On John (frag.) 1 part 1/5

For even though it was possible to see with bodily eyes the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, nevertheless it does not therefore follow of necessity that the event was clearly evident to all.

By way of contemplation, the Word of God came down from heaven, in order that, having espoused human nature to himself after the manner of a bridegroom, he might persuade it to conceive and bring forth the spiritual seeds of the divine wisdom.

And the marriage is celebrated on the third day, that is, in the last times of the age.

For the number three brings to us a beginning, a middle, and an end.

To this seems akin what was spoken through one of the prophets:

He will smite us and bind up our wounds;

and he will heal us after two days, and on the third day we shall rise and live before him.

And we shall know—we shall pursue the knowledge of the Lord—so that we shall find him ready as the dawn.

For he struck us because of the transgression in Adam, but again he himself bound up our wounds on the third day, that is, in the last times, when, having become man for our sake, he showed our whole nature healthy by raising it from the dead in himself.

Therefore by this he meant the third day, on which the marriage was being accomplished.

And he says it was in Cana of Galilee, not in Jerusalem, so as to indicate that it was outside Judea, in the land of the Gentiles;

for it is 'Galilee of the Gentiles'—'the people who sat in darkness saw a great light.'

For it is plain that the Jews thrust away the Bridegroom from heaven, while the Church from among the Gentiles gladly received him; yet the Saviour does not come uninvited,

for he was summoned by many voices of the saints;

but the wine had failed those who were feasting.

For the Law made no one perfect, nor did it suffice to gladden perfectly; indeed not even the measure of its inherent astringency extended so far as to be able to save.

Therefore it would be true even of us to say that 'they have no wine.'

But God does not overlook our nature worn down by the lack of good things; rather he brought forth a wine better than the first;

for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

For the divine instructions of the gospel teaching bring in the fullest blessing.

And the master of the feast marvels at the wine, that is, at the new wine;

for everyone who is admitted to the divine priesthood is astonished at his word that surpasses the Law.

And Christ commands that it be given to him first;

for the labouring husbandman must be first to partake of the fruits—and let the hearer understand what I say.

For neither was it fitting that, leaving aside the dignity of judge, he should bring accusations against them as in a court of law.

'There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you have set your hope';

for at the time of judgment Moses will be set up as their accuser, because they did not heed his words nor believe his predictions, by which he marked beforehand the coming of the Lord.

The going-about and the changing of places sufficiently tested the disposition of the multitude;

for while the more slothful, out of reluctance, remained in their own regions, the more earnest followed him even into the wilderness, day by day confirming their souls from the signs that were done.

He shows the freedom from love of money and the voluntary poverty of his companions, who did not even have the means to buy the necessary food.

When he heard 'Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?', he ought to have referred the whole matter to the Lord's power;

but as it was, reckoning nothing worthy of the Lord's power, he was thinking lowly, human thoughts, saying:

'Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not enough for them, that each may take a little.' Being, then, rather dull of understanding and somewhat slow—when he ought rather to have proceeded to the apprehension of more divine things—he advanced the question, training the disciple toward faith;

for this is the meaning of his 'testing' him in these matters, even as the blessed evangelist firmly affirmed;

for he himself knew what he was about to do.

Likewise, as with Philip, Andrew too is shown to have imagined nothing great nor to have thought anything worthy of the Teacher, by what he added:

'But what are these among so many?' Now, since we were all dead in sin, or since after the resurrection he gives to those who believe the eternal and incorruptible life, when there will be no perceptible food or drink—and on this account 'he shall not hunger.'

The manna nourished the bodies of those who partook of it in the wilderness for a little while, but contributed nothing to the soul toward virtue and good living;

for all of those, save a few, were found to have acted impiously; but the living Bread, by the words of life recovering the souls of those who believe, secured the true life for the world.

The body, being perceptible and nourished by perceptible bread, is by no means satisfied with a single partaking;

for having been filled, at once again, by reason of its nature, after a short interval it begins once more to hunger.

But the intelligent and incorporeal soul, having partaken of the living words of the Lord and having been spiritually nourished by the heavenly bread, is by nature able to remain without want for all the time that follows.

'I am the bread of life,' and what follows.

What the bread that is from the earth is wont to do, giving life to the weak nature of the flesh, this he himself also does through the working of the Spirit, giving life to the spirit and holding the body itself together unto incorruption, granting it incorruptible after the resurrection to those who believe in him.

