Tractates on the Gospel of John 14.1–14.13

This reading from the holy Gospel teaches us the excellence of the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the humility of the man who was found worthy to be called the friend of the bridegroom, so that we may distinguish the difference between the man who is man and the man who is God. For our Lord Jesus Christ is man and God: God before all ages, and man in our age; God from the Father, man from the Virgin; yet one and the same Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God and man. John, on the other hand, a man of excellent grace, was sent before him, enlightened by him who is the light. For of John it was said, “He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.” He can indeed be called a light, and he too is rightly called a light; but a light enlightened, not enlightening. For the light that enlightens is one thing, and the light that is enlightened is another: for our eyes too are called lights, and yet in darkness they are open and do not see. But the light that enlightens is light from itself, and is light to itself, and needs no other light in order to shine; rather, all other things need it in order to shine.

So John confessed, as you have heard, when Jesus was making many disciples and it was reported to him as if to provoke him (for they told it to him as to one who would be envious: “See, he is making more disciples than you”): he confessed what he was, and thereby was found worthy to belong to him, because he did not dare to call himself what he is. This, then, is what John said: “A man cannot receive anything unless it is given him from heaven.” So Christ gives, man receives. “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but 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, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.” He did not make his joy out of himself. For he who wants to rejoice in himself will be sad; but he who wants to rejoice in God will always rejoice, because God is everlasting. Do you want to have everlasting joy? Cling to him who is everlasting. Such John said he was. The friend of the bridegroom rejoices because of the bridegroom's voice, he says, not because of his own voice; and he stands and hears him. If then he falls, he does not hear him: for of a certain one who fell away it was said, “And he did not stand in the truth”; it was said of the devil. So 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 a voice at which to rejoice. So was John: he knew in what he rejoiced; he did not claim for himself what he was not; he knew that he was enlightened, not the enlightener. “That was the true light,” says the evangelist, “which enlightens every man coming into this world.” If every man, then John himself too, because he too is one of mankind. For although no one has arisen greater than John among those born of women, yet he too is one of those who were born of women. Is he to be compared with him who was born because he willed it, and therefore by a new kind of birth, because he was born a new kind of man? For both generations of the Lord are unusual, both the divine and the human: the divine has no mother, the human has no father. So John was one among the rest, but of greater grace, so that among those born of women no one arose greater than he; and he gave such testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ as to call him the bridegroom, and himself the friend of the bridegroom, yet not worthy to loose the strap of his sandal. On this your Charity has already heard much: let us see what follows, for it is somewhat dense to understand. But since John himself says that a man cannot receive anything unless it is given him from heaven, whatever we do not understand let us ask of him who gives from heaven; for we are men, and we can receive nothing unless he gives it who is not a man.

This, then, follows, and John says: “Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.” What is his joy? To rejoice at the bridegroom's voice. It is fulfilled in me, I have my grace, I take no more upon myself, lest I lose even what I have received. What is this joy? “He rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.” Let man understand, then, that he ought not to rejoice in his own wisdom, but in the wisdom he has received from God. Let him seek nothing more, and he does not lose what he has found. For many have become fools precisely because they called themselves wise. The apostle rebukes them and says of them: “Because what can be known of God is manifest to them; for God has shown it to them.” Hear what he says of certain ungrateful and impious men: “For God has shown it to them. For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made, his eternal power also and divinity, so that they are without excuse.” Why “without excuse”? Because “knowing God” (he did not say, because they did not know), “knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened: for claiming to be wise, they became fools.” For if they had known God, they had known at the same time that no one but God had made them wise. So they should not have attributed to themselves what they did not have from themselves, but to him from whom they had received it. But by not giving thanks they became fools. So God took away from the ungrateful what he had given freely. John did not want to be this; he wanted to be grateful. He confessed that he had received, and said that he rejoiced because of the bridegroom's voice, and he says, “Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.”

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” What does this mean? He must be exalted, but I must be humbled. How does Jesus increase? How does God increase? The perfect does not increase. And God neither increases nor decreases. For if he increases, he is not perfect; if he decreases, he is not God. How then does Jesus, who is God, increase? If in age, because he deigned to be man and was a child; and though he is the Word of God, he lay as an infant in a manger, and though he himself created his mother, he sucked an infant's milk from his mother: since Jesus grew in the age of his flesh, perhaps that is why it was said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” But why this too? John and Jesus, as regards the flesh, were of the same age: there were six months between them; they had grown up alike; and if our Lord Jesus Christ had wished to be here longer before his death, and John himself to be here with him, as they had grown up alike, so they could have grown old alike. Why then, “He must increase, but I must decrease”? First, because the Lord was already thirty years old: does a young man who is already thirty still grow? From that very age men begin to turn, and to decline toward a heavier age, and from there toward old age. But even if they were both boys, he would not say, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” but he would say, “We must grow together.” But as it is, he was thirty, and the other was thirty: the six months between them make no difference in age; reading finds that out rather than looking.

