Tractates on the Gospel of John 67.1–70.3

We must raise our attention more toward God, brothers, so that we may somehow grasp with the mind as well the words of the holy Gospel which have just sounded in our ears. For the Lord Jesus says: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe in me." So that they would not fear death as men do and be troubled for that reason, he consoles them, testifying also that he himself is God. "Believe in God," he says, "and believe in me." For it follows that if you believe in God, you ought also to believe in me; which would not follow if Christ were not God. "Believe in God, and believe in" him who is equal to God by nature, not by robbery; for he emptied himself, not losing the form of God but taking the form of a servant. You fear death for this form of a servant: do not let your heart be troubled; the form of God will raise it up.

But what is it that follows, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places," except that they were also afraid for themselves? Hence they had to hear, "Do not let your heart be troubled." For which of them would not be afraid, when it had been said to Peter, the more confident and ready one, "The cock will not crow until you deny me three times"? As though they were to be lost from him, then, they were rightly troubled; but when they hear, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, for I am going to prepare a place for you," they are revived from their distress, sure and confident that even after the dangers of temptations they will dwell with God together with Christ. For though one is stronger than another, one wiser than another, one more righteous than another, one holier than another, "in my Father's house are many dwelling places"; none of them will be estranged from that house, where each will receive a dwelling place according to his own merit. The denarius indeed is equal for all, which the householder orders to be given to all who worked in the vineyard, making no distinction in it between those who labored less and those who labored more; by that denarius, certainly, eternal life is signified, where no one lives more than another, since in eternity there is no differing measure of life. But the many dwelling places signify the different ranks of merit in the one eternal life. "For there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead." Like stars, the saints are allotted different dwelling places of different brightness in the kingdom, as in the sky; but because of the one denarius no one is cut off from the kingdom. And so God will be all in all in such a way that, since God is love, it comes about through love that what each one has is common to all. For in this way each one also has it himself, when he loves in another what he himself does not have. So there will be no envy over unequal brightness, since the unity of love will reign in all.

Therefore a Christian heart must reject those who think that many dwelling places are spoken of because there will be something outside the kingdom of heaven where the innocents who have departed this life without baptism may remain in blessedness, since without baptism they will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. This faith is not faith, since it is not the true and catholic faith. Is it so, then, you foolish men, blinded by fleshly thoughts? Whereas you would deserve censure if you separated from the kingdom of heaven the dwelling place, I do not say of Peter and Paul or any of the apostles, but of any baptized little child, do you not think you deserve censure, you who separate from it the house of God the Father? For the Lord did not say, "In the whole world," or "In the whole creation," or "In everlasting life or blessedness there are many dwelling places," but "In my Father's house," he says, "are many dwelling places." Is this not the house where "we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"? Is this not the house of which we sing to the Lord, "Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they will praise you for ever and ever"? Will you then dare to separate from the kingdom of heaven not the house of some baptized brother but the house of God the Father himself, to whom all of us brothers say, "Our Father who art in heaven," or to divide it so that some of its dwelling places are in the kingdom of heaven and some outside the kingdom of heaven? Far be it, far be it, that those who wish to dwell in the kingdom of heaven should wish to dwell with you in this folly; far be it, I say, that, since the whole house of the reigning sons is nowhere but in the kingdom, some part of the royal house itself should not be in the kingdom.

"And if I go," he says, "and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. And where I am going you know, and the way you know." O Lord Jesus, how are you going to prepare a place, if there are already many dwelling places in your Father's house, where your own will dwell with you? Or if you take them to yourself, how do you come again, you who do not depart? If we try to explain these things briefly, beloved, as much as seems enough for today's sermon, they will certainly not be clear when compressed, and the brevity itself will be another obscurity. So let us put off this debt, to pay it to you more fittingly when our householder grants it.

