EVANGELIUM SECUNDUM JOANNEM

• 355B

The Gospel excels all the pages of Holy Scripture, because what the law and the prophets foretold as to come, this the Gospel declares to be fulfilled. But among the writers of the gospels themselves John stands out in the profundity of the divine mysteries: he who, from the time of the Lord's Ascension, for sixty-five years preached the word of God without the aid of writing, down to the last times of Domitian. But when Domitian had been slain, and he had returned from exile to Ephesus by Nerva's permission, being compelled by the bishops of Asia he wrote of the divinity of Christ, coeternal with the Father, against the heretics who in his absence had broken in upon his churches, and who denied that Christ had existed before Mary. Whence he is deservedly compared, in the figure of the four living creatures, to the flying eagle, 355Cwhich flies higher than the other creatures and looks upon the rays of the sun with eyes unstruck by them. For the other evangelists, who sufficiently set forth the temporal nativity of Christ and his temporal deeds, which he wrought in his manhood, and said few things of his divinity, walk with the Lord upon the earth like creatures that go on foot. But this one, expounding few things of his temporal deeds, yet contemplating more loftily the power of his divinity, flies with the Lord to heaven. For he who reclined upon the Lord's breast at the supper drank the draught of heavenly wisdom more excellently than the rest from that very fount of the Lord's breast. He had read, indeed, the gospels of the three evangelists, and had approved their faith and truth, in which he saw that some things of the history of the deeds done were wanting, and chiefly those which the Lord 355Dwrought in the first season of his preaching, that is, before John the Baptist was shut up in prison. These things, therefore, as left aside by them, John writes: what Jesus did before John was delivered up; but above all he took care to commend the divinity of Christ and the mystery of the Trinity. For the three other evangelists, having followed out more copiously the temporal sayings and deeds of the Lord, which avail most for the shaping of the manners of the present life, were occupied about the active life. In which there is labour, that the heart may be cleansed for the seeing of God. But John tells few deeds of the Lord, while the words 356Bof the Lord which intimate the unity of the Trinity and the felicity of eternal life he writes down more diligently; and thus, in commending the virtue of the contemplative life, he held to his own purpose and preaching. In which contemplative life there is leisure, that God may be seen. For this is that John whom the Lord called out of the wave-tossed storm of wedlock, and to whom, a virgin, he commended his virgin mother.

VERS. 1.-- In the beginning was the Word. Against those who, on account of Christ's temporal nativity, said that Christ had not always been, he begins with the eternity of the Word, saying: In the beginning was the Word.

VERS. 3.-- All things were made by him. (AUG.) He is not a creature, through whom every creature was made, etc., 356Cas far as which all agree unto the power of the Divinity.

And without him was made nothing. (ORIG.) Thus he divides it: And without him was made nothing. The order is: There is nothing which was made without him.

VERS. 4.-- What was made, was life in him. (AUG.) John Chrysostom: And without him was made nothing. What was made. Hilary: Without him was made nothing, which was made in him.

VERS. 6.-- There was a man sent. After he had ascended by a lofty flight beyond every nature into the height of theology, because he had contemplated that the Word had always been with the Father, he presently descends to the lowliness of human nature, and particularly of the Word's forerunner, against those who said that human nature had been in 356Dthe first parent wholly lost and brought to nothing. A man sent. A man, not an angel, as the heretics will have it, sent from God. Therefore he was able to speak of God.

VERS. 9.-- He was the true light. Every man is said to be that nature in man which was made to the image and to the likeness of God. All the other things which are in man are the lower parts of man, and are in a manner outside the man. In that, namely, the soul, as in a certain higher world, the true light shines, and it enlightens those coming into that world and being born again through grace, because 357Athey whose life and conversation is in the heavens are as it were in another world.

VERS. 11.-- And his own received him not. From the beginning of the world there was no time in which there were not receivers of the divine word; whence he adds: But as many as received him.

VERS. 12.-- To be made the sons of God. A wondrous power, that they who were sons of the devil should, set free through him, be called both sons of God and brethren of Christ. But by what order they are made sons of God, and how this generation differs from the carnal, is subjoined: Who not of bloods.

VERS. 14.-- And the Word was made flesh. But that we may securely believe that men are born of God, he subjoins that God is born of man: by this taking on of infirmity our infirmity is healed, that we may be able to be made sons of God. 357BAnd this is it: And the Word was made flesh. That which was above descended below. What wonder: if that which was below ascended into that which is above? Nor is it a wonder if men are born of God, since God was born of man. Full of grace and truth. The man Christ was full of grace, because, with no merits going before, from the time he was conceived the Godhead was in him, filling that man with all fullness, redounding into all the saints; whence his mother also is called not only the mother of a man, but also the mother of God. Nor is it a wonder if a man is also called God, since God is also called man. And this is called grace and truth, because it was so promised of old and now exhibited: namely, that God should be in the man, filling him with every good, and through him his own.

357CVERS. 15.-- This was he of whom I said. By the demonstrative pronoun it is intimated that Christ was present in that place. For often the Lord himself, still unknown, before he was baptized and preached, was wont to come to John. Who is to come after me. Who is born after me, who is to preach after me, to baptize, to die. Not that he was not already born when he said these things, since he had even been baptized: but he was to come in preaching, in death, but not in resurrection. He was made before me, because he was prior to me. From the Greek, he was made in my presence, that is, he appeared to me indeed, namely, because he was prior to me.

VERS. 16.-- And of the fullness. The forerunner's testimony having been set forth, the evangelist returns to the testimony 357Dof his own assertion. As if he should say: The Word was made flesh: we saw his glory, full of grace and truth, and of his fullness we all have received. Grace, that we may believe in him, and truth, by which we shall understand him. We have received. (AUG.) Not only the grace which is plainly given gratis, not for merit, as the faith which works through love, by which the just man lives, but in return for that one, grace, that is, eternal blessedness, which is also called the wage of justice, and grace also, because the merit is from grace. Grace for grace. Grace is given in the conceiving of the good through grace. Grace simply, which is not of merit; if afterwards we work with it, we grow accustomed to good things, and then grace is given for the former grace.

358AVERS. 17.-- By Moses. By Moses the servant, the foretelling; by the Lord Jesus, the fulfilling of salvation.

VERS. 18.-- No man hath seen God at any time. That is, no mere man living in this body has seen God as he is; whence it was said to Moses: Man shall not see me and live (Exod. XXXIII), that is, no one living in the body shall see my divinity. Whence God added these things to Moses: Stand in the hole of the rock, and when I shall have passed through, thou shalt see my back parts (Ibid.). [Vulg. Ex 33:21 stabis supra petram; 33:22 ponam te in foramine petrae … donec transeam.] The rock, that is, Christ; the hole, the gibbet of the cross; I shall have passed through, that is, I shall pass over from the world to the Father. The back parts: his birth, his passion, his resurrection, his ascension, through which, being believed, we come to his blessedness and to the sight of him. That which is read, that God appeared to men either visibly 358Bto the eyes of the flesh, or invisibly in prophetic visions, is to be understood as done through a creature made subject to him; for the visions of the prophets were wrought by a certain spiritual creature, in which they are declared to have seen God.

The only-begotten Son, etc. What the sum of grace and truth may be he briefly subjoins, namely, the knowledge of the Trinity itself; whence: This is life eternal, that they may know thee the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. [Vulg. Jo 17:3 Haec est autem vita aeterna: ut cognoscant te, solum Deum verum, "the only true God."] Which in this life is not full, because no one in the flesh has seen God as he is. Whence neither Moses himself, much less was grace given through him, as he himself also, after all the things seen in the figure of God, said: Show me thyself (Exod. XXXIII), [Vulg. Ex 33:13 ostende mihi faciem tuam, "show me thy face"; 33:18 Ostende mihi gloriam tuam, "show me thy glory."] but the Son, who is in the secret of the Father, has declared him, because no one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall have willed to 358Creveal him (Luc. X). [Vulg. Lc 10:22 et nemo scit quis sit Filius, nisi Pater: et quis sit Pater, nisi Filius; cf. Mt 11:27 neque Patrem quis novit, nisi Filius.] He himself declares to his own what is to be held concerning the Trinity of the Godhead, and how it is to be come to, and he leads them into it.

VERS. 19.-- And this. Both this and the other testimonies of John that follow were given after Christ had been baptized, when Jesus was now coming to invite the disciples, whom John by his testimonies sends to him. A testimony against this, that Christ was hidden: hidden, because lowly; lowly, that he might be able to be despised and killed, that he might redeem the world. Who art thou. The Jews thought John to be the Christ who was promised in the law. Others thought him to be Elias, because of his exceeding abstinence and chastity, and his solitary life, and his most sharp rebuking of offences, and the most severe terror of the vengeance to come. Others said that he was one of 358Dthe prophets raised up again, because of the grace of prophecy.

VERS. 20.-- He confessed. He confessed, as he says afterwards, not that he was the Christ. He did not deny what he was, that is, that he was the forerunner, as he says when questioned afterwards: I am the voice of one crying. The order of the words is: and he confessed and did not deny, when they sent.

VERS. 21.-- Art thou Elias? Since all knew the name of Christ, they knew also that Elias was to go before him. But Elias himself is to go before him as about to judge in power; John is figuratively Elias, going before the same one as about to be judged: so that there are two heralds, as there are two advents of the same one. Whence: I am not Elias, that is, not the herald pointing to his power; but I show the 359Alowliness at which you take offence. As if he should say: Serve the lowly one before the exalted one judges. Behold, neither am I the Christ, nor a judge on the side of power.

VERS. 23.-- I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He does not say, I am a man, or John, or the son of Zacharias. He does not regard his human subsistence or his generation, but, exalted beyond all these things as the forerunner of the Word, he forsakes all things that are contained within the world. He ascends on high, made the voice of the Word, and confesses in himself no substance beyond the abundance of grace by which he surpasses every creature, that he may be the voice of the Word. The voice is the interpreter of the mind; but the mind, that is, the understanding of all things, is the Son of God. John therefore is the voice and interpreter of this mind, because he first showed him to the world: Behold the Lamb of God. Isaias, prophesied this of 359BJohn: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, in which the word sounds, that is, prophecy, and the showing forth and the lamp of the Word present.

VERS. 24.-- Of the Pharisees. That is, of the chief men of the Jews, who do not seek doctrine, but envy it. Who nevertheless come to John for this reason, that they hear that he has preached the common resurrection of all, which they themselves also believed; whence they themselves also agree with Christ in many things. They gave hearing to the Apostle Paul also in many things.

VERS. 25.-- Why then dost thou baptize. The Pharisees heard in the prophets that Christ would come and would baptize, knowing that the Jordan had borne the figure of baptism, and that Elias and Eliseus had crossed it with dry feet; and they did not doubt that the figure of baptism had gone before 359Cin Elias and Eliseus, whence they now thought that these had risen again and had baptized. Whence they do not ask, Art thou one of the prophets? but only: Art thou the prophet? that one, namely, who prefigured baptism.

VERS. 26.-- I baptize in water. Let not what I do be imputed to boldness, because I wash bodies with water, I do not take away sins; so that, as I am forerunner in being born and in preaching, so also in baptizing: but he is in the midst of you who takes away sins.

VERS. 27.-- Whose I am not worthy, etc. He does not say, I will not loose. For he does loose, since he made him manifest and disclosed many things concerning his divinity and his humanity; but, I am not worthy, because he reckons himself unworthy for the doing of this, in which humility is simply shown.

359DVERS. 28.-- These things in Bethania. There are two Bethanias. One beyond the Jordan, the other round about, not far from Jerusalem, where Lazarus was raised. That which is beyond the Jordan signifies human nature under the natural law before the streams of grace, which grace was abundant after the incarnation of Christ; which nature had been created to this end, that it should obey the law of nature, in which John baptizes, because he does not free from sin. He baptizes beyond the streams of the divine gifts, which had not yet begun in Christ to descend into human nature. That which is on this side of the Jordan signifies the same human nature obedient under the law of grace, which is nearest to Jerusalem, that is, to the vision of peace, through charity, 360Ain which Christ raises the dead man, because he frees from sin.

VERS. 29.-- The next day John saw Jesus. Typically. John, that is, the people of grace, on the next day, that is, after the law, knows the lamb by whom it is redeemed. Coming to him, and he says. Not only by the steps of the body, but also by the approaches of his own inward contemplation, because he deigned to be known by John according to his divinity and his humanity. Behold the Lamb of God, etc. Three things the lamb supplies to those who possess him: the milk of simple doctrine, by which little ones are nourished; the wool, that is, the increases of the virtues; the eating of his flesh. The sins of the world. [Vulg. Jo 1:29 peccatum mundi, singular.] The sin of the world is called original sin, which is common to the whole world, by which the whole of human nature, founded at once and together, transgressed the divine laws through disobedience 360Bin paradise; and that original sin, and the several sins added on top of it, grace looses.

VERS. 30.-- After me there comes a man. Christ is man, in which he agrees with us and pays on our behalf; and Son of God, in which he agrees with the Father, and by forgiving sins reconciles us to him.

VERS. 31.-- That he may be made manifest. This is the lamb who takes away sins, which I am not, whom also I now know better; but for this reason do I baptize, that he may be made manifest to Israel. For lest, on account of the strangeness of it, they should be the less baptized by Christ in the Spirit, he prepared the way for him by the practice of baptizing; whence, after men had come to him who is the way, his baptism ceases. In John's baptism also the humility of Christ is made manifest, which is the fulfilling of all justice; for as it was needful that Christ 360Cshould be born and die, so also that he should be baptized. For if he himself, who has no need, is baptized by a servant, let not men, however wise and holy, disdain to be baptized by the Lord, without whom they remain in their sins. Baptizing. Christ is baptized by John, that all humility, which is all justice, may be shown. But not he alone, lest the baptism of John, in which God-and-man was baptized, should seem holier and greater than the baptism of Christ, in which men are baptized. But others are baptized by John, so that the practice of baptizing may prepare the way for the baptism of Christ.

VERS. 32.-- And testimony. As he said that he had come to make Christ manifest, so he bore testimony, namely: he saw the Spirit. In which he learned what he did not know before. He had come also to preach penance, that 360Dis, to make the preparation for Christ's preaching; but he sets down only the preparation of baptism by itself, because the baptism of Christ is the highest sacrament among the rest. The Spirit descending. Not that he then first descended, but that by this he might be shown to descend and to remain in those baptized in water and not otherwise, and that John through him might understand more excellently concerning Christ.

VERS. 33.-- And I knew him not. (AUG.) The dove having been seen, he says that through it he learned what he did not know before, etc., as far as whence the Apostle: In labour and in mind they are different, in working undifferentiated.

(HIER.) He shows that John did not know, by the baptism of Christ, that is, that the world was redeemed; for he knew 361Ahim to be the Son of God and born in the flesh. Aug. says that John was ignorant of this only: whether he would keep to himself the power of baptizing, or would grant it to some one of his own. And remaining. (AUG.) Spiritually the Spirit is said to remain in Christ, from whom he never withdrew through sin, in whom he always lived wonderfully and wonderfully wrought; into the saints he comes, and through sins he withdraws. Yet he always remains in them for something, as Christ promised them, namely, that they may always press on in good things. For something he does not remain, namely, that they should prophesy from him or work miracles; and therefore this which he says is the first sign of recognizing Christ.

Who baptizes. Christ baptizes in the Spirit, not only by remitting sins in the water, but also by cleansing afterwards, and by kindling love, and by filling with gifts.

361BThis is the Son of God. Here he testifies him to be the Son of God whom above he was calling a man: so that from him there may be had a testimony of either nature.

VERS. 35.-- The next day John was standing again. Typically. John stands, the law ceases, yet bearing testimony to Christ. Jesus walks, that is, grace, gathering from this side and from that.

VERS. 37.-- They followed Jesus. They followed, that they might now hear him rather than John, not yet however cleaving to him wholly, but that they might see where he dwells, that they might come to him constantly and be taught by him; and afterwards they followed perfectly, when he called them from the boat. Two follow, because they who follow ought to be kindled with a twofold charity.

VERS. 38.-- Turning. As it were from behind they had seen him, but 361Cas it were he offered them his face when he came down from his majesty, that he might be able to be seen, when in place of the shadow of the law he showed forth the light of the Gospel. What seek ye? He asks, not as one ignorant, but that they who answer may have a reward: he asks the thing, not the person, what, not whom, lest he should seem to show himself; they answer the person. Where dwellest thou? Mystically. They wish it to be shown them in whom Christ dwells, that they may make themselves like to them. Or: they who see the incarnation devoutly ask that it be shown them how the eternal dwelling is with the Father.

VERS. 39.-- Come. As if to say: it cannot be unfolded in speech, but is shown in work; come by believing and by working, and you shall understand; come by the testimony of John, and withdraw from the law, and you shall receive grace. That day. He shows the New Testament, or the present life. And it was 361Dabout the tenth hour. Because they had come from the law, the decalogue sent them to Christ; at the tenth hour they seek to be taught by him, because none other teaches the law but he who gave it. And he teaches with mercy, and those things are fulfilled which they could not fulfil; or the tenth hour indicates the evening of the world.

VERS. 40.-- The brother of Simon Peter, one of the two who had heard from John, and had followed. The brother younger in birth believes first, for the order of faith is not an empty thing. Perhaps for dignity Andrew is said to be the brother of Peter, upon whom, that is, upon whose faith, the Church was to be founded.

VERS. 41.-- He findeth first. True piety at once announces the treasure it has found to its brother, that as he is a brother by 362Ablood, so he may be a brother also in faith. We have found the Messias, etc. Christus in Greek, Messias in Hebrew, anointed in Latin: for he was truly and in a special way anointed by the Holy Spirit, and from that anointing Christians are named. That Jacob, after the vision, set up a stone for a pillar which the pouring on of oil anointed: already by divine gift he figuratively understood, through that rock, the rock to come, namely Christ, who was to be anointed with the Holy Spirit; and he prefigured that the Church was so to be founded upon that rock, etc.

VERS. 42.-- Thou art Simon the son. First he says the name as he has it from his parents, that the change may be signified when from Simon he calls him Peter. But in the change is marked the liveliness of the mystery; yet neither is the former name without power. For Simon is obedient, son of grace or of the dove, when he comes to Jesus, following his brother; 362Bwhence from the rock, that is Christ, he is called Peter, weak in him, in the figure of the Church which is founded upon the rock.

Thou art Simon. (CHRYS.) He changed the name for this reason, that he might show that it is he himself who gave the Old Testament and changed names: because he called Abram Abraham, and Sarai Sara, and Jacob Israel. Therefore upon many he laid names even from their birth, as upon Isaac and Samson; but upon others after the naming which comes from their forebears, as upon Peter and the sons of Zebedee. For those in whom virtue was to shine out from their first age received their names from that time; but those in whom it was afterwards to be increased, upon them the naming was set afterwards.

Son of Joanna, etc. Jona and Joanna are said indifferently. Jona is interpreted dove, Joanna grace.

362CVERS. 43.-- Into Galilee, and he found Philip. Galilee is interpreted transmigration, or revelation. For man passes over from the vices to the virtues, and afterwards from virtue to virtue, and so revelation is made to him, that the God of gods may be seen in Sion. About to call a disciple therefore to follow him, that is, to imitate him, he goes out into Galilee, intimating by the place itself that, as he himself advanced in wisdom, and as through sufferings he entered into glory, so also do his followers.

VERS. 44.-- From Bethsaida the city. Not in vain is the city named, nor in vain is it said to be the city of Philip, of Peter and of Andrew. For it sounds house of hunters, in which is marked the disposition and the office of these men: for they are hunters in the taking of souls; whence Philip, before he becomes an apostle, of his own accord calls Nathanael.

362DVERS. 45.-- Philip findeth, etc. Nathanael, most skilled in the Scriptures, understands what others do not, namely, that from Nazareth there comes forth a singular Nazarene; but because he was most learned, he was not chosen into an apostle: for all the apostles were first from the unlearned, that the wise might be confounded. Whom Moses wrote of. Like a wary hunter he builds up the truth for his brother by many reasons, namely, that Jesus is he who is foretold in the law and the prophets. The son of Joseph, who is of the house of David: so that through him (not that he was born of him), together with Mary his mother (whom he knew from the prophets to have brought forth as a virgin), he may be marked as being of David.

VERS. 46.-- And Nathanael said to him. Either he asks in doubt, or he affirms, as one skilled in the law, that from a city 363Aof so great a name there can be some good man, or an outstanding teacher, or the supreme Saviour. For Nazareth is interpreted flower, or bud of cleanness, or holiness. And to either utterance there is fittingly subjoined: Come and see, etc.

VERS. 47.-- Behold an Israelite indeed. Guile, that is, dissimulation. For if he has sins, he confesses them. He does not therefore deny him to be a sinner, but praises the confession in him. But the Pharisees are guileful, who proclaim themselves good when they are evil.

VERS. 48.-- Whence knowest thou me? Knowing that the Lord speaks of his conscience, he asks not out of indignation, but in wonder: whence, and from what power. I saw thee under the fig tree. (AUG.) Nathanael, that is, the gift of God, is the true people of Israel, the gift of God, which was 363Bhidden under the fig tree, that is, made subject under the habit of sinning and the shadow of death, as the first parents covered themselves under the leaves of the fig tree; where he had been seen and sought by the Lord before he saw and sought the Lord, and even before he called him through the apostles.

VERS. 49.-- Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Because Nathanael knew that Christ, though absent, had seen what he himself had done in another place, that is, how and where he was called by Philip, which is a token of Deity, he confesses him not only master, but also the Son of God, and king of Israel, that is, Christ: in which he is proved to be an Israelite, as it is said, that is, one seeing God.

VERS. 51.-- You shall see heaven opened. Nathanael the Israelite is said to be about to see heaven opened, and the angels of God descending and ascending, as of old the patriarch 363CJacob saw the ladder, and the angels ascending and descending, who through the blessing was called Israel. The angels of God. Often this miracle appeared, that angels ascended and descended upon Christ. Upon the Son of man. Christ calls himself the Son of man, affirming what is less, namely his humanity; Nathanael and Peter call him the Son of God, which is greater, affirming his divinity. Behold the confirmation of either nature in Christ. These, confessing his deity, deserve to ascend; he, asserting his humanity, testifies that he came to redeem. Upon the Son of man. He confirms that he is man, lest any should err, believing him to be only God, as even Peter did when he said: Far be it from thee, Lord.

• 363D

VERS. 1.-- And on the third day. (AUG.) After the showing forth of Christ through the testimonies of John, he himself shows himself by a miracle.

And on the day. It signifies that on the third day, that is, in the time of grace, after the time, that is, before the law and under the law, Christ came through the flesh to the nuptials of the Church.

VERS. 2.-- And there was called. In which he shows that the nuptials which he made are not to be despised, and he intimates the sacrament of marriage.

VERS. 3.-- Failing. The wine fails, that, wine being wonderfully made from water, the power of the hidden Godhead may appear.

(AUG.) Greater is the power in the creation and governance 364Aof heaven and earth, etc., as far as through which the power that works also in the greater things is brought back to memory.

VERS. 4.-- What is it to me. (ID.) In these words he does not deny his mother, as the heretics say, etc., as far as he understands the entrance to God, he drinks the wine.

VERS. 6.-- Two or. (ID.) It belongs to one making an estimate to speak thus, so that he should call the same vessels two-measure which he also calls three-measure, etc., as far as sown abroad by the three sons of Noe.

VERS. 7.-- And they filled them. That the waterpots were filled at his command signifies that that Scripture also is from the Lord; but while Christ lies hidden in it under the veil, that is, under the covering of the letter, it tastes of insipid water. But when the veil is taken away, it is wine that inebriates. He could indeed have filled them, empty as they were, 364Bwith wine, he who creates all things out of nothing; but he chose rather to make wine out of water, that he might teach that he does not destroy the law but fulfil it, nor in the Gospel does he do or teach other things than those which prophecy foretold.