Or rather, he will here call his own flesh the bread of life, as being eaten in the mysteries.

And he seems again to be hinting at Moses himself;

for they foolishly supposed that, because he entered into the thick darkness, he beheld the ineffable nature of God with the eyes of the body—which is contrary to nature.

But, lest by saying this plainly he should seem somehow to spur them on to their accustomed boldness, he set it down indefinitely concerning all.

And if the Son alone sees the Father, he is beyond all and above all and over all.

It is possible, I think, to take what is said in yet another way and according to a deeper contemplation;

for those who have sincerely received his incarnate economy, and have as it were tasted of the doctrine by their soul's reasoning through assent, eat the flesh in a reasoning manner and partake of the blood through faith, inheriting from what has been said before the eternal life.

'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.'

But it is possible to show the partaking of these things to be spiritual in yet another way also;

for the teaching of the gospel proclamation and the reading of its text, being easy to view for all who encounter it, like flesh seen by all, is apprehended; but the meaning of the things signified, being incomprehensible to the many, is hidden like blood within the flesh, in the word of the disciples.

Wishing us to partake of this spiritually, he used such words as these:

for just as in the case of the body the flesh is manifest, seen by all, while the blood, dispersed within during suffering, remains for the time unseen—unless, the body being wounded, it should be poured out—in the same way too the Son of God names 'flesh' the wording of his teaching, heard alike by all, while the contemplations and the inner sense, being hard to discern and incomprehensible to the many, he enigmatically called 'blood.'

'For my flesh is true food.'

...being brought to one commingling and conjunction with the Lord through love.

The word was indeed hard which was thought to make the hearers into eaters of flesh and drinkers of blood; but to those who take spiritual things spiritually nothing appeared hard—rather, being words of godliness, they dispense to them eternal life.

Even if my descent from heaven seems most of all to escape the notice of all men, and on this account is reckoned doubtful or even incredible by those who hear, yet at any rate my going up into the heavens after my resurrection, coming to pass before the disciples' eyes, will clearly resolve the doubt concerning the descent;

for I could not be taken up into heaven while they watched, unless I had first made my descent to you from thence.

And he uttered this also for the refutation of the impiety of the Marcellians, in order to show that the one in heaven beforehand was named 'Son of Man,' so that not the body, but he who assumed the body, having become Son of Man, might be believed in.

And this too belonged to his deity: to bring forth secret things into the open.

If they had known that he is the Wisdom, the God-Word who was in the beginning, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, they would not have marvelled how he knew letters though he had in no way learned them; but they would have known plainly that it was he who bestowed on others also the discovery and the knowledge of things.

For Moses in giving the Law commands abstinence from murder; but you, by the extremity of wickedness, are already plotting concerning my destruction.

Moses permitted circumcision on the Sabbath, but in no way allowed killing.

How then, when he points out the greater and the lesser, do you scrupulously concern yourselves about the lesser, while overlooking the greater you do not perceive that, for the Sabbath's sake, you commit murder—though you do not even keep it throughout?

For who does not know that those men, working with the hand and circumcising with iron and mutilating flesh, truly profaned the Sabbath by their deed, while he, healing by a bare word and by authority, showed through the marvel that he was Lord even of the Sabbath?

That they knew him and whence he had come, as they say without judgment, he conceded; but he refutes them as not knowing the One who sent him, on account of their unbelief toward him.

Nevertheless, he showed through his works that he himself knew the Father and had been sent by him.

He was indeed about, not yet but after the economy of the passion, to depart from earth to heaven and no longer to be seen here by the impious, though they sought him.

'You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.'

For it was impossible for them, on account of the impiety of their works, to ascend into heaven and to come to him;

for to the saints alone, who have done the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, has the kingdom of heaven been promised.

He refers them to the Scriptures, that from their prediction concerning him they might be led to faith: 'Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.'

Their opinion was divided, as in a troubled crowd;

for they neither attended carefully to what was said, nor was it for the sake of learning.

For this very reason he answers them nothing.

From what has been said he clearly convicts not only the senselessness of the Jews, but much more also the impiety of the Sabellians, plainly introducing two persons, both himself and the Father.

Disbelieving through insensibility and setting aside the grace, they remained likewise subject to their own sins.

He was therefore foretelling what would come to pass after his ascension; and not understanding this, they said foolishly:

'Will he kill himself?' and what follows.