We acknowledge, dearest brothers, that we owe you, and must now pay, what we had put off: how these two statements can be understood not to contradict each other. When the Lord had said, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, for I am going to prepare a place for you," where he shows clearly enough that he said this to them because there are already many dwelling places there and there is no need to prepare any, he says again: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be." How does he go and prepare a place, if there are already many dwelling places? If it were not so, he would have said, "I am going to prepare." Or if it is still to be prepared, why would he not rightly have said, "I am going to prepare"? Or are these dwelling places both in existence and yet to be prepared? For if they did not exist, he would have said, "I am going to prepare." And yet, because they exist in such a way that they are to be prepared, he does not go to prepare them as they already are; but if he goes and prepares them as they are to be, then, coming again, he will take his own to himself, so that where he is, they also may be. How then are the dwelling places in the Father's house, not others but the very same, both already in existence beyond doubt in the way in which they need no preparing, and not yet in existence in the way in which they are to be prepared? How, do we think, except in the way the prophet also proclaims God, that "he made the things that are to be"? For he does not say, "who will make the things that are to be," but "who made the things that are to be." So he both made them and will make them. For they have not been made if he did not make them, nor will they be if he does not make them. He made them, then, by predestining; he will make them by working. So too the Gospel shows clearly enough when he chose the disciples: certainly at the time when he called them; and yet the Apostle says, "He chose us before the foundation of the world": by predestining, certainly, not by calling. "And those whom he predestined, he also called": he chose by predestining before the foundation of the world; he chose by calling before the consummation of the world. So too he both prepared and prepares the dwelling places; nor does he prepare others, but those he prepared he prepares, he who made the things that are to be: he prepared them by predestining, he prepares them by working. So they already exist in predestination; if it were not so, he would have said, "I will go and prepare," that is, "I will predestine." But because they do not yet exist in the working out, "And if I go," he says, "and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself."

He prepares the dwelling places, in a certain way, by preparing dwellers for the dwelling places. For when he said, "In my Father's house are many dwelling places," what do we think the house of God is but the temple of God? What that is, let the Apostle be asked, and let him answer: "For God's temple is holy, which you are." This is also the kingdom of God, which the Son is to hand over to the Father; hence the same apostle says: "Christ the beginning, then those who are Christ's at his coming; then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father"; that is, when he hands over to his Father, for contemplation as well, those whom he redeemed with his blood. This is the kingdom of heaven, of which it is said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field." "And the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom": though they now have weeds mixed among them, at the end the King himself will send his angels, and "they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of stumbling. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The kingdom will shine in the kingdom, when the kingdom comes to the kingdom, which we now pray for when we say, "Your kingdom come." Now, then, it is already called a kingdom, but it is still being called together; for if it were not called a kingdom, it would not be said, "They will gather out of his kingdom all causes of stumbling." But this kingdom does not yet reign. So it is already a kingdom in such a way that, when all causes of stumbling have been gathered out of it, it will then come to reign, so that it has not only the name of a kingdom but also the power of reigning. For to this kingdom standing at the right hand it will be said at the end: "Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom"; that is, you who were a kingdom and did not reign, come, reign, so that what you had been in hope you may also be in reality. This house of God, then, this temple of God, this kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven, is still being built, still being constructed, still being prepared, still being gathered. In it there will be dwelling places, as the Lord is still preparing them; in it there already are, as the Lord has already predestined.