VERS. 9.-- And when he had tasted. The triclinium, that is, three ranks of those reclining, standing apart from one another in height: that is, teachers, the continent, the married. The chief steward is some man skilled in the law, who drinks the spiritual sense of the law. Whence to open the spiritual sense in the Scriptures to disciples is to turn water into wine, as when after the resurrection he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. The water made wine. By the water, the baptism of John; by the wine, the passion of Christ: whence the wine also is carried first to the chief steward, that is, to John, who drank the passion before Christ did.

364CVERS. 11.-- This he did. (HIER.) In the beginning of the signs which, being mortal, he was to give to mortals, he turned water into wine; and as, being now immortal, he opened the understanding of the disciples, that in the law and the prophets they might understand Christ, so he first steeped carnal minds with the savour of wisdom, being about afterwards to fill them, when raised again, with a greater glory.

VERS. 12.-- After this, etc. After the beginning of the signs, concerning the wine, he subjoins another token of the divine majesty in the casting out of the sellers from the temple. Typically. The Son of God, as lowly, goes down to Capharnaum, that is, into the world, according to that whereby he has a mother and brethren.

VERS. 13.-- And the Pasch was at hand. We keep the Pasch when we pass over from the vices to the virtues. To this Jesus comes when he daily visits the Church, and considers the deeds 364Dof each man, and casts out those who, among the saints, either do good things feignedly or evil things openly. By the oxen that plough are signified the preachers of heavenly doctrine; and these they sell who preach not from the love of God, but for temporal gain. Innocent sheep offer their own fleeces for the clothing of others; by these are signified the works of cleanness and of piety, which are sold when they are performed for human praise. The Spirit appeared as a dove, whence by the dove the Spirit is understood, which the Simoniacs sell. They give coins in loan in the Church who serve, not the heavenly things feignedly, but the earthly things openly. All these are cast out from the portion of the lot of the saints, who either do good things feignedly or evil things openly; and they are now scourged with the cords of their sins unto correction; 365Aand if they remain uncorrected, at the end they shall be bound. He casts out the sheep also and the oxen, because he shows the life and doctrine of such men to be reprobate. And he overturns the tables, because at the end the very things which they loved are destroyed. And he went up. If he himself who gave the decrees of God keeps them, he teaches with how great care men ought to be free for prayers and for the solemnities of God. He is read to have gone up to the Pasch twice: once in the first year of his preaching, John not yet imprisoned, which is what is treated of here; a second time when he was going to his passion; and in both he cast the sellers out of the temple.

VERS. 14.-- And he found in the temple. If in the figurative temple, which is a house of prayer, he forbids the trading that is thought honourable, since it is of those things which are offered in the temple, how much more does he forbid 365Bdrinking-bouts and the other graver things?

VERS. 15.-- Of little cords. The cords by which they are cast out are the increases of evil actions; whence Isaias: Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity (Isa. V). And Solomon: Each man is bound fast with the cords of his own sins (Prov. V). [Vulg. Pr 5:22 et funibus peccatorum suorum constringitur, with no quisque; Migne prints funiculis and quisque, and sets contringitur, read at the plate.]

VERS. 16.-- Who sold doves. Not only they who sell doves, but others also make the house of God a house of trade: that is, all who seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's.

VERS. 17.-- The zeal of thy house. (AUG.) Good zeal is a fervour of the mind by which the mind, human fear being cast away, is kindled for the defence of the truth. He is eaten by it who busies himself to correct whatever crooked things he has seen; and if he cannot, he bears with them and groans.

365CVERS. 18.-- What sign dost thou show us, seeing thou doest these things? He answered. Because they seek a sign, why does he cast the accustomed traffic out of the temple? And he says: Destroy. As if he should say: Because this temple signifies the temple of the body, in which there is no stain, and deservedly do I cleanse this figurative one, I who am able by divine power to raise up that one when it has been dissolved by men in death.

VERS. 20.-- They said therefore. Carnal men were minded carnally, while he was speaking spiritually. Which the Evangelist opens to us: But he spoke of the temple of his body.

Forty and six. (AUG.) Anatole in Greek is the east, dysme the west, arctos the north, etc., as far as which have the number of six forty-six times.

Built. (AUG.) The building of Solomon was completed in seven 365Dyears, etc., as far as whence it is said that the elect are to be gathered from the four winds.

VERS. 23.-- And when. He went to the assemblies, that by words and by signs he might convert the more. And because some, moved by the signs alone, believed in him, truly indeed, yet in such a way that they could afterwards be scandalized in his passion; and because they were not yet born again of water and of the Spirit, they were not worthy men to whom Jesus should entrust himself and with whom he should dwell familiarly. For he knew what was in them, better than the man himself of himself. This faith befits catechumens, who believe in him; but because they are not born again, the communion of the body and blood of Christ is not entrusted to them. Of such was Nicodemus, who, believing, says that he came from God, because of 366Athe signs which he had seen; but he was not yet born again, and therefore he came by night, not by day, because he was not yet enlightened by the heavenly light.

VERS. 1.-- And there was a man, etc. This man was one of those who had believed through the signs. Nicodemus by name. Nicodemus, the victory of the people, or the victor of the people, bearing the figure of all those who, from the Jewish people believing in Christ, overcome the world through faith.

VERS. 2.-- He came, etc. Night signifies the letter of the law, or the ignorance of the heart, or fear. And perhaps he came by night because, as a master in Israel, he would blush to speak openly, or from dread of the Jews. Because he had prudently noted the manifest signs, he asks more fully after the mysteries 366Bof faith; and therefore he deserved to be taught concerning the deity of Christ and his twofold nativity, concerning the passion, the resurrection and the ascension, concerning the second generation and the entry into the kingdom of heaven, and concerning many other things.

VERS. 3.-- Amen, amen I say. To one who does not ask he expounds the second nativity, lest Nicodemus should believe that faith alone, on account of which, the signs being seen, he had believed in Jesus, suffices for salvation without the power of spiritual regeneration and without the sacraments. Also, because Nicodemus understood him to be a mere man, like John the Baptist or any one of the prophets, therefore Jesus began to instruct him concerning the second regeneration, by which he understands him to be the Son of God, and himself able to be made a son of God.

(AUG.) The second nativity of which Jesus teaches is spiritual, 366Cwhich is of God and the Church unto life; but that man is minded only of the carnal, which is of Adam and Eve unto death. But as he says that the carnal cannot be repeated, so neither can the spiritual, by whomsoever it is performed, be repeated. For they are born of the seed of the true Abraham, whether through the free woman or through the handmaid.

Unless a man. The visible sacrament of water is necessary for the washing of the visible body, as the doctrine of invisible faith is necessary also for the sanctification of the invisible soul.

Shall have been born again. (CHRYS.) That is, if thou hast not been born from above, and hast not received the certainty of the doctrines, thou wanderest somewhere outside and art far from the kingdom of heaven; showing and pointing to himself here, since it is not only this that is seen, but there is need of other eyes 366Dfor the seeing of God.

VERS. 5.-- Of water. Of water, the visible sacrament, and of the Spirit, the invisible understanding: so that a man may visibly receive the symbol of baptism, and may bring to completion the spiritual understanding of that same symbol. Or: of visible water and of the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 6.-- That which is born. He distinguishes this spiritual nativity from the carnal, saying: That which is born. Of the flesh. That is, that which is from the first man by the succession of the flesh is carnal. By the name of flesh he signifies not only the flesh, but the whole carnal man. So, on the contrary, the whole spiritual man, in soul and body, is called spirit. And that which, etc. By the word and by the sacrament the Spirit is invisibly present, whereby he who is born 367Aof Adam unto death is born a son of God unto life: who is called not only spiritual, but spirit, because, as the substance of a spirit is invisible, so invisibly, through the visible sacrament, he is made a son of God. Is spirit. But do not wonder if I so call what is born spirit, because, as the spirit breathes where it will, and thou knowest not whence it comes or whither it goes, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

VERS. 8.-- The Spirit where he will. By which he has in his power whose heart he shall enlighten. Thou hearest his voice in the Scriptures, or when someone full of the Holy Spirit speaks; and even if thou hearest it, thou knowest not whence it comes, that is, how it entered that man's heart, or how it returned, because its nature is invisible. So is everyone that is born of the Holy Spirit, because, by the invisible 367Bworking of the Spirit, he begins to be what he was not, so that the unbeliever knows not whence he comes and whither he goes, that is, by what grace he comes into the adoption of a son, and goes into the kingdom of God. And because these things are unknown to the carnal man, he asks again? How can these things be done, not having the spiritual understanding within the letter of the law; he thinks impossible what is said of the nativity through the Spirit, whence he is reproved by the Lord: Thou art a master, etc. And his voice, etc. The voice of the Spirit is the voice of Christ, which Nicodemus heard; but because he is not yet born of the Spirit, he knows not whence it comes or whither it goes, that is, by what occasion he wills a man to be born in the Spirit, or whither it goes, that is, to what perfection he says that man is born of him. For he who is born of him is made one spirit with him by grace, 367Cas he himself also is one spirit by nature.

VERS. 10.-- Thou art a master, etc. He does not insult him, so that he who is set over all should be held superior to him; but because he wills him to be born of the Spirit, which he cannot be unless he is humble, he humbles one swollen with his mastership. As if he should say: Proud prince, thou knowest nothing; humble thyself as did he who emptied himself, and, born of the Spirit, thou shalt know what now thou knowest not.

VERS. 11.-- We speak what we know. That is, because he himself is the knowledge, the speech and the word of the Father. And what we have seen we testify. Because he himself is the vision, and the true testimony and truth of the Father. Which, being in the plural, intimates the mystery of the Trinity.

VERS. 12.-- If I have spoken to you earthly things. (AUG.) And because you do not receive earthly things, how can you take in the heavenly, 367Dthat is, the heavenly nativity of the Spirit? since you not only do not believe, but do not even understand earthly things, namely what I said of the temple of my body (which I took from the earth), to be destroyed by you, to be raised up by me.

VERS. 13.-- But he that descended. This pertains to the second nativity in the Spirit, because no one ascends in Christ to the Father but he who is born of the Spirit. No one is saved through the death of Christ but he who is born of the Spirit. No one is born of the Spirit but in the death of Christ. And when he says the Son of man, he gives us the assurance of ascending, since we are sons of men.

VERS. 14.-- And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert. He puts forward his own death, which is the origin 368Aand the cause of having the things aforesaid, and in faith of it he instructs him. And because he was carnal, and versed in the law, therefore he brings forward a certain part of the law, which he shows to be a figure and significative of his own death, so that in this way it may be plain of the other parts of the law also that they are in figure. And because death is understood by the serpent, and Christ dead is called a serpent, whom he who beholds with faith is set free; as by the beholding of that other one in the figure they are set free from the fiery serpents, which signify the incitements of the vices. So must the Son of man be lifted up, etc. He invites the master of the law to the signification of the law. And because he had spoken of the Son of man, lest Nicodemus should think this only, he subjoins that the same is also the Son of God. For God so loved. He opens the cause of human salvation, namely, the love of God the Father, from whom all 368Brestoration is through his Son in the Holy Spirit.

VERS. 16.-- The world. Cosmos in Greek, which in Latin is rendered mundus, is called adornment. By the world, therefore, human nature is signified, not because according to the body it consists of the four elements, but because according to the soul it has been adorned by God and made to the image of God; wherefore God loves it to this end, that he may make it eternal.

That he would give his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes, etc. Behold, he says the same of the Son of God which he said above of the Son of man, so that by him through whom we were founded in the deity, through the same we may be restored in the man.

VERS. 19.-- And this is the judgment. Why is he who does not believe judged? Because the light came which rouses 368Cmen and admonishes them to know their own evils, in which all men are; but some hate the light that admonishes, and flee, lest their evils which they love should be reproved. Others, admonished by the light, accuse their own evils, which is to do the truth, and so they are enlightened. For theirs were. He who is in darkness and loves the light is not evil; but he is called evil, and his works evil, who, after the light has come, hates the light and loves evil things And this is what he says: For their works were evil. Works, that is, impiety, and unbelief, and hatred of the eternal light, and the unwillingness to look upon it, but the will to remain in the darkness of sins.

VERS. 21.-- But he that doeth. Having shown by what justice he is condemned who does not believe, he shows by what justice 368Dhe is saved who believes. But he that doeth. That is, he to whom his own evils are displeasing, and who accuses them, does not pardon himself, does not spare himself, but comes to the light. And he begins to act with God who accuses his own evils, because the beginning of good is the accusation of evil. Therefore his works, these namely, that he accuses himself as God accuses, he manifests, because they are done in God; for unless the light of God shone upon him, he would not be displeasing to himself.

VERS. 22.-- After these things. Not immediately after the disputation with Nicodemus, which took place in Jerusalem, but when a space of time had passed he returned from Galilee into Judea. Into the land of Juda, and there he abode, etc. [Vulg. Jo 3:22 in terram Judaeam: et illic demorabatur cum eis.] Morally. Where there is confession of sins or of the divine praises, thither comes Jesus, and his disciples, 369Athat is, his doctrine and his enlightening, where he abides, cleansing from offences; whence there follows, and there he stayed and baptized. [Vulg. Jo 3:22 et illic demorabatur cum eis, et baptizabat; the same clause stands above, in the lemma, as illic demorabatur.]

And there was. Christ now baptizing, John still baptizes, because the shadow still remains. Nor ought the forerunner to cease until the truth be made manifest.

VERS. 24.-- For John was not yet cast into prison. Behold, he plainly notes the deeds of Christ before John was imprisoned, which the others passed over, beginning from those things which were done after John was sent into prison, when, the baptism of the forerunner ceasing, the baptism of Christ openly began.

VERS. 25.-- And there arose a question from among John's disciples, etc. While John preaches and his school endures, Christ preaches and works in hiding, 369Bbut baptizes openly, so that a question may arise concerning the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ, and that it may be resolved by the testimonies of John.

VERS. 26.-- And they came to John and said to him: Rabbi, etc. Wishing to accuse Christ, whom a little before they had seen baptized by John.

VERS. 27.-- John answered, and said, etc. Because beyond the custom of human nature I was born of parents of advanced age, you think me to be beyond men. But know that I am a mere man, and he is God, from whom I have whatever I have. From me, weakness; from him, the sublimity of grace. Do you think that I would say anything against my own testimony? I do not baptize unto the remission of sins, but he does. He cannot. As if he should say: I, a mere man, have nothing 369Cexcept what is given from God, that is, to baptize unto penance, not unto remission; because I am not the Christ, but he is, as you know that I testified to you; therefore run ye to him.

VERS. 28.-- I am not the Christ. I am not anointed by the Father with the fullness of the Spirit, but of his fullness I have received, that I might run before him.

VERS. 29.-- This joy therefore. In this my joy is full, that I have been made the friend of the bridegroom, and because I stand and rejoice.

VERS. 30.-- He must increase. I rejoice at the voice of the bridegroom. That bridegroom shall increase, that is, he shall be found to be Christ, who was thought a prophet. I shall be diminished, because I shall be found his prophet, I who was thought to be Christ. He must increase. That is, be exalted; that is, while 369Dhe forgives sins and gives grace, in which his glory, which in itself is always perfect, grows into man, while man sees and holds more of it. Man is diminished, who before gloried in himself, so long as he confesses his sins and receives what that other gives. To which thing the passion of each bears witness: Christ is exalted upon the cross, John is diminished by the head. The creation too bears witness. John was born while the days were decreasing, but Christ while they were increasing.

VERS. 31.-- But I to be diminished. John is a figure of the law; Christ is the truth. The law is diminished when the truth appears.

He that cometh from above is above all, etc. (ALC.) That is, from the height of human nature before the sin of 370Athe first parent, etc., as far as secondly, according to the height of the Father, to whom he is equal.

Of the earth. That is, he who is born of earthly parents, from whom he has contracted sin and the penalty of sin, is of himself nothing but earth.

And what he hath seen. Since the Son of God is himself the Word of the Father, he does not hear another word of the Father nor testify another to men, but himself the Word which the Father has spoken, that is, has uttered and begotten out of himself: he knows and declares to men that he is from the Father. This the Evangelist says as he was able, which cannot fully be said or understood.

VERS. 33, 34.-- Hath set his seal that God. That is, he set a sign in his heart as something special, namely that this is the true God, who was sent for the salvation of men. Is true. For he whom God hath sent. 370BEvery man is of himself a liar; for he cannot speak true things unless he is enlightened by God. For he whom God the Father sent speaks the words of God, what is that? He whom God sent is God: therefore he speaks the words of God; therefore the words of the Son, bearing witness of himself that he is God, are the words of God. He speaketh the words of God. In this he distinguishes himself from Christ; but because he is sent and speaks the words of God, he adds more openly: For God doth not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. To men he gives by measure; to the Son he does not give by measure, but as whole out of his whole self he begot his own Son, so to his own Son made flesh he gave his whole Spirit, not piecemeal, not by subdivisions, but generally and universally; and he gives it for no other cause save because the Father loves the Son.

370CVERS. 36.-- He that believeth in the Son hath life everlasting; but he that, etc. As if he should say: he who believes in the Son has the Son himself, and through this has life. But the wrath of God abideth on him. The wrath with which he was born remains; and therefore he does not say, cometh, but abideth, because through the Son who was sent, who is life, the effect of that wrath is not taken away, namely death, corruption, etc., all which remain.

VERS. 1.-- When therefore he knew. Jesus knew their knowledge and their envy: that they had not learned of him in order to follow him, but to persecute him; and therefore he fled, teaching his own to give way before evils, not because he feared, nor because he was powerless to escape them. And baptizeth. Which is truly said, for he himself always cleanses in the spirit invisibly 370Dand by gift; but his baptism is wrought also in the body, and it consists in two things, namely in water and the word of life; whence Paul: Thou cleansest her by the laver of water and by the word of life (Ephes. V) [Vulg. Eph 5:26 mundans lavacro aquae in verbo vitae, "cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life"].

VERS. 2.-- But the disciples. In whose baptism the Spirit was given, though not so manifestly as it was given after the Ascension, in an ineffable and unimaginable manner.

VERS. 3.-- He left Judaea. That is, the unbelieving Pharisees, who were planning to persecute him because of his baptism, which was increasing, and because they understood that by his teaching the law was being made void. And he went away. After he had received a few of the Jewish people, he left behind the unbelieving who follow the letter of the law, which leads no one 371Ato perfection. And he went away into Galilee, that is, into the spiritual understanding of that same letter. Into Galilee. In Galilee the Lord's transformation is believed to have taken place, by which is signified the transmutation of human nature into its pristine glory. In Galilee he gave the disciples on the mountain the teaching by which believers are to pass over into life.

VERS. 4.-- He was obliged. Between Judaea and Galilee lies Samaria: that is, between the law of the letter, which [is signified] by Judaea, and the divine laws revolved about God, whose figure is Galilee, the natural law is set in the midst. Because therefore he took the foundations of the Church from the law, it behoved him to pass over to the Gentiles set under the law of nature, that with both he might return into the Galilee of eternal blessedness.

371BVERS. 5.-- He cometh therefore. That the Samaritans might acknowledge him and be converted to him, they who claimed for themselves the inheritance of the patriarch Israel.

Which is called Sichar. Sichar, that is, an enclosing, or a branch: that is, the Gentile people shut up under sin, which is a branch cut out of the wild olive and grafted into the olive.

VERS. 6.-- Now there was, etc. Because natural reason rises from no other source than from the cause of all good things, therefore it is beautifully said to be the fount of Jacob, that is, the infinite reason proceeding from the height of the Father.

Jesus therefore, being wearied, etc. Allegorically. The journey of Jesus is the assumption of flesh, in which there is weariness, that is, infirmity, relieving the man whom his power created: the sitting is humility. The sixth hour, the sixth age in which he came; 371Cthe well, the depth of this world. The Samaritan woman is the Church, coming not now just, but to be justified. The water of the well is the will of this world, which is drawn as it were out of the deep by men let down and bent toward it, with covetousness sent before like a water-pot. He was sitting. As one relieving weariness, wherein is indicated the master who is to teach those who draw near and to possess them. Upon. It is called a fount wherever water flows from the earth; but if at the surface, a fount only; if in the deep, it is also called a well.

VERS. 7.-- There cometh. In the figure of the Church of the Gentiles, which formerly drew water, that is, the pleasure of the deep of the world; whose faith Jesus thirsts for, and asks to be given drink by her.

(GREG.) Or the woman, that is, the Synagogue, who came 371Dto draw water, etc., as far as the primitive Church.

Give me. Jesus, sitting upon the fount, asks of the primitive Church, which he had chosen out of the Gentiles, the drink of faith by which men believe in him; he asks of nature the drink of reason by which the Creator and Redeemer is searched out. The apostles are sent into the city, that is, into the world, to buy spiritual foods, that is, faith and action and knowledge, with which the teachers of the Church are filled. Give me. Although Jesus could thirst after his weariness, yet he does not demand this drink, but he desires that the heart of the Church of the Gentiles should be made a draught for him in acknowledgement of his labour.

VERS. 8.-- For the disciples. The disciples went away into the city, namely to the Jews, who are fenced by the valley of the law 372Aand armed with the darts of prophecy, that they might buy their foods, namely preparing their hearts for God by the preaching of the faith.

VERS. 9.-- She saith therefore. Not knowing what drink he asks of her, and thinking that it was of the water, she objects that she is of the vessels of strangers, whose company also the Jews do not use; but Jesus, who was asking for faith, desired to give her the Spirit, and admonishes her to ask; and the Spirit is both the gift of God and living water.

For not, etc. The Jews execrate the Samaritans and call them supplanters, because they deprived them of the inheritance of their father Jacob by abstaining from their foods and their vessels.

VERS. 10.-- Jesus answered. Step by step and in simple words he instructs her, that at length she may be able to receive the gift of God, that is, the Spirit.

372BVERS. 11.-- The woman said to him. That is called living water, and no other, save that which is caught where it rises; of which the woman, savouring carnally, said: Since thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep, how hast thou living water? But lest perchance he should seem to promise another fount, she adds: Art thou better, that is, canst thou be better than Jacob, who used this one with his own? Against which therefore Christ openly shows that he speaks not carnally but spiritually, saying that he shall not thirst who has drunk his water.

VERS. 12.-- Art thou. Being a stranger, she calls Jacob her father, because she herself had lived under the law of Moses, and possessed the field which Jacob had given to his son.

(AUG.) The little vessel is covetousness, the water is pleasure; it is refreshed, not extinguished.

372CAnd he himself drank thereof. Men and cattle drink of the well, and likewise of reason: as though depraved and darkened, it is dug out and worked with great labour. But some drink as men, who use that reason for good, as the saints; some as cattle, who use it for evil, as the philosophers.

VERS. 13.-- But he that. Whosoever shall lend his heart to my preaching and shall acknowledge the gift of grace, the faith which works through love is born in him, and so at length he shall pass over into life eternal.

VERS. 14.-- Water. Bodily water flows downward; spiritual water leaps upward, and carries up with itself into eternal glory those who drink it.

VERS. 16.-- Go, call thy husband, etc. That under his leading 372Dthou mayest ascend to the contemplation of spiritual understanding: go, call thy husband. Thou who art sensual, call the rational understanding, that thou mayest be governed by it as by a husband; thou who now savourest carnally, him will I, the light and head of the man, enlighten. As if he should say: These things which I say are to be understood not carnally, as thou, being animal, dost, but spiritually, and are to be received under the leading of reason; and therefore do thou prepare thy understanding for me and come, by understanding these spiritual things which I say.

VERS. 17.-- The woman answered. In truth this woman then had no husband, but was making use of a certain man not lawful, of whom she answers, still savouring carnally, she who had not yet called her husband, that is, her understanding. Jesus saith to her. Raising her little by little, he speaks still 373Ain mysteries, that little by little he might bring her to know who it was that spoke with her. And he praises not the good work, nor the prudent answer of the woman, but he praises the confession of the truth.

