Tractates on the Gospel of John 51.1–51.13

After the Lord had raised the man four days dead, while the Jews were astonished, some of them believing by seeing, others perishing by envying, because of the good fragrance, which is to some unto life, to others unto death; after he had reclined in the house with Lazarus, who had been dead and was raised, reclining with him; after the ointment had been poured over his feet, from which the house was filled with the fragrance; after the Jews, with lost hearts, had conceived a vain cruelty and a most foolish and most insane crime, even about killing Lazarus; of all of which we spoke in the earlier sermons, as we could, as the Lord gave: now let your Love attend to how great a fruit of his preaching appeared before the Lord's passion, and how great a flock of the lost sheep of the house of Israel heard the shepherd's voice.

For so speaks the Gospel which you heard when it was read just now: "On the next day a great crowd that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, and cried out: 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 to triumph over the devil, the prince of death, by the trophy of the cross. But "Hosanna" is the cry of one entreating, as some who know the Hebrew language say, indicating a feeling rather than signifying some thing: like those words in the Latin language which they call interjections, as when in grief we say "Alas!" or when we are delighted we say "Ah!" or when we marvel we say "O great thing!" For then "O" signifies nothing but the feeling of one who marvels. This, then, must be believed to be so for this reason, that neither the Greek nor the Latin translator could render it, as with that saying, "Whoever says to his brother, Raca." For this too is said to be an interjection, showing the feeling of one who is indignant.

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel" is rather to be taken so that "in the name of the Lord" is understood as "in the name of God the Father"; although it could also be understood as "in his own name," since he too is Lord. Hence it is written elsewhere too: "The Lord rained from the Lord." But his own words better direct our understanding, when he says: "I have come in my Father's name, and you have not received me; another will come in his own name, him you will receive." For Christ is the teacher of humility, who "humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." So he does not lose his divinity when he teaches us humility: in the one he is equal to the Father, in the other like us. By that in which he is equal to the Father he created us, that we might exist; by that in which he is like us he redeemed us, that we might not perish.

These praises the crowd spoke to him: "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." What a cross of the mind the envy of the rulers of the Jews could suffer, when so great a multitude acclaimed Christ as its king! But what was it to the Lord to be King of Israel? What great thing was it for the King of the ages to become king of men? For Christ was not King of Israel to exact tribute, or to arm an army with iron and to subdue enemies visibly; but King of Israel in that he rules minds, in that he provides for eternity, in that he leads into the kingdom of heaven those who believe, hope and love. That the Son of God, equal to the Father, the Word through whom all things were made, willed to be King of Israel, is condescension, not promotion; it is a sign of compassion, not an increase of power. For he who was called on earth King of the Jews is in heaven Lord of the angels.

"And Jesus found a young ass, and sat on 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 event, so that it might appear that the malicious rulers of the Jews did not understand him in whom what they read was being fulfilled. "So Jesus found a young ass and sat on it, as it is written: Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king comes, sitting on the colt of an ass." So in that people there was the daughter of Zion: Zion is the same as Jerusalem. In that people, I say, reprobate and blind, there was nevertheless the daughter of Zion, to whom it might be said, "Fear not: behold, your king comes, sitting on the colt of an ass." This daughter of Zion, to whom these things are said by God, was among those sheep who heard the shepherd's voice; she was in that multitude which praised the Lord as he came with such devotion and escorted him in such a throng. To her it was said, "Fear not": acknowledge him who is praised by you, and do not tremble when he suffers; for that blood is being shed by which your sin is blotted out and life restored. But by the colt of an ass on which no one had sat (for this is found in the other evangelists) we understand the people of the Gentiles, which had not received the Lord's Law; and by the she-ass (for both beasts were brought to the Lord), his people that came from the people of Israel, not wholly unbroken, but such as "knew the Lord's manger."

"These things his disciples did not understand at first; but when Jesus was glorified," that is, when he showed the power of his resurrection, "then they remembered that these things had been written of him, and that they had done these things to him," that is, they had done nothing else to him than what had been written of him. For, recalling according to the Scriptures what was fulfilled before the Lord's passion or in the Lord's passion, they found there this too, that according to the oracles of the prophets he sat on the colt of an ass.

"So the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. For this reason the crowd also went to meet him, because they heard that he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said among themselves: You see that we are gaining nothing; behold, the whole world has gone after him." A crowd threw a crowd into turmoil. 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 at the feast. These came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying: Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus." Let us hear what the Lord answered to this. See, the Jews wish to kill him, the Gentiles to see him; but those too who cried, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel," were of the Jews. See, these from the circumcision, those from the uncircumcision, like two walls coming from different directions and meeting with the kiss of peace in the one faith of Christ: let us hear, then, the voice of the cornerstone. "But Jesus," it says, "answered them, saying: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Here perhaps someone thinks that he said he was glorified because the Gentiles wished to see him. It is not so. But he saw that these very Gentiles would believe in all nations after his passion and resurrection; because, as the Apostle says, "Blindness has come upon Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in." On the occasion of these Gentiles who desired to see him, then, he announces the coming fullness of the Gentiles, and promises that the hour of his glorification is now at hand, and that when it had taken place in heaven the nations would believe. Hence it was foretold: "Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth." This is the fullness of the Gentiles of which the Apostle says, "Blindness has come upon Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in."

But the humility of the passion had to come before the height of the glorification; so he went on to add: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." He was speaking of himself. He was the grain that was to be put to death and multiplied: put to death by the unbelief of the Jews, multiplied by the faith of the peoples.

