6th Sunday after Pentecost

Nor was it a violation of His promise, but rather a mercifully hastened fulfilment on account of the cowardice of the disciples.

(de Con. Ev. l. iii. c. 25.) This manifestation of our Lord after His resurrection, John also relates. But when John says that the Apostle Thomas was not with the rest, while according to Luke, the two disciples on their return to Jerusalem found the eleven gathered together, we must understand undoubtedly that Thomas departed from them, before our Lord appeared to them as they spoke these things. For Luke gives occasion in his narrative, that it may be understood that Thomas first went out from them when the rest were saying these things, and that our Lord entered afterwards. Unless some one should say that the eleven were not those who were then called Apostles, but that these were eleven disciples out of the large number of disciples. But since Luke has added, And those that were with them, he has surely made it sufficiently evident that those called the eleven were the same as those who were called Apostles, with whom the rest were.

While they were talking about these things, Jesus stood in their midst, and said to them: Peace be with you. It is I, do not be afraid. This appearance of the Lord after the resurrection is also understood to be mentioned by John, who speaks thus: So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were closed where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them: Peace be with you, etc. But what John says, that Thomas was not with them at the time, agrees with the account according to Luke, when the two, of whom one was Cleopas, returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, it is undoubtedly to be understood that Thomas had gone out from there before the Lord appeared to them while they were speaking these things.

First, we must note and diligently remember that the Lord condescended to stand in the middle of his disciples who were speaking around him and to reveal his presence in a vision of himself. This is what he promised elsewhere to all the faithful, saying, "Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst." In order to strengthen the steadfastness of our faith, which the presence of the divine benevolence always brings, he wished sometimes to show this by the presence of a physical vision of himself. Although we are lying far below the apostles' feet, in our case we must trust that this same thing happens to us by his mercy. He is in our midst as often as we come together and gather in his name. His name is Jesus, that is, "Savior." When we come together to speak about receiving our eternal salvation, it is undoubtedly true that we are gathered in the name of Jesus. It is not permissible to doubt that he is present among us as we are talking about the things that he himself loves. The more truly he is present, the better we retain in a more perfect heart what we profess with our mouth.

We must also see that when the Savior appeared to his disciples, he immediately imposed on them the joys of peace. He repeated that same thing that is a part of the celebrated glory of immortality that he gave as a special pledge of salvation and life when he was about to go to his passion and death. "Peace I leave to you. My peace I give you." The angels seen soon after he was born also proclaimed the grace of this favor to the shepherds, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." Certainly the entire divinely arranged plan of our Redeemer's coming in the flesh is the reconciliation of the world. For this purpose, he became incarnate, suffered and was raised from the dead. He did this to lead us, who had incurred God's anger by sinning, back to God's peace by his act of reconciliation. The prophet correctly gave him the names "Father of the world to come" and "Prince of Peace." The apostle also wrote about him to those from among the nations who had believed. He said, "Coming, he brought the good news of peace to you who were from far off and peace to those who were near, since through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father."

Second, as to the common appearance, he adds: But while they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them: Peace be to you. He stood in their midst, because he himself is the mediator: 1 Timothy 2: "The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus"; and therefore John 1: "But there stood one in your midst, whom you do not know." And therefore as a figure of this, Apocalypse 1: "I saw in the midst of seven golden candlesticks one like the Son of Man," etc. But he said: Peace be to you, because he himself is the maker of peace: Ephesians 2: "He himself is our peace, who made both one"; and Colossians 1: "Making peace through his blood, whether the things on earth or the things in heaven." He is also the giver of peace: John 14: "Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you." He is also the announcer of peace: Ephesians 2: "Coming, he announced peace to those who were near and to you who were far off." And therefore the Gospel of Christ is the Gospel of peace: Isaiah 52: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who announces and preaches peace," etc.

And because men are accustomed to be astonished by an unusual appearance, therefore he adds: I am he, do not be afraid. Truly he says: I am he, because it belongs to him to say: "I am who I am," as is said in Exodus 3. It belongs to him to drive away fear, and therefore he says: Do not be afraid. He was strengthening them because he appeared among them in an unusual manner, and such a mode of appearing frightens and disturbs.

If anything is clear from the records of Our Lord's appearances after His resurrection, it is that the risen body was very different from the body that died and that it lives under conditions quite unlike those of natural life. It is frequently not recognized by those who see it: and it is not related to space in the same way as our bodies. The sudden appearances and disappearances suggest the ghost of popular tradition: yet he emphatically insists that He is not merely a spirit and takes steps to demonstrate that the risen body can still perform animal operations, such as eating. What makes all this baffling to us is our assumption that to pass beyond what we call Nature – beyond the three dimensions and the five highly specialized and limited senses – is immediately to be in a world of pure negative spirituality, a world where space of any sort and sense of any sort has no function. I know no grounds for believing this. To explain even an atom Schrodinger wants seven dimensions: and give us new senses and we should find a new Nature. There may be Natures piled upon Natures, each supernatural to the one beneath it, before we come to the abyss of pure spirit; and to be in that abyss, at the right hand of the Father, may not mean being absent from any of these Natures – may mean a yet more dynamic presence on all levels. That is why I think it very rash to assume that the story of the Ascension is mere allegory. I know it sounds like the work of people who imagined an absolute up and down and a local heaven in the sky. But to say this is after all to say "Assuming that the story is fake, we could thus explain how it arose." Without that assumption we find ourselves "moving about in worlds unrealized" with no probability – or improbability – to guide us. For if the story is true then a being still in some mode, though not our mode, corporeal, withdrew at His own will from the Nature presented by our three dimensions and five senses, not necessarily into the non-sensuous and undimensioned but possibly into, or through, a world or worlds of super-sense and super-space. And He might choose to do it gradually. Who on earth knows what the spectators might see? If they say they saw a momentary movement along the vertical plane – then an indistinct mass – then nothing – who is to pronounce this improbable?

For the two Evangelists, that is, Luke and John, write that He appeared to the eleven alone in Jerusalem, but those two disciples told not only the eleven, but all the disciples and brethren, that both the angel and the Saviour had commanded them to hasten to Galilee; of whom also Paul made mention, saying, Afterwards he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once. (1 Cor. 15:6.) But the truer explanation is, that at first indeed while they remained in secret at Jerusalem, He appeared once or twice for their comfort, but that in Galilee not in the assembly, or once or twice, but with great power, He made a manifestation of Himself, showing Himself living to them after His Passion with many signs, as Luke testifies in the Acts. (Acts 1:3.)

(Orat. 22.) Let us then reverence the gift of peace, which Christ when He departed hence left to us. Peace both in name and reality is sweet, which also we have heard to be of God, as it is said, The peace of God; (Phil. 4:7.) and that God is of it, as He is our peace. (Eph. 2:14.) Peace is a blessing commended by all, but observed by few. What then is the cause? Perhaps the desire of dominion or riches, or the envy or hatred of our neighbour, or some one of those vices into which we see men fall who know not God. For peace is peculiarly of God, who binds all things together in one, to whom nothing so much belongs as the unity of nature, and a peaceful condition. It is borrowed indeed by angels and divine powers, which are peacefully disposed towards God and one another. It is diffused through the whole creation, whose glory is tranquillity. But in us it abides in our souls indeed by the following and imparting of the virtues, in our bodies by the harmony of our members and organs, of which the one is called beauty, the other health.

The report of Christ's resurrection being published every where by the Apostles, and while the anxiety of the disciples was easily awakened to see Christ, He that was so much desired comes, and is revealed to them that were seeking and expecting Him. Nor in a doubtful manner, but with the clearest evidence, He presents Himself, as it is said, And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them.

The Lord, arranging all things for our salvation, stands in the midst of the disciples, with the intention of assuring them of the resurrection. And first, by the customary greeting of peace He calms their agitation, and then He shows that He Himself is their Teacher, who loves this greeting and who armed them with this greeting when He sent them out to preach (Matt. 10:12; Luke 10:5).

The Lord then standing in the midst of the disciples, first with His accustomed salutation of "peace," allays their restlessness, showing that He is the same Master who delighted in the word wherewith He also fortified them, when He sent them to preach. Hence it follows, And he said to them, Peace be unto you; I am he, fear not.

And He said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? What kind of thoughts, if not false, morbid, pernicious? For Christ would have lost the fruit of His passion if the truth of the resurrection did not exist. Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? As a good farmer would say: What I planted there, I will find there, not thorns which I did not plant. Let it descend into your heart, because it is from above. But these thoughts did not descend from above, but in the very heart like a bad herb they arose.

What thoughts indeed but such as were false and dangerous. For Christ had lost the fruit of His passion, had He not been the Truth of the resurrection; just as if a good husbandman should say, What I have planted there, I shall find, that is, the faith which descends into the heart, because it is from above. But those thoughts did not descend from above, but ascended from below into the heart like worthless plants.

And he said to them: Why are you troubled, etc. After having described the plurality of the appearances, he here describes the probability of the appearance and its probable certitude. Now body and spirit can be proved and discerned with certain discernment in two ways, namely through the use of touch and taste, and according to this Christ proves in two ways that he has a true body according to this twofold sense.

First, as regards the testimony of touch, he says: And he said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? He says arise pointedly, because good thoughts descend from above; James 1: "Every best gift is from above, coming down," etc.; but evil thoughts arise from below: Apocalypse 9: "The smoke of the pit arose, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit."

To convince them firmly and absolutely that he is the same one who suffered, he immediately shows that being God by nature, he knows what is hidden. The tumultuous thoughts within them do not escape him. He said, "Why are you troubled?" This is a very clear proof that the one they see before them is not some other person. He is the same one whom they saw suffering death upon the cross and laid in the tomb, even the one who sees mind and heart and from whom nothing that is in us is hid. He gives this to them as a sign: his knowledge of the tumult of thoughts that was within them.

And it is acknowledged by all that to know hearts belongs to God alone (Ps. 139). He adds yet another proof as well – the touching of the hands and feet.

Because by the word of peace the agitation in the minds of the Apostles was not allayed, He shows by another token that He is the Son of God, in that He knew the secrets of their hearts; for it follows, And he said to them, Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

Finally, the disturbed disciples believed that they were seeing a spirit; and therefore the Lord, in order to show us the appearance of the resurrection: Touch, he said, and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. Therefore, he penetrated not through an incorporeal nature, but through the quality of a resurrected body, impermeable to use and closed. For what is touched is a body: what is felt is a body: but we will rise in a body: For there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; but the former is more refined, the latter more dense, since it is still concreted by the quality of earthly corruption.

For how could He not offer to touch the body in which the marks of wounds remained, the traces of scars which the Lord displayed? In this body He not only strengthens faith, but also sharpens devotion; He chose to bear the wounds inflicted for us, He did not choose to abolish them; so that He could show to God the Father the price of our freedom. The Father places such a one at His right hand, embracing the trophies of our salvation: there He will show us such martyrs with their scars as a crown.

Our Lord said this in order to afford us an image of our resurrection. For that which is handled is the body. But in our bodies we shall rise again. But the former is more subtle, the latter more carnal, as being still mixed up with the qualities of earthly corruption. Not then by His incorporeal nature, but by the quality of His bodily resurrection, Christ passed through the shut doors.

And because these thoughts were coming from within, therefore he outwardly sets forth the means by which they may be purged, when he adds: See my hands and feet, that it is I myself, as if to say: if you think you are being deceived by sight, at least become certain through the sense of touch.

And therefore he adds: Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me having. This he did as a proof of his resurrection: whence it is said in 1 John 1: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare unto you the eternal life." This he also did as a proof of the resurrection and an example of our glorification: whence the Gloss says: "While he shows bones and flesh to be touched, he openly signifies the state of his or our resurrection: in which our body will be both subtle through the effect of spiritual power, and palpable through the truth of nature."

But these two seem to be simultaneously contrary and not to establish faith, but rather to impede it. Whence the Gloss: "After the resurrection the Lord showed two contraries in his body: both a palpable body of the same nature, to instruct unto faith, and an incorruptible one of another glory, to invite to the reward." — But Gregory resolves these, saying: "The Lord showed two wondrous things and, according to human reason, contrary to each other"; but according to truth they are not contrary, because the glorified body both through its power can alter the sense and resist or move another body, and through its virtue can penetrate bodily perception. Whence this was not contrary, although it may seem so.

In another way, he proves that death is conquered and that human nature has put off corruption in him. He shows his hands, his feet and the holes of the nails. He permits them to touch him and in every way convince themselves that the very body that suffered was risen. Let no one quibble at the resurrection. Although you hear the sacred Scripture say that the human body is sown a physical body but raised a spiritual body, do not deny the return of human bodies to incorruption.

Here then was a most evident sign that He whom they now see was none other but the same whom they had seen dead on the cross, and lain in the sepulchre, who knew every thing that was in man.

Now our Lord testifying that death was overcome, and human nature had now in Christ put on incorruption, first shows them His hands and His feet, and the print of the nails; as it follows, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

(Mor. 14. c. 55.) For in that glory of the resurrection our body will not be incapable of handling, and more subtle than the winds and the air, (as Eutychius said,) but while it is subtle indeed through the effect of spiritual power, it will be also capable of handling through the power of nature.

And I know that He was possessed of a body not only in His being born and crucified, but I also know that He was so after His resurrection, and believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, "Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit." "For a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." And He says to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger into the print of the nails, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side; " and immediately they believed that He was Christ. Wherefore Thomas also says to Him, "My Lord, and my God." And on this account also did they despise death, for it were too little to say, indignities and stripes. Nor was this all; but also after He had shown Himself to them, that He had risen indeed, and not in appearance only, He both ate and drank with them during forty entire days. And thus was He, with the flesh, received up in their sight unto Him that sent Him, being with that same flesh to come again, accompanied by glory and power. For, say the [holy] oracles, "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go unto heaven." But if they say that He will come at the end of the world without a body, how shall those "see Him that pierced Him," and when they recognise Him, "mourn for themselves? " For incorporeal beings have neither form nor figure, nor the aspect of an animal possessed of shape, because their nature is in itself simple.

For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, "Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit." And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after his resurrection He did eat and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father.

When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?—even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that "we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones,—that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness...

The resurrection of the Lord was truly the resurrection of a real body, because no other person was raised than he who had been crucified and died. What else was accomplished during that interval of forty days than to make our faith entire and clear of all darkness? For a while, he spoke with his disciples and remained with them, ate with them and allowed himself to be felt with careful and inquisitive touch by those who were under the influence of doubt. This was his purpose in going in to them when the doors were shut. He gave them the Holy Ghost by his breath. After giving them the light of intelligence, he opened the secrets of holy Scripture. In his same person, he showed them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails and all the fresh tokens of the passion. He said, "See my hands and feet. It is I myself. Handle me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have." He did all this so that we might acknowledge that the properties of the divine and the human nature remain in him without causing a division. We now may know that the Word is not what the flesh is. We may now confess that the one Son of God is Word and flesh.

But what need of so tortuous a construction, when He might have simply said, "A spirit hath not bones, even as you observe that I have not? "Why, moreover, does He offer His hands and His feet for their examination-limbs which consist of bones-if He had no bones? Why, too, does He add, "Know that it is I myself," when they had before known Him to be corporeal? Else, if He were altogether a phantom, why did He upbraid them for supposing Him to be a phantom? But whilst they still believed not, He asked them for some meat, for the express purpose of showing them that He had teeth.

A phantom, too, it was of course after the resurrection, when, showing His hands and His feet for the disciples to examine, He said, "Behold and see that it is I myself, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have; " without doubt, hands, and feet, and bones are not what a spirit possesses, but only the flesh.

To God their beauty, to God their youth (is dedicated). With Him they live; with Him they converse; Him they "handle" by day and by night; to the Lord they assign their prayers as dowries; from Him, as oft as they desire it, they receive His approbation as dotal gifts.

"You," He says, "consider Me a spirit or an apparition, such as commonly appear from the dead, especially at tombs. But know that a spirit has neither flesh nor bones, whereas I have both flesh and bones, albeit most divine and spiritual. For the Lord's body, though it was not a spirit, was 'spiritual,' that is, free from all material coarseness and governed by the spirit. The body that we now have is 'natural,' that is, it is governed by the soul and animated by natural and psychic properties and powers. But the body as it will be after the resurrection, Paul calls spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44), that is, it is animated and governed by the Spirit of God, not by the soul, having been ineffably and spiritually re-created for incorruption and preserved in it. This is how one must think of the Lord's body after the resurrection: namely, as spiritual, subtle, free from all coarseness, needing neither food nor anything else, although the Lord did eat for the sake of assurance. For if He ate, He ate not according to the nature of His body, but by a special dispensation, namely, to show that the very same body that had suffered had risen. But it was in the nature of this body to pass through closed doors and to move effortlessly from place to place."

But He adds also another proof, namely, the handling of His hands and feet, when He says, Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. As if to say, Ye think me a spirit, that is to say, a ghost, as many of the dead are wont to be seen about their graves. But know ye that a spirit hath neither flesh nor bones, but I have flesh and bones.

But some one will say, If we allow that our Lord ate after His resurrection, let us also grant that all men will after the resurrection take the nourishment of food. But these things which for a certain purpose are done by our Saviour, are not the rule and measure of nature, since in other things He has purposed differently. For He will raise our bodies, not defective but perfect and incorrupt, who yet left on His own body the prints which the nails had made, and the wound in His side, in order to show that the nature of His body remained the same after the resurrection, and that He was not changed into another substance.

While they were still flustered for joy, they were rejoicing and doubting at the same time. They were seeing and touching, and scarcely believing. What a tremendous favor grace has done us! We have neither seen nor touched, and we have believed. While they were still flustered for joy, he said, "Have you got here anything to eat? Certainly you can believe that I am alive and well if I join you in a meal." They offered him what they had: a portion of grilled fish. Grilled fish means martyrdom, faith proved by fire. Why is it only a portion? Paul says, "If I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Imagine a complete body of martyrs. Some suffer because of love, while others suffer out of pride. Remove the pride portion, offer the love portion. That is the food for Christ. Give Christ his portion. Christ loves the martyrs who suffered out of love.

But while they still did not believe for joy and marvelled, he said: "Have you anything here to eat?" To show forth the truth of his resurrection, he not only allowed himself to be touched by the disciples but also deigned to eat with them. Not indeed because he needed food after the resurrection, nor signifying that in the resurrection which we await we will need food, but so that he might confirm the nature of the resurrected body in such a manner that they would not think it a mere spirit, nor believe he appeared to them in semblance alone. He ate by power, not necessity. For the thirsty earth absorbs water differently from how the burning rays of the sun draw it; the former out of need, the latter by power.

Second, as to the testimony of taste, he adds: But while they yet did not believe and wondered for joy, he said: Have you here anything to eat? — so that if sight does not move them, hearing does not move them, touch does not move them, at least taste might move them. And this is an express sign of resurrection. Hence the Lord, after he raised the girl, "commanded that something be given her to eat," above, chapter eight. And John, chapter twelve, says of Lazarus that "he was one of those reclining at table." And thus Christ proved by the use of the senses that he had truly risen, so that the disciples might be made certain, and we through them.

For is there not within a temperate simplicity a wholesome variety of eatables? Bulbs, olives, certain herbs, milk, cheese, fruits, all kinds of cooked food without sauces; and if flesh is wanted, let roast rather than boiled be set down. "Have you anything to eat here?" said the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection; and they, as taught by Him to practise frugality, "gave Him a piece of broiled fish;" and having eaten before them, says Luke, He spoke to them what He spoke.

To produce in them a more firmly settled faith in his resurrection, he asked for something to eat. They brought a piece of broiled fish, which he took and ate in the presence of them all. He did this only to show them that the one risen from the dead was the same one who ate and drank with them during the whole previous period of time when he talked with them as a man, according to the prophet's voice. He intended them to perceive that the human body certainly does need sustenance of this kind but a spirit does not.… The power of Christ surpasses human inquiry. It is not on the level of the understanding of ordinary events. He ate a piece of fish because of the resurrection. The natural consequences of eating by no means followed in the case of Christ, as the unbeliever might object, knowing that whatsoever enters the mouth must necessarily come out into the drain. The believer will not admit these quibbles into his mind but leaves the matter to the power of God.

The Lord had shown His disciples His hands and His feet, that He might certify to them that the same body which had suffered rose again. But to confirm them still more, He asked for something to eat.

But what need of so tortuous a construction, when He might have simply said, "A spirit hath not bones, even as you observe that I have not? "Why, moreover, does He offer His hands and His feet for their examination-limbs which consist of bones-if He had no bones? Why, too, does He add, "Know that it is I myself," when they had before known Him to be corporeal? Else, if He were altogether a phantom, why did He upbraid them for supposing Him to be a phantom? But whilst they still believed not, He asked them for some meat, for the express purpose of showing them that He had teeth.

(de Con. Ev. lib. i. c. 11.) Let those then who dream that Christ could have done such things by magical arts, and by the same art have consecrated His name to the nations to be converted to Him, consider whether He could by magical arts fill the Prophets with the Divine Spirit before He was born. For neither supposing that He caused Himself to be worshipped when dead, was He a magician before He was born, to whom one nation was assigned to prophesy His coming.

And he said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you. That is, while I was still in the mortal flesh in which you also are. For then he had been resurrected in the same flesh, but was not with them in the same mortality. And indeed he was with them for forty days after he rose again (as it is read) by the exhibition of bodily presence, but he was not with them in the fellowship of human frailty.

Because it is necessary to fulfill all things that are written in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me. See how he dispelled all doubts. He was seen, he was touched, he ate, he was indeed himself. Yet, lest he should appear to deceive human senses in any way, he directed them to the Scriptures. Let the pagans say what they will, he was a magician, he could show himself in this way. But could a magician have prophesied about himself before he was born? Produce the Scriptures, because what you see was foreseen, what you behold was foretold. Hear, daughter, see (Psalm 44); hear what was foretold, see what was fulfilled.

When he was about to ascend into heaven, our Lord first took care to instruct his disciples diligently concerning the mystery of faith in him. They might therefore preach it with greater certainty to the world, because they had received it from the mouth of Truth himself and recognized that the words of the prophets had long ago foreshadowed it. He appeared to them after the triumph of his resurrection, according to what we heard just now when the Gospel was read. He said, "These are the words which I spoke to you when I was still with you." That means, "When I still had a corruptible and mortal body like yours." "Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." He said that he fulfilled the mysteries which Moses, the prophets and the psalms proclaimed. It is perfectly evident that the church is one in all its saints and that the faith of all the chosen is the same, of those who preceded and who followed his coming in the flesh. We are saved through faith in his incarnation, passion and resurrection that have been accomplished.

But after that He was seen, touched, and had eaten, lest He should seem to have mocked the human senses in any one respect, He had recourse to the Scriptures. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, when I was yet with you, that is, when I was yet in the mortal flesh, in which ye also are. He indeed was then raised again in the same flesh, but was not in the same mortality with them. And He adds, That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.

The second key is the understanding of the Incarnate Word, through whom all things are restored. "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled that are written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. Then He opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures." Who is speaking? The Word of God, of whom John writes: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," where He displayed two natures within a single Person. Hence: "Christ is the consummation of the Law unto justice for everyone who believes." The two Cherubim are the two Testaments whose gaze is directed upon Christ. He opened their minds when they understood the Scriptures, meaning that the book of Scriptures is understood precisely through that key, the Incarnate Word, the one eminently concerned with the works of restoration. For unless you understand the order and origin of restoration, you cannot understand Scriptures.

And he said to them: These are the words etc. After having described the plurality of appearances as testimony, and their probability as argument, he here describes their infallibility as the firmament of faith. The firmness of the appearance is through two things, namely through the testimony of Scripture and through the light of understanding, from which our mind is rendered certain concerning those things which pertain to our restoration. And accordingly the Evangelist describes the appearance of Christ as doubly confirmed, namely through the authentic testimony of Scripture and through the infused light of understanding.

First therefore, as regards the authentic testimony of Scripture, he says: And he said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that is, through familiar conversation in the flesh, according to that passage in Baruch chapter three: "After these things he was seen upon earth and conversed with men." He foretold these things for the assertion of faith, according to John chapter fourteen: "And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it shall come to pass, you may believe." These words therefore he himself foretold as a true Prophet, nor did he alone foretell them, but he also foretold that the whole of Scripture would foretell this.

And therefore he adds: That all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me. In these three, Christ comprehends the entire Old Testament, which is as it were tripartite, for the firmness of testimony, because "in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word stands," as is said in Deuteronomy chapter nineteen; and for the representation of the most blessed Trinity. For the Law, on account of the authority of commanding, is appropriated to the Father; Prophecy, on account of the perspicacity of understanding, to the Son; the Psalms, on account of the sweetness of praying, to the Holy Spirit. All bear testimony to Christ as the most excellent ruler, teacher, and priest. And therefore all things have been fulfilled in him, according to that passage in Matthew chapter five: "One jot or one tittle shall not pass from the Law until all things be accomplished." Because therefore in the Law all these things which happened concerning Christ regarding his passion and resurrection are foretold, it is established that this is irrefragably true and certain, as confirmed through firm and authentic testimony. Whence the Gloss: "He removes all ambiguity: he was seen, he was touched, he ate; and lest he should seem to have deceived the human senses in any way, he turns to the Scriptures, so that even if he might seem to have been able to do what he wished by magical arts, as the pagans say, at least they might see that he could not have prophesied before he was born." Christ therefore, by fulfilling what the Scriptures say, proved that they were true; and by showing that those things which had been done concerning him were foretold in the Scriptures, he establishes irrefragably that they are true and to be believed.

I can't say for certain which bits came into Christianity from earlier religions. An enormous amount did. I should find it hard to believe Christianity if that were not so. I couldn't believe that nine hundred and ninety-nine religions were completely false and the remaining one true. In reality, Christianity is primarily the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, but also the fulfillment of what was vaguely hinted in all the religions at their best. What was vaguely seen in them all comes into focus in Christianity—just as God Himself comes into focus by becoming a man.

When he restrained their thoughts by what he said, by the touch of their hands and by sharing food, he then opened their minds to understand that he had to suffer, even on the wood of the cross. The Lord reminds the disciples of what he said. He had forewarned them of his sufferings on the cross, according to what the prophets had long before spoken. He also opens the eyes of their hearts for them to understand the ancient prophecies.

Therefore did the Lord also say to His disciples after the resurrection, "O thoughtless ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? " And again does He say to them: "These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding, that they should understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, and that repentance for the remission of sins be preached in His name among all nations." Now this is He who was born of Mary; for He says: "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected, and crucified, and on the third day rise again." The Gospel, therefore, knew no other son of man but Him who was of Mary, who also suffered; and no Christ who flew away from Jesus before the passion; but Him who was born it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that this same suffered and rose again, as John, the disciple of the Lord, verities, saying: "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have eternal life in His name," -foreseeing these blasphemous systems which divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power, saying that He was formed of two different substances.

Therefore, when these times also were completed, and the Jews subdued, there afterwards ceased in that place "libations and sacrifices," which thenceforward have not been able to be in that place celebrated; for "the unction," too, was "exterminated" in that place after the passion of Christ. For it had been predicted that the unction should be exterminated in that place; as in the Psalms it is prophesied, "They exterminated my hands and feet." And the suffering of this "extermination" was perfected within the times of the lxx hebdomads, under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the eighth day before the calends of April, on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at even, just as had been enjoined by Moses. Accordingly, all the synagogue of Israel did slay Him, saying to Pilate, when he was desirous to dismiss Him, "His blood be upon us, and upon our children; " and, "If thou dismiss him, thou art not a friend of Caesar; " in order that all things might be fulfilled which had been written of Him.

