Tractates on the Gospel of John 54.1–55.7

When our Lord Jesus Christ was speaking among the Jews and doing such great signs and miracles, some believed, who were predestined to eternal life, whom he also called his sheep; but some did not believe, nor could they believe, because by the hidden yet not unjust judgment of God they had been blinded and hardened, abandoned by him who resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Of those who believed, some confessed him to such a degree that they took branches of palms and ran to meet him as he came, rejoicing in the same confession of praise; but others, of the rulers, did not dare to confess him, lest they be put out of the synagogue; these the evangelist noted, saying that they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. Of those too who did not believe, some were to believe afterwards, whom he foresaw when he said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he"; but others were to remain in the same unbelief, whom this nation of the Jews also imitates, which, conquered afterwards, has been scattered through almost the whole world as a testimony to the prophecy that was written of Christ.

Such being the case, and his passion now drawing near, "Jesus cried out and said" (where today's reading began): "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me; and he who sees me sees him who sent me." He had already said in one place, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me." There we understood that he called the Word of the Father, which he himself is, his teaching; and that by saying "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" he signified that he was not from himself, but had one from whom he was. For he is God from God, the Son of the Father; but the Father is not God from God, but God, the Father of the Son. But now, how are we to understand what he says, "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me," unless that he appeared to men as man, while as God he was hidden? And lest they think him to be only what they saw, wishing himself to be believed such and so great as the Father is, he says, "He who believes in me does not believe in me," that is, in this that he sees, "but in him who sent me," that is, in the Father. But whoever believes in the Father must believe him to be the Father; and whoever believes him to be the Father must believe that he has a Son; and therefore whoever believes in the Father must believe in the Son. But lest anyone believe of the only-begotten Son what is believed of those who are called sons of God by grace, not by nature, as the evangelist says, "He gave them power to become sons of God" (from which also comes what the Lord himself recalled as said in the Law, "I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High"), therefore he said, "He who believes in me does not believe in me," lest all that is believed about Christ should be believed according to the man. "He, then," he says, "believes in me who does not believe in me according to what he sees of me, but in him who sent me"; so that when he believes in the Father, he may believe that he has a Son equal to himself, and then he truly believes in me. For if he thinks that he has only sons by grace, who are certainly his creatures, not the Word, but made through the Word, and that he does not have a Son equal to himself and co-eternal, always born, equally unchangeable, in nothing unlike or unequal, he does not believe in the Father who sent him, because that is not the Father who sent him.

And so when he had said, "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me," lest he be thought to have wished the Father to be understood as the Father of many sons regenerated by grace, not of the only Word equal to himself, he at once added, "And he who sees me sees him who sent me." Does he say, "He who sees me does not see me, but him who sent me," as he had said, "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me"? For he said the one so that he might not be believed to be only the Son of Man, as he appeared; but he said the other so that he might be believed equal to the Father. "He who believes in me," he says, "does not believe in this, that he sees me, but believes in him who sent me." Or, when he believes in the Father, who begot me equal to himself, let him believe in me, not as he sees me, but as in him who sent me: for so far is there no difference between him and me that he who sees me sees him who sent me. The Lord Christ himself certainly sent his apostles, as their very name shows: for as angeloi in Greek are called nuntii (messengers) in Latin, so apostoloi in Greek are called missi (sent ones) in Latin. Yet none of the apostles would ever dare to say, "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me"; for he would not say at all, "He who believes in me." For we believe an apostle, but we do not believe in an apostle; for an apostle does not justify the ungodly. But "to him who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness." An apostle could say, "He who receives me receives him who sent me," or, "He who hears me hears him who sent me"; for the Lord himself said this to them: "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me." For the master is honoured in the servant, and the father in the son; but the father as in a son, the master as in a servant. But the only-begotten Son could rightly say, "Believe in God, and believe in me," and what he says now, "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me." He did not take the believer's faith away from himself, but he did not wish the believer to stay at the form of the servant; for when anyone believes in the Father who sent him, he certainly believes in the Son, without whom he knows the Father is not the Father; and he believes in such a way as to believe him equal, since there follows, "And he who sees me sees him who sent me."