Then, exhorting us to follow the footsteps of his passion, he says: "Whoever loves his soul will lose it." This can be understood in two ways. "Whoever loves will lose": that is, if you love it, lose it; if you desire to hold life in Christ, do not fear death for Christ. Or in another way: "Whoever loves his soul will lose it." Do not love it, lest you lose it; do not love it in this life, lest you lose it in eternal life. But what I said last seems rather to have the sense of the Gospel; for there follows: "And whoever hates his soul in this world will keep it unto eternal life." So in what was said above, "whoever loves," there is understood "in this world": he indeed will lose it; but whoever hates it, again in this world, he will keep it unto eternal life. A great and wonderful saying, how a man's love for his own soul can make it perish, and hatred keep it from perishing! If you love wrongly, then you hate; if you hate rightly, then you have loved. Happy are those who hate by keeping, so as not to lose by loving. But see that it does not creep in upon you to wish to destroy yourself, by understanding in that way that you ought to hate your soul in this world. For from this certain malicious and perverse people, murderers all the more cruel and wicked against themselves, give themselves to the flames, choke themselves in water, dash themselves down from a height, and perish. Christ did not teach this; indeed, when the devil suggested a fall from a height, he answered: "Get behind me, Satan; it is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God." But to Peter he said, signifying by what death he was to glorify God: "When you were younger, you girded yourself and went where you wished; but when you are old, another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish." There he expressed clearly enough that one who follows the footsteps of Christ ought to be killed, not by himself, but by another. So when the turning point of the case comes, that this condition is set before a man, that he must either act against God's command or depart from this life, and he is compelled to choose one of the two while the persecutor threatens death, there let him choose rather to die with God loved than to live with God offended: there let him hate his soul in this world, so that he may keep it unto eternal life.

"If anyone serves me, let him follow me." What is "let him follow me," if not "let him imitate me"? "For Christ suffered for us," says the Apostle Peter, "leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps." See what was said: "If anyone serves me, let him follow me." With what fruit? With what wages? With what reward? "And where I am," he says, "there also my servant will be." Let him be loved freely, so that the price of the work by which he is served may be to be with him. For where will it be well without him, or when could it be ill with him? Hear it more plainly: "If anyone has served me, my Father will honour him." With what honour, if not that he may be with his Son? For what he said above, "Where I am, there also my servant will be," he is understood to have explained when he says, "My Father will honour him." For what greater honour can the adopted son receive than to be where the Only-begotten is, not made equal to his divinity, but joined in fellowship with his eternity?

But what it is to serve Christ, for which work so great a reward is set forth, is rather what we ought to inquire. For if we think that serving Christ is preparing what is necessary for the body, or cooking food for him at supper or setting it before him, or giving him a cup and mixing his drink, those did this who could have him present in the body, like Martha and Mary, when Lazarus too was one of those at table. But in that way even lost Judas served Christ; for he too had the purse, and although he stole most wickedly from what was put in it, yet through him necessary things were also provided. Hence it is that when the Lord said to him, "What you do, do quickly," some thought that he had ordered him to prepare what was needed for the feast day, or to give something to the needy. In no way, then, would the Lord say of servants of this kind, "Where I am, there also my servant will be," and "If anyone has served me, my Father will honour him"; since we see that Judas, who served in such things, was rejected rather than honoured. Why, then, do we seek elsewhere what it is to serve Christ, and not rather recognize it in these very words? For when he said, "If anyone serves me, let him follow me," he meant it to be understood as if he said, "If anyone does not follow me, he does not serve me." So those serve Jesus Christ who seek not their own things, but the things of Jesus Christ. For this is "let him follow me": let him walk in my ways, not his own, as it is written elsewhere: "Whoever says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as he walked." He ought also, if he offers bread to the hungry, to do it out of mercy, not out of boasting; to seek nothing there but the good work, the left hand not knowing what the right hand does, that is, so that the aim of greed may be kept apart from the work of love. Whoever serves thus serves Christ, and to him it will rightly be said, "When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me." And not only by doing the things that belong to bodily mercy, but by doing all good works for Christ's sake (for then they will be good, since "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes"), one is a servant of Christ, even to that work of great love which is to lay down one's life for the brothers; for this is to lay it down for Christ as well. For of this too he will say on account of his members: "When you did it for these, you did it for me." Indeed, it was of such a work that he deigned to make and call himself a servant, where he says, "As the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to lay down his life for many." Each one, then, is a servant of Christ in the same respect in which Christ too is a servant. Whoever serves Christ thus, his Father will honour with that great honour, that he may be with his Son, and his happiness may never fail.

So when you hear the Lord saying, brothers, "Where I am, there also my servant will be," do not think only of good bishops and clergy. You too, in your own measure, serve Christ by living well, by giving alms, by proclaiming his name and teaching to whom you can; so that every father of a household too may recognize by this name that he owes a father's affection to his household. For Christ and for eternal life let him admonish, teach, exhort and correct all his own; let him show goodwill, let him exercise discipline: so in his own house he will fulfil a churchly and in a way an episcopal office, serving Christ so that he may be with him for ever. For many of your number have rendered even that greatest service of suffering: many who were neither bishops nor clergy, young men and virgins, old with young, many married men and women, many fathers and mothers of households, serving Christ, have even laid down their lives in his martyrdom, and with the Father honouring them have received most glorious crowns.