The disciples learned that their Maker subjected himself to countless kinds of abuses at the hands of the wicked and even to the sentence of death for their salvation. This effectively stirred them up to tolerate adversities of every kind for their salvation. They remembered that through his sacraments they had been cleansed, sanctified and united to the body of him who, when he had tasted death for them, presented an example of a speedy rising from death. For what other reason might they more fittingly receive the hope of their own resurrection?"It was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day," he said, "and for you to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name among all nations." There was certainly a necessary sequence. First, Christ had to shed his blood for the redemption of the world. Then, through his resurrection and ascension, he opened to human beings the gate of the heavenly kingdom. Last, he sent those who would preach to all nations throughout the world the word of life and administer the sacraments of faith. By these sacraments, they could be saved and arrive at the joys of the heavenly fatherland, with the human being Jesus Christ. He is the very mediator between God and human beings working with them. He lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

But Christ would have lost the fruit of His Passion had He not been the Truth of the resurrection, therefore it is said, And to rise from the dead. He then after having commended to them the truth of the body, commends the unity of the Church, adding, And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.

Now these mysteries of the Scriptures are principally referred to Christ with regard to the head and with regard to the body. With regard to the head, he adds: And he said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day: this is most frequently stated in the Scriptures, and especially in the Law through figures, in the Prophets through words, and in the Psalms most abundantly, because they treat of the resurrection and the passion. — With regard to the body, however, he adds: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. This, I say, is written in the Law and in the promise to Abraham: Genesis twenty-two: "In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"; and Genesis forty-nine: "He shall be the expectation of the nations." This is written in the Psalm: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance"; and again: "Praise the Lord, all you nations." This in the Prophets: whence Isaiah forty-nine: "It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to restore the remnants of Israel; I have given you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation," etc. And this preaching was foretold to begin from Jerusalem: Isaiah two: "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem"; and Isaiah sixty-two: "For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her righteous one goes forth as brightness"; and the Psalm: "The Lord shall send forth the rod of your power out of Zion."

After this He teaches them that "thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer." How then is it "thus"? On the wood of the Cross. Since destruction entered through a tree, corruption also had to be destroyed through a tree, and the delight of the tree had to be abolished by the Lord, who unconquerably endured the sufferings on the tree.

But He taught them by His words; for it follows, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, that is, by the wood of the Cross.

What did he tell them from the Scriptures? He said, "Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." The disciples could not see this. They could see Christ talking about the church that would be. When Christ said something they could not see, they believed him. They could see the head, but they could not yet see the body. We can see the body, but we believe about the head. They are two: husband and wife, head and body, Christ and the church. He showed himself to the disciples and promised them the church. He showed us the church and ordered us to believe about himself. The apostles saw one thing, but they did not see the other. We also see one thing and do not see the other. Having the head there with them, they believed about the body. Having the body here with us, we should believe about the head.

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. The rage of the heretics is not hidden in a corner; the Church is spread throughout the whole world; all nations have the Church, let no one deceive us, it is the true one, it is catholic, it began at Jerusalem, it reached us, and it is there and here. For it did not leave there to come here. It grew, it did not migrate. And rightly it is written among the other sacraments of the Lord's mercy, and it was fitting that the ministers of the word, who were to preach repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ crucified and risen from the dead among all nations, should begin at Jerusalem, not only because the oracles of God were entrusted to them, because theirs is the adoption of sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises, because theirs are the fathers, and from them is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever (Rom. IX), but also so that the nations, entangled in various errors and crimes, might be called to the hope of obtaining pardon, by this very sign of Divine mercy, which they would see granted even to those who crucified the Son of God, not only the pardon of guilt by the Father, but also the joy of eternal life.

The preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins through confession of Christ's name appropriately started from Jerusalem. The first root of faith in him would be brought out where the splendor of his teaching and virtues, the triumph of his passion, the joy of his resurrection and ascension were accomplished. The first shoot of the blooming church, like some kind of great vine, would be planted. By an increase in the spreading of the Word, the church would extend the branches of its teaching into the whole wide world. The prophecy of Isaiah would be brought to fulfillment. He said, "The law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he will judge the nations and convict many peoples." It was appropriate that the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins, good news to be proclaimed to idolatrous nations and those defiled by various evil deeds, should start from Jerusalem. Perhaps some of the nations, thoroughly terrified by the magnitude of Jerusalem's offenses, might doubt the possibility of obtaining pardon if it performed fruits worthy of repentance. He granted pardon even to those at Jerusalem who had blasphemed and crucified the Son of God.

Not only because to them were entrusted the oracles of God, and theirs is the adoption and the glory, but also that the Gentiles entangled in various errors might by this sign of Divine mercy be chiefly invited to come to hope, seeing that to them even who crucified the Son of God pardon is granted.

For it was said, Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. (Ps. 2:8.) But it was necessary that those who were converted from the Gentiles should be purged from a certain stain and defilement through His virtue, being as it were corrupted by the evil of the worship of devils, and as lately converted from an abominable and unchaste life. And therefore He says that it behoves that first repentance should be preached, but next, remission of sins, to all nations. For to those who first showed repentance for their sins, by His saving grace He granted pardon of their transgression, for whom also He endured death.

(Hom. i. in Act.) Further, lest any should say that abandoning their acquaintances they went to show themselves, (or as it were to vaunt themselves with a kind of pomp,) to strangers, therefore first among the very murderers themselves are the signs of the resurrection displayed, in that very city wherein the frantic outrage burst forth. For where the crucifiers themselves are seen to believe, there the resurrection is most of all demonstrated.

Even to the last He taught us (the same truth of His mission), when He sent forth His apostles to preach His gospel "among all nations; " for He thus fulfilled the psalm: "Their sound is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Here the Lord speaks of baptism. For in it repentance is accomplished through confession and the putting away of former wickedness and impiety, and forgiveness of sins follows. How should we understand that baptism is performed in the name of Christ alone, when elsewhere we are taught to perform it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? (Matt. 28:19). First, we shall say that when we say baptism is performed in the name of Christ, we do not mean that it must be performed in the name of Christ alone, but that one must perform baptism that is neither Jewish nor that of John, which served only for repentance, but the baptism of Christ, with which Christ was baptized, that is, a spiritual baptism that grants communion of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins, which He Himself demonstrated when He was baptized for our sake in the Jordan and manifested the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Then, understand baptism in the name of Christ as follows: baptism into the death of Christ. For just as He died and on the third day rose again, so we too are figuratively buried in water, then come out of it incorruptible in soul and receive a pledge to be incorruptible in body itself. And in another way: the name Christ (the Anointed One) in itself presents both the Father who anointed, and the anointing of the Spirit, and the Son who was anointed. Forgiveness of sins comes "in the name of the Lord." Where then are the foul tongues of those who baptize in the name of Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla? Truly, for those baptized in this way there is no forgiveness whatsoever, but rather sins are added, and therefore they have fallen into terrible perdition. The word went out "among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." For when in Christ all of human nature was united and assumed, it no longer needed to be divided into two groups—Jews and Gentiles—but, beginning from Jerusalem, the word needed to dwell also among the Gentiles, so as to unite the entire human race.

But herein that He says, Repentance and remission of sins, He also makes mention of baptism, in which by the putting off of our past sins there follows pardon of iniquity. But how must we understand baptism to be performed in the name of Christ alone, whereas in another place He commands it to be in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. First indeed we say that it is not meant that baptism is administered in Christ's name alone, but that a person is baptized with the baptism of Christ, that is, spiritually, not Judaically, nor with the baptism, wherewith John baptized unto repentance only, but unto the participation of the blessed Spirit; as Christ also when baptized in Jordan manifested the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Moreover you must understand baptism in Christ's name to be in His death. For as He after death rose again on the third day, so we also are three times dipped in the water, and fitly brought out again, receiving thereby an earnest of the immortality of the Spirit. This name of Christ also contains in itself both the Father as the Anointer, and the Spirit as the Anointing, and the Son as the Anointed, that is, in His human nature. But it was fitting that the race of man should no longer be divided into Jews and Gentiles, and therefore that He might unite all in one, He commanded that their preaching should begin at Jerusalem, but be finished with the Gentiles. Hence it follows, Beginning at Jerusalem. (Rom. 3:2, Rom. 9:4.)

But you are witnesses of these things. After the described revelation of the resurrection and the appearance of the risen one and the certainty of the appearance, here fourthly is treated the divulgation of the already known truth. And because this divulgation was made through the Holy Spirit given to the Apostles after the ascension of Christ, therefore for describing this more fully four things are introduced by the Evangelist, namely the commissioning of the office of preaching, the promise of spiritual charisms, the ascension of Christ, and the devotion of the disciples. First therefore, as regards the office of preaching, he says: But you are witnesses of these things: you, I say, "who have seen and heard," so that you can say that word of John 3: "What we know we speak, and what we have seen we testify"; and John 19: "He who saw it has borne witness." Now to assert the truth of the faith is nothing other than to bear witness: whence Acts 23: "As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome."

And therefore Isaiah 43: "Truly, you are my witnesses, says the Lord." These are the Apostles, to whom Acts 1: "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth"; and therefore Peter in Acts 10: "We are witnesses of all things that he did in the region of the Jews." "God raised him on the third day and granted him to be made manifest not to all the people, but to witnesses pre-ordained by God, to us, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the Prophets bear witness." Now the Apostles were "witnesses beyond all exception," both on account of their courage and holiness and on account of their truthfulness and on account of their steadfastness, because they suffered for this truth even unto death, so that they could truly be called witnesses, that is, martyrs. And therefore Hebrews 12: "Having so great a cloud of witnesses set over us, let us run with patience the race set before us, looking to the author and finisher of faith, Jesus," etc.

But if those things which Christ foretold are already receiving their accomplishment, and His word is perceived by a seeing faith to be living and effectual throughout the whole world; it is time for men not to be unbelieving towards Him who uttered that word. For it is necessary that He should live a divine life, whose living works are shown to be agreeable to His words; and these indeed have been fulfilled by the ministry of the Apostles. Hence He adds, But ye are witnesses of these things, &c. that is, of My death and resurrection.

That is, the sufferings and the resurrection.

But let us consider how according to John they received the Holy Spirit, while here they are ordered to stay in the city until they should be endued with power from on high. Either He breathed the Holy Spirit into the eleven, as being more perfect, and promised to give it to the rest afterwards; or to the same persons He breathed in the one place, He promised in the other. Nor does there seem to be any contradiction, since there are diversities of graces. Therefore one operation He breathed into them there, another He promised here. For there the grace of remitting sins was given, which seems to be more confined, and therefore is breathed into them by Christ, that you may believe the Holy Spirit to be of Christ, to be from God. For God alone forgiveth sins. But Luke describes the pouring forth of the grace of speaking with tongues.

For when the Lord not only shed his blood but also expended his very death for the making of the medicine; he rose again to demonstrate the example of resurrection. By his patience, he suffered to teach our patience; and in his resurrection, he demonstrated the reward of patience. Also, as you know and as we all confess, he ascended into heaven, then from him the Holy Spirit was sent, formerly promised. For he had said to his disciples: Stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high. Therefore, his promise came, the Holy Spirit came, filled the disciples, they began to speak in the tongues of all nations: a sign of unity proceeded in them. For then one man spoke in all tongues; because the unity of the Church was going to speak in all tongues. Those who heard were astonished. For they knew that they were simple men, of only one language; and they marveled and were amazed that men of one language, or at most two, spoke in the tongues of all nations: they were stunned with amazement, lost their arrogance, turned from mountains into valleys. Now if they are humble, they are valleys; they hold what is poured in, they do not release it. If water comes upon a high place, it runs down and flows away: if water comes to a concave and low place, it is held and stays. They were now such; they were astonished, they marveled, they had lost their cruelty.

Listen further. He ascended into heaven, and was taken from the sight of the disciples; he left those watching and made them witnesses. It was said to them: Why do you stand? This Jesus, who was taken up from you, will come in the same way. In the same way, how is that? In the same form, in the same flesh: They will see the one whom they pierced. He will come in the same manner as you saw Him going into heaven. Certainly, they saw, certainly they touched, they felt: they strengthened their faith both by seeing and by touching. They escorted Him ascending into heaven with their eyes: they listened attentively to the angel's voice proclaiming the coming Christ. Yet, now that all these things have been accomplished in them so that they might become witnesses of Christ, and endure all things bravely for the preaching of the truth, and contend against falsehood even unto blood, it was not that vision alone, nor the touching of the Lord's limbs that afforded them this power. But who granted them this? Hear the Lord Himself: But stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high. You have seen and touched; but you cannot yet preach and die for what you have seen and touched until you are clothed with power from on high. Let them go now, and ascribe to men their abilities, if they can. Peter was there, but he was not yet established on the rock; he was not yet clothed with power from on high; for no one can receive it unless it is given to him from heaven.

(de Trin. 15. c. 26.) Or the Lord after His resurrection gave the Holy Spirit twice, once on earth, because of the love of our neighbour, and again from heaven, because of the love of God.

But you are witnesses of these things, and I send the promise of my Father upon you. The grace of the Holy Spirit is called the promise of the Father, and in the Gospel of John it is more fully and also briefly intimated here...

"But you, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. About which power, that is, the Holy Spirit, the angel also says to Mary: And the power of the Most High shall overshadow you (Luke 1). And the Lord himself elsewhere says: For I know that power has gone out from me (Luke 8). And even Luke more openly mentions in the Acts of the Apostles that the promised power from on high and the commanded stay in the city. He commanded them (he says) not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard from my mouth. Because John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1). And a little later: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses (Ibid.). It should be noted indeed that there are those who are prevented from the office of preaching either by imperfection or by age, and yet are driven by rashness, who should be warned to consider that Truth itself, which could suddenly strengthen those whom it wished, as an example to followers so that the imperfect would not presume to preach, after fully instructing the disciples in the power of preaching, immediately added: But you, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. We indeed stay in the city if we confine ourselves within the enclosures of our minds, so that speaking outwardly we do not wander, so that when we are perfectly clothed with divine power, then we may go out as if from ourselves also instructing others."

He said, "You are witnesses of these things. And I send upon you the promise of my Father." He calls the gift of the Holy Spirit "the promise of his Father." … He added something about their promised waiting when he said, "Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." He pledged that power would come down upon them from on high, because although they already possessed the Holy Spirit, they received him more fully once Christ ascended into heaven. Even before his passion, by the power of the Holy Spirit they were casting out many demons, healing many sick persons and preaching the word of life to whom they could. Once he had risen from the dead, they were especially refreshed by the grace of the same Spirit. John writes, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." He clothed them with his greater virtue from on high when they received him in fiery tongues ten days after the Lord's ascension. They were inflamed with such great assurance of strength that any threats from the rulers could not prevent them from speaking to everyone in the name of Jesus.

But concerning the power, that is, the Holy Spirit, the Angel also says to Mary, And the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. (Luke 1:35.) And the Lord Himself says elsewhere, For I know that virtue is gone out of me. (Luke 8:45.)

Secondly, as to the promise of spiritual charisms, he adds: And I send the promise of my Father upon you. He says pointedly I send, because even then he gave the Holy Spirit in a breath, as is said in John 20: "As the Father has sent me, so I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed upon them, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you shall forgive," etc. This is the gift promised in the Scriptures: Ezekiel 36: "I will give you a new spirit," etc. This spirit Christ himself also frequently promised in the Gospel; John 7: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink"; and John 15: "When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth." This, therefore, he then gave in hidden manner, but afterward he was to give it abundantly and openly, namely after ten days, in which they were to prepare themselves for that fullness.

Therefore he adds: But you, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Gregory: "Unless the anointing of the Holy Spirit teaches inwardly, the preacher labors outwardly in vain"; whence Matthew 10: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."

Although the Lord could have given the Holy Spirit immediately, he nevertheless wished to delay, both for the sake of inflaming the desire of the disciples to ask, according to that saying in Matthew 7: "Ask, and it shall be given to you." "For if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the good Spirit to those who ask him?" And for the sake of preserving the mystery, because on the fiftieth day after the passion—which is the number of remission and is composed of seven weeks of days with one unity added—to designate the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit. And lastly for the sake of example; whence the Gloss: "Although he could have strengthened them suddenly if he wished, he delayed so as to give an example to those who followed, lest the imperfect presume to preach before the proper time." Therefore Ecclesiastes 3: "A time to be silent and a time to speak"; and Sirach 18: "Before you speak, learn." Whence Jerome: "We learn that after much silence we may from disciples be made teachers. For it is the discipline of the Pythagoreans to be silent for five years, and after being instructed, to speak."

The Savior promises the disciples the descent of the Holy Spirit, which God announced of old by Joel. He also promises power from above, so that they might be strong, invincible and fearlessly preach the divine mystery to people everywhere.He says to them that they received the Spirit after the resurrection, "Receive the Holy Spirit." He adds, "Wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." It will not be in water any longer, because they already had received that, but it will be with the Holy Spirit. He does not add water to water but completes that which was deficient by adding what it lacked.

(de Past. 3. c. 25.) They then are to be warned, whom age or imperfection hinders from the office of preaching, and yet rashness impels, lest while they hastily arrogate to themselves so responsible an office, they should cut themselves off from the way of future amendment. For the Truth Itself which could suddenly strengthen those whom it wished, in order to give an example to those that follow, that imperfect men should not presume to preach, after having fully instructed the disciples concerning the virtue of preaching, commanded them to abide in the city, until they were endued with power from on high. For we abide in a city, when we keep ourselves close within the gates of our minds, lest by speaking we wander beyond them; that when we are perfectly endued with divine power, we may then as it were go out beyond ourselves to instruct others.

(Hom. i. in Act.) But as a general does not permit his soldiers who are about to meet a large number, to go out until they are armed, so also the Lord does not permit His disciples to go forth to the conflict before the descent of the Spirit. And hence He adds, But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

(ut sup.) But why did not the Spirit come while Christ was present, or immediately on His departure? Because it was fitting that they should become desirous of grace, and then at length receive it. For we are then most awakened towards God, when difficulties press upon us. It was necessary in the mean time that our nature should appear in Heaven, and the covenants be completed, and that then the Spirit should come, and pure joys be experienced. Mark also what a necessity He imposed upon them of being at Jerusalem, in that He promised that the Spirit should there be given them. For lest they should again flee away after His resurrection, by this expectation, as it were a chain, He kept them all there together. But He says, until ye be endued from on high. He did not express the time when, in order that they may be constantly watchful. But why then marvel that He does not reveal to us our last day, when He would not even make known this day which was close at hand.

Or He said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit, that He might make them fit to receive it, or indicated as present that which was to come.

After His resurrection He promises in a pledge to His disciples that He will send them the promise of His Father; and lastly, He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God.

Then, lest they be inwardly troubled by thoughts (such as, for example), how shall we, simple people, bear witness and be sent to the Gentiles, how shall we stand directly against the people of Jerusalem, who even killed You, Lord — for this reason He says: take courage, for I will soon send upon you "the promise of My Father," of which I spoke through Joel: "I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh" and so forth (Joel 2:28). So then, you who are now fearful and faint-hearted, remain in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power not human, but heavenly. He did not say: until you "receive," but: until you "are clothed," showing through this that the spiritual armor would guard them from all sides.

Afterwards, lest they should be troubled at the thought, How shall we private individuals give our testimony to the Jews and Gentiles who have killed Thee? He subjoins, And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, &c. which indeed He had promised by the mouth of the prophet Joel, I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh. (Joel 2:18.)

That is, not with human but heavenly power. He said not, until ye receive, but be endued with, showing the entire protection of the spiritual armour.

I could never see how one escaped the dilemma aut deus aut malus homo by confining oneself to the Synoptics. Moderns do not seem startled, as contemporaries were, by the claim Jesus there makes to forgive sins; not sins against Himself, just sins. Yet surely, if they actually met it, they would feel differently. If Dr Pittenger told me that two of his colleagues had lost him a professorship by telling lies about his character and I replied, "I freely forgive them both", would he not think this an impertinence (both in the old and in the modern sense) bordering on insanity?

Now in the narrative of the paralytic a number of people are brought forward for healing. Jesus' words of healing are worthy of reflection. The paralytic is not told, "Be healed." He is not told, "Rise and walk." But he is told, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven you." The paralytic is a descendent of the original man, Adam. In one person, Christ, all the sins of Adam are forgiven. In this case the person to be healed is brought forward by ministering angels. In this case, too, he is called a son, because he is God's first work. The sins of his soul are forgiven him, and pardon of the first transgression is granted. We do not believe the paralytic committed any sin [that resulted in his illness], especially since the Lord said elsewhere that blindness from birth had not been contracted from someone's sin or that of his parents.

In this paralytic the whole Gentile world is offered for healing, he is therefore brought by the ministration of Angels; he is called Son, because he is God's work; the sins of his soul which the Law could not remit are remitted him; for faith only justifies. Lastly, he shows the power of the resurrection, by taking up his bed, teaching that all sickness shall then be no more found in the body.

They brought to him, as we said before, a second paralytic lying on a pallet because he was unable to enter. "And Jesus, seeing" not the "faith" of him who was brought forward but of those who were bringing him forward, said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven you." O wonderful humility! He addresses as "son" this abject and infirm paralytic with disjointed members whom the priests did not stoop to touch. A son, indeed, because his sins are forgiven him. In line with the biblical metaphor, a soul lying in its body with all the strength of its members gone is brought for healing to the perfect Doctor, the Lord. If the soul is healed through his mercy, it will receive strength enough to immediately take up its pallet.

On a bed, because he could not walk.

not the sick man's, but theirs that bare him.

O wonderful humility! This man feeble and despised, crippled in every limb, He addresses as son. The Jewish Priests did not deign to touch him. Even therefore His son, because his sins were forgiven him. Hence we may learn that diseases are often the punishment of sin; and therefore perhaps his sins are forgiven him, that when the cause of his disease has been first removed, health may be restored.

Figuratively; the soul sick in the body, its powers palsied, is brought by the perfect doctor to the Lord to be healed. For every one when sick, ought to engage some to pray for his recovery, through whom the halting footsteps of our acts may be reformed by the healing power of the heavenly word. These are mental monitors, who raise the soul of the hearer to higher things, although sick and weak in the outward body.

This paralytic, however, was different from that one who is set forth in John. For he lay at the pool, but this at Capernaum; and that man had his infirmity thirty and eight years, but concerning this, no such thing is mentioned; and the other was in a state destitute of protectors, but this had some to take care of him, who also took him up, and carried him. And to this He saith, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee," but to that He saith, "Wilt thou be made whole?" And the other He healed on a sabbath day, but this not on a sabbath, for else the Jews would have laid this also to His charge; and in the case of this man they were silent, but in that of the other they were instant in persecuting him.

And this I have said, not without purpose, lest any one should think there is a discrepancy from suspecting it to be one and the same paralytic.

But do thou, I pray thee, mark the humility and meekness of our Lord. For He had also before this put away the multitudes from Him, and moreover when sent away by them at Gadara, He withstood not, but retired, not however to any great distance.

And again He entered into the ship and passed over, when He might have gone over afoot. For it was His will not to be always doing miracles, that He might not injure the doctrine of His humanity.

Now Matthew indeed saith, that "they brought him," but the others, that they also broke up the roof, and let him down. And they put the sick man before Christ, saying nothing, but committing the whole to Him. For though in the beginning He Himself went about, and did not require so much faith of them that came unto Him; yet in this case they both approached Him, and had faith required on their part. For, "Seeing," it is said, "their faith;" that is, the faith of them that had let the man down. For He doth not on all occasions require faith on the part of the sick only: as for instance, when they are insane, or in any other way, through their disease, are out of their own control. Or rather, in this case the sick man too had part in the faith; for he would not have suffered himself to be let down, unless he had believed.

Forasmuch then as they had evinced so great faith, He also evinces His own power, with all authority absolving his sins, and signifying in all ways that He is equal in honor with Him that begat Him. And mark; He implied it from the beginning, by His teaching, when He taught them as one having authority; by the leper, when He said, "I will, be thou clean," by the centurion, when upon his saying, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed, He marvelled at him" and celebrated him above all men; by the sea, when He curbed it with a mere word; by the devils, when they acknowledged Him as their judge, and He cast them out with great authority.

Here again in another and a greater way He constrains His very enemies to confess His equality in honor, and by their own mouth He makes it manifest. For He, to signify His indifference to honor (for there stood a great company of spectators shutting up the entrance, wherefore also they let him down from above), did not straightway hasten to heal the visible body, but He takes His occasion from them; and He healed first that which is invisible, the soul, by forgiving his sins; which indeed saved the other, but brought no great glory to Himself. They themselves rather, troubled by their malice, and wishing to assail Him, caused even against their will what was done to be conspicuous. He, in fact, in His abundance of counsel, made use of their envy for the manifestation of the miracle.

Note in this regard, my brothers, that God does not inquire into the wants of those who are deliriously ill. He does not wait to see the faith of the ignorant or probe the senseless wishes of the sick. Yet he does not refuse to help the faith of another, so that by grace alone he confers whatever is proper of the divine will. In fact, my brothers, when does a doctor ever inquire into or examine the wishes of those who are ailing, for a patient is prone to be of a contrary mind in his wishes and demands?

(ubi sup.) Of how great power with God must a man's own faith be, when that of others here availed to heal a man both within and without. The paralytic hears his pardon pronounced, in silence uttering no thanks, for he was more anxious for the cure of his body than his soul. Christ therefore with good reason accepts the faith of those that bare him, rather than his own hardness of heart.

(ubi sup.) The Lord requires not in this world the will of those who are without understanding, but looks to the faith of others; as the physician does not consult the wishes of the patient, when his malady requires other things.

Does He distinguish and separate anyone out, calling one to Himself as foreknown while sending the other away as not predestined? Never! Therefore, "you should not make excuses for your sins" [Psalm 140:4, LXX], nor should you want to make the Apostle's words an occasion for your own destruction, but should run, all of you, to the Master Who calls you. For even if someone is a publican, or a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, or whatever else, the Master does not turn him away, but takes away the burden of his sins immediately and makes him free. And how does He take away the other's burden? Just as He once took away that of the paralytic when He said to the latter: "My son, your sins are forgiven" (Matthew 9:2), and the man was immediately relieved of his burden and, in addition, received the cure of his body. - "Second Ethical Discourse"

They brought a paralytic. Here is suggested the devotion of those who brought him; hence in Mark (2:4) it says that because they could not get near him, they let him down through the opened roof. This paralytic signifies the sinner lying in sin; hence, as the paralytic cannot move himself, so neither the sinner. Those who carry him are the ones who by their urgings carry him to God.

When Jesus saw their faith, he mentions the favor. Here we can see three things: first, what moved Jesus; secondly, what is required; thirdly, the complaint against the favor. Sometimes Jesus cures someone because of his faith, sometimes because of his prayers and those of others. Hence Mark (11:24): "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive, and it will be done to you." Take heart [have faith]. So what is required? Faith: "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever"; "Purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9). Your sins are forgiven. Here the favor is mentioned. But what had been his request? Bodily health, and the Lord gives health to his soul. The reason is that sin was the cause of the sickness, as in Psalm 16 (v. 4): "On account of their sins their infirmities were multiplied." Hence God acted as a good physician, who cures the cause.

[Daniel 2:28] "But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries." Therefore it is only in vain that thou inquirest (other MSS have: "that he inquire") of men as to something which is known only to God in heaven. Also, by indirectly drawing Nebuchadnezzar away from the worship of many gods, Daniel directs him to the knowledge of the one (true) God.

"Who hath shown thee, King Nebuchadnezzar, what is going to take place (the Vulg. reads: "the things which are going to take place") in the last times." Avoiding the blemish of adulation but cleaving to the truth, he courteously suggests that it is to the king, for it was to him that God had revealed secrets concerning what was to occur in the last times. Now either these "last days" are to be reckoned from the time when the dream was revealed to Daniel until the end of the world, or else at least this inference is to be drawn, that the over-all interpretation of the dream applies to that final end when the image and statue beheld is to be ground to powder.

"Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed were as follows." He does not say, "The visions of thine eyes," lest we should think it was something physical, but rather: "of thy head." "For the eyes of a wise man are in his head" (Ecclesiastes 2:14), that is to say in the princely organ of the heart, just as we read in the Gospel: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they are ones who shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). Again: "What are ye meditating in your hearts?" (Matthew 9:4). To be sure, other authorities in treating of this chapter, conjecture that the authoritative part of the soul (to hegemonikon) lies not in the heart but, as Plato says, in the brain.

For, when one reads of God as being "the searcher and witness of the heart; " when His prophet is reproved by His discovering to him the secrets of the heart; when God Himself anticipates in His people the thoughts of their heart, "Why think ye evil in your hearts? " when David prays "Create in me a clean heart, O God," and Paul declares, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," and John says, "By his own heart is each man condemned; " when, lastly, "he who looketh on a woman so as to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," -then both points are cleared fully up, that there is a directing faculty of the soul, with which the purpose of God may agree; in other words, a supreme principle of intelligence and vitality (for where there is intelligence, there must be vitality), and that it resides in that most precious part of our body to which God especially looks: so that you must not suppose, with Heraclitus, that this sovereign faculty of which we are treating is moved by some external force; nor with Moschion, that it floats about through the whole body; nor with Plato, that it is enclosed in the head; nor with Zenophanes, that it culminates in the crown of the head; nor that it reposes in the brain, according to the opinion of Hippocrates; nor around the basis of the brain, as Herophilus thought; nor in the membranes thereof, as Strato and Erasistratus said; nor in the space between the eyebrows, as Strato the physician held; nor within the enclosure of the breast, according to Epicurus: but rather, as the Egyptians have always taught, especially such of them as were accounted the expounders of sacred truths; in accordance, too, with that verse of Orpheus or Empedocles:

The Lord Himself, in short, when rebuking our thoughts, includes in His censures this aspect of the flesh, (man's heart), the citadel of the soul: "Why think ye evil in your hearts? " and again: "Whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Knowing their thoughts, because he alone knows man's thoughts. First, he reprehends their villainy: Why do you think evil thoughts in your hearts? For they called him a blasphemer: "Remove the evil from your thoughts" (Is 1:16).

It is easier said than done. Whether the sins of the paralytic were forgiven, only he who forgave them knew for sure. "Arise and walk": both he who arose and those who saw him arise were able to vouch for this. Hence there is a bodily sign in order to demonstrate a spiritual sign, though its impact is to curb the imperfections of body and soul. And we are given an understanding of sin and many bodily weaknesses to come. Perhaps, too, sins are forgiven first, so that with the causes of infirmity removed health may be restored.

(Verse 5, 6.) Which is easier to say: your sins are forgiven you; or to say: rise up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, then He says to the paralytic. There is a great difference between saying and doing. Whether the paralytic's sins were forgiven, only the one who forgave them knew. But both the one who rose up and those who saw him rise up could verify it by his walking. Therefore, a bodily sign is given in order to prove something spiritual, although it has the same power to forgive the faults of both body and soul. And intelligence is given to us, because many bodily weaknesses occur due to sins. And perhaps your sins are forgiven first, so that with the causes of weakness removed, health is restored.

Whether or no his sins were forgiven He alone could know who forgave; but whether he could rise and walk, not only himself but they that looked on could judge of; but the power that heals, whether soul or body, is the same. And as there is a great difference between saying and doing, the outward sign is given that the spiritual effect may be proved; But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.

And whereas, when He spake unto the sick of the palsy, He spake without clearly manifesting His own authority: for He said not, "I forgive thee thy sins," but, "thy sins be forgiven thee:" upon their constraining, He discloses His authority more clearly, saying, "But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins."

Seest thou, how far He was from unwillingness to be thought equal to the Father? For He said not at all, "The Son of Man hath need of another;" or, "He hath given Him authority," but, "He hath authority." Neither doth He say it for love of honor, but "to convince you," so He speaks, "that I do not blaspheme in making myself equal with God."

Thus everywhere His will is to offer proofs clear and indisputable; as when He saith, "Go thy way, show thyself to the priest;" and when He points to Peter's wife's mother ministering, and permits the swine to cast themselves down headlong. And in the same manner here also; first, for a certain token of the forgiveness of his sins, He provides the giving tone to his body: and of that again, his carrying his bed; to hinder the fact from being thought a mere fancy. And He doeth not this, before He had asked them a question. "For whether is easier," saith He, "to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee? or to say, Take up thy bed, and go unto thine house?" Now what He saith is like this, "Which seems to you easier, to bind up a disorganized body, or to undo the sins of a soul? It is quite manifest; to bind up a body. For by how much a soul is better than a body, by so much is the doing away sins a greater work than this; but because the one is unseen, the other in sight, I throw in that, which although an inferior thing, is yet more open to sense; that the greater also and the unseen may thereby receive its proof;" thus by His works anticipating even now the revelation of what had been said by John, that "He taketh away the sins of the world."

Well then, having raised him up, He sends him to His house; here again signifying His unboastfulness, and that the event was not a mere imagination; for He makes the same persons witnesses of his infirmity, and also of his health. For I indeed had desired, saith He, through thy calamity to heal those also, that seem to be in health, but are diseased in mind; but since they will not, depart thou home, to heal them that are there.

Seest thou how He indicates Him to be Creator both of souls and bodies? He heals therefore the palsy in each of the two substances, and makes the invisible evident by that which is in sight. But nevertheless they still creep upon the earth.

Which is easier? Here the disproof is given. But the Lord seems to argue incorrectly, because he argues from the lesser by affirming, for it seems easier to heal the body than the soul. But Jerome explains it thus: It is easier to say than to do; but as to doing, it is greater to heal the soul than the body; and as to power, it is the same power for both. But if it refers to words, we see that liars are quick to lie, when they cannot be caught. For in matters that are public, they can be caught, but not in those that are hidden. Hence in those cases they speak boldly, when they cannot be caught. Therefore, it is easier to say, if you could not know.

(ap. Anselm.) These words That ye may know, may be either Christ's words, or the Evangelist's words. As though the Evangelist had said, They doubted whether He could remit sins, But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath the power to remit sins, he saith to the paralytic. If they are the words of Christ, the connection will be as follows; You doubt that I have power to remit sins, But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power to remit sins—the sentence is imperfect, but the action supplies the place of the consequent clause, he saith to the paralytic, Rise, take up thy bed.

(Mor. xxiii. 24.) Or by the bed is denoted the pleasure of the body. He is commanded now he is made whole to bear that on which he had lain when sick, because every man who still takes pleasure in vice is laid as sick in carnal delights; but when made whole he bears this because he now endures the wantonness of that flesh in whose desires he had before reposed.

Furthermore, so it could be understood that he was in a body and that he could forgive sins and restore health to bodies, Jesus said, "That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins," then he said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your pallet." He could have simply said "Arise," but since the reason for doing every work had to be explained, he added, "Take up your pallet and go home." First he granted remission of sins; next he showed his ability to restore health. Then, with the taking up of the pallet, he made it clear that bodies would be free from infirmity and suffering; lastly, with the paralytic's return to his home, he showed that believers are being given back the way to paradise from which Adam, the parent of all, who became profligate from the stain of sin, had proceeded.

(ubi sup.) That that which had been proof of his sickness, should now become proof of his recovered health. And go to thy house, that having been healed by Christian faith, you may not die in the faithlessness of the Jews.

His rising up is the drawing off the soul from carnal lusts; his taking up his bed is the raising the flesh from earthly desires to spiritual pleasures; his going to his house is his returning to Paradise, or to internal watchfulness of himself against sin.

"But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins - then saith He to the paralytic - Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God Who had given such power unto men." Jesus commanded him to carry his bed so that the event would not appear to have been imaginary, and also, so that the multitudes would see the miracle. For they thought that Jesus, Who is greater than all, was only a man.

Therefore, that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins. He shows it in deed: first, the end of the deed is mentioned; secondly, the method; thirdly, the efficacy.

Hence he says, In order that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic, "Rise, take up your bed and go home." By this he manifests that he is God: "He will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1:21). He says, the Son of man, and on earth, thereby shattering two errors, namely, Nestorius' and Photinus'. Nestorius said that the Son of God and the Son of man were two supposits [persons] and that something said of one could not be said of the other. Hence it could not be said: This child created the stars. Therefore, he says, Son of man, because it belongs to God to forgive sins. Likewise, against Photinus, who said that Christ received his origin from the Virgin Mary and acquired divinity by his merits. And he rested his belief on Matthew (18:18): "All power has been given to me on earth and in heaven." That is why he says, on earth. Hence it says in Baruch (3:38): "After this he was seen on earth and conversed with men." Has the power.

It seems that this does not prove anything, because the apostles themselves had the power. However, they had it as ministers, not as its authors.

The statement, but that you may know, can be taken in two ways: either as the words of the evangelist, and then they are narrative; or as the words of Christ, and then the statement is left incomplete, because they doubted. Therefore, that you may know that I have power to forgive sins, he says to the paralytic: "Rise..." Hence he cured with a word, as God alone does: "He spoke and they were made" (Ps 33:9).

Three things should be noted about the sick man: he lay on a pallet, he was carried by others, he could not move. Therefore, because he lay on a pallet, he said, Rise; because he was carried, he said, take up your bed; because he could not move, he said, and walk, for "God's works are perfect" (Dt 32:4). Similarly, to a sinner lying in sin it is said, Rise from sin by sorrow; take up your bed by satisfaction: "I will bear the Lord's anger, because I have sinned against him" (Mic 8:9); and go home, the home of eternity or his own conscience: "When I enter my house, I will find rest in her" (Wis 8:16).

In the Gospel lesson which precedes this one, the Lord had said: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you." On these words you remember that we have already discoursed, as the Lord enabled us. But here, that is, in the succeeding lesson which you have heard read, He says: "These things I command you, that ye love one another." And thereby we are to understand that this is our fruit, of which He had said, "I have chosen you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain." And what He subjoined, "That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you," He will certainly give us if we love one another; seeing that this very thing He has also given us, in choosing us when we had no fruit, because we had chosen Him not; and appointing us that we should bring forth fruit,-that is, that we should love one another,-a fruit that we cannot have apart from Him, just as the branches can do nothing apart from the vine. Our fruit, therefore, is charity, which the apostle explains to be, "Out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." So love we one another, and so love we God. For it would be with no true love that we loved one another, if we loved not God. For every one loves his neighbor as himself if he loves God; and if he loves not God, he loves not himself. For on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets: this is our fruit. And it is in reference, therefore, to such fruit that He gives us commandment when He says, "These things I command you, that ye love one another." In the same way also the Apostle Paul, when wishing to commend the fruit of the Spirit in opposition to the deeds of the flesh, posited this as his principle, saying, "The fruit of the Spirit is love;" and then, as if springing from and bound up in this principle, he wove the others together, which are "joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." For who can truly rejoice who loves not good as the source of his joy? Who can have true peace, if he have it not with one whom he truly loves? Who can be long-enduring through persevering continuance in good, save through fervent love? Who can be kind, if he love not the person he is aiding? Who can be good, if he is not made so by loving? Who can be sound in the faith, without that faith which worketh by love? Whose meekness can be beneficial in character, if not regulated by love? And who will abstain from that which is debasing, if he love not that which dignifies? Appropriately, therefore, does the good Master so frequently commend love, as the only thing needing to be commended, without which all other good things can be of no avail, and which cannot be possessed without bringing with it those other good things that make a man truly good.

(Tract. lxxxvii. 1) Our Lord had said, I have ordained that ye should walk, and bring forth fruit. Love is this fruit. Wherefore He proceeds: These things I command you, that ye love one another. (Gal. 5:22) Hence the Apostle saith: The fruit of the Spirit is love; and enumerates all other graces as springing from this source. Well then doth our Lord commend love, as if it were the only thing commanded: seeing that without it nothing can profit, with it nothing be wanting, whereby a man is made good.

And in view of this recompense they ought to keep the commandment of Christ; therefore he repeats it: These things I command you, that you love one another. The commandment of love is called as it were given by hand, because he gave it by his own example: therefore above in chapter 13: "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another"; and 1 Thessalonians 4: "Concerning brotherly charity, we have no need to write to you: for you yourselves have learned of God to love one another."

They observed it in order to calumniate it, as we read in the Psalms, The ungodly sees the righteousness .

"These things I command you, that ye love one another."

That is, "It is not to upbraid, that I tell you that I lay down My life for you, or that I ran to meet you, but in order to lead you into friendship." Then, since the being persecuted and insulted by the many, was a grievous and intolerable thing, and enough to humble even a lofty soul, therefore, after having said ten thousand things first, Christ entered upon this matter. Having first smoothed their minds, He thus proceedeth to these points, showing that these things too were for their exceeding advantage, as He had also shown that the others were. For as He had told them that they ought not to grieve, but rather to rejoice, "because I go to the Father," (since He did this not as deserting but as greatly loving them,) so here also He showeth that they ought to rejoice, not grieve.

Lest the apostles think that the Lord speaks to reproach them by saying that He lays down His life for them and that He chose them, He therefore says: "I command you this not as a reproach to you, nor in praise of Myself as though for some merit, but to more firmly establish your souls in love for one another; for this reason I enumerate the perfections of My love toward you. These things I command you, that you love one another."

2029 These things I command you so that you will love one another. Here he is giving the reason for what he has said. Someone might ask: Why did Christ tell them all these things? So our Lord answers, These things I command you so that you will love one another. He is saying in effect: Everything I said to you was to lead you to love your neighbor: "The aim of our charge is love" (1 Tim 1:5). One could also say, with Chrysostom, that the apostles could have said: Lord, why are you reminding us so much about your love? Are you reprimanding us? But our Lord says: Not at all. I am doing this to encourage you to love your neighbor: "And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also" (1 Jn 4:21).

But behold, that which persecutes is called the world: let us test if that which suffers persecution is also called the world. Or are you deaf to the voice of Christ saying, or rather the sacred Scripture testifying: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself? If the world hates you, he says, know that it hated me before it hated you. Behold, the world hates. Whom, if not the world? Which world? God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The condemned world persecutes; the reconciled world suffers persecution. The condemned world is anything outside the Church; the reconciled world is the Church. For the Son of man did not come, he says, to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

But alongside of this love we ought also patiently to endure the hatred of the world. For it must of necessity hate those whom it perceives recoiling from that which is loved by itself. But the Lord supplies us with special consolation from His own case, when, after saying, "These things I command you, that ye love one another," He added, "If the world hate you, know that it hated me before [it hated] you." Why then should the member exalt itself above the head? Thou refusest to be in the body if thou art unwilling to endure the hatred of the world along with the Head. "If ye were of the world," He says, "the world would love its own." He says this, of course, of the whole Church, which, by itself, He frequently also calls by the name of the world: as when it is said, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." And this also: "The Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." And John says in his epistle: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also [for those] of the whole world." The whole world then is the Church, and yet the whole world hateth the Church. The world therefore hateth the world, the hostile that which is reconciled, the condemned that which is saved, the polluted that which is cleansed.

But if we are asked about the love which is borne to itself by that world of perdition which hateth the world of redemption; we reply, it loveth itself, of course, with a false love, and not with a true. And hence, it loves itself falsely, and hates itself truly. For he that loveth wickedness, hateth his own soul. And yet it is said to love itself, inasmuch as it loves the wickedness that makes it wicked; and, on the other hand, it is said to hate itself, inasmuch as it loves that which causes it injury. It hates, therefore, the true nature that is in it, and loves the vice: it hates what it is, as made by the goodness of God, and loves what has been wrought in it by free-will. And hence also, if we rightly understand it, we are at once forbidden and commanded to love it: thus, we are forbidden, when it is said to us, "Love not the world;" and we are commanded, when it is said to us, "Love your enemies." These constitute the world that hateth us. And therefore we are forbidden to love in it that which it loves in itself; and we are enjoined to love in it what it hates in itself, namely, the workmanship of God, and the various consolations of His goodness. For we are forbidden to love the vice that is in it, and enjoined to love the nature, while it loves the vice in itself, and hates the nature: so that we may both love and hate it in a right manner, whereas it loves and hates itself perversely.

(Tract. lxxxvii. 2) For why should the members exalt themselves above the head? Thou refusest to be in the body, if thou art not willing, with the head, to endure the hatred of the world. For love's sake let us be patient: the world must hate us, whom it sees hate whatever it loves; If ye were of the world, the world would love his own.

(Tract. lxxxvii. 2) He saith this to the whole Church, which is often called the world; as, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. (2 Cor. 5:19) The whole world then is the Church, and the whole world hateth the Church. The world hateth the world, the world in enmity, the world reconciled, the defiled world, the changed world. (Tract. lxxxviii. 4.). Here it may be asked, If the wicked can be said to persecute the wicked; e. g. if impious kings, and judges, who persecute the righteous, punish murderers and adulterers also; how are we to understand our Lord's words, If ye were of the world, the world would love his own? In this way; The world is in them who punish these offences, and the world is in them who love them. The world then hates its own so far as it punishes the wicked, loves its own so far as it favours them. (Tract. lxxxvii. 4.). Again, if it be asked how the world loves itself, when it hates the means of its redemption, the answer is, that it loves itself with a false, not a true love, loves what hurts it; hates nature, loves vice. Wherefore we are forbidden to love what it loves in itself; commanded to love what it hates in itself. The vice in it we are forbidden, the nature in it we are commanded, to love. And to separate us from this lost world, we are chosen out of it, not by merit of our own, for we had no merits to begin with, not by nature which was radically corrupt, but by grace: But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Third, he exhorts the disciples to endurance of enemies.

If the world hates you etc. This is the third part of the chapter, in which the Lord exhorts to endurance of persecuting enemies: and he does this in the following manner. First, he foretells the enmity of the world: second, the injury proceeding from this; third, he shows the malice of the persecutors or haters: fourth, his own innocence: fifth, he arms the disciples for patience.

First, therefore, he foretells the enmity of the world, which was to be against the members after the example of the head. For there had been the hatred of the world with respect to the head, which is Christ; on account of which he says: If the world hates you, know, that is, consider, that it hated me before you. The Lord assigned the reason for this hatred above in chapter three: "Everyone who does evil hates the light"; and above in chapter seven: "The world hates me, because I bear witness concerning it, that its works are evil."

It is shown that none is free from the peril of persecution, when even these accomplished martyrdoms. But how grave is the case of a Christian man, if he, a servant, is unwilling to suffer, when his Master first suffered; and that we should be unwilling to suffer for our own sins, when He who had no sin of His own suffered for us! The Son of God suffered that He might make us sons of God, and the son of man will not suffer that he may continue to be a son of God! If we suffer from the world's hatred, Christ first endured the world's hatred. If we suffer reproaches in this world, if exile, if tortures, the Maker and Lord of the world experienced harder things than these, and He also warns us, saying, "If the world hate you, remember that it hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." Whatever our Lord and God taught, He also did, that the disciple might not be excused if he learns and does not.

That it was before predicted that the world would hold us in abhorrence, and that it would stir up persecutions against us, and that no new thing is happening to the Christians, since from the beginning of the world the good have suffered, and the righteous have been oppressed and slain by the unrighteous.

The Lord in the Gospel forewarns and foretells, saying: "If the world hates you, know that it first hated me. If ye were of the world, the world would love what is its own: but because ye are not of the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I spoke unto you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also."

That it was before predicted, concerning the hatred of the Name, in the Gospel according to Luke: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."558 Also according to John: "If the world hate you, know ye that it first hated me. If ye were of the world, the world would love what would be its own: but because ye are not of the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word which I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

We shall find the course pursued in each case by our Saviour in no way whatever inferior, as I suppose, to the skill and fine art of physicians, as He everywhere follows a plan profitable to His hearers. For physicians check the stubborn maladies which sometimes arise in bodies by means of the resources of their art. But Christ fences off the entrance to evil, fortifying as it were each individual soul with commands ensuring prevention. Since therefore the disciples were destined to be rulers, not indeed over one nation or one district only, but rather to be the instructors of the universe, and to preach to all throughout the world the message of the Gospel and of God, and to turn their hearers to a belief in the true God alone, and to change them from sin to a willingness to do what became them, and to make the law, I mean that of the Gospel, the rule of their life; He bids them account as nothing the hatred of the world, that is of those who set their hearts on worldly things and choose to live wantonly and impiously. For could any one venture to say that, in seeing fit to give such injunctions to His disciples, showing that it was profitable to be hated, He did so without a reason, and not to profit them in any thing that is necessary? Put aside this folly; for His Word would not fall away into such a meaning as this. He counsels them not to guard against being noway hated by every one, and says excellently, in the clearest and most precise language, If the world hateth you, that is, if those who honour what is of the world and set their affections on earthly things alone should view you with hatred, know then indeed, He declares, that your Master endured this before you.

But any one might very readily perceive that the command of the Saviour will bring full profit to the expounders of the sweetest mysteries, if he would look at the nature of the circumstances. For it is always dear ----nay, rather, it is the object of their earnest endeavour----to thrust away as grievous and as monstrous the word that maketh wise, and to set upon those who are zealous to introduce the noblest of studies, and those by which they will become better than they were before; yielding up the victory to their private pleasures only. But a necessary consideration had well-nigh escaped my notice, although especially appropriate to, and connected with, the investigation of the words before us.

For the Jews, serving only the letter of the Mosaic Law, and putting their own construction on those things that were performed as types until a time of reformation, made no account whatsoever of the training of the Gospel, but thought they ought to consider its ministers as even more unendurable than their bitterest foes. And others, pursuing a different error, and attaching the unspeakable glory of God to the creature, I mean the heathen, did not very gladly receive the word that was capable of illumining them. For being as it were absorbed in their former vices, they accounted their ignorance as most precious, and were as little as possible inclined to depart from the disease akin to it. And since the nature of the case was so, who could doubt that the disciples of the Saviour would not only be hated by the Jews but also utterly despised by those diseased with the error of the Greeks? But they were very unwelcome, nay, they were intolerable, to those preferring to devote themselves to pleasure and honouring a life that spent itself in luxury. But if the disciples of the Saviour were to consider the consequence of being hated by those already mentioned as grievous, while they rather hastened to strive after and extravagantly to pursue the affection of those in this diseased condition, is it not quite clear to all that they would be manifestly not putting forth the word that is able to save to any one whatsoever, but would be rather bestowing their thoughts on vain trivialities, and restraining the rebuke that proceeds from boldness of speech according to the Will of God, speaking and expounding forsooth according to each individual taste?

The injunction therefore not too eagerly to seek to be loved and to disregard incurring the hatred of some is necessary if they gain profit from their counsels. This also we shall see St. Paul doing when he says plainly:----For am I now persuading men, or God? or am I seeking to please men? If I were still wishing to please men, I should not be a servant of Christ. And again, when he had rebuked someone in Corinth, and heard that he was excessively pained, he says: For if I make you sorry, who then is he that maketh me glad, but he that is made sorry by me? For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret. It will therefore be quite indisputable that the word which consults the pleasure of the listeners will flatter rather than benefit the world; but he who obeys the words of the Saviour will not conduct his ministry in this way. For he will prefer rather to please Him, and will regard even the being hated by those, and will consider even the hatred of those who have chosen to treat virtue with the utmost hostility, as spiritual wealth.

When then, He says, the hatred that you have stirred up against you in the world is found at times to militate against your good repute, overcome and cast aside this stumblingblock in your path, seeing that honours paid you by those who love the world cannot give you much pleasure, if they cannot endure to hear the word that profits them. For I am of a truth your Lord and Master. But that those who preferred to mind earthly things and despised the heavenly blessings hated Christ Himself also to their own destruction, I think it not difficult to show. For He said in the Gospels to some: The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it that its works are evil. Making Himself then again a pattern to His holy disciples in this, He bids them follow the track there laid down when He said again openly in another place: Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, and shall reproach you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

The word that speaks to the pleasure of the listeners will flatter rather than benefit the world. But those who obey the words of the Savior will not conduct their ministry in this way. Such a minister will prefer rather to please the Savior, and if the minister incurs hatred from those who have chosen to treat virtue with the utmost hostility, it shall be considered spiritual wealth.

(Hom. lxxvii. 2) Or thus: I have said that I lay down My life for you, and that I first chose you. I have said this not by way of reproach, but to induce you to love one another. Then as they were about to suffer persecution and reproach, He bids them not to grieve, but rejoice on that account: If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you: as if to say, I know it is a hard trial, but ye will endure it for My sake.

Since enduring persecution and hatred is a difficult and very grievous thing, He says to comfort them: "If they hate you, this is nothing new, for they hated Me before you. Therefore you should find great consolation in the fact that you become My companions in bearing hatred."

2030 After presenting the picture of the vine and the branches and explaining the part about the branches being united to the vine, he now explains it in regard to the pruning or cleansing they will receive from their trials. So our Lord now consoles them against the tribulations they were going to endure. First, he mentions a few considerations which will console them; secondly, he explains these (v 20); thirdly, he rejects the excuses of those who will persecute them (v 22). He mentions two reasons why they should be consoled: the first uses himself as an example; the second is based on the reason for their being hated, because you are not of the world.

2031 Our Lord consoles them by using himself as an example of one who has suffered the persecution of oppressors, saying, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. Note that just as the source of all benefits is love, so the source of all persecutions is hatred. And so our Lord foretells that they will be hated: "You will be hated by all nations" (Mt 24:9); "Blessed are you when men hate you" (Lk 6:22).

He says, If the world hates you, that is, it will come to pass that the world will hate you, and show its hatred by persecuting you, know that it has hated me before it hated you: "The world cannot hate you, but it hates me" (7:7). This thought is a great consolation for the just so that they can courageously endure persecutions: "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted" (Heb 12:3); "Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps" (1 Pet 2:21). According to Augustine, the members should not consider themselves greater than the Head, nor refuse to be part of his body by being unwilling to endure with their Head the hatred of the world.

2032 The world can have two meanings. First a good meaning, for those who lead a good life in the world: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19). Secondly, it can have an evil sense, meaning those who love the world: "The whole world is in the power of the evil one" (1 Jn 5:19). And so the whole world hates the whole world, because those who love the world, and they are spread throughout the whole world, hate the whole world, that is, the Church of the good, which has been established throughout the whole world.

That which is promised to us is already present with you, and the object of your prayers is with you. You are of this world and yet not in this world. This age has held you but has not been able to retain you.

But that world which God is in Christ reconciling unto Himself, which is saved by Christ, and has all its sins freely pardoned by Christ, has been chosen out of the world that is hostile, condemned, and defiled. For out of that mass, which has all perished in Adam, are formed the vessels of mercy, whereof that world of reconciliation is composed, that is hated by the world which belongeth to the vessels of wrath that are formed out of the same mass and fitted to destruction. Finally, after saying, "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own," He immediately added, "But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." And so these men were themselves also of that world, and, that they might no longer be of it, were chosen out of it, through no merit of their own, for no good works of theirs had preceded; and not by nature, which through free-will had become totally corrupted at its source: but gratuitously, that is, of actual grace. For He who chose the world out of the world, effected for Himself, instead of finding, what He should choose: for "there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. And if by grace," he adds, "then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace."

For this same reason he shows the hatred of the members: whence he gives the reason for this hatred: because they were at variance with the world; on account of which he says: If you had been of the world, that is, if you had remained in the world through depraved custom: the world would love what was its own: whence above in chapter seven it is said to the worldly: "But your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you." But because you are not of the world, that is, of worldly conduct: but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. That hatred was signified in Genesis twenty-seven in the hatred of Esau, where it is said: "Esau hated Jacob on account of the blessing with which his father had blessed him." Esau signifies the worldly and the reprobate, but Jacob the elect.

