Fathers of the 1st Six Ecumenical Councils

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).

Before these words, which we are now, with the Lord's help, to make the subject of discourse, Jesus had said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace;" which we are to consider as referring, not to the later words uttered by Him immediately before, but to all that He had addressed to them, whether from the time that He began to account them disciples, or at least from the time after supper when He commenced this admirable and lengthened discourse. He gave them, indeed, such a reason for speaking to them, that either all He ever spake to them may with the utmost propriety be referred to that end, or those especially, as His last words, which He now spake when on the eve of dying for them, after that he who was to betray Him had quitted their company. For He gave this as the cause of His discourse, that in Him they might have peace, just as it is wholly on this account that we are Christians. For this peace will have no temporal end, but will itself be the end of every pious intention and action that are ours at present. For its sake we are endowed with His sacraments, for its sake we are instructed by His works and sayings, for its sake we have received the earnest of the Spirit, for its sake we believe and hope in Him, and according to His gracious giving are enkindled with His love: by this peace we are comforted in all our distresses, by it we are delivered from them all: for its sake we endure with fortitude every tribulation, that in it we may reign in happiness without any tribulation.

Fitly therewith did He bring His words to a close, which were proverbs to the disciples, who as yet had little understanding, but would afterwards understand them, when He had given them the Holy Spirit of promise, of whom He had said before: "These things have I spoken unto you being yet present with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Such, doubtless, was to be the hour, wherein He promised that He would no more speak unto them in proverbs, but show them openly of the Father. For these same words of His, when revealed by the Holy Spirit, were no more to be proverbs to those who had understanding. For when the Holy Spirit was speaking in their hearts, there was not to be silence on the part of the only-begotten Son, who had said that in that hour He would show them plainly of the Father, which, of course, would no longer be a proverb to them when now endowed with understanding. But even this also, how it is that both the Son of God and the Holy Spirit speak at once in the hearts of their spiritual ones, yea the Trinity itself, which is ever inseparably at work, is a word to those who have, but a proverb to those who are without, understanding.

When, therefore, He had told them on what account He had spoken all things, namely, that in Him they might have peace while having distress in the world, and had exhorted them to be of good cheer, because He had overcome the world; having thus finished His discourse to them, He then directed His words to the Father, and began to pray. For so the evangelist proceeds to say: "These things spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son." The Lord, the Only-begotten and coeternal with the Father, could in the form of a servant and out of the form of a servant, if such were needful, pray in silence; but in this other way He wished to show Himself as one who prayed to the Father, that He might remember that He was still our Teacher. Accordingly, the prayer which He offered for us, He made also known to us; seeing that it is not only the delivering of discourses to them by so great a Master, but also the praying for them to the Father, that is a means of edification to disciples. And if so to those who were present to hear what was said, it is certainly so also to us who were to have the reading of it when written.

Wherefore in saying this, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son," He showed that all time, and every occasion when He did anything or suffered anything to be done, were arranged by Him who was subject to no time: since those things, which were individually future in point of time, have their efficient causes in the wisdom of God, wherein there are no distinctions of time. Let it not, then, be supposed that this hour came through any urgency of fate, but rather by the divine appointment. It was no necessary law of the heavenly bodies that tied to its time the passion of Christ; for we may well shrink from the thought that the stars should compel their own Maker to die. It was not the time, therefore, that drove Christ to His death, but Christ who selected the time to die: who also fixed the time, when He was born of the Virgin, with the Father, of whom He was born independently of time. And in accordance with this true and salutary doctrine, the Apostle Paul also says, "But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;" and God declares by the prophet, "In an acceptable time have I heard Thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee;" and yet again the apostle, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." He then may say, "Father, the hour is come," who has arranged every hour with the Father: saying, as it were, "Father, the hour," which we fixed together for the sake of men and of my glorification among them, "is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee."

The glorification of the Son by the Father is understood by some to consist in this, that He spared Him not, but delivered Him up for us all. But if we say that He was glorified by His passion, how much more was He so by His resurrection! For in His passion our attention is directed more to His humility than to His glory, in accordance with the testimony of the apostle, who says, "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross:" and then he goes on to say of His glorification, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father." This is the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ, that took its commencement from His resurrection. His humility accordingly begins in the apostle's discourse with the passage where he says, "He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant;" and reaches "even to the death of the cross." But His glory begins with the clause where he says, "Wherefore God also hath exalted Him;" and reaches on to the words, "is in the glory of God the Father."

In order, then, that the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, might be made lustrous or glorious by His resurrection, He was first humbled by suffering; for had He not died, He would not have risen from the dead. Humility is the earning of glory; glory, the reward of humility. This, however, was done in the form of a servant; but He was always in the form of God, and always shall His glory continue: yea, it was not in the past as if it were no more so in the present, nor shall it be, as if it did not yet exist; but without beginning and without end, His glory is everlasting. Accordingly, when He says, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son," it is to be understood as if He said, The hour is come for sowing the seed-corn of humility, delay not the fruit of my glory.

That the Son was glorified by the Father in His form of a servant, which the Father raised from the dead and set at His own right hand, is indicated by the event itself, and is nowhere doubted by the Christian. But as He not only said, "Father, glorify Thy Son," but likewise added, "that Thy Son may glorify Thee," it is worthy of inquiry how it was that the Son glorified the Father, seeing that the eternal glory of the Father neither suffered diminution in any human form, nor could be increased in respect of its own divine perfection. In itself, indeed, the glory of the Father could neither be diminished nor enlarged; but without any doubt it was less among men when God was known only in Judea: and as yet children praised not the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun to its going down. But inasmuch as this was effected by the gospel of Christ, to wit, that the Father became known through the Son to the Gentiles, assuredly the Son also glorified the Father. Had the Son, however, only died, and not risen again, He would without doubt have neither been glorified by the Father, nor have glorified the Father; but now having been glorified through His resurrection by the Father, He glorifies the Father by the preaching of His resurrection. For this is disclosed by the very order of the words: "Glorify," He says, "Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee;" saying, as it were, Raise me up again, that by me Thou mayest become known to all the world.

(Tr. civ) Our Lord, in the form of a servant, could have prayed in silence had He pleased; but He remembered that He had not only to pray, but to teach. For not only His discourse, but His prayer also, was for His disciples' edification, yea and for ours who read the same. Father, the hour is come, shews that all time, and every thing that He did or suffered to be done, was at His disposing, Who is not subject to time. Not that we must suppose that this hour came by any fatal necessity, but rather by God's ordering. Away with the notion, that the stars could doom to death the Creator of the stars.

(Tr. civ) But if He was glorified by His Passion, how much more by His Resurrection? For His Passion rather shewed His humility than His glory. So we must understand, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, to mean, the hour is come for sowing the seed, humility; defer not the fruit, glory.

These things spake Jesus, those things that He had said at the supper, partly sitting as far as the words, Arise, let us go hence; (c. 14:31.) and thence standing, up to the end of the hymn which now commences, And lifted up His eyes and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son.

Thirdly, the disciples are strengthened by the aid of prayer in four ways.

Jesus spoke these things etc. Above, the Lord strengthened the disciples by example and by the word of instruction; here he strengthens them by the aid of prayer; and he does this in the present chapter, in which Christ's prayer is set forth. And the present chapter has four parts. In the first, the Lord seeks for himself the manifestation of glory. In the second, he seeks for the Apostles the preservation of holiness, there: Father, I have manifested your name etc. In the third, he seeks for those who will believe through the Apostles conformity of grace, there: I do not pray for them only, but for those etc. In the fourth, for both these and those the perpetuity of glory, there: Father, those whom you have given me, I will etc.

First, therefore, he seeks for himself the manifestation of his glory in this order. First is set forth the manner of asking, or praying; second, the fruit of the petition; third, the reason for being heard: fourth, the petition itself.

The manner of asking, therefore, is indicated in this, that Christ was asking devoutly and intently; as a sign of which he raised his eyes to heaven. Therefore he says: Jesus spoke these things, which have been said above, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, through devotion: above in chapter eleven: "Jesus, having lifted up his eyes, said: Father, I thank you, because you have heard me"; Psalm: "To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in the heavens"; Lamentations chapter three: "Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord".

Not only devoutly, but also humbly; whence he said: Father. He calls God Father, because he honors him as Father; above in chapter eight: "I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me".

He also asked with discernment; therefore he says: The hour has come, glorify your Son. He was asking with discernment, because he was seeking to be glorified at the time when the opportune moment had arrived. Concerning this hour it has often been said, above in chapters two and seven: "My hour has not yet come"; therefore he did not wish to be glorified through miracles, but when this hour had come, he sought to be glorified.

In this manner of praying, therefore, we are instructed that we should pray devoutly, humbly, and with discernment.

That your Son etc. Here the fruit of the petition is touched upon, and this is twofold, namely the manifestation of the divine name and our beatification. On account of the manifestation of the divine name he says: That your Son etc.: thus, Father, glorify your Son, that also your Son may glorify you, because for this reason he was dying: whence above in chapter twelve: "Father, glorify your name".

It is asked concerning this, that the Son prays: because if to pray belongs to one who is needy and powerless, and the Son can do all things, therefore he ought not to pray. If you say that he prays insofar as he is man: this amounts to nothing, because whatever he merited insofar as he is man, he merited from the instant of conception. I respond: It must be said that Christ prayed insofar as he was man: for according to his human nature he could not do all things. Even though he was worthy through grace, nothing prevented him from meriting this very thing by good works: whence by suffering and praying he merited to be glorified. But this was not to make what was unowed into something owed, but to make what was owed in one way owed on multiple grounds.

Again it is asked concerning this petition: Father, clarify or glorify your Son. To the contrary: Above in chapter eight: I do not seek my own glory: therefore he ought not to have sought his own glory or his own brightness. Again, according to which nature does he ask this? Not according to the divine, because according to that nature he can do all things: not according to the human, because he says a little later: Glorify me with the brightness which I had before the world was made: this could not have been according to the human nature. I respond: To the first it must be said that he sought brightness so that from it God might be glorified: whence he added: That your Son may glorify you: and this is not to seek one's own glory. For he seeks his own glory who seeks praise for himself without referring it to God. Or it must be said that he did not seek glory from men, because it is vain, but from God. To what is asked: according to which nature does he ask this? The heretic said from this that, since the Son existed before the world, he also prays according to that nature, because he was less than the Father. This Arius said. But Augustine says that this is understood according to the human nature, and is to be explained thus: with the brightness which I had with you, namely by predestination, because Romans 1: He was predestined as the Son of God in power. Otherwise it must be said that there is a difference between the one who asks and the one for whom or on whose behalf the request is made, in this: that the one who asks or prays, insofar as he does so, is inferior and powerless: but he for whom something is asked — this is twofold: either something is asked for him in himself, so that his need may be supplied, as when I ask for myself a sinner: or something is asked for him in others, so that his glory may be manifested: and thus I can ask something of God: God, manifest yourself, honor yourself. I say therefore that when it is asked: according to which nature was he asking? — if you ask about the one who asks, insofar as he asks, I say according to the human. If you ask: for whom was he asking? I say according to the divine. Whence me there indicates the divine hypostasis equal to the Father from eternity, whose equality he was asking to be manifested.

CHAPTER III. That no man should consider that the Son has any lack of God-befitting glory, though He be found to say, Father, glorify Thy Son.

Having given His disciples a sufficiency of things necessary for salvation, and incited them by fitting words and arguments to a more accurate apprehension of His doctrines, and made them best able to battle against temptation, and confirmed the courage of each one, he straightway changes the form of His speech for our profit, and turns it into a kind of prayer, allowing no interval to elapse between His discourse to them and His prayer to God the Father; herein also by His own conduct suggesting to us a type of admirable life. For the man who aims at serving God ought, I think, to bear in mind that he ought at all events either to be fond of discoursing to his brethren of things profitable or necessary for their salvation, or, if he be not so engaged, to hasten to employ the service of the tongue in supplications to God, so as to render it impossible for any random words to slip in between; for in this way the governance of the tongue may be well and suitably ordered. For is it not quite obvious that, in vain conversations, things blameworthy may very readily escape a man? Moreover, a wise man has said: In the multitude of words thou shalt not escape sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.

You may find besides another thing to admire, which is in no small degree profitable for us. The beginning of His prayer has reference to His own glory and that of God the Father, and afterwards, in intimate connection with this, He introduces His prayer for us. And why is this? The reason is one which convinces the pious man that loves God, and actually disposes the worker of good deeds to prayer. For just as we ought to perform good actions, and do all things, not turning to our own glory our zeal herein, but to the glory of the Father of the Universe, I mean God, for He says: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Which is in heaven; so also it best befits us, when occasion calls us to prayer, to pray for what redounds to God's glory before what concerns ourselves, as indeed Christ also Himself enjoins us when He says: After this manner pray ye: Our Father Which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in Heaven so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. What Christ here does, then, ought to be to us the pattern of prayer. For it was necessary that not an elder or messenger, but Christ Himself, should manifest Himself to be our Leader and Guide in all good, and in the way which leadeth to God. For we are called, and are in very truth, as the prophet says, taught of God.

And what He says to His Father it is right that we should consider with the greatest care. For I think we ought in a spirit of the most earnest attention to handle the investigation of His words, and most carefully search after the true intent of His teaching. Father, then, He says, The hour is come; glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. So far as the mere form of His language is concerned, one could think that the speaker had some lack of glory; but any one who considers the majesty of the Only-begotten would, I think, quickly shrink from so grievous a conclusion. For it were great folly to think that the Son has any lack of glory, or falls short of the honour which is His due, though He is the Lord of glory, for so the inspired writings call Him. Especially when in another place we observe Him saying to His Father: O Father, glorify Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. Then who can any longer doubt, or who is so demented and so far the enemy of all truth as not to know and confess that the Only-begotten is not bereft of Divine glory so far as His own Nature is concerned; but that since being in the form of God, and in perfect equality with Him, He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but nevertheless descended to the humiliation of human nature, and emptied Himself of His glory, wearing this mean body; and from love towards us putting on the likeness of human littleness, now that the fitting time had actually arrived, at which He was destined, after fulfilling the mystery of our redemption, to gird Himself about with His pristine and essential glory; having wrought out the salvation of the whole world, and secured life and the knowledge of God to those that are therein; herein I say He shows that He has God's Will and favour, and makes this speech to Him, saying that He ought to recover the majesty due unto His Nature.