VERS. 18.-- For thou hast had five husbands. The five husbands are the five laws given to human nature. The first, in paradise before sin, in the prohibition of the tree. The second, after the transgression and the expulsion from paradise, concerning the multiplication of the human stock. The third, to Noah before the flood, concerning the building of the ark. The fourth, after the flood, concerning the divisions of the nations. The fifth, to Abraham, concerning circumcision and the immolation of his son. To these five laws, as to five husbands, the human soul was subject from the beginning of the world until Moses: afterward the law of the letter was given, which conferred no salvation; 373Bwhence it is said: He whom thou now hast is not thy husband. Put away the letter; go to the spirit of the letter, to the New Testament, from which thou mayest conceive a spiritual offspring of virtues.

(AUG.) The five husbands, that is, the five senses of the body, ruled thee; now, in the time of discretion, a husband, that is, the understanding of wisdom, does not rule thee, but an adulterer, that is, error, corrupts thee, while thou receivest carnally the things I say; and therefore call thy husband, that (as I say) thou mayest understand spiritually. Therefore the five senses in the lesser age are called husbands, because they are lawful. For after the fall of man, and by the decree of God, that age is naturally governed, not toward eternal things, but toward the seeking of these temporal things if they soothe, and the shunning of them if they offend.

VERS. 19.-- That thou art a prophet. The woman, profiting 373Cfrom what she had heard, had already begun to have understanding in some measure, whence she also calls him a prophet; but not full understanding, because she does not believe that Christ has come.

VERS. 20.-- Our loaves, etc. [Vulg. Jo 4:20 Patres nostri in monte hoc adoraverunt, "our fathers adored on this mountain"; Migne prints Panes, read at the plate, and the gloss that follows expounds patres.] Thou art a prophet, and therefore judge concerning this contention which moves me. The Jews set themselves before the Samaritans on account of the temple which Solomon built, in which they worshipped. On the contrary the Samaritans set themselves against the Jews on account of the mountain, on which, and not in the temple, the fathers worshipped who pleased God. And so the patriarchs worshipped on the mountains, the Jews in the temple, prefiguring the manner of praying well.

VERS. 21.-- Woman. In this place the Lord represses the boasting of the Samaritans, who thought that they had been of no less religion than the Jews. He speaks therefore in the person of the prophets and of all who believe in Christ; 373Dwhence he says: You adore the Father whom you know not, [Vulg. Jo 4:22 vos adoratis quod nescitis, "you adore that which you know not"] because no one adores the Father unless he adore the Son, through whom one comes to the knowledge of the Father; but we know the Son, and through the Son the Father; whence follows: For salvation is of the Jews, etc., that is, because Christ, who is salvation, is of the Jews, not only by the origin of the flesh, but from them also arose the faith and the primitive Church. Believe me. Because there is already in thee a husband who can believe, and therefore to believe: For unless thou shalt have believed, thou shalt not understand (Isa.) [Vulg. Is 7:9 si non credideritis, non permanebitis, "if you will not believe, you shall not continue"]. When neither on the mountain. Behold, your mountain and the temple of the Jews shall alike be reprobated; but in this you are unequal, that you Samaritans adore what you know not, but we Jews, not all, but the elect, adore what we know, because to us is the knowledge 374Aof God, the testament, the promised prophecy: of us is Christ; and this is, for salvation is of the Jews, but although we are thus different, yet I do not prefer the place of the Jews to the place of the Samaritans, and this is.

VERS. 23.-- But the hour cometh, and now is, when. Before I came in the flesh, no one could adore the Father in spirit and in truth, except the patriarchs and the prophets, to whom my incarnation had been revealed; but through my presence in the flesh there shall be true adorers.

In spirit and in truth. Not in the temple, not on this mountain, but inwardly, in the innermost temple of the heart, and in the truth of knowledge, is the Father to be adored.

VERS. 24.-- God is a spirit. Since God is a spirit and not a body, he does not seek a bodily place, 374Ba mountain or a temple, in which he may be prayed to; but a pure spirit is his temple, in which he is to be prayed to, not concerning visible things which pass away, but concerning the eternal things which are truth.

VERS. 25, 26.-- I know that the Messias cometh, who is called, etc. Now advanced further by the words of him who taught her, she knows by whom she ought to be perfectly instructed, that is, by the Messias. He will tell us all things. Jesus saith to her. He will show in what manner, the temple and the mountain being despised, we may adore in spirit and in truth, and how, the shadows being cast away, we may be illumined by the truth. I am he that speak. Him whom thou awaitest as one to come, know that he has come; and, having brought with thee the husband who is to govern thee, labour to learn the things that are necessary to faith. And because she already knew who could teach her, although she did not recognize him who was already teaching her, she was worthy that he should manifest himself to her; 374Cwhence he says: I am the Messias, which manifestation once received, she has nothing further to seek; whence follows: She left therefore her water-pot, etc. But the Evangelist interposes somewhat concerning the disciples.

VERS. 27.-- And they wondered that. They did not wonder that he was speaking with a woman, with such as he had been accustomed to speak with, but that it was with a stranger, being ignorant of the mystery of the Church that was to be of the Gentiles. And they suspect no evil, but wonder at his clemency, because he teaches a Gentile woman in error, as he who came to seek that which had perished.

VERS. 28.-- She left therefore. Having heard I am he, the woman, now holding Christ in her understanding as the head of the man, left the water-pot, that is, covetousness, and ran to preach the gospel. Here let those who are to preach the gospel learn first to lay aside 374Dthe care and the burden of this world.

VERS. 29.-- Come and see. Step by step she leads those rude ones to the truth; nor does she at once affirm him to be Christ, lest they should be angered and take offence.

VERS. 33.-- Hath any man brought. They did not dare to question the Lord, fearing lest they should be reproved by him if they questioned incautiously.

VERS. 34.-- My meat is. They did not understand the food, just as the woman above did not understand the water; whence the master instructs them, not by a circuit as he did her, but now openly, saying: My meat is to do, etc. His will. The Father's. The will of the Father is that men believe in him, that is, in the Son whom he himself sent. The work of the Father is our salvation. Christ's meat, therefore, is our 375Afaith and our salvation. He does the will, then, by teaching men to believe in him; he does the work by bringing the mystery of redemption to maturity.

VERS. 35.-- Do you not say. Since he seeks the faith and the salvation of the peoples, he grows fervent for the work and disposes to send labourers. Lift up your eyes. Consider with the understanding of the mind that, the winter being past, that is, unbelief, the warmth of faith is at hand and hearts are made ready, that you may gather from them the works of justice; as if he should say: Help toward the fulfilling of the Father's will. And well can you do it, because the harvest is ready, that is, see the Gentiles believing easily.

VERS. 36.-- That both he that soweth. Both were needed, the sower and the reaper, because in this the word appears probable, that one sows and another reaps; 375Bfor unless they had been made ready through the prophets, they would not have heard the apostles.

VERS. 38.-- I have sent you. I make you reapers there where others have sown, that is, in Judaea, where the first crop was gathered, whence some going forth have sown in the whole world, whence another harvest rises as it were from the grains, to be gathered at the end of the world by the angels as reapers. They have laboured, and you have entered into their labours. For many were the labours of the patriarchs and the prophets, in all of which was the prophecy of Christ, and they suffered many things as it were in the cold of the sowing.

VERS. 40.-- When they were come. First they heard the report, afterward they beheld him present; and it is not enough for them, but they make him abide with them, that they may be instructed by his own words, which they prefer to the words of the woman. In 375Call which, on the contrary, the hardness of the Jews is reproved, who do not believe even at miracles. And he abode there two. Morally. So daily among those who are without, Christ is announced through the woman, that is, the Church, and they believe through that report. Thence he abides with them for two days without mention of night, that their light may be instructed by the two precepts of charity.

VERS. 42.-- And they said to the woman. After the Lord, by the presence of the flesh, the Jews being spiritually taught, had poured the grace of his own knowledge into the woman, that is, into the law, they said: now not on account of thy speech do we believe.

VERS. 43.-- For we ourselves have heard. Because at the first, while he tarried among them, he had wrought miracles, and yet not any believed in him save a few; whence, upon the sign that was seen, his disciples believed in him, and no others: and therefore from the Samaritans, 375Dwho believed easily with no sign seen, he returns to these, that they who did not believe through the former things may now believe. It signifies that from the Gentiles, easily converted, he shall return at the end of the world to the Jews, who are his own country, because among them he had not before had honour.

VERS. 44.-- That a prophet. Allegorically. Christ's country is the people of the Jews, where he is without honour, because few of these believe what is said of the Galileans, Christ's fellow-citizens. The Church of the Gentiles, believing easily, is like the Samaritans; and these are many, by the word of preaching alone, those by miracles, and few. Behold why he came, and therefore he returns: because he testified that a prophet has not honour in his own country; otherwise it would seem that he ought not to have returned to these, where he has not honour, 376Abut to have remained with those among whom he was well received.

VERS. 46.-- And there was a certain ruler whose son. This ruler may figure some teacher of the Jewish nation, who at length, after the full conversion of the Church of the Gentiles, to which the Lord, driven out by the Jews, passed over through his disciples, prays for his son, the Jewish people, whom he knows will not receive the faith save at the end of the world, that he may be healed of the long infirmity of his faithlessness.

VERS. 47.-- And he besought. Already believing that he could heal his son; but because he does not believe him to be present to the son through the Godhead, which is everywhere, he asks that he would come down and, being present in body, heal him; whence he is convicted of unbelief: Unless signs and wonders, etc. On the contrary the centurion is praised, who says: Say the word, and my servant 376Bshall be healed (Matth. VIII); whence: I have not found so great faith in Israel. Or perhaps he was desiring to try what manner of man Christ was; whence he is reproved: Unless signs and wonders. For the salvation of his son he himself believed, and his whole house.

VERS. 48.-- Unless signs. In this he is convicted of unbelief, that he did not believe him to be everywhere; and by this man's hardness is signified the hardness of the Jews, who do not believe even when miracles are seen. Truly, on the contrary, by Samaria is signified the faith of the Gentiles, which believed by the word alone; and this, as far as regards the allegory, shall endure in the faithless Jews from Christ's first coming until after the reign of Antichrist.

And wonders. Prodigium as it were porro dictum, spoken far off, as it were that which signifies something. Or, prodigium as it were procul a digito, far from the finger, because it prefigures something remote and to come.

376CVERS. 49, 50.-- Come down. As though he could not heal otherwise unless he were present. Whence the Lord, showing that he is not absent where he is invited, heals by his command alone; whence: Go, thy son. He does not go to the ruler's son, lest he should seem to honour riches; he promises to go to the centurion's servant, he who does not despise the nature of man: wherein he destroys the pride which in men weighs not nature, but the things that lie open outwardly. He himself believed. Not the other citizens; wherein is signified the fewness of the faith of the Jews, although they had seen signs; whence he infers: This is again the second sign that Jesus did. Just as above the multitude of the Gentiles, who were to be converted by the word alone, was signified in the Samaritans.

VERS. 54.-- This is again the second sign that Jesus did 376Dwhen he was come out of Judaea into Galilee. Of all the miracles which Jesus did in the year before John's death, John makes mention of none but these, and of Christ's disputation with the Jews, which is set down above. For the other Evangelists have plainly told the things which he here passes over in silence.

VERS. 4.-- And an angel. Behold two miracles: one invisibly through an angel in the pool, the other visibly by the Lord. In each one man was healed, that unity might be commended. Otherwise neither in power was it therefore great, and in kindness it was but little, that one out of so many should be healed by him who could raise them all up with one word. 377ABut in these bodily things he intends rather the eternal salvation of souls.

VERS. 5.-- Thirty and eight. That is, two less than forty, which number consists of four times ten, and signifies the perfection of works in the ten precepts of the law and the four Gospels; from which he has two less who lacks the love of God and of his neighbour.

VERS. 6.-- Wilt thou be made whole. He is not ignorant of what the man wills, but he kindles him to the love of health, of which he was already despairing, whence he was already complaining that he had no one to put him into the water.

VERS. 8.-- Take up thy bed. Love thy neighbour by bearing with his infirmities, thou whom he patiently bore when thou wast infirm; and be solicitous not only in age concerning thine own raising up, but also concerning the salvation of thy neighbours. Behold, the angel 377Bof great counsel, lying hid in the flesh, when the water of the Jews had been troubled, made one man whole.

VERS. 9.-- And he walked. By loving God, hasten unto the vision of him; neither forsaking thy brother for the love of him to whom thou goest, nor for thy brother's sake ceasing from the seeking of him.

VERS. 10.-- The Jews therefore said. The Jews, observers of the letter, not knowing the grace by which the law is fulfilled, which bids us cease from every servile work, that is, from sin; whence it is here said: Take up thy bed, etc. It is not lawful. They do not calumniate concerning health, they who on the sabbath tend their beasts, but concerning the carrying of the bed.

VERS. 11.-- He answered them. He does not yield to those who object, but, obeying the commands of him who healed him, he sets the authority of his healing against those who calumniate.

377CVERS. 13.-- He knew not who it was. Set in the crowd, he did not recognize Jesus, but afterward in the temple. Wherein we are taught that whosoever wishes to come to the vision of God should flee the crowd of his own affections and the wickedness of men, and approach the temple of inward prayer.

VERS. 14.-- In the temple. Not in the crowd, but in the temple; because if we wish to know the grace of the Creator, it behoves us to flee conventicles and to become a temple. Sin no more. He intimates that he had been languishing on account of his sins; but Jesus himself healed him within as he had healed him without, whence he forewarns him lest by sinning again he be more grievously judged.

VERS. 16.-- Because he did these things on the sabbath. As one who loosed the law and acted against God, who rested on the sabbath, having first wrought for six days. Against which 377DJesus says: God has not wrought for six days only, as you suppose, but he works until now; because he who in six days founded new things, from which he rested on the seventh day, afterward works unto the end by governing, sustaining, renewing and propagating, that the things founded may endure. And since God always works, it is plain that what is read of the rest of the sabbath is a sacrament.

VERS. 17.-- But Jesus answered. As if he should say: Blind in the law, why do you envy me if I make a man whole on the sabbath, I who as God always work with the Father.

VERS. 18.-- Jesus therefore answered. Because they were moved at hearing of the equality with God the Father of him whom they suppose to be a mere man, he adds that he is the Son equal to the Father, of the same will, of the same power, 378Aof the same operation. And in setting these things forth he uses that manner of speech by which he can rouse the minds of little ones, even if not fill them, and by which the minds of the grown may be exercised and fed. For he speaks of the deity of the Son. He cannot do of himself, save what he sees the Father do; and the Father shows him: all which things are to be received not according to the letter, as though they were done among men, but mystically. But he speaks these secret things that they may be troubled, or that, being troubled, they may perchance seek the physician; and for our sakes also, that they might be written for us, which, ill understood, would lead into error, and well understood, into truth.

VERS. 19.-- Amen, amen I say to you. Here he treats of his identity with the Father, and of his lesser state according to his manhood, and of what he does in these, namely both 378Bresurrections, that is, of the body and of the soul. The Son cannot. I am so equal to the Father that he is not from me, but I am from him. He does not act of himself, nor can he of himself, who is not of himself; but he acts and can act of him from whom he is. These also the Son. The whole body seems to do what the mind does, but not in like manner, since the mind commands the body; but the Father and the Son work the same things and in like manner, because there is one nature, one substance of the Father and of the Son, and one will, and one power, and one operation.

VERS. 20.-- He sheweth all things. For the Father to show to the Son is to work all things through the Son, that the Father and the Son may be equally held in our faith. And lest in any way less should be thought of the Son, he adds: And greater things than these will he shew him, that is, through him he will do greater things. 378CWhat things? For as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life. It is a greater thing to raise the dead than to heal a sick man, of which it was being treated. Greater than these. The Father raises up souls through the Son, that souls may live of the substance of the Father and of the Son; and to that Son, made man in time, he will show greater things, that is, the resurrection of bodies, that you may wonder that it is done through the Son.

VERS. 21.-- For as the Father raiseth up. He begins to show what the Son does according as he is equal to the Father, namely that he raises up souls from death. And this is the first resurrection, from vices. But in what follows he shows also the resurrection of dead bodies, according as he is the Son of man, and power was given to him, that is, to the Son.

So the Son also. (AUG.) Because the Father and the Son are the same 378Dlife. And he judges and raises up bodies, etc., as far as this cause is rendered, because he is the Son of man.

VERS. 23.-- That all may honour. He honours God who commends the Creator, the omnipotent, the eternal. He honours the Father who believes that he has a Son equal to himself. He honours the Son who believes him to be equal to the Father.

He that honoureth not. (AUG.) For if the Son were believed to be less, the Father would be dishonoured: either that, being envious, he would not have willed to beget him equal, or that, being weak, he could not; and so he would be convicted of not being God, because powerless.

VERS. 24.-- That he who, etc. Because I am equal 379Ato the Father and to be honoured with one honour together with him, therefore he who hears my word, that is, who believes me to be the Son and believes him to be the Father, has life everlasting; because this is life everlasting, as he shall say afterward, that they may know thee, Jesus Christ whom I sent, to be one true God. He heareth and believeth. Why does he say: He heareth my word and believeth, not me, but him that sent me: because his word is in me; nay rather, I am his word. He therefore who believes him, believes his word, that is, me. But is passed. Here, from the death of unbelief to the life of faith and of justice; afterward, from corruption to eternity. But of the first resurrection he adds more openly: Amen, amen I say to you, that the hour cometh and now is, etc.

VERS. 25.-- That the hour cometh. I said that the Son raises up and gives life, which is true, because the hour cometh, etc., 379Band the showing forth of his Father; for here it is treated of the raising up of the soul from sins. The voice of the Son. This belongs to the just alone, who so hear of his incarnation as to believe that he is the Son of God.

For as the Father. (AUG.) The life which is the Father himself and the Son pertains to the soul, not to the body, etc., as far as it is life, and it is itself the life of the body.

In himself. Not from elsewhere, but he himself is life; so the Son also is life in himself. But they differ, because the Father is life by not being born, the Son is life by being born of the Father; whence he says, He gave: not that the Son was at any time without life, but that life is born of him; he gave therefore, that is, life begot life.

VERS. 27.-- And power. After he had spoken of the resurrection of the soul, he adds concerning the resurrection 379Cof the flesh. And the power which the Son has with the Father in secret, the Father gave to him, because he is the Son of man; in which form, judging, he shall be seen by the good and by the evil. For the vision of the form of God is promised to the clean of heart alone, whence: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matth. V). (AUG.) Christ, in that he is the Son of God, etc., as far as through the Word made flesh, the Son of man, the resurrection of bodies comes to pass.

VERS. 28.-- That the hour shall come. As above he is the author of the resurrection of the mind unto life eternal, so also here he is the author of the resurrection of the flesh; otherwise no one would believe it.

VERS. 30.-- I cannot of myself do anything. He gave me the power of judgment, yet I cannot of myself, that is, he who is not of himself does not act of himself; and so 379Dhe who blames him for the work of the sabbath blames the Father. But as. I hear through the unity of substance, that is, I know, because to hear is nothing other than to know or to be. Or: I, the Son of man, can do nothing of myself, but as I hear from God I judge, and this judgment of mine, of whatsoever things it be, is just, for this reason, because I seek not my own will, that is, a man's, but the Father's, which is concerning the salvation of men, who sent me for this, that is, caused me to be made flesh. I seek not. He speaks now according as he is equal to the Father, that the true deity may be proved in him; now according as he is less, that the true humanity may be proved.

VERS. 31.-- If I bear witness.. I speak of the identity of his essence with the Father, from which live not 380Athe bodies, which do not feel, but the rational souls, midway between God and bodies: having spoken also of the lesser state of the humanity, in which, namely, he dies, rises again, raises up bodies and judges, he subjoins concerning his testimonies, which he has no need to have from man, because he has them from the works which the Father gave, and from the Father himself. Yet he has them also from men, but as from lamps, that is, from John and from Moses, who, if they cannot join souls to God, can nevertheless confute his enemies.

VERS. 34.-- But these things. Yet I bring forward the testimony of John, that through John you men may be led to the truth itself, and believing may be saved.

VERS. 35.-- He was, etc. He who set me forth outwardly visible to the eyes of men, inwardly kindled the hearts of men 380Bto the knowing of me. All the prophets and apostles also are lamps: Christ is the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.

VERS. 37.-- Nor the voice. Even if you suppose that on Sinai you heard his voice and saw his form.

VERS. 41.-- Glory. Nor do I speak this that I may seek my own glory, but I grieve with you who go astray, who have not the love of God, and I wish to lead you back to the way of truth.

VERS. 42.-- That the love. The love of God is not in you, because you do not receive me, that is, you do not believe, because I came that through me the Father may be glorified.

VERS. 43.-- If another. Antichrist, who seeks his own glory and not God's, that is, he shall come in his own name, 380Cthis is what the Apostle says, that they should believe a lie, who have not believed the truth.

VERS. 1.-- Beyond the sea. Tiberias and Capharnaum are upon the same shore, on our side; beyond, upon the other shore opposite, is the place where that miracle was done. Nor is it properly called a sea, but a certain great overflowing of the Jordan.

VERS. 2.-- And there followed. This miracle having been seen, a great crowd of the nations follows, because, as the spirit within restored those whom he was healing from infirmity of the body, so he was healing these same men from the disease of unbelief.

VERS. 5.-- When he had lifted up. By his own example he admonishes us to lift up the eyes of our heart, that if perchance, under his 380Dleading, we are permitted to ascend to the height of action and of knowledge, the crowd of carnal thoughts that follow may not disturb us, nor cast us down from the height of contemplation, but that we may take care to feed it with spiritual food, as much as it can take.

VERS. 7.-- Of two hundred. The number of a hundred doubled signifies the perfection of good action and of rational knowledge, which do not suffice for those who are to be instructed in the faith, unless the height of theology be added to them, which leads souls purged by good working and enlightened by the knowledge of created things to the consummated fullness of spiritual refreshments.

VERS. 9.-- There is one boy. This boy is Moses the lawgiver, whose law brought no one to perfection. 381AOne, because he prefigured the future vanity [vanitatem; read unitatem, "the unity"] of the Church. Here, that is, in the Old Testament, which, although it now grows cheap as the New shines out, has nevertheless not altogether withdrawn. But these, etc. As if he should say: The letter of the law, or the bodily senses, what do they profit toward the multitude of those who believe in thee, who are about to ask for spiritual nourishments, which surpass every letter and every bodily sense?

VERS. 10.-- Make the men. The Master of truth first instructed his hearers in the simplicity of the letter, as in the lowest places, and in the simplicity of the visible creature, that so they might be raised up to the height of contemplation.

VERS. 14.-- Those men therefore, when they had seen that, etc. They were not yet advancing in full faith, wherefore they knew not how to call him God. We, more certain than they, say: 381BThis is the Word, without whom there is no prophet or angel.

VERS. 15.-- Jesus therefore. They who wish to take him by force and to make him king signify the disciples and the other believers, who wish to anticipate the time of his kingdom, thinking that he had come in such wise that he should already reign. But in this time the kingdom is being gathered, which at the end will be made manifest, when he shall say: Receive the kingdom which is prepared for you. [Vulg. Matt 25:34 possidete paratum vobis regnum a constitutione mundi, "possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"] He flees therefore, not fearing to be held, he who afterwards converses with those same men, but wishing to signify that his height cannot be understood. He flees into the mountain, that is, he ascends the heavens, alone a priest interceding for the people set outside, who meanwhile is tossed by the waves; whence he adds: But when evening was come. The evening of the world is after the ascension of Christ, in which the disciples go down to the labours 381Cof the world, and steer the ship, that is, the Church.

VERS. 19.-- They were afraid. That the disciples, who bore the figure of all who were to be in the Church, when they had seen the Lord coming to them upon the wave of the sea, were afraid, and, as another evangelist says more openly, believed him a phantasm, is not void of mystery, because even to this day many in the Church, when they hear themselves urged to let go present and perishable goods for the sake of eternal ones, whatsoever they are to have, are afraid and believe themselves deceived; to whom the Lord says: Fear not, it is I.

