Tractates on the Gospel of John 63.1–66.2

Let us direct the gaze of the mind and, with the Lord's help, seek God. It is the voice of a divine song: "Seek God, and your soul shall live." Let us seek him in order to find him; let us seek him when he has been found. That he may be sought in order to be found, he is hidden; that he may be sought when he has been found, he is immeasurable. Hence it is said elsewhere: "Seek his face always." For he satisfies the seeker as far as he can take him in, and he makes the finder more capacious, so that he seeks again to be filled when he has begun to hold more. So it was not said, "Seek his face always," in the sense in which it was said of certain people, "always learning, and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth," but rather as that writer says: "When a man has finished, then he begins"; until we come to that life where we shall be so filled that we are made no more capacious, because we shall be so perfect that we no longer make progress. For then what suffices us will be shown to us. But here let us always seek, and let the fruit of finding not be the end of seeking. Nor is it any less "always" because it is only here; rather, we say that here one must always seek precisely so that we may never think that here we should stop seeking. For those too of whom it was said, "always learning, and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth," are certainly always learning here; but when they have departed this life they will no longer be learning, but receiving the reward of their error. For it was said, "always learning, and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth," as though it were said, "always walking, and never arriving at the road." But let us always walk on the road, until we come to where the road leads; let us nowhere stay on it, until it brings us where we may stay. And so by seeking we press on, and by finding we arrive at something, and by seeking and finding we pass on to what remains, until the end of seeking comes there where perfection has no further effort to make progress. May this preface, beloved, have made your Love attentive to this discourse of the Lord which he gave his disciples before his passion; for it is deep, and certainly where the expounder is going to labor much, the hearer ought not to be slack.

What then does the Lord say after Judas went out to do more quickly what he was going to do, that is, to hand over 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, "the Son of Man is glorified." Why now? Is it because the one who would hand him over has gone out, because those who would seize and kill him are at hand? Is he now glorified because he is close to being humbled further, he who now faces being bound, judged, condemned, mocked, crucified, killed? 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"? Then he was not yet glorified when he raised the dead; and is he glorified now, when he is drawing near to death? He was not yet glorified when doing divine things, and is he glorified when about to suffer human things? It would be strange if God, that teacher, signified and taught this by these words. The saying of the Most High must be searched more deeply; he shows himself a little so that we may find him, and hides himself again so that we may search, and so that we may lean, step by step as it were, from what has been found toward what is yet 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." So when the unclean one went out, all the clean remained, and remained with their cleanser. Something like this will happen when this world, conquered by Christ, has passed away, and no one unclean will remain among Christ's people; when, the weeds having been separated from the wheat, "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The Lord, foreseeing that this would be, and testifying that it was now signified, with Judas departing like weeds separated off and the holy apostles remaining like wheat, said, "Now the Son of Man is glorified," as if he said: See what there will be in that glorification of mine, where none of the evil will be, and none of the good will perish. Yet it was not said, "Now the glorification of the Son of Man is signified," but "Now the Son of Man is glorified"; just as it was not said, "The rock signified Christ," but "The rock was Christ." Nor was it said, "The good seed signified the sons of the kingdom," or "The weeds signified the sons of the evil one," but "The good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one." Just as Scripture is accustomed to speak, then, calling the things that signify by the names of the things they signify, so the Lord spoke when he said, "Now the Son of Man is glorified": once the most wicked one had been separated from there and the holy ones remained with him, his glorification was signified, when, the wicked having been separated, he will remain in eternity with the holy ones.

But when he had said, "Now the Son of Man is glorified," he added, "And God is glorified in him." For this itself is the glorification of the Son of Man, that God be glorified in him. For if he is not glorified 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 will also 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 will also glorify him in himself," so that the human nature in which he is the Son of Man, which was taken up by the eternal Word, may also be endowed with immortal eternity. "And at once," he says, "he will glorify him": by this declaration foretelling his resurrection, which would come not, like ours, at the end of the age, but at once. For this is the glorification of which the evangelist had already said, as I mentioned a little before, that the Spirit had not yet been given in that new way to those to whom he was to be given in that way when they believed after the resurrection, because Jesus was not yet glorified: that is, mortality had not yet been clothed with immortality, and temporal weakness changed into eternal power. It may also seem that "Now the Son of Man is glorified" was said of this glorification, so that his "now" is believed to refer not to the impending passion but to the near resurrection, as though what was now so close at hand had already been done. Let this suffice for your Love today; when the Lord grants it, we will discuss what follows.

