Commentary on the Gospel of John 13 part 4/6

But suppose the harvest is not in that month, but in the one following it, called by them Iyar. Even so, the time four months before that month is the height of winter. Once, then, we show that at the time he said these things, the season with respect to the harvest was either at its height or near its close, what has been proposed will have been demonstrated.

It must be observed that, after the dispensation concerning the water changed into wine at Cana of Galilee, the Lord is said to have gone down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples, where he remained not many days; and the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, where he found in the temple those selling oxen and sheep and doves, and, according to the rest of what is recorded, made a whip of cords and cast them all out of the temple.

And having said certain things to Nicodemus, after these things he and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he spent time with them and baptized. How much time, then, shall we suppose he spent in Judea baptizing after the Passover? For it is not clearly written.

And it appears that, because the Pharisees learned that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, he left Judea and went away into Galilee, when he had to pass through Samaria; and having come to Jacob's well, he says: "Do you not..."

"...say that there are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?" But if someone supposes that Jesus spent a period of several months in Judea baptizing with his disciples after the Passover, so that the time four months before the harvest had already arrived, one must set against him the fact that, having remained two days there among the Samaritans, after these he went out into Galilee; and it is recorded, as though the Passover and the things done by him at Jerusalem had only recently occurred, that: "When he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all that he had done at Jerusalem at the..."

"...feast, for they too had come to the feast." But it is likely that someone will say against this that nothing prevents him, having spent a longer time in Judea, from having come to Jacob's well while going away to Galilee, at the time he said "There are yet four months" to the harvest; and there is nothing strange in the Galileans receiving him on account of the things done for him at Jerusalem eight months before.

But it must be said against them that, having arrived in Galilee, he came to Cana of Galilee, where he had earlier made the water wine, and there he also healed the son of the royal official who was sick at Capernaum, saying to his father, "Your son lives"; and "After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem," when he healed the paralytic who had been thirty-eight years in his infirmity.

But if this feast is that of the Passover (for its name is not attached), the sequence of the narrative is constrained, especially since shortly afterward it is added that "the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Tabernacles, was near."

Since these matters have been examined at greater length, it follows for one who looks with the mind more deeply into the Scriptures to inquire what Jesus was thinking when he said to the disciples, "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest." And just as we said when examining the matters concerning the waters in the passage about the Samaritan woman, let us do likewise here.

For who would not agree that "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest" is spiritual, and spiritual, bare of sensible things? To which it would follow that the disciples' saying that the harvest would be after four months is comparable — so far as concerns their own supposition — to the harvest shown by Jesus.

We think, then, that something of this sort is meant by the disciples' saying that "There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest." Most disciples of the Word, understanding that the truth is difficult for human nature to attain, when they have grasped that there is another life besides the present life, growing weary for the time being with respect to the end concerning the things sought, suppose that, after their kinship with the four elements, by transcending these they will apprehend the truth.

The disciples, then, following the Lord's own manner of speaking, say concerning the harvest — which is the completion of the works of those who gather in the truth — that it comes after the present fourfold order of elements.

The name "months" has been taken in a manner fitting for the bodily sense of the discourse concerning the harvest. For it would not have been proper to say, "Do you not say, There are yet four days, and the harvest comes," or "There are yet four years, and the harvest comes" — especially since the discourse wishes to remain hidden from the many and more bodily-minded, concealing the mystical sense.

while displaying the simpler sense, so that the words uttered by the Savior might be thought to be clear.

Or perhaps the meaning of the disciples in saying "There are yet four months, and the harvest comes" is something like this: there are four spheres of the four elements lying beneath the ethereal nature — in the middle and lowest that of earth, around it that of water, third that of air, and fourth that of fire, after which is that of the moon, and so on.

And let us note whether the disciples suppose that those who have been prepared from here, once they come to be near the purer substance, will apprehend the truth — whenever one is also able [to pass through] the sphere of fire, without being corrupted by sin, which is the matter of the universe, in the regions before the … ethereal places … regions.

Refuting this supposition as unsound, the Word who became flesh says to those who hold these views: "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

For indeed it seems inconceivable to us that he is not discussing one and the same harvest throughout all these words, since, according to those who take it in the simpler sense, he rebukes the disciples for supposing, as they think, that the harvest comes after four months — which we showed earlier could not, in fact, come to pass after four months.

And besides, as it were correcting the disciples' supposition, he says, "Do you not say this? But I say this" — moreover, how is it not absurd to take "Lift up your eyes" as entirely clear in every respect, and "Look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest" likewise, but not to take allegorically this preceding statement, coming before the … : "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest"?