And how does He ascend into heaven? Surely He That even in the flesh showed Himself able to accomplish the deeds of a God was not in this subject to another's power, but ascended of Himself, being the Wisdom and Might of God the Father. For we must think that thus in no other way He accomplishes the words of a God with power. For all things are from the Father, but not without the Son. For how could God the Father perform any of His proper functions, if His Wisdom and Might, I mean the Son, were not with Him, and accomplishing with Him those things in which His power is seen in active operation? Therefore also the wise Evangelist who wrote this book at the beginning of His work says: All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made. Since then the doctrine of His Consubstantiality compels us by consequence to think that all things proceed from the Father, but wholly through the Son in the Spirit, and that He, having slain death and corruption and taken away from the devil his kingdom, was about to illumine the whole world with the light of the Spirit, and to show Himself thereby henceforth in very deed the true God by Nature, He is impelled to say, Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. And no man of sense would maintain that the Son asks glory from the Father as a man from man, but rather that He also promises to give Him glory, as it were, in return. For it would be very unbecoming, nay rather wholly foolish, to have such an idea about God. The Saviour indeed spake these words to show how very necessary His own glory was to the Father, that He might be known to be Consubstantial with Him. For just as it would entail dishonour on God the Father, that the Son That was begotten of Him should not be such as He That is God by Nature and of God ought to be, so I think, to have His own Son invested with those attributes, which He is conceived of as having, and which are predicated of Him, will confer honour and glory upon Him. The Father therefore is glorified in the glory of His Offspring, as I said just now; giving glory to the Son, by considering throughout His earthly career, both from how great, and of what, a Father the Only-begotten sprang; and in turn receiving glory from the Son by the consideration of how great indeed is the Son, of Whom He is the Father. The honour and glory then, which is Theirs essentially and by Nature, will be reflected from the Son on the Father, and in turn from the Father on the Son.

If any man concede that, owing to the degradation of His Incarnation, our Lord here speaks more humbly than His true Nature warrants, for this was His custom, he will not altogether miss arriving at a proper conclusion, but will not quite attain to the truth in the inquiry. For, if He were seeking only honour from the Father, there would be nothing unlikely in setting down the request to the inferiority of human nature; but, since He promises to glorify the Father in turn, does it not follow of necessity, that we should readily embrace the view we have just given?

When an occasion calls us to prayer, it is fitting for us to pray for that which increases God's glory before we pray for that which concerns ourselves.… The Savior indeed spoke these words to show how very necessary his own glory was to the Father so that he might be known to be consubstantial with him … for the Father is glorified in the glory of his offspring.

The Father glorified his own Son, having put everything under the sun under his rule. The Father in turn was glorified through the Son. The Son was glorified by the Father, for he was entrusted with all things, because he is the Son and offspring of the one who can do everything. The Father in turn was glorified, just as a father is glorified by his own son [child]. When the Son was known to have accomplished willingly every mighty deed, the favor of his reputation passes on to the one who begat him.… This glory, then, passes on to us. That which is altogether subordinate, which has been put under the hand of the Word of God (who is mightier than all things) and which has been saved once and for all must remain for the good, since it is no longer ruled by death or governed by corruption or made subject to sins and ancient evils.

He does not say that the day or the time but that the hour has come. An hour contains a portion of a day. What was this hour?… He was now to be spit on, scourged, crucified. But the Father glorifies the Son. The sun, instead of setting, fled, and all the other elements felt that same shock of the death of Christ. The stars in their courses, to avoid complicity in the crime, escaped by self-extinction from beholding the scene. The earth trembled under the weight of our Lord hanging on the cross and testified that it did not have the power to hold within it him who was dying.… The centurion proclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God." Creation is set free by the mediation of this sin offering. The very rocks lose their solidity and strength. Those who had nailed him to the cross confess that truly this is the Son of God. The outcome justifies the assertion. Our Lord had said, "Glorify your Son," testifying that he was not the Son in name only but properly the Son. "Your Son," he said. Many of us are sons [children] of God. But he is Son in another sense. He is the proper, true Son by nature, not by adoption; in truth, not in name; by birth, not by creation. After he was glorified, that centurion's confession touched on the truth. And so, when the centurion confesses him to be the true Son of God, none of his believers might doubt what one of his persecutors could not deny.

But perhaps this proves weakness in the Son. He waited to be glorified by one superior to himself. And who does not confess that the Father is superior, seeing that he himself said, "The Father is greater than I"? But beware that you do not let the honor of the Father impair the glory of the Son.… But the prayer, "Father glorify your Son," is completed by "that your Son also may glorify you." So then the Son is not weak, inasmuch as he gives back in his turn glory for the glory that he receives.… This petition for glory to be given and paid back is neither a robbery of the Father nor a depreciation of the Son. Rather, it shows the same power of divinity to be in both.

(iii. Tr. c. 10) He doth not say that the day, or the time, but that the hour is come. An hour contains a portion of a day. What was this hour? He was now to be spit upon, scourged, crucified. But the Father glorifies the Son. The sun failed in his course, and with him all the other elements felt that death. The earth trembled under the weight of our Lord hanging on the Cross, and testified that it had not power to hold within it Him who was dying. The Centurion proclaimed, Truly this was the Son of God. (Matt. 27:54) The event answered the prediction. Our Lord had said, Glorify Thy Son, testifying that He was not the Son in name only, but properly the Son. Thy Son, He saith. Many of us are sons of God; but not such is the Son. For He is the proper, true Son by nature, not by adoption, in truth, not in name, by birth, not by creation. Therefore after His glorifying, to the manifestation of the truth there succeeded confession. The Centurion confesses Him to be the true Son of God, that so none of His believers might doubt what one of His persecutors could not deny.

(iii. de. Trin) But perhaps this proves weakness in the Son; His waiting to be glorified by one superior to Himself. And who does not confess that the Father is superior, seeing that He Himself saith, The Father is greater than I? But beware lest the honour of the Father impair the glory of the Son. It follows: That Thy Son also may glorify Thee. So then the Son is not weak, inasmuch as He gives back in His turn glory for the glory which He receives. This petition for glory to be given and repaid, shows the same divinity to be in both.

"Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee." Again He showeth us, that not unwilling He cometh to the Cross. For how could He be unwilling, who prayed that this might come to pass, and called the action "glory," not only for Himself the Crucified, but also for the Father? since this was the case, for not the Son only, but the Father also was glorified. For before the Crucifixion, not even the Jews knew Him; "Israel," it saith, "hath not known Me" (Isa. i. 3); but after the Crucifixion, all the world ran to Him.

(Hom. lxxx) After having said, In the world ye shall have tribulation, our Lord turns from admonition to prayer; thus teaching us in our tribulations to abandon all other things, and flee to God.

(Hom. lxxx. 1) He lifted up His eyes to heaven to teach us intentness in our prayers: that we should stand with uplifted eyes, not of the body only, but of the mind.

Run through the whole Gospel, and you will find that He whom you believe to be the Father (described as acting for the Father, although you, for your part, forsooth, suppose that "the Father, being the husbandman," must surely have been on earth) is once more recognised by the Son as in heaven, when, "lifting up His eyes thereto," He commended His disciples to the safe-keeping of the Father.

Jesus says, in effect, You gave the Son the kind of honor that accorded him universal dominion—although he would have received such honor later. And what a great honor it was already being the one chosen by God! Nonetheless, he says, you gave me this [honor], so glorify me, that is, in a way fitting to the honor of which you made me worthy. Reveal me before everyone at the time of my passion so that through the events that will happen on the cross everyone may know the greatness of my honor. They will recognize that I did not deserve to suffer, nor did I do so unwillingly, but I did it for the greater benefit of all people. So the words "glorify me" do not mean "give me glory." Rather, they mean "reveal my glory" that was given to me by you. With the same meaning he added, "So that the Son may glorify you," that is, from those things that were done to me [i.e., the Son], you also will be seen to be great and glorious through me. The more my works appear to be admirable, the more your dignity becomes known.

Having told the disciples that they would have sorrows, and having persuaded them not to lose heart, the Lord further encourages them with prayer, teaching us also in temptations to leave everything aside and turn to God. Otherwise. The present words are not a prayer, but a conversation with the Father. If in other cases (Matt. 26:39) He prays and bends His knees, do not be surprised at this. For Christ came not only to reveal Himself to the world, but also to teach every virtue. And a teacher must teach not only by words, but also by deeds. Wishing to show that He goes to His sufferings not unwillingly, but of His own will, He says: "Father, the hour has come." Behold, He desires this as something pleasant, and calls the matter at hand glory, and glory not His own only, but also the Father's. And so it was. For not the Son alone was glorified, but also the Father. For before the Cross, not even the Jews knew Him, as it is said: "Israel does not know Me" (Isa. 1:3); but after the Cross, the whole world flocked to Him.

Above, our Lord consoled his disciples by example and encouragement; here he comforts them by his prayer. In this prayer he does three things: first, he prays for himself; secondly, for the group of the disciples (v 6); thirdly, for all the faithful (v 20). He does three things with the first: first, he makes his request; secondly, he states the fruit of this request, that the Son may glorify you; thirdly, he mentions why his request deserves to be heard (v 4). In regard to the first point: first, we see the order he followed in his prayer; secondly, the way he prayed; thirdly, the words he used.

The order he followed was fitting, because he prayed after first encouraging them. So we read, When Jesus had spoken these words. This gives us the example to help by our prayers those we are teaching by our words, because religious teaching has its greatest effect in the hearts of those who hear it when it is supported by a prayer which asks for divine help: "Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed on and triumph" (2 Thess 3:1). Again, our sermon should end with a prayer: "The sum of our words is: 'he is the all.'"

The way he prayed is that he lifted up his eyes to heaven. There is a difference between the prayer of Christ and our own prayer: our prayer arises solely from our needs, while the prayer of Christ is more for our instruction, for there was no need for him to pray for himself, since together with his Father he answers prayers. He instructs us here by his words and actions. He teaches us by his actions in lifting up his eyes, so that we also will lift our eyes to heaven when we pray: "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!" (Ps 123:1). And not just our eyes, but also our actions, by referring them to God: "Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven" (Lam 3:41). He teaches us by his words, for he said his prayer publicly, and said, so that those whom he taught by teaching he might also teach by praying. We are taught not just by the words of Christ, but also by his actions.

His words are effective; thus he says, Father, the hour has come. Their effectiveness is caused by three things. First, by the love of the one praying. For the Son is praying to his Father and petitioning the Father because of his love for the Father. So he says, Father, to show us that we should pray to God with the affection of his children: "And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me" (Jer 3:19).

Secondly, his prayer is effective because of the need for this prayer; for as he says, the hour has come, for his passion, about which he had said before: "My hour has not yet come" (2:4). The hour, I say, not the season, not the day, because Christ was to be seized right away. Not an hour fixed by fate, but chosen by his own plan and good pleasure. And it is appropriate that right before he prays he mentions his troubles, because God especially hears us when we are troubled: "In my troubles I cried to the Lord, and he heard me" (Ps 120:1); "Since we do not know what to do, we can only turn our eyes to you" (2 Chron 20:12). Thirdly, his prayer is effective because of its content, glorify your Son.

But the Son of God is Wisdom itself, and this has the greatest glory: "Wisdom is radiant and unfading" (Wis 6:13). How then can he speak of glory being glorified, especially since he is the splendor of the Father (Heb 1:3)? We should say that Christ asked to be glorified by the Father in three ways. First, in his passion, and this was done by the many miracles which occurred: for the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent, and graves were opened. This was referred to before (12:28): "I have glorified it," by the miracles occurring before the passion, "and I will glorify it again," during the passion. With this understanding Christ says, glorify me in my passion by showing that I am your Son. And so the centurion, after seeing the miracles, said: "Truly, this was the Son of God" (Mt 27:54).

Secondly, Christ sought to be glorified in his resurrection. His holy soul was always joined to God and possessed glory from the vision of God: "We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (1:14). From the beginning of his conception, his soul was glorified, but in the resurrection he had glory of body also, referred to in "Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body" (Phil 3:21). Thirdly, he sought to be glorified in the knowledge of all people: "Because of her I shall have glory among the multitudes and honor in the presence of the elders" (Wis 8:10).

And so he says, glorify your Son, that is, show the entire world that I am your Son, in the strict sense: by birth, not by creation (in opposition to Arius, who said that the Son of God is a creature); in truth, not just in name (against Sabellius, who said that the same person is now called Father and then called Son); by origin, not adoption (in opposition to Nestorius, who said that Christ was an adopted son).

Now we see the fruit of his being glorified: first, the fruit is mentioned; secondly, it is explained, since you have given him power...

The fruit of the Son's being glorified is that the Father is glorified; thus he says, that the Son may glorify you. When Arius observed that our Lord said, glorify your Son, he supposed that the Father is greater than the Son. This is true if we consider the Son in his human nature: "The Father is greater than I" (14:28). Consequently, Christ adds, that the Son may glorify you (in the knowledge of men) to show he is equal to the Father as regards the divine nature. Now glory is renown joined with praise. Formerly, God was renowned among the Jews: "In Judah God is known" (Ps 76:1); but later, through his Son, he was known throughout the entire world. Holy people also increase God's renown by their good works: "That they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Mt 5:16). Above Christ said: "I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it and he will be the judge" (8:50).

And then expanding still further how it was that the Father should be glorified by the Son, He says: "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him." By all flesh, He meant every man, signifying the whole by a part; as, on the other hand, the whole man is signified by the superior part, when the apostle says, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." For what else did He mean by "every soul," save every man? And this, therefore, that power over all flesh was given to Christ by the Father, is to be understood in respect of His humanity; for in respect of His Godhead all things were made by Himself, and in Him were created all things in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible. "As," then, He says, "Thou hast given Him power over all flesh," so may Thy Son glorify Thee, in other words, make Thee known to all flesh whom Thou hast given Him. For Thou hast so given, "that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him."

(Tr. cv) But it is justly asked, how the Son can glorify the Father, when the eternal glory of the Father never experienced abasement in the form of man, and in respect of its own Divine perfection, does not admit of being added to. But among men this glory was less when God was only known in Judæa; and therefore the Son glorified the Father, when the Gospel of Christ spread the knowledge of the Father among the Gentiles. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee; i. e. Raise Me from the dead, that by Me Thou mayest be known to the whole world. Then He unfolds further the manner in which the Son glorifies the Father; As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. All flesh signifies all mankind, the part being put for the whole. And this power which is given to Christ by the Father over all flesh, must be understood with reference to His human nature.