VERS. 22.-- The next day. This miracle was made known to the crowd, that Jesus had walked upon the waters, because there had not been there any ship but one, and Jesus did not enter into it with the disciples; whence then had the crossing been made, unless he had walked upon the waters?

381DVERS. 25.-- And when they had found him. Behold, he is present to those from whom he had fled, lest they should make him king. Why then had he fled, if not for the aforesaid sacrament? Again, being present, he speaks to them, that of those whose bellies he filled, he may fill the minds also, saying: Amen, amen I say to you, teaching those whom he appointed teachers to flee praise and earthly rule, but nevertheless to press on in preaching.

VERS. 26.-- Amen, amen I say to you. After he had treated of his divinity, by which he is the same with the Father and to be honoured with the same honour, and of his humanity, by which he frees from death and raises up, being worthy of great honour, he wishes to treat of the food of life, that is, of the Word of God. And this is the connection as regards the sense. But according to the letter, 382Athus: You seek me, not for my own sake, but for the sake of the loaves that perish. Therefore work, that is, seek me for my own sake, not for the sake of anything else. For he himself is that food which endures unto life everlasting, as he will afterwards say openly. In like manner many seek Jesus daily, not for Jesus' sake, but that it may be well with them in this time.

VERS. 27.-- God hath sealed. As by a proper sign he marked him off from the rest, because he who is the Son of man is also the Son of God; and therefore do not despise me, the Son of man, but ask of me spiritual food.

VERS. 29.-- This is the work of God. Faith working by love is the work, because if the means be wanting, nothing is required but the will. Deservedly also is that faith called a work which works by love, which is the beginning and the end of all good.

382BVERS. 32.-- He said therefore. Because they preferred the work of Moses to his work, he shows that that was the less, since it was not bread from heaven but only a figure of it, and that his own is the greater, which is the bread from heaven that gives life; and this is the food which he said above endures unto life everlasting.

VERS. 33.-- For the true bread. [Vulg. Jo 6:33 Panis enim Dei est, "For the bread of God is"] The angels eat the pure Word, solid food; but we the Word, yet turned into milk, because if we cannot eat, we can suck. For unless he were made flesh, he would not be known by us, he would not be tasted by us.

VERS. 34.-- Lord, always, etc. As the Samaritan woman, hearing: He that shall drink of this water shall not thirst for ever, [Vulg. Jo 4:13–14 qui autem biberit ex aqua quam ego dabo ei, non sitiet in aeternum, "he that shall drink of the water that I will give him"] took it according to the body, and yet, wishing to be without labour and want, said: Give me 382Cthis water, so these seek a bread which may refresh them and never fail, on account of which they wished to make him king. But Jesus calls them back to himself, and more evidently opens what bread he spoke of: I am the bread of life. I shall be able to give life, because I am the bread that gives life, baked and formed by the fire of the Holy Spirit in the oven of the virginal womb, and given to the world to drive away the hunger of the ignorance of God.

VERS. 36.-- But I said to you. As if he should say: I did not say of this bread that I know you are to be filled, but for the reproach of your unbelief, because you see and do not believe.

VERS. 37.-- All that the Father giveth me, etc. That is, whomsoever the Father draws to me, the Father gives to the Son. The Father draws to the Son those who believe in the Son for this reason, 382Dthat they believe him to have God for his Father.

He shall come. The humble man is united to me, myself humble, and therefore he is not cast out, which belongs only to the proud man, who has nothing in the inward good, neither here nor in time to come.

VERS. 39.-- For this is the will of him that sent me, the Father, etc. It is not the will of God that one of the little ones should perish; of the swollen there perishes one, of the little ones nothing.

I will not lose, etc. That is, because he sees me and believes in me, who am life as also the Father is; and therefore he now has a life which is not his alone, but I will also raise him up.

VERS. 40.-- That every one, etc. Above he was saying: He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me; here it is said: 383AHe that seeth the Son and believeth in him. He does not say: He that believeth in the Father, because to believe in the Son is the same thing as to believe in the Father, because as the Father has life in himself, so also the Son has life in himself.

VERS. 41.-- They murmured. Not knowing this bread, nor his heavenly Father, because, puffed up with their own justice, in which they presume upon their own powers, they do not hunger for the justice of God which comes from heaven.

VERS. 43.-- Murmur not. As though I were not the bread which came down from heaven, whereas truly I am; but no one can come to me unless he be drawn by the Father, and therefore you do not believe me to be the Father [me esse Patrem; read me esse a Patre, "that I am from the Father"], because you are not drawn by the Father.

VERS. 44.-- Unless the Father. (AUG.) The Father draws to the Son him who for this reason believes in the Son, that he thinks, etc., 383Bas far as in which a great grace is commended.

And I will raise him up, etc. I, equal to the Father, will make him see what he believes, eat what he hungers for, have what he has loved and desired, which cannot be in the present, where he is only drawn.

VERS. 45.-- It is written. Truly no one comes to me unless the Father shall have taught him, because the prophecies so testify. All the men of that kingdom, that is, of the Christian faith, shall be taught of God, because although men speak outwardly, yet God alone opens the understanding within, within instructs with the knowledge and love of truth; so that whosoever hears and learns from the Father comes to me. In the prophets. Prophets, he says, in the plural, because all the prophets, filled with one and the same spirit, although they had prophesied diverse things, yet tended to the same end.

383CVERS. 46.-- Not that the Father, etc. That is, I know the Father, because I am from him; and therefore believe, because he who believes in me has life everlasting. He could have said, has me; but he reveals that he himself is life everlasting, because the Word is the life of men, which also gives life in the resurrection to his own flesh, which he had taken up, and upon which death came in that it might take away death, and to others believing in him.

VERS. 48, 49.-- I am the bread of life. Your fathers, etc. The manna of which you are proud was, by their murmuring, not the bread of life to the murmuring fathers whose sons you are, because they did not understand in it the spiritual food; so also you who hear me do not understand spiritually. But Moses and the other elect lived of the manna, because they ate spiritually. So also do they who now receive my words 383Dspiritually. I am the bread of life. Behold, he covers the sacrament with words, that the Jews, and also some disciples not believing his words, may be the more scandalized, and the humble apostles, believing humbly, may be proved; whence Peter: Thou hast the words of eternal life.

VERS. 52.-- And the bread, etc. He determines how he is bread, not only according to the Word by which all things live, but also according to the flesh taken up for the life of the world. For human flesh, which was liable to sin and therefore dead, being united to his clean flesh, incorporated, made one with him, lives by his spirit, as the body lives by its own spirit: but he who is not of the body of Christ does not live by the spirit of Christ. 384ABut because the Jews were not of this unity, they strove; nor is it expounded to such men how the Lord gives his flesh to be eaten, but he heard, whence they are the more moved.

VERS. 54.-- Unless you eat the flesh, etc. (AUG.) He wishes this food and drink to be understood as fellowship, etc., as far as that from many grains there may be one bread, and from many berries the wine flows together.

VERS. 55.-- He that eateth. Certain holy men expound this of the eating of the altar, and they say well; but they ask how it may be unto life everlasting, since for some it is unto death, as the Apostle says. If any man eats at the altar with this eating of which he here treats, namely with faith working and with love, he eats unto life everlasting. But if any man eats otherwise, unto death.

384BVERS. 56.-- For the flesh. Truly the soul and the body shall live from this food, because my flesh is meat indeed. Which alone makes men immortal, so that they shall neither hunger nor thirst; another food does not afford this, even if this be sought in it.

VERS. 57.-- He that eateth. Now he expounds how that comes to pass which he said, and what it is to eat the flesh and to drink the blood: that is, to abide in Christ and to have Christ abiding in oneself. But he who does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, does not eat spiritually, and so takes the sacrament to himself bodily unto judgment.

VERS. 58.-- As the Father hath sent me. He sent me, equal to himself; that is, he made me man, and thence it is that I refer my life to him as to one greater. And he shall live. 384CThat I live by the Father, my own emptying-out effects; that a man live by me, the participation effects which eats me.

VERS. 59.-- This is the bread. And so it is established that this is truly the bread from heaven, not the manna, because the fathers like to you who ate it are dead for ever: whereas the man who had not life, eating this bread, shall live for ever. Above he had said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Here he says: This man, that is, the Son of man, to the eating of whose flesh I invite you, is that bread which came down from heaven: therefore the Son of man and the Son of God are the same.

VERS. 61.-- Many therefore. Many, being wise after the flesh, as though he were promising that he would distribute to them, piece by piece, the flesh wherewith he was clothed, think it to be against nature that he should give human flesh as food for men.

384DThis is a hard saying, etc. (AUG.) So it behoved to be said, that it might not be understood by men, but that the secret of God might be covered with words: the secret of God ought to make men intent, not adverse.

VERS. 63.-- If then, etc. The speech is left suspended. As if he should say: Then shall you understand that I do not give out my body in the manner you suppose, and that this grace is not consumed by bites, but that, by giving myself to them with a spiritual grace, I turn them into my body; hereby he plainly resolves what had moved them; for they thought that he would distribute his body, whereas he says that he is to ascend into heaven whole and entire. What therefore is to be held, he openly adds:

VERS. 64.-- It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh, as 385Ayou understand it, as that which is bought in the shambles, as any other food, profits nothing; yet that same flesh, the vessel of the spirit which works salvation in it, profits much: as knowledge alone puffs up, yet is not itself evil, but by charity builds up.

The words that I, etc. By which I said that I am to be eaten, that one abides in me and I in him. But that anyone should abide in Christ as a member, and Christ in him as in a temple, unity effects. And unity is from charity, and charity from the spirit; therefore the spirit which quickens does not separate the members joined together.

VERS. 65.-- But there are some, etc. The prophet: Unless you believe, you shall not understand. By faith we are coupled, by understanding we are quickened.

And who should betray. Because Judas withdraws among those who were scandalized, 385Bbut remains to lay snares; whom he neither passes over in silence nor openly points out, that all may fear while one perishes.

VERS. 66.-- Because no man can, etc. He adds the cause why certain men do not believe: Because it is not given by God; for faith is not to men from themselves, as if their own, but from God, as a grace.

VERS. 67.-- From this, etc. Note that one must speak warily; but if nevertheless someone shall be scandalized at thy words, he has consolation in him at whose saying many were scandalized, who did this that it might be an example to thee.

VERS. 71.-- Have not I, etc. The number twelve is sacred, and it abides, even though Judas perishes from it. He chose eleven to abide; he chose Judas 385Cthat through him the dispensation of the divine mercy might be fulfilled unto the salvation of the world, using evil for good, as evil men use the good things of God for evil.

VERS. 1.-- After these things. The Lord, while abiding in the flesh, frequently walked in Galilee, that they who wish to imitate him may learn to pass over from vices to virtues: which that walking figured. Or that the holy men of that time might await the passing over of the word of God from Judea to the Gentiles.

VERS. 2.-- A festival day. Not that it was one, for there are seven; but after their manner, however many they are, they are called as it were one, on account of the one festivity: the scenopegia, the festivity of tabernacles, because in the seventh month 385Dthe Jews dwelt in tabernacles, in memory of those in which their fathers dwelt in the desert.

VERS. 3.-- That thy disciples also. The works which the true disciples knew, to be set forth by divine praises and not by popular favour.

VERS. 4.-- No man. They take counsel for his glory. As if: Thou doest wondrous things, namely in hiding, but to become known, that thou mayest be praised by all.

VERS. 6.-- The time. Therefore it is not now my time, but yours, because I am not a lover of the world as you are, but an accuser; and therefore the world does not hear [audit; read odit, "hate" -- Jo 7:7 Non potest mundus odisse vos, and the sentence turns on the world not hating its own] you, its own false witnesses, who call good things evil and evil things good.

386AVERS. 8.-- For I go not up. (AUG.) Some say that this pertains to the passion, because he went up upon the cross not at the festivity of scenopegia, but at the paschal one, at which the lamb is wont to be slain.

VERS. 10.-- Not openly, etc. Typically: Christ went up hidden to the festivity, because he lay hid in all those figures who is now made manifest to us. And that he lay hid is an example of avoiding evil men; that he speaks openly and is not held by those who were seeking him, belongs to his power.

VERS. 16.-- He answered them: My doctrine, the doctrine of a man, is not mine, but God's. Or because a word is not the word of no one, but of someone, his doctrine, that is, he himself the Word, his doctrine is not his own, but his from whom he is: which is - I am not from myself. And because he saw that this deep thing 386Bwould not be understood by all, he gave counsel: If thou wouldst understand, believe. This is: If anyone believes me to be the Son of God, he shall know concerning the doctrine, that is, he shall understand that my doctrine is not mine.

VERS. 18.-- He that speaketh of himself. Antichrist is not truthful, and injustice is in him, because he seeks his own glory, not God's, by whom he was not sent, but permitted to come. But he that, etc. That is, I, who though equal to the Father, yet in the form of a servant seek the glory of the Father and not my own, in this gave an example of humility, that we may ascribe all good things to God.

VERS. 19.-- Did not Moses, etc. I speak from God and seek his glory, truthful, just: but you who glory in the law, against the law which forbids to kill, seek to slay me.

386CVERS. 20.-- A demon. They seek to kill him, and, what is worse, they say that he has a demon, who drives out demons.

VERS. 21.-- One work I have done. You wonder at one; what if you saw all? It was one work, which healed the whole man on the sabbath, whereat the foolish observers of the sabbath were troubled; but Moses convicts them, commanding to circumcise on the eighth day, which sometimes fell to be done on the sabbath. And this is it: Therefore let no one be troubled if health is always wrought, even on the sabbath. And let all know that the things which belong to salvation ought always to be done.

VERS. 22.-- Circumcision. (ALC.) For three causes was circumcision given. First, etc., as far as and the heart is stripped of covetous desires.

386DVERS. 23.-- If circumcision, etc. As if: You who glory in the law, against the law which announces me, treat of my death; but it is not against the law that I made the whole man sound on the sabbath, I the Lord of the sabbath. For the keeping of the sabbath, like all other things, is for the salvation of man, just as you yourselves, circumcising on the sabbath (because it belongs to salvation), believe that you do not break the sabbath.

VERS. 24.-- Judge not, etc. You ought not to be angry with me for the saving of a man on the sabbath, as you are not angry over circumcision on the sabbath, because it is not to be judged according to the face, that is, the action of persons, so that what was lawful for Moses should not be lawful for me; but a just judgment, that is, according to the truth 387Aof things: which being known, you will condemn neither me nor Moses, nor will you say that I am contrary to him. Wherein he reproves them and instructs us, that in judging causes we accept not persons; not that we should not honour persons in diverse ways according to the diversity of degrees.

VERS. 25.-- They said therefore. Because, although he went up to the feast secretly, he speaks openly, and there appears as power what was thought to be timidity. Some wonder, because by his power he is not held, he whose death was so greatly sought; and not yet fully understanding that it is his own power, they think it is the knowledge of the princes, because they knew him to be the Christ; whence they object to themselves that this is not the Christ, since no one knows whence the Christ is, because although the place of his birth and things of this kind are told by the prophets, yet his eternal nativity is born of 387Bthe Father; whence the prophet: Who shall declare his generation (Isa. LIII) Whence Christ answers to both, both concerning his infirmity and concerning his majesty.

VERS. 28.-- And you know me. That is, the appearance of my countenance, and whence I am, my birth and parents, which is: you know me according to the flesh, but not according to the Divinity, because I am not come of myself. They did not know him to be the Son of God, nor sent from the Father; neither did they know God the Father, who is the true begetter of truth itself. But whence they can know it, he adds: I know. Therefore seek of me, believe in me, because no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him (Marc. XI).

VERS. 29.-- But I know him. Therefore I know him, because I am from him myself, etc. Let him briefly comprise both: 387CI am from him, because the Son is of the Father, the Father not of another; and you see me in the flesh, because he himself sent me. Wherein there is to him the great authority of one begetting, and to himself a nature common with men.

VERS. 30.-- His hour. Not that there was necessity of the deed, but opportunity of the will. For he willed to be born at a fitting time, a long series of heralds having been sent before. In like manner the preacher of the Gospel willed to die at a fitting time.

VERS. 32.-- The Pharisees heard. The mad princes, having heard the murmur by which Christ was glorified by the crowd, seek to kill him; whom nevertheless, while he was not yet willing, they could not apprehend, but they heard him teaching.

387DVERS. 33.-- Yet a little while. As if he should say: What you now wish, you will do afterwards, but not now, because yet a little while I am with you, in which I must fulfil my dispensation, and then I go to him who sent me, then I must suffer. And you who now will not hear me present and working miracles, will seek me after the resurrection and the assent [assensionem; read ascensionem, "the ascension", which the same chunk expounds throughout], when so great miracles shall be done by the apostles through my power, and when so great a multitude shall believe. For then, pricked in heart for so great a crime as the death of Christ, they said to Peter: What shall we do? I am with you, and I go. He does not say I shall be, but I am, because although, in that he is man, he changes places, in that he is God he does not change, since he is everywhere. Whence elsewhere: The Son 388Aof man who is in heaven, as if he should say it while speaking on earth.

VERS. 34.-- You cannot come. He does not say you shall be able, but you are able. For such were they then that they could not; as also he says elsewhere to Peter: Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow hereafter (Joan. XIII); so neither is despair given concerning these men.

VERS. 35.-- Among themselves, etc. Whence they knew not how to say it to the Lord; and yet, not knowing, they pronounced that which was to come. For although not in his own presence, yet through the apostles he is to go to the Gentiles who will believe.

VERS. 36.-- Who is this? Since, being ignorant, they had prophesied the truth, by repeating the same question they show that they had prophesied out of ignorance, so that they seem rather 388Bto have been ignorant than to have prophesied.

VERS. 37.-- And on the last. After the dissensions of the Jews concerning Jesus, and after the words which he spoke, by which some might be founded and others taught, on the last day of the scenopegia he calls, not only by speaking but also by crying out, that he who thirsts may come to him.

If any man thirst. Let him drink the spirit, as he afterwards expounds, and when he shall have drunk, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. The belly is the conscience of the heart, which, the spirit being drunk, is purged and lives, and has a fountain. And it is itself a fountain or a river, which flows with benevolence while it wishes to take counsel for its neighbour; he who thinks his own good things sufficient for himself alone, that man was not a fountain.

(HIER.) Boldly and with all liberty I pronounce that from that time, etc., as far as wherefore, when 388CJesus was being led to the passion, they deny him, and swear that they know not Christ.

VERS. 39, 40.-- For as yet, etc. And although the prophets received the same spirit, both John and others before the resurrection of Christ, yet there was to be another manner of the giving, more open and more full: for after the resurrection, when he first appeared to the apostles, he breathed upon their face, he who by his breath put a soul into the first man and raised him up from the slime. Signifying therefore that he was the same, he breathed the spirit upon the apostles, that they might rise up out of the mud. Then, after the ascension, he sent the Spirit more fully in fiery tongues, that they might teach all nations, as they then spoke in all tongues: so now the unity of the Church speaks in all tongues, and he who is cut off from that unity has not the spirit.

388DBecause Jesus was not yet glorified, etc. Of that crowd therefore, etc. But after they are baptized with the Holy Spirit, and the grace of the Holy Spirit is poured out in them, then they speak freely to the princes of the Jews: We ought to obey God rather than men (Act. V): they raise the dead, they rejoice amid scourges, they pour out their blood, and are crowned with other torments. Not yet therefore was the Spirit in the apostles, nor did spiritual graces flow from their belly: because the Lord had not yet been glorified.

VERS. 45.-- They came therefore. Those sent to take him returned free from the crime, full of wonder, witnesses of the divine teaching.

VERS. 47.-- Are you also, etc. Praiseworthily 389Awere they seduced who, having let go the evil of unbelief, had passed over to faith.

VERS. 48.-- Hath any one of the rulers, etc. They who teach the law despise him who sent the law; but they who knew not the law believe in him who gave the law, that what is said may be fulfilled: That they who see not may see, and they who see may become blind (Joan. IX).

VERS. 51.-- Doth our law. Because those perverse men wished to be condemners before they were knowers, whereas this man thought that if they were patiently to hear him present, perhaps they would be like the officers who chose rather to believe than to hold him. By the authority of the law therefore he wishes to lead them on, that they may be willing to hear him first.

VERS. 52, 53.-- Art thou also a Galilean, etc. And they returned, etc. Jesus was called a Galilean, since his parents were of 389BNazareth.

VERS. 1.-- And Jesus. Because it was his custom to teach in the temple by day, and in the evening to return to Bethania, which is on the Mount of Olives.

Mystically: It signifies the height of mercy, whence comes to us the chrism, that is, the anointing. In the morning he returns to the temple. The morning is the rising of the new light after the darkness of the law, in which he comes to open and to give mercy to the faithful, that is, in his temple. The sitting is the humility of the Incarnation, by which he has mercy and teaches; whence the people came the more willingly to him, but the hostile Pharisees tempt him concerning justice, whether he will speak against it. They knew him to be meek and a preacher of mercy, whence he was pleasing to the people; 389Cwhence they thought he would say that the adulteress was to be let go, and in this he would be called an enemy of the law, contrary to Moses and to God its author, and, along with the adulteress, guilty of death. But if according to the law he should say that she was to be stoned, they would deride him, as though he had not the meekness which he preached, for which he was loved. But he himself is caught by neither calumny; rather, his meekness being kept, he answers what belongs to true justice: He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her. Yet he does not judge at once, but bowing himself down he writes with his finger on the ground.

VERS. 3.-- They bring. Mystically: The woman taken in adultery signifies the Synagogue, which adulterated the law of Moses by following the traditions of the fathers. Or her who, the law of Moses being let go, now follows the faith of Christ, whence the Jew accuses her as an adulteress. Or she signifies 389Dthe Church, which, forsaking God, had fornicated with demons, whom the Jew accuses because she comes to Christ, and she was reputed as it were a new kind of idolatry.

VERS. 6.-- But Jesus bowing himself down. What he wrote on the ground, whether their words or something else, is not determined, according as he bows himself down and writes with his finger. Yet he teaches that, before judgment is made, we ought to bow ourselves, that is, to condescend in judgment, or by acting to use discretion.

VERS. 8.-- And again bowing himself down. The sentence of justice having been given, by which they, conscious of their evils, were struck, he writes again on the ground after his custom, turning his face elsewhere: that it might be free for them to go out, whom he foresaw 390Awould go out sooner than ask more questions. And he teaches us, as before the correction of another, so also afterwards, to search ourselves humbly, lest the same thing, or something else like it, be in us.

VERS. 11.-- Neither will I condemn thee. But because she could fear lest he who is without sin should punish her, he says to her, as one merciful forgiving past sins: Neither will I condemn thee, as one just forbidding that she sin any more.

VERS. 12.-- Again therefore. The tempters being repulsed and the woman's fault healed, he adds more openly what he can do out of his Divinity, lest they doubt concerning him as a man whether he can forgive sins. I am the light of the world. Which is covered with the cloud of the flesh, and so is made bearable to men; whence I can both forgive sins and also enlighten 390Ba man.

VERS. 13.-- Testimony. They think that he is not to be believed. As if: He alone testifies of himself, forgetful of the lamps sent before, and of John the Baptist himself, who showed evidently concerning him.

VERS. 14.-- My testimony is true. My testimony is therefore to be held true, because I know whence I come, that is, because it is confirmed by the testimony of the Father. I came sent by the Father, yet not forsaking him, and, my ministry fulfilled, I return to the Father, nor yet do I leave the world.

VERS. 15.-- You judge according to the flesh. Because you know not that, therefore you judge according to the flesh, that is, you think me a man who is not to be believed in his own praise, and you even condemn me.

390CI judge not any man. I judge not, as it were, according to the flesh, as we do [ut nos; read ut vos, "as you do" -- Christ is answering Vos secundum carnem judicatis]; or I do not judge at all at this first coming, but save; but because at the second coming he will judge, he adds this: And if I do judge, etc.