Being worldly and unworthy of the kingdom above, on account of their present lawlessness they were in no way able to go where he was going.

At all events, for those who die in their sins, Gehenna and the furnace of fire and the outer darkness have been prepared.

Wherefore, testifying beforehand, he said:

'I told you that you will die in your sins.'

'Even if you do not take to heart the time of judgment, yet,' he says, 'the One who sent me is true,' who appointed the time of recompense, who also sent me to proclaim this and to make it manifest to the world.

'I know,' he says, 'that now you do not understand what is said, nor what Father I mean;

for it surpasses you to understand those things.

But on the cross you will know my power, and that I do nothing contrary to the Father, when you see my whole creation moved, and the Father from thence plainly showing his indignation at what is being done—he who is with me, and who now rejoices together with me in what is said and done by me.

Just as also through Ezekiel they were reproached, who said:

'Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite'; and through Isaiah:

'Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you rulers of Gomorrah.'

For whose works they imitated, of these also they were said to be sons.

He, having deceived the first man, made the race mortal through that man's transgression; he armed Cain for fratricide; he, generation after generation, contrived that the blood of the righteous should be shed by the unrighteous—whose wickedness these men too imitating, were plotting against Christ.

For having become from the beginning an apostate from the truth, he confounded all things through falsehood, on the one hand slandering God to men, and on the other men to God—as God to Eve, but men to God when he said of Job, 'Does Job fear God for nothing?' And again:

Since you are enemies of the truth, for this cause you persecute me; for otherwise you would not have spoken the charge on this account.

Because, being akin to falsehood, you do not admit the truth spoken by me;

for the inability to believe lies not in the nature of the thing, but in one's own choice.

'He who is of God hears the words of God.'

By 'of God' he plainly means those who believe and obey his commandments, in that, having received from him the pattern of godliness and having come into a habit of virtue, they were thereafter named sons of God;

for he does not say they came to be from God according to essence;

for none of all things has come into being as a part out of the indivisible and undivided essence; rather, by good pleasure alone and his own will he brought them into being.

And from what follows he interprets what was set forth;

for what does he say to the disobedient? 'For this reason you do not hear, because you are not of God.'

Just as he called these men estranged from God not because of essence—for they were from him—but because of choice, in the same way too he says that those who obey, by reason of the voluntariness of their faith and choice, have their virtue from God.

And by 'hearing' he means not with the bodily ears, but those who are persuaded by what is said.

The Word who is addressed as being 'in the beginning' here keeps a 'word,' that is, the command of the Father, so that the Son is understood to be the Word who keeps, and not the word that is kept.

Wishing therefore gently to bring them to a stand and to teach them in their ignorance concerning his dignity and antiquity, he says:

'Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day; and he saw it and was glad.'

He rejoiced, being counted worthy of his divine visions, through which he gave him oracles;

for he prayed to see plainly the day of the Lord, which indeed he saw and was glad;

...the promise, when he also confessed him as judge of the whole inhabited world.

How did he hide himself? Not by wrapping himself in a corner of the temple, nor by fleeing into some small chamber, as one might suppose, nor indeed by bending behind a wall or a pillar, but by a divine authority making himself invisible to those plotting against him, so that, not being seen by them, he both went out and passed through their midst in this manner.

Supposing that men fall into diseases through their own or ancestral sin, they make this kind of inquiry.

But Jesus, making distinctions of matters by divine knowledge, here ruled out both;

and yet there are indeed some who are punished for their own faults, as the paralytic, and there are some also on account of their parents, as where it says:

'I struck your children, and you did not receive correction.'

Others suffer for none of these reasons; others for the sake of testing, as Job.

But this blind man was formed blind for this purpose, that at the time of the divine sojourn, when Christ should heal him, he might make it known to all that it is he who is the fashioner of every living creature.

Some too were smitten on account of ancestral sin, as is also said through the prophet:

'In vain I struck your children; you did not receive correction.'

By 'Light come into the world' he calls 'day' the time of the divine sojourn, in which it behoved him, working the works of the Father, to show his consubstantial kinship with him;

and by 'night' he means his own withdrawal.

He calls himself 'Light' both because he enlightens the souls of those who believe in him, and because he was about to open the eye of the man blind from birth.