(Tr. cv. 2) He saith, As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, so the Son may glorify Thee, i. e. make Thee known to all flesh which Thou hast given Him; for Thou hast so given it to Him, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.

As you have given him power over all flesh, that is, show that you have given him power over all flesh, that is, to save all flesh: Matthew, last chapter: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth," and this for salvation: That all that you have given him, namely through predestination, he may give them eternal life, through glorification. Omne for omni: above in the sixth chapter: "This is the will of the Father who sent me, that everything which he has given me, I should not lose any of it, but should raise it up on the last day." And he explains what this eternal life is.

It is asked concerning what he says: As you have given him power over all flesh. To the contrary: In the last chapter of Matthew it is said that it was given after the resurrection. Again, if he gave him power over all flesh, and he himself gives to all what the Father gave him, namely eternal life: therefore all are saved. Augustine responds that you have given is understood here according to foreknowledge, that is, you foresaw that they would be given. Chrysostom, however, says that this is understood according to the divine nature: you have given from eternity; in Matthew it is said given, not then first bestowed, but manifested. As to the objection regarding of all flesh: the distribution is for the kinds of individuals, that is, concerning all flesh. Or if the distribution is made for the individuals of the kinds, then emphasis must be placed on the word you have given: because he did not give him all flesh, but gave him power over all flesh; but he gave him the predestined, that he might save them; but he gave him power over the wicked, that he might judge them.

CHAPTER IV. That it will in no way damage the glory of the Son, when He is said to have received aught from God the Father, since for this we can assign a pious reason.

In these words Christ expounds once more to us the kind of glory whereby God will exalt and glorify His own Son; and He will also Himself be glorified in turn by His own Offspring. And He expands the saying, and makes the point clear to our edification and profit. For what need had God the Father, Who knoweth all things, of learning the kind of request? He invites then the Father's goodness towards us. For since He is the High Priest of our souls, insomuch as He appeared as Man, though being by Nature God together with the Father, He most fittingly makes His prayer on our behalf; trying to persuade us to believe that He is, even now, the propitiation for our sins, and a righteous Advocate; as John saith. Therefore also Paul, wishing us to be of this mind, thus exhorts us: For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are; yet without sin. Then, since He is an High Priest, insomuch as He is Man, and, at the same time, brought Himself a blameless sacrifice to God the Father, as a ransom for the life of all men, being as it were the firstfruits of mortality, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, as Paul says; and He reconciles to Him the reprobate race of man upon the earth, purifying them by His own Blood, and shaping them to newness of life through the Holy Spirit; and since, as we have often said, all things are accomplished by the Father through the Son in the Spirit; He moulds the prayer for blessings towards us, as Mediator and High Priest, though He unites with His Father in giving and providing Divine and spiritual graces. For Christ divideth the Spirit, according to His own Will and pleasure, to every man severally, as He will.

So far with reference to this. Now let us examine and declare what is meant by the form of prayer used. Father, then, He saith, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may also glorify Thee. How then, or in what manner, will what I have said be brought to pass? I will, He says, that as Thou hast given Me power over all flesh, that so also, all that Thou hast given Me may have life eternal. For the Father glorified His own Son, putting the whole world under His rule: and He was glorified Himself also in turn by Him. For the Son was glorified of the Father, being believed of all to be the Offspring and Fruit of Him That is all-powerful, and at His pleasure puts all things under the yoke of His Son's kingly power; and the Father was glorified in turn, so to speak, by His own Son. For since the Son was known to be able to accomplish all things at His pleasure, the splendour of His reputation has reached to Him That begat Him. As therefore, He says, Thou didst glorify and wast glorified, giving to the Son power and sovereignty over all, after the manner just now stated, so I will that nothing that Thou hast given Me be lost; for this honour will pass from the Father to the Son, and from the Son to the Father. For it was meet that all those who were wholly subject to, and under, the rule of the Word, the all-powerful God, now having been saved once for all, should also abide in blessings without end; so as to be freed from the power of death, and the dominion of corruption and sin, and should no longer lie in subjection to their ancient enemies.

And, as the words, Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, may possibly perplex some simple-minded hearers, let us make a few reflections thereon which may be useful; without scruple, as it is necessary, even though language may be wholly inadequate to such an exposition. For the Lord will say this most suitably in the character He had assumed; I mean His humiliation and His lowly humanity. For listen to the argument: If indeed we feel ashamed, when we hear that He became a slave for our sakes, though Lord of all with the Father; and that He was set up as King upon His holy hill of Zion, though He had the power to reign over the universe by right of His own Nature, and borrowed it not from others; we must needs also feel ashamed, if He says that He receives anything as Man. And, if we marvel at His voluntary subjection, when we bear in mind the dignity that is His by birthright, why are we not also astonied when we hear this saying? For, possessing all things as God, He says that He receives as Man, to whom kingly power comes, not by natural right, but by gift. For What hast thou that thou didst not receive? will suit the limitations of created beings; and Christ is also a creature in so far as He is Man; though by Nature uncreate, in so far as He came from God. For all things are conceived of, as naturally and individually being in God's hand, and are so in truth; but all good things in us are borrowed and brought down to us by Divine grace. When then, as Man, being appointed to rule over us, He says that the Father has given Him power over all flesh, we must not be offended at it; for we must bear in mind the scheme of our redemption. But, if you choose to listen to His words as having more reference to His Divinity, think on what the Lord said to the Jews: Verily, verily, I say unto you, no man can come to Me except the Father which sent Me draw Him. For whom the Father will quicken, them, as by His own life-giving power, He brings to His Son, and through Him gives them power and wisdom; nay. if He will to bring any into subjection to His own rule, He calls them in no other way, save by the living and all-sufficient Might, whereby He rules over the universe----I mean His Son. For men, who have of themselves no power to accomplish anything that is above and beyond themselves, borrow from God the power, which can bring all things superhuman into subjection; for through Him, kings have their dominion, according to the Scripture, and monarchs through Him rule over the earth. And the God of the universe, having this power in Himself alone, subjects to Himself the race of man, who are reprobates from His love, and have shaken off the yoke of His kingdom, together with all beside; receiving, as it were, from His own might, the gift of dominion over them, and subjugating thereby whatsoever He will. For God the Father subjects them to His Son, as to His own power; and through Him wholly, and in no other way, all things that exist become His willing subjects, through obedience to His yoke. For as He endows with wisdom, and quickens with life, all things through Him, so also He rules over the universe through Him.

We must observe, however, that it was not to Israel alone any longer, that the favour of the Divine love of mankind was confined, but it was extended to all flesh. For that which is wholly subject to the power of the Saviour, will wholly partake in life and grace from Him.

The glory [that the Son would give to the Father] was that the Son, being made flesh, received power over all flesh from the Father, along with the charge of restoring eternal life to ephemeral beings like us who are burdened with the body.

Perhaps the Son is weak in that he receives power over all flesh. And indeed the receiving of power might be a sign of weakness if he were not able to give eternal life to those whom he receives. Yet the very fact of receiving is used to prove inferiority of nature. It might prove such is the case if Christ were not true God by birth as truly as is the Unbegotten. But if the receiving of power signifies neither more nor less than the birth by which he received all that he has, that gift does not degrade the Begotten, because it makes him perfectly and entirely what God is. God Unbegotten brought God only-begotten to a perfect birth of divine blessedness. It is, then, the mystery of the Father to be the author of the birth, but it is no degradation to the Son to be made the perfect image of his author by a real birth. The giving of power over all flesh—and this giving is done in order that eternal life might be given to all flesh—postulates the fatherhood of the giver and the divinity of the receiver. For giving signifies that the One is the Father and, in receiving the power to give eternal life, the other remains God the Son. All power is therefore natural and congenital to the Son of God. And though it is given, that does not separate him from his author. For that which is given is the property of his author, that is, power to bestow eternal life and to change the corruptible into the incorruptible. The Father gave all; the Son received all.

(iii. de Trin) For being made flesh Himself, He was about to restore eternal life to frail, corporeal, and mortal man.

(ix. de Trin. 31) If Christ be God, not begotten, but unbegotten, then let this receiving be thought weakness. But not if His receiving of power signifies His begetting, in which He received what He is. This gift cannot be counted for weakness. For the Father is such in that He gives; the Son remains God in that He hath received the power of giving eternal life.

"As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh." He now showeth, that what belongs to the preaching is not confined to the Jews alone, but is extended to all the world, and layeth down beforehand the first invitations to the Gentiles. And since He had said, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles" (Matt. x. 5), and after this time is about to say, "Go ye, and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. xxviii. 19), He showeth that the Father also willeth this. For this greatly offended the Jews, and the disciples too; nor indeed after this did they easily endure to lay hold on the Gentiles, until they received the teaching of the Spirit; because hence arose no small stumblingblock for the Jews.

"Of all flesh"? For certainly not all believed. Yet, for His part, all believed; and if men gave no heed to His words, the fault was not in the Teacher, but in those who received them not.

"That He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." If here also He speaketh in a more human manner, wonder not. For He doth so both on account of the reasons I have given, and to avoid the saying anything great concerning Himself; since this was a stumblingblock to the hearers because as yet they imagined nothing great concerning Him.

He also shows what constitutes His glory and the Father's; the glory of God consists in this: that all flesh should believe and be benefited. For grace will not be limited to the Jews alone, but will extend to the whole world. He said this because He was about to send them to the Gentiles. Lest they consider this an innovation displeasing to the Father, He declares that authority over all flesh was given to Him by the Father. Before this, He said to them: "Do not go on the path to the Gentiles" (Matt. 10:5). What then does "over all flesh" mean? For not all believed, did they? But Christ, for His part, endeavored to bring all to faith; and if they did not heed Him, the fault lies not with the Teacher, but with those who do not accept Him. When you hear "You have given, I have received" (John 10:18), and the like, then understand that this is said by way of condescension, as we have said many times. For, always being careful not to say anything great about Himself, He condescends to the weakness of His listeners. And since they were scandalized when they heard great things about Him, He proclaims what is accessible to them, just as we too, when speaking with children, call bread, water, and everything else by the same names as they do. When the Evangelist speaks of the Lord (in his own person), listen to what he says: "all things received their being through Him" (John 1:3) and "to those who received Him, He gave the power to become children of God" (John 1:12). If He gives such power to others, did He Himself really not have it, but received it from the Father? Then even in these very words, which appear to be humble, something lofty is inserted. "That to all that You have given Him" — this is condescension; "He may give eternal life" — this is the authority of the Only-Begotten and of the Divinity. For to give life, and moreover eternal life, only God can do.

Now we have the fruit of Christ's request: first, we see the benefit conferred on us by Christ; secondly, he shows that this benefit is related to the glory of the Father (v 3).

He says, that the Son may glorify you, and this since you have given him power over all flesh. We should know that what acts in virtue of another tends in its effect to reveal that other: for the action of a principle which proceeds from another principle manifests this principle. Now whatever the Son has he has from the Father; and thus it is necessary that what the Son does manifests the Father. Thus he says to the Father, you have given him power over all human beings. By this power the Son ought to lead them to a knowledge of the Father, which is eternal life. This is the meaning of, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him power over all flesh, that is, over all human beings: "All flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Lk 3:6).

You have given him this power, says Hilary, by giving, through an eternal generation, the divine nature to the Son, from which the Son has the power to embrace all things: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father" (Mt 11:27); "For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing" (5:20). Or, in another way, you have given this power to Christ in his human nature because this nature is united with your Son to form one person. And in this way flesh has power over flesh: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given me" (Mt 28:18); "And to him," that is, the Son of man, "was given dominion and glory and kingdom" (Dan 7:14).

He says, Father, you have given him power: Father, just as you have power, not to wrest things from your human creatures, but to give yourself to them, so you have given power to Christ in his human nature, power over all flesh, so that he may give eternal life to all whom you have given him, through eternal predestination: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them" (10:27).

For you are translated from your former vain and tedious mode of life and have contemned the lifeless idols, and despised the demons, which are in darkness, and have run to the "true light," [John 1:9] and by it have "known the one and only true God and Father," [John 17:3] and so are owned to be heirs of His kingdom. For since you have "been baptized into the Lord's death," [Romans 6:3] and into His resurrection, as "new-born babes," [1 Peter 2:2] you ought to be wholly free from all sinful actions; "for you are not your own, but His that bought you" [1 Corinthians 6:19-20] with His own blood.

Since these things are so, and we have been taught by the greatest teacher that souls are set not far from the gaping jaws of death; that they can, nevertheless, have their lives prolonged by the favour and kindness of the Supreme Ruler if only they try and study to know Him,-for the knowledge of Him is a kind of vital leaven and cement to bind together that which would otherwise fly apart,-let them, then, laying aside their savage and barbarous nature, return to gentler ways, that they may be able to be ready for that which shall be given.

The one who believes in the Son believes also in the Father, for he believes in what is proper to the Father's essence. And thus the faith is one in one God. And the one who worships and honors the Son, in the Son worships and honors the Father. For the Godhead is one. And therefore the honor is one and the worship is one that is paid to the Father in and through the Son. And the one who worships in this way worships one God. For there is one God and none other.… Therefore, these passages are not written in order to deny the Son or with reference to him at all, but to overthrow falsehood. Notice how God did not speak these kinds of words to Adam at the beginning, although his Word was with him by whom all things came to be. For there was no need before idols came in. But when human beings made insurrection against the truth and named for themselves gods such as they did, then the need arose for such words in order to deny the gods that were not. … If then the Father is called the only true God, this is said not to the denial of him who said, "I am the Truth" but of those … who by nature are not true, as the Father and his Word are. And so the Lord himself added at once, "And Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Now had he been a creature, he would not have added this and ranked himself with his creator. For what fellowship is there between the True and the not true? But as it is, by including himself with the Father, he has shown that he is of the Father's nature. And he has given us to know that of the true Father he is true offspring.