He lightens by His art even that which was most grievous, and gives them unexpected pleasure at that which it was reasonable to suppose would greatly trouble them. For to be hated by any is truly burdensome, because sly injuries and unexpected devices are the result; yet this too is sweet when it happens for the sake of God and righteousness, and it supplies a convincing proof that the man against whom some thus act is not of the world. For as we find physical so also shall we find moral affinities, and a sameness and complete likeness of disposition is sufficient to undermine mere blood-relationship.

For every creature loveth its like, according to the Scripture, and a man will be attached to his like. Now whereas similarity of character renews the law of love towards one another, the holy will live with the holy and very readily conform to him, and be joined to him in friendly union. And so also will be the attitude of one of like disposition towards a blasphemer. For this reason the Mosaic Law made a complete distinction between what was holy and profane, keeping such things apart and separate from one another according to the law of love.

Evil company doth corrupt good manners, and differences of disposition are at war with one another, and wills that are divided look in opposite directions and almost accuse one another: each being enamoured of its own pursuit. The lover of virtue then must incur hatred for the very things which excite our admiration----his rebuking vice and unveiling the vileness of the wicked by the contrast that his own manner of life presents. For when goodness is seen by its side, what is evil must appear unseemly. For this cause then I think those who are not enamoured of the same manner of life rage against the virtuous.

He bids then His disciples not be pained, even though they see themselves hateful to the world on account of their love of virtue and righteousness towards Him, but explains that they ought on the contrary to rejoice, receiving the hatred of the world as a proof of their dignity and praise with God. For see how dangerous He has shown their not enduring to suffer (which it was likely they would prefer) to be. For to be hated by any was not absolutely without loss. But it has not the free pardon from God, and the great gain which results from preferring to suffer it. For if the man who is hated by those who mind worldly things is considered as outside the world, it is necessary then to suppose that the man who is not hated is united to the vices of the world.

What then has Christ established by these words? That they should preach His word with boldness, and should not permit their hearers to be unprofited, from their regard towards sinners or those who prefer to disobey the Divine command; but that, leaving unnoticed the affronts that will often result from being hated, they should give bold and fearless counsel, passing by nothing whatsoever or esteeming anything of more consequence than the necessity of serving God. This object St. Paul well accomplishes when he writes thus: For am I now persuading mien, or God? or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ. For it is not possible to please evil men and God. For how could the two coincide, the will of each presenting the widest divergence? For one looks towards virtue, and the other looks towards vice. The man therefore who wishes only to be the servant of God, and who regards nothing as superior to piety towards Him, must necessarily be in conflict with those who love the world, whenever he persuades them to a state of mind out of harmony with the vain folly of the world. For advice which calls to something else is most intolerable to lovers of pleasure, as assuredly are profitable and severe remedies to those whose bodies are diseased by these passions.

For the detraction of the perverse is the approbation of our life, because it is already shown that we have something of justice if we begin to displease those who do not please God. For no one can be pleasing in one and the same matter to the Almighty Lord and to His enemies. For he denies himself a friend to God who pleases His enemy. And he will be opposed to the enemies of truth who is subjected to that same truth in his mind. Whence holy men, inflamed in the rebuke of free speech, do not fear to arouse against themselves the hatred of those whom they know do not love God.

(Hom. in Ezech. ix.) For the dispraise of the perverse, is our praise. There is nothing wrong in not pleasing those, who do not please God. He proves himself no friend to God, who pleases His enemy; and he whose soul is in subjection to the Truth, will have to contend with the enemies of that Truth.

"If ye were of the world, the world would love its own."

So that had ye been loved it would be very clear that ye had shown forth signs of wickedness. Then, when by saying this first, He did not effect his purpose, He goeth on again with the discourse.

And observe how He effecteth this. He said not, "I know that the action is grievous, but bear for My sake, since for My sake also ye suffer," for this reason was not yet sufficient to console them; wherefore letting this pass, He putteth forward another. And what is that? It is that this thing would be a sure proof of their former virtue. "And, on the contrary, ye ought to grieve, not because ye are hated now but if ye were likely to be loved"; for this He implieth by saying, "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own."

After this, he adds another way of consolation, one that is more compelling. "You," he says, "on the contrary, ought to grieve in the event that the world, that is, evil people, loved you. For if they loved you, it would be a sign that you yourselves also have fellowship with them in the same malice and wickedness. But now, when the evil hate you, you should rejoice. For they hate you on account of your virtue; otherwise, if you were not virtuous, the world would love its own. But since I have separated you from the wickedness of the world, the world hates you because you do not participate in its works."

2033 Now he mentions a second point for their consolation, and this is based on the reason for their being hated. When a person endures another's hatred because of his own sins, there is reason for regret and sorrow; but when he is hated because of his virtue he should rejoice. First, our Lord gives the reason why some are loved by the world; secondly, why the apostles are hated by the world (v 19).

2034 The reason why some are loved by the world is that they are like the world; If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Like loves like: "Every creature loves its like" (Sir 13:15). And thus the world, that is, those who love the world, love those who love the world. Accordingly, our Lord says, If you were of the world, that is, followers of the world, the world would love its own, because you would be its own and like to it: "The world cannot hate you, but it hates me" (7:7). "They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them" (1 Jn 4:5).

2035 One might object that our Lord meant by the world the authorities of the world, who would persecute the apostles. Yet these very same authorities persecute other worldly people, like murderers and thieves. Therefore, the world does not love its own any more than it loves the apostles.

I reply that it is possible to find something purely good, but not something purely evil, since the subject of evil is something good. Consequently, the evil of guilt is located in some good of nature. Therefore, no person can be a sinner and evil without having some good. So it is because of the evil of these authorities, the evil of their unbelief, that they belong to the world and hate the apostles and those who are not of the world. But because of the good they possess they are not of the world and hate those who are of the world, as thieves and robbers, and such. Still, there were some who were living well in the world yet loved the apostles and approved of their actions.

2036 But now there seems to be a greater difficulty. For every sin pertains to the world, and so a person is of the world by reason of any sin. Yet we observe that people who commit the same sin hate each other, for example, the proud: "Among the proud there is always strife" [Prv 13:10]. And one greedy person hates another who is also greedy. As the Philosopher says, potters quarrel with one another. Thus, the world is hating the world, and what our Lord says here does not seem to be true, that is, the world would love its own.

I reply that there are two kinds of love: the love of friendship and the love of concupiscence. These are quite different. With the love of concupiscence we draw external things or persons to ourselves, and we love these others insofar as they are useful to us or give us pleasure. But in the love of friendship we have the opposite, for we draw ourselves to what is external to us, because those we love in this way we treat the same as ourselves, sharing ourselves with them in some way. Thus, likeness is a cause of love, when we are speaking of the love of friendship, for we do not love a person in this way unless we are one with that person: and likeness is a certain way of being one. But with the love of concupiscence, whether it is for what is useful or gives pleasure, likeness is a cause of division and hatred. For since with this love I love some person or thing insofar as it is useful to me or gives me pleasure, I hate as opposed to me whatever hinders this usefulness or pleasure. So it is that the proud feud among themselves, for one takes for himself the glory that another loves and in which he takes pleasure. As for the potters, they quarrel because one takes for himself some profit which another wants for himself.

Notice that the love of concupiscence is not a love for the thing desired but a love for the person desiring: for in this kind of love, one loves another because the other is useful, as was said. Therefore, in this kind of love, one is rather loving himself than the other. For example, a person who loves wine because it gives him pleasure loves himself rather than the wine. But the love of friendship is concerned rather with the thing loved than with the one loving, because here one loves another for the sake of the one loved, and not for the sake of the one loving. And so because in the love of friendship likeness is a cause of love, and unlikeness a cause of hatred, the world hates what is not its own and is unlike it; but it loves, with the love of friendship, what is its own. It is the reverse with the love of concupiscence. Thus he says, If you were of the world, the world would love its own, with the love of friendship.

2037 Now he gives the reason why the world hates the apostles, which is because they are unlike the world. He says, but because you are not of the world, because your spirit has been lifted above it - although you are of the world by your origin: "You are from below, I am from above" (8:23) - lifted above it not by yourselves but by my grace, because I chose you out of the world, therefore, because you are not of the world, the world hates you, that is, those who love the world and who are unlike you, hate you: "An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, but he whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked" (Prv 29:27); and in the same chapter "Bloodthirsty men hate one who is blameless" (v 10).

2038 Three reasons can be given why the world hates those who are holy. First, there is a difference of condition: the world is in a state of death, but those who are holy are in a state of life: "Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren" (1 Jn 3:13). And so we read: "The very sight of him is a burden to us" (Wis 2:15). The second reason is that the world does not like to be corrected: for those who are holy are, by their words and actions, a rebuke to the conduct of the world. Consequently the world hates them: "They hate him who reproves in the gate" (Amos 5:10); "But it," the world, "hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil" (7:7). The third reason is because of evil envy, for those who are evil envy the good when they see them grow and increase in goodness and holiness, just like the Egyptians hated and persecuted the children of Israel when they saw them increasing (Ex 1:9). And we also see that Joseph's brothers hated him when they saw that he was loved more than they (Gen 37:4).

Receive also those that are persecuted on account of the faith, and who "fly from city to city" on account of the Lord's commandment; and assist them as martyrs, rejoicing that ye are made partakers of their persecution, as knowing that they are esteemed blessed by the Lord; for Himself says: "Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, because your reward is great in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before us." And again: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." And afterwards: "If they persecute you in this city, flee ye to another..." And, "He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved." For he that is persecuted for the sake of the faith, and bears witness in regard to Him, Christ, and endures, is truly a man of God.

The Lord, in exhorting His servants to endure with patience the hatred of the world, proposes to them no greater and better example than His own; seeing that, as the Apostle Peter says, "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps." And if we really do so, we do it by His assistance, who said, "Without me ye can do nothing." But further, to those to whom He had already said, "If the world hate you, know that it hated me before it hated you," He now also says in the word you have just been hearing, when the Gospel was read, "Remember my word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." Now in saying, "The servant is not greater than his lord," does He not clearly indicate how He would have us understand what He had said above, "Henceforth I call you not servants"? For, you see, He calleth them servants. For what else can the words imply, "The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you"? It is clear, therefore, that when it is said, "Henceforth I call you not servants," He is to be understood as speaking of that servant who abideth not in the house for ever, but is characterized by the fear which love casteth out; whereas, when it is here said, "The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you," that servant is meant who is distinguished by the clean fear which endureth for ever. For this is the servant who is yet to hear, "Well done, thou good servant: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

(Tract. lxxxviii. 1) Our Lord, in exhorting His servants to bear patiently the hatred of the world, proposes to them an example than which there can be no better and higher one, viz. Himself: Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.

(Tract. lxxxviii. 1) The servant is not greater than his Lord. Here the servant is the one who has the purified fear, which abideth for ever.

Remember the word. Here the second point is touched upon, namely injury, in the same manner as enmity, namely of the head first and of the members on account of the head and after the example of the head. On account of which he says: Remember the word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his lord; above in the thirteenth chapter: "Amen, amen I say to you: The disciple is not above the master, nor is the apostle greater than his lord." And therefore he argues: If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. And it follows that if they hate and persecute the head, they also hate and persecute the members. Whence Augustine: "He refuses to be in the body who does not wish to endure the hatred of the world with the head." Concerning the persecution of the head, it is found in the Psalm: "They persecuted the man who was poor and a beggar and stricken in heart." Not only will they persecute in deed, but they will despise in heart: If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also, that is, just as they despised my word, so also yours; Luke tenth chapter: "He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me."

Or they have kept, that is, they watched in order to find fault: Matthew twenty-second chapter: "The Pharisees went away and took counsel to trap Jesus in his speech"; and in the Psalm: "The sinner will watch the just man."

Our Lord in Gethsemane made a petitionary prayer (and did not get what He asked for). You'll remind me that He asked with a reservation—"nevertheless, not my will but thine." This makes an enormous difference. But the difference which it precisely does not make is that of removing the prayer's petitionary character...

The servant is not greater, and must not be more high-minded than the master. Whatever the theoretical difficulties are, we must continue to make requests of God. And on this point we can get no help from those who keep on reminding us that this is the lowest and least essential kind of prayer. They may be right; but so what? Diamonds are more precious than cairngorms, but the cairngorms still exist and must be taken into account like anything else.

After having first then shown that the hatred His followers would incur was honourable to them if justified by the occasion----for it can well be borne, nay, it is even thrice-longed for, when it happens on account of God, Who is able to set men above hindrances----He removes that which, as God, He was aware would induce them to be slow to be willing to devote all their energies to the duty of preaching the heavenly doctrine. For whereas disgrace and danger follow for the most part those that are bent on teaching, whenever their words are not found agreeable to those whom they admonish, and besides persecution is incurred, their message sometimes not being received, He vigorously and earnestly exhorts them to be prepared for these things and very ready to meet them. This too He has set forth in other words, saying: Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come. But He exercises an entire control over them, representing His own condition in this respect in order that they may not aim at what is greater nor be found behaving unseemly after a different manner, but necessarily as it were following in the wake of the glory of the Lord may be anxious not to be above Him. He signifies to them that they will meet every kind of opprobrium, saying, "the slave is not above his lord." For Me, He says, wicked men assailed with unbridled tongue; and, leaving no kind of insult untried, they called Me a man possessed of a devil, and a drunkard, and the fruit of fornication. Yet I did not immediately seek their punishment, but not being cut to the heart by their insults, I vouchsafed unto My hearers the word of salvation. Do not, then, seek out of reason your own aggrandisement, nor scorn the limits within which your Lord was bound, Who lowered Himself to such humiliation for us to benefit all. Therefore it makes men superior to the bitterness of speech and the impiety of those who are accustomed to find fault, as indeed also the blessed prophet Jeremiah when harassed said with respect to this very thing: My strength hath failed me by reason of those who curse me; while the inspired Paul, showing still more nobility of character under the like treatment, and gaining a great victory over the impiety of those who insulted him, says: Being reviled, we bless; being defamed, we entreat. For to love to contend against such things as these is the work of a mind humble of spirit according to the Scripture, and adorned with a truly modest temper. For long-suffering and forbearance spring up and arise as though from a good root, especially at such a time. But the inability to endure words of provocation or any kind of ill repute whatever among men, would give a clear proof of an understanding that loves boasting, and of a disposition but little estranged from the love of worldly glory. For what injury can insolence inflict on him who is free from pride? And how shall the reviling of any one be grievous to him who aims not at worldly reputation?

He well exhorts us to have a mind that goes beyond this most worthless reputation----I mean that which is the object of worldly honour----and that mounts far beyond such things as these. But He forearms them as it were with a necessary safeguard, so that they may be willing to manifest such a spirit, and sets before them an argument which thrusts aside the contumely that results from weakness, namely that which we mentioned at first, the following in the wake of the glory of the Lord, and with joy confronting everything that comes in its season, until they attain to glory through God; not being bowed down by dishonour like a feeble laggard, nor checking the boldness of their teaching and neglecting the Divine commands when they are bitterly reviled, but rather to lay hold of love towards their brethren, and to hasten in every way to help those that are astray.

Persuading them therefore to shun the temporary honour of the world that lies immediately before them, He makes another earnest contention, useful and necessary. For if, He says, they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. And the drift of this is allied to His previous words. He still therefore persuades them to endure suffering, and removes by anticipation the weakness caused by the reflections that naturally arise in us. For there was no doubt that the disciples of the Saviour, incurring the anger of the persecutors of the truth, would fall into the terrors of persecution. But it was very right for them to reflect that when they preached the message of the glory of Christ, they would at all events partake of the riches of His mercy, so that they should think nothing at all a hindrance in the way of so desirable a zeal, but should appear superior to all panic and danger, having nothing painful to undergo, but rather exulting in the honours that all men would bestow on them as ministering unto them the word of salvation. And it was a perfectly right object that those who were anxious to call men into eternal life and were found to be messengers to their hearers of blessings from God should expect this, and seek to be included among men so blessed. But as every man inclines his own purpose in the direction of his wishes, and directs it to suit his will and pleasure, it was the more necessary that it should be pointed out that those who are hostile to the truth and are subjugated by the pleasures of vice must fight through conviction with those who call them away from the objects of their pursuit. For lessons which have this object are not pleasant to those who love pleasure. It remained then of necessity to show what they would have to expect from those who, being ranked among their foes, would persecute them, and insult them, and try every kind of assault.

Christ therefore exhorts them to confront this boldly, not denying that it will happen. And because His followers ought to show a manful spirit, He instructs them and foretells the dangers they will encounter. For if, He says, they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. This is just as if He had said: "I, the Creator of the Universe, Who have all things under My hand, both in heaven and on earth, did not put a bridle on their rage, nor restrained as it were by bonds the inclination of each of my hearers. But I rather left to the choice of each his own course, and permitted all to do as they liked. And therefore I, when persecuted, endured it, though I had the power of preventing it. When therefore ye also are persecuted, enduring for a time the aversion of those who hate you, and not being too much troubled by the ingratitude of those whom you benefit, following in the wake of My dispensation pursue the same course as I did, that you may attain the like glory. For those who surfer with Me shall also reign with Me."

And by the third addition, If they kept My word, they will keep yours also, He bids them not to be disheartened when their teaching is sometimes not received; and He does this also excellently and well. For he who has been appointed to this work thinks that he has lost his labour if any refuse to obey his words. But the case is not so. Let no one think that it is: for how is that possible? For the adviser who has once spoken and set forth the knowledge of what is good, has done that which was in his power. The rest will depend upon the disposition of his hearers. For it is easy for them to turn, each to what he wishes, either to obedience or the opposite. Those then who are our guides to the best life must not shrink back, so that they may sow in the reprobates the Word that is able to profit by Divine power, and may be able to order aright what we cannot attain unto by their faithful ministration, a thing which we find well practised and brought to perfection in the distribution of the talents. For one is found taking ten, and another five, and another two, and besides these yet another taking one, who, disdaining to use it for commercial purposes, buried the talent in the earth. And for this reason it was said to him: Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own with interest. For just as those who have been trained to agricultural industry, and who have this object in view, cutting up the land with the plough and then burying the seed in the furrow, leave the rest no longer to their own skill but rather entrust it to the power and favour of God, I mean the taking root of that which is cast into the earth and nourishing it up to perfect fruit, so I think the expounder of the noblest truths ought only to distribute the Word and leave the rest to God.

The Saviour therefore gives His advice in this matter to His disciples as a medicine for want of spirit and a cure of listlessness. For do not ever choose to shrink, He says, from continuing to teach, even if some of those who have once been admonished should make of no account the teaching that has been given them. But finding that even My words are often not received by many, do not strive to surpass My reputation, and, following in My steps in this also, lay aside despondency. And this instruction was very necessary to the holy Apostles, since they were about to preach to all men the message of God and salvation. And therefore the inspired Paul, as having been nominated to his Apostleship by Christ, has shown himself to us a man of this kind, and is often seen to attain manliness herein. For it is easy to show that he thought he ought to despise the love of honour, and to treat persecution as utterly of no account, while he considered it of great importance not to be too fainthearted, even if some entirely refused to receive the Word that was once scattered among them. For he writes to some: Ye are wise in Christ, but we are fools for Christ's sake; we are weak, but ye are strong; we have dishonour, but ye have glory. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst; and yet again, besides, these words: We are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things even until now. So you see then that he was above worldly repute, on account of the commandment of the Saviour. But, showing his nobleness in persecutions, he said: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? He writes also to others, that to speak the same things, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe. And yet again to the Galatians: My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you. You hear with how little hesitation he repeats the same message, though the first that he had originally given had not gained acceptance, and well says that he travailed in birth for some until the forming of Christ in them should appear. And his preaching effected this, moulding his hearers into the love of God and into the likeness of Christ by faith.

Jesus indicates to his disciples that they will encounter every kind of disgrace, saying, "The slave is not above his lord." "For," he says, "wicked people attacked me with their unbridled tongues. And leaving no kind of insult untried, they called me a man possessed of a devil and a drunkard and the fruit of fornication. Yet I did not immediately seek their punishment, but not being cut to the heart by their insults, I granted to my hearers the word of salvation." Do not, then, seek out of reason your own aggrandizement or scorn the limits within which your Lord was bound, who lowered himself to such humiliation for us to benefit all.

It is just as if Jesus said, "I, the creator of the universe, who have everything under my hand, both in heaven and on earth, did not bridle their rage or restrain … their inclinations. Rather, I let each one choose their own course and permitted all to do what they wanted. Therefore, when I was persecuted, I endured it even though I had the power of preventing it. When you too follow in my wake and pursue the same course I did, you also will be persecuted. You're going to have to momentarily endure the aversion of those who hate you without being overly troubled by the ingratitude of those whom you benefit. This is how you attain my glory, for those who suffer with me shall also reign with me."

Just as those who have been trained in agriculture … cut up the land with the plough, and then bury the seed in the furrow and do not rely any further on their own skill but rather leave the rest to the power and favor of God—I mean the germination of the seed that is buried in the earth and nourishing it up to perfect fruit—so too I think the interpreter of the noblest truths ought only to sow the Word and leave the rest to God. The Savior therefore gives his advice in this matter to his disciples as a medicine for lack of spirit and a cure for listlessness. For, he says, do not ever choose to shy away from continuing to teach, even if some of those who have once been admonished should nullify the teaching that has been given to them. Rather, finding that even my words are often not received by many, do not strive to surpass my reputation. Instead, follow in my footsteps and do not become discouraged.

They observed it in order to calumniate it, as we read in the Psalms, The ungodly seeth the righteous.

"The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you."

He showed that in this point they would be most His imitators. For while Christ was in the flesh, men had war with Him, but when He was translated, the battle came in the next place upon them. Then because owing to their fewness they were terrified at being about to encounter the attack of so great a multitude, He raiseth their souls by telling them that it was an especial subject of joy that they were hated by them; "For so ye shall share My sufferings. Ye should not therefore be troubled, for ye are not better than I," as I before told you, "The servant is not greater than his lord." Then there is also a third source of consolation, that the Father also is insulted together with them.

What He said above, namely, that they hated Me before they hated you, He now sets forth more extensively, offering them greater consolation. "Remember," He says, "My word that a servant is not greater than his master. And you are not greater than Me. See then how they treated Me. If they persecuted Me—the Master, all the more will they persecute you—the servants. If they did not persecute Me but kept My word, then they will keep yours as well."

Or thus: If, Me says, they have persecuted your Lord, much more will they persecute you; if they had persecuted Him, but kept His commandments, they would keep yours also.

2039 Now he amplifies on the reasons just given for their consolation: first, the one using himself as an example; secondly, the one relating to the reason why they are hated (v 21). He does two things with the first: first, he reminds them that he and they are different in condition; secondly, he shows they are alike in what will be done to them, If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.

2040 Their different conditions were that Christ was the Lord and the apostles were servants: "A servant is not greater than his master" (13:16). He reminds them of this difference when he says, Remember the word that I said to you, A servant is not greater than his master. Therefore, it is not unfitting for you to undergo the same sufferings as your Lord; rather, you should regard this as a great glory. Thus Christ said to the disciples who were asking to sit on his right and left, "Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" (Mt 20:22). "It is a great honor to follow God" (Sir 23:28); "It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher" (Mt 10:25).

2041 On the contrary. He said above, "No longer do I call you servants" (15:15), while he says here, A servant is not greater than his master. I answer that there are two kinds of servitude. One comes from a slave-like fear, that is, from a fear of punishment; and the Apostles were not servants in this way. The other comes from a "chaste fear," [the respect of a spouse], and such servitude was in the apostles: "Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes" (Lk 12:37).

2042 If then you are my servants and I am your Lord, you should be content to have happen to you what happens to me. Now some have despised me, while others have accepted me: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (1:11). You will be treated the same way: if some despise you, yet others will honor you.

For this reason he says, If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. Here we see how the saints are like Christ: for the disciples were persecuted for the same reason that Christ was, because Christ was being persecuted in the disciples. In fact in Acts (9:4) Christ said that he was being persecuted in the persecution of his disciples: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

And so because their reason for acting is the same in the two cases, the consequence follows: If they persecuted me, they will persecute you: "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household" (Mt 10:25). Matthew (23:34) says of this persecution: "Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town." Similarly, they will be honored for the same reason that Christ was: if they kept my word, they will keep yours also, because your words are my words: "You desire proof that Christ is speaking in me" (2 Cor 13:3); "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Mt 10:20). And so Christ says, "He who hears you hears me" (Lk 10:16). The apostles were in truth accepted and honored by some of the people, as is clear from "When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God" (1 Thess 2:13).

"But all these things," He says, "will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me." And what are "all these things" that "they will do," but what He has just said, namely, that they will hate and persecute you, and despise your word? For if they kept not their word, and yet neither hated nor persecuted them; or if they even hated, but did not persecute them: it would not be all these things that they did. But "all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake,"-what else is that but to say, they will hate me in you, they will persecute me in you; and your word, just because it is mine, they will not keep? For "all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake:" not for yours, but mine. So much the more miserable, therefore, are those who do such things on account of that name, as those are blessed who suffer such things in its behalf: as He Himself elsewhere saith, "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness' sake." For that is on my account, or "for my name's sake:" because, as we are taught by the apostle, "He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and santification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." For the wicked do such things to the wicked, but not for righteousness' sake; and therefore both are alike miserable, those who do, and those who suffer them. The good also do such things to the wicked: where, although the former do so for righteousness' sake, yet the latter suffer them not on the same behalf.

And He added, "Because they know not Him that sent me." This is to be understood as spoken of that knowledge of which it is also elsewhere recorded, "But to know Thee is perfect intelligence." For those who with such a knowledge know the Father, by whom Christ was sent, can in no wise persecute those whom Christ is gathering; for they also themselves are being gathered by Christ along with the others.

(Tract. lxxxviii. 2) All these things, viz. what He had mentioned, that the world would hate them, persecute them, despise their word. For My Name's sake, i. e. in you they will hate Me, in you persecute Me, your word they will not keep, because it is mine. They who do these things for His name's sake are as miserable, as they who suffer them are blessed: except when they do them to the wicked as well; for then both they who do, and they who suffer, are miserable. But how do they do all these things for His name's sake, when they do nothing for Christ's name's sake, i. e. for justice sake? We shall do away with this difficulty, if we take the words as applying to the righteous; as if it were, All these things will ye suffer from them, for My name's sake. If, for My name's sake, mean this, i. e. My name which they hate in you, justice which they hate in you; of the good, when they persecute the wicked, it may be said in the same way, that they do so both for righteousness' sake, which they love, which love is their motive in persecuting, and for unrighteousness' sake, the unrighteousness of the wicked, which they hate. Because they know not Him that sent Me, i. e. know not according to that knowledge of which it is said, To know Thee is perfect righteousness. (Wisd. 15:3)

And worldly men also persecute the head and the members; they do not persecute the head on account of the members, but conversely; whence he says: But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake, namely to destroy it, for which you are blessed: whence Matthew fifth chapter: "Blessed are you when men shall persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you, lying, for my sake." The reason for this is the blindness of unbelief; whence: because they know not him who sent me: above in the eighth chapter: "You know neither me nor my Father"; and below in the seventeenth chapter: "Just Father, the world has not known you."