But why did he go away to prepare, when surely he was preparing us ourselves, which he will not do if he leaves us? I recognize it, Lord, as best I can: you surely signify this, that for these dwelling places to be prepared, "the righteous must live by faith." For whoever is away from the Lord needs to live by faith, because by it he is prepared for beholding the sight. For "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; and "cleansing their hearts by faith." The one is read in the Gospel, the other in the Acts of the Apostles. But faith, by which the hearts of those who will see God are cleansed while they are away from home, believes what it does not see; for if you see, it is not faith. To the believer merit is gathered; to the one who sees, the reward is paid. Let the Lord go, then, and prepare a place; let him go so that he is not seen, let him be hidden so that he is believed. For the place is prepared if one lives by faith. Let him be desired as believed in, so that he may be possessed as desired: the desire of love is the preparation of the dwelling place. So, Lord, prepare what you are preparing: for you are preparing us for yourself and yourself for us, since you are preparing a place both for yourself in us and for us in you. For you said, "Abide in me, and I in you." As far as each has been a sharer in you, one less, another more, this will be the diversity of rewards according to the diversity of merits; this will be the multitude of dwelling places according to the inequality of the dwellers, yet all of them living in eternity and blessed without end. What is it that you go? What is it that you come? If I understand you rightly, you withdraw neither from the place you go from nor from the place you come from: you go by being hidden, you come by appearing. But unless you remain to rule us, so that we make progress by living well, how will the place be prepared where we can remain in full enjoyment? Let this suffice on the words of the Gospel that have been read, up to where the Lord says, "I will come again and take you to myself." But what follows means, "so that where I am you also may be; and where I am going you know, and the way you know," we shall hear better and treat more fittingly after the question that follows, put by a disciple, as if we too were asking through him.

Now, beloved, let us understand as best we can the Lord's earlier words from his later ones, and what precedes from what follows, in the answer you heard given to the apostle Thomas when he asked. For the Lord had said above, when he spoke of the dwelling places, both that they are in his Father's house and that he was going to prepare them. There we understood both that the dwelling places themselves already exist in predestination, and that they are prepared when the hearts of those who will dwell there are cleansed by faith, since they themselves are God's house; and what else is it to dwell in God's house than to be among God's people, since that people is in God and God in it? To prepare this the Lord went away, so that by believing in him who is not seen, the dwelling place which will forever be in sight might now be prepared by faith. For this reason, then, he had said: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. And where I am going you know, and the way you know." To this Thomas says to him: "Lord, we do not know where you are going; and how can we know the way?" The Lord had said that they knew both; this man says they know neither, the place to which one goes or the way by which one goes. But he cannot lie; so they knew, and did not know that they knew. Let him convince them that they already know what they think they still do not know. "Jesus says to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life." What is this, brothers? See, we have heard the disciple asking, we have heard the master teaching too, and even after the voice has sounded we do not yet grasp the hidden meaning. But what is it we cannot grasp? Could his apostles, with whom he was speaking, say to him, "We do not know you"? So if they knew him, and he is the way, they knew the way; if they knew him, and he is the truth, they knew the truth; if they knew him, and he is the life, they knew the life. See, they are shown to know what they did not know they knew.

What then have we too failed to grasp in this discourse? What do you think, my brothers, except that he said, "And where I am going you know, and the way you know"? And see, we have learned that they knew the way, because they knew him who is the way. But the way is that by which one goes; is the way also where one goes? Yet he had said they knew both, where he was going and the way. So there was need for him to say, "I am the way," to show those who knew him that they knew the way which they had thought they did not know; but what need was there for him to say, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," when, once the way by which he was going was known, it remained to know where he was going, unless it was because he was going to the truth, going to the life? So he was going to himself through himself. And where do we go but to him? And by what way do we go but through him? He, then, goes to himself through himself; we go to him through him; or rather both he and we go to the Father. For elsewhere he says of himself, "I go to the Father"; and in this place, for our sake, he says, "No one comes to the Father except through me." And so he goes through himself both to himself and to the Father, and we go through him both to him and to the Father. Who grasps these things except one who has spiritual understanding? And how much does he grasp here, even if he has spiritual understanding? Brothers, why do you want these things explained to you by me? Consider how lofty they are. You see what I am; I see what you are: in all of us "the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things." Do we think we can say, "To you I have lifted up my soul, you who dwell in heaven"? But under so great a weight, where we groan, weighed down, how shall I lift up my soul, unless he lifts it with me who laid down his own for me? So I will say what I can; let him among you grasp it who can. By his gift I speak; by his gift he grasps who grasps; and by his gift he believes who does not yet grasp. "For unless you believe," says the prophet, "you will not understand."