By this it is shown that he himself created all things, and that he made man from clay;

for by the very means through which he supplies the deficiency by clay, he makes plain that he both made the whole man from earth, and that those who afterwards are constituted from seed and blood, he himself again fashions;

for behold, in the case of the blind man he shows both: that the rest of his body he constituted from blood and seed, but having left the eyes unformed, he now fills them in—which is the most beautiful part of the body—by means of the clay, displaying in the one living being the two works of creation.

And when he had gone away and washed, his eyes were opened—the clay not being washed off by the rinsing of the water, but, paradoxically, while at his touch it was applied, the clay ineffably filled up the eyes.

While some said he was the same man, judging from the character of his appearance, but did not believe it on account of the eyes, and others were in doubt about this, the one who had recovered his sight, resolving the uncertainty for them, said, 'I am he.'

Whereas they ought to have known from the work who was the one who did the miracle, they seek from his appearance to recognize who he was.

Having laid aside their doubt, they thereafter inquired how his eyes had been opened.

He answered and spoke the truth, but for the time being calls Jesus a 'man' on account of his human body.

When the Pharisees questioned him, he used the same account to them also.

And they reached such an extremity of impiety as senselessly to prefer the Sabbath to his divine power—when they ought from what had marvelously come to pass to have reasoned that he who had laid hold of such great power was Lord at once of the Sabbath and of all the Law.

Out of utmost impiety they preferred the Sabbath to his divine power—and yet even in Moses' time the commandment of the Sabbath was not otherwise believed except through the sign that came to pass concerning the manna.

They ought therefore, having seen the miracle that had been done for the benefit of men, to have yielded regarding the rest of the Sabbath, just as then at the beginning so also now, in order to learn that the purpose of the commandment is transformed to the benefit of men.

Therefore also, as blaspheming against him, they said, 'This man is not from God.'

But others, even if only in part coming to their senses, contended against those, saying that these things came to pass by divine power and certainly not through the working of sinners; and they had their opinion divided.

Being divided from one another, they question the blind man again.

But he no longer simply calls him a 'man,' but names him a 'prophet,' speaking boldly.

The Pharisees came to such shamelessness as not even to believe the very man who had recovered his sight, that he had previously been blind—though the neighbours and those who knew him said this.

...to the point where, having sent for his parents, they asked them whether this was their son, whom they say was born blind.

For so had wickedness mastered the rulers that not only did they harm themselves through unbelief, but they now also shut off for the rest the way of salvation by means of threats.

By an excess of villainy the Jews called the righteous man a sinner;

but the man who had recovered his sight not only plainly confesses the grace of the Lord's benefaction, but also, for the refutation of their impiety, said, 'One thing I know, that having been blind he made me see.'

They kept questioning, not that, having marvelled, they might depart from impiety, but that they might contend the more against what was said.

Knowing that they wished to quarrel, he answered them in this way.

As though reviling him, they named him exceedingly a disciple of the Lord, but themselves disciples of Moses—not honouring Moses as they did him, but as opposing the teaching of the Lord.

Speaking without judgment, and not knowing that it was he who had spoken to Moses, they utter things contrary to themselves, now saying 'We do not know whence this man is,' but at another time saying 'This man we know whence he is.'

'But when the Christ comes,' he says, 'no one knows whence he is.'

Convicting them as ungrateful, he says that no one ought, on account of your ignorance, to reject that man's power; rather one must put forward that man's friendship with God for the refutation of your unbelief.

Lest by his silence he should seem to agree with those who called him a sinner, he shows that, by the very things in which he benefited him, he is a God-fearing man;

for the good pleasure of God that came to pass in my healing is a token of the godliness of the one who was heard.

For though these saints and prophets were distinguished, and Moses himself too, no one opened the eyes of one born blind.

He says 'from birth,' lest anyone should make excuse of either skill or nature—which would have been likely to be alleged in the case of one who saw for a time, was afterwards blinded, and again recovered sight.

By this he refutes the audacity of those who said, 'This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.'

Not being able to look in the face of what was said, they turned to insults, saying things not permissible, not even being taught by the blind man that one who has not come into existence cannot sin, but that, after each one's entrance into life, while using the soul's free will as he pleases, he sins—but neither does a child suffer for a father.

Those men, then, speaking and doing everything without judgment, cast him out and separated him from their own council.