We are distanced from eternity to the extent that we are changeable. But eternal life is promised to us through the truth. Our faith, however, stands as far apart from the clear knowledge of the truth as mortality does from eternity. At the present we put faith in things done in time on our account, and by that faith itself we are cleansed. In this way, when we have come to sight, as truth follows faith, so eternity may follow on mortality. Our faith will become truth, then, when we have attained to that which is promised to us who believe. And that which is promised to us is eternal life. And the Truth—not that which shall come to be according to how our faith shall be, but that truth that always exists because eternity is in it—the Truth then has said, "And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." When our faith sees and comes to be truth, then eternity shall possess our now changed mortality.

Passing by [the Arians], however, we must see whether, when it is said to the Father, "that they may know you the one true God," we are forced to understand it as if he wished to intimate that the Father alone is the true God—in case we should not understand any to be God except the three together, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Are we therefore, from the testimony of the Lord, both to call the Father the one true God, and the Son the one true God, and the Holy Spirit the one true God, and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together, that is, the Trinity itself together, not three true Gods but one true God? Or because he added, "And Jesus Christ whom you have sent," are we to supply "the one true God," so that the order of the words is this, "That they may know you, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, the one true God"? Why then did he omit to mention the Holy Spirit? Is it because it follows that whenever we name One who cleaves to One by a harmony so great that through this harmony both are one, this harmony itself must be understood, although it is not mentioned?

"And this," He adds, "is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The proper order of the words is, "That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent, as the only true God." Consequently, therefore, the Holy Spirit is also understood, because He is the Spirit of the Father and Son, as the substantial and consubstantial love of both. For the Father and Son are not two Gods, nor are the Father and Son and Holy Spirit three Gods; but the Trinity itself is the one only true God. And yet the Father is not the same as the Son, nor the Son the same as the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son; for the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are three [persons], yet the Trinity itself is one God. If, then, the Son glorifies Thee in the same manner "as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh," and hast so given, "that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him," and "this is life eternal, that they may know Thee;" in this way, therefore, the Son glorifies Thee, that He makes Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Accordingly, if the knowledge of God is eternal life, we are making the greater advances to life, in proportion as we are enlarging our growth in such a knowledge. And we shall not die in the life eternal; for then, when there shall be no death, the knowledge of God shall be perfected. Then will be effected the full effulgence of God, because then the completed glory. For glory, from which men are styled glorious, is thus defined: Glory is the widely-spread fame of any one accompanied with praise. But if a man is praised when the fame regarding him is believed, how will God be praised when He Himself shall be seen? Hence it is said in Scripture, "Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be praising Thee for ever and ever." There will God's praise continue without end, where there shall be the full knowledge of God; and because the full knowledge, therefore also the complete effulgence or glorification.

(vi. de Tr. c. 9) Dismissing then the Arians, let us see if we are forced to confess, that by the words, That they may know Thee to be the only true God, He means us to understand that the Father only is the true God, in such sense as that only the Three together, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are to be called God? Does our Lord's testimony authorize us to say that the Father is the only true God, the Son the only true God, and the Holy Ghost the only true God, and at the same time, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together, i. e. the Trinity, are not three Gods, but one true God?

(Tr. c. 5) Or is not the order of the words, That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, to be the only true God? the Holy Spirit being necessarily understood, because the Spirit is only the love of the Father and the Son, consubstantial with both. If then the Son so glorifies Thee as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, and Thou hast given Him the power, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him, and, This is life eternal, to know Thee, it follows that He glorifies Thee by making Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Moreover, if the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more advance we make in this knowledge, the more we make in life eternal. But in life eternal we shall never die. Where then there is no death, there will then be perfect knowledge of God; there will God be most glorified, because His glory will be greatest. Glory was defined among the ancients to be fame accompanied with praise. But if man is praised in dependence on what is said of him, how will God be praised when He shall be seen? as in the Psalm, Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house: they will be alway praising Thee. (Ps. 83:4) There will be praise of God without end, where will be full knowledge of God. There then shall be heard the everlasting praise of God, for there will there be full knowledge of God, and therefore full glorifying of Him.

(i. de Trin. c. viii) What He said to His servant Moses, I am that I am; (Exod. 3) this we shall contemplate in the life eternal.

(iv. de Trin. c. xviii) For when sight has made our faith truth, then eternity shall take possession of and displace our mortality.

Rightly therefore did Christ point out that one achieves supreme happiness not by knowing any one of them, but by knowing both, when he said: "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." As a consequence, those who follow the Lamb are said to have his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads, which is to be glorified by this twofold knowledge.

But one of you may interpose and say: "Therefore knowledge of the Holy Spirit is not necessary, because when he said eternal life consisted of the knowledge of the Father and Son, he did not mention the Holy Spirit." True enough; but where there is perfect knowledge of the Father and the Son, how can there be ignorance of the goodness of both; which is the Holy Spirit? For no man has a complete knowledge of another until he finds out whether his will be good or evil. So, although it has been said: "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," still, if that act of mission demonstrates the good pleasure both of the Father lovingly sending his Son and of the Son freely obeying the Father, then the Holy Spirit is not passed over in complete silence, for he is implied in the mention of so immense a grace. The Holy Spirit indeed is nothing else but the love and the benign goodness of them both.

In Christ is the consummation of every good. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Those things which are above, we ought to desire, to see, and to do.

Hence this fruit comes from Christ in a threefold manner, because Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Because He is Jesus, from Him comes the fruit of grace; because He is Christ, from Him comes the fruit of righteousness; because He is the Son of God, from Him comes the fruit of wisdom. For all these considerations both proceed from Christ and lead back to Him. If you come to the eternal rewards, these we shall not have except through Christ. John writes: "Now this is everlasting life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ."

This is, he says, eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; 3 Kings 10: "Blessed are your men, and blessed are your servants, who stand before you always and hear your wisdom." "To know you is perfect justice," Wisdom 15; and glory is nothing other than perfect justice, because "to know your justice and your power is the root of immortality," and therefore of eternal life.

Likewise, there is a question about what he says: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God. It is not only knowledge, but also love: or if you say that love is included in knowledge, why did he not place love there? Likewise, God is taken either essentially or personally. If personally, then the Holy Spirit is excluded. If essentially, then he added in vain: Whom you have sent, Jesus Christ, because knowledge of Christ-as-man does not pertain to the substantial reward, but knowledge of Christ-as-God does. To the first, it must be said that in knowledge which is face to face, love is necessarily understood; hence when it is said that "vision is the whole reward," love is not excluded. But it is spoken of more in terms of vision than love, because vision distinguishes what belongs to the homeland from what belongs to the way; but love does not. For now we do not see, yet nevertheless we love. As to the question of how God is taken: it must be said that if it stands there essentially, then what is added, and whom you have sent, is understood according to the human nature, according to which, even if the essence of the reward is not considered, nevertheless there will be a most intense delight in Christ-as-man, and so it is added: and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. Or if it is taken personally, then Jesus Christ stands for the Son according to the divine nature, and the Holy Spirit is not excluded, because he is the union of the Father and the Son. Hence the word only is not added for the exclusion of the persons, because he who sees one person sees the other, but for the exclusion of false gods.

For the Cherubim also designate this, who looked upon one another. Nor is it without mystery that they looked upon one another with their faces turned toward the mercy seat, so that what the Lord says in John may be verified: "This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." For we ought to admire not only the essential and personal conditions of God in themselves, but also by comparison to the superadmirable union of God and man in the unity of the person of Christ.

That eternal generation is always most actual and most complete: although the actuality of any act is better expressed through the present tense, the completion and perfection of an act is most fully expressed through the past tense. Hence that eternal generation cannot be sufficiently expressed through any single tense; rather, it is necessary to employ diverse tenses for its expression, because it is above all time and has in itself whatever completeness can be signified through any tense. But by that reason by which all these are one in it, it is sufficiently expressed through no word whatsoever: for it is no wonder if the clamor of temporal words does not suffice to express that most quiet silence of eternity and of eternal generation, which is better understood than spoken: better believed in the present than understood: and will be better seen in the future than it is now believed: for, as the Savior says, this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent: to which we can in no way attain unless our intellect is more fully elevated above the variations of time and above the cloudiness of phantasms into the freedom of supercelestial rest.

This fountainhead, however, is in a certain way the origin of another totality. For since the Father produces the Son, and through the Son and with the Son produces the Holy Spirit, therefore God the Father, through the Son with the Holy Spirit, is the principle of all created things: for unless He produced them from eternity, He could not produce through them in time: and therefore by reason of that production in the Trinity He is rightly said to be the fountain of life. For just as He has life in Himself, so He gives the Son to have life in Himself, etc. Hence it is that eternal life is this alone, that the rational spirit, which flows from the most blessed Trinity and is the image of the Trinity, returns by way of a certain intelligible circle through memory, understanding, and will, through the deiformity of glory into the most blessed Trinity.

One who does not have the knowledge of good is wicked: for there is one good, the Father. And to be ignorant of the Father is death, just as to know him is eternal life, through participation in the power of the incorrupt One. And to be incorruptible is to participate in divinity. But revolt from the knowledge of God brings corruption.

For whereas in the Gospels, and in the epistles of the apostles, the name of Christ is alleged for the remission of sins; it is not in such a way as that the Son alone, without the Father, or against the Father, can be of advantage to anybody; but that it might be shown to the Jews, who boasted as to their having the Father, that the Father would profit them nothing, unless they believed on the Son whom He had sent. For they who know God the Father the Creator, ought also to know Christ the Son, lest they should flatter and applaud themselves about the Father alone, without the acknowledgment of His Son, who also said, "No man cometh to the Father but by me." But He, the same, sets forth, that it is the knowledge of the two which saves, when He says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Since, therefore, from the preaching and testimony of Christ Himself, the Father who sent must be first known, then afterwards Christ, who was sent, and there cannot be a hope of salvation except by knowing the two together; how, when God the Father is not known, nay, is even blasphemed, can they who among the heretics are said to be baptized in the name of Christ, be judged to have obtained the remission of sins? For the case of the Jews under the apostles was one, but the condition of the Gentiles is another. The former, because they had already gained the most ancient baptism of the law and Moses, were to be baptized also in the name of Jesus Christ, in conformity with what Peter tells them in the Acts of the Apostles, saying, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Peter makes mention of Jesus Christ, not as though the Father should be omitted, but that the Son also might be joined to the Father.

What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if such is the prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence? This had already been before foretold by Isaiah the prophet, when, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the majesty and loving-kindness of God, "consummating and shortening His word," He says, "in righteousness, because a shortened word will the Lord make in the whole earth." For when the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every sex and every age the precepts of salvation He made a large compendium of His precepts, that the memory of the scholars might not be burdened in the celestial learning, but might quickly learn what was necessary to a simple faith. Thus, when He taught what is life eternal, He embraced the sacrament of life in a large and divine brevity, saying, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Also, when He would gather from the law and the prophets the first and greatest commandments, He said, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one God: and thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." And again: "Whatsoever good things ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets."

Look, therefore, while there is time, to the true and eternal salvation; and since now the end of the world is at hand, turn your minds to God, in the fear of God; nor let that powerless and vain dominion in the world over the just and meek delight you, since in the field, even among the cultivated and fruitful corn, the tares and the darnel have dominion. Nor say ye that ill fortunes happen because your gods are not worshipped by us; but know that this is the judgment of God's anger, that He who is not acknowledged on account of His benefits may at least be acknowledged through His judgments. Seek the Lord even late; for long ago, God, forewarning by His prophet, exhorts and says, "Seek ye the Lord, and your soul shall live." Know God even late; for Christ at His coming admonishes and teaches this, saying, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Believe Him who deceives not at all. Believe Him who foretold that all these things should come to pass. Believe Him who willgive to all that believe the reward of eternal life. Believe Him who will call down on them that believe not, eternal punishments in the fires of Gehenna.

That God alone must be worshipped. "As it is written, Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." Also in Exodus: "Thou shalt have none other gods beside me." Also in Deuteronomy: "See ye, see ye that I am He, and that there is no God beside me. I will kill, and will make alive; I will smite, and I will heal; and there is none who can deliver out of mine hands." In the Apocalypse, moreover: "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach over the earth, and over all nations, and tribes, and tongues, and peoples, saying with a loud voice, Fear God rather, and give glory to Him: for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that therein is." So also the Lord, in His Gospel, makes mention of the first and second commandment, saying, "Hear, O Israel, The Lord thy God is one God; " and, "Thou shalt love thy Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. This is the first; and the second is like unto it, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." And once more: "And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."

That Christ is the First-born, and that He is the Wisdom of God, by whom all things were made. In Solomon in the Proverbs: "The Lord established me in the beginning of His ways, into His works: before the world He rounded me. In the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He appointed the abysses, before the fountains of waters gushed forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills, the Lord begot me. He made the countries, and the uninhabitable places, and the uninhabitable bounds under heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him; and when He set apart His seat. When He made the strong clouds above the winds, and when He placed the strengthened fountains under heaven, when He made the mighty foundations of the earth, I was by His side, ordering them: I was He in whom He delighted: moreover, I daily rejoiced before His face in all time, when He rejoiced in the perfected earth." Also in the same in Ecclesiasticus: "I went forth out of the mouth of the Most High, first-born before every creature: I made the unwearying light to rise in the heavens, and I covered the whole earth with a cloud: I dwelt in the high places, and my throne in the pillar of the cloud: I compassed the circle of heaven, and I penetrated into the depth of the abyss, and I walked on the waves of the sea, and I stood in all the earth; and in every people and in every nation I had the pre-eminence, and by my own strength I have trodden the hearts of all the excellent and the humble: in me is all hope of life and virtue: pass over to me, all ye who desire me." Also in the eighty-eighth Psalm: "And I will establish Him as my first-born, the highest among the kings of the earth. I will keep my mercy for Him for ever, and my faithful covenant for Him; and I will establish his seed for ever and ever. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they profane my judgments, and do not observe my precepts, I will visit their wickednesses with a rod, and their sins with scourges; but my mercy will I not scatter away from them." Also in the Gospel according to John, the Lord says: "And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, do Thou glorify me with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was made." Also Paul to the Colossians: "Who is the image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every creature." Also in the same place: "The first-born from the dead, that He might in all things become the holder of the pre-eminence." In the Apocalypse too: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto Him that is thirsting from the fountain of the water of life freely." That He also is both the wisdom and the power of God, Paul proves in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. "Because the Jews require a sign, and the Creeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles foolishness; but to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

CHAPTER V. That the Son will not be excluded from being true God, even though He named God the Father the only true God.