What then does “He must increase, but I must decrease” mean? A great mystery! Let your Charity understand. Before the Lord Jesus came, men gloried in themselves. That man came so that man's glory might be lessened and God's glory increased. For he came without sin, and found all with sin. If he came thus to forgive sins, let God bestow it, let man confess. For man's confession is man's humility; God's mercy is God's loftiness. If then he came to forgive man his sins, let man acknowledge his humility, and let God show his mercy. “He must increase, but I must decrease”: that is, he must give, but I must receive; he must be glorified, but I must confess. Let man understand his rank and confess to God, and hear the apostle saying to the proud and lofty man who wants to exalt himself: “For what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” Let man understand, then, that he has received, he who wanted to call his own what is not his, and let him decrease: for it is good for him that God be glorified in him. Let him decrease in himself, so as to be increased in God. Christ and John signified these testimonies and this truth even by their sufferings. For John was diminished by his head, Christ was exalted on the cross; so that there too it might appear what “He must increase, but I must decrease” means. Then Christ was born when the days were beginning to grow longer; John was born when the days began to grow shorter. Creation itself and their very sufferings bear witness to John's words, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Let God's glory, then, increase in us, and our glory decrease, so that ours too may increase in God. For this is what the apostle says, this is what holy Scripture says: “Let him who glories glory in the Lord.” Do you want to glory in yourself? You want to grow; but you grow badly, to your own harm. For he who grows badly is justly diminished. So let God, who is always perfect, grow; let him grow in you. For the more you understand God and the more you grasp him, the more God seems to grow in you; but in himself he does not grow, but is always perfect. Yesterday you understood a little; today you understand more; tomorrow you will understand much more: the very light of God grows in you; so, as it were, God grows, who remains always perfect. Just as if someone's eyes were being cured of an old blindness, and he began to see a little light, and the next day saw more, and the third day more still, the light would seem to him to grow; yet the light is perfect, whether he sees or does not see. So it is with the inner man: he advances in God, and God seems to grow in him; yet he himself is diminished, so as to fall from his own glory and rise into the glory of God.

And now what we have just heard appears distinctly and plainly: “He who comes from above is above all.” See what he says of Christ. What of himself? “He who is of the earth is of the earth, and speaks of the earth.” “He who comes from above is above all”: that is Christ. “But he who is of the earth is of the earth, and speaks of the earth”: that is John. And is this the whole of it: John is of the earth, and speaks of the earth? Does the whole testimony he bears to Christ speak of the earth? Are not the words of God heard from John when he bears witness to Christ? How then does he speak of the earth? But he was speaking of man. As far as man himself is concerned, he is of the earth and speaks of the earth; but if he speaks any divine things, he has been enlightened by him. For if he were not enlightened, earth would speak earth. So the grace of God is one thing, the nature of man another. Now question the nature of man: he is born and grows, he learns these customary things of men. What does he know but earth from earth? He speaks human things, knows human things, savors human things; being carnal, he judges carnally, conjectures carnally: see, that is the whole man. Let the grace of God come, let it enlighten his darkness, as he says, “You will light my lamp, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness”; let it take up the human mind and turn it to its own light; he now begins to say what the apostle says, “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me”; and, “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” This is “He must increase, but I must decrease.” So John, as far as John is concerned, is of the earth and speaks of the earth; if you have heard anything divine from John, it belongs to him who enlightens, not to him who receives.