We must notice, beloved, the ordered connection of the Lord's words. For when he had said above, after Judas had gone out and been separated even from that bodily fellowship with the saints, "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him" (whether he said this signifying the future kingdom, when the evil will be separated from the good, or because his resurrection was then about to take place, that is, would not be deferred, as ours is deferred to the end of the age), and had then added, "If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and will glorify him at once," by which he testified without any ambiguity to his resurrection that was to come at once, he went on and said: "Little children, yet a little while I am with you." So that they would not think, then, that God would glorify him in such a way that he would never again be joined to them in the kind of fellowship there is on earth, he says, "Yet a little while I am with you," as if he said: I shall indeed be glorified at once by 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, after the resurrection he spent forty days with them, going in and out, eating and drinking: not indeed having the need of hunger and thirst, but by these very things intimating the reality of the flesh, which no longer had the necessity of eating and drinking, but the power. Did he then signify these forty days by saying, "Yet a little while I am with you," or something else? For it can also be understood in this way: "Yet a little while I am with you" means, I too am still, like you, in this weakness of the flesh, that is, until he should die and rise again; because after he rose, he was indeed with them for forty days, as has been said, by the display of bodily presence, but he was not with them in the sharing of human weakness.

There is also another divine presence, unknown to mortal senses, of which he likewise says: "Behold, I am with you until the end of the age." This certainly is not "Yet a little while I am with you"; for until the end of the age 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"), still he must not be believed to have meant 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." Certainly after this little while in which I am with you, "you will seek me, and where I am going you cannot come." Will they be unable, after the end of the age, to come where he is going? And where then is what he will say a little later in this same discourse: "Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me"? So it was not of that presence of his with his own, by which he is with them until the end of the age, that he now spoke when he said, "Yet a little while I am with you," but either of the mortal weakness in which he was with them until his passion, or of the bodily presence in which he was going to be with them until his ascension. Whichever of these one chooses, he is not at odds with the faith.

But lest this sense seem to anyone foreign to the truth, the sense in which we say that the Lord could have signified by "Yet a little while I am with you" his sharing of mortal flesh, in which he was with the disciples until the passion, let him attend to his words after the resurrection in another evangelist, where he says: "These things I spoke to you while I was still with you," as if he were not then with them while they stood with him, saw him, touched him, and talked with him. What then is "while I was still with you," except "while I was still in mortal flesh, in which you also are"? For then he had indeed been raised in the same flesh, but he was no longer with them in the same mortality. Therefore, just as there, already clothed with the immortality of the flesh, he says truly, "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 not absurdly understood 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. So let us look at what follows.

"You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, Where I am going you cannot come, so I say to you now." That is, now you cannot. But when he said this to the Jews, he did not add "now." These, then, could not come at that time where he was going, but they could later; for he says this most plainly a little later to the apostle Peter. For when Peter said, "Lord, where are you going?" he answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you will follow later." But what this means must not be passed over carelessly. For where was it that the disciples could not follow the Lord then, but could later? If we say "to death": what time can be found for a human being once born at which he is not fit to die, since such is the lot of human beings in a corruptible body that life in it is not easier than death? So they were not yet less fit to follow the Lord to death; but they were less fit to follow the Lord to the life that has no death. For that is where the Lord was going, so that, rising from the dead, he would no longer die, and death would no longer have dominion over him. For how could they already have followed the Lord who was about to die for righteousness, when they were not yet ripe for martyrdom? Or how could they already have followed the Lord who was going to the immortality of the flesh, when they would die at some time or other but rise only at the end of the age? Or how could they already have followed the Lord who was going to the bosom of the Father, and yet not leaving them, just as he had not withdrawn from there when he came to them, since no one can be in that happiness except one who is perfect in love? And so, teaching how they could become fit to go where he was going ahead of them, he says: "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another." These are the steps by which Christ must be followed; but a fuller discourse on them must be put off to another time.