He declares that those who choose to act impiously against His holy disciples will do it on no other plea than "My Name" only. For this is a reproach against those who honour God, and an excuse for setting themselves against them on the part of those who do not know Him. But since it is clear to all that no one would suffer anything for the sake of God without reward, for a glorious crown will await them, He incites them again to courage, and makes their spirit steadfast, thrusting aside the misery of that which they expect by the hope of the return. He points out then that the very perils they endure are gain and an object of prayer, and rids of all its terrors that, the very prospect of the occurrence of which might stupefy some, and exhorts His disciples to welcome it with the greatest eagerness. And indeed when they were once summoned before the impious Council of the Jews, and had been severely buffeted with stripes for the sake of Christ, they went forth from the presence of the council, rejoicing, according to the Scripture, that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the Name of the Lord. And of a truth they earnestly exhort us to endure suffering in this cause, and in no way to be dismayed by it, even if we have to encounter any pain for Christ's sake. For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer: but if a man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this Name. Most pleasant then is suffering for Christ's sake, and sweet is peril when its presence is occasioned by love towards God.

But consider how here again, showing Himself as One with His Father, He says that neither the Jews nor those who were about to persecute the preachers of the Name of Christ, knew either the Father or the Son. For he who deems it his duty to dishonour the Son is avowedly a hater of the Father; not indeed as transgressing against another nature, but as insulting the true dignity of His natural Divinity. For none could be convicted of insolence against the Son, if he respected the nature of the Father. And if he were at all acquainted with the actual nature of the Father, how came he to be ignorant that He was begotten by Him? And will not he who spoils the fruit produced from it injure the parent tree? Sin against the Son therefore is a convincing proof of ignorance of God the Father.

But whereas He did not say, Because they know not My Father, but Him that sent Me, I think He wished to hint at something of this kind. His aim, as it seems, was to show that those who practised persecution against His devoted servants, plainly tied their heads as it were in a noose of a double transgression. For not merely, He says, will they be convicted of ignorance of My origin, or be justly condemned on he charge of atheism, but will actually be found rebuking the true wisdom of God the Father. For if He sent His own Son to raise that which had fallen away, to renew that which was worn out, to set forth life to all in the world, while those in the world set themselves against and impiously oppose such as choose to preach Him the Saviour of the world, they will be very clearly convicted of ignorance and of fighting against Him that sent Me. For by the expression "being sent," He introduces a clear proof of His Incarnation. But he that is ignorant of Him that sent Me, shows by this very fact his ignorance of God, and dishonours the mystery of My mission.

"But all these things will they do unto you for My Name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me."

That is, "they insult Him also." Besides this, depriving those others of excuse, and putting also another source of comfort, He saith, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin."

Showing that they shall do unjustly both what they do against Him and against them.

But this is not so. They will keep neither My word nor yours. But all that they will do to you on account of Me. Therefore, if you love Me, endure what you suffer for My sake, Whom, by your own words, you love. Here is yet another reason for consolation. They, by wronging you, insult at the same time also Him Who sent Me. Therefore, if nothing else, then this very fact—that the same people are enemies to you and to Me and to My Father—should serve as your consolation.

2043 Now he amplifies on the second consideration that would console them, which is based on the reason for their being hated. The apostles were chosen and raised above the world insofar as they had been made sharers of divinity and joined to God. This is why the world hated them. From this it follows that the world rather hated God in them than hated them. The reason for this hatred was that the world lacked the true knowledge of God which comes from the true faith and devoted love. If they did have this knowledge and recognized that the apostles were friends of God, they would not have persecuted them. Thus he says, all this they will do to you, that is, hate and persecute you, on my account. And so this should be your glory: "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God" (1 Pet 4:14). On my account, not because they love me, but because they hate me; just as, on the contrary, you will suffer on my account because you love me.

They will do these things to you because they do not know him who sent me: "If you knew me, you would perhaps know my Father also" [8:19]. For they did not know that God would be pleased by their accepting Christ. Note that he is speaking here of a perfect knowledge, which consists in a faith which perfects the intellect and joins the affections to God. We read of this kind of knowledge: "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me" (Jer 9:24); "To know you is complete righteousness" (Wis 15:3).

The mystery of Christ is so great that even angels stood amazed and bewildered before it. This is why, then, it is your duty to worship him and, as a servant, this is why you should not detract from your Lord. You cannot plead ignorance because establishing your faith is why he came down in the first place. If you do not believe, he has not come down for you or suffered for you. "If I had not come," says the Scripture, "and spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also." Who, then, hates Christ, if not the one who speaks to his dishonor? For just as it is love's part to render honor, so it is hate's part to withdraw honor. The one who hates calls into question Christ's honor; the one who loves, pays reverence.

The Lord had said above to His disciples, "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me." And if we inquire of whom He so spake, we find that He was led on to these words from what He had said before, "If the world hate you, know ye that it hated me before it hated you;" and now in adding, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin," He more expressly pointed to the Jews. Of them, therefore, He also uttered the words that precede, for so does the context itself imply. For it is of the same parties that He said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin;" of whom He also said, "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also; but all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me;" for it is to these words that He also subjoins the following: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." The Jews, therefore, persecuted Christ, as the Gospel very clearly indicates, and Christ spake to the Jews, not to other nations; and it is they, therefore, that He meant to be understood by the world, that hateth Christ and His disciples; and, indeed, not those alone, but even these latter were shown by Him to belong to the same world. What, then, does He mean by the words, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin"? Was it that the Jews were without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? Who, though he were the greatest fool, would say so? But it is some great sin, and not every sin, that He would have to be understood, as it were, under the general designation. For this is the sin wherein all sins are included; and whosoever is free from it, has all his sins forgiven him: and this it is, that they believed not on Christ, who came for the very purpose of enlisting their faith. From this sin, had He not come, they would certainly have been free. His advent has become as much fraught with destruction to unbelievers, as it is with salvation to those that believe; for He, the Head and Prince of the apostles, has Himself, as it were, become what they declared of themselves, "to some, indeed, the savour of life unto life; and to some the savor of death unto death."

But when He went on to say, "But now they have no excuse for their sin," some may be moved to inquire whether those to whom Christ neither came nor spake, have an excuse for their sin. For if they have not, why is it said here that these had none, on the very ground that He did come and speak to them? And if they have, have they it to the extent of thereby being barred from punishment, or of receiving it in a milder degree? To these inquiries, with the Lord's help and to the best of my capacity, I reply, that such have an excuse, not for every one of their sins, but for this sin of not believing on Christ, inasmuch as He came not and spake not to them. But it is not in the number of such that those are to be included, to whom He came in the persons of His disciples, and to whom He spake by them, as He also does at present; for by His Church He has come, and by His Church He speaks to the Gentiles. For to this are to be referred the words that He spake, "He that receiveth you, receiveth me;" and, "He that despiseth you, despiseth me." "Or would ye," says the Apostle Paul, "have a proof of Him that speaketh in me, namely Christ."

It remains for us to inquire, whether those who, prior to the coming of Christ in His Church to the Gentiles and to their hearing of His Gospel, have been, or are now being, overtaken by the close of this life, can have such an excuse? Evidently they can, but not on that account can they escape damnation. "For as many as have sinned without the law, shall also perish without the law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." And these words of the apostle, inasmuch as his saying, "they shall perish," has a more terrible sound than when he says, "they shall be judged," seem to show that such an excuse can not only avail them nothing, but even becomes an additional aggravation. For those that excuse themselves because they did not hear, "shall perish without the law."

But it is also a worthy subject of inquiry, whether those who met the words they heard with contempt, and even with opposition, and that not merely by contradicting them, but also by persecuting in their hatred those from whom they heard them, are to be reckoned among those in regard to whom the words, "they shall be judged by the law," convey somewhat of a milder sound. But if it is one thing to perish without the law, and another to be judged by the law; and the former is the heavier, the latter the lighter punishment: such, without a doubt, are not to have their place assigned in that lighter measure of punishment; for, so far from sinning in the law, they utterly refused to accept the law of Christ, and, as far as in them lay, would have had it altogether annihilated. But those that sin in the law, are such as are in the law, that is, who accept it, and confess that it is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good; but fail through infirmity in fulfilling what they cannot doubt is most righteously enjoined therein. These are they in regard to whose fate there may perhaps be some distinction made from the perdition of those who are without the law: and yet if the apostle's words, "they shall be judged by the law," are to be understood as meaning, they shall not perish, what a wonder if it were so. For his discourse was not about infidels and believers to lead him to say so, but about Gentiles and Jews, both of whom, certainly, if they find not salvation in that Saviour who came to seek that which was lost, shall doubtless become the prey of perdition; although it may be said that some shall perish in a more terrible, others in a more mitigated sense; in other words, that some shall suffer a heavier, and others a lighter penalty in their perdition. For he is rightly said to perish as regards God, whoever is separated by punishment from that blessedness which He bestows on His saints, and the diversity of punishments is as great as the diversity of sins; but the mode thereof is accounted too deep by divine wisdom for human guessing to scrutinize or express. At all events, those to whom Christ came, and to whom He spake, have not, for their great sin of unbelief, any such excuse as may enable them to say, We saw not, we heard not: whether it be that such an excuse would not be sustained by Him whose judgments are unsearchable, or whether it would, and that, if not for their entire deliverance from damnation, at least for its partial alleviation.

(Tract. lxxxix. 1) Christ spoke to the Jews only, not to any other nation. In them then was that world which hated Christ and His disciples; and not only in them, but in us also. Were the Jews then without sin before Christ came in the flesh, because Christ had not spoken to them? By sin here He means not every sin, but a certain great sin, which includes all, and which alone hinders the remission of other sins, viz. unbelief. They did not believe in Christ, who came that they might believe on Him. This sin then they would not have had, had not Christ come; for Christ's advent, as it was the salvation of the believing, so was the perdition of the unbelieving. But now they have no cloke for their sin. If those to whom Christ had not come or spoken, had not an excuse (προφασιν, excusationem Vulg. cloke E. T.) for their sin, why is it said here that these had no excuse, because Christ had come and spoken to them? If the first had excuse, did it do away with their punishment altogether, or only mitigate it? I answer, that this excuse covered, not all their sin, but only this one, viz. that they did not believe in Christ. But they are not of this number to whom Christ came by His disciples: they are not to be let off with a lighter punishment, who altogether refused to receive Christ's love, and, as far as concerned them, wished its destruction. This excuse they may have who died before they heard of Christ's Gospel; but this will not shield them from damnation. For whoever are not saved in the Saviour, who came to seek what was lost, shall without doubt go to perdition: though some will have lighter, others severer punishments. He perishes to God, who is punished with an exclusion from that happiness which is given to the saints. But there is as great a diversity of punishments, as there is of sins: though how this is settled is a matter known to the Divine Wisdom indeed, but too deep for human conjecture to examine or pronounce upon.

If I had not come. Here now in the third place the malice of those who hate and persecute is shown. He shows therefore their malice to be inexcusable both through what they heard and through what they saw: through what they heard: whence he says: If I had not come and had not spoken to them, namely the words of faith and instruction, they would not have sin, supply: so grave and inexcusable, because, Luke twelfth chapter, "the servant who knew the will of his lord and did not do it shall be beaten with many stripes; but he who did not know shall be beaten with few"; and therefore, if they had not heard, they would be excusable in some way through ignorance. But now they have no excuse for their sin; because they do not believe not from ignorance but from hatred, which hatred redounds upon the Father.

There is a question about what he says: If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would not have sin.

1. Therefore, according to this reasoning, those who do not hear and do not believe are not condemned for unbelief; which is manifestly false, because no one is saved without faith.

2. Likewise, according to this, the Tyrians and Sidonians, who did not believe, will not be condemned: which is manifestly false by the testimony of the Gospel.

I respond: It must be said that by way of eminence, different kinds of sins are given to be understood under the general name of sin, but chiefly among others the sin against the Holy Spirit, which is purely sin, admitting no excuse. By the name of sin, therefore, is understood here the sin against the Holy Spirit, which was added to the sin of unbelief: and this the Jews would not have had, but would only have remained in unbelief, if the Lord had not manifested himself to them through open signs.

We may take in two ways the meaning of the words before us. For if any one should suppose that this passage was directed against Greeks and Jews alike, we say that unless the Divine and heavenly message, I mean the Gospel, had come to all that are on the earth, pointing out to each individual the way of salvation and making plain the works of righteousness, their complete ignorance of what is pleasing to God would perhaps have been a strong reason in each case for the pardon of those who are not eager in pursuing virtue. This ignorance of theirs makes them seem worthy of pardon. But whereas the word of the Gospel has been directed to all men, what reason for pardon is there, or with what words should any one address Him that judgeth, when accused after knowledge of the worst crimes? But if the Lord is saying this concerning the Jews only, as having very often listened to His teaching, and as being in no way ignorant of what He commanded them to think and do, let Him illustrate it thus: They will not endure your teaching, He says, but will bring upon you trials and persecutions, and will devise against you every kind of terror, and from their bitterness will be consumed with an unjust hatred against you, not able indeed to charge you with any wickedness, but blaming only your love towards Me. But searching as it were for an excuse for the cruelty of their madness, and diminishing the baseness of their love of self-gratification, they will actually cite Moses and the books of Moses, and will pretend that I was an opponent of their ancestral laws. But if I had not come and set forth commands superior to the Law given by Moses; if I had not fulfilled it by many words, showing that it was now high time to pass beyond mere types, and that there had been enough of patterns and shadows, but that the hour had come in which the truth itself should shine forth; if I had not shown this from the Law itself, saying in the clearest language, If ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me; if I had not made it clear that My word harmonized with the testimonies of the prophets, and that the power of My Presence had already been predicted and proclaimed, they would have had reasonable grounds for their madness against Me and you. Since nothing has been left out, but everything that was essential has been said, the reason which they have devised to cover the nakedness of their sin is vain.

This consideration then I think should harmonize with the words of the Saviour; but in showing the terrible charges that will be brought against those who injure them, and in saying that those who dare to do such things will one day be chastised, He removes the greater part of their grief and wisely withdraws that which was likely to cause them no small pain. For the conviction that the workers of wickedness will pay the penalty of their crimes sometimes makes it possible to those who are injured to endure their wickedness. And, knowing this, the Master of all things says: Vengeance belongeth unto Me; I will recompense, saith the Lord. Nay, even the blessed Paul himself, when struck by one of the high priests, had no other consolation for the bitterness of suffering than this that we have mentioned. For what did he say?----God shall smite thee, thou whited wall. This then is a medicine for human weakness----I mean the expectation of the punishment of those who have chosen to act unjustly. Our Lord, however, is superior to and above human littleness. When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, according to the Scripture. But when struck on the face, He made no angry remark, nor threatened the man who dared to strike Him, but answered indeed with the greatest mildness and forbearance, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me? The word then of the prophet is true: Who shall be made equal to the Lord in the clouds, or who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?

Besides this, depriving those others of excuse, and putting also another source of comfort, He saith, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." Showing that they shall do unjustly both what they do against Him and against them. "Why then didst Thou bring us into such calamities? Didst Thou not foreknow the wars, the hatred?" Therefore again He saith,...

That declaration in the Gospel, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin," makes it clear to all who are rational just how long a time a person is without sin and just when he is liable to sin. By participating in the word or reason, people are said to have sinned, that is, from the time they are capable of understanding, from the time that the reason implanted within them suggests to them the difference between good and evil. After they have begun to know what evil is, they are liable for any sin they commit.This is the meaning of the expression that "people have no excuse for their sin," namely, that from the time the divine word or reason has begun to show them internally the difference between good and evil, they ought to avoid and guard against evil: "For to the one who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."

Is it really just that they do this? They hate both Me and My Father and you? Did they really find in My words or deeds a reason for such behavior? No, their sin is unforgivable. For did I not come and teach? If I had not come, if I had not spoken, they could have said "we did not hear." But now their malice is inexcusable.

2044 Before, when our Lord said that the Jews would persecute his disciples, he gave as the reason that the Jews did not know the one who sent him. Now, since ignorance usually excuses one, he here shows that they are inexcusable. He does this in two ways: first, because of the things he personally did and taught them; secondly, because of what will occur when he is no longer present (v 26). In regard to the first he does two things: first, he shows that they were without excuse because of the truth he taught; secondly, because of the witness of the works he performed (v 24). He does three things about the first: first, he shows what could have excused them; secondly, that they did not have this excuse (v 22); thirdly, he shows the real source of their persecution (v 23).

2045 He had said: "But all this they will do to you on my account." Yet they might have had an excuse. If I had not come and spoken to them, that is, if I had not shown myself personally and taught them personally, they would not have sin.

2046 How does this reconcile with Romans (3:23) which states that "All have sinned"? We should say that our Lord is not speaking here of just any sin, but of the sin of disbelief, that is, they do not believe in Christ. This is called here simply "sin" because it is a prime example of sin, because as long as this sin lasts, no other sin can be remitted; for no sin is remitted except by faith in Jesus Christ through whom we are justified, as we read in Romans (5:1). Consequently, they would not have sin means that they would not be charged with not believing in him. This is primarily because "faith comes from what is heard" (Rom 10:17). So, if Christ had not come and had not spoken to them, they could not have believed. And no one is charged with a sin for not doing what he can't do at all.

2047 Yet some could say that they were bound to believe and could have believed even if Christ had not come, since he had been foretold to them by the prophets: "which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son" (Rom 1:2). I answer that of themselves the Jews could not believe and understand the words of the prophets unless they were shown by divine help: "The words are shut up and sealed until the appointed time" [Dan 12:9]. Thus the eunuch said: "How can I understand, unless some one guides me?" (Acts 8:31).

Therefore, if Christ had not come, they would not have this sin, the sin of disbelief, although they would have had other actual sins for which they would have been punished. And a similar reasoning holds for all those whom the preaching of God's word could not reach. For this reason they cannot be charged with the sin of disbelief for their condemnation; but they will be condemned, because deprived of God's favors because of their other actual sins and original sin.

2048 Note that Christ's coming and teaching resulted in good for many, that is, for those who accepted him and kept his word. And for many it turned out bad, that is, for those who decided neither to listen to him nor believe him. "He will become... a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (Is 8:14); "This child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel" (Lk 2:34).

2049 He has just stated what could have excused them from unbelief. But they don't have this excuse because Christ showed himself to them in person and taught them. Thus he says, but now, since I have come and spoken to them, they have no excuse, that of ignorance, for their sin. "So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God" (Rom 1:20). But they did know Christ, as is clear from Matthew (21:38): "This is the heir; come, let us kill him." However, they knew that he was the Christ promised in the law, but they did not know that he was God, because "If they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:8). And so their ignorance is no excuse, because they did not do this from ignorance but from another root, that is, from hatred and a certain malice.

For as he who loves the Son, loves the Father also, the love of the Father being one with that of the Son, even as their nature is one: so he who hateth the Son, hateth the Father also.

The Lord says, as you have just been hearing, "He that hateth me, hateth my Father also:" and yet He had said a little before, "These things will they do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me." A question therefore arises that cannot be overlooked, how they can hate one whom they know not? For if it is not God as He really is, but something else, I know not what, that they suspect or believe Him to be, and hate this; then assuredly it is not God Himself that they hate, but the thing they conceive in their own erroneous suspicion or baseless credulity; and if they think of Him as He really is, how can they be said to know Him not? It may be the case, indeed, with regard to men, that we frequently love those whom we have never seen; and in this way it can, on the other hand, be none the less impossible that we should hate those whom we have never seen. The report, for instance, whether good or bad, about some preacher, leads us not improperly to love or to hate the unknown. But if the report is truthful, how can one, of whom we have got such true accounts, be spoken of as unknown? Is it because we have not seen his face? And yet, though he himself does not see it, he can be known to no one better than to himself. The knowledge of any one, therefore, is not conveyed to us in his bodily countenance, but only lies open to our apprehension when his life and character are revealed. Otherwise no one would be able to know himself, because unable to see his own face. But surely he knows himself more certainly than he is known to others, inasmuch as by inward inspection he can the more certainly see what he is conscious of, what he desires, what he is living for; and it is when these are likewise laid open to us, that he becomes truly known to ourselves. And as these, accordingly, are commonly brought to us regarding the absent, or even the dead, either by hearsay or correspondence, it thus comes about that people whom we have never seen by face (and yet of whom we are not entirely ignorant), we frequently either hate or love.

But in such cases our credulity is frequently at fault; for sometimes even history, and still more ordinary report, turns out to be false. Yet, it ought to be our concern, in order not to be misled by an injurious opinion, seeing we cannot search into the consciences of men, to have a true and certain sentiment about things themselves. I mean, that in regard to this or that man, if we know not whether he is immodest or modest, we should at all events hate immodesty and love modesty: and if in regard to some one or other we know not whether he is unjust or just, we should at any rate love justice and abhor injustice; not such things as we erroneously fancy to ourselves, but such as we believingly perceive according to God's truth, the one to be desired, the other to be shunned; so that, when in regard to things themselves we do desire what ought to be desired, and utterly avoid what ought to be avoided, we may find pardon for the mistaken feelings which we at times, yea, at all times, entertain regarding the actual state of others which is hidden from our eyes. For this, I think, has to do with human temptation, without which we cannot pass through this life, so that the apostle said, "No temptation should befall you but such as is common to man." For what is so common to man as inability to inspect the heart of man; and therefore, instead of scrutinizing its inmost recesses, to suspect for the most, part something very different from what is going on therein? And although in these dark regions of human realities, that is, of other people's inward thoughts, we cannot clear up our suspicions, because we are only men, yet we ought to restrain our judgments, that is, all definite and fixed opinions, and not judge anything before the time, until the Lord come, and bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God. When, therefore, we are falling into no error in regard to the thing itself, so that there is an accordance with right in our reprobation of vice and approbation of virtue; surely, if a mistake is committed in connection with individuals, a temptation so characteristic of man is within the scope of forgiveness.

But amid all these darknesses of human hearts, it happens as a thing much to be wondered at and mourned over, that one, whom we account unjust, and who nevertheless is just, and in whom, without knowing it, we love justice, we sometimes avoid, and turn away from, and hinder from approaching us, and refuse to have life and living in common with him; and, if necessity compel the infliction of discipline, whether to save others from harm or bring the person himself back to rectitude, we even pursue him with a salutary harshness; and so afflict a good man as if he were wicked, and one whom unknowingly we love. This takes place if one, for example's sake, who is modest is believed by us to be the opposite. For, beyond doubt, if I love a modest person, he is himself the very object that I love; and therefore I love the man himself, and know it not. And if I hate an immodest person, it is on that account, not him that I hate: for he is not the thing that I hate; and yet to that object of my love, with whom my heart makes continual abode in the love of modesty, I am ignorantly doing an injury, erring as I do, not in the distinction I make between virtue and vice, but in the thick darkness of the human heart. Accordingly, as it may so happen that a good man may unknowingly hate a good man, or rather loves him without knowing it (for the man himself he loves in loving that which is good; for what the other is, is the very thing that he loves); and without knowing it, hates not the man himself, but that which he supposes him to be: so may it also be the case that an unjust man hates a just man, and, while he opines that he loves one who is unjust like himself, unknowingly loves the just man; and yet so long as he believes him to be unjust, he loves not the man himself, but that which he imagines him to be. And as it is with another man, so is it also with God. For, to conclude, had the Jews been asked if they loved God, what other answer would they have given but that they did love Him, and that not with any intentional falsehood, but because erroneously fancying that they did so? For how could they love the Father of the truth, who were filled with hatred to the truth itself? For they do not wish their own conduct to be condemned, and it is the truth's task to condemn such conduct; and thus they hated the truth as much as they hated their own punishment, which the truth awards to such. But they know not that to be the truth which lays its condemnation on such as they: therefore they hate that which they know not; and hating it, they certainly cannot but also hate Him of whom it is born. And in this way, because they know not the truth, by whose judgment they are condemned, as that which is born of God the Father; of a surety also they both know not, and hate the Father Himself. Miserable men! who, because wishing to be wicked, deny that to be the truth whereby the wicked are condemned. For they refuse to own that to be what it is, when they ought themselves to refuse to be what they are; in order that, while it remains the same, they may be changed, lest by its judgment they fall into condemnation.

"He that hateth me," He says, "hateth my Father also." Here it may be said to us, Who can hate one whom he knows not? And certainly before saying, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin," He had said to His disciples, "These things will they do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me." How, then, do they both know not, and hate? For if the notion they have formed of Him is not that which He is in Himself, but some unknown conjecture of their own, then certainly it is not Himself they are found to hate, but that figment which they devise or rather suspect in their error. And yet, were it not that men could hate that which they know not, the Truth would not have asserted both, namely, that they both know not, and hate His Father. But such a possibility, if by the Lord's help we are able to show it, cannot be demonstrated at present, as this discourse must now be brought to a close.

(Tr. xc. 1) But He has just said, Because they know not Him that sent Me. How could they hate one whom they did not know? For if they hated God, believing Him to be something else, and not God, this was not hatred of God. In the case of men, it often happens that we hate or love persons whom we have never seen, simply in consequence of what we have heard of them. But if a man's character is known to us, he cannot properly be said to be unknown. And a man's character is not shown by his face, but by his habits and way of life: else we should not be able to know ourselves, for we cannot see our own face. But history and fame sometimes lie; and our faith is imposed upon. We cannot penetrate into men's hearts; we only know that such things are right, and others wrong; and if we escape error here, to be mistaken in men is a venial matter. A good man may hate a good man ignorantly, or rather love him ignorantly, for he loves the good man, though he hates the man whom he supposes him to be. A bad man may love a good man, supposing him to be a bad man like himself, and therefore not, properly speaking, loving him, but the person whom he takes him to be. And in the same way with respect to God. If the Jews were asked whether they loved God, they would reply that they did love Him, not intending to lie, but only being mistaken in so saying. For how could they who hated the Truth, love the Father of the Truth? They did not wish their actions to be judged, and this the Truth did. They hated the Truth then, because they hated the punishment which He would inflict upon such as they. But at the same time they did not know that He was the Truth, who came to condemn them. They did not know that the Truth was born of God the Father, and therefore they did not know God the Father Himself. Thus they both hated, and also knew not, the Father.

Whoever hates me hates my Father also; raised up by their own pride, according to that of the Psalm: "The pride of those who hate you ascends continually." Because therefore they refused to hear out of malice, they were inexcusable; Matthew twelve: "The Queen of the South will rise up in judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon"; Romans two: "You are inexcusable, O every man who judges: for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself."

He makes a definite charge of atheism against those who choose, in the impiety of their minds and the estrangement of their hearts, to hate Him. And the charge is a true one. For those who dishonour the Son will not be guiltless of transgression against the Father, convinced of the justice of their hatred. For just as those who depreciate the shining of the sun, because it appears and exists for no necessary purpose, bring charges of uselessness, and direct their censure also against its Author; and just as whoever sees fit to despise the scent of flowers will cast reproach on this account against that from whence it was derived----the case will be the same, I suppose, with respect to the Only-begotten and His Father. For it is impossible for those who censure what proceeds from anything else to praise its author. For this reason Christ said to the Jews: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit: neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit; when He further told them to make this accurate and unexceptionable distinction in this matter: Either make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt. For whatever one could truly predicate of one of such things as these, that I suppose he must necessarily make applicable to both. For when there is one nature, surely the attributes are entirely common even though they are capable of separate manifestation; and whatever a man might do against what proceeds from any fountain, that he would plainly do against the fountain itself. Wherefore Christ says that he that hateth Me, hateth My Father also. And He appropriately attributes a reference to the Person of the Father to any charges that men may make against Himself. And He will none the less satisfy us by this discourse that He is not distinct from Him by reason of the complete identity of Their Natures. And besides He terrifies His hearers by showing how very perilous it is to choose to transgress by hating Him, and He assures them that the man who rejects His worship will be defenceless and an easy prey to his enemies, inasmuch as he insults the Person of the Father Himself. For since insolence against His Son affects Him too, He will also be offended.