VERS. 16.-- Because I am alone (AUG.) Therefore true, because not alone, but I and the Father. Behold therefore two in persons, though one in substance; which is: Therefore my judgment is true, because I am the true Son of God; whence it is proved that he is the Son, because he is not alone, but the Father is with me.

VERS. 17.-- And in your law it is written. (ID.) Having spoken of the judgment, that his own and the Father's testimony is true, he proves it from the authority of the law. For it is said, etc., as far as as Susanna when accused had.

VERS. 19.-- They said therefore to him. Judging according to the flesh, 390Dthey took Christ's Father carnally; but the man was in the open, the Word of the Father in secret. Where is thy Father. As if they should say: We see thee, but not the Father with thee. To whom on the contrary it is said: But neither do you know me; because if it is the man whom you see, you do not know what I am in secret, and therefore neither do you know the Father. But if you knew me, which is first, know me, and so you would know the Father, because we are one. Perhaps also the Father, etc. He does not doubt, but as it were mocks and rebukes those who doubt; as a master to a servant, perhaps I am thy lord.

VERS. 20.-- These words, etc. Gazae, riches; Phylaxe, to keep. Typically: The treasury is the mysteries of the Scriptures, which are in the temple, that is, in Christ. 391AThese secret things he opened to the apostles after the resurrection, but in them he now speaks by parables, the Jews not understanding. And no man apprehended him. That is, speaking of his Godhead.

VERS. 21.-- I go. As it were of my own accord, and therefore you labour in vain. He goes thither whence he had come, and whence he had not departed. You shall seek, therefore persecuting him taken up into the heavens, not desiring to have him as friends do. Whence he foretells them their punishment: You shall die in your sin.

VERS. 22.-- Will he kill himself? Foolish words, as if, if he spoke of death, they could not follow him unto death. He was speaking therefore not of death, but of the glory to which he was going through death; whence to those carnal men he adds:

VERS. 23.-- You are below. And therefore you savour of the earth, 391Bas the serpent you eat earth.

VERS. 24.-- I said therefore to you. Here he expounds what it is to be of the world, that is, to be sinners, unbelievers, savouring earthly things; whence he expounds this to them. For if. But on the contrary he gives hope to those who will believe. You shall believe. He says, you shall believe, not, you shall perceive, because no one now grasps the unchangeable essence. I am, you shall die, etc. He does not say what: neither Christ, nor the Son of God, nor anything else of this kind; but to these men he uses the word of the eternal essence, as of old to Moses, whom he was sending to deliver Israel. As if he should say: I who sent Moses to deliver the children of Israel, am come myself to deliver the lost. But all other things which are sent, are not truly.

VERS. 25.-- The beginning. (AUG.) Believe me to be the beginning, 391Cetc., as far as he himself is the right hand, the strength, the wisdom, and the Word of the Father.

(ID.) Behold what it is to be: because the beginning abides in itself, makes all things new, and cannot be changed.

I speak to you. And I have many things to speak to you, teaching if you shall have believed, accusing if you shall not have believed; and I who now judge not, but save, have afterwards to judge. I have, I say, but the whole from the Father, who is truthful of himself, from whom I am the truth which he begot of himself; and therefore I say true things, and I judge. Behold how he gives glory to the Father, to whom he is equal, that he may teach us who are less to give glory to God.

VERS. 27.-- And they understood not. When he says, he that sent me is true, they did not understand that he spoke of the Father, because they still had their eyes closed; and therefore 391Dhe adds to them: When you shall have lifted up the Son, etc., where he shows that some were there who after his passion would believe and would know who he was.

VERS. 29.-- Because I am. To be is the unchangeableness of the divine substance. But lest he himself who speaks should be understood to be the Father, he adds: And of myself I do nothing; because I am not of myself, but of the Father.

Because I, etc. That equality itself always is. Always, not from some beginning and thenceforward, but without beginning and without end. For the generation of God has no beginning of time, because through the Only-begotten times were made.

VERS. 30.-- Many believed in him. Faith is to believe what thou seest not; truth is to see what thou hast believed. 392AWe do not know that we may believe, but we believe that we may know: therefore Christ as man on earth casts faith, afterwards he will give himself to be seen, which is the reward of faith.

VERS. 31.-- Truly disciples. To this height you shall come out of faith, which is humble, and is despised, and is a grain of mustard seed.

VERS. 33, 34.-- Free. This word the Lord set from liberty, not as it is for the most part wont to be said in Latin, that someone is freed from infirmity. And the Lord had not said: you shall be free, but: The truth shall make you free; in which word nevertheless they understood nothing but carnal liberty. He answered them, etc. Not those who believed, but others in the crowd who did not believe, who, having heard shall make you free, were indignant that they were called servants, thinking that he had spoken of carnal liberty. And we have served no man. 392BThey lie. Joseph served in Egypt; the fathers in Egypt served in the mud; these men serve the same by the tributes of Caesar.

Amen, amen I say, etc. Amen in Hebrew is said in Latin to be "true," which no interpreter has changed, lest, being stripped bare, it should grow cheap, but that it may keep its honour by being secret; and it is as it were an oath, whence Jerome upon Isaias: The Lord swears by himself, since he in no wise makes void the sentence of his mouth and the word which he has once uttered; that is, he swore by himself.

VERS. 35.-- But the servant, etc. In this he terrified us. What hope of liberty then is there for those who are not without sin?

VERS. 37.-- I know, etc. The Lord having expounded against 392Cthose who gloried in the vain liberty of the flesh, and having expounded the true servitude of sin and the true liberty through himself the Son, granting to these men, namely that they are sons of Abraham through the flesh, he shows that such children are not sons of Abraham by the imitation of faith and of justice, but are sons of the murderer the devil, seeking to kill him, and so are truly servants.

VERS. 39.-- They answered and said to him. Because he reproves them for doing the works of their father, confessing their father to be Abraham, they provoke him to speak some evil things against Abraham, that it may be for them an occasion of doing what they wished; but the Lord praises Abraham and condemns these degenerate men, saying: If you are the children of Abraham, etc.

VERS. 40.-- But now you seek, etc. He does not say (what he could) that he is the Lord of Abraham, lest it be an occasion 392Dof calumny, nor that he is the Son of God; but that which they envy, and that which they are able to kill.

VERS. 41.-- You do the works. Now he hints at another father than Abraham, whose sons they are, not by nature, but by imitation. They said, etc. We, etc. Now understanding that the Lord spoke not of the origin of the flesh but of the life, and knowing from the usage of the Scriptures that fornication is spoken of spiritually, when the soul is subjected to false gods, they change their answer and are now silent about father Abraham, lest it be said to them: Why do you glory in him whose life you do not imitate? And they say that God is their father, wishing to see what he could say to them in answer to this.

VERS. 42.-- He said therefore. As he showed beforehand concerning Abraham, so now he shows that God is not their father to them, 393Abecause they do not know the Son whom he sent, nor do they love him. For I. The procession from the Father is eternal, in which the Son is the only-begotten, equal to the Father; he came made man, in which he is brother to men.

VERS. 43.-- Why do you not know my speech. The matter is as I say, but you cannot know what I say, because you cannot hear, since you are not willing to be corrected by believing. And why is this? Because you are of the devil: you have chosen to persevere as sons of the devil.

VERS. 44.-- You are of your father, etc. Behold, now he determines who is their father, whose sons they are not by being born, as the Manichees say, but by imitating; whence also it is said to the Jews: Thy father is an Amorrhite, thy mother a Cethite (Ezech. XVI).

And the desires. Therefore sons of the devil, because you will do the desires of your father, 393Band kill me in the flesh, because you cannot in the mind. He is a murderer. Note that he is a murderer not only who kills with the sword, but also who kills with a word, as the devil killed the first parents; whence in the psalm: Their tongue is a sharp sword (Psal. LVI). And he stood not in the truth. Why did he not stand? Because the truth is not in him. That is, the Word and wisdom of the Father. When it is said, in Christ is the truth, it is so said that he himself is the truth. If therefore the devil had stood in the truth, he would have stood in Christ; but he did not stand in it, because it is not itself in him. He speaketh of his own, because he is a liar. And this is not enough, because a man also is a liar who has it not of his own, but has begun from another, that is, from the devil; therefore he added: And the father thereof. Namely, of the lie which he invented. Of his own. Because he has it not from elsewhere, 393Cbut from himself, after he fell from the truth; whence it is added that he is the father of the lie which he begot of himself, as God of himself the truth.

VERS. 46.-- Which of you, etc. He does not disdain to show by reason that he is not a sinner, etc.

VERS. 48.-- Do not we, etc. Because they were convicted of not being sons of Abraham or of God, but of the devil, they heap up reproaches, because they could not resist.

VERS. 49.-- I honour. Not myself (lest I seem arrogant to you): I do what I ought, but you do not do what you ought, because you have not honoured me; whom if you knew, as I honour the Father, so would you honour me

VERS. 50.-- But I. Having heard the reproach, Thou hast a demon, on the contrary concerning his own glory he says this only: 393DI honour the Father, ascribing all things to him; and I seek not my own glory as men do, who render something back for the insults offered them, but I reserve it to the Father, and there is one who seeketh and judgeth. There are two temptations. One of probation, of which: God tempteth you (Deut. XIII). The other of deception, of which: God is no tempter of evils (Jac. II). So also there are two fears: one which charity casts out, another which abides for ever and ever. So also there are two judgments: one of damnation, by which the Father judges not, but has given all judgment to the Son; the other of discernment; whence: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause (Psal. XLII). According to this it is said: There is a Father who seeks my glory, and distinguishes it from your glory, because you glory according to the world, 394AI do not, but with that glory which I had with the Father before the world was, which is distinguished from human puffing up.

VERS. 51.-- Amen, amen I say to you. Not I, but the Father seeks my glory; but I say, If you say, Thou hast a demon, I call you to life. Hence let man learn Jesus, to render not evil but good. He shall not see. That which is said, he shall see, or he shall taste, is nothing else than he shall experience.

VERS. 52.-- Now we know. As a good man, having received an insult, becomes better, so a bad man becomes worse from a benefit.

VERS. 53.-- Whom dost thou make thyself? According to them he was making himself the Son of God, equal to God, as though he were not so; but he was not making himself so, nay rather he truly was; whence the Apostle: 394BHe thought it not robbery to be equal to God (Philip. II). Therefore not, who art thou, but, whom dost thou make thyself?

VERS. 54.-- Jesus answered. Against this which they say: Whom dost thou make thyself? he refers his glory to the Father, of whom is that which he is God.

VERS. 55. He is my Father. He says openly that his Father is the God who was announced to the Jews: I announce to you no new God, but him of whose knowledge you are wont to glory. Who glorifieth. The voice of the Father glorifies the Son in baptism, on the mountain, and in other such places. And you have not known. You have not known him spiritually, while you served for earthly things. Behold, he sees openly that they resist him, and yet he does not cease to preach himself to them. And if I shall say, etc. Lest in this he should seem 394Cto glory arrogantly, he adds, and if I shall say. Let arrogance be so avoided that truth be not forsaken.

VERS. 56.-- Abraham. Believing, he rejoiced in hoping, that he might see by understanding so great a mystery.

My day. (AUG.) It is uncertain: unto a temporal day, etc., as far as and that this same was made flesh?

VERS. 59.-- And he went out. Going out from the temple, that is, from the figures of the Jews, let us see what he did in the temple of the Gentiles.

VERS. 1.-- And passing by. Not standing in the way of sinners, but beside the way of our mortality. A blind man. The blind man signifies the human race, in which blindness is 394Dnatural, because, when the first man sinned, the fault grew ingrained by reason of nature; whence according to the mind every man is born blind.

VERS. 3.-- Neither hath this man sinned. They did indeed sin, but it was not brought about by that sin that he should be born blind; rather this is the cause, that the works of God should be made manifest in him. That, by enlightening him and by signifying through him what he is to do in the blindness of the human race, the Son of God may be made manifest; whence he adds: I must work.

VERS. 5.-- As long as I am in the world. Not only then was Christ the light in the world, but he is also always with the elect through faith unto the consummation of the age, and it is the time for working. That night is the infernal night, 395Ain which it is permitted to none to work, as neither was it permitted to the burning rich man; but there is only a time of receiving.

VERS. 6.-- And he made clay. As he formed the first man out of the slime of the earth, so through the same kind of clay he re-formed the human race. Of spittle he made clay, because the Word was made flesh. The spittle is the wisdom which came forth from the mouth of the Most High. The earth is the flesh of Christ. He anointed the eyes. That is, he made him a catechumen, who believes the Word made flesh. The anointed man does not yet see, but is sent to wash, that is, to be baptized in the Sent One, that is, in Christ, on account of which the name of the pool is so interpreted. Baptized, baptized from his sins, he received the light.

VERS. 7.-- And he came seeing, etc. It is asked: how did he heal this man without faith, when it is read that he healed no one outwardly without an inward healing? But this is said 395Bof those who were sick on account of their sins: this man was languishing not on account of sin, but for the glory of God.

VERS. 16.-- This man is not of God, etc. He keeps the sabbath spiritually who is without sin; not they, who are servants of sin.

VERS. 17.-- What sayest thou, etc. They seek a pretext for accusation, that he might be driven out of the synagogue, but be found by Christ. But he said, etc. Still anointed in heart: he confesses, yet he does not lie.

VERS. 18.-- Until they called, etc. Mystically: the parents, that is the devil or the vices, who say. He is of age, let him speak for himself: they who are unwilling that a man confess Christ.

Give glory to God: We know, etc. To give glory to God is to speak the truth about someone as though God were present, 395Cthat is: to confess that this man is not God, as we do, but a sinner.

VERS. 27.-- Why again, etc. (AUG.) He is vexed at their hardness, having from a blind man been made one that sees, and now not bearing with the blind.

VERS. 28.-- They reviled him therefore. According to their heart it is a curse. But what is said is to be desired by all, that they should be disciples of Christ.

VERS. 29.-- But this man we know not. Above they had said: This man we know: whence here they say that they know not; but we say that we know not the things which we cast away. He is not known, he lies hid by humility, he is betrayed by the power of his signs: it is not known whence he is, and as God he enlightens the blind.

VERS. 33.-- Unless this man were of God, etc. Their anger despised, he freely confesses the truth. For these things would not be done 395Dsave by the Lord, nor by the disciples, unless God were in them.

VERS. 34.-- He was born wholly in sins. That is, with closed eyes, which they say to be for the sins of the parents; but Christ heals the whole: outside, the eyes; within, he opens the heart. And dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. By questioning him so often that they might learn, they had made him a master; but ungrateful, they cast out the one who taught. Yet because he was expelled, he was the more made a Christian.

VERS. 36.-- Who is he, etc. Still anointed, by these words he shows that he had long had a heart ready to believe, but had not known in whom he ought to believe.

VERS. 37.-- And thou hast seen. Now the Lord washes the face 396Aof the anointed, now he enlightens the eyes of the heart, and he confesses not only the Son of man but also the Son of God.

VERS. 39.-- That they who see not. That is, they who think that they see seek to see; and they who see, that is, they who think that they see and do not seek the physician; and this is the judgment, that is, the discernment which distinguishes the cause of believers from the proud. For he will execute the judgment of damnation not now, but at the end; whence: I judge not any man.

VERS. 1.-- Amen, amen I say to you. Because the Pharisees boasted that they saw, which they would be able to do if they were Christ's sheep, the Lord sets forth against their arrogance a similitude of his flock, and of the door by which one enters into the sheepfold, showing that neither wisdom, nor the observance of the law, nor a good life avails anything except 396Bthrough him: without him they are nothing in whatever Jew, or Gentile and philosopher, or Pharisee who teach men to live blessedly, or heretic under the name of Christ; nor yet in Christ preaching, but all of them without him snatch away and kill. By the door. That is, through me, as he afterwards expounds. This gate is low: he who wishes to enter through it must humble himself, lest, if he stands upright, he strike against the low gate. A thief. Because he calls his own what belongs to another, that is, he makes God's sheep his own. A robber, because what he has stolen he kills. But all who hold and teach the truth in Christ the shepherd are one shepherd.

VERS. 2.-- Is the shepherd of the sheep. Christ is properly the shepherd according to the office of feeding the sheep, as he himself 396Cafterwards expounds, who through himself as the door enters into the sheepfold of the sheep. But because others are sharers with him in the pastoral office, the things which are properly said of him are fitting to them also in their own manner. The door is that by which one enters; Christ therefore, the shepherd, is himself the door, and whoever is a shepherd under him enters through that same door into the hearts of the sheep; because if he preaches something else, the sheep do not hear; if Christ, the sheep of Christ acknowledge this voice.

VERS. 3.-- To him the porter openeth. The porter, that is, Christ who opens himself, or Scripture which leads to Christ, or the Holy Spirit who teaches all truth.

And the sheep, etc. (AUG.) Some are true sheep, because the Lord knoweth, etc., as far as this no one who is his own despises, no stranger hears.

396DVERS. 6.-- But they understood not. The predestined sheep for a time do not know themselves, nor do they hear the voice of the shepherd, but at the end they persevere; on the contrary the wolves for a time hear, but at the end they persevere.

VERS. 8.-- All, etc. He is a thief who enters by simony or in some other way against Christ, and after he has entered kills by his bad example, and so is openly a robber. Nor is such a one to be called a hireling, therefore when the wolf comes he does not resist, but yields for a wage. If he does not resist the wolf tearing them by violence, he receives this wage, that he is not torn asunder along with the sheep; but afterwards, by living badly, he corrupts the sheep, and having now slipped back into the other party he becomes a thief or a robber, losing the name of hireling.

397AVERS. 9.-- If any man. Here he plainly shows that not only the shepherd but the sheep also enter through the door. And he shall go in. Within, by thinking well; he shall go out, outwardly, by working well for the example of others. Or he shall go in into the Church, that here he may live by faith. Whence he says afterwards: That they may have life. And he shall go out of this life, that he may live for ever. Whence afterwards, and may have life more abundantly, and going in and going out shall find pastures.

VERS. 10.-- But to steal, etc. He would steal, by usurping to himself what is another's; kill, by drawing them back from the faith; destroy, unto eternal damnation.

VERS. 12.-- But the hireling, etc. The hireling is he who seeks the things that are his own, not the things that are Christ's; who serves God not for God's sake, but for some wage; who is blameworthy, and is not a son, but is nevertheless 397Bnecessary and to be borne with. But the thief is always to be guarded against. Yet the prelates who are sons are shepherds also, and nevertheless there is one shepherd, because they are all members of him whose the sheep properly are. And the wolf snatcheth. The wolf is either the violent man who lays waste bodily, or the devil who scatters spiritually; and he who seeks not the souls of the sheep but his own things does not go to meet him by resisting or by rebuking evils, which is to flee, because fear is the flight of the mind: he flees lest he lose what he loves; whence, giving the cause of his flight, he adds: Because he is a hireling, and loves not the sheep, but his own things. But shepherds are not said to flee if they give way to persecution and preserve themselves for the profit of the sheep, to whom, though absent in body, they are present in spirit.

VERS. 14.-- I am the shepherd. After the fault of the counterfeit shepherd, 397Che again sets forth the form of the true one. I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep. [Vulg. Jo 10:11 reads Bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus suis, "the good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep"; the second clause here follows Jo 10:15] Which he alone did not do, save that all his own and he himself are one, because he could do this without them, they not without him, without whom they can do nothing.

VERS. 15.-- And I. The Son through himself knows the Father, we through him, as elsewhere: No man hath seen God at any time, unless the Only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he shall have declared him (Matth. XI). [Vulg. Jo 1:18 unigenitus Filius … ipse enarravit, "the only-begotten Son … he hath declared him"] Likewise: no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth anyone know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him (Matth. XI; Luc. X). And I lay down my life. This is the proof of love toward the Father and toward the sheep. So too Peter, confessing his love a third time, is bidden to feed the sheep and to die for them. For the sheep. For the sheep of the house of Israel which had perished, to whom he was bodily 397Dsent, from whom those which are of the Gentiles are not unlike; whence he says:

VERS. 16.-- I must. Although through his own, because in them he himself is. And my voice. He does not say "of mine," because in them he himself speaks.

VERS. 17.-- Because I, etc. (AUG.) The Word, from which he took manhood, that is, flesh and soul, etc., as far as not by its own power, but by the power of the Godhead inhabiting the flesh, namely.

VERS. 22.-- And it was the feast of the dedication, etc. Caenon, that is, new. Hence encaenia, that is, to inaugurate. The encaenia is the feast of the dedication of the temple, which was made by Judas Maccabaeus in the time of winter. And winter is mentioned here that it may signify the Jews as cold, who 398Ado not come to the fire, that is, do not believe in Christ. Solomon, when the temple was built, dedicated it in autumn (III Reg. VIII). Zorobabel and Jesus the priest dedicated the rebuilt temple after the captivity, in spring (II Esdr. VI). Judas Maccabaeus, for the profanation of Antiochus, in winter (I Machab. IV).

VERS. 23.-- In the porch. The porches with which the temple was girded are wont to be signified by the name of the temple.

VERS. 24.-- The Jews therefore came round about him. While the Lord patiently preached the truth amid reproaches, the blinded do not obey but tempt him: How long dost thou take away our soul? They falsely charge with taking away souls him who saves them; whom they thought a mere man, but one who would reign before all. If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. They do not desire the truth, but prepare 398Ba calumny, that if he should say he was a king, they might deliver him to the power as one acting against Augustus. But the Lord so tempers his answer that there is no place of calumny for them, and that to the faithful, for whose sake these things are recounted, it may appear plainly that he himself is the Christ, not a man only, as they think, but the Son of God.

VERS. 29.-- And no man can snatch them out of my Father's hand. Because from this, that I am of the Father, I am greater for protecting than they for assailing.

VERS. 30.-- I and the Father are one. By these words he not only resolves the question of the Jews, who came in order to tempt him, but also condemns the madness of the heretics to come.

VERS. 31.-- They took up stones therefore. This they no longer bear who bore the rest, but being hard they run 398Cto stones. But because Jesus suffers nothing save what he wills, he still speaks.

VERS. 33.-- Makest thyself. They understood that it could not be said, I and the Father are one, except where there is an equality of Father and Son, which Arius did not understand; but Christ, because he saw them slow to bear the splendour of the truth, tempered it in these words: Is it not written, etc.

VERS. 34.-- That I. In three ways is one called God: by nature; by adoption, as I have said: Gods; falsely, as demons and idols.

VERS. 35.-- If he called them gods. If by partaking of the word of God men are made gods, how is he who by nature is the Son, in whom they partake, not God?

398DVERS. 38.-- Believe the works. Give faith to the works, that by the merit of faith, knowing the works more fully, you may come to faith in the Godhead.

VERS. 39.-- That the Father is in me. The Father is in the Son, the Son in the Father, as an equal in him to whom he is equal; whence he can also say: I and the Father are one. And he that seeth me seeth the Father also; and this is proper to him. But it is by participation a gift to man that he is said to be in God who contains him, and God in him, as in a vessel.

VERS. 41.-- And many came. These lay hold of him abiding, not as the wicked wished to lay hold of him departing. Because John, etc. He did none in Jerusalem such as this man did, and whatever he said bore witness to him, so that as by a lamp we might come to 399Athe day.

VERS. 1.-- Now there was. While he tarries beyond the Jordan, Lazarus falls sick, and the sisters send to him there. These sisters of Lazarus are a figure of the Jews already received into eternal blessedness, who for the healing of their brother, that is, for the rest still wandering in the darkness of ignorance, beseech the Lord out of their most familiar manner of acting. Lazarus was sick. Lazarus is a figure of the Jews who were weak in the faith of Christ: Martha and Mary signify the teaching of the good Jews.

VERS. 3.-- Behold, he whom thou lovest, etc. Lazarus, by whom the sinner is signified, who is loved by the Lord, because he came not to call the just but sinners. The sisters 399Bare the sinner's good thoughts, which pray for the loosing of his sins.