The Lord Jesus declares that he gives his disciples a new commandment, that they love one another: "A new commandment," he says, "I give you, that you love one another." Was this commandment not already in the ancient law of God, where it is written, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself"? Why then is it called new by the Lord, when it is shown to be so old? Or is it a new commandment because, having stripped off the old man, he has clothed us with the new? For what renews the one who hears, or rather obeys, is not every love, but this love, which the Lord, to distinguish it from fleshly love, qualified by adding, "as I have loved you." For husbands and wives love one another, parents and children, and all whom any other human tie has bound together; to say nothing of the blameworthy and damnable love with which adulterers and adulteresses, fornicators and prostitutes love one another, and any others whom not a human tie but the harmful shamefulness of human life joins together. So Christ gave us a new commandment, that we love one another as he too loved us. This love renews us, so that we are new men, heirs of the New Testament, singers of the new song. This love, dearest brothers, renewed even the righteous of old, the patriarchs and prophets of that time, as afterward the blessed apostles; it is this that now renews the nations, and from the whole human race spread over the whole world it 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 this who comes up made white?" Made white indeed, because renewed; and by what, if not by the new commandment? Therefore the members in her are concerned for one another; and "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it." For they hear and keep "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another": not as those love one another who corrupt each other, nor as men love one another because they are men, but as they love one another because they are all gods and sons of the Most High, so that they may be brothers to his only Son, loving one another with the love with which he loved them, he who will lead them to that end which will suffice them, where their desire will be satisfied with good things. For then nothing will be lacking to desire, when God will be all in all. Such an end has no end. No one dies there, where no one arrives unless he dies to this world: not by the death of all, by which the body is abandoned by the soul, but by the death of the elect, by which, while one still remains in mortal flesh, the heart is set on high. Of such a death the Apostle said: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Perhaps this is why it was said, "Love is strong as death." For by this love it comes about that, while still placed in this corruptible body, we die to this world and our life is hidden with Christ in God; indeed, this love itself is our death to the world and our life with God. For if it is death when the soul goes out of the body, how is it not death when our love goes out of the world? Love, then, is strong as death. What is stronger than that by which the world is conquered?

So do not think, my brothers, that in the Lord's saying, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another," that greater commandment has been passed over by which we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. For with this apparently passed over, "that you love one another" seems to have been said as if it did not even belong to that other commandment, in which it was said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." "On these two commandments," he says, "hang the whole Law and the Prophets." But for those who understand rightly, both are found in each. For he who loves God cannot despise him when he commands him to love his neighbor; and he who loves his neighbor in a holy and spiritual way, what does he love in him but God? This is the love set apart from all worldly love, which the Lord, to distinguish it, qualified by adding, "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: that he might lead us, as I said a little before, to where God is all in all. So too a doctor is rightly said to love the sick: and what does he love in them but health, which he certainly desires to restore, not the disease, which he came to drive out? So let us also love one another in such a way that, as far as we can, we draw one another by the care of love to have God in us. This love is given to us by him who says, "As I have loved you, that you also love one another." For this, then, he loved us, that we also might love one another; granting us this by loving us, that we might be bound together by mutual love and, our members 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 who are not mine have my other gifts along with you, not only nature, life, sense, reason, and that well-being which is common to humans and beasts, 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 because they do not have love, they are like clanging cymbals, they are nothing, it profits them nothing. So it is not by those gifts of mine, good as they are, which even those who are not my disciples can have, but "by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." O bride of Christ, fair among women! O you who come up made white, leaning upon your kinsman! For by his light you are lit so that you shine white; 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 wedding song, "For love is in your delights"! It is this that does not let your soul perish with the ungodly; it is this that judges your cause, and it is strong as death, and it is in your delights. What a wonderful kind of death it is, for which it was too little not to be in punishments, unless it were in delights besides! But let this sermon now be closed here; what follows must be treated from another beginning.