Is it not quite clear that the reception of this belief raised the confidence of His holy disciples? At the same time, Christ illustrated another essential and profound truth----I mean this of which I will speak. Some thought in their unparalleled madness and excessive folly, that when they were transgressing against the Son, and opposing the words of the Saviour, they were giving pleasure to God, Who was the Giver of the Law; and while they continued to confer the meed of victory on the prophetic dispensation of Moses, they showed themselves true guardians of the love of God. It was necessary therefore to show the falsity of their boast, and to teach the world that those who act counter to the laws of the Saviour set themselves as it were against the entire Divine Nature, insulted in the Person of the Son by their contumacy, and by their persistent and inexcusable disobedience, which He clearly declares is not merely aimed against His own Person, but also affects all who preach the Word for Him and through Him. He then that enters upon opposition against the holy Apostles themselves is an enemy of God, and shows insolence towards Him, and is altogether hostile to the ineffable and unspeakable Nature of the Divine Being, for the Apostles do not preach themselves, but the God and Lord of all, that is. Christ.

"Hates my Father also." This my is the assertion of a relation to the Father that is shared by no one else.… He condemns the man who claims God as his Father and does not love the Son as using a wrongful liberty with the Father's name, since he who hates him, that is, the Son, must hate the Father also. And none can be devoted to the Father except those who love the Son. For the one and only reason that he gives for loving the Son is his origin from the Father. The Son, therefore, is from the Father, not by his advent but by his birth. And love for the Father is only possible to those who believe that the Son is from him.

"He that hateth Me, hateth My Father also."

From this also proclaiming beforehand no small punishment against them. For, since they continually pretended that they persecuted Him on account of the Father, to deprive them of this excuse He spake these words. "They have no excuse. I gave them the teaching which is by words, that by works I added, according to the Law of Moses, who bade all men obey one speaking and doing such things, when he should both lead to piety, and exhibit the greatest miracles." And He spake not simply of "signs," but...

Ye think, indeed, under a pretence of piety, to avenge the glory of God, not understanding that he that despiseth Me despiseth My Father also.

Then, since they everywhere appealed to nothing other than the claim that they were defending the Father (for they say: "This man is not from God," and the like (John 9:16)), He therefore adds: "He who hates Me hates My Father also." Thus, even this serves in no way to justify them.

2050 This is why he adds, He who hates me hates my Father also. This is like saying: Their sin is not ignorance of me, but hatred for me, and this involves hatred for the Father. Since the Son and the Father are one in essence, truth and goodness, and since all knowledge of anyone is through the truth which is in him, whoever loves the Son loves the Father also; and whoever knows the one knows the other also; and whoever hates the Son hates the Father also.

2051 Two problems arise here. First, whether anyone can hate God? We should say that no one can hate God as God. Since God is the pure essence of goodness, and since this is lovable in itself, it is impossible that God be hated in himself. This is the reason why it is impossible for an evil person to see God. For it is impossible for God to be seen without being loved; and one who loves God is good. So these two things are incompatible, namely, to see God and be evil.

Yet one can hate God from a particular point of view. For example, one who loves lustful pleasures hates God as forbidding the enjoyment of lust, and one who wants to be free from all punishment hates the justice of God when it punishes.

2052 The second problem arises because no one can hate what he does not know. But the Jews did not know the Father: "They do not know him who sent me" (15:21). Therefore, what he says here does not seem to be true, that they hate my Father also. We can say, according to Augustine, that a person can love or hate something that was never seen nor truly known. This can happen in two ways. In one way, I can hate or love a person according as I know him; or, according to what I am told about him. For example, if I hear that someone is a thief I hate him, not because I know or hate this very person, but because in general I hate all thieves. So, if he were a thief and I did not know it, I would hate him without knowing that I hated him. Now the Jews hated Christ and the truth that he preached. Since the very truth that Christ preached and the works he performed were in the will of God the Father, then just as they hated Christ, so also they hated the Father, even though they did not know that these things were in the will of the Father.

The Lord had said, "He that hateth me, hateth my Father also." For of a certainty he that hateth the truth must also hate Him of whom the truth is born; on which subject we have already spoken, as we were granted ability. And then He added the words on which we have now to discourse: "If I had not done among [in] them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin." To wit, that great sin whereof He also says before, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." Their sin was that of not believing on Him who thus spake and wrought. For they were not without sin before He so spake to them and did such works among them; but this sin of theirs, in not believing on Him, is thus specially mentioned because really inclusive in itself of all sins besides. For had they been clear of this one, and believed on Him, all else would also have been forgiven.

But what is meant when, after saying, "If I had not done among them works," He immediately added, "which none other man did"? Of a certainty, among all the works of Christ, none seem to be greater than the raising of the dead; and yet we know that the same was done by the prophets of olden time. For Elias did so; and Elisha also, both when alive in the flesh, and when he lay buried in his sepulchre. For when certain men, who were carrying a dead person, had fled thither for refuge from an onset of their enemies, and had laid him down therein, he instantly came again to life. And yet there were some works that Christ did which none other man did: as, when He fed the five thousand men with five loaves, and the four thousand with seven; when He walked on the waters, and gave Peter power to do the same; when He changed the water into wine; when He opened the eyes of a man that was born blind, and many besides, which it would take long to mention. But we are answered, that others also have done works which even He did not, and which no other man has done. For who else save Moses smote the Egyptians with so many and mighty plagues, as when He led the people through the parted waters of the sea, when he obtained manna for them from heaven in their hunger, and water from the rock in their thirst? Who else save Joshua the son of Nun divided the stream of the Jordan for the people to pass over, and by the utterance of a prayer to God bridled and stopped the revolving sun? Who save Samson ever quenched his thirst with water flowing forth from the jawbone of a dead ass? Who save Elias was carried aloft in a chariot of fire? Who save Elisha, as I have just mentioned, after his own body was buried, restored the dead body of another to life? Who else besides Daniel lived unhurt amid the jaws of famishing lions, that were shut up with him? And who else save the three men Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael, ever walked about unharmed in flames that blazed and did not burn?

I pass by other examples, as these I consider to be sufficient to show that some of the saints have done wonderful works, which none other man did. But we read of no one whatever of the ancients who cured with such power so many bodily defects, and bad states of the health, and troubles of mortals. For, to say nothing of those individual cases which He healed, as they occurred, by the word of command, the Evangelist Mark says in a certain place: "And at even, when the sun had set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils." And Matthew, in giving us the same account, has also added the prophetic testimony, when he says: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness." In another passage also it is said by Mark: "And whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole." None other man did such things in them. For so are we to understand the words in them, not among them, or in their presence; but directly in them, because He healed them. For He wished them to understand the works as those which not only occasioned admiration, but conferred also manifest healing, and were benefits which they ought surely to have requited with love, and not with hatred. He transcends, indeed, the miracles of all besides, in being born of a virgin, and in possessing alone the power, both in His conception and birth, to preserve inviolate the integrity of His mother: but that was done neither before their eyes nor in them. For the knowledge of the truth of such a miracle was reached by the apostles, not through any onlooking that they had in common with others, but in the course of their separate discipleship. Moreover, the fact that on the third day He restored Himself to life from the very tomb, in the flesh wherein He had been slain, and, never thereafter to die, with it ascended into heaven, even surpasses all else that He did: but just as little was this done either in the Jews or before their eyes; nor had it yet been done, when He said, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did."

(Tr. xci. 1) The sin of not believing Him, notwithstanding His doctrine and His miracles. But why does He add, Which none other man did? Christ did no work greater than the raising of the dead, which we know the ancient Prophets did before Him. Is it that He did some things which no one else did? But others also did what neither He nor any one else did. True: yet none of the ancient prophets, that we read of, healed so many bodily defects, sicknesses, infirmities. For to say nothing of single cases, Mark says, that whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole. (Mark 6:56) Such works as these no one else had done in them. In them, meaning, not amongst them, or before them, but within them. But even where particular works, like some of these, had been done before, whoever worked such did not really do them; for He did them through them; whereas He performs these miracles by His own power. For even if the Father or the Holy Spirit did them, yet it was none other than He; for the Three Persons are of one substance. For these benefits then they ought to have returned Him not hatred, but love. And this He reproaches them with; But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.

The Jews are also inexcusable on account of what they saw: therefore he says: If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin, namely so great a sin of not believing; because, as above in chapter five, "the works that I do bear witness concerning me." But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father: and therefore they knowingly and out of malice refuse to believe and persecute: for this reason they are inexcusable: Matthew eleven: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you: it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you."

There is a question about what he says: If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, etc.

1. This seems false, because we read of greater and more wondrous signs in the Old Testament. For we read that the Red Sea was divided, and the Jordan, that men were fed from heaven for forty years, that the dead were raised, and many such things.

2. Likewise, the Lord himself says: He who believes in me will do greater things than these: therefore the sign of works was not a certain sign nor a singular one that he was the Christ.

To this the Gloss responds that it is not understood of miraculous works, but of wondrous works, such as that a woman encompassed a man, and that he was born of a Virgin, and similar things.

But that does not solve it, because these things were not known to them.

Therefore it must be said otherwise: either that this is said with respect to the multitude and diversity of works, because no one had ever performed so many miracles, and so varied and diverse, as Christ did.

Or emphasis must be placed on what he says: I had done, which no one else did, because no other was God, but miracles were done at his invocation: Christ, however, did them as one who was omnipotent.

There is a question about what he says: They have now both seen and hated me and my Father.

Against this: 1. Because, as Augustine says, "no one's conscience can hate God" — how then did they hate the Father?

2. Likewise, no one hates except what he knows; but He Himself says that they have not known the Father, both now and in many places; therefore they did not hold God in hatred.

To this the response is twofold: first, hatred must be distinguished: for there is true hatred, which consists in the opposition of the affections against someone, and in this way no one can hate God. And there is interpretive hatred, when someone conducts himself in the manner of one who hates. Thus someone is said to hate his own soul when he acts against his own salvation; thus also one is said to hate God when he opposes His will.

Otherwise it is said that God can be considered as the highest good, from whom every good comes; and He can be considered as just in His works. No one can hate God nor does anyone hate Him in Himself; yet one hates Him insofar as He is just.

1. As to what is objected from Augustine, it must be said that Augustine retracts that statement; nevertheless that statement is true if hatred is taken as it has been explained above.

2. As to the objection that they did not know Him: it must be said that there is knowledge of certitude and clarity through the species, and by this no one knows God unless he is a comprehensor. And there is knowledge of certitude but through an enigma; and by this no one knows God unless he is faithful. And there is knowledge of estimation, and by this the unfaithful and many wicked people know Him. And thus they knew the Father and consequently can hate Him.

Christ none the less shows by these words that no excuse was left to the Jews why they should not encounter the doom of punishment and meet irretrievable damnation For clearly nothing that could profit them is left undone, as both a long discourse is vouchsafed them which might easily have put them on the way of salvation, and miracles were shown to them which no one in the world had ever seen before. For what saint ever vied with the Saviour in working miracles? As then the desire of honouring Him was so far repugnant to the Jews that they even preferred to hate Him in the impiety of their minds, will not the burden of the charge weigh most grievously upon them? For it would be better for them that they should never have heard His wise words or witnessed His unspeakable wonder-working power; for perhaps then they might have devised some such specious plea as this for pardon: "We never heard any of the truths essential to salvation, nor did we see anything to induce faith in us," But since it was not from one of the holy prophets, but from Christ Himself Who came from above and was sent to us, that they got their information; and since they also saw strange miracles with their own eyes, for Christ opened the eyes of the blind although no other man had ever before been able to do this; what can excuse the madness of the Jews, or what plea can extricate them from punishment? For though they had heard and seen, they hated both the Son and the Father; they both dishonoured the Word sent from the Father through the Son, and also, rejecting the honour due to the works of the Divine Nature, stood convicted of glaring impiety against the entire Nature of God, which was the agent. For the Father Himself certainly co-operated with the Son when He worked His wonders, not as doing marvellous works by an external instrument, but as being in the Son through the identity of Their Nature and the immutability of Their Substance. The wretched Jews then showed ingratitude, and lie under the grievous charge of gross contumacy, since they held as of no account the incomparable teaching of the Saviour, and besides dishonoured through the Son and in the Son the Nature of the Father, although that Nature was shown to be the worker of exceeding great miracles to them, which ought to have drawn and attracted the most stubborn and unteachable into ability to think what was right and what conduced to the glory of God.

(xxv. Moral.) It is one thing not to do good, another to hate the teacher of goodness; as there is a difference between sudden and deliberate sins. Our state generally is that we love what is good, but from infirmity cannot perform it. But to sin of set purpose, is neither to do nor to love what is good. As then it is sometimes a heavier offence to love than to do, so is it more wicked to hate justice than not to do it. There are some in the Church, who not only do not do what is good, but even persecute it, and hate in others what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these men is not that of infirmity or ignorance, but deliberate wilful sin.

For, since they continually pretended that they persecuted Him on account of the Father, to deprive them of this excuse He spake these words. "They have no excuse. I gave them the teaching which is by words, that by works I added, according to the Law of Moses, who bade all men obey one speaking and doing such things, when he should both lead to piety, and exhibit the greatest miracles." And He spake not simply of "signs," but, "Which none other man did." And of this they themselves are witnesses, speaking in this way; "It was never so seen in Israel"; and, "Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind"; and the matter of Lazarus was of the same kind, and all the other acts the same, and the mode of wonder-working new, and all beyond thought.

"Why then," saith one, "do they persecute both Thee and us?" "Because ye are not of the world. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own." He first remindeth them of the words which He spake also to His own brethren; but there he spake more by way of a reflection, lest He should offend them, while here, on the contrary, He revealed all. "And how is it clear that it is on this account that we are hated?" "From what was done to Me. For, tell Me, which of My words or deeds could they lay hold on, that they would not receive Me?" Then since the thing would be astounding to us, He telleth the cause; that is, their wickedness. And He stayeth not here either, but introduceth the Prophet, showing him proclaiming before of old time, and saying, that, "They hated Me without a cause."

I did not merely deliver teaching, but also performed works such as no one else had done—for example, the miracle with the blind man, with Lazarus, and other similar ones. What justification, then, do they have? For My part, I delivered teaching in words and added the proof of works. And Moses (Deut. 18:18–22) commands to heed the one who performs miracles and teaches piety. But they have now both seen such works and yet hated both Me and My Father.

2053 Now he shows they are without excuse because of the witness of his signs. They could say that they were not convinced by the words he spoke in opposition to them. So he corroborates his words with marvelous actions, saying, If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin. First, he shows that they could be somewhat excused; secondly, he reveals the root of their sin (v 24b); thirdly, he cites an authority (v 25).

2054 There are two questions about the first point. One is about the truth of the antecedent statement, If I had not done among them the works which no one else did. Did Christ perform certain good works among them that no one else had done? It seems not. If we say that Christ raised the dead, Elijah and Elisha also did this. If Christ walked on the water, Moses parted the waters. Again, Joshua did something greater [than Christ] for he made the sun stand still. So it seems that Christ should not use this as an argument, and thus the conclusion is not true.

I answer that we can say, according to Augustine, that our Lord is not speaking of the miracles he worked among them, that is, merely in their sight, but of those he worked "among" them, that is, on their very persons. In curing the sick, although others did it, no one did it so much as Christ, because no other was made God and no one was born of a virgin but Christ. So in healing the sick he performed among them works which no one else performed; and this in three ways. First, because his works were so great: for he raised a person who had been dead for four days; he gave sight to a man who was born blind, which had never been heard of before, as we read above (9:32). Secondly, because of the great number of his works, for he healed all who were sick (Mt 14:35), and no one else did this. Thirdly, because of the way he did these works: others did these things by praying for help, which showed that they were not doing this by their own power; but Christ did it by command, for he did it by his own power: "What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him" (Mk 1:27).

Therefore, although others have raised the dead and have accomplished other miracles which Christ did, they did not do it in the same manner as Christ, nor by their own power, as Christ did. Further, making the sun stand still is less than what the dying Christ did, when he made the moon move backwards and changed the whole course of the heavens, as Dionysius says.

2055 The second question is about the truth of the conditional statement, that if Christ had not done among them works which no one else did, the Jews would not have the sin of disbelief. My reply is that if we speak of any of the miracles indiscriminately, the Jews would have been excusable if they had not been done among them by Christ. For no one can come to Christ by faith unless he is drawn: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (6:44). So the spouse says in the Song (1:4): "Draw me after you." Therefore, if there were no one who had drawn them to the faith, they would have an excuse for their disbelief. Note that Christ drew by words and by signs, both visible and invisible, that is, by inciting and stirring hearts from within: "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord" (Prv 21:1). And so an inner impulse to act well is the work of God, and those who resist it sin. If not, Stephen would have no reason to say: "You always resist the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). And Isaiah (50:5) says: "The Lord has opened my ear," that is, the ear of my heart, "and I was not rebellious." When our Lord said, If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, we have to understand this as referring not only to visible works but also to the interior impulses and attractions to his teaching. If these had not been done among them, they would not have sin. It is now clear how they could have been excused, that is, if he had not accomplished miraculous works among them.

2056 Now he shows the root of their sin of disbelief, namely, their hatred, because of which they did not believe the works they saw. He says, but now they have seen, the works he did among them, and hated both me and my Father: "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord" (Prv 1:29). As Gregory says, there are some in the Church who not only do not do good works, but they even persecute those who do, so that what they fail to do they detest in others. Thus their sin is not one of weakness or ignorance, but is committed of set purpose.

The works, then, are doubtless those miracles of healing in connection with their bodily complaints which He exhibited to such an extent as no one before had furnished amongst them: for these they saw, and it is in reproaching them therewith that He proceeds to say, "But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but this cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." He calls it, their law, not as invented by them, but given to them: just as we say, "Our daily bread;" which, nevertheless, we ask of God in conjoining the words "Give us." But one hates gratuitously who neither seeks advantage from the hatred nor avoids inconvenience: so do the wicked hate the Lord; and so also is He loved by the righteous, that is to say, gratuitously, inasmuch as they expect no other gifts beyond Himself, for He Himself will be all in all. But whoever would be disposed to look for something more profound in the words of Christ, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did" (for although such were done by the Father, or the Holy Spirit, yet no one else did them, for the whole Trinity is one and the same in substance), he will find that it was He who did it even when some man of God did something similar. For in Himself He can do everything by Himself; but without Him no one can do anything. For Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit are not three Gods, but one God, of whom it is written, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things." No one else, therefore, really himself did the works which He did amongst them; for any one else who did any such works, did them only through His doing. But He Himself did them without any doing on their part.

(xv. de Trin. c. xvii) Under the name of the Law, the whole of the Old Testament is included: and therefore our Lord says here, That is written in their law; the passage being in the Psalms.

(Tr. xci. 4) Their law, He says, not as made by them, but as given to them. A man hates without a cause, who seeks no advantage from his hatred. Thus the ungodly hate God; the righteous love Him, i. e. looking for no other good but Him: He is their all in all.

And this malignity of the Jews is expressed in Scripture: therefore he says: But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their Law — Law is taken broadly, insofar as it comprehends the Psalms — because they hated me without cause: it is written in the Psalm: "Those who oppose me unjustly, who hate me without cause and wink with their eyes"; and in another Psalm: "While I spoke to them, they attacked me without cause." That hatred was prefigured in Genesis thirty-seven, where it is said that "the brothers of Joseph hated him and could not speak peaceably to him."

And He shows clearly that this was not unforeseen by the Law, which predicted all that was to come to pass; but we say that it. was not for this reason that the Law predicted these latter days that the Jews when they visited with hatred both the Father and the Son might be convicted of injustice, but, inasmuch as They were destined to be so hated by them, the Divine and Sacred Law presaged it, showing that the Spirit was in no way ignorant of the future. For it was written in the Book of Psalms, as spoken by the Person of Christ, as rebuking the madness of the Jews and saying, They hated Me with an unjust hatred. For surely the hatred was unjust. Certainly they were exasperated against Him without a cause, who so far from having their hatred justified, in regard at any rate to the character of the works that were done among them, ought rather to have loved Him with surpassing devotion and have delighted in a willingness to follow Him. For let any one who wishes to excuse the disobedience of the Jews come forward and tell us what ground for hatred any one could have against Him. Was any one of the works of Christ deserving of hatred or enmity? His deliverance of them from death and corruption? His emancipation of them from the tyranny of the devil, and destruction of the dominion of sin, and restoration of that which was enslaved to sonship with God? His lifting up into righteousness (by His love of mankind and forgiveness of injuries) those who were dead in sin? His allowing them to participate in the Holy Spirit an the Divine Nature, and throwing open unto us even the dwelling-place of the holy angels, and granting men an access unto heaven? How was it just, that He Who provided and ordained all this for us should incur hatred, and not rather be requited by the silence of unspoken thanksgivings and with the boon of ceaseless gratitude at our hands? Nothing, however, could I think convert the stubborn Jew to willingness to think aright. For he hated without a cause Him Whom he ought rather to have loved with his whole heart and adorned with the honour of obedience. But herein our Lord well shows that He was not unaware of the stubborn temper of the Jews, but had foretold and foreknew that it would be so with them, but still treated them with mildness and forgiveness, as became His Divine Nature. For He set before them, ill-suited as they were to receive it, the Word which called them to salvation; even to confirming the confession of their faith by miracles, if there were any men among them of a good and suitable disposition. Herein too He gives His disciples no small benefit, to the intent that in a forgiving spirit they might extend the preaching of salvation even to those who offered them insult, and might even in this be seen to walk in the track of that excellence which first was conspicuous in Him. For if there be any good thing, it is seen in Christ first, and shown to us-ward; and from Him all blessings flow.

Here our Lord clearly shows that he is not unaware of the stubborn temper of the Jews but rather, he had foretold and knew in advance how they would respond. However, he still treated them with mildness and forgiveness as was befitting his divine nature. For he set before them the Word that called them to salvation even though they were ill disposed to receive it. And if any of them did have a good and suitable disposition, he even confirmed their faith by miracles. Here too he gives his disciples considerable benefit, with the goal that in a forgiving spirit they might extend the preaching of salvation even to those who offered them insults and might even in this be seen to walk in the path of excellence which was first revealed in Christ.

But those persons sinned intentionally, of whom the Master Himself said, "If I had not come, and spoken unto them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." And a little after, "They have both seen, and hated, both Me and My Father." For not to do good is one thing, to hate a teacher of goodness another: as it is one thing to sin from precipitancy, and another thing to sin deliberately. For a sin is often committed from precipitation, which yet is condemned on thought and deliberation. For it frequently happens that a man through infirmity loves what is right, and cannot perform it. But to sin deliberately is neither to love nor to do what is good. As it is therefore sometimes a heavier offence to love sin than to commit it, it is, in like manner, more sinful to hate righteousness, than not to have performed it. There are some then in the Church, who so far from doing good, even persecute it, and who even detest in others, what they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these persons is in truth not committed from infirmity or ignorance, but of intention alone.

This Spirit, (according to the apostle's showing, ) meant not that the service of these gifts should be in the body, nor did He place them in the human body); and on the subject of the superiority of love above all these gifts, He even taught the apostle that it was the chief commandment, just as Christ has shown it to be: "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart and soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own self." When he mentions the fact that "it is written in the law," how that the Creator would speak with other tongues and other lips, whilst confirming indeed the gift of tongues by such a mention, he yet cannot be thought to have affirmed that the gift was that of another god by his reference to the Creator's prediction. In precisely the same manner, when enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake of learning (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience.

[Jesus says], If I was not engaged in dialogue with them in deed and in word, they would have something to say. But now, since they do not accept my words, they are clearly condemned for their enmity toward me and the Father. Through the prophecy he also shows that their hatred of him was irrational.

Then He refers to the testimony of the prophet: "They hated Me without a cause" (Ps. 68:5). Their hatred was born from malice alone, and from no other reason. By "Law," as we have often said, He means not only the Law of Moses, but also the Books of the Prophets, as here He called the Book of David "Law." David, by the Holy Spirit, foretold what their malice would do; and they, without doubt, out of malice fulfilled what the prophet had predicted, and thereby confirmed the truth of the prophecy.

2057 Yet some could say: If it is true that the Jews hated you and your Father, why did you perform miracles among them? He answers and says It is to fulfill the word that is written in their law. Here we could ask why he says that this was written in their law when it was written in the Psalms? We can say to this that the "law" is understood in three ways in scripture. Sometimes it is taken for the entire Old Testament; and this is the way it is understood here, because the entire teaching of the Old Testament is directed to the observance of the law: "Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom" (Lk 23:42). Sometimes it is taken as distinguished from the histories and the prophets: "that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms" (in which the histories are sometimes included) "must be fulfilled" (Lk 24:44). And sometimes the law is taken as distinct only from the prophets, and then the histories are included in the prophets. He says, It is to fulfill what is written in their law, that is, in the Psalms (35:19) "They hated me without a cause," and not to gain some benefit or avoid some trouble (for this is why people hate). Indeed, Christ gave them opportunities to love him when he healed and taught them: "He went about doing good" (Acts 10:38); "Is evil a recompense for good? They have dug a pit for my life" (Jer 18:20); "What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me" (Jer 2:5).

If the Spirit proceeds from a place and passes to a place, the Father also will be found in a place, and so will the Son. If he goes out of a place, whom the Fathers sends, or the Son, surely the Spirit passing and proceeding from a place seems to leave both the Father and the Son as a body, according to impious interpretations. I declare this with reference to those who say that the Spirit has motion by descending. But neither is the Father circumscribed in any place, who is over all things not only of a corporeal nature but also of invisible creation, nor is the Son enclosed by the places and times of his works, who as the worker of all creation is over every creature. Nor is the Spirit of truth, namely, the Spirit of God, circumscribed by any corporeal boundaries, who, since he is incorporeal, is over all rational creation by the ineffable fullness of the Godhead, having the power of breathing where he wishes and of inspiring as he wishes over all things.

Come, Holy Spirit, who ever One Are with the Father and the Son, It is the hour, our souls possess With your full flood of holiness.

Let flesh, and heart, and lips and mind, Sound forth our witness to humankind; And love light up our mortal frame, Till others catch the living flame.

Grant this, O Father, ever One With Christ, your sole begotten Son And Holy Spirit we adore, Reigning and blest forevermore. Amen.

So the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and bears witness of the Son. A witness, both faithful and true, bears witness also of the Father. There is no more complete expression of the divine majesty, nothing more clear regarding the unity of divine power than this, since the Spirit knows the same as the Son, who is the witness and the inseparable sharer of the Father's secrets.

As the Son is an only-begotten offspring, so also the Spirit, being given and sent from the Son, is himself one and not many, nor one from among many, but Only Spirit. As the Son, the living Word, is one, so must the vital activity and gift by which he sanctifies and enlightens be one, perfect and complete. This [activity and gift] is said to proceed from the Father because it is from the Word, who is confessed to be from the Father, that it shines forth, is sent and is given. The Son is sent from the Father. For he says, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." The Son sends the Spirit. "If I go away," he says, "I will send the Paraclete." The Son glorifies the Father, saying, "Father, I have glorified you." The Spirit glorifies the Son, for he says, "He shall glorify me." The Son says, "The things I heard from the Father I speak unto the world." The Spirit takes of the Son. "He shall take of mine," he says, "and shall declare it unto you." The Son came in the name of the Father. "The Holy Spirit," says the Son, "whom the Father will send in my name."

That he is the Spirit of the Father is what the Son himself says: "He proceeds from the Father," and in another place, "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." That he is also the Spirit of the Son is what the apostle tells us: "God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father," that is, "making us cry." It is, after all, we who cry out but in him, that is to say, through his pouring out charity in our hearts, without which anyone who cries out, cries out in vain. That is why he also says, "Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ is not one of his." So to which person of the Trinity would communion in this companionship properly belong, if not to that Spirit who is common to Father and Son?