He defines faith as the mother of eternal life, and says that the power of the true knowledge of God will be such as to cause us to remain for ever in a state of incorruption, and blessedness, and sanctification. And we say that that is true knowledge of God, which cannot incur the reproach of turning aside to aught else, or running after things unseemly. For some have worshipped the creature rather than the Creator, and have dared to say to a block of wood: Thou art my Father; and to a stone, Thou hast begotten me. For to such abysmal ignorance did miserable men relapse, that they even gave, in all its fulness, the great Name of God, to senseless blocks of wood; and invested them with the ineffable glory of that Nature, which is over all. He calls God the Father, then, the only true God, by contrast to spurious gods, and with the intention to distinguish the true God, from those who are so named in error; for this is the object of His words. Very appropriately, then, He first speaks of God as being One and One only, and then makes mention of His own glory in the words: And Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. For a man can in nowise attain to complete knowledge of the Father, unless side by side, and in most intimate connection with it, he lay hold on the knowledge of His Offspring; that is, the Son. For, if a man know what the Father is, he cannot but know also the Son. When, then, He said that the Father was the true God, He did not exclude Himself. For being in Him, and of Him, by Nature, He will be also Himself the true God and the only God, as He is the only God: for beside Him, there is none other god who is the only true God. For the gods of the heathen are devils. For the creation is enslaved, and I know not how any worship them, or sink into such a slough of unreasoning and sensuous folly. With the many gods, then, in this world, who are erroneously so conceived, and have won this spurious title, the only true God is brought into contrast; and the Son also, Who is by Nature in Him, and of Him, at once in diversity and in identity of Nature, according to a natural Unity. I say in diversity of Nature, because He has in fact an individual Existence; for the Son is the Son, and not the Father. In identity of Nature also, because the Son, Who came forth from Him, is inseparably joined by Nature, with the existence of His Father. For the Father is one with the Son, even though He is the Father; and is so spoken of, because He did in fact beget Him.

This, then, He says, is eternal life, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. Then one of those who are never weary of hearkening to the Scripture, and seriously pursue the study of Divine doctrines, will ask: Do we say that knowledge is eternal life; and that to know the one true and living God will suffice to give us complete security of expectation, and nothing else be lacking? Then how is faith apart from works dead? And when we speak of faith, we mean the true knowledge of God, and nothing else; for by faith comes knowledge: and the prophet Isaiah bears us witness, who said to some: If ye do not believe neither shall ye understand. And that the writings of the holy men are referring to the knowledge which consists in barren speculations, a thing wholly profitless, I think you will perceive from what follows. For one of the holy disciples said: Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the devils also believe and shudder. What then shall we say to this? How does Christ speak truth, when He says that eternal life is the knowledge of God the Father, the One true God, and (with Him) of the Son? I think, indeed, we must answer that the saying of the Saviour is wholly true. For this knowledge is life, travailing as it were in birth of the whole meaning of the mystery, and vouchsafing unto us participation in the mystery of the Eucharist, whereby we are joined unto the living and life-giving Word. And for this reason, I think, Paul says that the Gentiles are made fellow-members of the body and fellow-partakers of Christ; inasmuch as they partake in His blessed Body and Blood; and our members may in this sense be conceived of, as being members of Christ. This knowledge, then, which also brings to us the Eucharist by the Spirit, is life. For it dwells in our hearts, shaping anew those who receive it into sonship with Him, and moulding them into incorruption and piety towards God, through life according to the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, knowing that the knowledge of the One true God brings unto us, and, so to speak, promotes our union with, the blessings of which we have spoken, says that it is eternal life; insomuch as it is the mother and nurso of eternal life, being in its own power and nature pregnant with those things which cause life, and lead unto it.

And I think we ought attentively to observe in what way Christ says that the knowledge of the One true God is perfected in us in all its fulness. For see how it cannot exist apart from the contemplation of the Son, and it is clear that it cannot exist apart from the Holy Spirit; for such is the nature of the belief in each Person of the Trinity, according to the Scripture. The Jews indeed, following in the steps of Moses' commandments, rejected the many false gods, and betook themselves to the worship of the One true God, under his guidance. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, saith the Law, and Him only shalt thou serve. But those who still cling to the worship of the One true God, as not yet having complete knowledge of Him they worship, are called thereto to know not that the Creator of all things is one only, the One true God, but that He is a Father and has begotten a Son; and moreover, and yet more than all this, to gaze attentively on Him in His unchangeable Likeness, that is, the Son. For through the lineaments of that which is modelled, we can readily attain to perfect knowledge of the model. Very necessary then was it, for our Lord Jesus Christ to tell us, that those who have been called through faith to sonship and eternal life, not only ought to learn that the true God is One only, but that He is also a Father; and is the Father of One Who became flesh for our sakes, and Who was sent to restore the corrupted nature of rational beings, that is, of mankind.

Are we saying that knowledge is eternal life? Are we saying that to know the one true and living God will suffice to give us complete security for the future without need of anything else? Then how is "faith apart from works dead"? When we speak of faith, we mean the true knowledge of God and nothing else, since knowledge comes by faith. The prophet Isaiah tells us this: "If you do not believe, neither shall you understand." But he is not talking about a knowledge that consists in barren speculations, which is entirely worthless. For one of the holy disciples said, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder." What then shall we say to this? How is it that Christ speaks the truth when he says that eternal life is the knowledge of God the Father, the one true God, and with him of the Son? I think, indeed, we must answer that the saying of the Savior is completely true. For this knowledge is life, laboring as it were in birth of the whole meaning of the mystery and granting to us participation in the mystery of the Eucharist, whereby we are joined to the living and life-giving Word. And for this reason, I think, Paul says that the Gentiles are made fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of Christ, inasmuch as they partake in his blessed body and blood. And our members may in this sense be conceived of as being members of Christ. This knowledge, then, which also brings to us the Eucharist by the Spirit, is life. For it dwells in our hearts, reshaping those who receive it into sonship with him and molding them into incorruption and piety toward God through life, according to the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, knowing that the knowledge of the one true God brings to us and promotes our union with the blessings of which we have spoken, says that it is eternal life. It is the mother and nurse of eternal life, being in its power and nature pregnant with those things that cause life and lead to life.

But it must be clear to everyone that the truth or genuineness of something is evidenced in its nature and powers. For instance, true wheat is what grows to maturity with the beard bristling around it which is then purged from the chaff and ground into flour, baked into a loaf and taken for food. [Wheat] demonstrates the nature and uses that bread is known for.… What element of the Godhead, then, is lacking in the Son who possesses both the nature and power of God? For he had at his disposal the powers of the divine nature to bring into being the nonexistent and to create whenever he wanted.

But in what does eternal life consist? His own words tell us: "That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Is there any doubt or difficulty here, or any inconsistency? It is life to know the true God. But the bare knowledge of him does not give life. What, then, does he add? "And Jesus Christ whom you have sent." In you, the only true God, the Son pays the honor due to his Father. By the addition "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," he associates himself with the true Godhead. The believer in his confession draws no line between the two, for his hope of life rests in both. And indeed, the true God is inseparable from him whose name follows in the creed. Therefore when we read, "That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," these terms of sender and of sent are not intended, under any semblance of distinction either in name or interval [of time], to convey a difference between the true Godhead of Father and of Son. Rather, they are meant to be a guide to the devout confession of them as begetter and begotten.

But perhaps by saying "you the only," Christ severs himself from communion and unity with God. Yes, but after the words "you the only true God," does he not immediately continue, "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"? I appeal to the sense of the reader: what must we believe Christ to be when we are commanded to believe in him also, as well as the Father the only true God? Or, perhaps, if the Father is the only true God, there is no room for Christ to be God. It might be so, if, because there is one God the Father, Christ were not the one Lord. The fact that God the Father is one leaves Christ nonetheless the one Lord. And similarly the Father's one true Godhead makes Christ nonetheless true God. For we can obtain eternal life only if we believe in Christ, as well as in the only true God.… But the faith of the church, while confessing the only true God the Father, confesses Christ also. It does not confess Christ true God without the Father the only true God. Nor does it confess the Father as the only true God without Christ. It confesses Christ true God, because it confesses the Father the only true God. Thus the fact that God the Father is the only true God constitutes Christ also as true God. The only-begotten God suffered no change of nature by his natural birth. And he who, according to the nature of his divine origin was born God from the living God, is, by the truth of that nature, inalienable from the only true God.

(iii. de Tr. c. 14) And in what eternal life is, He then shews: And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God. To know the only true God is life, but this alone does not constitute life. What else then is added? And Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

(iv. de Tr. c. 9) The Arians hold, that as the Father is the only true, only just, only wise God, the Son hath no communion of these attributes; for that which is proper to one, cannot be partaken of by another. And as these are as they think in the Father alone, and not in the Son, they necessarily consider the Son a false and vain God.

(v. de Tr. 3) But it must be clear to every one that the reality of any thing is evidenced by its power. For that is true wheat, which when rising with grain and fenced with ears, and shaken out by the winnowing machine, and ground into corn, and baked into bread, and taken for food, fulfils the nature and function of bread. I ask then wherein the truth of Divinity is wanting to the Son, Who hath the nature and virtue of Divinity. For He so made use of the virtue of His nature, as to cause to be things which were not, and to do every thing which seemed good to Him.

(ix. de Trin) Because He says, Thee the only, does He separate Himself from communion and unity with God? He doth separate Himself, but that He adds immediately, And Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. For the Catholic faith confesses Christ to be true God, in that it confesses the Father to be the only true God; for natural birth did not introduce any change of nature into the Only-Begotten God.

The Evangelists, too, when they declared that the one Father was "the only true God," did not omit what concerned our Lord, but wrote: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." And concerning the incarnation: "The Word," says [the Scripture], "became flesh, and dwelt among us." And again: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." And those very apostles, who said "that there is one God," said also that "there is one Mediator between God and men." Nor were they ashamed of the incarnation and the passion. For what says [one]? "The man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself" for the life and salvation of the world.

Now to whom is it not clear, that if the Lord had known many fathers and gods, He would not have taught His disciples to know [only] one God, and to call Him alone Father? But He did the rather distinguish those who by word merely (verbo tenus) are termed gods, from Him who is truly God, that they should not err as to His doctrine, nor understand one [in mistake] for another. And if He did indeed teach us to call one Being Father and God, while He does from time to time Himself confess other fathers and gods in the same sense, then He will appear to enjoin a different course upon His disciples from what He follows Himself. Such conduct, however, does not bespeak the good teacher, but a misleading and invidious one. The apostles, too, according to these men's showing, are proved to be transgressors of the commandment, since they confess the Creator as God, and Lord, and Father, as I have shown-if He is not alone God and Father. Jesus, therefore, will be to them the author and teacher of such transgression, inasmuch as He commanded that one Being should be called Father, thus imposing upon them the necessity of confessing the Creator as their Father, as has been pointed out.

"And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." "The only true God," He saith, by way of distinction from those which are not gods; for He was about to send them to the Gentiles. But if they will not allow this, but on account of this word "only" reject the Son from being true God, in this way as they proceed they reject Him from being God at all. For He also saith, "Ye seek not the glory which is from the only God." (c. v. 44.) Well then; shall not the Son be God? But if the Son be God, and the Son of the Father who is called the Only God, it is clear that He also is true, and the Son of Him who is called the Only true God.

Why, when Paul saith, "Or I only and Barnabas" (1 Cor. ix. 6), doth he exclude Barnabas? Not at all; for the "only" is put by way of distinction from others. And, if He be not true God, how is He "Truth"? for truth far surpasses what is true. What shall we call the not being a "true" man, tell me? shall we not call it the not being a man at all? so if the Son is not true God, how is He God? And how maketh He us gods and sons, if He is not true?

And since these things are so, as we have shown, it is plain that no other hope of life is set before man, except that, laying aside vanities and wretched error, he should know God, and serve God; except he renounce this temporary life, and train himself by the principles of righteousness for the cultivation of true religion. For we are created on this condition, that we pay just and due obedience to God who created us, that we should know and follow Him alone. We are bound and tied to God by this chain of piety; from which religion itself received its name.

If Christ is only a man, why did he lay down for us such a rule of faith as to say, "But this is life eternal, that they may know you the one and true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent"? If he had not wanted himself to be understood also as God, why did he add, "And Jesus Christ whom you have sent" unless it is because he wanted to be accepted as also God? Because, if he had not wanted himself to be understood as God, he would have added "and the man Jesus Christ whom you have sent." But as it is, neither Christ added this nor did he hand down to us that he is only man. Rather, he joined [himself] to God so that he might also by this union be understood as God, as indeed he is.

God, accompanied by the article [in Greek], is very God. Therefore also the Savior says in his prayer to the Father, "That they may know you the only true God." But everything made divine because of the very God by partaking of his divinity would be most properly called not God but god.

The cause of eternal life is steadfast faith, and to believe in one God, and to not attribute to others the title of God but to believe not only in the Father but also in the Son who was incarnated for us and was sent for the salvation of humankind. This doctrine expels the lie of the polytheistic error. It admits only one God while also surpassing the Jewish belief—inasmuch as the Jews worship only the Father. They surely do not understand that from the Father, by means of an unspoken word, his Son was born. It also teaches Christians to worship both the God begotten from the Father and the Spirit that is provided from the Father through the Son and is in its own existence consubstantial with the Father and the Son—the very one who is perfect life and the cause of eternal life.

He called the Father "the only true God" to distinguish Him from the falsely-named gods of the pagans, not separating Himself from the Father (away with such a thought!). For He too, being the true Son, cannot be a false god, but is the true God, as this very same evangelist says in his catholic epistle concerning the Lord: "Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal Life" (1 John 5:20). If the heretics insist that the Son is a false god because the Father is called the only true God, then let them know that this very same evangelist says of the Son: "That was the true Light" (John 1:9). Is the Father then, according to their understanding, a false Light? But no, away with such a thought! Therefore, when he calls the Father the true God, he calls Him so in distinction from the false gods of the pagans, just as in the words "you do not seek the glory that comes from the only God" (John 5:44), according to the heretics' understanding it would follow that since the Father is the only God, the Son is not God at all. But such a conclusion is truly insane.

But is the eternal life given to men related to the glory of the Father? Indeed it is, for this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, who was sent so that the Father could be glorified by being known by men.

