiful a body. Yet for this reason whatever sayings of wisdom concern the incorporeal and unchangeable substance are proverbs to him: not that he reckons them as proverbs, but because he thinks in the way of those who are accustomed to hear proverbs and not to understand them. But when the spiritual man has begun to judge all things, while he himself is judged by no one (I Cor. 2:15) (even if in this life he still sees as through a mirror, in part, yet not by any sense of the body, not by any imaginary thought, by which one grasps or forms any likenesses of bodies whatever, but by the most certain understanding of the mind, so that God is seen to be not a body but spirit, so plainly that, as the Son announces of the Father, He too Who announces is seen to be of the same substance); then they ask in His name, because in the sound of His name they understand nothing other than the very reality which is called by this name. They are able in some fashion to think that our Lord Jesus Christ, in so far as He is man, intercedes with the Father for us; but in so far as He is God, that He also hears us together with the Father; which I think He signified where He says:

And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father for you. For only the spiritual eye of the mind rises to behold this: how the Son does not ask the Father, but the Father and the Son together hear those who ask.

For the Father Himself, He says, loves you, because you have loved Me. Does He love for this reason, that we love? Or rather, because He loves, do we for that reason love? Let the same evangelist himself answer from his Epistle. We love, he says, because He first loved us (I John 4:19). Hence, then, it came about that we loved, because we were loved. Utterly is it the gift of God, to love God. He Himself gave that He should be loved, Who loved when He was not loved. We were loved when displeasing, so that there might be in us that by which we should please. For we would not love the Son unless we loved the Father also. The Father loves us because we love the Son, since we have received from the Father and the Son that we should love the Father and the Son. For the Spirit of both pours forth charity in our hearts, through which Spirit we love both the Father and the Son, and which Spirit we love with the Father and the Son. Our devout love, therefore, by which we worship God, God made, and saw that it is good; for this reason indeed He loved us ourselves, because He loved what He Himself had made. But He would not make in us something to love unless He loved us before He made it.

And you have believed, He says, that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world. Again I leave the world, and go to the Father. Plainly we believe. For it ought not to seem incredible on this account, that, coming to the world, He so goes forth from the Father as not to have forsaken the Father; and so goes to the Father, having left the world, as not to forsake the world. For He went forth from the Father because He is from the Father; and He came into the world because He showed to the world His body, which He took from the virgin. He left the world by bodily departure, He went on to the Father by

the ascension of the man, nor did He forsake the world in the governance of His presence. Such were the disciples of Christ when, before the passion, He spoke with them, great things with little ones, but as it was fitting that great things should be spoken even to little ones, because, not yet having received the Holy Spirit in the way they received Him after His resurrection, whether by His own breathing upon them or from above, they savoured human things more than divine, as is made clear by many indications throughout the whole Gospel. Hence too is this which they said in this reading. For the Evangelist says:

His disciples say to Him: Behold, now You speak plainly, and speak no proverb. Now we know that You know all things, and there is no need for You that anyone should question You. By this we believe that You came forth from God. The Lord Himself had said a little before: These things I have spoken to you in proverbs; the hour comes when I shall no longer speak to you in proverbs. How then do these men say: Behold, now You speak plainly, and speak no proverb? Had the hour already come in which He had promised that He would no longer speak in proverbs? That the hour had not yet come, the continuation of His words plainly shows, which still promises that hour in which He will no longer speak in proverbs, but will announce to them plainly of the Father: in which hour He says that they will ask in His name, and that He will not ask the Father for them, because the Father Himself loves them, because they themselves have loved Christ and have believed that He came forth from the Father and came into the world, about to leave the world again and to go to the Father. Since, then, that hour is still being promised in which He is to speak without proverbs, why do these men say: Behold, now You speak plainly, and speak no proverb? Unless it is that the things which He Himself knows are proverbs to those who do not understand? Which they understand so little that they do not even understand that they do not understand. For they were little ones; they did not yet judge spiritually, who were hearing about things pertaining not to the body but to the spirit. Finally, admonishing them about this very age of theirs, still small and weak according to the inner man:

Jesus answered them: Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, and has now come, that you will be scattered each to his own, and will leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. A little before He had said: I leave the world, and go to the Father; now He says: The Father is with Me. Who goes to Him Who is with Him? But to one who understands this is a word, to one who does not understand, a proverb; yet in such a way that, as it is not understood by the little ones, it is in some fashion fled from, and even if it does not offer them solid food, because they do not yet grasp it, at least it does not deny them the nourishment of milk. It is from this nourishment that they knew that He knew all things, and that there was no need for Him that anyone should question Him. Why indeed they said this may be asked. For it seems rather that it should have been said: There is no need for You to question anyone, not, That anyone should question You. For they had said: We know that You know all things; and surely he who knows all things is more usually questioned by those who do not know, so that those who question may hear what they wish from him who knows all things, not that he himself, who knows all things, should question as if wishing to know something. What then does it mean that to Him whom

they knew to know all things, when it would seem that they ought to have said: There is no need for You to question anyone, they thought rather that it should be said: There is no need for You that anyone should question You? What of the fact that we read that both were done, namely that the Lord both questioned and was questioned? But this is quickly resolved, because it was not He but they who had need of this, those whom He questioned or by whom He was questioned. For He did not question any in order to learn something from them, but rather to teach them; and those who questioned Him, wishing to learn something from Him, certainly had this need, that they should know certain things from Him Who knew all things. Clearly, then, there was no need for Him that anyone should question Him for this reason: because we, when we are questioned by those who wish to know something from us, recognize from their very questions what they wish to learn. We therefore need to be questioned by those whom we wish to teach something, so that we may know their inquiries, to which an answer must be given. But He Who knew all things had no need even of this; nor did He need to come to know through anyone's question what each wished to know from Him, because before He was questioned He knew the will of the questioner. But He allowed Himself to be questioned for this reason: that, whether to those who were then present, or to those who were to hear these things when spoken or to read them when written, He might show what kind of men those were by whom He was questioned, and in that way we might know either by what frauds He was not deceived, or by what approaches progress was made with Him. To foresee the thoughts of men, and therefore to have no need that anyone should question Him, was not a great thing for God, but it was a great thing for the little ones who said to Him: By this we believe that You came forth from God. But much greater was that which He wished them to reach out and grow towards understanding: that when they had said, and said truly, You came forth from God, He says: The Father is with Me, lest they should think that the Son had gone forth from the Father in such a way as to suppose that He had also departed from Him. Then, concluding this great and lengthy discourse:

These things, He says, I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have distress; but take courage, I have overcome the world. This distress was to have that beginning of which He spoke above, when, to show them to be little ones, to whom, as they did not yet understand and took one thing for another, whatever great and divine things He had said were in a manner proverbs, He says: Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, and has now come, that you will be scattered each of you to his own. Behold the beginning of the distress, but not of one that would continue in that manner. For in what He added, And you will not leave Me alone, He does not wish them to be such, in the distress that followed, which they were to have in the world after His ascension, as to leave Him, but rather that they should have peace in Him, abiding in Him. For when He was seized, they left not only His flesh with their flesh, but also the faith with their mind. To this pertains what He says: Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes that you will be scattered to your own, and will leave Me. As if He were saying: Then you will be so troubled that you will leave even what you now believe. For there came

to such despair, and (if I may so put it) to the death of their former faith, as appeared in that Cleopas, who after His resurrection, not knowing that he was speaking with Him, and telling Him what had befallen him, says: We were hoping that it was He Who was to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21). Behold how they had left Him, forsaking even the very faith by which they had formerly believed in Him. But in that distress which they endured after His glorification, having received the Holy Spirit, they did not leave Him; and although they fled from city to city, they did not flee back from Him; but having distress in the world, so as to hold peace in Him, they were fugitives from Him [Or should one read: were not?], but rather had Him as their refuge. For when the Holy Spirit had been given, there came about in them what is now said to them: Take courage, for I have overcome the world.

They took courage, and they overcame. In Whom, if not in Him? For He would not have overcome the world if the world were overcoming His members. Hence the Apostle says: Thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory (I Cor. 15:57), and at once added: Through our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid.), Who had said to His own: Take courage, for I have overcome the world. Before these words, which we are now, with the Lord's help, about to treat, Jesus had said: These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace: which we ought to take not as the more recent things said by Him a little above, but as all things, whether whatever He spoke to them from the time He began to have them as disciples, or at any rate from the time when, after supper, He began this wonderful and lengthy discourse. For He recalled such a reason why He had spoken to them that there may be referred most rightly to that end either all that He spoke to them, or especially those things which He said when now about to die for them, as His last words, after he who was to betray Him had gone out from the holy banquet. For He commended this as the reason of His discourse, that they should have peace in Him, for the sake of which everything is done that makes us Christians. For this peace will have no end in time, and it will itself be the end of all our hope, intention and action. For its sake we are imbued with His sacraments, for its sake we are instructed by wonderful works and words, for its sake we believe and hope in Him, and are kindled with His love, as far as He grants. In this peace we are consoled in all distresses; by it we are freed from all distresses. For its sake we bravely endure every tribulation, that in it we may reign happily without any tribulation. Fittingly He closed with it the words which were proverbs to the disciples, who understood little. When therefore He had said for what purpose He had spoken all things, namely that they should have peace in Him while having distress in the world, and had exhorted them to have confidence, since He Himself has overcome the world, having finished the discourse that was addressed to them, He then directed His words to the Father, and now began to pray. For thus the evangelist goes on, saying:

CHAPTER XVII.

These things Jesus spoke, and, having lifted up His eyes to heaven, He said: Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son. The Lord, only-begotten and co-eternal with the Father, could, in the form of a servant and from the form of a servant, if there were need of this, pray

in silence; but He willed so to show Himself to the Father as one who prays that He remembered that He is our teacher. Accordingly, the prayer which He made for us He made known also to us, since of so great a Master of ours not only is the discourse addressed to them, but also the prayer to the Father on their behalf; and if theirs, who were present to hear these words, then surely ours too, who were to read them when written down. Wherefore by this which He says, Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, He showed that all time, and what He should do or allow to be done and when, was disposed by Him Who is not subject to time, since the things that were to come in each several time have their efficient causes in the wisdom of God, in which there are no times. Let it not be believed, then, that this hour came under the pressure of fate, but rather by God's ordaining; nor did any necessity of the stars bind the passion of Christ. For far be it that the stars should compel the maker of the stars to die. So it was not time that drove Christ to die, but Christ Who chose the time at which He would die, Who also, together with the Father from Whom He was born without time, appointed the time at which He was born of the Virgin. In accordance with this true and sound doctrine the apostle Paul also says: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son (Gal. 4:4); and God through the prophet: In an acceptable time, He says, I have heard Thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped Thee (Isa. 49:8); and again the Apostle: Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (II Cor. 6:2). He says therefore, Father, the hour has come, He Who with the Father disposed all hours, as though saying: Father, the hour which We appointed together for My glorification, for the sake of men and among men, has come: glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. Some take the Son's being glorified by the Father to lie in this, that He did not spare Him, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). But if He is said to be glorified by the passion, how much more by the resurrection? For in the passion His humility rather than His glory is set forth, as the Apostle bears witness, who says: He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8). Then he goes on also about His glorification, when he says: Wherefore God also has exalted Him, and has given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (ibid. 2:9–11). This is the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, which took its beginning from His resurrection. His humility, then, begins in the Apostle's discourse from the place where he says: He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (ibid. 2:7), and reaches to the death of the cross. His glory begins from the place where he says: Wherefore God also has exalted Him, and reaches to where He is in the glory of God the Father. That the Mediator of God and men, then, the man Christ Jesus, might be glorified or made glorious by the resurrection, He was first humbled by the passion; for He would not have risen from the dead if He had not died. Humility is the merit of glory; glory is the reward of humility. But all this was done in the form of a servant. In the form of God, however, glory always was and always will be; nay rather, it was not as if

it is no longer; nor will it be, as if it were not yet; but without beginning, without end, glory always is. When therefore He says, Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, it is to be understood as if He had said: The hour has come for sowing humility; do not delay the fruit of glory. But what does that mean which follows:

That Thy Son may glorify Thee? That the Son was glorified by the Father according to the form of a servant, which the Father raised from the dead and set at His right hand, the fact itself shows, and no Christian doubts it. But since He did not only say, Father, glorify Thy Son, but added also, that Thy Son may glorify Thee, it is rightly asked how the Son glorified the Father, since the everlasting glory of the Father was neither diminished in the human form nor could be increased in His divine perfection. But in itself the glory of the Father can be neither lessened nor increased; among men, however, it was without doubt less when God was known only in Judaea (Ps. 75:2), and the children did not yet praise the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps. 112:3). But because this was done through the Gospel of Christ, that through the Son the Father should become known to the nations, the Son assuredly glorified the Father. If, however, the Son had only died and had not risen, without doubt He would neither have been glorified by the Father nor have glorified the Father. But now, glorified by the Father through the resurrection, He glorifies the Father by the preaching of His resurrection. The very order of the words makes this plain. Glorify, He says, Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee, as if He were saying: Raise Me up, that through Me Thou mayest become known to the whole world. Then, unfolding more and more how the Son glorifies the Father:

As Thou hast given Him, He says, power over all flesh, that to all that Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life. By all flesh He meant every soul, signifying the whole by a part, just as again the whole man is signified by his higher part where the Apostle says: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers (Rom. 13:1). For what did he mean by every soul, if not every man? But this, that power over all flesh was given to Christ by the Father, is to be understood according to the man; for according to God all things were made through Him, and in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col. 1:16). As therefore Thou hast given Him power, He says, over all flesh, so let the Son glorify Thee, that is, make Thee known to all the flesh which Thou hast given Him. For Thou hast so given it that to all that Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life.

And this is eternal life, He says, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. The order of the words is: that they may know Thee, and Him Whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, as the only true God. For the Holy Spirit too is understood as a consequence, because He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, as the substantial and consubstantial charity of both, since the Father and the Son are not two gods; nor are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit three gods; but the Trinity itself is the one only true God. Yet the Father is not the same as the Son, nor the Son the same as the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the same as the Father or the Son, since they are three, the Father, and the Son,

and the Holy Spirit, but the Trinity itself is one God. If then the Son glorifies Thee in this way, as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, and hast so given it that to all that Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life, and this is eternal life, that they may know Thee: thus, then, the Son glorifies Thee, that He makes Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Further, if the knowledge of God is eternal life, the more we advance in this knowledge, the more we tend towards living. But we shall not die in eternal life. Then, therefore, the knowledge of God will be perfect, when there will be no death. Then will be the highest glorification of God, because the highest glory. Now glory, by which men are called glorious, was defined by the ancients thus: Glory is frequent report of someone with praise. But if a man is praised when report is believed, how will God be praised when He Himself is seen? On which account it is written: Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house; for ages of ages they shall praise Thee (Ps. 83:5). There will be praise of God without end where there will be full knowledge of God; and because full knowledge, therefore glorification, or making glorious. But first God is glorified here, while, being announced to men, He becomes known, and is proclaimed through the faith of believers, on which account He says:

I have glorified Thee upon the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. He does not say "Thou didst command", but "Thou gavest", where evident grace is set forth. For what has human nature, even in the Only-begotten, that it has not received? Did it not receive the gift of doing no evil but all things good, when it was taken up into unity of person by the Word, through Whom all things were made? But how did He finish the work which He received to do, when there still remained the trial of the passion, in which above all He offered His martyrs an example to follow; whence the apostle Peter says: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His footsteps (I Pet. 2:21): unless it is that He says He has finished what He most certainly knew He would finish? Just as long before, in prophecy, He used words of past time, when what He was saying was to happen after very many years. They have dug, He says, My hands and My feet; they have numbered all My bones (Ps. 21:17–18). He does not say, They will dig and they will number. And in this very Gospel: All things, He says, that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you (John 15:15). To whom He says afterwards: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12). For He Who by certain and unchangeable causes predestined all future things has done whatever He is going to do. For by the prophet too it was said of Him: Who has made the things that are to be. In accordance with this He also says what follows:

And now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. For above He said: Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. In this order of words He had shown that the Son was first to be glorified by the Father, so that the Son too might glorify the Father. But now He says: I have glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do; and now glorify Me. As though He Himself had first glorified the Father, by Whom He then asks to be glorified. It is to be understood, therefore, that in both

word He used above according to what was to come: Glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify; but that now He used a word of past time about a thing to come, where He says: I have glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. Then, by saying, And now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself, as if He were to be glorified afterwards by the Father, Whom He Himself had first glorified, what does He show, unless that above, where He says, I have glorified Thee upon the earth, He spoke as if He had done what He was going to do; but here He asked that the Father should do that through which the Son was going to do it, that is, that the Father should glorify the Son, through which glorification of the Son the Son too was going to glorify the Father? Finally, if about the thing which was to come we also put a word of future time, where He Himself put the past for the future time, no obscurity of meaning will remain, as if He had said: I will glorify Thee upon the earth; I will finish the work which Thou gavest Me to do, and now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself. Surely it is then as plain as that where He says: Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. And it is altogether the same meaning, except that here the manner of the same glorification is stated, but there passed over in silence, as though the one were explained by the other to those whom it might disturb how the Father glorified the Son, and above all how the Son glorified the Father. For by saying that the Father is glorified by Him upon the earth, but He Himself by the Father with the same Father, He assuredly showed the manner of each glorification. For He glorified the Father upon the earth by preaching Him to the nations; but the Father glorified Him with Himself by setting Him at His right hand. But He preferred afterwards, speaking of glorifying the Father, where He says, I have glorified Thee, to put a word of past time, in order to show that it was already done in predestination, and that what was most certainly to come was to be held as already done; that is, that, glorified by the Father with the Father, the Son too should glorify the Father upon the earth. But He disclosed this predestination more plainly in His own glorification, by which the Father glorified Him, in what He added: With the glory which I had before the world was with Thee. The order of the words is: which I had with Thee before the world was. To this end avails what He says: And now glorify Me. That is, as then, so also now. As then by predestination, so also now by fulfilment, do in the world what was already with Thee before the world. Do in its own time what Thou didst appoint before all times. Some have thought this is to be understood as though the human nature which was taken up by the Word were turned into the Word, and man were changed into God; nay rather, if we consider more carefully what they supposed, man would perish in God. For no one will say that by this change of the man the Word of God is either doubled or increased, so that either there are two where there was one, or there is more where there was less. Further, if the human nature, changed and turned into the Word, [is] the Word of God as great as He was, and what He was? This will follow: where is the man, if he has not perished? But nothing compels us to this opinion, which I see does not at all agree with the truth, if, when the Son says, And now glorify Thou Me, Father,

with Thyself, with the glory which I had before the world was with Thee, we understand the predestination of the glory of the human nature which is in Him, which was to become immortal from mortal with the Father; and that this was already done by predestination before the world was, which in the world too, if it were done in the whole of time. For if the Apostle said of us: As He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), why is it thought to be far from the truth if the Father glorified our Head at the time when He chose us in Him, that we might be His members? For we were chosen in the same way as He was glorified, since before the world was neither did we exist, nor did He, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (Rom. IV). But He Who through Him, in so far as He is His Word, has made even the things that are to be, and calls the things that are not as though they were (Rom. 4:17), assuredly according to that by which He is the Mediator of God and men, a man, God the Father glorified Him for us before the foundation of the world, just as He then chose us also in Him. For what does the Apostle say? Now we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom He predestined, He also called. Unless perhaps we shall fear to call Him predestined, because the Apostle seems to have said this only of us, that we are made conformed to His image. For it is rightly said that He is not predestined according to that by which He is the Word of God, God with God. For to what purpose should He be predestined, since He already was what He was, without beginning, without end, everlasting? But that had to be predestined which did not yet exist, that it might so come about in its own time, as it had been predestined before all times that it should come about. Whoever, therefore, denies that the Son of God was predestined, denies that this same Son was the Son of man. But on account of the contentious let us hear the Apostle on this point too, at the opening of his letters: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which He had promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning His Son, Who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, Who was predestined Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of the dead (Rom. 1:1–4). According to this predestination, then, He was also glorified before the world was, so that His glory, from the resurrection of the dead, should be with the Father, at Whose right hand He sits. When, therefore, He saw that the time had now come for that predestined glorification of His, so that what had already been done in predestination might now also be done in the rendering, He prayed, saying: And now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee; as though He were saying: the glory which I had with Thee, that is, that glory which I had with Thee in Thy predestination, it is time that I should have it also living at Thy right hand.