VERS. 4.-- For the glory of God, etc. That is, that the Son of God may be glorified. Behold, he calls himself God, against those who say that the Son of God is not God.

VERS. 5.-- He loved. The Saviour of the sick and the raiser of the dead loved Lazarus, because he was sick and dead.

VERS. 6.-- Two days. That the four days might be fulfilled. For on the first day, on which it was announced to him, the sick man died beyond the Jordan; for two days he remained: behold, three; but on the fourth day he came.

VERS. 7.-- Let us go into Judea. Mystically: it signifies that faith is to return to the Jews at the end through Elias and Enoch.

VERS. 8.-- The disciples say to him. Terrified, wishing 399Cto give counsel to their master that he should not die, as elsewhere Peter also: Far be it from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But as Peter is praised for what is another's: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because the Father hath revealed it to thee, he is blamed for what is his own: Go back behind me, Satan, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of man. [Vulg. Mt 16:23 Vade post me Satana, "Go behind me," and it adds scandalum es mihi, "thou art a scandal unto me"] So too he rebuked these, saying that he is the day in which they ought to walk lest they stumble, and that walking without him they stumble, as now unwilling that he should die who came to die for men. But he says that they are the hours which follow the day, not days, but the day enlightens them. Twelve is a consecrated number which remains complete: for when Judas was cast down, who did not shine among the hours, another is substituted.

VERS. 9.-- Are there not twelve hours. (HIER.) Christ is the day, and in another manner the apostles are the day, as Christ is, 399Detc., as far as they are understood to be the twelve apostles.

VERS. 15.-- That you may believe. Not that they should only now begin to believe, but that they might believe more robustly. For their faith was always increased by miracles.

VERS. 17.-- And he found. (AUG.) Mystically: there are four days of death. A man is born, etc., as far as but mercy does not leave behind even such as these.

VERS. 22.-- But now also I know. This I know, that thou canst raise him if thou wilt; which I leave to thy judgment. But I do not presume, nor do I ask that thou raise him, since I know not whether the resurrection be useful to be done.

VERS. 25.-- Yea, though he be dead. Jesus raised three dead men: one in the house, that is, in 400Athe heart; a second at the gate, that is, in the mouth; a third in the tomb, that is, in the deed and the habit of sinning. He shall live. As Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live, whose God he is called as of the living. The believer, though dead, lives, as the unbeliever, though living, is dead.

VERS. 28.-- Secretly. Because if the Jews had heard that she had been called by Jesus, she would not follow, and so they would not see the miracle. But because they thought that they were going to their brother's tomb, they followed. And calleth thee. By reason of brevity in Martha's words he shows what was not said before, that is, that the Lord had called Mary.

VERS. 31.-- They followed. The evangelist took care to relate this, that we might see what occasion brought it about that the resurrection of the man four days dead should have more witnesses.

400BVERS. 33.-- He groaned in the spirit. Note the power: he himself groaned and troubled himself, whom another could not trouble, as he took upon himself all things of this kind because he willed it. And it signifies how greatly a man ought to be troubled when pressed by so great a mass of sin. But when the sinner, reckoning what good things of God he has received and what evils he has rendered, groans in spirit and is troubled, Christ groans in him and is troubled, because faith concerning Christ is Christ in the heart. But faith groans in a man while he rebukes himself for his sins.

VERS. 34.-- Where have you laid him? He who though absent knew that he was dead knows also where he is buried; but speaking thus, he signifies that he as it were does not know the lost man; whence it is said: I know you not (Matth. VII). And: Where is Adam? (Gen. III.)

400CVERS. 38.-- Jesus therefore, etc. He shows the difficulty of the quickening of such a sinner. Now it was a cave. Morally: every sinner pressed by the mass of his sins and weighed down by his own law, and now stinking by his own evil habit, openly corrupts others by his bad example: the sisters are certain thoughts, because sometimes, thinking that he has done ill, he grieves.

VERS. 39.-- Lord, by this time he stinketh. She feared that, the stone being taken away, the stench would rather be stirred up than her brother raised.

VERS. 42.-- But for the people, etc. By these words he shows that he seeks the glory of the Father, as in his other works. For because according to his manhood he was less than the Father, he asks of him the raising of Lazarus, and therefore says that he was heard, and this for the sake of the bystanders, that they might so 400Dbelieve him the Son of God.

VERS. 43.-- With a loud voice. He groaned, he wept, he cried out, because he rises with difficulty whom the mass of an evil habit presses; but nevertheless after the great voice he rises, that is, by the great grace of God he is quickened while he repents.

VERS. 44.-- And forthwith he came forth. While the sinner despises, he lies buried; when he repents, he rises; when he confesses, he comes forth, as though going out of hiding into the open. Loose him. Christ by himself quickens within; to his ministers he grants the power of loosing.

VERS. 48.-- They will believe in him. And the Romans will come. And because they perceived that his teaching was against the temple and the laws of the fathers, they feared lest, if all should believe 401Ain Christ, none would remain who would defend the city of God and the temple against the Romans. And they will come to Rome. They fear for temporal things, not for eternal, and they lost both. Jerusalem is the place which they lost; they lost their own nation, scattered everywhere.

VERS. 51.-- This of himself. (AUG.) Note that even the wicked foretell things to come by the spirit of prophecy, etc., as far as which is not lawful save to the high priest, as is read of Zacharias.

VERS. 52.-- For the nation. Of the Jews, namely, in which there were sheep: this only did Caiphas [say]. But because the evangelist knew that there were other sheep, he added: But that he should gather together the children of God that were dispersed. Children by predestination, as also the sheep in Israel; for they were not yet, because 401Bthey had not yet believed.

VERS. 55.-- And it was nigh. The figural Pasch being at hand, in which the true Lamb is now to be immolated, there was counsel among the Jews concerning the killing of him, and he himself draws near to the place of the passion.

VERS. 1.-- He came into Bethania. Therefore he came first to Bethania, that the raising of Lazarus might be handed down more deeply to the memory of all, and that the Jews might be confounded as inexcusable, plotting the death of so great a raiser of the dead.

VERS. 3.-- Mary therefore. Precious ointment is made of nard, chiefly of the spikes; but here it is called pistic from the place whence it came. And it is interpreted "faithful," not corrupted by any other admixture. Then said one. Judas, although evil, 401Cis nevertheless numbered among the apostles, that we may be taught to bear with the evil, lest we divide the body of Christ, and that the evil do not harm the good.

VERS. 6.-- Not because, etc. As far as his own intention went, it did not pertain to him concerning the needy, because he did not care for them; not because it had been committed to him to dispense to the poor.

Having the purse, etc. He to whom the angels minister has purses for the expenses of the poor, condescending to the weak.

VERS. 7.-- Let her alone. He knows the thief, but does not betray him, teaching us to bear with the evil. He commends so great a service of Mary, showing that he was to die and to be anointed with spices for burial. Therefore to Mary, to whom it was not permitted to anoint him dead, it was given to bestow the office of a funeral upon him living; whence according to Mark it is said 401Dthat what she had, that is, what she could, this she did, she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial.

VERS. 8.-- But me you have not always. By bodily presence. Or you shall not have me, thou Judas and those who are of this sort, because if the evil now communicate in the sacraments, yet afterwards they do not have the Lord as the good do.

VERS. 9.-- And they came. Curiosity brought these, not charity. We on the contrary, if we know that Jesus has found the house of an obedient soul in which to dwell, let us come thither by contemplation, not only for the sake of the man whom we see raised in the soul, but that we may imitate the good life, and through this come to the vision of Jesus.

VERS. 10.-- They thought. Because they could not hide 402Aor deny the miracle, they foolishly wish to kill him, as though he who raised the dead man could not raise the slain.

VERS. 12.-- On the next day. Behold, the sheep out of Israel come to the shepherd. The branches are praises signifying the victory of him who was to overcome the devil and death.

VERS. 13.-- They cried out. (AUG.) Hosanna is the voice of one beseeching, indicating an affection rather than signifying any thing, like the interjections.

King of Israel. King, not after an earthly manner, which is a small thing, but because he rules, and leads both unto minds and unto the kingdoms of heaven, and is of mercy, not of indignation.

VERS. 15.-- Fear not, daughter. In the reprobate people there was a daughter of Sion, that is, Jerusalem, namely the sheep who devoutly run to meet him as he comes, to whom it is said by God: 402BAcknowledge him whom you praise, and fear not when he suffers who is your redemption. The colt on which no man had sat is the people of the Gentiles, which had not received the law of God.

VERS. 19.-- Behold, the whole. Through his passion and resurrection he redeemed the whole world, and it followed him. And what wonder if the world goes after him through whom the world was made?

VERS. 21.-- These therefore came. He shows the Gentiles converted through the preaching of the apostles.

VERS. 23.-- But Jesus. They were of the Jews who cried out: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; now the Gentiles seek to see him: behold, two walls meeting. And so the corner stone speaks. The hour is come that should be glorified. This is not a glorification concerning those who wish 402Cto see him, but on their occasion he announces the coming fulness of the Gentiles, when he has been glorified in heaven. But this height of glorification is preceded by the lowliness of the passion; whence: Amen, amen I say to you, etc. Where he calls himself the grain which must be mortified and multiplied; to which passion, having now exhorted them, he adds: He that loveth his life, etc.

Unless the grain of wheat. (AUG.) He himself is the wheat by which the faithful soul ought to live. The grain, from which the spiritual harvest ought to rise. Though there be many grains of seeds, he compares himself to none but wheat; whence the custom began in the Church that of this grain alone the body of the Lord is confected.

VERS. 25.-- He that loveth. (AUG.) He who loves in this life loses in the life to come what is more fitting; whence 402Dhe adds: He that hateth his life, etc. He does not love but hates his life in this world who, loving God, chooses rather to be slain than to sin against him.

VERS. 26.-- If any man minister to me. The price of the work by which he is ministered to is to be with him, without whom it is nowhere good to be, and with whom it is nowhere ill to be; whence he adds more openly, if any man minister to me.

VERS. 27.-- Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? The passion having been foretold, and the exhortation to it set beneath it, as though the voice of his own fortitude had been given, he adds the affection of our infirmity, which he truly took upon himself, but of his will, for us, lest we despair of this infirmity: in which also he teaches what we ought to say, and whither 403Ato flee. As if he should say: My soul is troubled; what shall I say? whither shall I flee? whom shall I call upon? in whom shall I hope? In the Father who saves, to whom I set forth my will, because for this cause, that I might suffer these things, I came unto this hour; whence also my glorification comes about thus, and in my members.

VERS. 28.-- Father, glorify. I seek salvation, but I do not refuse the passion; for which passion glorify me, which is the glory of thy name.

VERS. 30.-- This voice came not because of me. He shows that this voice did not declare to him what he knew, but to those to whom it had to be declared.

VERS. 31.-- Now is the judgment. Of discernment, namely, which is before the last judgment of damnation, because now, through the passion, the right of the devil being destroyed, many shall be set free; 403Bwhence, expounding it, he subjoins: I suffer, I am troubled, and through these things, etc. He shall be cast out. He shall be driven out from the redeemed; when the apostles preach he shall be fully driven out, who of old by few, even though a man be tempted without, does not hurt within.

VERS. 34.-- And how sayest thou, etc. How shall he die upon the cross? For they thought that he had said this which they were plotting to do. The Son of man. Because they held this in memory, that he had often said that he was the Son of man, not that he had said it here, if the Son of man shall be lifted up. Who is this Son of man? For if he is Christ, he abides for ever. If he abides for ever, how shall he be lifted up from the earth, that is, die upon the cross?

VERS. 35.-- Walk. That is, understand the whole: both that Christ was to die that he might redeem, and that he was to live for ever 403Cin heaven, whither he may lead you. Or, while you have Christ with you, lest the darkness of ignorance and of everlasting death seize upon you. He knoweth not whither he goeth. He who does not believe the death of Christ knows not whither he goes, but stumbles upon the rock of scandal, which is Christ, while the Jews despise and mock him as dead.

VERS. 36.-- Whilst you have the light. That is, while you understand something of the truth concerning the eternity of Christ, believe in the truth, adding what belongs to his lowliness, that you may be born again in the truth. From them. Not from those who had begun to believe, but from those who envied him. That he hid himself, he took counsel for our infirmity; he did not derogate from his own power.

VERS. 38.-- That the saying of Isaias might be fulfilled. Which must in all ways be fulfilled, yet not by a necessity of doing but by will; for God foreknew 403Dand foretold that they would not believe and would sin, yet he did not compel them to this, but foreknew and foretold that it would so come to pass.

VERS. 39.-- They could not. (AUG.) Not that men cannot be changed for the better, but that so long as they are such they cannot believe.

VERS. 43.-- The glory of God. Therefore the cross is fixed upon the forehead of believers, where the seat of shame is, that none may blush at the name of Christ, and may seek the glory of God rather than that of men.

VERS. 44.-- Jesus. Some not believing and others believing, whether openly with palms and praises, or in secret now that his passion drew near, Jesus cries out, who lay hid so long as the passion was not to be accomplished. 404AHe that believeth in me. Because he appeared as man, and God lay hid in the man, lest they should think him to be only that which they saw, he wills himself to be believed such and so great as the Father is.

VERS. 45.-- And he that seeth me seeth him also who, etc. So far is there no distance between me and him, that he who sees me sees him. This vision is not carnal but intellectual, with a clean heart. He that seeth me. He does not say, seeth not me, but him who sent me, as he said, he that believeth in me believeth not in me, but in him that sent me, because he said that, lest as he was seen he should be believed only the Son of man; but he said this, that he might be believed equal to the Father. Neither of these would another sent one say, that is, an apostle, because he is only a servant. But he can say other things common to the Son, as, he who hears or 404Breceives me hears and receives him who sent me, because the Lord is honoured in the servant, and the Father in the Son.

VERS. 46.-- I am the light. Of no other is it said: The light is come into the world, save of him who enlightens; the rest, as being enlightened, are light, because their life shines before men.

The word that I have spoken. He plainly says that he will judge on the last day, because he himself is the Word of the Father, who has spoken himself, has announced himself.

VERS. 49.-- A commandment. The Father did not give the commandment to the Son through an angel or any other creature. Nor a commandment which he had at some time not known: but while he begot the Word and the wisdom in which are all commandments, he gave it: as to the Son who is life, he gave life by that whereby he begot life, because by begetting life he gave 404Clife to be, which was without fault.

VERS. 50.-- And I know. Since he says that the commandment is life everlasting, and he himself is life everlasting, he openly says that he is the commandment of God. The things therefore that I speak, as the Father said to me, so I speak. To understanding minds, as the truth is born of the Father; but the truth so speaks within, without sound, as the Father said to him: that men might believe what they cannot yet understand, words sounded from the mouth of flesh, which, uttered and marked in letters, raise us in some measure to the truth itself.

VERS. 1.-- That he should pass. The evangelist interprets for us the name of the pasch, that is, a passing over, and its signification: because as they passed out of Egypt, so Christ out of 404Dthe world. So we also, marked with the blood of the Lamb, from vices to virtues, from the world to heaven. He loved them unto the end. Unto the end, that is, unto Christ who is the consummating end, that is, that by love of him they may pass whither he himself passes. Or unto the end, that is, unto death: not that his love is ended by death, but that he loved so far that love led him even unto death, wherein he gave an example that all should remain in the truth of God unto the end.

VERS. 2.-- And when supper was done. The supper signifies the passion. For as after supper there is no dinner, so also Christ, after he has once suffered, does not suffer again. He rises from supper; after the passion he lays aside his garments; according to his former infirmity he girded himself with a linen cloth, 405Ahis flesh being now immortal; he puts water into a basin, that is, the grace of baptism; he washes the feet and wipes them from sins in baptism; he took his garments, that is, the Jews at the end of the world, whom he had first laid aside as blinded.

VERS. 4.-- He riseth from supper. From that heavenly refreshment with which he was refreshed among the angels he lays aside his garments, the glory of eternal blessedness. And layeth aside his garments. He passed over his loftiness, being about to place his lowliness beneath it, that lowliness might be perfectly commended to man, since one so lofty humbled himself so far that he washed even the feet of the traitor.

VERS. 5.-- After that he putteth. He poured his blood upon the earth, that he might cleanse the steps of believers, which were soiled with earthly sins.

405BVERS. 8.-- Peter saith to him, etc. Because of the loftiness of the promised mystery he does not yet permit it to be done; he cannot yet endure that God be humbled at his feet, being struck through with dread. He answered. He who is not washed through baptism and the confession of penance has no part with Jesus.

VERS. 9.-- Simon saith to him. Peter's error here profited us. For he erred that we might not err. He erred when he offered his whole self to God to be washed, whom God corrected, showing that one once baptized is not to be baptized again.

VERS. 10.-- He that is washed. From these words we understand that the apostles were baptized, although we do not read where or when. He that is washed. He that is washed by baptism is clean. But because he is again soiled by the dust of his earthly dwelling, 405Cthere is again need to wash the feet, which the Lord washes by interceding for us, and we ourselves by praying. He also who in leisure studies the truth, while he goes to open to the bridegroom knocking in others, soils his feet, because the truth is heard humbly, but cannot be preached without danger; but these feet the Lord washes for his disciples.

VERS. 12.-- And when he had sat down, he said to them again: Know you what I have done to you? You call me, etc. As before by example, so now also by word the master of truth instructs them. And that he says great things of himself is not arrogance, but truth which profits the hearers, as Paul also does.

(GREG.) Incautious are the humble who ensnare themselves in a lie while they shun arrogance, because they set themselves against the truth which they forsake. For he who under compelling 405Dnecessity speaks true and good things of himself is joined so much the more to humility as he is allied to truth.

VERS. 18.-- I speak not of you all. You shall not all do that whereby you may be blessed; but he that eateth my bread, not that he may profit but that he may lie hid, shall lift up his heel against me, that is, shall tread upon me, that the Scripture may be fulfilled which foretold this, not that it compels, but because it did not keep silence concerning what was to be.

VERS. 19.-- From henceforth I tell you. As if he should say: Hitherto I have borne with him and kept silence, but now I mark the traitor before that is done which is soon to be done, so that when it has been done you may believe that I am he of whom that Scripture foretold.

VERS. 20.-- Amen, amen I say to you. After 406Ahe had by his own example taught them humiliation and the suffering of the heel, he subjoins an honour wherewith he may console them, that he himself and the Father are received in them.

VERS. 21.-- When Jesus had said these things Our infirmity was truly troubled in him, not his own power, as it also truly suffered. But he willingly took the trouble upon himself, lest the servant troubled by necessity should despair. And that he is troubled signifies that spiritual men are to be troubled out of charity, when an urgent cause is compelled to separate even the cockle from the wheat before the harvest.

VERS. 26.-- And when he had dipped the bread. The dipping of the bread signifies the feigning of Judas, who came to the supper a feigned friend. For the things that are dipped are not cleansed but stained. But if the dipping signifies something good, damnation not undeservedly 406Bfollowed one ungrateful to that same good. He gave it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, etc. Not, as some think, did Judas now receive the body of Christ. For it must be known that the Lord had already distributed to all the sacrament of his body and blood, among whom Judas also was; then by the dipped morsel the traitor himself is pointed out, etc.

VERS. 27.-- That which thou dost. He did not command, but he foretells evil to Judas, good to us, because he wills this to be done quickly, not so much hastening to that man's punishment as to the salvation of the faithful.

VERS. 29.-- Because he had the purse. In which the offerings were examined for the needs of their own and of others in want. Wherein a form is given to the Church of keeping what is necessary, which is bidden not to think of the morrow, lest it serve for earthly things, or through fear of want forsake 406Cjustice.

VERS. 30.-- And it was. The night befits the sacrament. For he who went out was a son of darkness, doing the works of darkness.

Now is the Son of man glorified. (AUG.) Judas going out, for whom it was said: You are not all clean, etc., as far as as though that were already done which is soon to be.

VERS. 33.-- Little children. (ID.) Because he had said that God would quickly glorify him, etc., as far as this cannot be taken so, because what follows would not agree.

Whither I go you cannot come. The apostles, not yet confirmed in spirit, could not now follow the Lord, that is, die for the Lord and for justice, or come to the immortal life to which he himself was going; but they were to follow afterwards. And how they might 406Dbe fit and go where he goes before, he teaches.

A new commandment I give. (AUG.) Not that this is not in the old law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, etc., as far as which love makes a man die to the world.

VERS. 34.-- That you love one another, as I have loved you. Let not that love of God be thought passed over which is in the love of the neighbour; for in the neighbour nothing is loved but God, as Christ also loves God in us; and not that we have this, but that we might have it, as a physician in a sick man loves not the disease but the health which he comes to give.

VERS. 36.-- Lord, whither, etc. Having heard "whither I go," and having understood the way by which he can follow, that is, love, 407APeter says that he is ready to follow. And because the Lord knew this mind of his, he said that he could not now, wherein he did not take away the hope of the future, but confirmed it. But thou shalt follow hereafter.

VERS. 37.-- My life. He presumes much who promises to lay down his life for him who had not yet given his life for Peter, as though he could go before.

(AUG.) Knowing his own will, but not his own strength, as a weak man he boasts of his will, but the physician looked upon his infirmity. The one promised, the other foreknew; and he who knew not was hearing, he who foreknew was teaching.

VERS. 38.-- The cock shall not crow, etc. Peter begins the threefold denial before the first cockcrow, but completes the whole of it before the second cockcrow.

• 407B

VERS. 1.-- Let not your heart be troubled, etc. (AUG.) But lest they should fear his death as a man's, and on that account be troubled, etc., as far as one glory of the moon, another glory of the stars.

VERS. 2.-- In the house, etc. The house of God, the temple of God, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is just men, among whom there are many differences one from another. And these are the mansions of that same house.

(AUG.) Just men are now the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, etc., as far as that what you were in hope, you may be in reality.

If otherwise, etc. That is, if I had not predestined a mansion, which is unfitting as regards God, who predestined all good things before all times, then I should only now be preparing, that is, predestining, 407Cwhich again is unfitting, as regards God's predestining anything in the present.

(ID.) He confirms that they are, because if they were not he would have said, I will go and will prepare, etc., as far as and this is the multitude of mansions.

VERS. 3.-- And if I shall go. (ID.) He went away by hiding, he came by appearing, but he remains by governing, that we may make progress by living well, and thus a place is prepared.

(ID.) The faith which does not see believes, for if it saw, etc., as far as the desire of love is the preparation of a mansion.

VERS. 4.-- And whither I go. This was said with respect to certain ones who knew both the Son and the Father. But Thomas, although he supposed himself not to know, is convicted by this, that he knew him, and knew both the way and the life, 407Dthat is, the Son and the Father. Of these who knew, it is subjoined: From henceforth you shall know him, known through me, and you have seen him in the heart, while you have seen me like to him in all things.

VERS. 5.-- Thomas saith to him, etc. He who does not lie said that they knew whither and by what way one goes; but Thomas says that they know neither, not knowing that they know; yet Christ convicts them of knowing, because if they knew him, and he is the way, they knew the way; and if they knew him, and he is the truth and the life, then they knew the truth and the life to which he goes: he therefore goes by himself as the way, to himself as truth and life, and to the Father, because he is one with the Father.

VERS. 7.-- If you had known me. Because he had said that none 408Acomes to the Father except through himself, who is inseparably the same with the Father, lest they should ask who the Father is, he shows that from himself, once known, the Father is known, which certain ones had not yet known, whom he reproves, saying: If you had known, etc. And you have seen him. As it is said of two things wholly alike: If you have seen this one, you have seen that one; they had therefore seen the Son as most like [him], but they had to be admonished to understand the Father also to be such a one, and not unlike.

VERS. 9.-- How sayest thou. And that, when he is wholly like. How sayest thou, etc. As if he should say: I see with what mind thou sayest it; thou dost not seek another like me, but thou thinkest [him] better. Of myself. Because I who speak am not of myself: he attributes to him what he does, of whom is he himself who does it.