Two things need explanation here. First, why he says, this is eternal life, that they may know. Note that strictly speaking, we call those things living which move themselves to their activities. Those things which are only moved by other things are not living, but dead. And so all those activities to which an active thing moves itself are called living activities, for example, to will, to understand, to sense, to grow and to move about. Now a thing is said to be alive in two senses. First because it has living activities in potency, as one who is asleep is said to have sensitive life because it has the power to move itself about, although it is not actually doing so. Or, something is said to be alive because it is actually engaged in living activities, and then it is alive in the full sense. For this reason one who is asleep is said to be half alive. Among living activities the highest is the activity of the intellect, which is to understand. And thus the activity of the intellect is living activity in the highest degree. Now just as the sense in act is identified with the sense-object in act, so also the intellect in act is identified with the thing understood in act. Since then intellectual understanding is living activity, and to understand is to live, it follows that to understand an eternal reality is to live with an eternal life. But God is an eternal reality, and so to understand and see God is eternal life.

Accordingly our Lord says that eternal life lies in vision, in seeing, that is, it consists in this basically and in its whole substance. But it is love which moves one to this vision, and is in a certain way its fulfillment: for the completion and crown of beatitude (happiness) is the delight experienced in the enjoyment of God, and this is caused by charity. Still, the substance of beatitude consists in vision, seeing: "We shall see him as he is" (1 Jn 3:2).

Secondly, we should explain the phrase, you the only true God. It is clear that Christ was speaking to the Father, so when he says, you the only true God, it seems that only God the Father is true God. The Arians agree with this, for they say that the Son differs by essence from the Father, since the Son is a created substance, although he shares in the divinity more perfectly and to a greater degree than do all other creatures. So much more that the Son is called God, but not the true God, because he is not God by nature, which only the Father is.

Hilary answers this by saying that when we want to know whether a certain thing is true, we can determine it from two things: its nature and its power. For true gold is that which has the species of true gold; and we determine this if it acts like true gold. Therefore, if we maintain that the Son has the true nature of God, because the Son exercises the true activities of divinity, it is clear that the Son is true God. Now the Son does perform true works of divinity, for we read, "Whatever he does, that the Son does likewise" (5:19); and again he said, "For as the Father has life in himself," which is not a participated life, "so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (5:26); "That we may be in his true Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (1 Jn 5:20).

According to Hilary, he says, you the only true God, in a way that does not exclude another. He does not say without qualification, you the only, but adds and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. It is like saying: that they know you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent to be the one and only true God. This is a pattern of speaking that we also use when we say: "You alone, Jesus Christ, are the most high, together with the Holy Spirit." No mention is made of the Holy Spirit because whenever the Father and the Son are mentioned, and especially in matters pertaining to the grandeur of the divinity, the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of the Father and Son, is implied.

Or, according to Augustine in his work, The Trinity, he says this to exclude the error of those who claim that it is false to say that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; while it is true to say that the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit are one God. The reason for this opinion was that the Apostle said that "Christ is the power of God and the Wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:24). Now it is clear that we cannot call anyone God unless he has divine power and wisdom. Therefore, since these people held that the Father was wisdom, which is the Son, they held further that the Father considered without the Son would not be God. And the same applies to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The incarnation of the Son of God is indicated by saying that he was sent. So when he says here, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, we are led to understand that in eternal life we will also rejoice in the humanity of Christ: "Your eyes will see the king," that is, Christ, "in his beauty" (Is 33:17); "He will go in and out and find pasture" (10:9).

But God is first of all glorified here, while He is being made known to men by word of mouth, and preached through the faith of believers. Wherefore, He says, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." He does not say, Thou orderedst; but, "Thou gavest:" where the evident grace of it is commended to notice. For what has the human nature even in the Only-begotten, that it has not received? Did it not receive this, that it should do no evil, but all good things, when it was assumed into the unity of His person by the Word, by whom all things were made? But how has He finished the work which was committed unto Him to do, when there still remains the trial of the passion wherein He especially furnished His martyrs with the example they were to follow, whereof, says the apostle Peter, "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps:" but just that He says He has finished, what He knew with perfect certainty that He would finish? Just as long before, in prophecy, He used words in the past tense, when what He said was to take place very many years afterwards: "They pierced," He says, "my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones;" He says not, They will pierce, and, They will count. And in this very Gospel He says, "All things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you;" to whom He afterward declares, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." For He, who has predestinated all that is to be by sure and unchangeable causes, has done whatever He is to do: as it was also declared of Him by the prophet, "Who hath made the things that are to be."

In a way similar, also, to this, He proceeds to say: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." For He had said above, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee:" in which arrangement of the words He had shown that the Father was first to be glorified by the Son, in order that the Son might glorify the Father. But now He said, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do; and now glorify Thou me;" as if He Himself had been the first to glorify the Father, by whom He then demands to be glorified. We are therefore to understand that He used both words above in accordance with that which was future, and in the order in which they were future, "Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee:" but that He now used the word in the past tense of that which was still future, when He said, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." And then, when He said, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self," as if He were afterwards to be glorified by the Father, whom He Himself had first glorified; what did He intimate but that, when He said above, "I have glorified Thee on the earth," He had so spoken as if He had done what He was still to do; but that here He demanded of the Father to do that whereby the Son should yet do so; in other words, that the Father should glorify the Son, by means of which glorification of the Son, the Son also was yet to glorify the Father?

(Tr. cv) But God is first glorified here, when He is proclaimed, made known to, and believed in, by men: I have glorified Thee on the earth.

(Tr. cv) Not Thou commandest Me, but, Thou gavest Me, implying evidently grace. For what hath human nature, even in the Only-Begotten, what it hath not received? But how had He finished the work which had been given Him to do, when there yet remained His passion to undergo? He says He has finished it, i. e. He knows for certain that He will.

(Tr. cv. 5) He had said above, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: the order of which words shows that the Son was first to be glorified by the Father, that the Father might be glorified by the Son. But now He says, I have glorified Thee; and now glorify Me; as if He had first glorified the Father, and then asked to be glorified by Him. We must understand that the first is the order in which one was to succeed the other, but that He afterwards uses a past tense, to express a thing future; the meaning being, I will glorify Thee on the earth, by finishing the work Thou hast given Me to do: and now, Father, glorify Me, which is quite the same sentence with the first one, except that He adds here the mode in which He is to be glorified; with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee. The order of the words is, The glory which I had with Thee before the world was. This has been taken by some to mean, that the human nature which was assumed by the Word, would be changed into the Word, that man would be changed into God, or, to speak more correctly, be lost in God. For no one would say that the Word of God would by that change be doubled, or even made at all greater. But we avoid this error, if we take the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, to be the glory which He predestined for Him on earth: (for if we believe Him to be the Son of man, we need not be afraid to say that He was predestinated.) This predestined time of His being glorified, He now saw was arrived, that He might now receive what had been aforetime predestined, He prayed accordingly: And now, Father, glorify Me, &c. i. e. that glory which I had with Thee by Thy predestination, it is now time that I should have at Thy right hand.

I have glorified you. Here is noted the third point, namely the reason for being heard; and this was the merit of Christ, by which he merited to be glorified or made manifest; therefore he says: I have glorified you upon the earth, on account of this I merit to be glorified by you: I have finished the work which you gave me to do; therefore he finished it, because he was obedient even unto death; Luke 12: "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I constrained until it be accomplished"? Concerning this consummation, Hebrews 2: "It was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, who had brought many sons into glory, to make perfect the author of their salvation through suffering." And because he had done everything, therefore he ought to be heard.

CHAPTER VI. That the Son is not bare of God-befitting glory, even though He is found saying to the Father, And now glorify Me with the glory which I had...

Our Saviour's speech now intertwines the human element in His Nature with the Divine, and is of composite nature, looking both ways; not merging overmuch the Person of the Speaker in the perfect power and glory of His Divinity, nor allowing it altogether to rest on the lowly level of His Humanity; but mingling the twain into one, which is not foreign to either. For our Lord Jesus Christ thought that He ought to teach His believers, not merely that He is God the Only-begotten, but that He also became Man for us, that He might reconcile us all to God the Father, and mould us into newness of life; purchasing humanity with His own Blood, and venturing His life for the salvation of the world, while, though He was One, He was more precious than all mankind. He says, then, that He glorified the Father upon the earth, for He finished the work which He gave Him to do.

Come now, let us follow out, as it were, two roads, in our investigation of this passage, and say that it has reference both to His Divine and His Human Nature. If then, as Man, He says this, you may take it in this way: Christ is for us a type and origin and pattern of the. Divine life, and shows us plainly how, and in what |492 way, we ought to live our lives; for after this fashion the commentators on the Divine writings give a most subtle exposition of the passage. He instructs us, then, by what He here says, that each one of us, if he fulfils his allotted task, and follows out to the end what is commanded of God, then in truth he glorifies Him by his righteous acts; not indeed as though He had any lack of glory, for the Ineffable Nature of God is complete, but because he causes His praise to be sung by those who see his acts, and are profited thereby. Yea, the Saviour saith: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Which is in heaven. For when we are made truly manly, and willing to do good works for God's sake, we are not winning for our own selves the reputation thereof, but are carrying God's worship into our actions, to the honour and glory of Him That ruleth over all. For just as when, for leading a profligate life displeasing to God, we are rightly called to account, as doing despite unto His unspeakable glory, and make our own souls liable to punishment, as the prophet tells, if we hearken to his voice: My Name through you is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles, on the same grounds I think that when we display pre-eminent virtue, we are then preparing for Him a song of praise. When, therefore, we have accomplished the work that God has given us to do, then and most rightly may we attain to a freedom of speech in His own most seemly words; and claim, as it were, like glory in return from God Who has been glorified by us: For as I live, saith the Lord, them that honour Me will I honour, and he that lightly esteemeth Me shall be lightly esteemed. In order, then, that He might show us, that we might suitably ask for glory in return from the only true God, I mean glory in the world to come, when we have displayed towards Him perfect and blameless obedience, and have shown ourselves keepers of His commandments to the letter, Christ says that He glorified the Father, when He finished the work upon earth that He gave Him. He requests, however, for Himself in return, no foreign or borrowed glory, as we do, but rather that honour and renown which is His own. For we were bound to ask for it, and not He. Observe how in and through His own Person, He first renders possible to our nature this boldness of speech, on two accounts. For in Him first, and through Him, we have been enriched both with the ability to fulfil those things essential to our salvation, which are entrusted to us by God, and also the duty of boldly asking for the honour which is due to those who distinguish themselves in His service. For of old time, through the sin that reigned in us, and the fall that was in Adam, we both failed of ability to accomplish any of those things which make for virtue, and also were very far removed from freedom of speech with God. Yea, God, to that end, out of the abundance of His kindness, spake consolation by the voice of the prophet, saying: Fear not, because Thou hast been ashamed, neither be confounded because thou hast been put to shame. As, then, in all other things that are good our Lord Jesus Christ is the Beginning, and the Gate, and the Way, so also is He here.

But if the Saviour is seeking His own glory that He had before the world began, and we, suiting the meaning of the passage so as to make it apply to our case, maintain that we ourselves ought also with great zeal to do God's Will, and so boldly ask for glory from above, let no one think that we say this,----that it becomes a man imitating Christ, to ask for some ancient glory that was before the world began, as due also to himself; but let him rather remember that each ought to speak according to his deserts. For if Christ, like us, had only the human element in His Nature, let Him then speak only as befits the earth-born, and not exceed the limits of humanity. But if the Word, being God, became Flesh, when He says anything as God, it will be suitable to Himself alone, and not to those who are not as He is.

Considering, then, the passage as though He spoke it more as a Man, we shall take it in the sense above given; but if we reflect, on the other hand, on the Divine dignity of Christ, we rightly think it has a meaning above human nature. We say, then, that He glorified His own Father, God, when He fulfilled the work which He received from Him, not being His servant or in any ministerial capacity; and this as of necessity, that the Lord of all might not appear in the lowliness of our nature and that of the creation which is enslaved. For to perform the duties of a servant, and submissively obey the Divine commands, is the part of men and angels. Rather, we say that He, being the Power and Wisdom of His Father, well accomplished the task of our redemption, entrusted as it were to Him; as indeed also said the Divine Psalmist, expounding the meaning of the mystery: O God, command Thy Strength; strengthen, O God, that which Thou hast wrought for us. For in order that he may clearly prove that the Son is the Power of the Father, though not separate from Him so far I mean as His identity of Essence and Nature is concerned, he first says, Command Thy Strength, bringing in a duality of Persons----I mean Him that commands and Him to Whom the command is given----he suddenly unites them in their natural unity, attributing to the Ineffable Nature of God in its entirety the result achieved; for he says in his wisdom: "Strengthen, O God, that which Thou hast wrought for us." The Son, then, receives or has entrusted to Him from the Father, the work of saving the world. But in what manner, or how, God commands His own Strength, we ought to examine and explain, so far as it is possible humanly to interpret things which exceed man's understanding. Let us take for example, then, some man among us, and imagine him learned in the art of making bronzes. Then let us suppose that he sets himself to mould a statue, or perhaps to repair one that is decayed or mutilated. How, then, will he work, or how will he repair, as he has determined? Clearly he will entrust to the power of his hands and his skill in the art, the fulfilment of what he chooses to do. But if any one thinks his wisdom and power appear distinct in some sense from himself, so far as their conception is concerned, still are they not in fact distinct. For these also are included in the definition of his essence. You must think the case is something like this wise, but must not accept the illustration as exactly similar. For God is above all things, and must be thought superior to any power of illustration. The sun and the fire, taking this by way of illustration, may be thought to occupy a similar relative position. For, just as the sun commands the light which it sheds to illumine the whole world, and allots to the power of its rays as their function, so to say, to cast the power of their heat on all things that receive it, so likewise also the fire commands and enjoins in some sort the peculiar qualities of its nature to fulfil its peculiar duties; but we do not, on this account, say that the ray and the light are in the position of ministers and servants to the sun, or the power of burning to the fire. For each of the two works by means of its own inherent qualities. But if they appear to be in a sense not self-working, yet are they not distinct in nature from their own. Some such idea we must hold about the relation between God the Father and the Word Who is by Nature begotten of Him, whenever He is said to be entrusted with work to do to us-ward.