“He who comes from heaven is above all; and what he has seen and heard, to that he testifies; and no one receives his testimony.” He who comes from heaven, who is above all, is 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, that he speaks. For the Son of God himself also has a Father; he has a Father, and he hears from the Father. And what is it that he hears from the Father? Who can explain this? When can my tongue, when can my heart be sufficient, either the heart to understand or the tongue to express, what it is that the Son heard from the Father? Did the Son perhaps hear the Father's word? No, the Son is the Father's Word. You see how all human effort is wearied here; you see how every conjecture of our breast fails here, and every effort of a darkened mind. I hear Scripture saying that the Son speaks what he hears from the Father; and again I hear Scripture saying that the Son himself is the Father's Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We speak words that fly and pass away: as soon as your word has sounded from your mouth, it passes; it makes its noise and passes into silence. Can you follow your sound and hold it so that it stays? Yet your thought remains, and from that remaining thought you speak many passing words. What do we say, brothers? When God spoke, did he use a voice, did he use sounds, did he use syllables? If he used these, in what language did he speak? Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin? Languages are needed where there is distinction of nations. But there no one can say that God spoke in this language or that. Attend to your heart. When you conceive a word to say (for I will say, if I can, what we may observe in ourselves, not that by which we may comprehend that other), when, then, you conceive a word to utter, you want to say a thing, and the very conception of the thing in your heart is already a word: it has not yet gone out, but it is already born in the heart, and it waits to go out. But you consider to whom it is to go out, with whom you are speaking: if he is a Latin, you look for a Latin expression; if he is a Greek, you think of Greek words; if he is a Carthaginian, you consider whether you know the Punic language. According to the diversity of your hearers you use different languages to utter the word you have conceived; but what you had conceived in your heart was held by no language. Since, then, God in speaking did not seek a language or take up a kind of speech, how was he heard by the Son, since God spoke the Son himself? For just as you have in your heart the word that you speak, and it is with you, and the conception itself is spiritual (for as your soul is spirit, so the word you have conceived is spirit; for it has not yet received sound to be divided into syllables, but remains in the conception of the heart and in the mirror of the mind), so God uttered the Word, that is, begot the Son. And you indeed beget a word in time, even in the heart; God without time begot the Son, through whom he created all times. Since, then, the Word of God is the Son, and the Son has spoken to us, not your word but the Father's Word, he willed to speak himself to us, he who was speaking the Father's Word. This John said as was fitting and right; we have expounded it as we could. He to whose heart a worthy understanding of so great a matter has not yet come has where to turn, has where to knock, has of whom to ask, has of whom to seek, has from whom to receive.

“He who comes from heaven is above all; and what he has seen and heard, to that he testifies; and no one receives his testimony.” If no one, why did he come? No one, then, of certain people. 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, not a single man, what is it that follows: “But he who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true”? Certainly, then, not no one, if you yourself say, “He who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true.” Perhaps John, if asked, would answer and say: I know what I said when I said “no one.” For there is a certain people born for the wrath of God, and foreknown for this. For God knows who will believe and who will not believe; God knows who will persevere in what they have believed and who will fall away; and all who are to come to eternal life are numbered by God; and he already knows that people as set apart. And if he himself knows, and has given it to the prophets to know through his Spirit, he gave it to John too. So John was observing, not with his own eye (for as far as he himself is concerned, he is earth and speaks of the earth), but in that grace of the Spirit which he received from God he saw a certain people, impious, unbelieving; observing them in their unbelief, he says, “No one receives the testimony of him who came from heaven.” No one of whom? Of those who will be on the left, of those to whom it will be said, “Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” Who, then, receive it? Those who will be on the right, those to whom it will be said, “Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” So he observed in the Spirit the division, but in the human race the mixture; and what is not yet separated in place he separated by understanding, separated by the gaze of the heart; and he saw two peoples, of believers and of unbelievers. He observed the unbelievers and said, “He who comes from heaven is above all; and what he has seen and heard, to that he testifies; and no one receives his testimony.” Then he turned from the left, looked to the right, and went on to say, “He who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true.” What does “has set his seal that God is true” mean, if not that man is a liar and God is true? For no man can say what belongs to truth unless he is enlightened by him who cannot lie. So God is true, and Christ is God. Do you want to prove it? Receive his testimony, and you find it: for “he who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true.” Who? He himself who came from heaven and is above all is God, true. But if you do not yet understand him to be God, you have not yet received his testimony: receive it, and you set your seal; you understand with confidence, you acknowledge with certainty, that God is true.

“For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God.” He is God, true, and God sent him: God sent God. Join both: one God, true God, sent by God. Ask about each: God. And ask about both: God. Not each God and both gods, but each one God and both God. For so great there is the love of the Holy Spirit, so great the peace of unity, that when you ask about each, the answer to you is “God”; when you ask about the Trinity, the answer to you is “God.” For if the spirit of man, when it clings to God, is one spirit, as the apostle plainly says, “He who clings to the Lord is one spirit,” how much more is the equal Son, clinging to the Father, one God together with him? Hear another testimony. You know how many believed when they sold all they had and laid it at the apostles' feet, so that it might be distributed to each as he had need; and what does Scripture say of that gathering of saints? “They had one soul and one heart in the Lord.” If love made one soul of so many souls, and one heart of so many hearts, how great is the love between the Father and the Son? It can surely be greater than among those men who had one heart. If then the heart of many brothers was one because of love, and the soul of many brothers one because of love, will you say of God the Father and God the Son that they are two? If they are two gods, there is not the highest love there. For if love here is so great as to make your soul and your friend's soul one soul, how is the Father and the Son not one God there? Far be it from unfeigned faith to think this. Understand from this how far that love excels. The souls of many men are many, and if they love one another, it is one soul; but they can also be called many souls, they can among men, because the union is not so great; but there you may say one God, you may not say two or three gods. From this the supereminence and summit of love is commended to you, so great that it cannot be greater.