408BVERS. 12.-- He that believeth in me. I and the Father work without difference. And whosoever believes in me (lest this should be taken of the apostles alone), the works that I do through myself, he also shall do, that is, I do in him or through him, and even greater ones. The works that I do. Not however of himself, but of me. The servant is not greater than his lord. For he himself [does] many things without them, they without him nothing, save sin.

Greater than these. (AUG.) Because if he himself [healed] by the hem of his garment, Peter healed by a shadow. Or his work, etc., as far as because if both are of equal power, this is of greater mercy.

VERS. 15.-- If you love me. How does he admonish them to love and to keep the commandments, that they may receive the Spirit, whom unless they have they cannot love and keep? But 408Cwhat they had in less measure, secretly, they were to receive more abundantly, openly, so that what they had might become known to them.

VERS. 16.-- And I will ask the Father. (THEOPH.) I will ask, that is, I will beseech the Father, and he will send you another Paraclete, etc., as far as that the Paraclete Spirit and his condescending grace may wholly come upon them, he says to them: I will ask the Father.

VERS. 17.-- Because it seeth him not, etc. The lovers of the world have not spiritual eyes wherewith they might see the Holy Spirit. Nor indeed can they see him with carnal eyes, because the Holy Spirit did not appear clothed in humanity. And in you. He shall be in you; he shall not abide in order to be, because to be somewhere is prior to abiding. Let no one therefore think that he so abides as a guest visibly with another; but in them he can be known, not by others.

408DVERS. 18.-- I will not leave. The Spirit shall not be given in my stead in such a way that I too am not with you. Orphani is Greek, pupilli is Latin.

VERS. 19.-- Yet a little while, and the world. But the world, which now sees with the eyes of the flesh, after a little while shall not see, because when raised again he did not show himself to them; but the whole time is little, and when it is ended the impious man shall be taken away, that he may not see the glory of God, which the just shall see. Because I live, and you shall live. He uses the present, because his resurrection is soon to be. Of those he uses the future, whose resurrection is to be at the end.

VERS. 20.-- And you in me, and I in you. This is so now, and is known after a fashion through faith; 409Abut then it shall be known through sight, when this conjunction shall be perfected which is now begun.

VERS. 21.-- He that hath, etc. Not only you apostles shall live and shall know, but also whosoever has [them] in memory and keeps [them] in life. Or, he has by doing, keeps by persevering. Or he who has [them] in his discourses keeps [them] in his manners. Or, he has by hearing, keeps by doing. And I will love him. To this end will I love him, that I may manifest [myself], because even now he loves, but not to this end, but rather that we may believe and keep the commandments, that we may deserve what we may afterwards receive. And I will manifest to him. He who has my commandment, he knows me, and this is [what stands] there: I will manifest myself to him. But he sets first the cause of the commandment, because he loves me; and he who loves me, my Father will love him, and because the Father [loves him], then I too will love 409Bhim, and thence comes the manifestation.

VERS. 22.-- Judas saith to him, etc. Having heard that the world will only see him, but that they themselves shall see, Judas, about to ask on behalf of all, asks the cause of this distinction. But this cause is, according to the Lord's answer, love, through which alone and through no other is the holy nation distinguished from the unholy.

VERS. 23.-- We will come to him. God comes to man, while man comes to God. Man comes by believing, obeying, beholding, receiving; God comes by succouring, enlightening, filling. And a mansion, etc. Charity makes [a man] dwell in the house in which the Father and the Son make a mansion, whence he will also give the manifestation concerning which that man had asked.

VERS. 25.-- These things have I spoken to you. These things concerning the mansion 409Cin those who love him, in which is signified the future spiritual Church, in which are the blessed, from whom he does not withdraw. Abiding with you. Here [is] the present bodily Church, in which he visits by delivering, and returns.

VERS. 26.-- The Paraclete. Although to console is the work of the Trinity, yet it pertains most of all to the person of the Holy Spirit, because in Scripture the Holy Spirit is designated by the name of goodness: through goodness therefore God consoles us, through it he bestows on us all his good things.

He you. Because even though the Son teaches us and reveals the Father, he does all this through his goodness. He shall teach you all things. He shall teach the things that I shall have said, not that the Son says and the Spirit teaches, because what he says and teaches, the Trinity itself also says and teaches. But because it is a Trinity, 409Dit behoves the single persons to be intimated, whom we ought to hear distinctly, to understand inseparably. When therefore we say, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, we do not say them at the same time, since they cannot be not at the same time.

VERS. 27.-- Peace I leave with you. Being about to go to the Father. Peace, etc. And repeating concerning the same. My peace I give. And this is what the Prophet says: Peace upon peace (Isa. XXVII). There is a peace in this world, abiding in which we conquer the enemy, love one another, and do not judge one another concerning hidden things. There will be a peace in the world to come when we shall reign without an enemy, where one will not be able to dissent from another, where all things are open and praise is to each one (I Cor. IV). But in him and from him is each peace. For he himself is our peace (Ephes. II), and we 410Abelieve him, because he is, and we shall see him as he is. Whence what he says, my, from the latter is to be understood also of the former. Or, the peace in this world is ours, which is some [peace] and not full; and from him in the world to come is his own peace, where nothing is repugnant, in the manner in which he himself has it.

Let it not be troubled. Because I leave you in peace, let not your heart be troubled at that which I said, I go, as though at the shepherd's absence the wolf invades; because as man I go, as God I am present.

VERS. 28.-- If you loved. (AUG.) This was to go to him, and to withdraw from us, etc., as far as that incorruptible dust might sit at the right hand of the Father.

You would rejoice, etc. Because human nature is to be congratulated, which is raised to the right hand of the Father, in whom the rest hope for the same for themselves.

410BVERS. 28.-- That you may believe. Not that you should have seen it done, because there is no praise or merit of faith; nay, faith is not even of that which, is seen, but of that which is not seen. But that you may believe me to be the Son of God, not with a new faith, because they had believed before also, but with a faith increased and restored, because even now, when he was saying these things, it was small, and when he was dying, none at all.

VERS. 30, 31.-- And in me, etc. The Lord would not have anything that he might lose; he came poor, lest the devil should have anything that he might take away.

VERS. 1.-- I am the true vine. And you ought to follow me as I go before to the passion, because I am the vine, that is, your head, of the same nature with you, that in me human nature may be able to bear fruit. 410CAnd the Father, etc. I too am the husbandman together with the Father, because I am the cleanser of the branches, which is the office of the husbandman, not of the vine, who also makes the branches workmen, though not out of what is their own, nor through them, but through myself.

VERS. 3.-- Because of the word, etc. He does not say: because of the water of baptism, because that also, without the word, is water only; through the word it becomes a sacrament.

VERS. 5.-- I am, etc. He who reckons that he bears fruit of himself is not in the vine. Whence, with a repetition and an explanation of what went before, he adds: I am the vine, you the branches. Cleaving to me as to a vine. He that abideth in me. And therefore whosoever (not you only) abides in me by believing, by obeying, by persevering. And I in him. By enlightening, by succouring, by giving perseverance. He beareth. And although according to the man Christ 410Dis the vine. yet he would not give this grace to the branches unless he were also God.

VERS. 6.-- If any one. Shoots that have been cut off are of less worth than other woods, because they are appointed to no uses but the fire; they are either in the vine or in the fire.

VERS. 7.-- And the words. The words of God are then said to abide in us, when we do the things he commands and love the things he promises. But he who does not do this touches, he does not cleave; and therefore they are not to him for a benefit but for a testimony of damnation. You shall ask. If a faithful man asks anything and it is not done, he does not ask that which the mansion in him has, nor that which his words which are in him have, but that which cupidity and the infirmity of the flesh have.

411AVERS. 8.-- In this is glorified, etc. He who abides in me bears much fruit, which is from the grace of God, and so it is his glory, not man's; and this is: In this, etc. That you bring forth very much fruit. Just as he shows not an equality of our nature and his, but the grace by which he is Mediator; for the Father loves us, but in the Son. That you may become. How? If you shall have loved me. From what love? From the observance of the precepts. If you shall have loved me as the Father loved me, not as much. For an equality is not noted, but a likeness giving them eternal eternity.

VERS. 11.-- That joy. The joy of God concerning us, whom he foreknew and predestined, is always full; in us it begins from faith, it grows, nay and shall be perfected in the resurrection.

VERS. 12.-- This is the commandment, etc. And above concerning 411Blove toward the neighbour; but repetition is confirmation: there, however, he says, I give a commandment, as though it had not been before; but here, this is, as though it were not another. There, New, lest we remain in oldness; here, Mine, lest it be contemned.

VERS. 13.-- Greater than this. He defines the fulness of mutual love which he commands them to have.

VERS. 15.-- Now I will not call. Love having been commended, he adds what belongs to condescension, that he should call good servants (who know by doing the things he commands) friends, and takes from them the name of servant, which is from fear, by casting it out, [the servant] who does not know what his Lord does. Because when he does anything, he is so exalted as though he himself did it, and not the lord.

411CVERS. 17.-- These things I command, etc. Here he shows what is the fruit of which he had spoken, for which the Father will also give what we ask, who gave this also, that we should love.

That you love one another. (AUG.) Deservedly does he often commend love, as though it alone were to be commanded, without which the rest cannot be, and which without the rest cannot be had. And for its sake we ought patiently to endure even all the adversities of the world. Whence he subjoins:

VERS. 18.-- If the world. By the name of the world sometimes the good, sometimes the evil are designated, because there is one mass which wholly perished in Adam, of which some are vessels unto honour, others unto contumely.

VERS. 19.-- The world what was its own. If an evil man punishes the crime of an evil man, in part the world hates what is its own; while it punishes, in part it loves, because an evil man favours 411Dthe evil.

VERS. 20.-- Of my word. This, namely: It is not. And of that above: Know ye, that it hath hated me before you. And he subjoins the cause: The servant is not greater, etc. Because by his own example (than which nothing else is better) he admonished them to bear the hatreds of the world, he subjoins why they ought, to imitate him in this, because he himself [is] Lord, they servants.

VERS. 22.-- If I had not come. Here he shows more expressly the Jews, to whom he came, of whom he had spoken the things above under the name of the world. And because he came to them, he here shows them inexcusable concerning all evils. An excuse, etc. Those to whom he did not come nor speak have an excuse, not concerning every sin, but concerning 412Athis, that they have not believed in Christ. But these, to whom he came and spoke in the apostles, are not excused. But the former, who have sinned without the law, shall perish without the law (Rom. II). Of sin. Because they do not believe me but hate me, and will persecute me in myself and in my own; but this sin against me redounds also upon the Father, because he who hates me hates my Father also. And what is most grievous, not only did I come and speak, but I did works, which, seeing, they hated both me and the Father.

VERS. 24.-- Which no man, etc. (AUG.) That he fed so many thousands from a few [loaves], that he walked upon the waters, etc., as far as and because he did it through himself, no one without him.

They hated, etc. The Jews say that they love God, and 412Byet, not knowing, they hate him, because those who wish to be evil do not wish there to be a truth by which they are condemned. And as they hate their own punishment, they hate the truth which inflicts the punishment, not knowing that he is the truth. And if they hate the truth, they hate him of whom the truth was born; and so, they hate the Father, not knowing that the truth was born of him.

VERS. 25.-- Because with hatred. He hates gratis who seeks no advantage from his hatred nor flees any disadvantage. So do the impious hate Christ. So do the just love gratis, not for the sake of anything else but for his own sake.

VERS. 26.-- But when. Now, seeing the works, they hate gratis both me and the Father. But when the Paraclete shall have come, he will convict by a more manifest testimony those who saw and hated; but some of them also, pricked 412Cfor so great a crime, he will convert. Whom I will send. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon a hundred and twenty men gathered together, with whom were all the apostles in the house where the supper had been. Who from the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but the Son is said to proceed from the Father, because he is wont to refer to the Father even what is his own, from whom he himself is. From whom therefore he has that he is, from him he has that the Spirit proceeds from him.

VERS 1.-- These things have I spoken, etc. After he had taught by his own example to bear hatreds, wherein they know what they ought to do but cannot, after he had also promised the Spirit by whom they will be able to resist, he adds also: These things have I spoken, etc. Which is an example concerning the Spirit who 412Dwill confirm them, so that, charity being thus poured forth in your hearts, there may be to you much peace and no stumbling-block.

VERS. 2.-- But the hour cometh. As if he should say: If, driven out by them, you gain so many for me (whereat you ought to rejoice), so that it is not enough for them to drive you out. But let them not suffer [you] to live, lest you gain all, so that you turn [them] away from Judaism, in which they believe the God of Israel and his holy things to be forsaken.

VERS. 4.-- But these things. After he had spoken of their sufferings to come and of the Spirit the comforter to be given them, he subjoins: These things I said not, etc. Which, if we take it of the sufferings, he had foretold them not only after the supper but also before the next Passover, and from the beginning of the sending of the twelve apostles; but concerning the consolation of the Spirit to come to them he had not foretold, because he himself 413Awith his bodily presence was their advocate or comforter; but because he is now about to go, it was needful that he should say that he would come who should confirm them against those who cast them out and killed them.

VERS. 5.-- I go to him. So openly that no one asks what he discerns by bodily sight; they saw him ascending in a cloud, certain of his glory, they who before, when the passion had been foretold, had asked: Lord, whither goest thou?

VERS. 7.-- For if, etc. Not that, placed on earth, he could not give him, but because they are not fit to receive him, unless they cease to know him according to the flesh.

But if. To your minds thus caught up to heavenly things the Spirit will be present, and together with him the Father and the Son. For, made spiritual out of carnal, they were to possess the Trinity more capaciously, as had been promised.

413BVERS. 8.-- He shall convince. Not that the Son does not convince, but because the Spirit will give them charity and will drive out fear, so that there may be to them a liberty of convincing.

(AUG.) He is convicted of sin who does not believe in Christ. He is convicted, etc., as far as lest they be judged along with the prince of the world whom, judged, they imitate.

And of justice. Not of its own, but of the justice of believers is the world convicted, by comparison with whom it is condemned. Whence he does not say: The world shall not see me, but You shall not see me, you apostles. Against the unfaithful who say, How shall we believe what we do not see? It is true justice to believe what is not seen, so that they who saw the man believed him God. And when through the ascension the form of the man was withdrawn from their sight, then in every part was fulfilled: The just liveth by faith.

413CVERS. 10.-- And now, etc. That is, never shall you see me such as now, that is, mortal, to be judged, but glorified, a judge. And this is the justice of faith, concerning which the Apostle: And if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no longer (II Cor. V), which, because the world will not receive it from these men, it is convicted.

VERS. 11.-- Of judgment. Because if they follow him who is condemned they are condemned with him; and lest they should believe themselves to be spared, they are terrified by the punishment of that proud one.

VERS. 13.-- All truth, etc. He promises what the Spirit is to do wholly, not that in this life the whole be accomplished.

Of himself, etc. (AUG.) Because he is not of himself, because the Father alone, etc., as far as he always knew, knows 413Dand will know.

VERS. 14.-- He shall glorify me. Because by making you spiritual he will declare how the Son is equal to the Father, whom according to the flesh, as a man, they had known; or, by taking away fear, he will make you announce my glory to the whole world, which glory profits not me, but men.

Of mine. Not that the Spirit is less than the Son. But why he said this, he explains: All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Therefore I said that he shall receive of mine. Therefore the Spirit receives from the Father, whence the Son receives, because in this Trinity the Son is born of the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father. But he who is born of none and proceeds from none is the Father alone.

414AVERS. 15.-- All things, etc. (AUG.) Christ speaks concerning the Spirit. The Spirit of the Father, etc., as far as so openly is it shown that the Spirit is of the Father and of the Son.

VERS. 16.-- A little while. That is, a small time remains until this, that I suffer and be shut in the sepulchre, and again a small time until you see me raised up. Or it is a small time, that is, the three days in which, shut in, I shall not see. And again a small [time], that is, forty days, in which, raised up, I shall be seen. Because I go. This is because it is time that, mortality laid aside, I should bring human nature into the heavens.

VERS. 20.-- Because you shall lament. When I have been slain, over which the enemies will rejoice. In like manner all good men lament amid the hardships of this world; but the lovers of the world rejoice. But the good are compared to a woman in travail who has brought forth in 414Bchildbirth; but she is glad over the fruit, and rejoices more over the coming of the offspring to be than she is sad over the present pain.

VERS. 23.-- If you shall ask anything. (AUG.) Thus indeed is that to be understood which he says, he will give you: that those benefits are to be known as signified which properly pertain to those who ask. For the saints are heard for themselves, but not for all others, whether friends or enemies.

He will give you. In the world to come you shall not ask, but now ask, and there shall be given you what pertains to you, even if not to all those for whom you ask; and therefore it is said, to you.

VERS. 25.-- These things in proverbs. The things I have said thus far I have said as it were in proverbs (which men are wont to hear but not to understand), because you are natural men. But the natural 414Cman who perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God (I Joan. I) [Vulg. 1 Cor 2:14 reads Animalis autem homo non percipit ea quae sunt Spiritus Dei, "the natural man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God"; Migne prints a relative where the received text has the subject noun and the finite verb]. Whatsoever things are said of an incorporeal and unchangeable substance, he holds as it were for proverbs. But the hour cometh. In which, the Spirit being given, I will make you spiritual, so that with the most certain understanding of the mind (though not as in the world to come) you may see God; and then I will announce openly concerning the Father, so that you may understand him and me to be of the same substance; and then, Ask in my name. Because then you will truly know and understand that if as man I ask the Father, as God I hear together with the Father; whence he says: And I say not to you, that I will ask the Father.

VERS. 27.-- For he himself. The Father loves us because we love the Son, since from the Father and the Son we have received that we should love the Father and the Son: charity having been given through the Spirit, 414Dwhom we also ourselves love together with the Father and the Son, he who loves first works in us that he be loved.

VERS. 28.-- Again I leave the world. He left the world by bodily presence. He goes to the Father, because he led manhood into the invisible things of the paternal majesty. He left the world, because he took away from the sight of the lovers of the world what they had seen. He returns to the fatherland, because he taught his lovers that he is to be believed equal to the Father.

VERS. 29.-- His disciples say to him. Since the hour which he promised had not yet come: Behold, now he speaketh plainly [Vulg. Jo 16:29 has loqueris, "now thou speakest plainly"; the disciples' address in the second person]. Those things which the Lord knows to be proverbs to men who do not understand: they to such a degree do not understand [nobis, "for us"; read non -- Augustine, Tract. in Ioh. 103, illi usque adeo non intelligunt], that they do not even understand that they do not understand. Admonishing them concerning which 415Ainfirmity of theirs, he answered: Now you believe, etc.

VERS. 30.-- Now we know that thou knowest all things. They show openly that, speaking of them, he was chiefly treating the things which it delighted them to hear; and the things which they themselves wished to ask, these he himself, anticipating, brought forward of his own accord; and therefore, because he knew their thoughts, they confess that he knows all things, as God and the Son of God. And thou needest not, etc. Since thou knowest all things, there is no need that thou shouldst question anyone from whom thou mightest know anything. Or even that thou shouldst be questioned by anyone, foreknowing what that man wishes. But if he ever questioned or was questioned, there was need not for them, but for others.

VERS. 31.-- Now you believe. As little ones, to whom whatsoever lofty things are still proverbs, you believe; but there comes 415Bthe hour of the passion, and now it is near, in which you will be so troubled that what you now believe you will forsake, not only in body, but even in the faith of the mind; whence: We hoped that he would have redeemed Israel.

VERS. 32.-- And I am not, etc. Behold, they have made progress, but he wishes them to be stretched out to something greater, so that when they shall have said: Thou camest forth from God, he may say: The Father is with me, lest they should so think him to have gone forth from God as to think that he had also withdrawn. Because the Father is with me. He had said, I leave the world and I go to the Father, now he says: The Father is with me, which to one who understands is a word, to one who does not understand a proverb. To whom, if it is not food, it is nevertheless the nourishment of milk. From which it comes that they knew him to know all things.

415CVERS. 1.-- These things spoke. Not only the things [said] at the supper, but also those from the beginning. But chiefly he says that the things at the supper were said for this cause, that in him they might have peace. This is the peace for which we are Christians, for which we are steeped in the sacraments, for which we are instructed in every way, for which we have received the Spirit as a pledge, for which we believe in him and hope, and are kindled with love of him. This is consolation in afflictions and deliverance. Father, the hour is come. He could have prayed in silence, but in praying he is also a teacher, and makes his prayer known, which is the edification both of those present and of those to come. The hour is come. Not with fate urging, but with God disposing, who without time ordained all the things that come to pass through times in a fitting order. Glorify thy Son. Humility began in the passion, glory in the resurrection. The hour of the passion is come, 415Dthe hour of sowing humility; do not defer the glory of the resurrection, that thy Son may glorify thee. And thus the glory of the Father can neither be increased nor diminished in itself. Among men it was less while he was known in Judaea alone, but through the resurrection of the Son he became known everywhere. That thy Son may glorify thee. In the knowledge of men, as thou hast given, as far as that they may know thee, and him whom thou hast sent. For the Father cannot be glorified in the knowledge of man unless he be known through whom he is glorified, that is, unless the people become known; and this is the glorification of the Father, which is not about the apostles alone but also about all believers.

VERS. 3.-- And this is, etc. The order [is], That they may know thee, and him whom thou hast sent, that is, Christ with the Spirit, 416Awho is of both, to be the one and only true God. If therefore the Son glorifies thee in that manner in which thou hast given him power over every creature, and hast so given it, that all that thou hast given him, he may give them life everlasting: And this is life everlasting, that they may know thee. So therefore does the Son glorify thee, that he may make thee known to all whom thou hast given him. That they may know thee. What is here from the Father, in the world to come will be fully. He therefore who advances in knowledge tends the more to live. But when knowledge shall be full, there will be praise without end. And this is that glorification; but first he is glorified here, while he becomes known to the faithful; whence: I have glorified thee upon earth.

VERS. 4.-- I have finished the work. That is, as if he said openly of what is to come, I will glorify [thee], by preaching to the Gentiles. I will finish the work, because it is already done by predestination; 416Band what most certainly is to be is to be held as already done. This predestination he opens more manifestly in his own glorification, saying: Which I had with thee before the world was; that is, as I then had it with thee in predestination before the times, so now in reality make it in the world in time. Thou hast given me, etc. Wherein grace is noted. For he has nothing in the man which he has not received.

VERS. 5.-- To men. All these things can be said of all the faithful who are to be. And this is that glorification by which the Son, being glorified, glorifies the Father upon earth, according to which the past stands for the future.

VERS. 6.-- They were thine. (AUG.) These were the Father's, as all things are, etc., as far as because he was not yet man.

VERS. 7.-- They have known. Lest the knowledge 416Cshould be thought already made through sight, he adds: They have believed truly; not in that manner in which it was when he said, Now you believe, the hour cometh that you be scattered. But not even yet were they such; rather he foretells what they will be when the Spirit has been received, without whom they did not even keep the word which he had spoken.

VERS. 9.-- I pray for them. The first prayer was: Glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify thee, and he pursued these things and concluded in the faith of believers. Now he prays for them, that the Father may keep those whom he himself has left in body.

VERS. 10.-- And all mine. For the Father did not lose because he gave to the Son, since the Son further adds: All mine thine and thine mine are. Of the only-begotten Son are all the things that are the Father's, through this, that he himself is also God, and, being also born of the Father, is equal to the Father.

416DVERS. 11.-- Keep them. That they may be one in their own nature, as we also in ours are one; and therefore he does not say, that they may be one with us, or that we and they may be one as we are one, because they are not of the same nature with God, as the Son, according to that which he is God, is one with the Father.

VERS. 12.-- When I was. We ought not to understand that the Father and the Son keep alternately, as it were the one after the other. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is one God, keep together. But Scripture does not lift us up unless it comes down to us. When it speaks thus, let us understand that we are to distinguish the persons, not to separate the nature. The joy which he expressed above, that they may be one as we also, this is that peace and blessedness in 417Athe world to come, for the sake of which all things are done, for the sake of which he says that he has spoken in the world.