I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world. But if He speaks only of those disciples with whom He supped, and to whom, before

began to pray, then this does not pertain to that clarification, or (as others have rendered it) glorification, of which He was speaking above, by which the Son clarifies, or glorifies, the Father. For how great, or what kind of glory is it, to have become known to twelve, or rather eleven, mortals? But if by what He says, I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world, He wished all to be understood here, even those who were to believe in Him, belonging to His great Church which was to be from all nations, of which it is sung in the psalm, In the great Church I will confess to Thee (Ps. 34:18), this is plainly that glorification by which the Son glorifies the Father, when He makes His name known to all nations and to so many generations of men. And what He says here, I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world, is of the same kind as what He had said a little before: I have glorified Thee upon the earth; putting the past for the future time both there and here, as one who knew that it was predestined that it should be done, and therefore saying that He had done what He was without any doubt going to do. But that He said what He said, I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world, of those who were already His disciples, not of all who were to believe in Him, the words that follow show to be more credible. For when He had said this, He added:

They were Thine, and Thou gavest them to Me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things that Thou hast given Me are from Thee, because the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them, and they have received them and have known truly that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. Although all these things too could have been said of all the faithful to come, in a form already complete, while they were still to come, yet that He should be understood to be speaking these things of those disciples alone whom He then had, that rather compels us which He says a little later: While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest Me I have guarded; and none of them has perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. He means Judas, who betrayed Him. For out of that number of twelve apostles he alone perished. Then He adds: But now I come to Thee. From this it is manifest that He spoke of His bodily presence: While I was with them, I kept them, as though He were no longer with them in that presence. For in this way He wished to signify His ascension, which was soon to be, of which He said: But now I come to Thee, being about to go, that is, to the right hand of the Father, whence He is to come to judge the living and the dead, likewise in bodily presence, according to the rule of faith and sound doctrine; for in spiritual presence He was certainly going to be with them after His ascension, and with His whole Church in this world until the consummation of the age. Hence those of whom He said, While I was with them, I kept them, are not rightly understood to be any but those who, believing in Him, He had already begun to keep by His bodily presence, and whom He was about to leave by bodily absence, so that He might keep them with the Father by His spiritual presence. But afterwards He joins His other followers too, where He says: Yet I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe

in Me through their word; where He shows more plainly that He was not speaking above about all who belong to Him, from the place where He says: I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me, but only about those who were listening to Him when He said these things. So from the very opening of His prayer, where, with eyes lifted up to heaven, He said: Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee, up to what He says a little later: And now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was, He wished all His own to be understood, by making the Father known to whom He glorifies Him. For when He had said: That Thy Son may glorify Thee, He at once showed how this would come about, saying: As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that to all that Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. For the Father cannot be glorified by the knowledge of men unless He also is known through Whom He is glorified, that is, through Whom He becomes known to the peoples. This is the glorification of the Father, which was not brought about in those apostles alone, but comes about in all men to whom, as His members, Christ is the head. For it cannot be understood of the apostles alone: As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that to all that Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life, but surely of all to whom, believing in Him, eternal life is granted. Now, then, let us see what He says about those disciples of His by whom He was then being heard: I have manifested, He says, Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me. Did they not, then, know the name of God, since they were Jews? And where is what is read: In Judaea God is known, His name is great in Israel (Ps. 75:2)? So: I have manifested Thy name to these men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world, who hear Me saying these things; not that name of Thine by which Thou art called God, but that by which Thou art called My Father, a name which could not be manifested without the manifestation of the Son Himself. For as to His being called God, even to all the nations before they believed in Christ this name could not be altogether unknown. For such is the power of true divinity, that it cannot be wholly and utterly hidden from a rational creature already using its reason. For, except for a few in whom nature is excessively depraved, the whole human race confesses God as the author of this world. In this, therefore, that He made this world visible with heaven and earth, He was known to all the nations even before they were instructed in the faith of Christ. But in this, that He is not to be worshipped with wrongs done to Him and together with false gods, God is known in Judaea. And in this, that He is the Father of this Christ, through Whom He takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), this name of His, hidden before from all, He has now manifested to those whom the Father Himself gave Him out of the world. But how did He manifest it, if the hour had not yet come of which He had said above that the hour would come when, He says, I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but will tell you plainly of My Father? Or will a plain announcement be thought to be in proverbs? Why then was it said, I will tell plainly, unless because in

are in proverbs is not plainly? But what is not hidden in proverbs but made manifest in words is beyond doubt said plainly. How then did He manifest what He had not yet said plainly? Accordingly it must be understood that the past is put for the future tense, as in that saying: All things whatsoever I have heard from My Father I have made known to you, which He had not yet done, but He spoke as though He had done what He knew was immovably fixed beforehand that He would do. And what is: Whom Thou gavest Me out of the world? For it was said of them that they were not of the world. But this was the gift of regeneration, not of generation. What, too, is what follows: They were Thine, and Thou gavest them to Me? Were they at some time the Father's when they were not His only-begotten Son's? And did the Father at some time have anything without the Son? Far from it; yet God the Son at some time had something which the same Son as man did not yet have, because He had not yet been made man from His mother, while He nonetheless had all things together with the Father; that is why He said, They were Thine. God the Son did not separate Himself from this, without Whom the Father never had anything; but He is accustomed to attribute all that He can do to Him from Whom He is Who can do it. For from Whom He has His being, from Him He has His power; and He has always had both of these together, because He never was and could not. Wherefore whatever the Father could do, He always was with Him and could do, since He Who never was not, and never could not, never was without the Father, and the Father never was without Him. So when He says: And Thou gavest them to Me, He shows that it was as man that He received this power, to have them, since He Who was above all was not always man. Therefore, although He seems rather to have attributed it to the Father that He received them from Him, since whatever He is, He is from Him from Whom He is, yet He also gave them to Himself; that is, Christ as God with the Father gave men to Christ as man, which is not with the Father. Finally, He Who says in this place: They were Thine, and Thou gavest them to Me, had already said above to the same disciples: I have chosen you out of the world. Let carnal thinking be crushed here and perish utterly. The Son says that men were given Him by the Father out of the world, to whom He says in another place: I have chosen you out of the world. With the Father, the same Son, as man, received them out of the world from the Father. For the Father would not have given them to the Son had He not chosen them. And so the Son, just as He did not separate the Father from this when He said: I have chosen you out of the world, since the Father too chose them together with Him, so He did not separate Himself from it either when He said, They were Thine, since the Father was also the Father of the Son Himself. But now the same Son as man received those who were not His own, because He also received the form of a servant as His own, that is, a form which was not His own. He goes on and says: And they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things which Thou hast given Me are from Thee, that is, they have known that I am from Thee. For the Father gave all things at once when He begot Him Who should have all things. Because the words, He says, which Thou gavest Me I have given them; and they have received them, that is, they have understood and held them fast. For a word is received when it is grasped by the mind.

And they have truly known that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. Here too "truly" is to be understood.

For what He said: They have truly known, He wished to explain by adding: And they have believed. So they truly believed what they truly knew. For I came forth from Thee is the same as: Thou didst send Me. When, therefore, He had said They have truly known, lest anyone should think that this knowledge was already brought about by sight, not by faith, He added by way of explanation and they have believed, so that we should understand "truly", and should understand this to have been said: They have truly known, that is: They have truly believed; not in the way He indicated a little before, when He said: Now you believe; the hour is coming, and has now come, when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone; but they truly believed, as one ought to believe: unshakenly, firmly, steadfastly, bravely, no longer about to return to their own things and to leave Christ. So the disciples were not yet such as He calls them in words of the past tense, as though they already were; He was foretelling what they would be once they had received the Holy Spirit, Who, as was promised, would teach them all things. Before they received Him, how did they keep His word (which He said of them as though they had done it), when the first of them denied Him three times, though he had heard from His mouth what would befall the man who denied Him before men? So He gave them the words, as He says, which the Father gave Him. But when they received them spiritually, not outwardly in their ears but inwardly in their hearts, then they truly received them, because then they truly knew. And they truly knew because they truly believed. But how the Father gave those words to the Son Himself, in what words will a man be able to set it out? The question seems easier, to be sure, if He is believed to have received those words from the Father according to His being the Son of man, although, born of the Virgin, when and how He learned them, who will declare? since even His very generation, which was from the Virgin, who will declare (Isa. 53:8)? But if He is thought to have received these words from the Father according to His being begotten of the Father and co-eternal with the Father, let nothing of time be thought of there, as though He first existed without having them, and then received them so as to have what He did not have; for whatever God the Father gave to God the Son, He gave by begetting. For the Father gave the Son those things without which the Son could not be, just as He gave Him to be. For how else would He give any words to the Word, in Whom He has ineffably spoken all things?

I pray for them; I do not pray for the world, but for those whom Thou gavest Me. By the world He wishes to be understood here those who live according to the lust of the world and are not in that lot of grace by which they are chosen by Him out of the world. So He says He prays, not for the world, but for those whom the Father gave Him. For through this, that the Father has already given them to Him, it has come about that they do not belong to that world for which He does not pray. Then He adds:

For they are Thine. For the Father did not lose those whom He gave because He gave them to the Son, since the Son goes on to say:

And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine. Here it is clear enough how all that is the Father's belongs to the only-begotten Son: surely through this, that He too is God, and was born of the Father equal to the Father; not in the way it was said

to one of the two sons, namely the elder: You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours (Luke 15:31); for that was said of all those creatures which are below the holy rational creation, which are surely made subject to the Church. In this universal Church are understood both those two sons, the elder and the younger, together with all the holy angels, to whom we shall be equal in the kingdom of Christ and of God. But this: And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, was said in such a way that here is included even the rational creation itself, which is subject to none but God, so that all things below it may be subject to it. Since this, then, belongs to God the Father, it would not at the same time belong to the Son also, unless He were equal to the Father. For it was of this that He was treating when He said: I do not pray for the world, but for those whom Thou gavest Me, for they are Thine, and all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine. Nor is it right that the saints, of whom He spoke these things, should belong to anyone but Him by Whom they were created and sanctified. And therefore all that is theirs must belong to Him to Whom they themselves also belong. So, since they belong both to the Father and to the Son, He shows that those to whom they belong equally are equal. But what He said when speaking of the Holy Spirit: All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He will receive of Mine and will declare it to you, He said of those things which pertain to the very divinity of the Father, in which He is equal to Him, having all things that He has. For the Holy Spirit was not going to receive from the creation which is subject to the Father and the Son what He spoke of, He will receive of Mine, but surely from the Father, from Whom the Spirit proceeds, from Whom the Son also is born.

And I am glorified, He says, in them. Now He speaks of His glorification as though it had taken place, when it was still to come; above, however, He was asking the Father that it might take place. But whether it is the same glorification of which He had said: And now glorify Thou Me, Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee, must certainly be inquired. For if with Thee, how in them? Or, since this very thing becomes known to them, and through them to all who believe them as His witnesses, can we plainly understand thus that the Lord said of the Apostles that He is glorified in them? For by saying that it had already taken place, He showed that it had already been predestined, and He wished what was to come to be held as certain.

And now, He says, I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world. If you consider precisely that hour in which He was speaking, both were still in the world, He Himself, that is, and those of whom He said this. For we cannot and ought not to take it according to progress of heart and life, so that they are said to be still in the world because they still savour worldly things, while He is no longer in the world, savouring divine things. For one word is placed here which does not allow us to understand it so at all, since He does not say: And I am not in the world, but: I am no longer in the world, showing by this that He had been in the world and is no longer. Is it right, then, for us to believe that He once savoured worldly things and, freed from this error, no longer savours them? Who would clothe himself in so impious a sense? It remains, therefore, that according to that by which He too was in the world

was before, He said that He was no longer in the world, surely by bodily presence, meaning that His absence from the world would come soon, but theirs later: showing by this why He said that He was no longer here but they were here, when both He was here and they were here still. For He spoke as a man suiting Himself to men, according to the human manner of speaking. Do we not say daily of someone who is about to leave very shortly: He is no longer here? And this is especially wont to be said of the dying; although the Lord Himself, as though foreseeing what might trouble readers, adds:

And I am coming to Thee. In this way He explains, after a fashion, why He said: I am no longer in the world. So He commends to the Father those whom He is about to leave by His bodily absence, saying:

Holy Father, keep in Thy name those whom Thou gavest Me. Plainly He asks God as a man for His disciples, whom He received from God. But attend to what follows:

That they may be one, He says, as We also are. He does not say: That they may be one with Us; or: That we may be one, both they and We, as We are one; but He says: That they may be one, as We also are. Let them surely be one in their nature, as We also are one in Ours. Which He would beyond doubt not say truly unless He said it as God, since He is God of the same nature as the Father, according to which He said elsewhere: I and the Father are one (John 10:30), not according to that by which He is also man; for according to this He said, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28).

While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. When I come to Thee, He says, keep them in Thy name, in which I too kept them when I was with them. The Son as man kept His disciples in the Father's name while He was set among them by human presence. But the Father too kept in the Son's name those whom He heard when they asked in the Son's name. For to them the same Son had said: Amen, amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you. Nor ought we to take this so carnally, as though the Father and the Son keep us by turns, the guarding of us alternating between the two, as if one succeeded when the other departed. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Who is the one true blessed God, guard us together. But Scripture does not raise us up unless it comes down to us, just as the Word made flesh came down to raise up, not fell to lie there. If we have recognized Him coming down, let us rise with Him as He raises us, and understand that when He speaks thus He distinguishes the persons, not separates the natures. So when the Son was keeping His disciples by bodily presence, the Father was not waiting to succeed the departing Son in guarding them, but both kept them by spiritual power; and when the Son in going away took away His bodily presence, He held the spiritual guardianship with the Father; for when the Son as man received them to be guarded, He did not take them from the Father's guardianship; and when the Father gave them to the Son to be guarded, He did not give them without Him to Whom He gave them, but to the Son as man not without God, that is, without the very same Son. So the Son goes on and says:

Those whom Thou gavest Me I have guarded, and none of them has perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The betrayer of Christ is called the son of perdition, predestined to perdition according to the Scripture, because he is prophesied of above all in the hundred and eighth psalm.

But now, He says, I am coming to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. See, He says that He speaks in the world, He Who had said a little before: I am no longer in the world. Why He said that, we explained there; rather, we showed that He Himself explained it. So, because He had not yet gone away, He was still here; and because He was soon to go away, He was in a manner no longer here. But what this joy is of which He says: That they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves, has already been expressed above, where He says: That they may be one, as We also are. This joy of His, that is, conferred by Him upon them, He says is to be fulfilled in them; it was for this that He said He spoke in the world. This is that peace and blessedness in the world to come; to attain which we must live soberly and justly and piously in this world. The Lord, still speaking to the Father and praying for His disciples, says:

I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them. They had not yet experienced this in their sufferings, which came upon them afterwards; but He says these things in His usual way, foretelling the future in words of the past tense. Then, adding the reason why the world hated them:

Because they are not, He says, of the world, as I also am not of the world. This was conferred on them by regeneration. For by generation they were of the world: which is why He had already said to them: I have chosen you out of the world. It was granted them, then, that, like Him, they too should not be of the world, He Himself setting them free from the world. But He Himself was never of the world, Who even according to the form of a servant was born of the Holy Spirit, of Whom they were reborn. For if they are no longer of the world because they have been reborn of the Holy Spirit, then He was never of the world because He was born of the Holy Spirit.

I do not ask, He says, that Thou take them out of the world, but that Thou keep them from evil. For they still needed, though they were no longer of the world, to be nevertheless in the world. He repeats the same saying.

They are not of the world, He says, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. For thus they are kept from evil, which He prayed above might be done. But it may be asked how they were no longer of the world if they were not yet sanctified in the truth; or, if they already were, why He asks that they may be. Is it because even the sanctified advance in that same holiness and become holier, and this not without the help of God's grace, but with Him sanctifying their progress Who sanctified their beginning? Whence the Apostle too says: He Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). So the heirs of the new testament are sanctified in the truth, of which truth the sanctifications of the old testament had been shadows. And when they are sanctified in the truth, they are surely sanctified in Christ, Who truthfully

said: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Likewise when He says: The truth will set you free (John 8:32), explaining a little later what He had said: If, He says, the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free (ibid. 8:36); to show that what He had first called the Truth He afterwards called the Son. What else, then, did He say in this place too: Sanctify them in the truth, but: Sanctify them in Me? Finally, He goes on and does not cease to suggest this more openly.

Thy word, He says, is truth. What else did He say than: I am the truth? For the Greek Gospel has Λόγος, which is also read there where it is said: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). And surely we know that very Word to be the only-begotten Son of God, Who was made flesh and dwelt among us (ibid. 1:14). Hence here too one may put, and in some manuscripts it is put: Thy Word is truth, just as in some manuscripts it is also written there: In the beginning was the Speech. But in the Greek, without any variation, both there and here it is Λόγος. So the Father sanctifies in the truth, that is, in His Word, in His only-begotten, His heirs and His Son's co-heirs. But He is still speaking now of the apostles, for He goes on and adds thus:

As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Whom did He send but His apostles? For the very name ἀπόστολος, since it is Greek, means nothing but "sent" in Latin. So God sent His Son, not in the flesh of sin, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3); and His Son sent those whom, born in the flesh of sin, He sanctified from the stain of sin. But since, by this, that the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, was made head of the Church, they are His members, therefore He says what follows:

And for them I sanctify Myself. For what is: And for them I sanctify Myself, but: I sanctify them in Myself? since they too are I, because those of whom He says this are, as I have said, His members, and Christ is one, head and body, as the Apostle teaches when he says of the seed of Abraham: But if you are Christ's, then you are the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29), having said above: He does not say: And to seeds, as of many, but as of one: And to your seed, which is Christ (ibid. 3:16). If, then, the seed of Abraham is Christ, what else was said to those to whom it was said: Then you are the seed of Abraham, but: Then you are Christ's? Hence it is that in another place the same Apostle says: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh (Col. 1:24). He did not say "of my afflictions", but "of Christ's", because he was a member of Christ. Presently He adds:

That they also may be sanctified in the truth. What else is this than in Me? according as the Truth is that Word in the beginning, God, in Whom the Son of man Himself also was sanctified from the beginning of His creation, when the Word was made flesh, because the Word and the man became one person. Then, therefore, He sanctified Himself in Himself, that is, Himself the man in Himself the Word, because Christ, Word and man, is one, sanctifying the man

in the Word. But for the sake of His members: And for them, He says, I. That is, what I promised to them also, because they too are I; just as it profited Me in Myself, because I am man without them, so also I sanctify Myself, that is, I sanctify them in Me as Myself, since in Me they too are I. That they also may be sanctified in the truth. What is: They also, but: just as I in the Truth, which I am?

Yet I do not pray for these only. That is, for the disciples who were then with Him.

But also for those, He says, who are to believe in Me through their word. Here He wished all His own to be understood, not only those who were then in the flesh, but also those who were to come. For as many as afterwards believed in Him believed without doubt through the word of the apostles, and will believe until He comes. For He had said to them: And you will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. And through them the Gospel was ministered even before it was written. And surely whoever believes in Christ believes the Gospel. So we are not to understand only those whom He says will believe in Him through their word as the ones who heard the apostles themselves while they lived in the flesh; but also after their death we too, born long after, believe in Christ through their word, since those who were then with Him preached to the rest what they heard from Him; and so their word has come even to us, that we too might believe, wherever His Church is, and will come to those after us, whoever, wherever, will afterwards believe in Him. So Jesus might seem in this prayer not to have prayed for some of His own, unless we diligently search His words in this same prayer. For if He prayed first, as we have already shown, for those who were then with Him, and afterwards also for those who would believe in Him through their word, it can be said that He did not pray for those who were neither with Him then, when He was saying these things, nor afterwards believed through their word, but had believed in Him beforehand, whether through these men or in whatever way. For was Nathanael with Him then? Was that Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pilate for His body, whom this same John the Evangelist testifies was already His disciple? Were Mary His mother and the other women, whom we have learned in the Gospel were already then His disciples, were they with Him then, of whom the same John the evangelist often says: Many believed? For whence was that multitude of those who with branches partly went before, partly followed Him as He sat on the beast, saying: Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord (Ps. 8)? And with them the children, of whom He says it was foretold: Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise (1 Cor. 15)? Whence the five hundred brethren, to whom He would not have appeared together after the resurrection had they not believed in Him beforehand? Whence those hundred and nine who, with these eleven, were a hundred and twenty when, gathered together after His ascension, they awaited and received the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:15)? Whence were all these, if not from those of whom it was said: Many believed in Him (John 2:23)?