His Wisdom and Power, therefore, that is Christ, glorified God the Father upon the earth, having finished the work which He gave Him. And, as He brings His work to its fitting termination, He claims the glory which always attaches to Him; and now that occasion calls for the recovery of His ancient glory He seeks it. What work, then, has He fulfilled, whereby He says that He glorified the Father? For while He was the true God He became Man, by the approval and will of the Father, through His desire to save the whole world, and raise up anew the fallen race on the earth to endless life and the true knowledge of God. And this was in very truth accomplished by the Divine power and might of Christ, Who made death powerless, upset the dominion of the devil, destroyed sin, and showed incomparable love towards us, by remitting the charges against us all, and giving light to those astray, who now know the One true God. Christ, then, having accomplished this by His own power, the Father was glorified by all----I mean all those in the world who knew His wisdom, and power, and the mercy and love towards mankind, which is in Him. For He has shone forth and manifested Himself in the Son, Who is, as it were, the Likeness and Express Image of His Person; and by its fruit the tree is known, according to the Scripture. And when the works were fulfilled, and the wonderful scheme of our redemption brought to its fitting conclusion, He returns to His own glory, and assumes His ancient honour; save only, that being still endued with the human shape, He moulds accordingly the form of His prayer, and asks as though He possessed it not: for man hath all things from God. For though in the fullest sense, as He was God of God the Father, He was invested with Divine glory, still, since at the season of His Incarnation for us He in a sense diminished it, taking upon Him this mean body, He with reason seeks it as though He had it not, speaking the words as Man. The wise Paul also himself had some such idea, when he enjoins us concerning Him: Let this mind be in each of you which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. For though the Son is high, inasmuch as He proceeded as God and Lord from the Father, none the less is the Father recorded to have exalted man in Him, for on man the degradation of his nature brings the need of exaltation. He prays, then, for the recovery of His own glory, even in the flesh. He is not wholly bereft of His own glory when He so speaks, even though He were to ask without receiving, for the Word, being the true God, was never robbed of His own majesty. He rather refers to the glory which belongs ever to Him, and its appropriate temple in the heavens, and His own return thither in the raiment of the flesh, on which the interval of His humiliation had been consequent. For that He may not appear to be claiming for Himself a strange and unusual glory to which He had not been accustomed in time past, He distinguishes it by the addition of the epithet "before the world was," and the words "with Thine own Self." For the Son has never been excluded from the honour of the Father, but ever reigneth with Him, and with Him is adored and worshipped by us and by the holy angels as God, and of God, and in God, and with God. And this is, I think, what the inspired Evangelist John means to teach us, when He says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

(iii. de Trin) This new glory with which our Lord had glorified the Father, does not imply any advancement in Godhead, but refers to the honour received from those who are converted from ignorance to knowledge.

(ix. de Trin) After which, that we may understand the reward of His obedience, and the mystery of the whole dispensation, He adds, And now glorify Me with the glory with Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

(iii. de Trin) Or He prayed that that which was mortal, might receive the glory immortal, that the corruption of the flesh might be transformed and absorbed into the incorruption of the Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit does not speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not from himself, but from the Lord; even as the Lord also announced to us the things that He received from the Father. For, says He, "the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's, who sent Me." And says He of the Holy Spirit, "He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear from Me." And He says of Himself to the Father, "I have," says He, "glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which, Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name to men." And of the Holy Ghost, "He shall glorify Me, for He receives of Mine."

"I have glorified Thee on the earth." Well said He, "on the earth"; for in heaven He had been already glorified, having His own natural glory, and being worshiped by the Angels. Christ then speaketh not of that glory which is bound up with His Essence, (for that glory, though none glorify Him, He ever possesseth in its fullness,) but of that which cometh from the service of men.

"I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me that I should do it." And yet the action was still but beginning, or rather was not yet beginning. How then said He, "I have finished"? Either He meaneth, that "I have done all My part"; or He speaketh of the future, as having already come to pass; or, which one may say most of all, that all was already effected, because the root of blessings had been laid, which fruits would certainly and necessarily follow, and from His being present at and assisting in those things which should take place after these.

From this learn how the Father glorifies the Son. Without doubt, the Son also glorifies the Father in the same way. "I," He says, "have glorified You on earth." He rightly adds "on earth." For in the heavens He was glorified, being worshipped by the angels, but the earth did not know Him. And since the Son proclaimed Him to all, He says: "I have glorified You, having sown the knowledge of God throughout all the earth and having accomplished the work which You entrusted to Me." For the work of the incarnation of the Only-Begotten was to sanctify our nature, to cast down the ruler of this world whom they formerly worshipped as god, and to plant the knowledge of God among creation. How then did He accomplish this, when He had not yet even begun? "Everything," He says, "that I needed to do, I have accomplished." Yes, He did what was most important: He planted in us the root of good, having conquered the devil, and gave Himself over to the all-devouring beast—death, and from this root the fruits of the knowledge of God will necessarily come forth. "Therefore," He says, "I have accomplished the work, because I have sown, I have planted the root, and the fruits will grow."

Now we see why Christ's prayer deserves to be heard: first, he mentions why he deserves this; secondly, he states the reward, Father, glorify me.

He states that he merited to be heard for two reasons. First, because of his teaching, when he says, I glorified you on earth, that is, in the minds of men, by manifesting you in my teaching: "Glorify the Lord in teaching" (Is 24:15). Secondly, I glorified you by my obedience; thus he said, I... having accomplished the work. He uses the past tense in place of the future: I glorified for "I will glorify," and accomplished in place of "I will accomplish." He does this because these things had already begun, and also because the hour of his passion, when his work would be accomplished, was very near.

"The work which you gave me to do," not merely ordered. It is not enough for Christ and us to be ordered by God, because whatever Christ as man accomplished and whatever we can do is God's gift, God gave us this: "I knew that I could not be continent unless God gave it" (Wis 8:21). You gave me, I say, by the gift of grace, to do, that is, to accomplish.

But this predestination He still more clearly disclosed in respect of His own glorification, wherewith He was glorified by the Father, when He added, "With the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee." The proper order of the words is, "which I had with Thee before the world was." To this apply His words, "And now glorify Thou me;" that is to say, as then, so also now: as then, by predestination; so also now, by consummation: do Thou in the world what had already been done with Thee before the world: do in its own time what Thou hast determined before all times. This, some have imagined, should be so understood as if the human nature, which was assumed by the Word, were converted into the Word, and the man were changed into God; yea, were we reflecting with some care on the opinions they have advanced, as if the humanity were lost in the Godhead. For no one would go the length of saying that out of such a transmutation of the humanity the Word of God is either doubled or increased, so that either what was one should now be two, or what was less should now be greater. Accordingly, if with His human nature changed and converted into the Word, the Word of God will still be as great as He was, and what He was, where is the humanity, if it is not lost?

But to this opinion, which I certainly do not see to be conformable to the truth, there is nothing to urge us, if, when the Son says, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," we understand the predestination of the glory of His human nature, as thereafter, from being mortal, to become immortal with the Father: and that this had already been done by predestination before the world was, as also in its own time it was done in the world. For if the apostle has said of us, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world," why should it be thought incongruous with the truth, if the Father glorified our Head at the same time as He chose us in Him to be His members? For we were chosen in the same way as He was glorified; inasmuch as before the world was, neither we nor the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, were yet in existence.

But perhaps we shall have some fear in saying that He was predestinated, because the apostle seems to have said so only in reference to our being made conformable to His image. As if, indeed, any one, faithfully considering the rule of faith, were to deny that the Son of God was predestinated, who yet cannot deny that He was man. For it is rightly said that He was not predestinated in respect of His being the Word of God, God with God. For how could He be predestinated, seeing He already was what He was, without beginning and without ending, everlasting? But that, which as yet was not, had to be predestinated, in order that it might come to pass in its time, even as it was predestinated so to come before all times. Accordingly, whoever denies predestination of the Son of God, denies that He was also Himself the Son of man. But, on account of those who are disputatious, let us also on this subject listen to the apostle in the exordium of his epistles. For both in the first of his epistles, which is that to the Romans, and in the beginning of the epistle itself, we read: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made for Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." In respect, then, of this predestination also, He was glorified before the world was, in order that His glory might be, by the resurrection from the dead, with the Father, at whose right hand He sitteth. Accordingly, when He saw that the time of this, His predestinated glorification, was now come, in order that what had already been done in predestination might also be done now in actual accomplishment, He said in His prayer, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was:" as if He had said, The glory which I had with Thee, that is, that glory which I had with Thee in Thy predestination, it is time that I should have with Thee also in sitting at Thy right hand.

And now glorify me, you, Father. Here is touched upon the fourth point, namely the petition itself, by which he seeks the manifestation of his glory; on account of which he says: And now glorify me, you, Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had before the world was made, with you; that is, manifest that glory, so that, just as from eternity I was equal to you before the world was made, so also may it be manifest to others. On account of which it is said below in the same chapter: "I am glorified in them," that is, in the Apostles, because they believed him to be equal to the Father; above in the sixteenth chapter: "Now we believe that you came forth from God"; above in the first chapter: "The Word was with God," namely equal to God, "and the Word was God."

The splendid glory of the Son of God—what else would it be other than the divine Word himself, the "true Light" itself? He is not glorified by another glory through the agency of another person as if he were someone else other than the glory. No, he is himself the "Lord of glory" and King of glory, as I said previously. But since "he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"—for he says, "the Word became flesh" and "we saw him" and "he did not have any comeliness or beauty"66—and many did not believe that this descent had taken place, since many did not believe that God became man to reveal his divinity to those who had not recognized him, he said, "Father, glorify your Son," that is, "reveal me to those who have not recognized me, manifest my glory that I had with you as the divine Word." Therefore, Paul says, "God considered it good to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles."

The Lord also said, "Give me glory in your presence from that which you gave me before the world was made." [This was] when the Father was fashioning creatures through his Son, according to the psalmist's account, "He is clothed with glory and magnificence," after which he drew them out of nothingness and established them as spotless creatures. "Lord God," he said, "you are exceedingly great. You are clothed with glory and magnificence, and you have covered yourself with light as with a cloak." … Following Adam's fall, [however], creatures were clothed in [Adam's] humiliation … and the Son of the Creator came to heal them so as to remove, at the moment of his coming, all uncleannesses through the baptism of his death, as he himself has said, "The hour has come and is at hand; glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you." He asked this not as a beggar wishing to receive something, but wishing to restore and accomplish the first order of creation. [He asked] for the glory with which he was clothed at the time when creatures were clothed [with glory].For just as he formed the first essence [of creatures] through grace so that [they would be] without stain, in the glory and magnificence with which he himself was clothed, [so] too, by the mercy of God, there will be a new creation of all things, without any stain, in the glory with which he is clothed. What he said, "Give me," is to be understood of the glory that he possessed before creatures, with the Father and in the Father's presence. For the Greek text says clearly, "Glorify me with that glory that I possessed in your presence, before the world was made." Even more, in saying, "Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you," he did not reveal a need but a desire. The Father does not receive glory from the Son as though he had need of it, and the Son is not glorified by his Father as if he were lacking this [glory].

And so, he had not abdicated his own position. And yet, he had taken ours. He prays, then, that the nature that he had assumed may be promoted to the glory that he had never renounced. … This Son, now incarnate, prayed that flesh might be to the Father what the Son had been. He prayed that flesh, born in time, might receive the splendor of the everlasting glory, that the corruption of the flesh might be swallowed up, transformed into the power of God and the incorruption of the Spirit.

The word of prophecy passes again to Immanuel Himself. For, in my opinion, what is intended by it is just what has been already stated in the words, "giving increase of beauty in the case of the shoot." For he means that He increased and grew up into that which He had been from the beginning, and indicates the return to the glory which He had by nature. This, if we apprehend it correctly, is (we should say) just "restored" to Him. For as the only begotten Word of God, being God of God, emptied Himself, according to the Scriptures, humbling Himself of His own will to that which He was not before, and took unto Himself this vile flesh, and appeared in the "form of a servant," and "became obedient to God the Father, even unto death," so hereafter He is said to be "highly exalted; "and as if well-nigh He had it not by reason of His humanity, and as if it were in the way of grace, He "receives the name which is above every name," according to the word of the blessed Paul. But the matter, in truth, was not a "giving," as for the first time, of what He had not by nature; far otherwise. But rather we must understand a return and restoration to that which existed in Him at the beginning, essentially and inseparably. And it is for this reason that, when He had assumed, by divine arrangement, the lowly estate of humanity, He said, "Father, glorify me with the glory which I had," etc. For He who was co-existent with His Father before all time. and before the foundation of the world, always had the glory proper to Godhead. "He" too may very well be understood as the "youngest (son)." For He appeared in the last times, after the glorious and honourable company of the holy prophets, and simply once, after all those who, previous to the time of His sojourn, were reckoned in the number of sons by reason of excellence. That Immanuel, however, was an" object of envy," is a somewhat doubtful phrase. Yet He is an "object of envy" or "emulation" to the saints, who aspire to follow His footsteps, and conform themselves to His divine beauty, and make Him the pattern of their conduct, and win thereby their highest glory. And again, He is an "object of envy" in another sense,-an "object of ill-will," namely, to those who are declared not to love Him. I refer to the leading parties among the Jews,-the scribes, in sooth, and the Pharisees,-who travailed with bitter envy against Him, and made the glory of which He could not be spoiled the ground of their slander, and assailed Him in many ways. For Christ indeed raised the dead to life again, when they already stank and were corrupt; and He displayed other signs of divinity. And these should have filled them with wonder, and have made them ready to believe, and to doubt no longer. Yet this was not the case with them; but they were consumed with ill-will, and nursed its bitter pangs in their mind.

Nor is He a mere man, by whom and in whom all things were made; for "all things were made by Him." "When He made the heaven, I was present with Him; and I was there with Him, forming [the world along with Him], and He rejoiced in me daily." And how could a mere man be addressed in such words as these: "Sit Thou at My right hand? " And how, again, could such an one declare: "Before Abraham was, I am? " And, "Glorify Me with Thy glory which I had before the world was? " What man could ever say, "I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me? " And of what man could it be said, "He was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world: He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not? " How could such a one be a mere man, receiving the beginning of His existence from Mary, and not rather God the Word, and the only-begotten Son? For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And in another place, "The Lord created Me, the beginning of His ways, for His ways, for His works. Before the world did He found Me, and before all the hills did He beget Me."