The Lord Jesus, in the discourse which He addressed to His disciples after the supper, when Himself in immediate proximity to His passion, and, as it were, on the eve of departure, and of depriving them of His bodily presence while continuing His spiritual presence to all His disciples till the very end of the world, exhorted them to endure the persecutions of the wicked, whom He distinguished by the name of the world: and from which He also told them that He had chosen, the disciples themselves, that they might know it was by the grace of God they were what they were, and by their own vices they had been what they had been. And then His own persecutors and theirs He clearly signified to be the Jews, that it might be perfectly apparent that they also were included in the appellation of that damnable world that persecuteth the saints. And when He had said of them that they knew not Him that sent Him, and yet hated both the Son and the Father, that is, both Him who was sent and Him who sent Him,-of all which we have already treated in previous discourses,-He reached the place where it is said, "This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." And then He added, as if by way of consequence, the words whereon we have undertaken at present to discourse: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." But what connection has this with what He had just said, "But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause"? Was it that the Comforter, when He came, even the Spirit of truth, convicted those, who thus saw and hated, by a still clearer testimony? Yea, verily, some even of those who saw, and still hated, He did convert, by this manifestation of Himself, to the faith that worketh by love. To make this view of the passage intelligible, we recall to your mind that so it actually befell. For when on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell upon an assembly of one hundred and twenty men, among whom were all the apostles; and when they, filled therewith were speaking in the language of every nation; a goodly number of those who had hated, amazed at the magnitude of the miracle (especially when they perceived in Peter's address so great and divine a testimony borne in behalf of Christ, as that He, who was slain by them and accounted amongst the dead, was proved to have risen again, and to be now alive), were pricked in their hearts and converted; and so became aware of the beneficent character of that precious blood which had been so impiously and cruelly shed, because themselves redeemed by the very blood which they had shed. For the blood of Christ was shed so efficaciously for the remission of all sins, that it could wipe out even the very sin of shedding it. With this therefore in His eye, the Lord said, "They hated me without a cause: but when the Comforter is come, He shall bear witness of me;" saying, as it were, They hated me, and slew me when I stood visibly before their eyes; but such shall be the testimony borne in my behalf by the Comforter, that He will bring them to believe in me when I am no longer visible to their sight.

(Tr. xcii. 2) As if He said, Seeing Me, they hated and killed Me: but the Comforter shall give such testimony concerning Me, as shall make them believe, though they see Me not. And because He shall testify, ye shall testify also: And ye also shall bear witness: He will inspire your hearts, and ye shall proclaim with your voices. And ye will preach what ye know; Because ye have been with Me from the beginning; which now ye do not do, because ye have not yet the fulness of the Spirit. But the love of God shall then be shed abroad in your hearts by the Spirit which shall be given you, and shall make you confident witnesses to Me. The Holy Spirit by His testimony made others testify; taking away fear from the friends of Christ's, and converting the hatred of His enemies into love.

(Tr. xcix. 6, et sq.) If it be asked here whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son also, we may answer thus: The Son is the Son of the Father alone, and the Father is the Father of the Son only; but the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of one, but of both; since Christ Himself saith, The Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. (Matt. 10:20) And the Apostle says, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. (Gal. 4:6) This indeed, I think, is the reason why He is called peculiarly the Spirit. For both of the Father and the Son separately we may pronounce, that each is a Spirit. But what each is separately in a general sense, He who is not either one separately, but the union of both, is spiritually. But if the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, why should we not believe that He proceeds from the Son? Indeed if He did not proceed from the Son, Christ would not after the resurrection have breathed on His disciples, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. (John 20:29) This too is what is meant by the virtue which went out of Him, and healed all. (Luke 6.) If the Holy Ghost then proceeds both from the Father and the Son, why does Christ say, Who proceedeth from the Father? He says it in accordance with His general way of referring all that He has to Him from whom He is; as where He says, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. If the doctrine was His, which He says was not His own, but the Father's, much more does the Holy Spirit proceed from Him, consistently with His proceeding from the Father. From whom the Son hath His Godhead, from Him He hath it that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from Him. And this explains why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born, but to proceed. For if He were born, He would be the Son of both Father and Son, an absurd supposition; for if two together have a Son, those two must be father and mother. But to imagine any such relation as this between God the Father, and God the Son, is monstrous. Even the human offspring does not proceed from father or mother at the same time; when it proceeds from the father, it does not proceed from the mother. Whereas the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father into the Son, and from the Son into the creature to be sanctified; but proceeds from Father and Son at once. And if the Father is life, and the Son is life, so the Holy Ghost is life also. Just then as the Father when He had life in Himself, gave also to the Son to have life in Himself; so He gave to the Son also that life should proceed from Him, even as it proceeded from Himself.

But when he comes. Here fourthly he intimates his innocence, to be expressed by the testimony of the Holy Spirit and of the Apostles: on account of which he says: But when he comes: they persecuted me as though I were a wicked man and worthy of death; but when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness concerning me: Acts five: "The Spirit is a witness, whom God has given to all who obey him"; and by bearing witness to my innocence, he will convict the world of malice: below in chapter sixteen: "When he comes, he will convict the world of sin, because it does not believe."

And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

When He says that both He Himself and His Father were hated by the perverse Jews, this hatred of theirs being gratuitous and without justification, He with good reason makes mention of the Spirit. He thus at once adds to the Word the completion of the Holy Trinity, and also shows that it was dishonoured, to the intent that the spectators of His miracles, who were guilty of insult against the Son, might also be convicted of treating with contumely the power which so far excels every substance, not only by refusing to accept Christ, even though He had worked great marvels to convince them, but also by their actions against Him. For they treated Him with an impiety which is shocking even to think of; and yet one might say, O senseless Jew, Christ was a worker of wonders before you far exceeding the glory of Moses and the glory of every Saint. For the saying of the Lord, If I had not done among them the works which none other did, brings back a thought before our minds. While then you crown with honours so illustrious Moses, the servant and minister of lesser things than these, you do not blush when you so perversely reject Him Who is immeasurably superior and a worker of far nobler deeds; even though He brought to their long foretold fulfilment the oracles given by Moses, and terminated the shadow by the truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore of necessity joined the mention of the Spirit to that of Himself and the Father. And He also shows what has been said to be true; that is, that if any one chooses to hate the Son, he will also utterly contemn the Father from Whom He proceeds. And how, or in what way, consider further.

For observe, when calling the Comforter "the Spirit of truth," that is, His own, He says that He comes from the Father. For as the Spirit naturally belongs to the Son, being in Him and proceeding through Him, so also He belongs to the Father. But the qualities of Their Substance cannot be distinct, where the Spirit is common to both. Let not then any of those who are accustomed impiously to employ the language of folly lead us to the perverted opinion that the Son, executing as it were a kind of ministerial service, vouchsafes the Spirit that is received from the Father to the creature. For some have not scrupled perversely to say this. But it is more consistent to believe that since the Spirit belongs to Him, as He also certainly belongs to God the Father, He sends Him to His holy disciples to sanctify them. For if they think that in making the Son in this also a minister and servant to us, they form and utter a shrewd conception, surely it follows that we say to them: Ye fools and blind; do you not perceive that you are going back, and diminishing the glory of the Only-begotten, when you string together miserable sophistries from the ignorance that is in you? For if the Son ministers the Spirit from the Father, being ranked as a servant, surely it is necessary to admit that the Spirit is utterly different in Essence from Him, and perhaps His superior and far above Him, if the case be as you in your ignorance suppose. For if the Son does not proceed from the Father, that is, from His Essence, as you think, surely the Spirit when compared with the Son would be regarded as superior to Him. What then say we, when we hear Christ himself saying of the Spirit: He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you?

Now, besides what has been mentioned, this also will necessarily follow. For if you consider that the Son performs a ministerial service, providing us with That which is of another Nature, that is, the Spirit proceeding from God the Father Which is naturally holy, the Son is not by Nature holy, but only by participation, as we are. For by the ignorance of the impious He is declared to be different in Substance from the Father, from Whom also the Spirit provided unto us by Him proceeds. It will then be possible, since the Spirit does not belong to the Son, but He Himself is sanctified by adoption, as is the case with the creature, that He may fall away from the holiness that is in Him. For that which has been acquired as an addition might surely be removed, at the pleasure of Him Who has bestowed it. Who then will not flee away from such doctrines as these? I think, however, that our statement is more conformable to the truth.

The truth then is dear to us, as are the dogmas, expressing the truth; and we will not follow those heretics, but, pursuing the faith handed down by the holy fathers, we declare that the Comforter, that is, the Holy Spirit, belongs to the Son, and is not introduced from outside nor acquired in His case, as He is in that of those who receive sanctification, in whom though not originally innate He is implanted; but that the Son is of one Substance with the Spirit, as also He is with the Father. For if we take this view, the power of the doctrines of the Church will not be reduced in our case to a polytheistic mythology, but the Holy Trinity is united in the doctrine of a Single Divinity. Showing then that there is a Unity of Substance, I mean that of Himself and God the Father, in the same Being, in saying that the Comforter is the Spirit of truth He declares that He proceeds from the Father, and makes plain and beyond contradiction that the opposer of Christ is wholly at enmity with God. For he who in any degree allows himself to contemn the Son may be reasonably considered to transgress against Him from Whom He proceeds.

When then, He says, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, that is My Spirit, Which proceeds from the Father, is come, He will testify of Me. And how will He testify? By working marvels in you, and by you He will be a just and true witness of My Godlike authority, and of the greatness of My power. For He that works in you is My Spirit, and as He is My Spirit, so also is He That of God the Father. Therefore it is necessary to consider that they who, to confirm our faith, work marvels in us by the one good Spirit are alike insulted in the Person of Christ, in Whom dwelt, as Paul says, no mere part of the ineffable Divine Nature, but all the fulness [of the Godhead] bodily.

He is called the Comforter because he comforts and encourages us and helps our infirmities. We do not know what we should pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered, that is, he makes intercession to God. Very often, someone has been outraged and dishonored unjustly for the sake of Christ. Martyrdom is at hand; tortures on every side, and fire, and sword, and savage beasts and the pit. But the Holy Spirit softly whispers to him, "Wait on the Lord." What is now happening to you is a small matter; the reward will be great. Suffer a little while, and you will be with angels forever. "The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that shall be revealed in us." He portrays to the person the kingdom of heaven. He gives him a glimpse of the paradise of delight.

He does not say, "from God" or "from the Almighty" but "from the Father," because though the Father and God Almighty are the same, yet the Spirit of truth properly proceeds from God as the Father, the Begetter.… The Father and the Son together send the Spirit of truth: He comes by the will both of the Father and the Son.

(Didym. De Spir. Sanct.) The Holy Spirit He calls the Comforter, a name taken from His office, which is not only to relieve the sorrows of the faithful, but to fill them with unspeakable joy. Everlasting gladness is in those hearts, in which the Spirit dwells. The Spirit, the Comforter, is sent by the Son, not as Angels, or Prophets, or Apostles, are sent, but as the Spirit must be sent which is of one nature with the Divine wisdom and power that sends Him. The Son when sent by the Father, is not separated from Him, but abides in the Father, and the Father in Him. In the same way the Holy Spirit is not sent by the Son, and proceedeth from the Father, in the sense of change of place. For as the Father's nature, being incorporeal, is not local, so neither hath the Spirit of truth, Who is incorporeal also, and superior to all created things, a local nature.

(ut sup.) He does not say, from God, or, from the Almighty, but, from the Father: because though the Father and God Almighty are the same, yet the Spirit of truth properly proceeds from God, as the Father, the Begetter. The Father and the Son together send the Spirit of truth: He comes by the will both of the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, coming forth from the Father indeed, but not after the manner of the Son, for it is not by generation but by procession.… There is then one God in three, and these three are one.

The Holy Spirit always existed, and exists and always will exist, who neither had a beginning nor will have an end … ever being partaken but not partaking; perfecting, not being perfected; sanctifying, not being sanctified; deifying, not being deified … Life and Lifegiver; Light and Lightgiver; Absolute Good and Spring of Goodness … By whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified.… Why make a long discourse of it? All that the Father has the Son has also; except the being unbegotten. And all that the Son has the Spirit has also, except the generation.

Tell me, what position will you assign to that which proceeds, which has started up between the two terms of your distinctions [i.e., the terms begotten and unbegotten] and is introduced by a better theologian than you, namely, our Savior himself? Or perhaps you have taken that word out of your Gospels for the sake of your third testament: "The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father." Because he proceeds from that source, he is no creature. And because he is not begotten, he is no son. And because he is between the unbegotten and the begotten, he is God. And so, escaping the labors of your syllogisms, he [i.e., the Spirit] has manifested himself as God, stronger than your distinctions. What then is procession? Tell me what the unbegottenness of the Father is, and I will explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God! And who are we to do these things, we who cannot even see what lies at our feet or number the sand of the sea, or the drops of rain, or the days of eternity, much less enter into the depths of God and supply an account of that nature that is so unspeakable and transcending all words?What then, they say, is there lacking to the Spirit that prevents him from being a Son, for if there were not something lacking he would be a Son? We assert that there is nothing lacking—for God has no deficiency. But the difference of manifestation, if I may so express myself, or rather of their mutual relations one to another, has caused the difference of their names. For indeed, there is no deficiency in the Son that prevents his being Father (for sonship is not a deficiency), and yet he is not Father. According to this line of argument there must be some deficiency in the Father, in respect of his not being Son. For the Father is not Son, and yet this is not due to either deficiency or subjection of essence. But the very fact of being unbegotten or begotten or proceeding has given the name of Father to the first, of the Son to the second, and of the third, him of whom we are speaking, of the Holy Spirit that the distinction of the three persons may be preserved in the one nature and dignity of the Godhead. For neither is the Son Father, for the Father is one, but he is what the Father is. Nor is the Spirit Son because he is of God, for the Only Begotten is one, but he is what the Son is. The three are one in Godhead, and the one three in properties, so that neither is the unity a Sabellian one, nor does the Trinity countenance the present evil distinction. What then? Is the Spirit God? Most certainly. Well then, is he consubstantial? Yes, if he is God.

The Advocate shall come, and the Son shall send him from the Father, and he is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.… He will send from the Father the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. [The Son] therefore cannot be the recipient, since he is revealed as the sender. It only remains to make sure of our conviction on the point, whether we are to believe an egress of a co-existent being or a procession of a being begotten.… If one believes that there is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, surely to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father will be regarded as one and the same thing.… For when he says that all things whatever the Father has are his and that for this cause he declared that it must be received from his own, he teaches also that what is received from the Father is yet received from himself, because all things that the Father has are his.

Wherefore also the Lord promised to send the Comforter, who should join us to God. For as a compacted lump of dough cannot be formed of dry wheat without fluid matter, nor can a loaf possess unity, so, in like manner, neither could we, being many, be made one in Christ Jesus without the water from heaven. And as dry earth does not bring forth unless it receive moisture, in like manner we also, being originally a dry tree, could never have brought forth fruit unto life without the voluntary rain from above. For our bodies have received unity among themselves by means of that layer which leads to incorruption; but our souls, by means of the Spirit. Wherefore both are necessary, since both contribute towards the life of God, our Lord compassionating that erring Samaritan woman -who did not remain with one husband, but committed fornication by [contracting] many marriages-by pointing out, and promising to her living water, so that she should thirst no more, nor occupy herself in acquiring the refreshing water obtained by labour, having in herself water springing up to eternal life. The Lord, receiving this as a gift from His Father, does Himself also confer it upon those who are partakers of Himself, sending the Holy Spirit upon all the earth.

Which Paul doth also. For when many wondered how that the Jews believed not, he brings in Prophets foretelling it of old, and declaring the cause; that their wickedness and pride were the cause of their unbelief. "Well then; if they kept not Thy saying, neither will they keep ours; if they persecuted Thee, therefore they will persecute us also; if they saw signs, such as none other man wrought; if they heard words such as none other spake, and profited nothing; if they hate Thy Father and Thee with Him, wherefore," saith one, "hast Thou sent us in among them? How after this shall we be worthy of belief? which of our kindred will give heed to us?" That they may not therefore be troubled by such thoughts, see what sort of comfort he addeth.

"When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning."

"He shall be worthy of belief, for He is the Spirit of Truth." On this account He called It not "Holy Spirit," but "Spirit of Truth." But the, "proceedeth from the Father," showeth that He knoweth all things exactly, as Christ also saith of Himself, that "I know whence come and whither I go", speaking in that place also concerning truth. "Whom will send." Behold, it is no longer the Father alone, but the Son also who sendeth. "And ye too," He saith, "have a right to be believed, who have been with Me, who have not heard from others." Indeed, the Apostles confidently rely on this circumstance, saying, "We who did eat and drink with Him." And to show that this was not merely said to please, the Spirit beareth witness to the words spoken.

We believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since he is co-essential and co-eternal; the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of wisdom, and life and holiness; God existing and addressed along with Father and Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord; deifying, not deified; filling, not filled; shared in, not sharing in; sanctifying, not sanctified; the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all; in all things like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son, participated in by all creation, through himself creating and investing with essence and sanctifying and maintaining the universe: having subsistence, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, inseparable and indivisible from Father and Son, possessing all the qualities that the Father and Son possess, except that of not being begotten or born. For the Father is without cause and unborn; since he is derived from nothing but derives from himself his being, nor does he derive a single quality from another. Rather, he is himself the beginning and cause of the existence of all things in a definite and natural manner. But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a difference between generation and procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

The name Paraclete seems to be understood in the case of our Savior as meaning intercessor. For he is said to intercede with the Father because of our sins. In the case of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete must be understood in the sense of comforter because he bestows consolation on the souls to whom he openly reveals the apprehension of spiritual knowledge.

Grant, then, that all have erred; that the apostle was mistaken in giving his testimony; that the Holy Ghost had no such respect to any one (church) as to lead it into truth, although sent with this view by Christ, and for this asked of the Father that He might be the teacher of truth; grant, also, that He, the Steward of God, the Vicar of Christ, neglected His office, permitting the churches for a time to understand differently, (and) to believe differently, what He Himself was preaching by the apostles,-is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result.

Or if, again, (the pseudo-prophetic spirit) has been eager to affect this (sentiment) in accordance with "the Spirit of truth," it follows that "the Spirit of truth" has indeed the power of indulgently granting pardon to fornicators, but wills not to do it if it involve evil to the majority.

Through the descent of the Spirit, he says, there will be a confirmation of what I said, that is, that they committed a serious offense against me and my Father. When in my name signs happen through the power of the Spirit, then the truth of my words will appear. It will be evident that the Father was despised with me because of the iniquity of my enemies. And then Jesus, wanting to emphasize their fault on the basis of the person who will testify, says, "who comes from the Father," that is, the one whose essence is from the nature of the Father. In fact, if the natural procession [of the Spirit] were not understood from the word comes but, for instance, a certain external sending, there would be uncertainty about the spirit he is talking about, because many spirits are sent on missions, as also the apostle Paul said, "Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve?" Here also the fact that he mentions it by itself is sufficient to signify the one who proceeds from the Father and appropriately is called by the name of Spirit in the Holy Scripture.

The Lord said to the disciples: "You will be persecuted, your word will not be kept." They could have said: "Lord, why then are You sending us? How will they believe us? Who will heed us? Who will listen to us?" Lest they say this, the Lord adds: "When the Comforter comes, He will testify of Me." He is a trustworthy witness. Therefore, those convicted by the Spirit that they sin without excuse will accept your preaching. The words "Whom I will send" show His equality with the Father. For in another place He said that the Father will send the Spirit (John 14:26), but here He says that He Himself will send Him. By this He shows nothing other than equality. And lest they think that He rises up against the Father when He sends the Spirit by a different authority, He added "from the Father." I will send Him Myself, but "from the Father," that is, by the good pleasure of the Father, and I will send Him together with Him. For I do not bring forth the Spirit from My own bosom, but from the Father He is bestowed through Me. When you hear "proceeds," do not understand by procession a sending forth, as the ministering spirits are sent forth; rather, procession is the natural mode of being of the Spirit. If we were to understand procession not in this way, but as an external sending forth, it would not be clear which Spirit He is speaking of. For countless are the spirits "sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation" (Heb. 1:14). But here, procession is a certain particular and distinctive property belonging properly to the one Spirit alone. Therefore, by procession we must understand not a sending forth, but the natural mode of being from the Father.

Elsewhere He says that the Father sends the Spirit; now He says He does: Whom I will send unto you; thus declaring the equality of the Father and the Son. That He might not be thought however to be opposed to the Father, and to be another and rival source, as it were, of the Spirit, He adds, From the Father; i. e. the Father agreeing, and taking an equal part in sending Him. When it is said that He proceedeth, do not understand His procession to be an external mission, such as is given to ministering spirits, but a certain peculiar, and distinct procession, such as is true of the Holy Spirit alone. To proceed is not the same as being sent, but is the essential nature of the Holy Ghost, as coming from the Father.

2058 Now he shows that they are inexcusable because of what will come to pass after him: because they would have other testimonies, namely, those of the Holy Spirit and of the apostles. First, he states what was to come from the Holy Spirit; secondly, from the apostles (v 27). He indicates four things about the Spirit: his freedom, tenderness, procession and activity.

2059 He indicates his freedom, or power, when he says, But when the Paraclete comes. Strictly speaking that person is said to come who comes willingly and on his own authority; and this is true of the Holy Spirit, because "the Spirit blows where it wills" [3:8]; "I called upon God, and the Spirit of wisdom came to me" (Wis 7:7). Therefore, in saying, whom I shall send, he does not suggest force but origin.

2060 He touches on his tenderness when he says, the Paraclete, that is the Consoler. Since the Paraclete is the Love of God he makes us scorn earthly things and cling to God; and thus he takes away our pain and sadness and gives us joy in divine things: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace" (Gal 5:22); and in Acts (9:31) we read that the Church was walking "in the comfort of the Holy Spirit."

2061 Thirdly, he touches on the twofold procession of the Holy Spirit. First, he mentions the temporal procession when he says, whom I shall send to you from the Father. Note that the Holy Spirit is said to be sent not because the Spirit is changing place, since the Spirit fills the entire universe, as we read in Wisdom (1:7), but because, by grace, the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in a new way in those he makes a temple of God: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16). There is no disagreement in saying that the Holy Spirit is sent and that he comes. In saying that the Spirit comes the grandeur of his divinity is indicated: the "Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills" (1 Cor 12:11). And he is said to be sent to indicate his procession from another, for the fact that he sanctifies the rational creature by indwelling he has from that other, from whom he has it that he is, just as it is from another that the Son has whatever he does.

The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son together; and this is indicated in "He showed me the river of the water of life," that is, the Holy Spirit, "flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb," that is, of Christ (Rev 22:1). Therefore, when speaking of the sending of the Holy Spirit he mentions the Father and the Son, who send the Spirit by the same and equal power. Thus sometimes he mentions the Father as sending the Spirit, but not without the Son, as above (14:26): "The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name"; at other times he says that he himself sends the Holy Spirit, but not without the Father: as here, whom I shall send to you from the Father, because whatever the Son does he has from the Father: "The Son cannot do anything of himself" [5:19].

2062 He mentions the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit when he shows in a similar way that the Spirit is related both to the Father and the Son. He shows the Spirit as related to the Son when he says, the Spirit of truth, for the Son is the Truth: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6). He shows the Spirit as related to the Father when he says, who proceeds from the Father. So to say that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, is the same as saying the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts" (Gal 4:6). And because the word "spirit" (spiritus) suggests a kind of impulse and every motion produces an effect in harmony with its source (as heating makes something hot), it follows that the Holy Spirit makes those to whom he is sent like the one whose Spirit he is. And since he is the Spirit of Truth "He will teach you all truth" [16:13]; "The inspiration of the Almighty gives understanding" [Job 32:8]. In the same way, because he is the Spirit of the Son, he produces sons: "You have received the spirit of sonship" (Rom 8:15). He says the Spirit of truth as contrasted with the spirit of lying: "The Lord has mingled within her the spirit of error" [Is 19:14]; "I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets" (1 Kgs 22:22).

2063 Because he says who proceeds from the Father and does not add "and from the Son," the Greeks say that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son but only from the Father. But this absolutely cannot be. For the Holy Spirit could not be distinguished from the Son unless he either proceeds from the Son, or on the other hand, the Son proceeds from him (and no one claims this). For one cannot say that among the divine persons, who are entirely immaterial and simple, there is a material distinction based on a division of quantity, which matter underlies. Thus it is necessary that the distinction of the divine persons be by way of a formal distinction, which has to involve some kind of opposition. For if forms are not opposed they are compatible with one another in the same subject and do not diversify a supposit; for example, to be white and large. So among the divine persons, since "not subject to birth" and "fatherhood" are not opposed, they belong to one person. If, then, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons proceeding from the Father, they have to be distinguished by some properties that are opposed. These properties cannot be opposed like affirmation and negation or privation and possessing are opposed, because then the Son and the Holy Spirit would be related to one another like being and non-being and as the complete to the deprived, and this is repugnant to their equality. Nor can these properties be opposed like contraries are opposed, one of which is more perfect than the other. What remains is that the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Son only by a relative opposition.

This kind of opposition rests solely on the fact that one of them is referred to the other. For the different relations of two things to some third thing are not directly opposed except accidentally, that is by some incidental consequence. So in order for the Holy Spirit to be distinguished from the Son, they must have relations that are opposed, by which they will be opposed to each other. No such relations can be found except relations of origin, insofar as one person is from the other. Thus it is impossible, granting the Trinity of persons, that the Holy Spirit not be from the Son.

2064 Some say that the Holy Spirit and the Son are distinguished by the different ways they proceed, insofar as the Son is from the Father by being born and the Holy Spirit by proceeding. But the same problem still returns which arose from the previous opinion, as to how these two processions differ. One cannot say that they are distinguished because of the diverse things received by their respective generations, like the generation of a human being and a horse differ because of the diverse natures that are communicated. For the very same nature is received by the Son by being born from the Father and by the Holy Spirit by proceeding. So we are left with the conclusion that they are distinguished only by the order of origin, that is to say, insofar as the birth of the Son is a principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit. And so, if the Holy Spirit were not from the Son, the Spirit would not be distinguished from the Son and procession would not be distinguished from birth.

Thus even the Greeks admit some order between the Son and the Holy Spirit. For they say that the Holy Spirit is of the Son, and that the Son acts through the Holy Spirit, but not conversely. And some even admit that the Holy Spirit is from the Son, but they will not concede that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. Yet in this they are obviously imprudent. For we use the word "procession" in all cases in which one thing is from another in any way. And so this word, because it is so general, has been adapted to indicate the existence of the Holy Spirit as from the Son. We don't have any examples of this in creatures which would lead us to give it a specific name; while we do have examples which give us the special term of "generation" which is applied to the Son. The reason for this is that in creatures we do not find a person proceeding from will, as love, while we do find a person proceeding from nature, as son. Thus, however the Holy Spirit is ordered to the Son, it can be concluded that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.

2065 Nevertheless some of the Greeks assert that one should not say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son because for them the preposition "from" indicates a principle which is not from a principle, and this is so only of the Father. This is not compelling because the Son with the Father is one principle of the Holy Spirit, as also of creatures. And although the Son has it from the Father that the Son is a principle of creatures, still creatures are said to be from the Son; and for the same reason it can be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.