VERS. 17.-- Sanctify. As from thy grace the sanctification was begun through which they are now not of the world, by the same grace make them holier, that they may persevere in the truth, of which the ancient sanctifications were a shadow; that is, in me who am the truth, which he opens by subjoining: Thy word is truth, which is, I am the truth. In Greek λόγος, in Latin verbum or sermo, who is the only-begotten of the Father.

VERS. 19.-- And for them I sanctify. [Vulg. Jo 17:19 has the future sanctificabo, "I will sanctify"; the gloss that follows expounds the future.] That is, that it may profit for them, I will sanctify myself as man in myself the Word, which is from the beginning of his Incarnation, when the Word was made flesh. And it profits them in this way, because I also sanctify in myself those who are I, since head and body are one Christ, 417Bwhence he adds: that they also may be, as I am, sanctified in truth and in me.

VERS. 20.-- Not for them. He now begins not concerning the apostles alone, or concerning the other members: but he does not pray for those who have already died in his faith, but for those who are in temptations. But also for those who. Even unto the end of the world, or [those who] already believe wherever they are, yet not so perfectly as they are to believe afterwards after the resurrection. Through the word. Through the word of the Gospel, which is theirs, not that it was preached through them only, but also through Paul and any others whatever, but because it was committed to them first and principally to be preached. This is the word of faith, the word of God, through which the thief believed, Paul believed, and whosoever believes.

417CVERS. 21.-- That all may be one. He does not say, We all are one, but that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me and I in thee, understand, we are one: so also the Father [is] in the Son and the Son in the Father, that they may be one, because of one substance. But we can be in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Or the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit can be in us; yet we cannot be one with God, because we are not of one substance. But God is in us as in a temple, we in him as a creature in the Creator. That they also. He says, in us, that what they are one by faith and charity they may ascribe to the grace of God, but that now light in the Lord.

That the world. The world is here taken for all those who are one. Nor does this, that they are, make a cause that they should believe, because rather by believing they are one; although 417Dthey were one by nature, yet by dissenting from the One they were not one; but by praying he said that the world may believe, as by praying he said that all may be one, as if a third time it should be understood, I pray that the world may believe.

VERS. 24.-- Whom thou hast given. That is, thou hast drawn them to me, so I also have chosen them out of the world: others are not given to him, are not his, although the power over all be his. I will. What the Almighty wills cannot fail to be done; but that is the will of the man, concerning which he says: Not as I will (Matth. XXVI). That they may see. When they shall have seen him, in the form of a servant made glorious, judging the good and the evil, the impious shall be taken away, that he may not see the glory of God whereby God is, which the clean of heart alone shall see, which will be to them life everlasting.

418AVERS. 26.-- That the love. The love with which the Father loves the Son is in all the just, because they are his members and are loved in him who is wholly loved; therefore he subjoins: And I am in them. As if he should say: Because I am in them, he is in us in one way, as in a temple, we in him in another way; because we are he, since according to the man we are the body of his head.

VERS. 1.-- Where there was. He is taken in a garden, that he might blot out the sin committed in the garden of delights; and into that garden, passing over the torrent of this world, he led his disciples in.

VERS. 3.-- A cohort. Not of the Jews, but of soldiers from the governor, the order of lawful power being preserved, so that 418Bwhile they held him none might dare to resist; or even if any should dare, he could not prevail against so many. He came thither. He is betrayed by night, that he might be found without the crowds, which in the daytime were often present.

VERS. 5.-- I am he. By this one word he who was to die laid low so many fierce and strong men, by the power of the Godhead lying hidden: because he willed indeed to be seized, but not save when he willed.

VERS. 6.-- They went backward and fell to the ground. So now Christ says everywhere through the Gospel, I am he, and the Jews, awaiting Antichrist, go backward and fall into the earthly things which they love.

VERS. 8.-- Let these go their way. (AUG.) They do what he commands; they let those go whom he wills not to perish: not but that they should die afterwards, but because they did not yet believe 418Cas those believe who do not perish.

VERS. 11.-- Put up. As if he said: Let vengeance rest. Otherwise: Turn thy sword into its own place, that is, turn the word of preaching to the Gentiles, where, according to Paul, a door open and great may be found. Otherwise, after the fulness shall have come in, he says to Peter, by whom the whole order of preachers is designated: Send the word of preaching to Israel. For all that shall take the sword shall perish by the sword (Matth. XXVI). By what sword? By that fiery one which is turned before paradise: and by the sword of the spirit, which is written of in the armour of God.

VERS. 12.-- And the cohort. It was the custom with the Jews that 418Dwhomsoever they judged worthy of death they delivered bound to the governor.

VERS. 13.-- And they led him away. There were at that time two chief priests (as Luke says), Annas and Caiphas, who held their years by turns. But then it was the year of Caiphas, and by his will Jesus was first led to Annas, not because he was his colleague but because he was his father-in-law. Or the houses were so placed that Annas ought not to be passed by by those going by.

VERS. 15.-- And another disciple. Who this may be, since it is here kept silent, let it not be rashly determined. Yet this John is accustomed so to signify himself.

VERS. 17.-- He saith: I am not. (AUG.) Not only does he deny Christ who says that he is not the Christ, but he also who denies that he is a Christian; and 419Aso is fulfilled that which the Lord said: Thou shalt deny me thrice (Matth. XXVI).

VERS. 21.-- Why askest thou me? That is, from whom thou desirest not to hear the truth. Ask rather those of whose sayings thou mayest have no ill-will. So he tempers his answer that he neither kept the truth silent, nor seemed to be defending himself.

VERS. 22.-- And when he had said these things. It is objected, why he did not do what he taught. He ought not to have answered thus, but to have offered the other cheek. But he answered truthfully and meekly and justly, and made ready for the smiter not his cheek only, but his whole body. And hence he rather showed that the precepts of patience are to be fulfilled not by an ostentation of the body, but by a preparation of the heart; for a man can offer his cheek visibly and be angry. Better, therefore, does he answer 419Bwho is truly appeased, and with a tranquil mind ready to bear heavier things.

VERS. 23.-- If I have spoken ill. He speaks ill who speaks against the truth. If I have spoken ill, give testimony whereby thou mayest prove me a liar.

VERS. 25.-- And there was. (AUG.) Having said that Annas sent Jesus to Caiphas, he returns to the place of the narrative where he had left Peter, that he may unfold what had befallen in the house of Annas concerning Peter's threefold denial.

VERS. 28.-- Into the hall. That is, where Pilate the governor dwelt. But if to Caiphas, how into the hall? perhaps, some cause pressing, both had come together from the house of Annas to hear Jesus. 419CCaiphas went on to the governor's hall, and left Jesus to his father-in-law to be heard; or in the house of Caiphas Pilate had taken his hall, and the house was so great that the master dwelt apart and Pilate apart. That they might not be defiled. Because in the days of unleavened bread it was a defilement to them to enter into the dwelling of a stranger.

VERS. 31.-- It is not lawful for us, etc. This they say because of the holiness of the feast day. For the law commands that they spare not evildoers, especially such as seduce men from their God, which they said this man was; and they speak against themselves, because they were killing him whom they were offering up to be killed, as Pilate also killed, yet not with his own hands. When Pilate wished to deliver Jesus to the Jews, that according to their own law they might judge him, 419Dthey refused to receive him, saying: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; and so is fulfilled the word of Jesus which he foretold concerning his own death, that, being delivered up by the Jews, the Gentiles should kill him, as though they were thus strangers to the crime who sin the more; wherein not their innocence but their madness is shown.

VERS. 34.-- Sayest thou this of thyself, etc. Jesus knows what he himself asks and what the other will answer, but yet he willed it to be said, not that he might know, but that what he willed to know might be written.

VERS. 35.-- What hast thou done. As if: If this be no fault, that thou hast called thyself king, what else hast thou done? As if: it is no wonder if thou art delivered to a judge to be punished, thou who callest thyself king. But if this were not the cause, then 420Aperhaps another must be sought; as if: confirm whether this be the cause which is objected, or another.

VERS. 36.-- A kingdom. This is what he willed us to know; but first, by asking in his turn, he willed to show what was the opinion of men concerning his kingdom, of Jews or of Gentiles; and this being shown, he answers more fitly to both: My kingdom is not of this world. As if: ye are deceived; for I hinder not your dominion in this world, that ye may not vainly fear and be in servitude, but to come by believing to the heavenly kingdom.

VERS. 37.-- Thou sayest. He fears not to confess himself a king, but it is so set free that he neither denies himself a king, nor confesses himself to be of the world, as he supposed who said: Art thou a king then? To whom he answered: 420BThou sayest that I am a king. As if he should say, being carnal thou speakest carnally.

VERS. 38.-- Again. He waits not for an answer, lest, when he wished to release him, there should be delay; for suddenly there came into his mind the custom whereby one might be released at the Pasch.

VERS. 39.-- But there is. Because at the Pasch they were freed from servitude, at the Pasch this custom of releasing was theirs.

VERS. 40.-- Now Barabbas was a robber. That is, son of a master, that is, of the devil, who was a master to the robber in his crime, to the Jews in their treachery. Or Barabbas, that is, son of the father, that is, of the devil.

420CVERS. 1.-- Then therefore. This Pilate did, that is, he permitted the soldiers to do it, or even commanded it, that the Jews, being sated with the punishments, might desist from his death.

VERS. 2.-- They put on a crown of thorns. In the crown of thorns is marked the taking up of our sins, for which he willed to become mortal. Whence the forerunner: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sins of the world. [Vulg. Jo. 1:29 has the singular, "the sin of the world"] For thorns are set down in the signification of sins. Whence the Lord: Thy earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles (Gen. III). [Vulg. Gen. 3:18 has no "thy earth," and reads "shall bring forth thorns and thistles to thee"] That is, thy conscience shall not cease to bring forth prickings and the stings of vices.

VERS. 4.-- He went forth therefore. Behold, there are fulfilled the things which Jesus had foretold of himself by his hidden power; his patience is commended, by which the martyrs are formed.

420DVERS. 5.-- And he saith to them. Here it appears that these things were done by the soldiers not without Pilate's knowledge, whether he commanded or permitted them, that, the Jews being sated, these things might suffice; but they burn the more and cry out: Crucify, crucify.

VERS. 7.-- The Son of God. Behold another and greater ill-will, because the unlawful aspiring to a kingdom seemed a small thing; and yet Christ was truly both, both king and Son of God.

VERS. 9.-- But Jesus. Here and in other places Christ is read to have kept silence, that the prophecy might be fulfilled: As a lamb before his shearer, without voice, so he opened not his mouth (Isa. LIII). [Vulg. Isa. 53:7 reads "and as a lamb before his shearer shall be dumb, and he shall not open his mouth"; the wording printed here is that of Act. 8:32] Which likeness is taken from the lamb, that in his silence he may be held not guilty but innocent. 421AFor he is not convicted as one conscious of guilt, but as a meek one he is sacrificed for others.

VERS. 12.-- And from thenceforth. That is, from this cause, lest he should have the sin of slaying an innocent man (and if less so to those envious men), he sought to release him: not that he then first sought it, but if before he wished it, now he sought it.

If thou release this man, thou art not a friend. Above they set forth the law, according to which he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God: but because that man fears not the law of a foreign nation, and rather fears to slay the Son of God, they frighten him with Caesar, whom he cannot despise as the author of his own power.

VERS. 14.-- And it was the parasceve. (AUG.) Parasceve, which is interpreted preparation, etc., down 421Bto and the same is the sixth of the preparation.

VERS. 15.-- Shall I crucify your king? Still he tries to overcome the terror which they press upon him concerning Caesar, saying: Shall I crucify your king? Wishing to break them by their own shame, whom by the shame of Christ he could not soften.

VERS. 16.-- Then therefore. Because they openly declare that Caesar is against him if he wish to press another king upon them, by releasing unpunished the man whom on account of these presumptions they had delivered to be slain. Overcome therefore by fear, he delivered Jesus to them that he might be crucified. He delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. To them: not that they should themselves take him with their hands, who above had excused themselves from this, but that they may be seen implicated in the crime from which they try to be strangers, since Pilate did this for none but them; 421Cwhence he does not say that they should crucify him, but that he should be crucified by the judgment and power of Pilate.

VERS. 17.-- Bearing. Jesus was bearing his own cross. A great mockery to the impious, a great mystery to the pious who glory in it, as in the sceptre of a kingdom; and the cross is the candlestick of the lamp which was not to be placed under a bushel. First the Lord bears the cross, because he suffered first; afterwards it was laid upon Simon of Cyrene, because we ought to follow in his steps.

VERS. 18.-- And with him. The robber who remained in unbelief signifies the Jews; he who confesses signifies the Gentiles.

VERS. 19.-- And it was written. These three tongues were eminent above the rest: Hebrew, because of the Jews glorying in the law 421Dof God; Greek, because of the wise men of the nations; Latin, because of the Romans, who then ruled over almost all nations.

VERS. 23.-- The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified him. Behold what things were done beside the cross, when he was now crucified.

Four. The fourfold garment signifies the Church spread through the whole world, which consists of four parts, distributed equally to all its parts, that is, harmoniously. The tunic assigned by lot signifies the unity of all the parts, which is held together by the bond of charity. From above. Because charity is eminent above all things throughout the whole, because no one is without it who is seen to belong to the whole; from which whole, as the Greek 422Atongue indicates, the Church is called catholic, which in the lot is commended by the grace of God.

VERS. 26.-- When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved. He who, being about to do divine things, as it were repelled his mother as one unknown, now shows that the hour has come which he then foretold, in which he acknowledges her of whom he had been mortally born. And he teaches that care is to be bestowed by dutiful sons upon their parents; whence the Apostle also: If any man have not care of his own, he denieth the faith (I Tim. V), etc.

VERS. 27.-- And from that hour the disciple took her. Who, although he had now nothing of his own, had received a hundredfold in that fellowship where all things were common, having nothing and possessing all things.

• 422B

VERS. 4.-- And they ran. John signifies the Synagogue, which came first to the tomb but did not enter, because she heard the prophecies concerning the incarnation and the passion, but refused to believe him even dead. Peter signifies the Church, which knew him dead in the flesh and believed him living God; after whom she too, in Judaea, will enter at the end.

VERS. 7.-- It is separated. Because the sacraments of the Godhead are incomprehensible and set far from the knowledge of our weakness. In a thing wrapped up, neither end nor beginning is seen. So the loftiness of the Godhead neither began to be, nor ceases. Into one place. Because God is not in the sundering of minds, but in unity. Or, the napkin of the head is the passion of Christ, whose sacraments are hidden 422Capart from unbelievers, because it is far from ours, because he suffered willingly and without fault, we unwillingly and with fault.

VERS. 9.-- For as yet. That is, to such a degree that, although it was openly said by the Lord himself, because of their custom of hearing parables from him, they did not understand.

VERS. 11.-- Weeping. She now weeps more for him taken away than for him slain, because of so great a master, whose life had been taken from her, not even the memory remained, and this grief held her there. While therefore, etc. Although she knew that he was not there, yet because she grieves too much, she gave no thought either to her own eyes or to the eyes of those two who believed. Or rather this was done by divine prompting.

VERS. 12.-- She saw two. The angels, that is, messengers, signify 422Dthat the Gospel of Christ is to be announced from the head even to the feet, that is, from the beginning even to the end. And he was to be announced from his passion, because he is God before the ages, and man at the end of the age. The angel therefore sits at the head when he says: In the beginning was the Word. At the feet, when he says: The Word was made flesh. Or the two angels are the two Testaments, the one former, the other following. Joined together, while with equal sense they announce him incarnate, dead, raised again.

VERS. 13.-- Why weepest thou? As if he should say: Sin not [peccare; read plorare, "Do not weep" -- the next sentence says what is forbidden is her tears]. They forbid her tears, in a manner announcing joy. But she, thinking that they asked as not knowing, brings forth the cause of her tears: Because they have taken away my Lord, that is, the body of my Lord.

423AVERS. 14.-- And she knew not that it was Jesus, etc. Because she had her back toward him whom she believed not to have risen; because she loved and doubted, she saw and did not know him.

VERS. 15.-- Whom seekest thou? She, thinking that it was the gardener, saith to him. Not that he doubted whom she was seeking, but because she knows not whom she seeks; for she seeks not Christ, but him whom she thinks carried off. Lord. Him whom she thinks a gardener she calls Lord, that she might honour the man of whom she was asking a kindness. Nor does she call him Lord in the same way as she calls him whom she seeks as taken away. But recognizing Jesus she calls him master, because she calls to mind him from whom she was learning to distinguish things human and divine. If thou hast taken him away. She does not say whom, because the force of love works this in the mind, that of him whom she always thinks she believes 423Bno other to be ignorant.

VERS. 16.-- Mary. She turning saith to him: Rabboni, which is to say master. Jesus saith to her. After he had called her by the common name, and was not recognized, he calls her by her name, as if he should say, Know again him by whom thou art known again.

VERS. 18.-- Mary of Magdalene came announcing to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, etc. There the fault is cut off undet it proceeded. A woman gave death to a man to drink; now a woman announces life to men; and she who then [told] the words of the serpent now relates the words of the Life-giver; as if God should say by the very facts: From what hand the draught of death was brought in, from that same hand receive ye the draught of life.

VERS. 19.-- When therefore, etc. This was done on the very day of the resurrection, on which Jesus appeared five times. 423CFirst to Mary Magdalene, secondly to the same woman running with the others who wished to announce it to the disciples, thirdly to Peter, fourthly to Cleophas and his companion, fifthly to the disciples, the doors being shut, the two aforesaid having now returned.

VERS. 20.-- He shewed them his hands and his side. After the resurrection the Lord showed in his body two contrary things: both what was palpable, of the same nature, that he might form them to faith, and what was incorruptible, of another glory, that he might invite them to the reward.

VERS. 21.-- He said therefore to them again. Peace be to you, etc. He offers peace, who came for the sake of peace; he repeats it, that he may show that through his blood the things that are in heaven and the things that are on earth have been made peaceful.

VERS. 22.-- Receive ye the Holy Ghost. (AUG.) On earth the spirit is given that the neighbour may be loved; from heaven 423Dthe Spirit is given that God may be loved.

VERS. 23.-- Whose sins you shall forgive. Behold charity, which is poured into their hearts through the Holy Ghost. He forgives the sins of those who are partakers of him; of those who are not, he retains them. And therefore after he had said: Receive ye the Holy Ghost, he immediately subjoined: Whose sins you shall forgive.

VERS. 24.-- Now Thomas, one. Not by chance, but by divine disposition was Thomas absent, and he did not believe what he heard; whence the Lord offered himself to him to be handled, because by his doubting, and by the proof made to him, it is now left to no one to doubt. Who is called Didymus. Didymus, that is, twin, because Thomas is doubtful; that is, an abyss: because by doubting he knew more deeply.

424AVERS. 28.-- He answered. He was seeing and touching the man, and above this he believed him God, doubt being now removed, and he confessed him whom he did not see.

VERS. 29.-- Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed. He does not say, thou hast touched, but, thou hast seen: because sight is in a manner the general sense, which is wont to be said of the other four. Perhaps he did not dare to touch; but by looking only, or even by touching, he believes.

Blessed. He commends the faith of the Gentiles, but he uses the past tense, as one who knew that what was to come was already done in his own predestination.

VERS. 1.-- Afterwards he manifested. Having left all things they had followed Jesus. But if after the death of Jesus, before 424Bhe was restored to them alive, they had taken up their former craft again, they might seem to have done this out of despair; but after he was restored alive, after they had received the spirit of his breathing, after his words: As the Father hath sent me, I also send you, suddenly they become what they had been, fishers, not of men but of fishes. But it is to be known that they were not forbidden to seek their living by their own lawful craft, the integrity of the apostolate being preserved, since they had not whereof to live; and so, as they laboured, God added the necessary things which he had promised; but here their want was disposed, that in the fishing such great sacraments might be displayed.

VERS. 14.-- This now. Not that he was manifested only three times, but he refers it to the days: on the first day, on which he rose again; after eight days; on this day, when he did this concerning 424Cthe fishes. The manifestations therefore are numbered according to the days. The first, however often it was made, on the one day of the resurrection. The second, after eight days; and this is the third. In this third manifestation this Gospel is ended.

VERS. 15.-- When therefore they had dined. Jesus knows what he asks, whether he loves more; Peter says what he knows of himself, that is, that he loves. And because he does not know concerning the others how much they love, therefore he is silent as to whether he loves more than they. Behold, he teaches not to determine rashly about hidden things; and by the earlier peril of his denial he answers of himself more cautiously.

Feed my lambs. If thou love me, feed my lambs. Not as thine own: seek my glory in them, not thine own; my gains, not thine, because the love of God is proved in the love of the neighbour. But he who denies the work 424Dof piety to his neighbours loves God less. And this charity is given out of divine grace. Which John silently hints at when, asking about love, he says here what he does not say elsewhere: Simon, son of John, that is, obedient by the grace of God, because that he loves and obeys more ardently than the rest is nothing save the grace of God.

VERS. 17.-- He saith to him the third time. He asks what he knew, not once, but again and a third time; and a third time he hears from Peter that he is loved, and a third time he bids him feed the sheep. To the threefold denial a threefold confession is rendered, lest the tongue serve love less than fear. And as it was the judgment of fear to deny the shepherd, so it is the office of love to feed the Lord's flock. Peter was grieved. (AUG.) Even when his sins are forgiven a man endures the misery into which nevertheless 425Ahe came out of sin. For the punishment is drawn out longer than the fault, and the fault would seem no small thing if the punishment were taken away along with it. It is therefore either for the showing of the misery that is owed, or for the amending of a slipping life, or for the exercise of necessary patience, that punishment holds a man for a time, even him whom guilt no longer holds as guilty; and this is the condition of these days, to be wept over, but not to be blamed. Feed. To feed the sheep is to comfort believers lest they fail, to provide earthly supports, if it be necessary, for those subject to one, to offer examples of the virtues, to withstand adversaries, to correct those who sin.

VERS. 18.-- But when thou shalt be old. He foretells that he will suffer, who had foretold that he would deny; strengthened by the resurrection he could now do that which, while weak, he promised 425Bbefore its time. Now he does not fear the ending of this life, because, the Lord rising again, the example of another life went before.

VERS. 19.-- And when he had said this. These things being said, Jesus began to go away; and, not yet understanding what he had heard, Follow me, Peter began to follow with the going of his feet; and John also followed, who knew that he was loved.

VERS. 20.-- Whom Jesus loved. He loved others also, but more familiarly he endowed this one with a greater sweetness of his love, because, chosen a virgin by him, he remained a virgin; whence he also commended his mother to him.

(AUG.) By the withholding of his name John is distinguished from the rest, etc., as far as John, who is a virgin, is suited to the life to come, where they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage.

426AUpon the breast. In the breast of Jesus are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden, upon which he reclined whom he endows with a singular gift of wisdom and knowledge greater than that of the rest; in which it was figured how great secret things concerning the divinity he was to write beyond the rest.

VERS. 21.-- Lord, but what of this man? Because Peter had heard that he was to be crucified, he wished to know his brother's end also.

VERS. 22.-- So I will have him to remain till I come. I will not have him consummated through martyrdom, but that he await the peaceful loosing of his flesh, when I, coming, shall receive him into eternal blessedness.

VERS. 23.-- And he did not say to him. It is not to be understood that John did not die in the flesh, but that, whatever he suffered before, he ended his last old age 426Bin peace. For it was no great thing to grant the beloved not to die, since to be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better.

VERS. 24.-- This is, etc. Here he openly designates his own person from his office, which he was unwilling to designate from his name.

VERS. 25.-- Neither do I think the world itself. (AUG.) Not by the space of places is it to be believed that the world could not contain them, etc., as far as like other tropes, that is, modes of speech.

Neither itself. He does not say that they cannot be contained by space, but by the capacity of readers; although, the faith of the facts being safe, words very often seem to exceed belief through hyperbole.