Did not the Saviour, then, pray for them at that time, since He prayed for those who were then with Him, and for others who had not yet believed in Him through their word, but were going to believe? But these were neither with Him then, and had already believed in Him before. I pass over the aged Simeon, who believed in Him as a little infant; Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:36); Zachary and Elizabeth (Luke 1), who prophesied of Him before He was born of the Virgin; their son John, His forerunner, the friend of the bridegroom, who both recognized Him in the Holy Spirit and proclaimed Him when absent and, when He was present, pointed Him out to others to be recognized (John 1). These I pass over, since it can be answered that there was no need to pray for such dead, who had departed hence with their great merits and, having been received, were at rest; for this is likewise answered concerning the just of old. For which of them could have been saved from the condemnation of the whole mass of perdition, which came about through one man, had he not believed, by the Spirit's revelation, in the one Mediator of God and men who was to come in the flesh? But was He to pray for the apostles, and not to pray for so many who were still in this life, and were not with Him then, and had already believed before? Who would say this? It must be understood, therefore, that they had not yet believed in Him in the way in which He Himself wished to be believed in, since even Peter himself, to whom, when he confessed and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), He had borne so great a testimony, was more unwilling that He should die than he believed that, once dead, He would rise again; whence he was soon called Satan by Him (Mark 8:33). So those who had already died, and by the Spirit's revelation did not at all doubt that Christ would rise, are found more faithful than those who, having believed that He would redeem Israel, on seeing His death lost all the hope they had placed in Him. So we believe nothing better than that after His resurrection, when the Holy Spirit had been imparted and the apostles taught and confirmed and first established as teachers in the Church, others believed through their word in the way in which one ought to believe in Christ; that is, so as to hold the faith of His resurrection; and that, therefore, all those too who seemed already to have believed in Him belonged to the number of those for whom He prayed, saying: Yet I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in Me through their word. But there remain for us, to resolve this question further, the blessed apostle Paul and that thief, cruel in crime, faithful on the cross. For Paul the Apostle says that he was made an apostle not by men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:1), and speaking of his own gospel he says: For I did not receive it from man, nor did I learn it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ (ibid. 1:12). How then will he be among those of whom it was said: They are to believe in Me through their word? And that thief believed at the very time when such faith as there had been in the teachers themselves failed. So neither did he believe in Christ Jesus through their word, and yet he so believed that Him Whom he saw crucified he confessed

not only as about to rise again, but also as about to reign, by saying: Remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom (Luke 23:42). Accordingly it remains that, if the Lord Jesus is to be believed to have prayed in this prayer for all His own whoever, in this life (which is a trial upon earth [Job 7:1]), either were then or were to come, we should understand what was said in this way, and believe that the word of faith which they preached in the world is signified here; and that it was called their word because it was first and chiefly preached by them. For it was already being preached by them on earth when Paul received that word of theirs through the revelation of Jesus Christ; whence he also compared the Gospel with them, lest perhaps he had run or should run in vain (Gal. 2:2); and they gave him their right hands, because in him too, although it was not given him through them, they found their own word, which they were already preaching and in which they had been grounded; of which word of Christ's resurrection the same Apostle says: Whether it be I or they, so we preach, and so you have believed (1 Cor. 15:11). And again: This, he says, is the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved (Rom. 10:8–9). And in the Acts of the apostles it is read that in Christ God has defined faith for all, raising Him from the dead. This word of faith, because it was preached principally and first by the apostles who had cleaved to Him, was therefore called their word (Acts 17:31). For it is not for that reason not the word of God because it was called their word, since the same Apostle says that the Thessalonians received it from him not as the word of men, but, he says, as it truly is, the word of God (1 Thess. 2:13). It is therefore God's because God gave it. But it was called theirs because God first and chiefly entrusted it to them to be preached. So in that prayer our Redeemer prayed for all whom He redeemed, whether then living in the flesh or to come afterwards, when, praying for the apostles who were then with Him, He added also those who would believe in Him through their word. So when the Lord Jesus had prayed for His disciples whom He then had with Him, and had added His others, saying: Yet I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in Me through their word, as though we were asking what, or why, He was asking for them, He immediately went on, saying:

That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us. And above, when He was still praying only for the disciples whom He had with Him: Holy Father, He said, keep in Thy name those whom Thou gavest Me, that they may be one, as We also are. This, then, He asked now for us also, which He then asked for them: that all, that is, both we and they, may be one. Here it must be carefully noticed 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; "are one" is understood. This is said more fittingly afterwards, because He had also said before of the disciples who were with Him that they may be one,

as we also [are]. Wherefore the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, in such a way that they are one, because they are of one substance. We, however, can indeed be in them, yet we cannot be one with them, because we and they are not of one substance, in so far as the Son with the Father is God. For in so far as He is man, He is of the same substance as we also are. But here He wished rather to commend that which He says in another place: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). There He signified that the nature of the Father and His own is the same; and for this reason, although the Father and the Son, or indeed the Holy Spirit, are in us, we must not think that they are of one nature with us. Thus, then, they are in us, or we in them, in such a way that they are one in their nature, we one in ours. For they are in us as God in His temple; but we are in them as the creature in its Creator. Then, when He had said that they also may be one in us, He added:

That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me (John 17:21). What, then, is "that all may be one, that the world may believe"? For those very "all" are the believing world. For it is not that some are those who were one, and the world is another, which is to believe because those were one; since without doubt He says "that all may be one" of those of whom He had said: And not for these only do I ask, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word (John 17:20), at once adding "that all may be one". But these "all", what are they if not the world, not indeed the hostile world, but the faithful one? For see, He who had said, I do not ask for the world (John 17:9), asks for the world, that it may believe, since there is a world of which it is written: That we may not be condemned with this world (I Cor. 11:32). For that world He does not ask; for He is not ignorant of what it is predestined to. There is also a world of which it is written: The Son of man came not to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Him (John 3:17). Whence the Apostle also says: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (II Cor. 5:19). It is for this world that He says: That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. For through this faith the world is reconciled to God, when it believes in Christ, who was sent by God. How then are we to understand what He says: That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me, unless that He did not set the cause in this, that the world should believe because those are one, as though it were to believe for the reason that it sees them to be one, since the world itself is all those who by believing become one; but He said in praying, That the world may believe, just as in praying He said, That all may be one, [and] in praying He said, That they also may be one in us; for this, that all may be one, is the same as that the world may believe, since by believing they become one, and perfectly one, who, though they were one by nature, by dissenting from the One were not one? Lastly, if we supply a third time the word He uses, I ask, or rather, to make it fuller, put it in everywhere, the exposition of this sentence will be plainer: I ask that all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee. I ask that they also may be one in us. I ask that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. For He added what He said, In us, so that we might know that our being made one by most faithful charity is to be ascribed to the grace of God,

not to ourselves; as the Apostle, when he had said, For you were once darkness, but now light, he says (Eph. 5:8); and lest they ascribe this to themselves, he added, in the Lord (ibid.). Then our Saviour, by asking the Father, was showing Himself to be man. Now, showing also that He Himself, since He is God with the Father, does what He asks:

And I, He says, have given them the glory which Thou hast given Me (John 17:22). What glory, if not immortality, which human nature was to receive in Him? For not even He Himself had yet received it; but, after His manner, on account of the unchangeableness of predestination, He signifies the future by words of past time: that He is now to be glorified, that is, raised up by the Father, and that He Himself is to raise us up to that glory at the end. This is like what He says elsewhere: As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will (John 5:21). And to whom, if not to the same as the Father? For whatever the Father does, the Son also does, not other things but these, and not otherwise but likewise; and for this reason He also raised Himself up. For whence else is: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19)? Accordingly, the glory of immortality which He says was given to Him by the Father, He is to be understood to have given to Himself as well, even though He does not say so. For this is why He often says that the Father alone does what He Himself also does: that whatever He is with the Father, He may ascribe to Him from whom He is. But sometimes, too, leaving the Father unmentioned, He says that He does what He does with the Father, so that we may understand that the Son is not to be separated from the Father's work when, leaving Himself unmentioned, He says that the Father works something, just as the Father is not separated from the Son's work when, He being unmentioned, the Son is said to work what the Father nonetheless works. When, therefore, the Son is silent about His own working in the Father's work, He commends His humility, that it may be more wholesome for us. When, in turn, in His own work He is silent about the Father's working, He commends His equality, lest He be believed inferior. In this way, then, in this place too He did not make Himself a stranger to the Father's work, although He said, The glory which Thou hast given Me, since He also gave it to Himself. Nor did He make the Father a stranger to His own work, although He said, I have given them, since 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. And just as, by asking the Father for all His own, He willed this to come about, that all may be one, so by this His gift also, when He says, I have given them the glory which Thou hast given Me, He willed the same thing to come about. For He at once added:

That they may be one, as We are one; then He added: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one (John 17:22–23). Here He briefly intimated that He is the mediator between God and men. For this is not said as though the Father were not in us, or we were not in the Father, since in another place He has said: We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him (John 14:23); and here, a little before, He did not say, I in them, and Thou in Me, as He has said just now, [nor] Either they in Me, and I in Thee, but, Thou in Me, and I in Thee, and they in Us. What He now says, then, I in them, and Thou in Me, is so said from

the person of the Mediator, like that which the Apostle says: You are Christ's, and Christ is God's (I Cor. 3:23). But in adding, That they may be made perfect in one, He shows that the reconciliation which is made through the Mediator is brought to this end: that we may enjoy a perfect blessedness, to which nothing further can be added. Hence what follows, That the world may know that Thou hast sent Me (John 17:23), I do not think is to be taken as though He had said again, That the world may believe. For sometimes "to know" is also put for "to believe", as in what He says somewhat above: And they have known truly that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me (John 17:8). In the latter clause He said "they have believed" for what He had first said, "they have known". But here, since He is speaking of being made perfect, the knowledge must be understood to be such as will be by sight, not such as now is by faith. For an order seems to have been kept in His saying a little before, That the world may believe, and here, That the world may know. For there, although He said that all may be one, and that they may be one in us, He did not yet say that they may be made perfect in one, and so He joined to it: That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. But here He says, That they may be made perfect in one; and then He did not add, that the world may believe, but, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me. For as long as we believe what we do not see, we are not yet made perfect as we shall be when we have been found worthy to see what we believe. Most rightly, then, He says there, That the world may believe; here, That the world may know. Yet both there and here [He says], that Thou hast sent Me, so that we may know that, as regards the inseparable charity of the Father and the Son, we now believe that which by believing we are striving to know. And if He had said, that they may know that Thou hast sent Me, it would have meant just as much as what He does say, That the world may know. For they themselves are the world: not the world that remains an enemy, such as is the world predestined to damnation, but the world made a friend out of an enemy, for whose sake God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (II Cor. 5:19). Therefore He said, I in them, and Thou in Me, as if to say: I in them to whom Thou hast sent Me, and Thou in Me, reconciling the world to Thyself through Me. Therefore there follows also what He says:

And Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast also loved Me (John 17:23). For the Father loves us in the Son, because in Him He chose us before the foundation of the world. For he who loves the only-begotten certainly loves His members too, whom He has adopted into Him through Him. Nor are we therefore equal to the only-begotten Son, through whom we were created and re-created, because it is said, Thou hast loved them as also Me. For he who says, As this, so also that, does not always signify equality; but sometimes only that because this is, that also is; or that because this is, that also may be. For who would say that the apostles were sent into the world by Christ in exactly the same way as He Himself was sent by the Father? For, to pass over other differences which it would take long to recount, they were certainly sent when they were already men, whereas He was sent that He might be man; and yet He says above: As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world (John 17:18), as if to say: Because Thou hast sent Me, I have sent them. So also in this place: Thou hast loved

them, He says, as Thou hast also loved Me, which is nothing other than: Thou hast loved them because Thou hast also loved Me. For He would not fail to love the members of the Son: He who loves the Son. Nor is there any other reason for loving His members than that He loves Him. But He loves the Son according to the divinity, because He begot Him equal to Himself. He loves Him also according to that which He is as man, because the only-begotten Word Himself was made flesh (John 1:14), and for the Word's sake the flesh of the Word is dear to Him. And He loves us because we are members of Him whom He loves; and that we might be this, for this He loved us before we were. Wherefore the love with which God loves is incomprehensible, and not changeable. For it was not from the time when we were reconciled to Him through the blood of His Son that He began to love us; but before the foundation of the world He loved us, that together with His only-begotten we too might be His sons, before we were anything at all. That we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then, let it not be heard so, let it not be taken so, as though the Son reconciled us to Him in order that He might now begin to love those whom He had hated, as an enemy is reconciled to an enemy so that thereafter they may be friends and love one another who had hated one another; rather, we were reconciled to Him who already loved us, with whom, on account of sin, we were at enmity. Whether I speak the truth in this, let the Apostle bear witness: God commends His love towards us, he says, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8–9). He had, then, charity towards us even when, carrying on enmity against Him, we worked iniquity; and yet it is most truly said to Him: Thou hatest, O Lord, all who work iniquity (Ps. 5:7). Therefore in a wonderful and divine way He both loved us and hated us at once; for He hated us as such as He Himself had not made us, and because our iniquity had not wholly consumed His work, He knew how, in each one of us, at the same time to hate what we had made and to love what He had made. And this indeed can be understood in all things of Him to whom it is truly said: Thou hatest nothing of the things Thou hast made (Wis. 11:25). For He would not have willed that to exist which He hated, nor would anything at all exist which the Almighty had not willed to exist, unless in that which He hates there were also something that He loved. For He rightly hates, and, as by the rule of His art, condemns the vice that is foreign to Him; yet even in the vice He loves what is His own, either for the healing of His benefits or for the condemnation of His judgements. Thus God hates nothing of the things He has made. For being the founder of natures, not of vices, He did not make the evils that He hates; and out of those same evils, whether by healing them through mercy or by ordering them through judgement, the things He has made are good. Since, then, He hates nothing of the things He has made, who could worthily declare how much He loves the members of His only-begotten, and how much more the only-begotten Himself, in whom were founded all things visible and invisible (Col. 1:16), which, ordered each in its kind, He loves in most perfect order? For the members of the only-begotten He brings, by the bounty of His grace, to equality with the holy angels; but the only-begotten, since He is Lord of all, is beyond doubt Lord of the angels, by the nature by which He is God, equal not to the angels but rather to the Father; but by the grace by which

He is man, how does He not surpass the excellence of any angel whatever, since there is one person of the flesh and of the Word? The Lord Jesus raises His own to a great hope, than which none at all could be greater. Hear, and be rejoicing in hope, because this life is not to be loved but endured, so that you may be patient in its tribulation. Hear, I say, and attend, that our hope may be lifted up. Christ Jesus speaks; the only-begotten Son of God, who is co-eternal and equal with the Father, speaks; He who for our sake was made man, but was not made a liar as every man is, speaks; the Way, the Life, the Truth speaks; He who has not yet conquered speaks of those things in which He has conquered; hear, believe, hope, desire what He says:

Father, He says, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me (John 17:24). Who are these whom He says were given to Him by the Father? Are they not those of whom He says in another place: No one comes to Me unless the Father, who sent Me, draws him (John 6:44)? Now how He Himself, together with the Father, does the things which He says are done by the Father, we know, if we have made any progress in this Gospel. They, then, are the ones whom He received from the Father, whom He Himself also chose out of the world. For what did He choose them? That they may no longer be of the world, as He Himself also is not of the world, and yet that they too may be the world, believing and knowing that Christ was sent by God the Father, so that the world might be set free from the world, lest the world that was to be reconciled to God should be condemned with the world most hostile [to Him]. For as He says in the opening of this prayer, [the Father] gave Him power over all flesh, that is, over every man, to set free whom He will and condemn whom He will, He who will judge the living and the dead; but He says that those were given to Him to all of whom He is to give eternal life. For thus He says: That to all whom Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life (John 17:2). Accordingly, those to whom He will not give eternal life were not given to Him, although power over them too was given to Him, since power was given to Him over all flesh, that is, over every man. Thus the reconciled world is set free from the hostile world, since over that one He exercises His power so as to send it into eternal death, while this one He makes His own, to give it eternal life. Therefore to absolutely all His sheep the good Shepherd, to all His members the great Head, has promised this reward: that where He is, we too may be with Him; nor can that fail to come about which the almighty Son has said to the almighty Father that He wills. For there also is the Holy Spirit, equally eternal, equally God, the one Spirit of both, and the substance of the will of both. For that which He is read to have said as His passion drew near, Yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt, Father (Matt. 26:39), as though the will of the Father were one and the will of the Son another, or had been, is the voice of our weakness, faithful though it be, which our Head transfigured into Himself when He also bore our sins. But that the will of the Father and the Son is one, whose Spirit also is one, with whom added we acknowledge the Trinity, let piety believe, even if weakness does not yet allow us to understand it. But since we have now said, as the brevity of a sermon allows, to whom He has promised it and how firm the promise itself is, [let us consider] this very thing, as far as we are able,

let us see what it is that He has deigned to promise. Those whom Thou hast given Me, He says, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me. As regards the creature in which He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, He Himself was not yet where He was to be; but He could say "Where I am" in this way, which we ought to understand: that He was soon to ascend into heaven, so that He spoke of Himself as already being there where He was presently to be. He could also [say it] in the way in which He had said before, speaking to Nicodemus: No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13). For there too He did not say "will be" but "is", on account of the unity of the person, in which God is man and man is God. In heaven, then, He has promised that we shall be. For thither was the form of a servant raised up which He took from the Virgin, and set at the right hand of the Father. Because of the hope of this so great good, the Apostle also says: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace we are saved, and raised us up together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4–6). This, then, can be understood to be what the Lord said: That where I am, they also may be with Me. And of Himself indeed He said that He was already there; but of us He said that He willed that we should be there with Him, not that He showed we were there already. The Apostle, however, spoke of what the Lord said He willed to come about as though it had been done. For he does not say, He will raise us up and will make us sit in the heavenly places, but, He has raised us up and made us sit in the heavenly places, because not idly but faithfully he already counts as done what he does not doubt will be. But as regards the form of God, in which He is equal to the Father, if we wish to understand according to it what is said, I will that where I am, that they may be with Me, let every thought of bodily images depart from the mind. Whatever occurs to the mind as long, broad, thick, coloured by any bodily light, spread through any spaces of place, finite or infinite: from all these let it turn away, as far as it can, the gaze of its contemplation or attention; and let it not be asked where the Son, equal to the Father, is, since no one finds where He is not; but let him who wishes to seek rather seek to be with Him, not everywhere as He is, but wherever he can be. For He who said to the man hanging in punishment and confessing to his salvation, Today you will be with Me in paradise (Luke 23:43): according to what He was as man, His soul was to be in hell that very day, His flesh in the tomb. But according to what He was as God, He was certainly in paradise also; and therefore the robber's soul, absolved from its former crimes and already blessed by His gift, although it could not be everywhere as He is, could nevertheless be with Him in paradise that very day, from which He who is always everywhere had not departed. That, surely, is why it was not enough for Him to say, I will that where I am, they also may be, but He added, with Me. For to be with Him is a great good. For even the wretched can be where He is, since wherever any are, He is there too. But the blessed alone are with Him, because they could not be blessed except from Him. Or was it not truly said to God

it: If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there. If I descend into hell, Thou art present (Ps. 138:8)? Or is Christ not the wisdom of God, which reaches everywhere because of its purity (Wis. 7:24)? But the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5). And therefore, to take some example, however unlike, from a visible thing: as a blind man, even if he is where the light is, is yet not himself with the light, but is absent from what is present, so the unbeliever and the impious man, or even the faithful and pious man who is not yet fit to gaze on the light of wisdom, although he can be nowhere where Christ is not, is yet not himself with Christ, at least by sight. For the man who is piously faithful is not to be doubted to be with Christ by faith; on account of which He says: He who is not with Me is against Me (Luke 11:23). But when He said to God the Father, Those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me, He was speaking altogether of that sight in which we shall see Him as He is (I John 3:2). Let no one trouble a most clear sense with a cloudy contradiction. Let what follows bear witness to the words that went before. For when He had said, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me, He at once went on to add:

That they may see My glory, which Thou hast given Me, because Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). He said, That they may see, not, That they may believe. This is the reward of faith, not faith. For if faith is rightly defined in the Epistle to the Hebrews as the conviction of things that are not seen (Heb. 11:1), why should not the reward of faith be defined as the sight of the things that were believed and hoped for? For when we have seen the glory which the Father gave the Son (even if we understand it here to be spoken of not as that which the Father gave the equal Son in begetting Him, but as that which He gave to the Son made man after the death of the cross), when, then, we see that glory of the Son, then surely the judgement of the living and the dead will take place. Then the wicked will be taken away, lest he see the glory of the Lord (Isa. 26:10). But which [glory], if not that by which He is God? For blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). And the wicked are not clean of heart; therefore they will not see. Then these will go into eternal punishment (for thus the wicked is taken away, lest he see the glory of the Lord), but the just will go into eternal life (Matt. 25:46). And what is eternal life? That they may know, He says, Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). Not, surely, as they knew Him who, though not clean of heart, were nevertheless able to see Him judging in the glorified form of a servant, but as the Son is to be known by the clean of heart as the only true God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity itself is the only true God. If, then, we take this saying, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me, according to that by which the Son of God is God, equal and co-eternal with the Father, we shall be in the Father with Christ; but He as He, we as we, wherever we shall be in body. For if those things too are to be called places by which bodies are not contained, and each thing's place is 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 says, am in the Father, and the Father is in Me (John 14:10),

and in this prayer: As Thou, Father, He says, in Me, and I in Thee. And our place is they themselves, since there follows: That they also may be one in Us. And we are the place of God, since we are His temple, as He prays for us who died for us and lives for us. In them we are one, because His place is made in peace, and His dwelling in Sion (Ps. 75:3), which we are. But who is fit to think of these places, or of the things that are in these places, without spacious capacities and without movable bodily things? Yet no little progress is made if at least whatever of that kind occurs to the eye of the heart is denied, rejected, disapproved, and a certain light in which these things are seen to be denied, rejected and disapproved is thought of as far as one can, and it is known how certain it is, and is loved, so that one may rise from there and strive towards the things within. And when the weak mind, less pure than they are, has been unable to penetrate them, let it be driven back from there not without the groaning of love and the tears of longing, and let it bear patiently while it is cleansed by faith, and be prepared by holy living that it may be able to dwell there. How, then, shall we not be with Christ where He is, when we shall be with Him in the Father, in whom He is? Nor was the Apostle silent on this to us, who do not yet hold the reality but nonetheless carry the hope. For he says: If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; mind the things that are above, not the things on the earth. For you are dead, he says, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1–3). See: for the meantime, by faith and hope, our life is with Him where Christ is, because it is with Christ in God. See: what He prayed might come about, saying, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me, is as though already done; but now by faith; when, though, will it be by sight? When Christ, he says, your life, appears, then you too will appear with Him in glory (ibid. 3:4). Then we shall appear as what we shall then be, because then it will appear that it was not in vain that we believed and hoped it before we were [so]. He will do this to whom the Son, when He had said, That they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, at once added: Because Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world. For in Him He loved us too before the foundation of the world; and then He predestined what He is to do at the end of the world.