When the Lord Jesus was commending to his disciples the holy love with which they should love one another, "Simon Peter said to him: Lord, where are you going?" He said this, certainly, as a disciple to his master and a servant to his Lord, as one ready to follow. That is why the Lord, who saw in his mind why he asked this, answered him thus: "Where I am going you cannot follow me now," as if he said: For the purpose for which you ask, you cannot now. He did not say, You cannot, but, You cannot now: he brought in delay, he did not take away hope; and that same hope, which he did not take away but rather gave, he confirmed with his next words, adding and saying, "But you will follow later." Why are you hurrying, Peter? The Rock has not yet made you firm by his Spirit. Do not be lifted up by presumption: you cannot now; do not be cast down by despair: you will follow later. 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 weak man boasted of his will, but the physician was examining his health; the one promised, the other foreknew; the one who did not know was bold, the one who knew beforehand was teaching. How much Peter had taken on himself, looking at what he wanted and ignorant of what he could do! How much he had taken on himself, that when the Lord had come to lay down his life for his friends, and so for him too, he should offer to do this for the Lord, and, before Christ's life had been laid down for him, should promise that he would lay down his life for Christ! So Jesus answered: "Will you lay down your life for me?" Will you do for me what I have not yet done for you? "Will you lay down your life for me?" Can you go before, when you 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: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will 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 that you are a little child. You who promise me your death will deny your life three times. 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. As great a life as it is to confess Christ, so great a death it is to deny Christ.

Or did the apostle Peter not deny Christ, as some try to excuse him with misplaced goodwill, because when questioned by the maidservant he answered that he did not know the man, as the other evangelists attest more explicitly? As if one who denies Christ the man does not deny Christ, and denies him in that which he was made for our sake, so that what he had made might not perish! So whoever confesses Christ as God in such a way as to deny him as man, Christ did not die for him, because Christ died as man. Whoever denies Christ the man is not reconciled to God through the mediator. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Whoever denies Christ the man is not justified, because "as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one man many will be made righteous." Whoever denies Christ the man will not rise to the resurrection of life, because "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 will be made alive." And through what is he head of the church, if not through the man, in that "the Word became flesh," that is, the only-begotten God of God the Father became man? How then is he in the body of Christ who denies Christ the man? For whoever denies the head, how is he a member? But why should I linger over many points, when the Lord himself has removed all the windings of human argument? For he did not say, "The cock will not crow until you deny the man," or, as he was accustomed to speak in his more familiar condescension with men, "The cock will not crow until you deny the Son of Man three times"; but he said, "until you deny me three times." What is "me" but what he was? And what was he but Christ? Whatever of him, then, Peter denied, he denied him, he denied Christ, he denied the Lord his God. For his fellow disciple Thomas too, when he cried out, "My Lord and my God," 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 a man, and yet recognized God. If, then, Peter denied what Thomas touched, Peter offended against what Thomas cried out. "The cock will 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 would be wicked to doubt, Christ said this and foretold the truth, then beyond doubt Peter denied Christ. Let us not accuse Christ when we defend Peter. Let weakness acknowledge its sin; for truth has no lie. Peter's weakness did acknowledge its sin, acknowledged it fully; and by weeping it showed how much evil it had committed in denying Christ. He himself refutes his defenders, and to convict them he brings forward his tears as witnesses. Nor do we take pleasure, in saying these things, in accusing the first of the apostles; but in looking at him we ought to be warned, so that no human being may trust in human strength. For what else was our teacher and Savior concerned to do than to show us, by the example of the very first of the apostles, that no one ought in any way to presume upon himself? So what Peter was offering in his body happened in his soul. Yet he did not go before, for the Lord, as he rashly presumed, but in a way other than he thought. For before the death and resurrection of the Lord he both died by denying and came back to life by weeping; but he died because he himself presumed proudly, and he came back to life because the Lord looked on him kindly.