Tractates on the Gospel of John 108.1–109.5

Still speaking to the Father and praying for his disciples, the Lord says: "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them." They had not yet experienced this in their sufferings, which came upon them afterward; but in his manner he says these things, foretelling future things in words of past time. Then, giving the reason why the world hated them: "Because they are not of the world," he says, "as I also am not of the world." This was conferred on them by regeneration; for by generation they were of the world; that is why he had already said to them, "I chose you out of the world." So it was granted them that, like him, they too should not be of the world, he himself freeing them from the world. But he himself was never of the world: because even according to the form of a servant he was born of the Holy Spirit, of whom they were reborn. For if they are no longer of the world because they were reborn of the Holy Spirit, he was never of the world because he was born of the Holy Spirit.

"I do not ask," he says, "that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from evil." For they still needed, though no longer of the world, to be in the world. He repeats the same thought: "They are not of the world," he says, "as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth." For in this way they are kept from evil, as he prayed above. But it can be asked how they were no longer of the world if they had not yet been sanctified in the truth; or, if they already had been, why he asks that they may be. Is it because those who have been sanctified also make progress in the 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? Hence the Apostle too says: "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So the heirs of the New Testament are sanctified in the truth, of which truth the sanctifications of the Old Testament were shadows; and when they are sanctified in the truth, they are certainly sanctified in Christ, who said truly, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Likewise when he says, "The truth will set you free," explaining a little later what he meant, he says, "If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free," to show that what he had first called the truth he afterward called the Son. What else, then, did he say in this place too, "Sanctify them in the truth," but "sanctify them in me"?

Finally there follows, and he does not cease to suggest this more openly: "Your word," he says, "is truth." What else did he say but, "I am the truth"? For the Greek Gospel has logos, which is also read in the place where it is said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And certainly we know that Word itself to be the only-begotten Son of God, who "became flesh and dwelt among us." Hence here too verbum could have been put, and in some manuscripts it has been put: "Your Word (verbum) is truth"; just as in some manuscripts there too it is written, "In the beginning was the Word (sermo)." But in the Greek, without any variation, both there and here it is logos. So the Father sanctifies his own, heirs of himself and co-heirs with him, in the truth, that is, in his Word, in his Only-begotten.

But he is still speaking now of the apostles; for he goes on to add, "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world." Whom did he send but his apostles? For the very name "apostles," since it is Greek, means in Latin nothing but "those who are sent." So God sent his Son, not in sinful flesh but in the likeness of sinful flesh; and his Son sent those whom, born in sinful flesh, he sanctified from the stain of sin.

But since, through the fact that the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, was made head of the church, they are his members, he therefore 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? For those of whom he says this are, as I said, his members, and the head and the body are one Christ, as the Apostle teaches when he says of the seed of Abraham, "But if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed," having said above, "It does not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ." If, then, the seed of Abraham is Christ, what else was said to those to whom it was said, "Then you are Abraham's seed," but "Then you are Christ"? Hence it is that the same apostle says in another place: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ." He did not say "of my afflictions" but "of Christ's," because he was a member of Christ; and in his persecutions, such as Christ had to suffer in his whole body, he too was filling up, for his part, Christ's afflictions. That this may be certain in this place too, attend to what follows. For when he had said, "And for them I sanctify myself," so that we might understand that he said this meaning that he sanctifies them in himself, he at once added, "that they too may be sanctified in the truth." What is this but "in me," according to the fact that the truth is that Word who in the beginning is God? In that Word the son of man himself too was sanctified from the beginning of his creation, when the Word became flesh, because the Word and man became one person. Then, therefore, he sanctified himself in himself, that is, himself the man in himself the Word; because the Word and man are one Christ, sanctifying the man in the Word. But on account of his members he says, "And for them I": that is, so that it may benefit them too, because they too are I; just as it benefited me in myself, because I am man apart from them; "I sanctify myself," that is, I sanctify them in myself as myself, since in me they too are I. "That they too may be sanctified in the truth." What is "they too" but "as I am"; "in the truth," which I myself am? Then he begins to speak not only of the apostles but also of his other members; which, by his gift, must be treated in another sermon.

The Lord Jesus, as his passion now drew near, after praying for his disciples, whom he also named apostles, with whom he had eaten the last supper, from which his betrayer, revealed by the morsel, had gone out, and with whom he had already spoken much after the betrayer's departure before he prayed for them, added the others too who would believe in him, and said to the Father, "Yet I do not ask for these only," that is, for the disciples who were then with him, "but also for those," he says, "who will 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 all who afterward believed in him beyond doubt believed 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 certainly whoever believes in Christ believes the gospel. So those whom he says will believe in him through their word are to be understood not only as those who heard the apostles themselves while they lived in the flesh; but after their death we too, born long afterward, have believed in Christ through their word. For those who were with him then preached to others what they had heard from him; and so their word has reached even us, so that we too might believe, wherever his church is; and it will reach those who come after, whoever and wherever they are who will believe in him in the future.