Righteous Father, He says, the world has not known Thee (John 17:25). Because Thou art righteous, therefore it has not known Thee. For that world predestined to damnation has deservedly not known [Thee]; but the world which He reconciled to Himself through Christ has known [Thee] not by desert but by grace. For what is it to know Him, if not eternal life, which He certainly did not give to the condemned world, [but] gave to the reconciled? Therefore, then, the world has not known [Thee], because Thou art righteous and hast repaid its deserts so that it should not know. And therefore, then, the reconciled world has known [Thee], because Thou art merciful, and hast come to its help, not by desert but by grace, that it might know. Then there follows:

But I have known Thee. He Himself is the fount of grace: God by nature, but man, of the Holy Spirit and the virgin, by ineffable grace. Then, because of Him, since grace

of God is through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:25).

And these, He says, have known that Thou hast sent Me (John 17:25). This is the reconciled world. But it is because Thou hast sent Me that they have known; therefore they have known by grace.

And I have made known to them, He says, Thy name, and will make it known (John 17:26). I have made it known through faith, I will make it known through sight. I have made it known to those who journey as pilgrims with faith; I will make it known to those who reign without end.

That the love, He says, with which Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26). "The love which Thou hast loved Me" is not a customary expression. For customarily it would be said, "the love which Thou hast loved Me". This one is indeed translated from the Greek; but there are similar ones in Latin too, as when we say, "He served a faithful service, he soldiered a vigorous soldiering", where it would seem it ought to have been said, "He served with faithful service, he soldiered with vigorous soldiering". And of such an expression as "the love which Thou hast loved Me" the Apostle too made use: I have fought the good fight (II Tim. 4:7); he does not say, "with a good fight", which would be said more customarily and, as it were, more correctly. But how is the love with which the Father loved the Son in us also, unless because we are His members and are loved in Him, since He is loved whole, that is, head and body? Therefore He added, And I in him, as if to say: Because I too am in them. For He is in us in one way as in His temple, but in another way because we too are He, since, in respect of His having been made man in order to be our head, we are His body.

The Saviour's prayer is ended. The Passion begins.

CHAPTER XVIII.

When Jesus had said these things, He went out with His disciples, etc. (John 18:1). What he relates, that the Lord entered the garden with His disciples, did not happen immediately when that prayer of His was ended, of whose words he says, When Jesus had said these things; but certain other things came in between, which, passed over by this [evangelist], are read in the other evangelists, just as in this one are found many things about which they likewise kept silence in their narratives. But how they all agree among themselves, and how the truth brought forth by one is not contradicted by another, let whoever desires to know seek not in these sermons but in other laborious writings. Let us not, then, take what he says, When Jesus had said these things, He went out with His disciples across the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which He entered, and His disciples, as though He went into that garden immediately after those words; but let the words When Jesus had said these things serve to this end, that we should not suppose He went in before He had finished those words.

And Judas also, he says, who was betraying Him, knew the place (John 18:2). The order of the words is: he who was betraying Him knew the place, because, he says, Jesus had often met there with His disciples. There, then, the wolf covered in sheep's clothing, and tolerated among the sheep by the deep counsel of the householder, learned where for a little time he might scatter the flock, by assailing the shepherd with snares (Zech. 13:7).

Judas, then, he says, having received the cohort and from

the chief priests and Pharisees officers, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons (John 18:3). The cohort was not of the Jews but of soldiers. It is to be understood, then, as received from the governor, as though for the arrest of a criminal, the order of lawful authority being kept, so that no one would dare to resist those making the arrest. Though so great a band had also been gathered, and came so armed, as either to terrify or even to fight back, if anyone should dare to defend Christ. For so was His power hidden and His weakness put forward, that these things seemed necessary to His enemies against Him against whom they would have availed nothing except what He Himself had willed: the good One making good use of evil men and making good things out of evil, so as to make good men out of the evil and to separate them from the evil.

Jesus therefore (as the evangelist goes on to add), knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forward and said to them: Whom do you seek? They answered Him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus says to them: I am He. And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. When, then, He said to them, I am He, they went backward and fell to the ground (John 18:4–6). Where now is the cohort of soldiers and the officers of the chief priests and Pharisees? Where is the terror and defence of arms? Surely the one voice of Him who said, I am He, without any weapon struck down, drove back and laid low so great a crowd, fierce with hatred and terrible with arms. For God lay hidden in the flesh, and the everlasting day was so concealed in human limbs that it was sought with lanterns and torches. About to be slain by darkness, He says, I am He, and cast down the wicked. What will He do when about to judge, who did this when about to be judged? What will He be able to do when about to reign, who was able to do this when about to die? And now everywhere through the Gospel Christ says, I am He, and by the Jews Antichrist is awaited, so that they go back and fall to the ground, since, forsaking heavenly things, they desire earthly ones. Certainly the persecutors came with the traitor to seize Jesus: they found Him whom they were seeking. They heard, I am He. Why did they not seize Him, but went backward and fell, unless because He willed it so, who could do whatever He willed? But if He had never let Himself be taken by them, they would indeed not have done what they had come for; but would He Himself have done what He had come for? For they sought Him in their rage to kill Him; but He too, by dying, sought us. Therefore, since He showed His power to those who were rash in willing but not able, let them now hold Him, that He may do His will by means of those who do not know it.

Then He asked them again: Whom do you seek? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I have told you that I am He; if, then, you seek Me, let these go away. That the word might be fulfilled which He spoke: Of those whom Thou hast given Me I have not lost any of them (John 18:7–9). If you seek Me, He says, let these go away. He sees enemies, and they do what He commands. They let those go away whom He does not will to perish. But were they not to die afterwards? Why, then, if they had died then, would He have lost them, unless because they did not yet believe in Him as all who do not perish believe?

Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear

right [ear]. And the servant's name was Malchus. This evangelist alone has also given the name of this servant, just as Luke alone [tells] that the Lord touched his ear and healed him (Luke 22). Now Malchus is interpreted one who is to reign. What then does the ear cut off for the Lord's sake, and healed by the Lord, signify, if not hearing cut off from oldness and renewed, so that it may be in newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter? And when this has been granted by Christ, who would doubt that [such a one] is to reign with Christ? That he was found to be a servant, this too belongs to that oldness which gives birth into bondage, which is Agar (Gal. 3). But when healing came, liberty was figured. Yet the Lord disapproved of Peter's deed, and forbade him to go further, saying:

Put up your sword into the sheath. The cup which the Father hath given Me, will you not that I drink it? For in his deed that disciple wished to defend his master; he did not think of what was signified. So he had to be admonished to patience, and this was to be written down for our understanding. And when He says that the cup of the passion was given Him by the Father, that is surely what the Apostle says: If God be for us, who is against us? He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8). But the author of this cup is also He Himself who drinks it. Hence the same Apostle likewise says: Christ loved us, and delivered Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness (Eph. 5).

Then the band and the tribune and the officers of the Jews seized Jesus, and bound Him. They seized Him to whom they did not draw near, since He was the day, while they remained darkness; nor did they hear: Draw near to Him, and be enlightened (Ps. 33). For if they had drawn near in that way, they would have seized Him not with their hands to kill Him, but with their heart to receive Him. But now, when they seized Him in that manner, they then withdrew further from Him, and bound Him by whom they ought rather to have wished to be loosed. And perhaps there were among them some who then put their bonds on Christ, and afterwards, set free by Him, said: Thou hast broken my bonds. Let this suffice for today; what follows will, God willing, be treated in another sermon.

After the persecutors, with Judas betraying Him, had seized and bound the Lord, Who, as the Apostle says, loved us and delivered Himself up (Eph. 5), [and whom the Father] delivered up for us all (Rom. 8), so that Judas may be understood to be not praiseworthy for the usefulness of this delivering-up, but damnable for the will of his crime,

They led Him (as John the evangelist here relates) to Annas first. Nor is he silent about the reason why this was done.

For he was, he says, the father-in-law of Caiphas, who was the high priest of that year. Now it was Caiphas, he says, who had given counsel to the Jews, that it is expedient that one man should die for the people. Rightly too did Matthew, since he wished to relate this more briefly, record that He was led to Caiphas, because He was led first to Annas for this reason, that he was his father-in-law. Whereby it is to be understood

that this same Caiphas wished it to be done.

And Simon Peter, he says, followed Jesus, and another disciple. Who this disciple may be is not to be rashly affirmed, since it is passed over in silence. But this same John is accustomed to indicate himself in this way, and to add: Whom Jesus loved. Perhaps, then, here too it is he. Yet whoever he may be, let us look at what follows.

But that disciple, he says, was known to the high priest, while Peter stood at the door outside. So the disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the portress, and brought Peter in. Then the maid who kept the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples? He said: I am not. Behold that boldness of one who made promises and presumed very greatly of himself. Where are those words, when he says: Why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thee (John 13)? Is this following the master, to deny that one is a disciple? Is life thus laid down for the Lord, that, lest this should happen, the voice of a maidservant is dreaded? But what wonder if God foretold true things, while man presumed false ones? Truly, in this denial of the apostle Peter now begun, we ought to observe that Christ is denied not only by him who says that He is not the Christ, but also by him who, being a Christian, denies that he is one. For the Lord did not say to Peter: You shall deny that you are My disciple, but you shall deny Me. He denied Him, therefore, when he denied that he was His disciple. And what else in this way than that he denied he was a Christian? For although the disciples of Christ were not yet called by this name (for it was after His ascension, in Antioch, that the disciples first began to be called Christians), yet already the thing itself existed that was afterwards to be named by that word. Already there were disciples, who were afterwards called Christians, and they handed on this common name, as also the common faith, to those who came after. He, then, who denied that he was a disciple of Christ, denied the very thing whose name is to be called a Christian. How many afterwards, I do not say old men and old women (in whom satiety with this life could more easily despise death for the confession of Christ), nor only the youth of either sex (from which age courage seems fittingly to be demanded), but even boys and girls were able! And the countless company of the holy martyrs entered bravely and by force into the kingdom of heaven, which he was then unable to do, who received the keys of its kingdom! See why it was said: Let these go their way, when He Who redeemed us with His own blood delivered Himself up for us, that the word might be fulfilled which He spoke: Of those whom Thou gavest Me I have not lost any one. For assuredly, if Peter had gone hence having denied Christ, what else would he have done but perish?

Now the servants and officers stood at the coals, because it was cold, and warmed themselves. It was not winter, but it was cold all the same, as is sometimes wont to happen even at the spring equinox.

And Peter too was with them, standing and warming himself. The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and about His teaching. Jesus answered him: I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in the synagogue,

and in the temple, where all the Jews come together, and in secret I have spoken nothing; why do you ask Me? Ask those who have heard what I have spoken to them. Behold, these know what I have said. A question arises that must not be passed over: how the Lord Jesus said, I have spoken openly to the world, and above all what He says: In secret I have spoken nothing. Did He not, in that very recent discourse which He spoke to the disciples after supper, say to them: These things I have spoken to you in proverbs; the hour cometh when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of My Father? If, then, He did not speak openly even to His own closest disciples, but promised an hour when He would speak openly, how did He speak openly to the world? Then again, to those very ones who were His own, as the authority of the other evangelists also testifies (Matt. 4; Luke 8), He certainly spoke much more plainly, in comparison with those who were not His disciples, when He was with them apart from the crowds. For then He opened to them even the parables which He put forth closed to others. What, then, is In secret I have spoken nothing? It must be understood that He said, I have spoken openly to the world, as if He had said: Many have heard Me. But that very "openly" was in one way openly, and in another way not openly. It was openly, because many heard; and again it was not openly, because they did not understand. And what He spoke to the disciples apart, He certainly did not speak in secret. For who speaks in secret who speaks before so many men? since it is written: In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand (Deut. 17), especially if he speaks to a few what he wishes to become known to many through them, as the Lord Himself says to those whom He as yet had few: What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops (Matt. 10). Therefore even this very thing which seemed to be said by Him secretly was in a manner not said in secret, because it was not said to those to whom it had been said so that it should be kept silent, but rather so that it should be preached everywhere. If, then, something can be said both openly and at the same time not openly, or in secret and at the same time not in secret, how was it said that seeing they may see, and not see (Mark 4)? For how do they see, unless because [it is] openly, not in secret? and how again do the very same not see, unless because [it is] not openly, but in secret? Yet those very things which they had heard but not understood were such that they could not justly and truthfully be made a charge; and as often as they tried by questioning to find something on which to accuse Him, He so answered them that all their snares were blunted and their calumnies frustrated. Therefore He said: Why do you ask Me? ask those who have heard what I have spoken to them. Behold, these know what I have said.

And when He had said these things, one of the officers standing by gave Jesus a blow, saying: Answerest Thou the high priest so? Jesus answered: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. But if well, why do you strike Me? What is truer, gentler, more just than this answer? For it is His of Whom the prophetic voice had gone before: Take aim

prosper, proceed and reign, because of truth and meekness and justice (Ps. 44). If we consider who received the blow, would we not wish that he who struck Him were either consumed by fire from heaven, or swallowed up by the earth gaping open, or seized by a demon and rolled about, or punished by some penalty of this kind, whatever it might be, or one even heavier? For which of these could He not have commanded by His power, through Whom the world was made, had He not preferred to teach us patience, by which the world is overcome? Here someone says: Why did He not do what He Himself commanded? For He ought not to have answered the one striking Him in this way, but to have offered the other cheek (Matt. 5). What then? Did He not both answer truthfully, gently and justly, and prepare not only the other cheek for one who would strike again, but His whole body to be fastened to the wood? And by this He rather demonstrated what was to be demonstrated, namely that those great precepts of His on patience are to be carried out not by display of the body, but by preparation of the heart. For it can happen that a man visibly offers the other cheek even while angry. How much better, then, that He both answered true things calmly and was ready with a tranquil mind to bear heavier things? For blessed is he who in all the unjust things he suffers for justice can truthfully say: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready (Ps. 107). For from this comes what follows: I will sing and give praise (ibid.); which Paul and Barnabas were able to do even in the harshest bonds (Acts 16). But let us return to what follows in the Gospel narrative.

And Annas sent Him bound to Caiphas the high priest. For it was to him, as Matthew says, that He was being led from the beginning, since he was the chief of the priests of that year (Matt. 26). For both high priests, that is, the chiefs of the priests, who at that time were Annas and Caiphas, are to be understood to have been accustomed to hold office in alternate years; Luke the evangelist records them when narrating at what time the Lord, with John as forerunner, began to preach the kingdom of heaven and to gather disciples. For he says thus: Under the chief priests Annas and Caiphas, the word of the Lord came upon John the son of Zachary in the desert (Luke 3), and so on. Accordingly these two high priests held their years in turn, and it was the year of Caiphas when Christ suffered. Therefore, according to Matthew, when He had been seized He was led to him; but first (according to John) they came with Him to Annas, not because he was his colleague, but because he was his father-in-law. And it is to be believed that this was done according to the will of Caiphas, or else that their houses were so situated that Annas could not properly be passed by those going by. But when the evangelist had said that Annas sent Him bound to Caiphas, he returned to the place in the narrative where he had left Peter, in order to set out what had happened in the house of Annas concerning his threefold denial.

Now Simon Peter, he says, was standing and warming himself. He recapitulates what he had already said before; then he joins on what followed. They said therefore to him: Are you also one of His disciples? He denied it and said: I am not. He had already denied once; behold, a second time.

Then, that the third denial might be completed: One of the servants of the high priest, a kinsman of him whose ear Peter cut off, says to him: Did I not see you in the garden with Him? Again therefore Peter denied, and immediately the cock crew. Behold, the physician's prediction is fulfilled, the sick man's presumption is convicted. For what this one had foretold did not come to pass: I will lay down my life for Thee (John 13); but what That One had foretold came to pass: Thou shalt deny Me thrice (Matt. 26).

They bring Jesus, then, he says, to Caiphas, into the praetorium. For he had said that He was sent to Caiphas by Annas, his colleague and father-in-law. But if to Caiphas, why into the praetorium, by which nothing else is meant to be understood than where Pilate the governor lived? Either, then, some pressing cause had made Caiphas go from the house of Annas, where both had come together to hear Jesus, to the governor's praetorium, and he had left Jesus to his father-in-law to be heard; or Pilate had taken up his praetorium in the house of Caiphas, and the house was so large that it held its own master living apart, and the judge apart.

Now it was morning, and they themselves (that is, those who were leading Jesus) did not enter into the praetorium. That is, into that part of the house which Pilate occupied. It was itself the house of Caiphas; and setting out the reason why they did not enter the praetorium, he says: That they might not be defiled, but might eat the Pasch. For they had begun to keep the days of Unleavened Bread, on which days it was a defilement for them to enter the dwelling of a foreigner. O impious blindness! They feared, forsooth, to be defiled by a foreign dwelling, and did not fear to be defiled by their own crime. They feared to be defiled by the praetorium of a foreign judge, and did not fear [to be defiled] by the blood of an innocent brother; to say only this for the moment, where their guilty conscience of evil was held fast. For that He Who was being led to death by their impiety was also the Lord, and that the Giver of life was being slain, is to be imputed not to their conscience but to their ignorance.

Pilate therefore went out to them, and said: What accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him: If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up to you. Let those freed from unclean spirits be asked and answer, the sick healed, lepers cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dumb speaking, the blind seeing, the dead rising, and, what surpasses all, the foolish made wise: whether Jesus is a malefactor. But they were saying these things of whom He Himself had already said in prophecy: They repaid me evil for good (Ps. 34).

Pilate therefore said to them: Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law. The Jews therefore said to him: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. What is this that insane cruelty says? Were they not putting to death Him Whom they were offering up to be put to death? Or perhaps the cross does not kill? So do they play the fool who do not follow wisdom but persecute it. But what is: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death (Exod. 21)? If He is a malefactor, why is it not lawful? Does not the law command them that to malefactors, especially such as they

thought [Him to be], seducers away from their God, they should spare? But it is to be understood that they said it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death during that festival of the Pasch which they had already begun to celebrate, on account of which he feared to be defiled even by entering the praetorium. Have you grown so hard, false Israelites? Have you so lost all sense through excessive malice, that you believe yourselves undefiled by the blood of the innocent because you hand it over to another to be shed? Is Pilate too going to kill with his own hands Him Who is thrust upon his power by you to be killed? If you did not wish Him to be killed, if you did not lie in wait for Him, if you did not buy Him with money to be handed over to you, if you did not seize, bind, lead, hate Him, if you did not offer Him to the hands of the Gentiles to be killed and demand it with your voices, then boast that He was not killed by you. But if, after all those deeds of yours that went before, you also cried out, Crucify, Crucify, hear what the Prophet too cries out against you: Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword (Ps. 56). Behold with what weapons, with what arrows, with what sword you killed the Just One, when you said that it was not lawful for you to put anyone to death. Hence it is that, although the chiefs of the priests had not come to seize Jesus but had sent [others], Luke the evangelist nevertheless says in the same place of his narrative: And Jesus said, he says, to the chiefs of the priests and the magistrates of the temple, and the elders, who had come to Him: You have come out as against a robber, and so on (Luke 22). As, then, the chiefs of the priests came not in their own persons but through those whom they sent to seize Christ, what else [does it mean] than that they themselves came in the power of their command? So the sheep who cried out with impious voices that Christ should be crucified killed Him, not indeed in their own persons, yet they themselves [killed] Him through him who was driven to this crime by their clamour. And what John the evangelist adds: That the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which He spoke, signifying by what death He was to die. Here he does not wish the death of the cross to be understood, but that the Jews would hand Him over to the Gentiles, that is, to the Romans. For Pilate was a Roman, whom the Romans had sent into Judaea as governor. So that this word of Jesus might be fulfilled, then, that is, that the Gentiles should kill Him when handed over to them, as Jesus had foretold would happen, therefore, when Pilate, who was a Roman judge, wished to give 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 anyone to death. And thus the word of Jesus was fulfilled which He foretold about His death, that the Gentiles should kill Him when handed over by the Jews, with a lesser crime than the Jews, who in this way wished to make themselves strangers, as it were, to His killing, so that not their innocence but their madness was shown.