Heracleon, indeed, like most, remained on the letter, not thinking it should be raised to a higher sense. He says, at any rate, that he means the harvest of the crops, this having still a four-month interval, whereas the harvest of which he himself was speaking was already at hand. And how he took the harvest to refer to the souls of believers I do not know — he says that they are already ripe and ready for harvest, and fit to be gathered into the barn, that is, through faith into rest — those, at least, that are ready, for not all are; for some, he says, were already ready, others were about to be, others are about to be, and others are even now being sown besides.

These, then, are the things that man said. But how the disciples, by lifting up their eyes, can see souls already fit, as he supposes, to be brought into the barn, I do not know whether he is able to demonstrate. And further, how, with respect to souls, "One sows and another reaps" is true, and "I sent you to reap that on which you have not labored" — and in what way it is possible to accept, with respect to the soul, "Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

We, then, take the harvest as the gathering of fruit unto eternal life, according to the perfecting of the seminal reason implanted in our conceptions, brought to completion through a more extensive cultivation. How it is sown by one and reaped by another we shall discuss in what follows. "Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

In many places of Scripture, "Lift up your eyes" occurs, with the divine word urging us to raise and lift up our minds, and to elevate entirely our faculty of vision, which lies somewhere below and is bent down and unable to raise itself up — as in Isaiah: "Lift up your eyes on high and see: who has revealed all these things?"

And the Savior too, when he is about to speak the beatitudes to those gathered on the plain, having lifted up his eyes toward the disciples, says, "Blessed are these and these." For no genuine disciple of Jesus is below, just as neither is he who rests in the bosom of Abraham.

The rich man, at any rate, being in torments, lifts up his eyes and sees Abraham, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Moreover, the woman who was bent over and unable to straighten up at all, once Jesus had made her upright, put away her being bent over and her inability to straighten up, so that she might lift up her eyes.

And no one who is in the passions and melted into the flesh, or mired in material things, has kept the commandment that says, "Lift up your eyes"; wherefore such a one will not even see the fields, even though they are already white for harvest. Moreover, no one who works the works of the flesh has lifted up his eyes.

The fields are already white for harvest when the Word of God is present, clarifying and illuminating all the fields of Scripture, which are fulfilled at his coming.

And perhaps, too, all sensible things up to heaven itself and the things in it are white fields ready for harvest to those who lift up their eyes, the reason concerning each being clearly presented to those who have received it — since the same image is transformed from glory to glory — a likeness of the eyes of those who have seen how each of the things that came into being was good. For "God saw," said of each of the creatures, that it was "good," means this: that God looked into the reasons of each thing, and saw how, according to the reasons by which each of the creatures came to be, it is good.

But if someone does not accept "God saw that it was good" in this way, let him explain how, in "Let the waters bring forth creeping creatures with living souls, and birds flying above the earth across the firmament of heaven," the statement "God saw that it was good" holds true — and especially since "God made the great sea monsters."

Rather, it is the reason concerning each of these that is the "good" seen by God. The same must be said also concerning "Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to its kind: quadrupeds and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind," to which also is added "God saw that it was good" — for how are wild beasts and creeping things good?

Unless, indeed, it is the reason concerning them that is the good.

These things are said by us on account of "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest" — the present discourse to the disciples urging the hearers to lift up their eyes both to the fields of Scripture and to the fields of the reason present in each of the things that exist, so that one may behold the whiteness and brightness of the light of truth everywhere present; for, according to Solomon, "All things are before the face of those who understand," and "right to those who wish to obtain understanding." "He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together."

I think it necessary to set forth in how many senses "harvest" is spoken of in Scripture and for how many things it is used, so that, once the meaning has been seen by us as far as possible, we may be able to see here to which of the several senses the term applies.

We see, then, in the Gospel according to Matthew, when the disciples came to the Lord saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field," the Lord's teaching concerning this, saying among other things: "The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels."

But indeed also in another place, concerning the multitude of believers lacking clear teaching about the things they believe, our Savior says: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Besides these, the Apostle names as sowing the good deeds or sin of men in this life, and as harvest the things laid up for each according to his worth on account of the right deeds or sins done here, speaking thus: "For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap: because he who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."

And in a somewhat similar sense, I think, the prophet in the Psalms is also referred to as having said: "They who sow in tears shall reap in exultation. They went on their way and wept, bearing their seed; but they shall come again with exultation, bearing their sheaves."