Tell me, my Lord, what shall I say to your servants, my fellow servants? The apostle Thomas had you before him in order to ask you; yet he would not have understood you unless he had you within him. I ask you, because I know you are above me; and I ask insofar as I can pour out my soul above myself, where I may hear you, not sounding and yet teaching. Tell me, I beg you, how you go to yourself. Had you left yourself in order to come to us, especially since you did not come of yourself, but the Father sent you? I know indeed that you emptied yourself; but this was because you took the form of a servant, not because you laid aside the form of God to return to it, or lost it to receive it back; and yet you came, and arrived not only before fleshly eyes but even into the hands of men. How, except in the flesh? Through it you came while remaining where you were; through it you returned without leaving the place you had come to. If then through it you came and returned, through it beyond doubt you were the way not only for us, by which we might come to you, but also for yourself, by which you might come and return. And when you went to the life, which you yourself are, you surely led that same flesh of yours from death to life. For the Word of God is one thing, man another; but "the Word became flesh," that is, man. So the person of the Word is not one and that of the man another, since both are Christ, one person; and therefore, just as when the flesh died Christ died, and when the flesh was buried Christ was buried (for so "we believe with the heart unto righteousness," so "we make confession with the mouth unto salvation"), so when the flesh came from death to life, Christ came to life. And because Christ is the Word of God, Christ is the life. Thus in a wonderful and ineffable way he who never laid aside or lost himself came to himself. For God had come, as has been said, through the flesh to men, the truth to liars: for "God is true, but every man a liar." So when he withdrew his flesh from men and lifted it up to where no one lies, the same one, because "the Word became flesh," returned through himself, that is, through the flesh, to the truth which he himself is. And this truth he kept even among liars and in death: for Christ was once dead, but never false.

Take an example, different and far from equal, yet in some way useful for understanding God, from things more nearly subject to God. See, I myself, as far as my mind is concerned, since I am what you also are: if I am silent, I am with myself; but if I speak to you something you may understand, I in a way go out to you, and I do not leave myself, but I both come to you and do not withdraw from where I go out. And when I have fallen silent, I in a way return to myself; and in a way I remain with you, if you hold on to what you heard in the sermon I am giving. If the image that God made can do this, what can the image of God do, not made by God but born of God, himself God? His body, by which he went out to us and in which he went back from us, did not slip away as my sound does, but remains there where it no longer dies, and death will no longer have dominion over it. Much more could perhaps, and should, still be said on these words of the Gospel; but your hearts are not to be overloaded with spiritual food, however sweet; especially since "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

The words of the holy Gospel, brothers, are rightly understood if they are found to agree with what went before; for what precedes must fit what follows when the Truth speaks. Above, the Lord had said, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be"; then he had added, "And where I am going you know, and the way you know"; and he showed that what he said meant nothing other than that they knew him. What it is for him to go to himself through himself, which he also grants the disciples, that they go to him through him, we have already said in the previous sermon as best we could. So when he says, "So that where I am you also may be," where were they to be but in him? And so he is also in himself, and therefore they are where he also is, that is, in him. He himself, then, is the eternal life in which we shall be when he has taken us to himself; and that eternal life which he is, is in him, so that where he is we also may be, that is, in him. For "as the Father has life in himself" (and certainly the life he has is nothing other than what he himself is who has it), "so he has given the Son to have life in himself," since the Son himself is the same life that he has in himself. But shall we be the life that he is, when we have begun to be in that life, that is, in him? Certainly not; for he, by existing as life, has life, and he himself is what he has, and the life that is in him he himself is in himself. But we are not that life itself but sharers in that life; and so we shall be there in such a way that in ourselves we cannot be what he is, but we, who are not life, shall have as our life him who has himself as life, because he himself is life. Finally, he is both in himself unchangeably and in the Father inseparably; but we, when we wished to be in ourselves, were troubled toward ourselves (hence that voice: "My soul is troubled toward myself") and, changed for the worse, could not remain what we had been. But when through him we come to the Father, as he says, "No one comes to the Father except through me," then, abiding in him, no one will be able to separate us either from the Father or from him.