Pilate therefore went into the praetorium again, and called Jesus, and said to Him: Art Thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus answered: Do you say this of yourself, or have others told you of Me? The Lord certainly knew both what He Himself asked and what the other was going to answer; yet He willed it to be said, not that He Himself might know, but that what He willed us to know might be written down.

Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thy own nation and the chief priests have delivered Thee up to me. What hast Thou done? Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from hence. This is what the good Master willed us to know. But first there had to be shown to us men's opinion about His kingdom, whether of the Gentiles or of the Jews, from whom Pilate had heard it, as though He ought to be punished with death on this account, that He had aspired to an unlawful kingdom, or because those who reign are wont to envy those who are about to reign. And of course care had to be taken lest His kingdom should be hostile either to the Romans or to the Jews. Now the Lord could have given what He says, My kingdom is not of this world, and so on, in answer to the governor's first question, when he said to Him: Art Thou the King of the Jews? But by asking in turn whether he said this of himself or had heard it from others, He wished, through the other's answer, to show that this had been laid against Him before him by the Jews as a charge, laying open to us the thoughts of men, which He Himself knew to be vain (Ps. 93). And answering them, after Pilate's reply, now more fittingly and aptly, both Jews and Gentiles, He says: My kingdom is not of this world. But if He had answered at once when Pilate questioned Him, He would have seemed to answer not the Jews as well, but only the Gentiles who held this opinion of Him. But now, since Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thy own nation and the chief priests have delivered Thee up to me; what hast Thou done? he removed from himself the suspicion by which he might be thought to have said of himself that Jesus was King of the Jews, showing that he had heard it from the Jews. Then, by saying, What hast Thou done? he showed clearly enough that this was laid against Him as a charge, as if he were saying: If Thou deniest that Thou art a king, what hast Thou done that Thou shouldst be delivered to me? as though it would be no wonder if one who called himself a king were handed over to a judge to be punished. But if He did not say this, it would have to be asked of Him what else He had done, for which He deserved to be handed over to a judge. Hear, then, Jews and Gentiles; hear, circumcision; hear, uncircumcision. Hear, all you kingdoms of the earth. I do not hinder your dominion in this world. My kingdom is not of this world. Do not fear with that most empty fear with which the elder Herod was terrified when Christ was announced as born, and killed so many infants so that death might reach Him, made crueller by fearing than by raging (Matt. 2). My kingdom, He says, is not of this world. What more do you want? Come to the kingdom which is not of this world. Come by believing, and do not rage by fearing. He says indeed in prophecy concerning God the Father: But I am appointed king by Him over Sion, His holy mountain (Ps. 2); but that Sion and that mountain are not of this world. For what is His kingdom, if not those who believe in Him, of whom He says: They are not of this world, as I also am not of the world, although He willed them to be in the world. On which account He said of them to the Father: I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil (John 17). Hence here too He does not say: My kingdom is not in this world,

but is not of this world. And when He proved it, saying, If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews, He does not say, But now My kingdom is not here, but is not FROM HENCE. For His kingdom is here until the end of the world, having cockle mixed in with it until the harvest. For the harvest is the end of the world, when the reapers will come, that is, the angels, and will gather out of His kingdom all scandals (Matt. 13). This certainly would not happen if His kingdom were not here. But yet it is not from hence, because it is a pilgrim in the world (II Cor. 5). For to His kingdom He says: You are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world (John 15). They were therefore of the world when they were not His kingdom, but belonged to the prince of the world. Of the world, therefore, is whatever is human, created indeed by the true. God, but begotten of the stock of Adam, vitiated and damned. But whatever of it has been regenerated in Christ has been made a kingdom no longer of the world. For thus God has rescued us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. 1); of which kingdom He says: My kingdom is not of this world, or: My kingdom is not from hence.

Pilate therefore said to Him: Art Thou a king then? Jesus answered: You say that I am a king. Not that He feared to confess Himself a king, but you say is so balanced that He neither denies Himself a king (for He is a king, Whose kingdom is not of this world), nor confesses Himself to be such a king as one whose kingdom is thought to be of this world. For such was the opinion of him who had said, Art Thou a king then? to whom the answer was: You say that I am a king. For You say was said as if it had been said: Being carnal, you speak carnally. Then He adds: For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. For the syllable of this pronoun, where He says in hoc natus sum, is not to be lengthened, as if He had said, "In this thing I was born," but shortened, as if He had said, "For this thing I was born," or, "To this end I was born," as He says: For this came I into the world. For in the Greek Gospel there is nothing ambiguous in this expression. Hence it is plain that He here recalled His temporal birth, because He came into the world made flesh; not that [birth] without beginning, by which He was God, through Whom the Father founded the world. For this, then, He said He was born, that is, born on account of this, and for this He came into the world, namely by being born of the virgin, that He might bear witness to the truth. But because not all have faith, He added and said: Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. He hears, that is, inwardly; that is, he obeys My voice; which would be worth as much as if He said: He believes Me. Since, then, Christ bears witness to the truth, He certainly bears witness to Himself. For His is the voice: I am the Truth (John 14). And He said in another place too: I bear witness of Myself (John 8). And when He says, Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice, He commended that grace by which He calls us according to His purpose; of which purpose the Apostle says: We know that to them that love God all things work together unto good,

to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8). The purpose, that is, of Him Who calls, not of those who are called. This is put more plainly elsewhere thus: Labour with the Gospel according to the power of God, Who saves us and calls us with His second calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace (II Tim. 1). For if we consider the nature in which we were created, since the Truth created all, who is not of the Truth? But not all are those to whom it is given to hear the Truth, that is, to obey the Truth and believe in the Truth, because this is bestowed by the Truth itself, without doubt with no merits going before, lest grace be not grace. For if He had said, "Every one who hears My voice is of the truth," it would be thought that he is called of the truth because he obeys the truth; but He did not say this; He said: Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. And therefore he is not of the Truth because he hears His voice, but he hears because he is of the Truth, that is, because this gift has been bestowed on him by the Truth. And what else is this than, by Christ's gift, to believe in Christ?

Pilate said to Him: What is truth? (And he did not wait to hear the answer.) And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them: I find no cause in Him. But it is a custom that I should release one to you at the Pasch. Will you, then, that I release to you the King of the Jews? I believe that when Pilate had said, What is truth? there came at once into his mind the custom of the Jews by which one was wont to be released to them at the Pasch; and therefore he did not wait for Jesus to answer him what truth is, lest there be delay, since he had recalled the custom by which He could be released to them for the Pasch, which it is plain he greatly desired. Yet it could not be torn from his heart that Jesus was King of the Jews, as though the Truth itself, about which he had asked what it was, had fixed this in him as in the title [on the cross]. But when they heard this, they all cried out again, saying:

Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. We do not blame you, O Jews, for setting free a guilty man at the Pasch, but for killing an innocent One. Yet unless this had been done, the true Pasch would not have been made. But the shadow of the truth was held by the erring Jews, and by a wonderful dispensation of the divine wisdom the truth of that same shadow was fulfilled through deceitful men, because, that the true Pasch might be made, Christ was sacrificed like a sheep.

CHAPTER XIX.

When the Jews had cried out that they wished Pilate to release to them for the Pasch not Jesus but Barabbas the robber, not a saviour but a murderer, not the giver of life but its taker-away,

Then Pilate took Jesus, and scourged Him. Pilate is to be believed to have done this for no other reason than that the Jews, sated with the injuries done to Him, might think it enough for themselves, and might cease to rage as far as His death. To this belongs the fact that the same governor also allowed his cohort to do what follows; or perhaps he even ordered it, although the evangelist has been silent about this.

For he said what the soldiers did next, but he did not say that Pilate had ordered it.

And the soldiers, he says, plaiting a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and put a purple garment about Him, and came to Him and said: Hail, King of the Jews; and they gave Him blows. Thus were fulfilled the things Christ had foretold of Himself. Thus were the martyrs trained to bear all that it might please the persecutors to do. Thus was the dread power hidden for a little while. Thus the kingdom which was not of this world overcame the proud world, not by ferocity in fighting but by humility in suffering. Thus that grain which was to be multiplied was sown in horrible insult, that it might spring up in wondrous glory.

Pilate went out again, and says to them: Behold, I bring Him out to you, that you may know that I find no cause in Him. Jesus therefore went out, bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. And he says to them: Behold the man. From this it appears that these things were done by the soldiers not without Pilate's knowledge, whether he ordered them or permitted them, namely for the reason we gave above: that His enemies might drink in these mockeries of Him most gladly, and thirst no further for His blood. Jesus goes out to them bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment, not glorious in command but full of reproach, and it is said to them: Behold the man. If you envy the king, spare Him now, for you see Him cast down. He has been scourged, He has been crowned with thorns, He has been clothed in a garment of mockery, He has been mocked with most bitter insults, struck with blows. Ignominy burns; let envy grow cold. But it does not grow cold; rather it is inflamed and increases.

For when the chief priests and the officers had seen Him, they cried out, saying: Crucify, crucify. Pilate says to them: Take Him yourselves and crucify Him. For I find no cause in Him. The Jews answered him: We have a law, and according to the law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. Behold another, greater envy; for that one seemed small, as of a royal power aspired to with unlawful daring. And yet Jesus usurped neither of them falsely; but both are true: He is both the only-begotten Son of God, and the king appointed by God over Sion, His holy mountain (Ps. 2). And He would have shown both now, except that the more powerful He was, the more patient He preferred to be.

When Pilate therefore had heard this word, he feared the more, and went into the praetorium again, and says to Jesus: Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. This silence of the Lord Jesus Christ, kept not once only, is found, when the narratives of all the evangelists are compared, both before the chiefs of the priests, and before Herod, to whom, as Luke indicates, Pilate had sent Him to be heard (Luke 23), and before [Pilate] himself, so that the prophecy concerning Him did not go before in vain: As a lamb before its shearer without voice, so He opened not His mouth (Isa. 53). Then, certainly, when He did not answer those who questioned Him. For although He often answered certain questions, yet because of those in which He would not answer, the likeness of the lamb was given for this purpose, that in His silence He might be held not guilty but innocent,

So then, while He was being judged, wherever He did not open His mouth, He did not open it as a lamb, that is, not as one with a bad conscience who was being convicted of his own sins, but as a gentle one who was being sacrificed for the sins of others.

Pilate therefore says to Him: "Do You not speak to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and I have power to release You?" Jesus answered: "You would have no power at all against Me, unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who handed Me over to you has the greater sin." See, He answered, and yet wherever He did not answer, it was not as one guilty or deceitful, but as a lamb, that is, as one simple and innocent, that He did not open His mouth. Accordingly, where He did not answer, He was silent as a sheep; where He answered, He taught as a shepherd. Let us learn, then, what He said, which He also taught through the Apostle, that there is no power except from God (Rom. XIII); and that he who out of malice hands an innocent man over to a power to be killed sins more than the power itself, if it kills him through fear of another, greater power. For God had given Pilate such power that he was himself also under the power of Caesar. Wherefore, He says, "You would have no power at all against Me", that is, however little you have, "unless" this very thing, whatever it is, "had been given you from above". But since I know how much it is, for it is not so great that you are wholly free, "therefore he who handed Me over to you has the greater sin". For he handed Me over to your power out of envy, while you are about to exercise that same power against Me out of fear. Not even out of fear, indeed, ought a man to kill a man, especially an innocent one; but yet to do it out of jealousy is a much greater evil than to do it out of fear. And therefore the truthful Master does not say: "He who hands Me over to you, he has sin", as though Pilate had none; but He says: "He has the greater sin", so that Pilate might understand that he too had it. For the lesser is not therefore nothing because the other is greater.

"From then on Pilate sought to release Him." What is this that is said, "from then on", as though before he had not already been seeking? Read what goes before, and you will find that he had long been seeking to release Jesus. "From then on", therefore, is to be understood as "because of this", that is, "for this reason": so as not to have sin by killing an innocent man handed over to him, though sinning less than the Jews who handed Him over to him to be killed. "From then on", then, that is, "therefore", so as not to commit this sin, not now for the first time but from the beginning they were seeking to release Him.

"But the Jews cried out, saying: 'If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. For everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.'" They thought that by alarming Pilate about Caesar they were bringing a greater fear to bear on him, so that he would kill Christ, than earlier, when they said: "We have a law, and according to the law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." For he did not fear their law so as to kill, but rather feared the Son of God so as not to kill. But now he could not so disregard Caesar, the author of his power, as he had the law of a foreign nation. Yet the evangelist still continues, and says:

"Pilate therefore, when he had heard these words, brought

Jesus outside, and sat down on the judgement seat, in the place which is called Lithostrotos, but in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the Preparation of the Passover, about the sixth hour." At what hour the Lord was crucified, on account of the testimony of the other evangelist, who said: "Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him" (Mark 15): since a great dispute usually arises, we shall discuss it as well as we can, if the Lord wills, when we have come to the very place where He is related to have been crucified. When, then, Pilate had sat down on the judgement seat,

"he says to the Jews: 'Behold your king.' But they cried out: 'Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him.' Pilate said to them: 'Shall I crucify your king?'" He still tries to overcome the terror which they had cast into him concerning Caesar, wishing to break them by their own disgrace, in saying: "Shall I crucify your king?", since he could not soften them by the disgrace of Christ; but he is soon overcome by fear.

"For the chief priests answered: 'We have no king but Caesar.' Then therefore he handed Him over to them to be crucified." For he would seem to be coming out most openly against Caesar if, when they professed that they had no king but Caesar, he should wish to thrust another king upon them by releasing unpunished the one whom they had handed over to him to be killed for these very pretensions. "He therefore handed Him over to them to be crucified." But did they desire anything else before, when he was saying: "Take Him yourselves and crucify Him"? Or even earlier: "Take Him yourselves and judge Him according to your law"? And why did they so greatly not wish this, saying: "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death", and pressing in every way that He should be killed not by them but by the governor, and therefore refusing to take Him to be killed, if now they take Him to be killed? Or if this is not so, why is it said: "Then therefore he handed Him over to them to be crucified"? Or is there some difference? Plainly there is. For it is not said: "Then therefore he handed Him over to them that they might crucify Him", but "to be crucified", that is, that He might be crucified by the judgement and power of the governor. But the evangelist says that He was handed over to them so as to show them entangled in the crime from which they were trying to keep clear. For Pilate would not have done this except to fulfil what he saw they desired. As to what follows, then:

"And they took Jesus, and led Him out." This can now be referred to the soldiers, the governor's attendants. For later it is said more plainly: "The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Him." Although even if the evangelist attributes the whole to the Jews, he does so rightly. For they received what they had most eagerly demanded, and they themselves did whatever they extorted to be done. While Pilate judged and condemned on the judgement seat, they took our Lord Jesus Christ about the sixth hour and led Him out.

"And carrying His cross for Himself, He went out to the place which is called Calvary, in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him." What is it, then, that the evangelist Mark says: "Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him" (Mark 15), unless that the Lord was crucified at the third hour by the tongues of the Jews, at the sixth hour by the hands of the soldiers; so that we may understand that the fifth hour had already passed, and something of the sixth had begun, when Pilate sat on the judgement seat, which is called by John "about the sixth hour"?

And while He was being led to be fastened to the wood with two robbers, and the things that are related as done beside His cross were being done, the sixth hour was completed in full; and that from this hour until the ninth, the sun being darkened, there was darkness, the authority of three evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, bears witness together. There is also another [solution] of this question: that the sixth hour of the day is not to be understood here, because John does not say: "Now it was about the sixth hour of the day", but says: "Now it was the Preparation of the Passover, about the sixth hour." Now Parasceve in Latin is "preparation"; but the Jews use this Greek word more willingly in observances of this kind, even those who speak Latin rather than Greek. It was, then, the preparation of the Passover. "But our Passover", as the Apostle says, "Christ, has been sacrificed" (I Cor. V). If we reckon the preparation of this Passover from the ninth hour of the night (for it was then that the chief priests appear to have announced beforehand the Lord's sacrifice, saying: "He is guilty of death", while He was still being heard in the high priest's house; whence it is fittingly understood that the preparation of the true Passover, of which the Passover of the Jews was the shadow, that is, of the sacrifice of Christ, began from the time when He was announced beforehand by the priests as to be sacrificed), then certainly from that hour of the night which is shown to have been the ninth, up to the third hour of the day, at which Mark the evangelist testifies that Christ was crucified, there are six hours, three of the night and three of the day. Hence on this Preparation of the Passover, that is, the preparation of the sacrifice of Christ, which had begun from the ninth hour of the night, it was about the sixth hour that was running; that is, the fifth being completed, the sixth had already begun to run when Pilate ascended the tribunal. For the preparation itself, which had begun from the ninth hour of the night, was still going on until the sacrifice of Christ which was being prepared should take place; and it took place at the third hour (according to Mark), not of the preparation but of the day; and this same hour was the sixth not of the day but of the preparation, six hours, that is, being counted from the ninth of the night to the third of the day. Of these two solutions of this difficult question let each choose which he will. But he will judge better what to choose who has read the things that have been most laboriously discussed on the agreement of the Evangelists. "And they took Jesus and led Him out; and carrying His cross for Himself, He went out to the place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him." Jesus, then, was going to the place where He was to be crucified, carrying His cross. A great spectacle; but if ungodliness looks on, a great mockery. If godliness, a great mystery; if ungodliness looks on, a great proof of disgrace; if godliness, a great monument of faith. If ungodliness looks on, it laughs at a king carrying, instead of the rod of a kingdom, the wood of his own punishment. If godliness, it sees the King carrying the wood on which He Himself was to be fixed, which He was to fix even on the foreheads of kings; to be despised by the eyes of the ungodly in that in which the hearts of the saints were to glory. For to Paul, who was to say: "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. VI), He commended the cross itself by carrying it on His own shoulder; and He was bearing the lampstand for the lamp that was to burn, which was not to be put under a bushel. "Carrying", then, "His cross for Himself",

"He went out to the place which is called Calvary, in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him; and with Him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle." These two were robbers, as we have learned from the narrative of the other evangelists (Mark 15; Luke 23), with whom Christ was crucified and between whom He was fixed, of whom the prophecy sent before had said: "And He was reckoned among the wicked" (Isa. 54).

"And Pilate also wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And it was written: 'Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' This title, then, many of the Jews read, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin: 'King of the Jews.'" For these three languages stood out there above the rest: Hebrew because of the Jews glorying in the law of God; Greek because of the wise men of the gentiles; Latin because of the Romans, who even then ruled over many and almost all nations.

"The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate: 'Do not write: "King of the Jews", but that He said: "I am King of the Jews."' Pilate answered: 'What I have written, I have written.'" O the unspeakable force of the divine working, even in the hearts of the ignorant! Did not some hidden voice sound within Pilate, in a kind of clamorous silence, if it may be so called, what had been prophesied so long before in the writings of the Psalms: "Do not corrupt the inscription of the title"? See, he does not corrupt the inscription of the title. What he wrote, he wrote; but the chief priests too, who wished it corrupted, who were saying: "Do not write", they say, "'King of the Jews', but that He said: 'I am King of the Jews.'" What are you saying, madmen? Why do you speak against the doing of what you cannot change in a single point? For will it be any the less true because Jesus said: "I am King of the Jews"? If what Pilate wrote cannot be corrupted, can what the Truth said be corrupted? But is Christ King of the Jews only, or of the gentiles also? Rather, of the gentiles also. For when He had said in the prophecy: "But I have been established by Him as King over Sion, His holy mountain, proclaiming the commandment of the Lord" (Ps. 2), lest anyone should say, because of Mount Sion, that He had been established King for the Jews alone, He at once added: "The Lord said to me: Thou art My Son; today I have begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations as Thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Thy possession" (ibid.). Hence He Himself also, speaking now with His own mouth among the Jews, says: "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd" (John 10). Why, then, do we wish a great mystery to be understood in this title, in which was written "King of the Jews", if Christ is King of the gentiles also? Because, namely, the wild olive was made a sharer in the richness of the olive (Rom. 11). For the olive was made a sharer in the bitterness of the wild olive. For in the title truly written of Christ, "King of the Jews", who are to be understood as Jews but the seed of Abraham, the children of the promise, who are also children of God, since not those who ... the children of the promise are counted as seed (Rom. 9)? And the gentiles were such, to whom he said: "But if you are Christ's, then you are the seed

of Abraham, heirs according to the promise" (Gal. III). Christ, then, is King of the Jews, but of Jews by circumcision of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God; of those who belong to the free Jerusalem, our mother, eternal in the heavens, the spiritual Sarah, who casts the bondwoman and her children out of the house of freedom (Rom. II). For Pilate wrote what he wrote for this reason, because the Lord said what He said.