The word is also placed in many places according to ordinary usage, as in Ruth, through these words: "And these came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest." Now, with five meanings having been set forth for the present, it is clear that neither the sense denoted by ordinary usage is spoken of here, nor the one assigned to the consummation; for neither does the ordinary usage yield "he receives wages and gathers fruit unto eternal life," nor is it reasonable to understand in this passage the exhortation to reap in connection with the reaping angels.

Nor again is it possible to take here, according to "He who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, and he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life," the statement "He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto eternal life."

For according to the apostolic sayings, the sower and the reaper are the same person, whether sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit, and for this reason gathering either corruption or eternal life; but according to the present passage, the sower is one and the reaper another.

Likewise, the same person both sows and reaps according to the saying we cited from the Psalms, which differs from the apostolic one in being more mystical and more secret; for the apostolic saying is spoken more simply, not teaching about the differing nature of the seeds or whence it is taken; but the one from the Psalms seems to me to show forth the descent of nobler souls, coming into this life bearing seeds of salvation, and coming, as it were, involuntarily, with groaning, but returning with exultation because they have cultivated well and increased and multiplied the seeds with which they came. But in the passage before us, the sower is one, and the reaper another.

And Heracleon, indeed, will say — and perhaps some churchman too, who goes along with him in this interpretation — that this is said in a manner similar to the meaning in "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few," namely, that they are ready for harvest and fit already to be gathered into the barn through faith unto rest, and fit for salvation and the reception of the word — according to Heracleon, on account of their constitution and nature; but according to the churchman, on account of some readiness of the ruling faculty, prepared for perfection, so that it too might be harvested.

It must be said, then, to those who take it in this way, if they are willing to accept it, that there has never been, before the coming of our Savior, a harvest similar to the one that would thus be hoped for from the times of the gospel proclamation. For if, because the harvest is great, many have believed — though the apostolic laborers are few compared to the multitude of those who received the word — then either, on account of "Look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest," no one believed before the bodily coming of our Savior, nor did any laborer of believers ever exist, which is most absurd to assert — namely, that Abraham and Moses and the prophets held neither the place of laborers nor that of the harvested — or, if there had indeed been laborers and a harvest before, it will seem no strange thing that the Savior promises to those who lift up their eyes that they should see the fields, that they are white already to harvest. From these considerations, then, it can somehow be made clear that none of the aforementioned meanings is the one intended here with respect to the harvest; nor indeed will what is understood in another place in the Apostle apply here, where he says: "He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows in blessings will also reap in blessings."

Let us seek, then, a seventh meaning, corresponding to those set forth earlier, for "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?" and for "Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

The clear discourse concerning the plainness of the Scriptures, or that concerning how all things that God made are very good — this, then, is what we call the harvest, of which he who reaps has two fruits from reaping: one, when he receives wages; the other, when he gathers fruit unto eternal life.

And I think that, on account of the promises to be fulfilled afterward, according to what is written — "Behold, the Lord comes, and his reward is with him, to render to each according to his work" — it is said, "He receives wages"; but on account of the benefit arising from that very contemplation, which is fitting by nature for the mind and the rational faculty, being something special, and apart from any other promises besides this, it is written, "He gathers fruit unto eternal life," which signifies a certain good disposition of the ruling faculty, as we have also shown in the third book of the Stromateis, expounding "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Heracleon supposes that "He who reaps receives wages" is said because, he says, the Savior calls himself a reaper. And he takes the wages of our Lord to be the salvation and restoration of those reaped, in that he rests upon them. And "And gathers fruit unto eternal life," he says, is stated either because what is gathered is the fruit of eternal life, or because it is itself eternal life.

But I think it evident at once that his exposition is forced, since he asserts that the Savior receives wages and confuses the wages with the gathering of the fruit into one, directly against Scripture, which presents them as two distinct things, as we have already explained.

Now that we have attained an understanding of the lifting up of the apostolic eyes and the vision of the fields, already white for harvest, it is now necessary, following upon this, to examine what is meant by "that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together."

I think, then, that in every art and science composed of a plurality of theorems, he who discovers the first principles sows, and others, taking these up and elaborating them, handing on to still others what has been discovered by them, become, by what they have discovered, causes for those who come later — who were unable to discover the first principles and to attach what follows in sequence and to set the completion upon the arts and sciences — to receive, once such arts and sciences have been brought to completion, the full fruit, as it were in their harvest.