“For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God.” This he said of Christ, to distinguish himself from him. For what? Did not God send John himself? Did he not himself say, “I have been sent before him,” and, “He who sent me to baptize with water”? And was it not said of him, “Behold, I send my messenger before you, and he will prepare your way”? Does not he too speak the words of God, he of whom it was also said that he is more than a prophet? If then God sent him too, and he speaks the words of God, how do we take him to have said it of Christ by way of distinction: “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.” What does this mean: “For God does not give the Spirit by measure”? We find that God gives the Spirit by measure. Hear the apostle saying, “According to the measure of Christ's gift.” To men he gives by measure; to the only Son he does not give by measure. How to men by measure? “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 prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the gift of healings.” “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” One has this, another that; and what the one has, the other does not have: there is a measure, a certain division of gifts. So to men it is given by measure, and harmony there makes one body. Just as the hand receives one thing to work, the eye another to see, the ear another to hear, the foot another to walk, yet it is one soul that does all things, in the hand to work, in the foot to walk, in the ear to hear, in the eye to see: so too the gifts of the faithful are different, distributed as to members, to each by its own measure. But Christ, who gives, does not receive by measure.

For hear further what follows, since he has said 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.” He added, “has given all things into his hand,” so that you might know here too with what distinction it is said, “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 loves a Son, not as a master a servant; as an only Son, not as an adopted one. Therefore “he has given all things into his hand.” What does “all things” mean? That the Son should be as great as the Father is. For he begot him to equality with himself, him for whom it was not robbery to be equal with God in the form of God. “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.” So when he deigned to send the Son to us, let us not think that anything less than the Father has been sent to us. The Father, sending the Son, sent his other self.

For the disciples, still thinking that the Father was something greater than the Son, seeing the flesh and not understanding the divinity, said to him: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” As if they were saying: We already know you, and we bless you, because we know you; for we thank you that you have shown yourself to us; but we do not yet know the Father; therefore our heart burns and is restless with a certain holy desire to see your Father who sent you: show him to us, and we will desire nothing more from you; for it is enough for us when he has been shown, than whom no one can be greater. A good desire, a good longing; but a small understanding. For the Lord Jesus himself, seeing little ones seeking great things, and himself great among the little ones and little among the little ones, said to Philip, one of the disciples, who had said this: “Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip?” Here Philip could have answered: We have known you; but did we say to you, “Show us yourself”? We have known you, but we are seeking the Father. He added at once: “He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” If then he was sent as equal to the Father, let us not judge him by the weakness of the flesh, but let us think of majesty clothed with flesh, not weighed down by flesh. Remaining God with the Father, he was made man among men, so that through him who was made man for you, you might become such as can grasp God. For man could not grasp God: man could see man; he could not grasp God. Why could he not grasp God? Because he did not have the eye of the heart with which to grasp him. So there was something wounded within, and something healthy outside: he had healthy eyes of the body, he had wounded eyes of the heart. That man was made for the eye of the body, so that, believing in him who could be seen bodily, you might be healed to see him whom you could not see spiritually. “Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father also.” Why did they not see him? See, they did see him, and did not see the Father: they saw the flesh, but the majesty lay hidden. What the disciples who loved him saw, the Jews who crucified him saw too. So he was wholly within, and within the flesh in such a way as to remain with the Father: for he did not leave the Father when he came to the flesh.

Carnal thinking does not grasp what I say: let it put off understanding and begin from faith; let it hear what follows: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” He did not say, “the wrath of God comes to him,” but, “the wrath of God remains on him.” All who are born mortal have the wrath of God with them. What wrath of God? That which the first Adam received. For if the first man sinned and heard, “You shall surely die,” he was made mortal, and we began to be born mortal; we were born with the wrath of God. Then the Son came, not having sin, and he was clothed with flesh, clothed with mortality. If he shared with us the wrath of God, are we slow to share with him the grace of God? So he who will not believe in the Son, the wrath of God remains on him. What wrath of God? That of which the apostle speaks: “We too were by nature children of wrath, as were the rest.” So all are children of wrath, because they come from the curse of death. Believe in Christ, made mortal for you, so that you may receive him immortal: for when you have received his immortality, you too will not be mortal. He was living, you were dying: he died, that you might live. He brought the grace of God, he took away the wrath of God. God conquered death, so that death might not conquer man.