"The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Him, took His garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier, and the tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore to one another: 'Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be', that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: 'They divided My garments among them, and for My vesture they cast lots.'" What the Jews wanted was done. Not they, but the soldiers who obeyed Pilate crucified Jesus at his judgement; and yet if we consider their wills, their plots, their deeds, their handing Him over, and lastly their clamours that extorted it, it was certainly rather the Jews who crucified Jesus. But about the dividing of His garments and the casting of lots for them we must not speak in passing. For although all four evangelists make mention of this matter, the others nevertheless did so more briefly than John, and they obscurely, while he most openly, and he said how many parts they made of His garments, namely four, so that each might take one. Whence it appears that there were four soldiers who obeyed the governor in crucifying Him. For he says plainly: "The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Him, took His garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier, and the tunic." "They took" is to be understood, so that this is the sense: They took His garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier. They took the tunic also; and he spoke thus so that we might see that no lot was cast for the other garments, but for the tunic, which they took together with the rest but did not divide in like manner. For he goes on to explain about it: "Now the tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout." And why they cast lots for it, he relates: "They said therefore", he says, "to one another, 'Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be.'" It appears, therefore, that in the other garments they had equal parts, so that there was no need to cast lots; but in that one they could not each have a part unless it were torn, so that they would carry off its rags to no purpose. That they might not do this, they preferred that it should come to one by lot. With this evangelist's narrative the prophetic testimony also agrees, which he himself at once adds, saying: "That the Scripture might be fulfilled", he says, "which says: 'They divided My garments among them, and for My vesture they cast lots.'" For he does not say "they cast lots for", but "they divided". Nor does he say: "Casting lots they divided"; not naming any lot at all for the other garments, he afterwards said: "and for My vesture they cast lots", on account of that remaining tunic. On this matter I shall say what He Himself shall grant, when I have first repelled the false charge that may arise, as though the evangelists disagreed among themselves, showing

that the words of none of the others are contrary to John's narrative. For Matthew, by saying: "They divided His garments, casting lots" (Matt. 27:35), meant it to be understood that that tunic too, for which they cast lots, belonged to the whole division of the garments, since in dividing all the clothes, among which it also was, they cast lots for that one. Such too is what Luke says: "Dividing His garments, they cast lots" (Luke 23:34). For in dividing they came to the tunic, for which the lot was cast, so that the whole division of His garments might be completed among them. And what difference is there whether it is said: "Dividing, they cast lots", as Luke says, or: "They divided, casting lots", as Matthew says? Except that Luke, by saying "lots", put the plural number for the singular: a manner of speech not unusual in the holy Scriptures, although some Codices are found to have "lot", not "lots". Mark, then, alone seems to have raised some question. For by saying: "Casting lots over them, who should take what" (Mark 15:24), he seems to have spoken as though the lot were cast over all the garments, not over the tunic alone. But here too brevity causes obscurity. For "casting lots over them" was said as if it were said: "Casting lots when they were being divided." And this was in fact done; for the division of all His garments would not have been complete unless it had been made clear by lot who should take that tunic too, so that thus the dispute of those dividing might be ended, or rather that none might arise. What he says, then: "who should take what", since this is assigned to the lot, is not to be referred to all the garments that were divided. For the lot was cast as to who should take that tunic; and since he omitted to relate what it was like, and how, when equal parts had been made, it alone remained, and came to the lot so as not to be torn apart, in its place is put what he says: "who should take what", that is: who should take it, as if the whole were said thus: "They divided His garments, casting lots over them, who should take the tunic which had been left over from the equal parts." Someone may perhaps ask what is signified by the division of the garments made into so many parts, and by the casting of lots for that tunic. The fourfold garment of our Lord Jesus Christ figured His fourfold Church, spread, that is, over the whole world, which consists of four parts, and distributed equally, that is, in concord, through all those same parts. For which reason He says elsewhere that He will send His angels to gather His elect from the four winds (Mark 13:27). And what is that, but from the four parts of the world, East, West, North and South? But that tunic allotted signifies the unity of all the parts, which is held together by the bond of charity. And the Apostle, about to speak of charity, says: "I show you a more excellent life" (1 Cor. 12:31). And in another place he says: "To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasses knowledge" (Eph. 3:19). And likewise elsewhere: "But above all these things, charity, which is the bond of perfection" (Col. 3:14). If, then, charity both has the more excellent way, and surpasses knowledge, and is above all the commandments, rightly

is the garment by which it is signified said to be "woven from the top"; and "seamless", so that it may never be unstitched; and it comes to one, because it gathers all into one. So among the apostles, when their number too was twelve, that is, fourfold, and all had been questioned, Peter alone answered: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 6). And it is said to him: "To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (ibid.); as though he alone had received the power of binding and loosing, whereas he both said the one thing, one for all, and received the other with all, as bearing the person of unity itself. Therefore one for all, because unity is in all. Hence here too, when he had said "woven from the top", he added "throughout". What if we refer it to that which it signifies: no one has no share in it who is found to belong to the whole, from which whole, as the Greek language shows, the Church is called catholic? And in the lot, what is commended but the grace of God? For thus in one it came to all, when the lot pleased all, because the grace of God too comes in unity to all; and when a lot is cast, the outcome is yielded not to anyone's person or merits, but to the hidden judgement of God. Nor let anyone say that these things signified nothing good because they were done by wicked men, that is, not by those who followed Christ but by those who persecuted Him. For what are we to say of the cross itself, which was certainly likewise made for Christ and thrust upon Him by enemies and ungodly men? And yet it is rightly understood that by it is signified what the Apostle says: "What is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth" (Eph. 3). Lastly, what is the sign of Christ that all know, but the cross of Christ? And unless this sign is applied, whether to the foreheads of believers, or to the very water from which they are reborn, or to the oil with which they are anointed with chrism, or to the sacrifice by which they are fed, none of these is duly accomplished. How, then, is nothing good signified by what wicked men do, when by the cross of Christ, which wicked men made, every good thing is sealed to us in the celebration of His sacraments? "And the soldiers indeed", he says, "did these things."

"And there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore had seen His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He says to His mother: 'Woman, behold your son'; then He says to the disciple: 'Behold your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own." This, surely, is that hour of which Jesus, when about to turn water into wine, had said to His mother: "What is there between Me and you, woman? My hour has not yet come" (John 2). So He had foretold this hour, which had not yet come then, in which, about to die, He was to acknowledge her of whom He had been born mortal. Then, therefore, about to do divine things, He repelled as though unknown the mother not of His divinity but of His weakness; but now, already suffering human things, He commended with human affection her of whom He had been made man. For then He who had created Mary was making Himself known by power; but now what Mary had borne was hanging on the cross. A moral lesson, therefore, is conveyed here. He does what He admonishes should be done. By His example the good Teacher instructs that dutiful children should bestow care on their parents, as though

the wood on which were fixed the limbs of the dying One was also the chair of the Master teaching. From this teaching of His the apostle Paul had learned what he taught when he said: "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever" (I Tim. V). And what is so much one's household as parents to children, or children to parents? Of this most wholesome precept, then, the very Master of the saints was setting an example from Himself, when, not as God for a handmaid whom He had created and was ruling, but as a man for the mother of whom He had been created and whom He was leaving, He provided another son, as it were, in His own place. For why He did this, what follows shows. For the evangelist says: "From that hour the disciple took her into his own", speaking of himself; for so he is wont to make mention of himself, as the one whom Jesus loved, who indeed loved all, but loved him above the rest and more intimately, so much that He made him recline upon His breast at the supper. I believe this was so that He might in this way commend more highly the divine excellence of this Gospel, which He was to preach through him. But into what "own" did John take the Lord's mother? For was he not one of those who had said to Him: "Behold, we have left all things and followed You"? But there he had also heard: "Whoever has left these things for My sake will receive in this world a hundred times as much" (Matt. XIX). That disciple, then, had a hundredfold more than he had left, into which he might receive the mother of Him who had given them. But blessed John had received the hundredfold in that fellowship where no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts II). For thus the apostles were "as having nothing, and possessing all things" (II Cor. VI), and "distribution was made to each as each had need" (Acts II); whence it is to be understood that what was needed was so distributed to this disciple that there was also set there the portion of blessed Mary as his mother. And we ought rather to take what is said, "From that hour the disciple took her into his own", in this way: that whatever was necessary for her should belong to his care. He took her, then, into his own, not estates, of which he possessed none of his own, but duties, which he took care to carry out by his own stewardship. Then he adds:

"Afterwards Jesus, knowing that all things were accomplished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, says: 'I thirst.' Now a vessel full of vinegar had been set there. And they, putting a sponge full of vinegar about hyssop, offered it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had taken the vinegar, He said: 'It is accomplished.' And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." Who can so arrange what he does as this Man who suffered arranged it? But He is the Man who is Mediator of God and men, the Man of whom we read it foretold: "And He is a man, and who knows Him?", since all those through whom these things were being done did not know the Man as God. For He who was appearing as man was hidden as God. He who appeared suffered all these things, and the very same, who was hidden, was arranging all these things. He saw, then, that all things were accomplished which had to be done before He received the vinegar and gave up His spirit. And so that this too might be accomplished which the Scripture

had foretold: "And in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink" (Ps. LXVIII). "I thirst", He says, as though He were saying: "This much you have failed to do: give what you are." For the Jews themselves were degenerating from the wine of the patriarchs and prophets, and, as though from a full vessel, were filled with the iniquity of this world, having a heart like a sponge, deceitful with hollow and, as it were, winding hiding places. And as for their putting hyssop about the sponge full of vinegar, since it is a lowly herb and purges the breast, we fittingly take it as the humility of Christ Himself, which they surrounded, and thought they had overreached. Hence is that saying in the fiftieth psalm: "You will sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed." For we are cleansed by the humility of Christ, because unless He had humbled Himself, "becoming obedient unto the death of the cross" (Phil. II), His blood would certainly not have been shed for the remission of sins, that is, for our cleansing. Nor let it trouble anyone how they could bring the sponge to the mouth of One who had been lifted up from the earth on the cross. For, as is read in the other evangelists (which he has passed over here), it was done with a reed (Matt. XXVII; Mark XV), so that such a drink in a sponge might be raised to the heights of the cross. And by the reed was signified the Scripture, which was being fulfilled by this deed. For just as a signifying sound uttered by the tongue is called a tongue, whether Greek or Latin or any other, so the letter written with a reed can be called a reed. But we most commonly call the signifying sounds of the human voice tongues; whereas to speak of the reed of the Scriptures, the less usual it is, the more mystically figurative it is. An ungodly people was doing these things; the merciful Christ was suffering them. He who was doing them did not know what he was doing. But He who was suffering not only knew what was being done and why it was being done, but even Himself did good out of those doing evil. "When Jesus therefore had taken the vinegar, He said: 'It is accomplished'" (John X). What, but what the prophecy had foretold so long before? Then, since nothing remained that still had to be done before He died, as One who had power to lay down His life and to take it up again, all things being completed which He was waiting to be completed, "bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." Who so sleeps when he wills as Christ died when He willed? Who so departs when he wills, as He departed when He willed? How great is the power of the One judging, to be hoped for or feared, if so great appeared the power of the One dying? But John is silent about the words He spoke in giving up His spirit: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." And he says "spirit", because spirit is the name of a thing so incorporeal that it is even independent of the body, according to what was said above: "God is spirit."

"The Jews therefore", he says, "since it was the Preparation, so that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that day of the Sabbath was a great one), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away." Not that the legs might be taken away, but those whose legs were broken for this purpose, that they might die and be removed from the wood, lest, by their hanging on

their crosses, they should defile the great feast day with the horror of their long-drawn torment.

"The soldiers therefore came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they had come to Jesus, as they saw Him already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers opened His side with a lance, and at once there came out blood and water." The evangelist used a watchful word, so as not to say: "struck His side", or "wounded", or anything else, but "opened", so that there, in a manner, the door of life might be thrown open, from which flowed the sacraments of the Church, without which there is no entering into the life which is true life. That blood was shed for the remission of sins. That water tempers the saving cup. It provides both washing and drink. This was foretold when Noah was commanded to make a door in the side of the ark, through which the animals that were not to perish in the flood might enter, by which the Church was prefigured. For this reason the first woman was made from the side of the man as he slept, and was called life and the mother of the living. For she signified a great good before the great evil of the transgression. And here the second Adam, bowing His head, slept on the cross, so that from there a spouse might be formed for Him, she who flowed from the side of the Sleeper. O death, whereby the dead come to life again! What is purer than this blood? What more healing than this wound?

"And he who saw", he says, "has borne witness; and his witness is true; and he knows that he speaks true things, that you also may believe." He did not say: "That you also may know", but "that you may believe". For he who saw knows, so that he who did not see may believe his testimony. And believing belongs to faith more than seeing does. For what else is believing but giving faith?

"For these things were done", he says, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled: 'You shall not break a bone of Him.' And again another Scripture says: 'They shall look on Him whom they pierced.'" He has rendered two testimonies from the Scriptures for the two things he related as having been done. For since he had said: "But when they had come to Jesus, as they saw Him already dead, they did not break His legs", to this belongs the testimony: "You shall not break a bone of it" (Exod. XII), which was commanded to those who were ordered to celebrate the Passover by the sacrifice of a sheep in the old law, which had gone before as a shadow of the Lord's passion; whence "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed" (I Cor. V); of whom the prophet Isaiah also had foretold: "As a sheep He was led to the slaughter" (Isa. LIII). Likewise, since he had added: "One of the soldiers opened His side with a lance", to this belongs the other testimony: "They shall look on Him whom they pierced" (Zech. XII), where Christ is promised as coming in that flesh in which He was crucified.

"And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, because he was a disciple of Jesus, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, who had first come to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds." It is not to be punctuated so that we say: "first bringing a mixture of myrrh", or rather so that what is said, "first", belongs to the preceding sense. For Nicodemus had first come to Jesus by night,

which the same John himself narrated in the earlier parts of his Gospel (John III). Here therefore it is to be understood that Nicodemus came to Jesus not only then, but then for the first time; and that he came often afterwards, so as to become a disciple by hearing, which indeed has now been made known to almost all nations in the revelation of the body of the most blessed Stephen.

They took therefore the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury (John 19:40). It does not seem to me that the evangelist meant to say to no purpose, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. For thus, unless I am mistaken, he admonished that in offices of this kind, which are rendered to the dead, the custom of each nation is to be kept.

Now there was in the place where He was crucified a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid (John 19:41). Just as in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one before Him, no one after Him was conceived, so in this tomb no one before Him, no one after Him was buried.

There therefore, because of the Parasceve of the Jews, since the tomb was near, they laid Jesus (John 19:42). He wishes the burial to be understood as hastened, lest evening should come on, when on account of the Parasceve, which the Jews among us more commonly call in Latin the pure supper, it was no longer lawful for anyone to do such a thing.

CHAPTER XX.

Now on the first [day] of the week Mary Magdalene came early, while it was yet dark, to the tomb, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb (John 20:1). The first of the week is the day which Christian custom now calls the Lord's Day because of the Lord's resurrection: which Matthew alone among the evangelists named the first of the week.

She ran therefore, and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them: They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him (John 20:2). Some manuscripts, Greek ones too, have: They have taken my Lord, which may seem to have been said from a more ardent affection of love or of service. But we have not found this in most of the manuscripts which we had at hand.

Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the tomb. And the two ran together, and that other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb (John 20:3–4). Here the recapitulation is to be noticed and commended, how a return is made to what had been passed over, and yet it is added as though it followed. For when he had already said: They came to the tomb, he went back to tell how they came, and says: And the two ran together, etc. Where he shows that the other disciple, by whom he means himself, running ahead, came first to the tomb; but he narrates everything as though about another.

And when he had stooped down, he says, he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him, and went into the tomb, and saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin which had been upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped up apart in one place (John 20:5–7). Do we think that these things signify nothing? By no means would I think so, but we are hastening on to other things, in which

we are compelled to linger by the necessity of some question or obscurity. For to ask what each of these things, which are plain of themselves, also signifies, is indeed a holy delight, but one for men at leisure, which we are not.

Then therefore that disciple also went in who had come first to the tomb (John 20:8). He came first, he entered later. Nor is this certainly without meaning, but I have no leisure for these things.

And he saw, he says, and believed. Here some, paying too little attention, think that John believed this, that Jesus had risen. But what follows does not indicate this. For what does it mean, that he at once added:

For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead (John 20:9). So he did not believe that He had risen, Whom he did not know must rise. What then did he see? what did he believe? He saw, of course, the empty tomb, and believed what the woman had said, that He had been taken from the tomb. For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead. And so when they heard it from the Lord Himself, although it was said most plainly, from their habit of hearing parables from Him they did not understand, and believed He signified something else. Mary Magdalene had announced to His disciples Peter and John that the Lord had been taken from the tomb; coming there, they found only the linen cloths in which the body had been wrapped. And what else could they believe but what she had said, what she herself also had believed?

The disciples therefore went away again to their own (that is, where they lived, and whence they had run to the tomb); but Mary stood at the tomb outside, weeping (John 20:10–11). For while the men went back, a stronger affection fixed the weaker sex in the same place; and the eyes which had sought the Lord and had not found Him were now given over to tears, grieving more that He had been taken from the tomb than that He had been slain on the wood, since of so great a Master, Whose life had been taken from them, not even a memorial remained. So this grief now held the woman at the tomb.

As she wept, therefore, she stooped down and looked into the tomb. Why she did this, I do not know; for she was not unaware that He Whom she was seeking was no longer there, since she herself had announced to the disciples that He had been taken from there, and they had come to the tomb, and had sought the Lord's body not only by looking but also by entering, and had not found it. What then does it mean that, while she wept, she stooped again and looked into the tomb? Was it because she grieved so greatly that she thought neither her own eyes nor theirs were easily to be believed? Or rather was it brought about in her mind by a divine prompting that she should look in? For she looked in:

And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid (John 20:12). What does it mean that one sat at the head, the other at the feet? Is it that, since those who in Greek are called angels are in Latin messengers, in this way they signified that the gospel of Christ was to be proclaimed as it were from head to feet, from the beginning to the end?

They say to her: Woman, why are you weeping? She says to them: Because

they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him (John 20:13). The angels were forbidding tears, and in this what else were they announcing but, in a certain manner, the joy to come? For they said, Why are you weeping? as if they were saying: Do not weep. But she, thinking they had asked in ignorance, disclosed the causes of her tears: Because they have taken away, she says, my Lord. Calling the lifeless body of her Lord her Lord, signifying the part by the whole: just as all confess Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, Who is indeed at once Word and soul and flesh, to have been crucified nevertheless and buried, although His flesh alone was buried. And I do not know, she says, where they have laid Him. This was the greater cause of her grief, that she did not know where to go to console her grief. But the hour had now come in which what had in a certain manner been announced by the angels forbidding her to weep, [namely that] joy should succeed to weeping [, came to pass].

At length, when she had said this, she turned round, and saw Jesus standing, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? She, supposing that He was the gardener, says to Him: Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus says to her, Mary. She, turning, says to Him: Rabboni, which is to say, Master (John 20:14–16). Let no one find fault with the woman for calling the gardener lord, and Jesus master. For there she was asking, here she was recognizing. There she was honouring a man from whom she was requesting a favour: she called him lord whose handmaid she was not, so that through him she might come to the Lord Whose [handmaid] she was. In one sense therefore she said Lord: They have carried off my Lord, in another: Sir, if you have carried Him off. For the prophets too called those men lords who were men, but in another sense Him of Whom it is written: The Lord is His name (Amos IX). But this woman, who had already turned round to see Jesus when she thought He was the gardener, and was certainly speaking with Him, how is she said to have turned again in order to say to Him Rabboni, unless because then, turned in body, she thought Him what He was not; now, turned in heart, she recognized what He was?