So, connecting what follows with what went before, "If you have known me," he says, "you have surely known my Father also." This is what he said: "No one comes to the Father except through me." Then he adds: "And from now on you will know him, and you have seen him." But Philip, one of the apostles, not understanding what he heard, says: "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." The Lord says to him: "Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever sees me sees the Father also." See, he rebukes him because he had been with them so long a time and was not known. Had he not said, "And where I am going you know, and the way you know"? And when they said they did not know, had he not shown that they did know these things by adding and saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"? How does he now say, "Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me?", when surely they knew both where he was going and the way, for no other reason than that they knew him? But this question is easily resolved if we say that some of them knew him and some did not, and among those who did not know was Philip; so that his words, "And where I am going you know, and the way you know," are understood to have been said to those who knew, not to Philip, to whom it was said, "Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me, Philip?" To those, then, who already knew the Son, this too was said of the Father: "And from now on you will know him, and you have seen him." For it was said because of the complete likeness he has with the Father, so that they were said from now on to know the Father because they knew the Son, who is like him. So they already knew the Son, if not all, certainly some of those to whom it is said, "And where I am going you know, and the way you know"; for he is the way. But they did not know the Father; therefore they hear, "If you have known me, you have known my Father also": through me, that is, him too. For I am one, he is another. But lest they think him unlike, "And from now on," he says, "you will know him, and you have seen him." For they saw his Son, who is most like him; but they had to be reminded that the Father, whom they did not yet see, is such as the Son is, whom they saw. And to this end is what is said afterward to Philip: "Whoever sees me sees the Father also." Not that he himself was both Father and Son, which the catholic faith condemns in the Sabellians, who are also called Patripassians; but that the Father and the Son are so alike that whoever has known one has known both. For we are accustomed to speak in this way of two people who are very alike, to those who see one of them and want to know what the other is like, saying: "You have seen this one, you have seen that one." So it was said in this way: "Whoever sees me sees the Father also": certainly not so that the Son is himself the Father, but because the Son differs in nothing at all from the Father's likeness. For unless the Father and the Son were two, it would not have been said, "If you have known me, you have known my Father also." That is: since "no one comes to the Father except through me, if you have known me, you have known my Father also"; for I, through whom one comes to the Father, will lead you to him, so that you may know him too. But since I am entirely like him, from now on you will know him when you know me; and you have seen him, if you have seen me with the eyes of the heart.

"Why then do you say, Philip, Show us the Father, and it is enough for us? Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever sees me sees the Father also." If seeing this is too much for you, at least believe what you do not see. "For how can you say," he says, "Show us the Father?" If you have seen me, who am like him in every way, you have seen him whom I am like. And if you cannot see this, do you not at least believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Philip could have said here: I do see you, and I believe you are most like the Father; but is one to be reproved and rebuked who, seeing the one who is like, wants to see also him whom he is like? I know the one who is like, but so far I know the one without the other; it is not enough for me unless I also know him whom this one is like. So "show us the Father, and it is enough for us." But the master reproved the disciple because he saw the heart of the one asking. For Philip wanted to know the Father as though the Father were better than the Son; and therefore he did not know the Son either, since he believed something to be better than him. To correct this notion it was said: "Whoever sees me sees the Father also. How can you say, Show us the Father?" I see how you say it: you do not seek to see another who is like, but you think he is better. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?" Why do you wish to discern a distance between those who are alike? Why do you want to know separately those who are inseparable? Then he speaks not to Philip alone but to them in the plural, words that must not be squeezed into a narrow space, so that, with his help, they may be expounded more carefully.