Attend to the rest: "I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness." He said in one place to his disciples, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden; nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on 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." Yet he did not say to them, "You have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in you may not remain in darkness." I affirm that this can be read nowhere. All the saints, then, are lights; but they are enlightened by believing in him, from whom if anyone departs he will be darkened. But that light by which they are enlightened cannot depart from itself, because it is altogether unchangeable. We believe, then, a light that has been lit, as a prophet, as an apostle; but we believe him so that we do not believe in the very one who is enlightened, but with him believe in that light by which he is enlightened; so that we too may be enlightened, not by him, but with him by that by which he is. But when he says, "that everyone who believes in me may not remain in darkness," he shows plainly enough that he found all in darkness; but so that they may not remain in the darkness in which they were found, they ought to believe in the light that came into the world, because through it the world was made.

"And if anyone hears my words," he says, "and does not keep them, I do not judge him." Remember what I know you heard in earlier readings; and those of you who perhaps have forgotten, recall it; and those who were not present but are present now, 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 judgment to the Son": unless it is to be understood, "I do not judge him now." Why does he not judge now? Attend to what follows: "For I did not come," he says, "to judge the world, but to save the world," that is, to make the world safe. Now, then, is the time of mercy; afterwards will be the time of judgment: because "Mercy and judgment," he says, "I will sing to you, O Lord."

But see what he says also of that future last judgment: "He who rejects me and does not receive my words has one who judges him: the word that I have spoken, that will judge him on the last day." He does not say, "He who rejects me and does not receive my words, I do not judge him on the last day." For if he had said this, I do not see how it could fail to contradict that saying where he says, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." But when he said, "He who rejects me and does not receive my words has one who judges him," and, as they waited to learn who that might be, went on to add, "The word that I have spoken, that will judge him on the last day," he showed plainly enough that he himself will judge on the last day. For he spoke himself, he proclaimed himself, he set himself as the door by which he himself, the shepherd, would enter to the sheep. So those who have not heard will be judged one way, those who heard and despised another. "For those who have sinned without the Law," says the Apostle, "will also perish without the Law; and those who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law."

"For I," he says, "have not spoken from myself." He says he has not spoken from himself because he is not from himself. We have often said this already; now, as something very well known, we ought not to teach it but to remind you of it. "But the Father who sent me, he has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak." We would not labour if we knew we were speaking with those with whom we spoke before, and even then not with all, but with those who retain in memory what they heard; but now, because perhaps some are present who did not hear, and those who have forgotten what they heard are like them, let those who remember what they heard bear with our delays for their sakes. How does the Father give a command to the only Son? With what word does he speak to the Word, since the Son himself is the only-begotten Word? Through an angel, when the angels were created through him? Through a cloud, which, when it sounded to the Son, did not sound for his sake, as he himself also says elsewhere, but for the sake of others who needed to hear in that way? Through a sound uttered by lips, he who has no body? Nor is the Son separated from the Father by any interval of place, so that there should be air between them which, when struck, makes a voice that reaches the ear. Far be it from us to suspect such things of that incorporeal and ineffable substance. The only Son is the Word of the Father and the Wisdom of the Father; in it are all the commands of the Father. For the Son was never ignorant of the Father's command, so that he would need to have at some point in time what he did not have before. For he received from the Father what he has in such a way that he received it by being born, and the Father gave it to him by begetting. For he is also life, and he certainly received life by being born, not existing first without life. For the Father too has life, and is what he has; yet he did not receive it, because he is not from anyone. But the Son received life, the Father, from whom he is, giving it; and he too is what he has, for he has life and is life. Hear him speaking: "As the Father," he says, "has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself." Did he give it to one who existed and did not have it? No, he gave it by begetting him, he who begot life, and life begot life. And because he begot an equal life, not an unequal one, therefore it is said, "As he has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself." He gave life, because in begetting life what did he give but to be life? And because that birth itself is eternal, there never was a time when the Son, who is life, was not; never was the Son without life; and as the birth is eternal, so he who was born is eternal life. So too the Father did not give a command that the Son did not have; but, as I said, in the Wisdom of the Father, which is the Word of the Father, are all the commands of the Father. But the command is said to be given because he to whom it is said to be given is not from himself; and to give the Son that without which the Son never was is to beget the Son, who never was not.