Jesus says to her: Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brethren, and tell them: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God (John 20:17). There is in these words something which we ought to treat briefly indeed, but nevertheless with some care. For Jesus, when He answered these things to the woman who recognized Him as master and called Him so, was teaching her faith; and that gardener was sowing a grain of mustard seed in her heart as in His garden. What then is: Do not touch Me? And as though the reason for this prohibition were asked, He added: For I have not yet ascended to My Father. What is this? If standing on earth He is not touched, how would He be touched by man sitting in heaven? He Who certainly, before He ascended, offered Himself to be touched by the disciples, saying, as Luke the evangelist testifies: Handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have (Luke XXIV). Or when He said to the disciple Thomas: Put your finger here, and see My hands;

and bring your hand, and put it into My side. But who would be so absurd as to say that He was willing to be touched by the disciples before He had ascended to the Father, but unwilling by the women except when He had ascended to the Father? But lest anyone who wished to be so foolish should be allowed, we read also that women after the resurrection, before He ascended to the Father, touched Christ, among whom was Mary Magdalene herself, as Matthew relates that Jesus met them, saying: Hail. And they came, he says, and took hold of His feet, and worshipped Him (Matthew XXVIII). This was passed over by John, but truly told by Matthew. It remains therefore that some mystery lies hidden in these words: and whether we find it or are quite unable to find it, we ought in no way to doubt that it is there. Either then it was said thus: Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father, so that in that woman should be figured the Church from the Gentiles, which did not believe in Christ until He had ascended to the Father; or Jesus wished to be believed in thus, that is, to be touched spiritually thus, that He and the Father are one. For He has in a certain manner ascended to the Father in the inmost perceptions of him who has so advanced in Him as to acknowledge Him equal to the Father. Otherwise He is not rightly touched, that is, otherwise He is not rightly believed in. Now Mary could have believed in such a way as to think Him unequal to the Father. This is certainly forbidden when it is said to her: Do not touch Me, that is, do not believe in Me as you still understand. Do not extend your understanding only so far as what I was made for you, without passing over to that through which you were made. For how was she not still believing in Him carnally, when she was weeping for Him as a man? For I have not yet, He says, ascended to My Father. There you will touch Me, when you have believed Me God not unequal to the Father. But go to My brethren and say to them: I ascend to My Father and to your Father. He does not say, our Father. In one sense therefore Mine, in another yours. Mine by nature, yours by grace. And My God and your God. Nor here did He say, our God. Therefore here too in one sense Mine, in another yours. My God, under Whom I also am man. Your God, between whom and Him I am Mediator.

Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples: I have seen the Lord, and He said these things to me. When therefore it was evening on that first day of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst of the disciples, and says to them: Peace be to you; and when He had said this, He showed them His hands and side (John 20:18–20). For the nails had pierced the hands, the lance had opened the side. Here, for the healing of the hearts of the doubting, the marks of the wounds were kept. But to the mass of the body in which the Godhead was, the shut doors were no obstacle. For He could enter by them unopened, at Whose birth virginity remained inviolate.

The disciples therefore rejoiced at seeing the Lord. He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you (John 20:20–21). Repetition is confirmation. For He Himself promised through the Prophet peace upon peace.

As the Father has sent Me, He says, I also send you (John 20:21). We know the Son equal to the Father, but here the words of the Mediator

we recognize, for He shows Himself in the middle by saying: He Me, and I you.

When He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). By breathing He signified that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit not of the Father alone, but also His own.

Whose sins, He says, you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall retain, they are retained (John 20:23). The charity of the Church, which is poured forth through the Holy Spirit in our hearts, forgives the sins of those who share in it. But it retains [the sins] of those who do not share in it. Therefore, after He said: Receive the Holy Spirit, He at once added concerning the forgiveness of sins:

But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, 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 print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them: Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said to them: Peace be to you. Then He says to Thomas: Put in your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand, etc. (John 20:24–27). He saw and touched the man, and confessed the God Whom he neither saw nor touched. But through what he saw and touched, he now believed that [other], doubt being removed; Jesus says to him:

Because you have seen Me, you have believed (John 20:29). He does not say, You have touched Me, but, you have seen Me, because sight is in a certain manner a general sense. For it is customarily named also for the other four senses, as when we say: Hear and see how well it sounds, Smell and see how well it smells, Taste and see how well it savours, Touch and see how warm it is. Everywhere see has been said, although sight is not denied to belong properly to the eyes. Hence here too the Lord Himself:

Put in, He says, your finger, and see My hands. And what else does He say but, touch and see? Yet he did not have eyes in his finger. So whether by looking or also by touching: Because you have seen Me, He says, you have believed; although it could be said that the disciple did not dare to touch when He offered Himself to be touched. For it is not written: And Thomas touched. But whether he saw and believed by looking only or also by touching, what follows rather proclaims and commends the faith of the Gentiles.

Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed (John 20:29). He used verbs of past time, as One Who knew that what was to come was already done in His predestination.

Many other signs also Jesus did in the sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you may have life in His name (John 20:30–31). This passage indicates the end of this book. But from here onward it is narrated how the Lord manifested Himself at the sea of Tiberias, and in the catch of fishes commended the mystery of the Church

such as it will be in the last resurrection of the dead. To commend this, therefore, I judge it serves that an end of the book, as it were, has been set in between, so that it might also be a kind of preface to the narrative that follows, which would in a certain manner give it a more eminent place.

The Fishing of the Apostles.

CHAPTER XXI.

We commonly ask, concerning this fishing of the disciples, whether Peter and the sons of Zebedee went back to what they had been before they were called by the Lord. For they were fishermen when He said to them: Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men (Matthew XIV). For then they followed Him so as to cleave to His teaching, having left all things, so much so that when that rich man went away from Him sorrowful, to whom He had said: Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me (Matthew XIX), Peter said to Him: Behold, we have left all things, and have followed You (Ibid.). Why is it then that now, as though the apostleship were abandoned, they become what they had been, and go back to what they had left, as though they had forgotten what they had heard: No one putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke IX)? If they had done this when Jesus was dead, before He had risen from the dead (which indeed they could not do, since the day on which He was crucified kept them all intent until His burial, which took place before evening; and the following day was the Sabbath, when, keeping their fathers' custom, it was certainly [not] lawful for them to work; and on the third day the Lord rose, and called them back to the hope which they had already begun not to have in Him), yet if they had done it then, we should think they had done it out of the despair which had taken hold of their minds; but now, after He had been given back to them alive from the tomb; after the most evident truth of the flesh come to life again had been offered to their eyes and hands, not only to be seen but also to be touched and handled; after the places of the wounds had been examined, even to the confession of the apostle Thomas, who had declared beforehand that he would not otherwise believe; after the Holy Spirit had been received by His breathing; after the words spoken from His mouth into their ears: As the Father has sent Me, I also send you: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose you shall retain, they are retained; do they suddenly become, as they had been, fishers not of men but of fish? To those who are troubled by this it must be answered that they were not forbidden to seek their necessary livelihood by their own craft, which was lawful and permitted, the integrity of their apostleship being kept, if at any time they had nothing else to live on. Unless perhaps someone will dare to think or to say that the apostle Paul did not attain to the perfection of those who, having left all things, followed Christ, because, so as not to burden any of those to whom he was preaching the Gospel, he made his living with his own hands (II Thessalonians II). Wherein was the more fulfilled what he says: I have laboured more than all of them (I Corinthians XV); and he added: Yet not I, but the grace of God with me (Ibid.). So that this too might appear to be ascribed to the grace of God, that both in mind and in body he was able to

labour so much more than all of them that he neither ceased from preaching the Gospel, nor yet, as they did, sustained this life from the Gospel, while he sowed it far more widely and more fruitfully through so many nations in which the name of Christ had not been prophesied. Wherein he shows that living from the Gospel, that is, having one's livelihood [from it], was not a necessity imposed on the apostles, but a power given them. This power the same Apostle recalls, saying: If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things? If others share in this power over you, do not we rather? But we have not used, he says, this power (I Corinthians IX). And a little after: They who serve the altar, he says, share with the altar. So also the Lord ordained for those who proclaim the Gospel to live by the Gospel. But I have used none of these (Ibid.). It is therefore plain enough that it was not commanded, but placed in the apostles' power, that they should live from no other source than the Gospel, and that from those among whom they sowed spiritual things by preaching the Gospel they should reap carnal things, that is, should take the sustenance of this flesh, and as soldiers of Christ receive their due pay, as from Christ's provincials. Whence that same excellent soldier had said a little above about this matter: Who ever serves as a soldier at his own charges (I Corinthians IX)? which nevertheless he himself was doing, because he laboured more than all of them. If then blessed Paul, so as not to use with the others that power which he certainly had with the other preachers of the Gospel, but to serve at his own charges, lest his teaching, as though put up for sale, should offend nations wholly estranged from the name of Christ, though brought up otherwise, learned a craft that he did not know, so that while the teacher made his living with his own hands no hearer should be burdened; how much more did blessed Peter, who had already been a fisherman, do what he knew, if for that present time he found nothing else to live on? But someone will answer: And why did he not find it, when the Lord had promised, saying: Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew VI)? Even so, in all truth, the Lord fulfilled what He promised. For who else provided the fish that were to be caught? He Who must be believed to have brought want upon them for no other reason, by which they were driven to go fishing, than because He willed to display a miracle He had arranged, so that He might at once feed the preachers of His Gospel and enrich the Gospel itself with so great a mystery as He was going to commend concerning the number of the fishes.

Simon Peter therefore says: I am going fishing. Those who were with him say to him: We also are coming with you. And they went out, and got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing (John 21:3), down to: And though they were so many, the net was not torn (John 21:11). This is a great mystery in the great Gospel of John, and so that it might be commended the more strongly, it is written in the last place. That there were seven disciples in this fishing, then, Peter and Thomas and Nathanael and the two sons of Zebedee and two others whose names are not given, signifies by this their number seven the end of time. For the whole of time turns in seven days. To this belongs that when morning had come Jesus stood on the shore (John 21:4), because the shore also is the end

of the sea, and therefore signifies the end of the world. The same end of the world is shown also by Peter's drawing the net out onto the land, that is, onto the shore: which the Lord Himself made plain where in another place He gave the likeness of the dragnet cast into the sea, and they draw it, He says, to the shore. And explaining what the shore was, He says: So shall it be at the consummation of the world (Matthew XIII). But that is a parable of word, not of deed. By a deed, however, as in this place, [He signified] how the Church will be at the end of the world, just as by another fishing the Lord signified how the Church is now. And that He did that one at the beginning of His preaching, but this one after His resurrection, shows thereby that the former catch of fishes signifies the good and the bad whom the Church has now, but this one only the good, whom she will have for ever when the resurrection of the dead has been completed at the end of this world. Lastly, there the Lord was not standing on the shore, as here, when He commanded the fish to be caught, but getting into one boat which was Simon's, He asked him to put out a little from the land; and sitting in it He taught the crowds. And when He had ceased speaking, He said to Simon: Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch (Luke V). And there what was caught of fish was in the boats; they did not, as here, draw the net onto the land. By these signs, and by any others that can be found, there the Church in this world, here the Church at the end of the world, is figured: and that is why the former was done before, this one after, the Lord's resurrection, because there Christ signified us as called, here as raised up. There the nets are not cast on the right, lest they signify the good alone; nor on the left, lest the bad alone, but without distinction: Let down, He says, your nets for a catch, so that we may understand the good and the bad mingled. But here: Cast, He says, the net on the right side of the boat (John 21:6), to signify those who stood on the right, the good alone. There the net was breaking, to signify schisms; but here, since then in that supreme peace of the saints there were no schisms any more, it fell to the evangelist to say: And though they were so many, that is, so great, the net was not torn, as though he looked back to the place where it was torn, and by comparison with that evil commended this good. There so great a multitude of fishes was caught that the two boats, filled, were sinking, that is, were weighed down to the point of going under. For they did not sink, but they were in danger. For whence arise in the Church so many things over which we groan, if not from this, that so great a multitude cannot be withstood, which enters, to the near-sinking of discipline, with its manners wholly estranged from the way of the saints? But here they cast the net on the right side, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes (John 21:6). What is: and now they were not able to draw it, unless that those who belong to the resurrection of life, that is, to the right hand, and die within the nets of the Christian name, will appear only on the shore, that is, at the end of the world, when they have risen? Therefore they were not able so to draw the nets as to empty into the boat the fish they had caught, as was done with those for whom the net broke and the boats were weighed down. The Church holds these on the right after the end of this life in the sleep of peace, lying hidden as it were in the deep,

until the net reaches the shore, which was being drawn about two hundred cubits. And what there [was figured] by two boats, on account of the circumcision and the uncircumcision, this in this place I think is figured by the two hundred cubits, on account of the elect of both kinds, of the circumcision and of the uncircumcision, as it were a hundred and a hundred, because in the sum of a hundred the count passes to the right hand. Lastly, in that fishing the number is not stated, as though there were fulfilled what was foretold by the Prophet: I have declared and I have spoken; they are multiplied beyond number (Psalm XXXIX). But here there are none beyond number; rather there is a fixed number, a hundred and fifty-three. The reason of this number must, with the Lord's help, be given. For if we fix a number to signify the law, what will it be but ten? For that the Decalogue of the law, that is, those ten last commandments, were first written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Exodus XXXI), is most certain to us. But the law, when grace does not help, makes transgressors, and is in the letter only. For it is chiefly on this account that the Apostle says: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (II Corinthians III). Let the spirit therefore come to the letter, lest the letter which the spirit does not quicken should kill; but [let it come] so that we may carry out the commandments of the law, not by our own strength but by the grace of the Saviour. Now when grace comes to the law, that is, the spirit to the letter, the number seven is in a certain manner added to the number ten. For that by this number, that is, seven, the Holy Spirit is signified, the attested proofs of the sacred writings bear witness. For indeed holiness or sanctification belongs properly to the Holy Spirit. Hence, although both the Father is spirit and the Son is spirit, since God is a spirit (John IV), and both the Father is holy and the Son is holy, yet by a name proper to Him, [though common] to both, the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit. Where then did sanctification first sound in the law, if not on the seventh day? For God did not sanctify the first day, on which He made light, or the second, on which He made the firmament, or the third, on which He separated the sea from the land, and the land brought forth grass and trees, or the fourth, on which the stars were created, or the fifth, on which [He made] the animals that live in the waters and fly in the air, or the sixth, on which the living soul of the earth, and man himself; but He sanctified the seventh day, on which He rested from His works (Genesis II). Fittingly therefore the Holy Spirit is signified by the number seven. And Isaiah the Prophet: There shall rest upon him, he says, the spirit of the Lord (Isaiah XI), and then commending Him by His sevenfold work or gift: The spirit, he says, of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and godliness; and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him (Ibid.). What? In the Apocalypse are not seven spirits of God spoken of (Apocalypse I), although there is one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one his own as He wills (I Corinthians XII)? But the sevenfold working of the one Spirit was so named by the same Spirit Who was present to the writer, that they were called seven spirits. When therefore the Holy Spirit, through the number seven, [comes] to the ten of the law

comes, there are ten and seven: and this number, when all [the numbers] from one up to itself are counted, grows until it reaches a hundred and fifty-three. For if to one you add two, they make three, surely: if to these you add three and four, they make ten in all. Then if you add all the numbers that follow, up to seventeen, the sum is brought to the number stated above. That is, if to the ten which you had reached from one up to four you add five, they make fifteen; if to these you add six, they make twenty-one; if to these you add seven, they make twenty-eight; if to these you add eight and nine and ten, they make fifty-five; if to these you add eleven and twelve and thirteen, they make ninety-one; to these again fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, and they make a hundred and thirty-six; to this number add the one that remains, with which we are concerned, that is, seventeen, and that number of the fishes will be complete. Not only, then, are a hundred and fifty-three saints signified who are to rise to eternal life, a number which contains three times the number fifty, and in addition three itself, on account of the mystery of the Trinity. Now fifty is made up by multiplying seven by seven and adding one. For seven times seven make forty-nine. And one is added, that by it may be signified that He is one Who is shown forth through seven on account of His sevenfold working. And we know that the Holy Spirit was sent on the fiftieth day after the Lord's ascension, the promised [Spirit] for Whom the disciples were commanded to wait (Acts I, II; Luke XXIV). Not in vain therefore were these fish said to be both so many and so great, that is, both a hundred and fifty-three, and large. For thus it is written: And they drew the net to land, full of large fishes, a hundred and fifty-three (John 21:11). For when the Lord had said: I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it (Matthew V), being about to give the Spirit, through Whom the law could be fulfilled, as if about to add seven to ten, after a very few words set in between, He says: Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Ibid.). Such a one, then, will be able to belong to the number of the large fishes; but that least one, who breaks by his deeds what he teaches by his words, can be in such a Church as that first catch of fishes signifies, having good and bad, because it too is called the kingdom of heaven, on which account He says: The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind of fish (Matthew XIII), where He wishes the good and the bad also to be understood, whom He says are to be separated on the shore, that is, at the end of the world. Lastly, to show that those least ones are reprobate, who teach good things by speaking which they break by living badly, and that they will not be in eternal life even as least, but will not be there at all, when He had said: He shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew V), He at once added: But I say to you that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Ibid.). It follows, then, that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, such as the Church now is, does not enter into the kingdom of heaven

what sort of Church there will then be, since by teaching what he loosens he will not belong to the fellowship of those who do what they teach; and therefore he will not be in the number of the great fish, since whoever does and teaches shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (ibid.); and because here he will be great, therefore there that one will not be least. So far indeed will they be great there that he who is lesser there is greater than him than whom no one here is greater. But yet those who are great here, that is, who in this kingdom of heaven where the net gathers good and bad do the good things which they teach, they themselves will be greater in that eternity of the kingdom of heaven, whom these fish point to as belonging to the right hand and to the resurrection of life. If this number is considered, it can also bring to mind the holiness of the Church, which was made through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that, since the creature consists of the number seven, when three is assigned to the soul and four to the body, the very taking up of man may be signified, and three may be multiplied seven times, because the Father sent the Son, and the Father is in the Son, and He was born of the Virgin by the gift of the Holy Spirit. These are the three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Seven times, then, the man himself taken up in the temporal dispensation, so that he might become everlasting. The sum of the number therefore becomes twenty-one, or three times seven. Now this taking up of man availed for the liberation of the Church, whose Head He is. And the Church herself, on account of soul and body, is found in the same number seven. Let twenty-one therefore be multiplied again seven times on account of those who are set free through the Lord's man, and together they make CXLVII, to which is added the number six, the sign of perfection, because it consists of the parts which measure it in such a way that nothing less, nothing more is found. For one measures it, which it has six times, and two, which it has three times, and three, which it has twice, and these taken together, one, and two, and three, make six. This perhaps may also pertain to that mystery, that God completed all His works on the sixth day (Genesis II). If therefore you add six, which is the sign of perfection, to one hundred and forty-seven, they make one hundred and fifty-three: which number of fish is found after, at the Lord's command, the nets were cast on the right side, where sinners, who belong to the left, are not found. So the Lord, having spent forty days after the resurrection with His disciples, that is, commending to them what was done for us in time, ascended into heaven, and after another forty days sent the Holy Spirit, by whom those who had believed in visible and temporal things might be perfected spiritually for grasping invisible things, indicating by the number ten, namely by those ten days after which He sent the Holy Spirit, that same perfection which is conferred through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, since the perfection which comes through the Holy Spirit, so long as we still walk in the flesh, although we do not live carnally, is joined with that temporal dispensation, the number fifty is rightly seen to pertain to the Church, but the Church now purified and perfected, which embraces in charity faith in the temporal dispensation and hope of the eternity to come,

that is, joins as it were the number forty to the number ten. Now this Church, to which the number fifty belongs, because it is chosen from three kinds of men, Jews, Gentiles, and carnal Christians, or because it is imbued with the mystery of the Trinity, arrives at one hundred and fifty by the number by which it is signified; for fifty multiplied by three makes one hundred and fifty; and when you add to this the three themselves, because that which is washed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit in the laver of regeneration ought to be distinguished and eminent, they make one hundred and fifty-three; which number of fish is found because the nets were cast on the right side, and therefore it holds great ones, that is, perfect ones, fit for the kingdom of heaven; where, the dispensation that is signified by the number forty now coming to rest, the denarius remains, the wage which the saints who labour in the vineyard are to receive. For when that fishing was done, Jesus said to them:

Come, dine. And none of those reclining dared to ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord. If, then, they knew, what need was there for them to ask? But if there was no need, why is it said They did not dare, as though there were need, but out of some fear they would not dare? The sense here, then, is this: so great was the evidence of the truth with which Jesus appeared to those disciples, that not one of them dared not only to deny, but even to doubt, since if anyone doubted, he would certainly have to ask. So, then, it is said: No one dared to ask, Who art Thou? as if it were said: No one dared to doubt that it was He.