So Jesus might seem in this prayer not to have prayed for some of his own, unless we carefully examine his words in this same prayer. For if he prayed first, as we have already shown, for those who were then with him, and afterward also for those who would believe in him through their word, it could be said that he did not pray for those who were neither with him then, when he was saying these things, nor came to believe in him afterward through their word, but had believed in him before, whether through them or in any other way. For was Nathanael with him then? Was that Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pilate for his body, whom this same evangelist John testifies to have already been his disciple? Was Mary his mother, and the other women, whom we have learned from the Gospel to have already been his disciples at that time? Were those with him then of whom the same evangelist John often says, "Many believed in him"? For where did that multitude come from who with branches partly went before him and partly followed him as he sat on the beast, saying, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"; and with them the children, of whom he himself said it had been foretold, "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have perfected praise"? Where did the five hundred brothers come from, to whom he would not have appeared together after the resurrection unless they had believed in him before? Where did those hundred and nine come from who, with these eleven, were a hundred and twenty when they were gathered together after his ascension and awaited and received the promised Holy Spirit? Where did all these come from, if not from those of whom it was said, "Many believed in him"? So the Savior did not pray for them then, 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 not with him then, and had already believed in him before. I pass over the old man Simeon, who believed in him as an infant; Anna the prophetess; Zechariah and Elizabeth, 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 preached him when he was absent, and showed him to others to be recognized when he was present. I pass over these, 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 answered likewise of the righteous 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, unless, by the Spirit's revelation, he had believed in the one mediator between God and men who was to come in the flesh? But was there need for him to pray for the apostles, and no need to pray for so many who were still in this life, were not with him then, and had already believed before? Who would say this?

It must be understood, then, that they had not yet believed in him in the way in which he wished to be believed in: since even Peter himself, to whom, when he confessed and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," he had borne such great testimony, rather did not want him to die than believed that, having died, he would rise again; hence he was soon called Satan by him. So those are found to have been more faithful who had already died and who, by the Spirit's revelation, certainly did not doubt that Christ would rise, than those who, having believed that he would redeem Israel, lost all the hope they had had in him when they saw his death. So we believe nothing more fittingly than that, after his resurrection, when the Holy Spirit had been imparted and the apostles had been taught and strengthened and established as the first teachers in the church, others believed through their word in the way one ought to believe in Christ, that is, so as to hold the faith of his resurrection. And therefore all those too who already seemed to have believed in him belonged to the number of those for whom he prayed, saying, "Yet I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word."

But there still remain for us, in solving this question, the blessed Apostle and that thief, cruel in crime, faithful on the cross. For the apostle Paul says he was made an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ; and speaking of his gospel he says, "For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ." How then was he among those of whom it was said, "who will 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 believed in such a way as to confess that the one he saw crucified would not only rise again but also reign, saying, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

It remains, then, if the Lord Jesus is to be believed to have prayed in this prayer for all his own who either then were or were to be in this life, which is a trial upon earth, that we understand the words "through their word" in such a way as to believe that the very 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 same word of theirs through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Hence he also compared the gospel with them, lest perhaps he should run or had run in vain; and they gave him their right hands, because in him too, though it had not been given him through them, they found their own word, which they were already preaching and on which they had been founded. Of this word of Christ's resurrection the same apostle says, "Whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed"; and again, "This is," he says, "the word of faith which we preach, 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." And in the Acts of the Apostles one reads that in Christ God has set forth faith for all by raising him from the dead. This word of faith, because it was preached chiefly and first by the apostles, who had cleaved to him, is therefore called their word. Nor is it not the word of God because it is called their word; since the same apostle says that the Thessalonians received it from him, not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God. It is God's, then, because God gave it; but it is called their word because God entrusted it first and chiefly to them to be preached. And so that thief too had their word in his faith: it was called theirs for this reason, that preaching it belonged first and chiefly to their office. Finally, when a murmur arose from the widows of the Greeks about the ministry of tables, before Paul had believed in Christ, the apostles, who had cleaved to the Lord before, answered, "It is not good that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." Then they provided for deacons to be ordained, so that they themselves would not be called away from the office of preaching the word. So it is rightly called their word, the word of faith, through which all, from wherever they heard it, have believed in Christ, or will hear and believe. In that prayer, then, our Redeemer prayed for all whom he redeemed, whether then living in the flesh or to come afterward, when, praying for the apostles who were then with him, he added also those who would believe in him through their word. But what he then says after adding them must be treated in another discourse.