But if this is true concerning arts and certain sciences, how much more can it be observed concerning the art of arts and the science of sciences? For those who came after the earlier ones, having elaborated what had been discovered, handed on to those who followed, who approached what had been discovered with careful inquiry, the starting points for the one body of truth to be gathered together with wisdom.

When, then, the whole work of the art of arts has been completed, he who sows rejoices together with he who reaps, God, who bestows the reward, gathering all together into one end.

Consider whether the sowers are Moses and the prophets, who wrote the things for our admonition — those upon whom the ends of the ages have come — and who proclaimed the coming of Christ; while the reapers are the apostles, who received Christ and beheld his glory, reaping the rational seeds that harmonize with the prophetic ones concerning him, in accordance with the elaboration and comprehension of the mystery hidden from the ages but now manifested in the last of times — the mystery which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets.

The seed, then, was the whole word, in accordance with the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages and now made manifest, both through the prophetic writings and through the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ — when the true light made the fields, by shining upon them, white already for harvest.

According to this account, then, the fields in which the seeds had been cast down are the legal and prophetic Scriptures, which were not white to those who had not made room for the presence of the Word, but become such to those who are made disciples of the Son of God and who obey him as he says: "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

As genuine disciples of Jesus, then, let us too lift up our eyes and behold the fields sown by Moses and the prophets, that we may see their whiteness and in what manner it is now possible to reap them and gather fruit unto eternal life, together with hoping also for wages from the Lord of the fields and the provider of the seeds.

That the sower and the reaper rejoice together, when pain and grief and sighing have fled away in the age to come, everyone whosoever who has read will acknowledge: "That many shall come from the east and the west, and shall recline at table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the..."

...kingdom of heaven. But if anyone hesitates to accept that already every sower rejoices together with every reaper, let him understand that the transfiguration of Jesus, appearing in glory, was in a sense a kind of harvest — not only for the reapers Peter, James, and John, who went up with him, but also for the sowers Moses and Elijah; for they rejoice together with them, seeing the glory of the Son of God, which — so greatly illumined by the Father and illumining those who behold it — Moses and Elijah had not previously seen, as now they behold it together with the holy apostles.

But we take 'He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto eternal life, that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together' as capable of being understood in a general sense as well, because in what follows more reapers are spoken of, and more who have labored — evidently in sowing.

For it is said, addressed to many reapers, 'I sent you to reap that on which you have not labored,' and, as though many had toiled in the sowing, 'Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.'

'He who reaps receives wages' can also mean something equivalent to a general statement, and what follows likewise: every one who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto eternal life, that every sower may rejoice together with every reaper.

Now some will readily accept these things, not hesitating about the fact that the things hidden from generations long past — even from Moses himself and the prophets — have been made manifest to the holy apostles at the coming of Christ, who illumined for them the light of the knowledge of all Scripture; but others will be reluctant to admit this, not daring to say that so great a man as Moses and the prophets, while still living the life of men, failed to attain to what was understood by the apostles, and that this was sown into the divine Scriptures ministered by them.

The former will make use of the text 'Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it,' and of 'Behold, something greater than Solomon is here,' and of 'It was not made known to other generations among the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets' — that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and of the same body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ — and of what is written in Daniel after a certain vision, 'I arose, and there was none who understood,' and of what is in Isaiah, 'The words of this book are like a sealed book: if they give it to a man who does not know letters, saying, Read this, he will say, I do not know letters; and they give it to a man who knows letters, saying, Read this, and he will say, I cannot read it, for it is sealed.'

But the second group will refute all this with 'A wise man will understand the things from his own mouth, but on his lips he carries knowledge,' saying that each of the prophets understood the things ministered by them, but not so as to hand them over to others and unfold the mysteries; that the apostles, however, since they came to be at the time of the revelation, might say: 'Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions in which you were taught,' and 'What you have heard from me through many witnesses, commit these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also'; and that if many prophets and righteous men desired to see what the apostles saw and to hear what they heard the savior say, they did not desire simply the things of the legal and prophetic writings, but things greater than these, announced to the apostles by the savior in addition to the spiritual things of the law and the secret things of the prophets — such as 'I heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,' and things similar to what was spoken by the Paraclete.

Furthermore, in addition to these things, let us also examine the saying itself, to see what cause the evangelist relates for the reaper's receiving wages and gathering fruit unto eternal life, when he says: 'that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.'

Now if it is 'that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together' that the reaper receives wages and gathers fruit unto eternal life, then perhaps the sower, sharing in the reaper's wage and in the gathering of the fruit gathered unto eternal life, will rejoice together with the reaper.