And Jesus came, and took bread, and gave it to them, and fish likewise. See, it is also said what they dined on; and about this dinner we too shall say something sweet and wholesome, if He feeds us too. It was narrated above that these disciples, when they came down to land, saw coals laid, and a fish laid on them, and bread. Here it is not to be understood that the bread too was laid on the coals, but only "they saw" is to be supplied: if we repeat this word from the place where it is to be understood, the whole can be said thus: They saw coals laid, and a fish laid on them, and they saw bread. Or rather thus: They saw coals laid, and a fish laid on them; they saw bread too. At the Lord's bidding they also brought some of the fish which they themselves had caught. That they did so, although it is not stated by the narrator, yet that the Lord commanded it is not passed over in silence; for He says: Bring some of the fish which you have now caught. And who would believe that at His bidding they did not do it? From this, then, the Lord made a dinner for those seven disciples of His, from the fish, that is, which they had seen laid on the coals, adding to it some of those which they had caught. Of the bread, likewise, it is narrated that they saw it. The fish roasted is Christ suffered: He is also the bread which came down from heaven. To Him the Church is incorporated to share in everlasting blessedness. For this reason it is said: Bring some of the fish which you have caught now, so that all of us who bear this hope, through that number seven of the disciples, by which our whole body can in this place be understood as figured,

might know that we share in so great a mystery, and are joined to the same blessedness. This is the Lord's dinner with His disciples, with which John concludes his Gospel, though he had many other things to say about Christ, with a great contemplation, as I judge, and one of great things. For here is signified, by the catch of one hundred and fifty-three fish, what sort of Church there will be in the good alone, and, for those who believe, hope and love these things, participation in so great a blessedness through this dinner.

This is now the third time, he says, that Jesus was manifested to His disciples after He had risen from the dead. This we ought to refer not to the appearances themselves but to the days, that is, the first day when He rose, and after eight days when the disciple Thomas saw and believed, and today when He did this with the fish. After how many days He did it, however, is not said. For on that first day itself He was seen not once, as the testimonies of all the evangelists compared together show, but, as has been said, His manifestations are to be counted so that this one is the third. For the first is to be held as one and the same, because of the one day, however often and to whomever He showed Himself on that day on which He rose; the second after eight days; and this the third; and thereafter as often as He willed, up to the fortieth day, on which He ascended into heaven, although not all things are written.

So when He had dined, He says to Simon Peter: Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these? etc. This was the end that that denier found, and lover, puffed up by presuming, laid low by denying, cleansed by weeping, proved by confessing, crowned by suffering. This was the end he found, that he should die with perfect love for the name of Him with Whom he had promised, in perverse haste, that he would die. Strengthened by His resurrection, he will do what in his weakness he was promising prematurely. For this was fitting, that first Christ should die for Peter's salvation, then Peter for the preaching of Christ. What human rashness had begun to dare was the wrong way round, since the Truth had arranged this order. Peter thought that he would lay down his life for Christ, he who was to be set free for his Liberator, when Christ had come to lay down His life for all His own, among whom was Peter too, which, see, has now been done. Now let firmness of heart for undergoing death for the name of the Lord be taken up, a true firmness, by His gift, not a false one presumed by us in our error. Now is the time for us not to fear the destruction of this life, because in the Lord's rising the example of another life has gone before. Now is the time, Peter, for you not to fear death: He lives Whom you grieved for as dead; and He Whom you, out of carnal love, were forbidding to die for us — you dared to go before your Teacher, you dreaded His persecutor. Now that the price has been poured out for you, now is the time for you to follow your Redeemer (Matthew XVI), and you shall follow Him wholly, even to the death of the cross. You have heard the words of Him Whom you have now proved truthful. He Himself foretold that you would suffer, Who had foretold that you would deny. But first the Lord asks what He knew, not once, but again and a third time, whether Peter loves Him; and He hears nothing else so many times from Peter than that He is loved; and He commends nothing else so many times to Peter than His

that His sheep be fed. To the threefold denial a threefold confession is returned, so that the tongue may not serve love less than fear, and imminent death may not seem to have drawn out more from his voice than present life. Let it then be the office of love to feed the Lord's flock, if it was the sign of fear to deny the Shepherd. Those who feed Christ's sheep with this intent, that they wish them to be their own, not Christ's, are convicted of loving themselves, not Christ, out of the desire of glorying, or of lording it, or of acquiring, not out of the charity of obeying and helping and pleasing God. Against this, therefore, that voice of Christ, so many times impressed, keeps watch, against those whom the Apostle laments as seeking their own, not the things of Jesus Christ (Phil. 2). Is Do you love Me? feed My sheep anything other than if it were said: If you love Me, think not of feeding yourself, but My sheep; and feed them as Mine, not as yours; seek My glory in them, not yours; My dominion, not yours; My gains, not yours; lest you be in the company of those who belong to the perilous times, lovers of themselves, and the rest that is joined to this beginning of evils (2 Tim. 3). This vice is most of all to be guarded against by those who feed Christ's sheep, lest they seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ, and turn to the uses of their own desires those for whom Christ's blood was shed. Love for Him, in one who feeds His sheep, ought to grow into so great a spiritual ardour as to overcome even the natural fear of death, by which we do not wish to die, even when we wish to live with Christ. For the apostle Paul too says that he has the desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ: yet he groans, being burdened, and does not wish to be unclothed, but clothed over, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life (Phil. 1). And the Lord to this lover of His.

When you are old, He says, you shall stretch out your hands, and another shall gird you, and lead you where you would not. For this He said to him, signifying by what death he was to glorify God. You shall stretch out, He says, your hands, that is, you shall be crucified. But that you may come to this, another shall gird you, and lead you not where you would, but where you would not. First He said what would happen, and then how it would happen. For it was not when crucified, but when about to be crucified, that he was led where he would not. For once crucified, he went not where he did not wish, but rather where he wished. Released from the body, indeed, he wished to be with Christ; but, if it could be done, he desired eternal life without the distress of death: to that distress he was led unwilling, but from it he was led out willing. Unwilling he came to it, but willing he overcame it, and left behind this feeling of weakness, by which no one wishes to die, so natural that even old age could not take it away from blessed Peter, to whom it was said: When you are old, you shall be led where you would not. This feeling indeed the Saviour Himself, for our consolation, transfigured also in Himself, saying: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me (Matt. 26); He Who had certainly come to die, and had the necessity of death, yet was to lay down His life by voluntary power, and to take it up again by the same power. But however great the distress of death may be, the force of love ought to overcome it, the love by which He is loved Who, though He is our life, willed even to endure death for us. For if there were no distress of death, or only a small one,

the glory of the martyrs would not be so great. But if the good Shepherd, Who laid down His life for His sheep, made so many martyrs out of those very sheep, how much more ought they to strive even to death for the truth, and even to blood against sin, to whom He entrusts those sheep to be fed, that is, to be taught and ruled? And so, with the example of His passion going before, who does not see that the shepherds ought all the more to cleave to the Shepherd by imitation, if even many sheep have imitated Him? under Whom, the one Shepherd, in the one flock, the shepherds themselves too are sheep. For He made all His sheep, for all of whom He suffered, since He Himself too became a sheep in order to suffer for us. So when the Lord had foretold to Peter by what death he would glorify God, He says to him: Follow Me, etc., as far as But if I will him to remain till I come, what is it to you? For why is it said to Peter Follow Me, and not said to the others who were present together, and who assuredly were following Him as disciples follow their master? And if it is to be understood of the passion, was Peter the only one who suffered for the Christian truth? was not the other son of Zebedee there among those seven, the brother of John, who after His ascension is shown to have been killed by Herod? But someone may say that, since James was not crucified, it was rightly said to Peter follow Me, since he underwent not only death but even the death of the cross, as Christ did. If this and nothing else more fitting could be found, why then was it said of John: If I will him to remain till I come, what is it to you? and repeated, You, follow Me, as though he would not follow for the reason that He willed him to remain till He comes? Who would readily believe that anything else was meant than what the brethren who were then living believed, namely that that disciple would not die, but would remain in life until Jesus came? But John himself removed this opinion, declaring by an open denial that the Lord had not said this. For why would he add:

Jesus did not say, He does not die, unless so that what had been false might not cling in men's hearts? But let whoever pleases still resist, and say that what John says is true, that the Lord did not say that that disciple does not die, but that this was nevertheless signified by such words as he related Him to have said; and let him maintain that the apostle John is alive, and contend that in that tomb of his which is at Ephesus he is sleeping rather than lying dead, and let him take as proof that the earth there is said gently to well up and as it were to bubble, and let him assert, whether steadfastly or stubbornly, that this happens by his breathing. For there cannot fail to be people who believe it, if there are not lacking those who assert that even Moses is alive, because it is written that his tomb is not found (Genesis XXXIV), and he appeared with the Lord on the mountain where Elijah also was (Matthew XVII), whom we read did not die but was taken up (IV Kings II). As though the body of Moses could not have been hidden somewhere in such a way that where it was should be altogether hidden from men, and raised thence by God for an hour, when he and Elijah were seen with Christ, just as for an hour many bodies of the saints arose when He suffered

Christ, and after His resurrection appeared to many in the holy city, as it is written (Matthew XXVII). But is this great question solved by this, if by a great miracle, such as the Almighty can work, the body lies alive in sleep under the earth for so long, until the end of the age comes? Rather it becomes larger and more difficult: why Jesus, to the disciple whom He loved above the rest, so much so that he was found worthy to recline on His breast, should have granted as a great gift a long sleep in the body, when He released blessed Peter through the immense glory of martyrdom from the burden of that same body, and granted him what the apostle Paul said and wrote that he had desired, to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philippians I)? But if, as is rather believed, holy John says that the Lord did not say He does not die so that it might not be thought that He had wished this to be understood by the words He said, and his body lies lifeless in his tomb, like those of other dead men, it remains that, if what report has spread about the earth that, taken away, keeps growing up again is truly so, either it happens so that in this way his precious death may be commended, since martyrdom does not commend it (for no persecutor killed him for the faith of Christ), or on account of something else which is hidden from us; yet the question remains why the Lord said of a man who was to die: If I will him to remain till I come. Who also would not be moved, in the case of these two apostles Peter and John, to ask why the Lord loved John more, when Peter loved the Lord Himself more? For wherever John mentions himself, so that, his name being kept silent, he himself may be understood, he adds this, that Jesus loved him, as if He loved him alone, so that by this sign he might be distinguished from the others, all of whom He certainly loved. What, then, did he wish to be understood, when he said this, except that he was loved more? which far be it that he should say falsely. And what greater sign of His greater love towards him could Jesus give than that a man who, with his other fellow disciples, was a sharer in so great a salvation should alone recline on the breast of the Saviour Himself? Further, that the apostle Peter loved Christ more than the others, many proofs can indeed be brought; but, not to go far afield into other passages, in the reading of this third manifestation itself, a little above, which precedes this one, it appears clearly enough, where, questioning him, He said: Do you love Me more than these? which He certainly knew, and yet He was asking, so that we too who read the Gospel might know Peter's love towards the Lord, both by His asking and by Peter's answering. But that in what Peter answered, I love Thee, he does not add more than these: he answered this which he knew about himself. For he could not know how much the Lord was loved by any other, since he could not see another's heart; but yet, by saying in the earlier words: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest, he himself too declared clearly enough that the Lord had asked, knowing, what He asked. The Lord, therefore, knew not only that Peter loved Him, but also that he loved Him more than those others; and yet, if we put the question, asking which of two is the better, he who loves Christ more or he who loves Him less, who will hesitate to answer

that he who loves more is the better? Again, if we put the question which of two is the better, he whom Christ loves less or he whom He loves more, we shall answer without doubt that he who is loved more by Christ is the better. In that first comparison, then, which I proposed earlier, Peter is set before John, but in this other one John before Peter. Accordingly we propose a third thus: Which of two disciples is the better, he who loves Christ less than his fellow disciple, and is loved by Christ more than his fellow disciple; or he whom Christ loves less than his fellow disciple, while he himself loves Christ more than his fellow disciple does? Here plainly the answer hesitates, and the question grows. But as far as I myself understand, I would readily answer that he who loves Christ more is the better, but he whom Christ loves more is the happier, if I could see clearly how I might defend the justice of our Liberator in loving less the one by whom He is loved more, and more the one by whom He is loved less. Yet I will undertake to discuss the solving of so vast a question, according to the strength which He Himself shall have given. For up to this point it has been proposed, not expounded. Let this be the beginning of its exposition, that we remember that in this corruptible body, which weighs down the soul (Wisdom IX), we live a wretched life, but we who have now been redeemed through the Mediator, and have received the Holy Spirit as a pledge, have the blessed life in hope, although we do not yet hold it in reality. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans VIII). This life, therefore, of which it is written: Is not the life of man upon earth a trial? (Job VII), in which we cry daily to God: Deliver us from evil (Matthew VI), man is compelled to endure even when his sins are forgiven, although the first cause of his coming into that misery was sin; for the penalty is longer drawn out than the fault, lest the fault should be thought small if the penalty too were ended with it. This is the condition of these days which we spend as evil in this mortality, although in them we love to see good days, a condition to be wept over indeed, but not to be blamed (Psalm XXXIII). For it comes from the just wrath of God, of which Scripture, reading, says: Man, it says, born of woman, is of short life, and full of wrath (Job XIV). In this wrath of His, God holding back His mercies, as it is written (Psalm LXXVI), besides the other consolations of the wretched which He does not cease to give to the human race, sent His only-begotten Son, through Whom He created all things, so that, remaining God, He might become man, that the man Christ Jesus might be the mediator between God and men: so that those believing in Him, the guilt of all sins being loosed through the laver of regeneration, might be set free from perpetual damnation, and might live in faith, and hope, and charity. And because even those walking in Him are not without sins, which creep in from the weakness of this life, He gave the saving remedies of alms, by which their prayer might be helped, where He taught them to say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matthew VI). This the Church does, blessed in hope in this life of hardship: of which Church

the apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostolate, bore the person of the Church in a figured generality. For as regards what belongs to him properly, by nature he was one man, by grace one Christian, by more abundant grace one and the same first apostle. But when it was said to him: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: what you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matthew XVI), he signified the whole Church, which in this world, by various temptations, as by rains, rivers, and temptations which it uses [F. by which it is shaken], does not fall, because it is founded upon the rock, from which Peter takes his name. For the rock is not named from Peter, but Peter from the rock; just as Christ is not named from Christian, but Christian from Christ. For this reason the Lord says: Upon this rock I will build My Church, because Peter had said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; upon this rock, therefore, He says, which you have confessed, I will build My Church. For the rock was Christ (I Corinthians X), upon which foundation Peter himself too was built. For other foundation no one can lay, besides that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus (I Corinthians III). The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ, received from Him in Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the power of loosing and binding sins. For what the Church is properly in Christ, that Peter is by signification in the rock; by which signification Christ is understood as the rock, Peter as the Church. This Church, then, which Peter signified, so long as it lives among evils, is set free from evils by loving and following Christ. And it follows Him more in those who strive for the truth even to death. But to the whole body it is said Follow Me; for which whole body Christ suffered, of Whom the same Peter says: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps (I Peter II). See why it was said to him Follow Me. But there is another, immortal life, which is not among evils. There we shall see face to face what here is seen through a glass and in a riddle (I Corinthians XIII), when much progress is made in desiring the truth. The Church, then, knows two lives, divinely proclaimed and commended to her, of which one is in faith, the other in sight; one in the time of pilgrimage, the other in the eternity of the dwelling; one in labour, the other in rest; one on the way, the other in the homeland; one in the work of action, the other in the reward of contemplation; one turns aside from evil and does good, the other has no evil from which to turn aside, and a great good to enjoy; one fights it out with the enemy, the other reigns without an enemy; one bridles carnal lusts, the other is free for spiritual delights; one helps the needy, the other is where it finds no one needy; one forgives the sins of others, so that its own may be forgiven it, the other neither suffers anything to forgive nor does anything for which it asks to be forgiven; one discerns good and evil, the other beholds the things that are good. So the one is good, but still wretched, the other better, and blessed. The former was signified by the apostle Peter, the latter by John. The whole of the former is carried on here up

to the end of this world, and there it finds its end; the latter is deferred, to be completed after the end of this world, but in the world to come it has no end. Therefore it is said to the one Follow Me; but of the other: If I will him to remain till I come, what is it to you? you, follow Me. For what is this too, as far as I understand, as far as I grasp, what is this, except You, follow Me by imitation in bearing temporal evils; let him remain until I come to repay everlasting goods? Which can be said more openly thus: Let perfect action follow Me, formed by the example of My passion, but let contemplation, begun, remain until I come, to be perfected when I have come. For the devout fullness of patience, reaching even to death, follows Christ; but the fullness of knowledge remains until Christ comes, to be manifested then. For here the evils of this world are endured in the land of the dying; there the good things of the Lord will be seen in the land of the living. For when He says: I will indeed that he remain till I come, it is not to be understood as though He had said remain behind, or remain permanently, but wait: since what is signified through him will be fulfilled, certainly not now, but when Christ comes. But what is signified through the one to whom it was said, You, follow Me, unless it is done now, that which is awaited will not be reached. Now in this active life, the more we love Christ, the more easily we are set free from evil. But He loves us less as we now are; and for this reason He sets us free from here, so that we may not always be such. There, however, He loves us more, since we shall have nothing which displeases Him and which He should take away from us. Nor does He love us here for any other reason than to heal us and to bring us over from the things which He does not love. Here, then, where He loves less, let us not wish to remain; there, where He loves more, let us pass over, and from whence He does not will it, let us not perish. Let Peter, then, love Him, so that we may be set free from this mortality; let John be loved by Him, so that we may be kept in that immortality. But by this reasoning it is shown why Christ loved John more than Peter, not why Peter loved Christ more than John did. For Christ does not love us more in the world to come (where we shall live with Him without end) than in this one, from which we are rescued so that we may be there always, in such a way that we shall then not love Him less, when we shall be better, since we can by no means be better except by loving Him more. Why, then, did John love Him less than Peter, if he signified that life in which He is to be loved much more, unless because it was said for this reason, I will him to remain, that is, to wait, till I come, since that very love, which will then be greater, we do not yet have, but await it as future, so that we may have it when He Himself comes? For as the same Apostle says in his Epistle: It has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (I John III). Then, therefore, we shall love more what we shall see. But the Lord Himself, knowing by predestination that future life of ours, what it is to be in us, loves it more, so that by loving He may lead us to it. Wherefore, since all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Psalm

XXIV), we know our present misery, because we feel it; and therefore we love more the mercy of the Lord, which we wish to be shown to us for our deliverance from misery, and we ask for it daily, above all in the remission of sins, and we have it. This was signified by Peter, loving more but loved less, because Christ loves us less when wretched than when blessed. For the contemplation of the truth, such as it will be then, we love less, because we do not yet know it, nor have it. This was signified by John, loving less, and therefore waiting until the Lord comes for that contemplation itself, and for the fulfilling in us of the love of it such as is due to it, but loved more, because what was figured by him is what makes one blessed. Yet no one separates these distinguished apostles; and in what John signified both of them were to be. By signifying, the one followed, the other remained. But by believing, both endured the present evils of this misery. Both awaited the future goods of that blessedness. Nor they alone, but the whole holy Church, the bride of Christ, does this, to be rescued from these temptations, to be kept in that happiness: which two lives Peter and John figured, each one one, but in this one both walked in time by faith, and in that one both will enjoy for ever by sight. For all the saints, then, who belong inseparably to the body of Christ, Peter, the first of the apostles, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven for binding and loosing sins, for the steering of this most storm-tossed life; and for the same all the saints, for the most quiet bosom of that most holy life, John the evangelist reclined on the breast of Christ, since neither does the one alone, but the whole Church, bind and loose sins; nor did the other alone drink from the fountain of the Lord's breast the sublime truths about the divinity of Christ, and about the Trinity and unity of the whole Godhead (which in that kingdom are to be contemplated face to face, but now, until the Lord comes, to be beheld in a glass and in a riddle), which he would pour forth in preaching, but the Lord Himself has poured out that very Gospel through the whole world to be drunk by all His own, each according to his capacity. There are those, and these indeed not contemptible expounders of the sacred word, who have held that the apostle John was loved more by Christ for this reason, that he did not take a wife, and lived most chastely from earliest boyhood. This indeed does not appear plainly in the canonical Scriptures; but this too greatly helps the fittingness of this opinion, that that life was signified through him where there will be no marriages.

This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and has written these things; and we know that his witness is true. But there are also, he says, many other things which Jesus did: which, if they were written one by one, I think that not even the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written. It is not to be believed that the world could not contain them for want of space (for how could they be written in it, if it could not bear them once written?), but that perhaps they could not be grasped by the capacity of those reading; although, saving the