Now it follows: "And I know that his command is eternal life." If, then, the Son himself is eternal life, and the Father's command is eternal life, what else is said but "I am the Father's command"? Accordingly, in what he adds and says, "What I speak, I speak as the Father has said to me," let us not take "has said to me" as if the Father spoke words to the only Word, or as if the Word of God needed the words of God. The Father, then, said it to the Son as he gave life to the Son: not something the Son did not know or did not have, but what the Son himself was. But what is "as he has said to me, so I speak," if not "I speak the truth"? He said it as the truthful one; the Son speaks as the truth. And the truthful one begot the truth. What, then, would he still say to the truth? For the truth was not imperfect, that something true should be added to it. He said it to the truth, then, because he begot the truth. And the truth itself speaks as it was told it, but to those who understand, whom it teaches as it was born. But so that men might believe what they are not yet able to understand, words sounded from a mouth of flesh, and passed away; the fleeting sounds made their noise, when the brief moments of their time were spent: but the things themselves of which the sounds are signs, carried over as it were into the memory of those who heard, have come down to us too through writing, which is visible signs. Not so does the truth speak: it speaks within to understanding minds, it instructs without sound, it floods them with intelligible light. Whoever, then, is able to see in it the eternity of its birth, himself hears it speaking just as the Father told it what to speak. He has stirred us to a great longing for his inner sweetness; but we grasp by growing, we grow by walking, we walk by advancing, so that we may be able to arrive.

The Lord's supper according to John must, with his help, be expounded in the sermons it deserves, and explained as far as he grants us ability. "Now before the feast day of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them unto the end." Pascha, brothers, is not, as some think, a Greek word, but Hebrew; yet in this word a certain agreement of both languages very fittingly meets. For because "to suffer" is paschein in Greek, Pascha has been thought to mean suffering, as if the word were named from passion; but in its own language, that is, in Hebrew, Pascha means passing over. That is why the people of God first celebrated the Passover when, fleeing from Egypt, they passed over the Red Sea. Now, then, that prophetic figure has been fulfilled in truth, when Christ is led like a sheep to the slaughter, with whose blood our doorposts are smeared, that is, with whose sign of the cross our foreheads are marked, and we are set free from the perdition of this world as from the captivity or slaughter of Egypt; and we make a most saving passage, when we pass over from the devil to Christ, and from this unstable world to his most firmly founded kingdom. For we pass over to God who abides, so as not to pass away with the world that passes. For this grace bestowed on us the Apostle, praising God, says: "Who rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." This name, then, Pascha, which in Latin, as I said, is called transitus, the blessed evangelist as it were interprets for us: "Before the feast day of the Passover," he says, "Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should pass from this world to the Father." See the Passover, see the passing over. From where, and to where? From this world, that is, 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 unbelievers, strangers to this head and to his body? Do not they too pass, since they do not abide? They too certainly pass; but it is one thing to pass out of the world, another to pass away with the world; one thing to pass to the Father, another to the enemy. For the Egyptians too passed; yet they did not pass through the sea to a kingdom, but in the sea to destruction.

"So Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them unto the end": so that they too, from this world where they were, might by his love pass over to their head, which had passed from here. For what is "unto the end," if not "unto Christ"? "For Christ is the end of the Law," says the Apostle, "for righteousness to everyone who believes." An end that perfects, not one that destroys; an end to which we go, not where we perish. So it must be understood altogether: "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed." He is our end; to him is our passing over. For I see that these words of the Gospel can also be taken in a certain human way, as if Christ loved his own up to death, so that this seems to be "he loved them unto the end." This is a human opinion, not a divine one: for it was not only up to that point that he loved us, who loves us always and without end. Far be it that he who was not ended by death should have ended his love by death. Even after death that proud and ungodly rich man loved his five brothers, and is Christ to be thought to have loved us only up to death? Far from it, dearly beloved. He would by no means have come to death by loving us if he were to end his love for us by death. Unless perhaps "he loved them unto the end" is to be understood thus: he loved them so much that he died for them. For he testified to this, saying: "Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends." In this way we certainly do not forbid it to be understood: "he loved them unto the end," that is, love itself brought him to death.