Besides healing him, he also wished to grant him the illumination of true knowledge;

wherefore he asked him whether he believes, in order that, upon his assent, he might deliver to him also the precision of the doctrine;

for he was grateful toward his benefactor.

Wherefore, hearing 'Do you believe in the Son of God?', having at once assented, he hastened to learn accurately who he is, before believing in him, saying, 'And who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?'

He assented not by words only, but also through worship showed the devotion of his soul, no longer naming him a 'man' or a 'prophet,' but confessing him Lord and God by the act of worship.

Those who seemed to see became blind through unbelief.

He said this looking to the outcome of each one's manner of life—both of the Jews who disbelieved and of the Gentiles who believed;

for the aim of his coming was for the salvation of all, but the choice of men made some seeing and others blind.

Since blindness is of different kinds—the one according to the body, the other according to choice—the Lord brings no blame upon him who unwillingly endured the blindness, but declares the one who underwent this out of a wicked choice of soul to be accursed and lawless, as having been darkened willingly;

wherefore, the Pharisees being such, he says their sin will be indelible.

'If you were blind' by necessity, having lost your sight, you would not have sin;

for no one willingly endures suffering.

But since, supposing that you see bodily, you have made yourselves blind through unbelief, on this account your sin remains indelible.

Whereas all the prophets had announced his coming to men, he entered as through a door, through them, to the lost sheep, he alone having done all the things foretold, while no other was able to enter through the door, nor to be born of a virgin, nor to open the eyes of the blind, and whatever else was said concerning him.

And refuting, as it were, the error of the deceivers, he calls them thieves, as wishing through falsehood to filch the title of the Christ.

Therefore he who alone entered through the aforesaid door is named shepherd by all the saints.

And by 'doorkeeper' he means the Holy Spirit, who opens for this one—the Spirit who through the prophets proclaimed his appearing, but to all others, on account of the signs foreshown, shut the door, which he opens to the Lord alone, who confirmed the things concerning himself through his wonders.

Whose voice the rational sheep hear—he means the faithful—and they follow him, whom also he calls his own, the unbelievers being strangers.

These too he separates apart from the impious, leading them out as his own, and guiding and conducting them to the life of virtue.

Whose voice also they recognize—the voice of the divine commandments—but a stranger they will by no means obey, one who proclaims lawless things, whom they must even flee.

By 'doorkeeper' he means the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed his appearing, but to all the rest, on account of the signs foreshown, shut the door, and opened it to the Lord alone, who confirmed the things concerning himself through portents.

The prophets having foreannounced his coming to men, and through prophetic contemplation having prepared for him beforehand his appearing into life, he alone journeyed through all the things written concerning him, and as through a door, having entered into human life, he came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

'To this one,' he says, 'the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice,' naming as 'rational sheep' those who recognized his voice and followed the words of godliness;

for since of the sheep some became obedient and tractable to the shepherd, while others, having through disobedience leapt far away, departed into self-chosen destruction, he necessarily distinguished his own from strangers, the saved from the perishing, the obedient from the disobedient.

It is necessary that those dedicated to the Lord flee all the lawlessness of the stranger, turn altogether away from his impiety, and neither listen to his voice nor be persuaded by his word, because of the harmfulness of the deception.

Since he had made mention, as in a parable, of sheep and of a difference of shepherds, they did not understand the force of what was said.

To the subjects of the matters he also varies the uses of the terms.

...shutting out the wolves from the sheep, and barring and refuting the thieves.

For this reason too he used the wording accurately, saying that they 'came,' but not that they 'were sent';

for the prophets of God, being sent, arrived, but the false prophets came, none having sent them, for the perversion of those who were deceived.

By 'thieves and robbers' he means not the holy men and prophets, but those who before his coming came for the ruin of human souls, such as was Theudas and Judas the Galilean, who came, were not sent;

for the term 'to be sent' is more fitting in the case of prophets.

For those who believe in him and come under his rational flock enter and go out in security, feeding on the shepherd's care now, but in the age to come, through him as through a door, being conveyed into eternal life.

By 'thief' he means the adversary, on whose account—since he led the sheep astray and cast them into destruction—it was needful that the common Saviour should come, who not only secured the flock from the plot of the robbers, but also, granting everlasting life, prepares them to be in glory and honour.

By 'hireling who neglects the sheep' he names each of the rulers of the people, who have the name of shepherd but do nothing for the security of the peoples;

but they treated them as strangers;