Nor does it make any difference that we read here, who proceeds from the Father, instead of "from the Father and the Son," because in a similar way it is said, whom I shall send, and yet the Father is also understood to send, since there is added, from the Father. In a similar way because it says, the Spirit of truth, that is, the Spirit of the Son, we understand that the Spirit proceeds from the Son. For, as has been said, when the procession of the Holy Spirit is mentioned, the Son is always joined to the Father, and the Father to the Son; and so these different ways of expression indicate a distinction of persons.

2066 Fourthly, he mentions the activity of the Holy Spirit when he says, he will bear witness to me; and this in three ways. First, the Spirit will teach the disciples and give them the confidence to bear witness: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Mt 10:20). Secondly, the Spirit will communicate his teaching to those who believe in Christ: "God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit" (Heb 2:4). Thirdly, the Spirit will soften the hearts of their hearers: "When you send forth your Spirit, they are created" (Ps 104:30).

"And ye also," He says," shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." The Holy Spirit shall bear witness, and so also shall ye. For, just because ye have been with me from the beginning, they can preach what ye know; which ye cannot do at present, because the fullness of that Spirit is not yet present within you. "He therefore shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness:" for the love of God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, who shall be given unto you, will give you the confidence needful for such witness-bearing. And that certainly was still wanting to Peter, when, terrified by the question of a lady's maid, he could give no true testimony; but, contrary to his own promise, was driven by the greatness of his fear thrice to deny Him. But there is no such fear in love, for perfect love casteth out fear. In fine, before the Lord's passion, his slavish fear was questioned by a bond-woman; but after the Lord's resurrection, his free love by the very Lord of freedom: and so on the one occasion he was troubled, on the other tranquillized; there he denied the One he had loved, here he loved the One he had denied. But still even then that very love was weak and straitened, till strengthened and expanded by the Holy Spirit. And then that Spirit, pervading him thus with the fullness of richer grace, kindled his hitherto frigid heart to such a witness-bearing for Christ, and unlocked those lips that in their previous tremor had suppressed the truth, that, when all on whom the Holy Spirit had descended were speaking in the tongues of all nations to the crowds of Jews collected around, he alone broke forth before the others in the promptitude of his testimony in behalf of the Christ, and confounded His murderers with the account of His resurrection. And if any one would enjoy the pleasure of gazing on a sight so charming in its holiness, let him read the Acts of the Apostles: and there let him be filled with amazement at the preaching of the blessed Peter, over whose denial of his Master he had just been mourning; there let him behold that tongue, itself translated from diffidence to confidence, from bondage to liberty, converting to the confession of Christ the tongues of so many of His enemies, not one of which he could bear when lapsing himself into denial. And what shall I say more? In him there shone forth such an effulgence of grace, and such a fullness of the Holy Spirit, and such a weight of most precious truth poured from the lips of the preacher, that he transformed that vast multitude of Jews who were the adversaries and murderers of Christ into men that were ready to die for His name, at whose hands he himself was formerly afraid to die with his Master. All this did that Holy Spirit when sent, who had previously only been promised. And it was these great and marvellous gifts of His own that the Lord foresaw, when He said, "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father: that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness." For He, in bearing witness Himself, and inspiring such witnesses with invincible courage, divested Christ's friends of their fear, and transformed into love the hatred of His enemies.

Not only he, but you also, confirmed by him: whence: And you shall bear witness, because you are with me from the beginning: Acts 1: "Therefore, of these men who have been gathered together with us from the time when the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, one of them must be made a witness of his resurrection with us." The Apostles did not give this testimony before the coming of the Holy Spirit, but after. Whence Peter, who denied Christ at the voice of a maidservant, after the sending of the Holy Spirit responded with great authority to the chief priest, Acts 5: "We ought to obey God rather than men."

But when the Spirit bears witness, you yourselves also, He says, will bear witness with Him. For you have been eye-witnesses and spectators of what I have done among My own, being even with Me as My disciples.

In matters of belief, the very thing that gives one a right to be believed is the fact of having learned what you believe from eyewitnesses.… Therefore John also says, "I saw and bore record that this is the Son of God." … Accordingly, Jesus gave them permission to rest many details of their testimony on the fact of their having seen them when he said, "And you also are witnesses because you have been with me from the beginning." The apostles themselves also often speak in a similar way. … For they more readily received the testimony of people who had been his companions because the notion of the Spirit was as yet very much beyond them. Therefore John also at that time, in his Gospel, speaking of the blood and water, said, he himself saw it, making the fact of his having seen it equivalent to the highest testimony for them, although the witness of the Spirit is more certain than the evidence of sight, but not so with unbelievers.

When you speak, the Spirit, through its testimony, will confirm your words with evident signs, as also the apostle said, "My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power." The signs that happened through the power of the Spirit in the name of the Lord showed the greatness of him who underwent passion and, at the same time, the foolishness of those who dared crucify him.

And you who have been with Me from the beginning will also bear witness, that both by words and by deeds I have left them without excuse. Therefore, do not be troubled. The preaching will not be without testimony; but the Spirit will bear witness through signs and wonders, and His testimony will be trustworthy. For He is the Spirit of truth. As the Spirit of truth, He will bear witness to the truth. As proceeding from the Father, He knows all things precisely, for He is from the One from Whom all knowledge comes. This same Spirit will bear witness concerning the preaching. And you also will bear witness, because you did not hear from others, but you yourselves have been with Me from the very beginning. And the testimony of those who were with Him from the beginning is no small matter. The apostles themselves later said before the people: "Witnesses of His resurrection are we, who ate and drank with Him" (Acts 10:41). So the testimony is from two sides: both from you and from the Spirit. Concerning you, people might think that you testify to please Me; but the Spirit will in no way testify out of flattery.

2067 Finally, he mentions what lies ahead for the disciples when he says, and you also are witnesses, inspired by the Holy Spirit: "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of this earth" (Acts 1:8). We read of this twofold testimony in Acts (5:32): "We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him."

He adds why this testimony is appropriate when he says, because you have been with me from the beginning, that is, the beginning of my preaching and working of miracles, and so you can testify to what you have seen and heard: "That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you" (1 Jn 1:3). We can see from this that Christ did not perform miracles in his youth, as some apocryphal gospels relate, but only from the time he called his disciples.

In the words preceding this chapter of the Gospel, the Lord strengthened His disciples to endure the hatred of their enemies, and prepared them also by His own example to become the more courageous in imitating Him: adding the promise, that the Holy Spirit should come to bear witness of Him, and also that they themselves could become His witnesses, through the effectual working of His Spirit in their hearts. For such is His meaning when He saith, "He shall bear witness of me, and ye also shall bear witness." That is to say, because He shall bear witness, ye also shall bear witness: He in your hearts, you in your voices; He by inspiration, you by utterance: that the words might be fulfilled, "Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth." For it would have been to little purpose to have exhorted them by His example, had He not also filled them with His Spirit. Just as we see that the Apostle Peter, after having heard His words, when He said, "The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;" and seen that already fulfilled in Him, wherein, had example been sufficient, he ought to have imitated the patient endurance of his Lord, yet succumbed and fell into denial, as utterly unable to bear what He saw his Master enduring. But when he really received the gift of the Holy Spirit, he preached Him whom he had denied; and whom he had been afraid to confess, he had no fear now in openly proclaiming. Already, indeed, had he been sufficiently taught by example to know what was proper to be done; but not yet was he inspired with the power to do what he knew: he had got instruction to stand, but not the strength to keep him from falling. But after this was supplied by the Holy Spirit, he preached Christ even to the death, whom, in his fear of death, he had previously denied. And so the Lord in this succeeding chapter, on which we have now to address you, saith, "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." As it is sung in the psalm, "Great peace have they who love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them." Properly enough, therefore, with the promise of the Holy Spirit, by whose operation in their hearts they should be made His witnesses, He added, "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." For when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto us, they have great peace who love God's law, so that nothing may offend them.

(Tr. xciii) After the promise of the Holy Spirit, to inspire them with strength to give witness; He well adds, These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. (Rom. 5:5) For when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us, then great peace have they that love God's law, and they are not offended at it. (Ps. 118.)

The Savior warned his disciples ahead of time that they would not only be driven away from fellowship with their fellow citizens but also that they would suffer death at their hands. The Jews thought that they were doing a service to God in pursuing the ministers of the new covenant with hatred and death. The apostle says, "For I bear witness to them that they have zeal for God, but not according to full knowledge." Here, it is as if he were saying, "You are going to suffer battles and tribulations from your fellow citizens, but accept them the more steadfastly in the realization that you are afflicted with them not so much out of hatred toward yourselves as out of zeal for the divine law." Mindful of this advice, the blessed martyr Stephen prayed for his slayers. Those zealous for the Law thought that they were doing a service to God when they were murdering the heralds of grace.

These things I have spoken to you etc. Here, fifth, he arms his disciples for patience, so that they may not fail on account of tribulations, but endure them; therefore he says: These things I have spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized: because, as Gregory says, "arrows that are foreseen strike less forcefully, and we endure the evils of the world more tolerably if we are fortified against them by the shield of foresight." Therefore he forearms them concerning future tribulation.

The Saviour, having clearly set before His disciples the madness of the Jews, was perhaps about to add to what He had said, that these misguided men would reach such a height of disobedience, and so stubbornly refuse to listen, and in their cowardice advance so far in hatred of God, that even if there should be two witnesses of His glory they would decline to admit it----and this though the Law openly declares that whatever is testified by two or three witnesses should be believed and received as unquestionably true. But He avoids mentioning this on the present occasion for good reasons. For His statement would thus have produced in them an immoderate grief, and, breaking the hearts of His disciples even to despair, would have made the entrance of faint-heartedness and cowardice into their hearts absolutely certain. For they might reasonably have questioned among themselves;----If the masses of the Jews would not only lend to no one a complete obedience, but also set at nought the Comforter though He astonished them with marvels passing description, and in spite of this would actually afterwards be found as guilty of hating Christ as they were before, and in hating Him of hating the Father, what necessity was there for spending their labour in vain? Why should they not rid themselves of their troubles, and choose silence in preference to teaching men unwilling to hear? Knowing then in all likelihood the thoughts that would agitate His disciples, He skilfully conceals what was too grievous to be told, and what would have been calculated to produce cowardice and faint-heartedness in the duty of teaching. But He rightly turns the drift of His speech into an exhortation to hold themselves in readiness and make vigorous preparation for the results that might be expected to follow in the future. For whatever comes to men suddenly and unexpectedly is likely to disturb even the mind that is stable. For the reception of that, the advent of which has been anticipated, the way is made smooth and its burden is lightened, since it has been already foreseen, and lost its edge by the expectation of certain suffering. Something of this kind, I think, Christ wishes to signify. For if, He says, I have already worked such marvels even before your eyes, the Comforter also will work marvels in you. And if the headstrong madness of the Jews is not diminished, and their conduct is the same as before, and even worse, be not offended, He says, when you find yourselves its victims. But keep ever in mind My words: A disciple is not above his master, nor a servant above his lord.

"These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended."

That is, "when ye see many disbelieve, and yourselves ill-treated."

I predicted these things to you, he says, so that when sudden unexpected tribulations would occur, your resolve might not turn and fail but instead, through constant meditation, you might be trained through these difficulties.

"I," He says, "told you about this before it came to pass, so that you would not be scandalized afterwards, when you see that many do not believe your preaching and that you yourselves will undergo afflictions, but so that, concluding from the fact that I told you about this before it came to pass, you would also accept My consolation with faith that I will not deceive you in this case, just as I did not lie in the prediction about the afflictions."

2068 Above, our Lord had used certain considerations to console his disciples over his leaving and against the persecutions and tribulations that would come upon them. Here he amplifies these considerations more clearly. First, he explains the considerations he gave before; and secondly, we see the effect of this explanation on the disciples (v 29).

If we pay close attention to what was said in the pervious two chapters, we can see that our Lord aimed at consoling his disciples against two things: his own leaving them, and the tribulations that would come upon them. But he here explains these two things in reverse order. He had consoled them first over his leaving because this would take place very soon and he had not yet foretold all the tribulations that would come upon them. But now, since they seemed to be more troubled by their own tribulations than by Christ's leaving, our Lord here consoles them first of all against their forthcoming trials, and then against his leaving (v 5). He does three things concerning the first: first, he gives his intention; secondly, he mentions the tribulations they will suffer from being persecuted (v 2); thirdly, he tells why they will be persecuted (v 3).

2069 He says: I have said that the Jews hate me and you, because they do not know who sent me. I have said that they are inexcusable and that you and the Holy Spirit will bear witness against them. Now I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away, that is, so you don't fall away when the tribulations I have foretold come upon you. And it is fitting that our Lord restrains them from falling after promising the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is love ‑ "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us" (Rom 5:5) ‑ and the Holy Spirit prevents stumbling: "Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble" (Ps 119:165). Now it is characteristic of friends that they disregard any loss for the sake of one another, as stated in Proverbs (12:26). So, for one who is a friend of God, to suffer punishment and loss is no reason to fall away. Yet because the disciples had not yet received the Holy Spirit before the death of Christ, they did fall away during his passion: "You will all fall away because of me this night" (Mt 26:31). But after the Holy Spirit came there was no falling away.

And then He expressly declares what they were to suffer: "They shall put you out of the synagogues." But what harm was it for the apostles to be expelled from the Jewish synagogues, as if they were not to separate themselves therefrom, although no one expelled them? Doubtless He meant to announce with reprobation, that the Jews would refuse to receive Christ, from whom they as certainly would refuse to withdraw; and so it would come to pass that the latter, who could not exist without Him, would also be cast out along with Him by those who would not have Him as their place of abode. For certainly, as there was no other people of God than that seed of Abraham, they would, had they only acknowledged and received Christ, have remained as the natural branches in the olive tree; nor would the Churches of Christ have been different from the synagogues of the Jews, for they would have been one and the same, had they also desired to abide in Him. But having refused, what remained but that, continuing themselves out of Christ, they put out of the synagogues those who would not abandon Christ? For having received the Holy Spirit, and so become His witnesses, they would certainly not belong to the class of whom it is said: "Many of the chief rulers of the Jews believed on Him; but for fear of the Jews they dared not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." And so they believed on Him, but not in the way He wished them to believe when He said: "How can ye believe, who expect honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?" It is, therefore, with those disciples who so believe in Him, that, filled with the Holy Spirit, or, in other words, with the gift of divine grace, they no longer belong to those who, "ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God;" nor to those of whom it is said, "They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God:" that the prophecy harmonizes, which finds its fulfillment in their own case: "They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance: and in Thy name shall they rejoice all the day; and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted: for Thou art the glory of their strength." Rightly enough is it said to such, "They shall cast you out of the synagogues;" that is, they who "have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge;" because, "ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own," they expel those who are exalted, not in their own righteousness, but in God's, and have no cause to be ashamed at being expelled by men, since He is the glory of their strength.

Finally, to what He had thus told them, He added the words: "But the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service: and these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." That is to say, they have not known the Father, nor His Son, to whom they think they will be doing service in slaying you. Words which the Lord added in the way of consolation to His own, who should be driven out of the Jewish synagogues. For it is in thus announcing beforehand what evils they would have to endure for their testimony in His behalf, that He said, "They will put you out of the synagogues." Nor does He say, And the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. What then? "But the hour cometh:" just in the way He would have spoken, were He foretelling them of something good that would follow such evils. What, then, does He mean by the words, "They will put you out of the synagogues: but the hour cometh"? As if He would have gone on to say this: They, indeed, will scatter you, but I will gather you; or, They shall, indeed, scatter you, but the hour of your joy cometh. What, then, has the word which He uses, "but the hour cometh," to do here, as if He were going on to promise them comfort after their tribulation, when apparently He ought rather to have said, in the form of continuous narration, And the hour cometh? But He said not, And it cometh, although predicting the approach of one tribulation after another, instead of comfort after tribulation. Could it have been that such a separation from the synagogues would so discompose them, that they would prefer to die, rather than remain in this life apart from the Jewish assemblies? Far surely would those be from such discomposure, who were seeking, not the praise of men, but of God. What, then, of the words, "They will put you out of the synagogues: but the hour cometh;" when apparently He ought rather to have said, And the hour cometh, "that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service"? For it is not even said, But the hour cometh that they shall kill you, as if implying that their comfort for such a separation would be found in the death that would befall them; but "The hour cometh," He says, "that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." On the whole, I do not think He wished to convey any further meaning than that they might understand and rejoice that they themselves would gain so many to Christ, by being driven out of the Jewish congregations, that it would be found insufficient to expel them, and they would not suffer them to live for fear of all being converted by their preaching to the name of Christ, and so turned away from the observance of Judaism, as if it were the very truth of God. For so ought we to understand the reference of His words to the Jews, when He said of them, "They will put you out of the synagogues." For the witnesses, in other words, the martyrs of Christ, were likewise slain by the Gentiles: they, however, thought not that it was to the true God, but to their own false deities, that they were doing service when they so acted. But every Jew that slew the preachers of Christ reckoned that he was doing God service; believing as he did that all who were converted to Christ were deserting the God of Israel. For it was also by the same reasoning that they were incited to the murder of Christ Himself: because their own words on this subject have also been put on record. "Ye perceive that the whole world is gone after him:" "If we let him live, the Romans will come, and take away both our place and nation." And those of Caiaphas: "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish." And accordingly in this address He sought by His own example to stimulate His disciples, to whom He had just been saying, "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;" that as in slaying Him they thought they had done God a service, so also would it be in reference to them.

(Tr. xciii) But what evil was it to the Apostles to be put out of the Jewish synagogues, which they would have gone out of, even if none had put them out? Our Lord wished to make known to them, that the Jews were about not to receive Him, while they on the other hand were not going to desert Him. There was no other people of God beside the seed of Abraham: if they acknowledged Christ, the Churches of Christ would be none other than the synagognes of the Jews. But inasmuch as they refused to acknowledge Him, nothing remained but that they should put out of the synagogue those who would not forsake Christ. He adds: But the time cometh, that whoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service. Is this intended for a consolation, as if they would so take to heart their expulsion from the synagogues, that death would be a positive relief to them after it? God forbid that they who sought God's glory, not men's, should be so disturbed. The meaning of the words is this: They shall put you out of the synagogue, but do not be afraid of being left alone. Separated from their assemblies, ye shall assemble so many in my name, that they fearing that the temple and rites of the old law will be deserted, will kill you, and think to do God service thereby, having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. These who kill, are the same with those who put out of the synagogues, viz. the Jews. For Gentiles would not have thought that they were doing God service, by killing Christ's witnesses, but their own false gods; whereas every one of the Jews, who killed the preacher of Christ, thought he was doing God service, believing that whoever were converted to Christ, deserted the God of Israel.

They will put you out of the synagogues: Acts 8: "There arose a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all dispersed through the regions of Judea and Samaria." And the reason for this bitter persecution is added: But the hour comes, that whoever kills you will think that he is offering service to God. That hour was the time of the preaching of the Apostles; then, by killing them, they thought they were doing well; whence there is an example in Paul, Acts 9, who "asked for letters from the chief priests to Damascus, that if he found any" etc. But such thinking has its origin in unbelief; and therefore he says:

There is a question about what He says: The hour comes when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God.

Therefore according to this, those who were killing the Apostles were killing with good intention; therefore they were meriting.

If you say that it could not be done with good intention, that is false, because things evil in genus, which are not evil in themselves, can be done well; and such is killing.

I respond: It must be said that certain works can in no way be done well, such as lying, as Augustine says, because "as soon as they are named they are joined to evil," as the Philosopher says. But certain works can immediately be done well when good intention is present, as are those good in genus. Certain works are not made good by intention alone, unless there is present a cause and due order, and such are killing and similar acts. Whence whenever a man kills another for God, unless there is present the order of judgment and a cause, it is in no way done well. In such a manner it was done against the Apostles, because just cause and due inquiry were lacking.

Which things must all now be considered by us, that no one may desire anything from the world that is now dying, but may follow Christ, who both lives for ever, and quickens His servants, who are established in the faith of His name. For there comes the time, beloved brethren, which our Lord long ago foretold and taught us was approaching, saying, "The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them." Nor let any one wonder that we are harassed with constant persecutions, and continually tried with increasing afflictions, when the Lord before predicted that these things would happen in the last times, and has instructed us for the warfare by the teaching and exhortation of His words. Peter also, His apostle, has taught that persecutions occur for the sake of our being proved, and that we also should, by the example of righteous men who have gone before us, be joined to the love of God by death and sufferings. For he wrote in his epistle, and said, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is thing happened unto you; but as often as ye partake in Christ's sufferings, rejoice in all things, that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached in the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the name of the majesty and power of the Lord resteth on you, which indeed on their part is blasphemed, but on our part is glorified." Now the apostles taught us those things which they themselves also learnt from the Lord's precepts and the heavenly commands, the Lord Himself thus strengthening us, and saying, "There is no man that hath left house, or land, or parents, or brethren, or sisters, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive sevenfold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." And again He says, "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and shall separate you from their company, and shall cast you out, and shall reproach your name as evil for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy; for, behold your reward is great in heaven."

That it was before predicted that the world would hold us in abhorrence, and that it would stir up persecutions against us, and that no new thing is happening to the Christians, since from the beginning of the world the good have suffered, and the righteous have been oppressed and slain by the unrighteous. The Lord in the Gospel forewarns and foretells, saying: "If the world hates you, know that it first hated me. If ye were of the world, the world would love what is its own: but because ye are not of the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I spoke unto you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also." And again: "The hour will come, that every one that killeth you will think that he doeth, God service; but they will do this because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the hour shall come ye may remember them, because I told you." And again: "Verily, verily, I say unto yon, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." And again: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace; but in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good confidence, for I have overcome the world."

Of the benefits of martyrdom. In the Proverbs of Solomon: "The faithful martyr delivers his soul from evils." Also in the same place: "Then shall the righteous stand in great boldness against them who have afflicted them, and who took away their labours. When they see them, they shall be disturbed with a horrible fear; and they shall wonder at the suddenness of their unhoped-for salvation, saying among themselves, repenting and groaning with distress of spirit, These are they whom some time we had in derision, and in the likeness of a proverb; we fools counted their life madness, and their end without honour. How are they reckoned among the children of God, and their lot among the saints! Therefore we have wandered from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shined upon us, and the sun has not risen upon us. We have been wearied in the way of iniquity and of perdition, and we have walked through difficult solitudes; but we have not known the way of the Lord. What hath pride profited us? or what hath the boasting of riches brought to us? All these things have passed away as a shadow." Of this same thing in the cxvth Psalm: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Also in the cxxvth Psalm: "They who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Walking they walked, and wept as they cast their seeds; but coming they shall come in joy, raising up their laps." Of this same thing in the Gospel according to John: "He who loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall find it to life eternal." Also in the same place: "But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought what ye shall speak; for it is not ye who speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." Also in the same place: "The hour shall come, that every one that killeth you shall think he doeth service to God l but they shall do this also because they have not known the Father nor me."

He extends His forewarning of danger to that which is the most dreadful of all terrors, but not with the intention of arousing in His disciples an unmanly panic. For this would not harmonise with His anxiety to stimulate them to a fearless proclamation of the heavenly message. His object rather was that, thrusting aside the extremity of fear, as already anticipated and for this reason having lost its edge, they might gain a complete victory over every evil, and consider even the possible approach of intolerable evils as of no account whatsoever. For what loss could the lesser evil inflict on those who do not even dread the greater? And how could those who know how to be superior to the worst objects of fear be dismayed by any of the rest? In order then that they might have their minds bent on enduring everything with a cheerful courage, and to convince them of the necessity of so far withstanding the malice of the Jews as not even to fear an immediate and cruel death, He not only tells them that these things will continually happen, and the devices or opposition of the Jews not be satisfied with merely turning them out of the synagogues, but forewarns them that their impiety will reach such a height of cruelty as to make them consider their extreme inhumanity towards them to be the path of piety towards God. It must be plain that those who held fast to the love of Christ actually were cast out of the synagogues by the Jews, and endured this punishment at the outset of their work----when we are told by the Evangelist that nevertheless even of the rulers many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; and again: For the Scribes and Pharisees had agreed already, that if any man should confess Him to be the Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. But if, He says, any are indisposed to endure the malice of the Jews, let them then know that their devices against you will not stop here. For be not at all alarmed, He says, even though you must endure this suffering. Their audacity will reach such a pitch of wickedness as to make them suppose your death to be as an actual service towards God. And this we shall find happening in the case of the holy Stephen, the first of the martyrs, and in that of the inspired Paul. For involving Stephen in a charge of blasphemy, and simulating herein the zeal that loves God, they slew him by stoning him. And some of the Jews were so enraged against the holy and wise Paul that they bound themselves under a curse neither to eat nor to drink till they had slain him. For we shall find this recorded in the Acts of the holy Apostles. Excellent then and profitable is His prediction, moderating by anticipation their fear of what was dreadful, and forging His disciples anew (as having as it were already suffered), into a courageous disposition. For the foreknowledge in the minds of the sufferers of the dreadfulness of their danger will give them strength beforehand, while it deprives the approach of evil of its power.

"They shall put you out of the synagogues."

(For "the Jews had already agreed, that if any one should confess Christ, he should be put out of the synagogues".)

"Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service."

"They shall so seek after your murder, as of an action pious and pleasing to God." Then again He addeth the consolation.

What the Savior said in prophesying to the disciples … was originally fulfilled in his own case. For those who required that he should die thought they were offering a service to God and had gone up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves.

"They will put you out of the synagogues," they will excommunicate you from their assemblies and honored places and deprive you of all fellowship. For "they had already agreed that if anyone should confess Him to be the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue" (John 9:22). Not only will you be expelled from the synagogues, but you will also receive death, and a shameful death, for you will be killed as harmful people, enemies of God. And everyone who kills you will so strive for your murder that "he will think that he is thereby serving God," that is, he will think that he is performing a deed pleasing to God and holy.

2070 The disciples might say: Don't we have reason to fall away? Many troubles will come upon us: first, that of rejection; secondly, we will be killed.

2071 They will be rejected from the society of the Jews; so he says, They will put you out of the synagogues: "The Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue" (9:22). This was so successful that for this reason some of the Jewish authorities who did believe in Christ were afraid to profess him publicly, as we read above (12:42). Christ foretold this rejection: "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man" (Lk 6:22).

2072 Was it an evil for the apostles to be cast out of the Jewish synagogues, since they were going to leave them in any case? The answer, according to Augustine, is that it was a trial for them, because this was our Lord's way of telling them that the Jews would not accept Christ. For if they had received Christ, the synagogue of the Jews and the Church of Christ would have been the same; and those who would be converted to the Church of Christ would have been converted to the synagogue of the Jews.

2073 The other trial is that of being killed: indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. We can take these words as spoken to console the disciples, so that the indeed signifies a contrary train of thought and the sense would be: indeed, you ought to be consoled by what they will do to you, for the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. How is it a consolation for them that whoever kills them thinks he is serving God? The answer, according to Augustine, is that in saying, they will put you out of the synagogues, we are to understand that those converted to Christ would be immediately killed by the Jews. And so to console his disciples our Lord tells them that they would win so many to Christ, who would be expelled from the Jewish synagogues, that they could not all be killed, and so the Jews would try to kill the apostles so they would not convert all the people to the name of Christ by their preaching.

Or, we could say that here Christ is simply telling them beforehand that they will be killed.

2074 He says, whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God, and not to the gods, to show that he is speaking only of persecution from the Jews: "I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify" (Mt 23:34). The martyrs of Christ were killed by the gentiles, and they did not consider that they were serving God but only their own gods. It was the Jews who, when they killed those who were preaching Christ, thought this was a service to God. For they had zeal for God, but without knowledge, since they believed that anyone who converted to Christ was deserting God. We read of this killing: "For your sake we are slain all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Ps 44:22).