"And supper being done," he says, "when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon, Iscariot, to betray him; knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came forth from God and goes to God, he rises from supper, and lays aside his garments; and having taken a towel, he girded himself. Then he puts water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded." We ought not to understand "supper being done" as if it were already finished and over; for they were still at supper when the Lord rose and washed his disciples' feet. For afterwards he reclined again, and afterwards gave the morsel to his betrayer, certainly while the supper was not yet finished, that is, while bread was still on the table. So "supper being done" is said of a supper made ready and brought to the table and use of those at the meal.

But as to what he says, "when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon, Iscariot, to betray him": if you ask what was put into Judas's heart, it was surely this, that he should betray him. This putting in is a spiritual suggestion: it does not come through the ear but through thought, and so not bodily but spiritually. For what is called spiritual is not always to be taken as praise. The Apostle knows of certain spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places, against which he testifies that we have a wrestling; and there would not also be evil spiritual things if there were not also evil spirits. For spiritual things are named from spirit. But how these things happen, that devilish suggestions are put in and mingled with human thoughts so that a man reckons them as his own, how does a man know? Nor is it to be doubted that good suggestions too are made by a good spirit in the same hidden and spiritual way; but it matters to which of them the human mind consents, either abandoned by its desert or helped by grace, through divine aid. It had already come about, then, in the heart of Judas through the devil's putting in, that the disciple should betray the master, but one whom he had not learned to be God. Such he had already come to the feast: a spy on the Shepherd, a plotter against the Saviour, a seller of the Redeemer; such he had already come, and was seen, and was tolerated, and thought himself unknown: because he was deceived in him whom he wished to deceive. But the Lord, having looked into that very heart within, knowingly made use of him who did not know it.

"Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands." Therefore the betrayer too; for if he did not have him in his hands, he certainly would not have used him as he willed. Accordingly the betrayer had already been betrayed into the hands of him whom he desired to betray, and he did evil by betraying in such a way that from him who was betrayed there came a good he did not know of. For the Lord knew what he was doing for his friends, who patiently made use of his enemies; and so the Father had given all things into his hands, both evil things for his use and good things for their accomplishment. "Knowing also that he came forth from God and goes to God": not forsaking God when he came forth from there, nor us when he returned.

"Knowing these things, then, he rises from supper, and lays aside his garments; and having taken a towel, he girded himself. Then he puts water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded." We ought, dearly beloved, to attend carefully to the evangelist's meaning. For, being about to speak of so great a humility of the Lord, he wished first to commend his loftiness. To this belongs what he says, "knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came forth from God and goes to God." So when the Father had given all things into his hands, he washed not the hands of his disciples but their feet; and when he knew that he had come forth from God and was going to God, he fulfilled the office not of God the Lord but of a man who is a servant. To this belongs also his wish to speak first of his betrayer, who had already come in that state and was not unknown to him; so that this too might be added to the very height of his humility, that he did not disdain to wash the feet even of him whose hands he already foresaw in the crime.

But what wonder if he rose from supper and laid aside his garments, who, "being in the form of God, emptied himself"? And what wonder if he girded himself with a towel, who, "taking the form of a servant, was found in fashion as a man"? What wonder if he put water into a basin to wash his disciples' feet, who poured his blood on the earth to wash away the uncleanness of sins? What wonder if with the towel with which he was girded he wiped the feet he had washed, who with the flesh with which he was clothed made firm the footsteps of the evangelists? And to gird himself with the towel he laid aside the garments he had; but to take the form of a servant when he emptied himself, he did not lay aside what he had, but took what he did not have. When he was to be crucified he was indeed stripped of his garments, and when dead he was wrapped in linen cloths: and that whole passion of his is our cleansing. So, being about to suffer death, he first rendered services, not only to those for whom he was to undergo death, but also to him who was to betray him to death. For so great is the usefulness of human humility that even the divine loftiness commended it by its own example: because proud man would perish for ever if the humble God did not find him. "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Man was lost by following the pride of the deceiver; then, once found, let him follow the humility of the Redeemer.