In the beginning, therefore, did God form Adam, not as if He stood in need of man, but that He might have [some one] upon whom to confer His benefits. For not alone antecedently to Adam, but also before all creation, the Word glorified His Father, remaining in Him; and was Himself glorified by the Father, as He did Himself declare, "Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Nor did He stand in need of our service when He ordered us to follow Him; but He thus bestowed salvation upon ourselves. For to follow the Saviour is to be a partaker of salvation, and to follow light is to receive light. But those who are in light do not themselves illumine the light, but are illumined and revealed by it: they do certainly contribute nothing to it, but, receiving the benefit, they are illumined by the light. Thus, also, service [rendered] to God does indeed profit God nothing, nor has God need of human obedience; but He grants to those who follow and serve Him life and incorruption and eternal glory, bestowing benefit upon those who serve [Him], because they do serve Him, and on His followers, because they do follow Him; but does not receive any benefit from them: for He is rich, perfect, and in need of nothing.

"And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Where is that glory? For allowing that He was with reason unhonored among men, because of the covering which was put around Him; how seeketh He to be glorified with the Father? What then saith He here? The saying refers to the Dispensation; since His fleshly nature had not yet been glorified, not having as yet enjoyed incorruption, nor shared the kingly throne. Therefore He said not "on earth," but "with Thee."

The nature of the flesh was not yet glorified, for it had not yet been deemed worthy of incorruption nor had it partaken of the royal throne. For this reason He says "glorify Me," that is, My human nature, which is now held in no honor, which will be crucified, and raise it up to that glory which I—the Word and Your Son—had with You before the existence of the world. For He seated human nature together with Himself upon the royal throne, and now every creature worships Him.

The reward for Christ's obedience and teaching is glory: "He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name" (Phil 2:8). And so Christ asks for his reward, saying, and now, Father, glorify me. According to Augustine this does not mean, as some have thought, that the human nature of Christ, which was assumed by the Word, would at some time be changed into the Word, and the human nature changed into God. This would be to annihilate the human nature of Christ, for when a first thing is changed into another in such a way that this other is not enriched, the first thing seems to have been annihilated. But nothing can be added to enrich the divine Word of God.

Thus, for Augustine, and now, Father, glorify me, refers to the predestination of Christ as man. Something can be had by us both in the divine predestination and in actual fact. Now Christ, in his human nature, as all other human beings, was predestined by God the Father: "He was predestined Son of God" (Rom 1:4). With this in mind he says, and now - after I have glorified you, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do - Father, glorify me in your own presence, that is, have me sit at your right hand, with the glory which I had with you before the world was made, that is to say, with the glory I had in your predestination: "The Lord Jesus... was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mk 16:19).

Hilary gives the other interpretation. The glory of human beings will be in a certain way similar to the glory of God, although unequal. Now Christ, as God, had glory with the Father from all eternity, a divine glory and equal to that of the Father. Accordingly, what he is asking for here is that he be glorified in his human nature, that is to say, that what was flesh in time and changed by corruption, should receive the glory of that brightness which is outside of time. He is asking not for an equal glory, but for one which is similar, which is to say that just as the Son is immortal and sitting at the right hand of the Father from all eternity, so he now become immortal in his human nature and exalted to the right hand of God.

Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour, delivered to us the great mystery of godliness, and called both Jews and Gentiles to the acknowledgment of the one and only true God His Father, as Himself somewhere says, when He was giving thanks for the salvation of those that had believed, "I have manifested Thy name to men, I have finished the work Thou gavest me;" and said concerning us to His Father, "Holy Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet have I known Thee; and these have known Thee."

He lived holily, and taught according to the law; He drove away every sickness and every disease from men, and wrought signs and wonders among the people; and He was partaker of meat, and drink, and sleep, who nourishes all that stand in need of food, and "fills every living creature with His goodness;" "He manifested His name to those that knew it not;" He drave away ignorance; He revived piety, and fulfilled Thy will; He finished the work which Thou gavest Him to do...

In this discourse we purpose speaking, as He gives us grace, on these words of the Lord which run thus: "I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world." If He said this only of those disciples with whom He had supped, and to whom, before beginning His prayer, He had said so much, it can have nothing to do with that clarification, or, as others have translated it, glorification, whereof He was previously speaking, and whereby the Son clarifies or glorifies the Father. For what great glory, or what like glory, was it to become known to twelve, or rather eleven mortal creatures? But if, in saying, "I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," He wished all to be understood, even those who were still to believe on Him, as belonging to His great Church which was yet to be made up of all nations, and of which it is said in the psalm, "I will confess to Thee in the great Church [congregation];" it is plainly that glorification wherewith the Son glorifies the Father, when He makes His name known to all nations and to so many generations of men. And what He says here, "I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," is similar to what He had said a little before, "I have glorified Thee upon the earth"; putting both here and there the past for the future, as One who knew that it was predestinated to be done, and therefore saying that He had done what He had still to do, though without any uncertainty, in the future.

But what follows makes it more credible that His words, "I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," were spoken by Him of those who were already His disciples, and not of all who were yet to believe on Him. For after these words, He added: "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me; and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things, whatsoever Thou hast given me, are of Thee: for I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me." Although all these words also might have been said of all believers still to come, when that which was now a matter of hope had been turned into fact, inasmuch as they were words that still pointed to the future; yet we are impelled the more to understand Him as uttering them only of those who were at that time His disciples, by what He says shortly afterwards: "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name: those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled"; meaning Judas, who betrayed Him, for He was the only one of the apostolic twelve that perished.

Accordingly, let us now see what He says about those disciples of His who were then listening to Him. "I have manifested," He says. "Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me." Did they not, then, know the name of God when they were Jews? And what of that which we read, "God is known in Judah; His name is great in Israel"? Therefore, "I have manifested Thy name unto these men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," and who are now hearing my words: not that name of Thine whereby Thou art called God, but that whereby Thou art called my Father: a name that could not be manifested without the manifestation of the Son Himself. For this name of God, by which He is called, could not but be known in some way to the whole creation, and so to every nation, before they believed in Christ. For such is the energy of true Godhead, that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature, so long as it makes use of its reason. For, with the exception of a few in whom nature has become outrageously depraved, the whole race of man acknowledges God as the maker of this world. In respect, therefore, of His being the maker of this world that is visible in heaven and earth around us, God was known unto all nations even before they were indoctrinated into the faith of Christ. But in this respect, that He was not, without grievous wrong being done to Himself, to be worshipped alongside of false gods, God was known in Judah alone. But in respect of His being the Father of this Christ, by whom He taketh away the sin of the world, this name of His, previously kept secret from all, He now made manifest to those whom the Father Himself had given Him out of the world.

But what are we to make of the words. "Whom Thou gavest me out of the world"? For it is said of them that they were not of the world. But this they attained to by regeneration, and not by generation. And what, also, of that which follows, "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me"? Was there a time when they belonged to the Father, and not to His only-begotten Son; and had the Father once on a time anything apart from the Son? Surely not. Nevertheless, there was a time when God the Son had something, which that same Son as man possessed not; for He had not yet become man of an earthly mother, when He possessed all things in common with the Father. Wherefore in saying, "Thine they were," there is thereby no self-disruption made by God the Son, apart from whom there was nothing ever possessed by the Father; but it is His custom to attribute all the power He possesses to Him, of whom He Himself is, who has the power. For of whom He has it that He is, of Him He has it that He is able; and both together He always had, for He never had being without having ability. Accordingly, whatever the Father could [do], always side by side with Him could the Son; since He, who never had being without having ability, was never without the Father, as the Father never was without Him. And thus, as the Father is eternally omnipotent, so is the Son co-eternally omnipotent; and if all-powerful, certainly all-possessing.

(Tr. cvi) If He speaks of the disciples only with whom He supped, this has nothing to do with that glorifying of which He spoke above, wherewith the Son glorified the Father; for what glory is it to be known to twelve or eleven men? But if by the men which were given to Him out of the world, He means all those who should believe in Him afterwards, this is without doubt the glory wherewith the Son glorifies the Father; and, I have manifested Thy name, is the same as what He said before, I have glorified Thee; the past being put for the future both there and here. But what follows shows that He is speaking here of those who were already His disciples, not of all who should afterwards believe on Him. At the beginning of His prayer then our Lord is speaking of all believers, all to whom He should make known the Father, thereby glorifying Him: for after saying, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, in showing how that was to be done, He says, As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh. Now let us hear what He says to the disciples: I have manifested Thy name to the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world. Had they not known the name of God then, when they were Jews? We read in the Psalms, In Jewry is God known; His name is great in Israel. (Ps. 76:1) I have manifested Thy name, then, must be understood not of the name of God, but of the Father's name, which name could not be manifested without the manifestation of the Son. For God's name, as the God of the whole creation, could not have been entirely unknown to any nation. As the Maker then of the world, He was known among all nations, even before the spread of the Gospel. In Jewry He was known as a God, Who was not to be worshipped with the false gods: but as the Father of that Christ, by whom He took away the sins of the world, His name was unknown; which name Christ now manifesteth to those whom the Father had given Him out of the world. But how did He manifest it, when the hour had not come of which He said above, The hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs. We must understand the past to be put for the future.

(Tr. cvi) Which Thou hast given Me out of the world: i. e. who were not of the world. But this they were by regeneration, not by nature. What is meant by, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me? Had ever the Father any thing without the Son? God forbid. But the Son of God had that sometimes, which He had not as Son of man; for He had the universe with His Father, while He was still in His mother's womb. Wherefore by saying, They were Thine, the Son of God does not separate Himself from the Father; but only attributes all His power to Him, from whom He is, and hath the same. And Thou gavest them Me, then, means that He had received as man the power to have them; nay, that He Himself had given them to Himself, i. e. Christ as God with the Father, to Christ as man not with the Father. His purpose here is to show His unanimity with the Father, and how that it was the Father's pleasure that they should believe in Him.

(Tr. cvi) The Father gave Him all things, when having all things He begat Him.

(Tr. cvi. c. 6) i. e. have understood and remembered them. For then is a word received, when the mind apprehends it; as it follows, And have known surely that I came out from Thee. And that none might imagine that that knowledge was one of sight, not of faith, He adds, And they hare believed (surely, is understood) that Thou didst send Me. What they believed surely, was what they knew surely; for, I came out from Thee, is the same with, Thou didst send Me. They believed surely, i. e. not as He said above they believed, but surely, i. e. as they were about to believe firmly, steadily, unwaveringly: never any more to be scattered to their own, and leave Christ. The disciples as yet were not such as He describes them to be in the past tense, meaning such as they were to be when they had received the Holy Ghost. The question how the Father gave those words to the Son, is easier to solve, if we suppose Him to have received them from the Father as Son of man. But if we understand it to be as the Begotten of the Father, let there be no time supposed previous to His having them, as if He once existed without them: for whatever God the Father gave God the Son, He gave in begetting.

And they have kept Thy word. He calls Himself the Word of the Father, because the Father by Him created all things, and because He contains in Himself all words: as if to say, They have committed Me to memory so well, that they never will forget Me. Or, They have kept Thy word, i. e. in that they have believed in Me: as it follows, Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me, are of Thee. Some read, Now I have known, &c. But this cannot be correct. For how could the Son be ignorant of what was the Father's? It is the disciples He is speaking of; as if to say, They have learnt that there is nothing in Me alien from Thee, and that whatever I teach cometh from Thee.

I have manifested your name to men. This is the second part of the chapter, in which he asks for the preservation of holiness for the Apostles; and first he asks for them steadfastness in good; second, deliverance from evil, at the passage: While I was with them, etc. Therefore, first, preservation in the good is sought for the Apostles; and because petitions that are to be heard ought to be reasonable, a manifold reason is set forth beforehand. The procedure therefore follows this order. First, the diligent preservation of Christ's words is shown in the Apostles; second, the divine election; third, the desolation of the disciples; fourth, the petition itself is drawn forth.

Therefore, first there is set forth or intimated the diligent preservation of Christ's words, which they had in the doctrine of Christ that was manifested to them; therefore he says: I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world, that is, whom you called out of the world to me through present justice: above in the sixth chapter: "No one comes to me unless the Father draws him." And the reason why he drew them out of the world is added: They were yours, by eternal election, and you gave them to me, to be instructed through doctrine; Isaiah 8: "Behold, I and my children, whom the Lord has given me"; the Apostle expounds this of Christ. And they fittingly received it; whence he says: And they have kept your word: concerning which keeping, above in the fourteenth chapter: "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." And he shows how they kept the word or discourse of the Father. For since they had neither heard nor seen the Father, someone might doubt how they could have kept his word: therefore he says that they kept it by believing in the Son.

CHAPTER VII. That the fact that something is said to have been given to the Son from the Father does not rob Him of God-befitting dignity; but He plainly appears to be Consubstantial, and of the Father, even if He is said to receive aught.

I have previously stated with reference to the passages I have just examined, not without care, if I may say so, that Christ made His prayer to the Father in the heavens both as Man and also as God. For He carefully moderates His language so as to avoid either extreme, neither keeping it altogether within the limits of humanity, nor yet allowing it to be wholly affected by His Divine glory; and none the less here also may we see the same characteristic observed. For, as being by Nature God, and the express Image of His unspeakable Nature, He says to His Father: I manifested Thy Name unto the men, using the word "Name'' instead of "glory;'' for this is the usual practice in speech amongst us. Moreover, the wise Solomon wrote: A good name is more to be desired than great riches; that is, "a good reputation and honour" is better than the splendour and eminence which wealth confers. And God Himself says, by the mouth of Isaiah, to those who have made |499 themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, Let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My commandments, and choose the things that please Me, Even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name. And no man ought to imagine, I think, if he be wise, that the honour with which God will requite them will be paid out in bare names and titles to those who, with noble and virtuous aspirations, have wrestled with worldly pleasure, and have mortified their members which are upon the earth, and regarded only those things which are not displeasing to the Divine law; rather He uses the word name instead of glory, for they who reign with Christ will be enviable and worthy all admiration.

The Saviour therefore plainly declares that He has manifested the Name of God the Father; that is, He has established His glory throughout the whole world. And how? Clearly by the manifestation of Himself, through His exceeding great works. For the Father is glorified in the Son, as in an Image and Type of His own form, for in the lineaments of that which is modelled, the beauty of the model is always clearly seen. The Only-begotten, then, has manifested Himself, being in His Essence Wisdom and Life, Architect and Creator of the universe, superior to death and corruption, holy, blameless, compassionate, sacred, pure. Hereby all men know that He That begat Him is even as He is; for He cannot be different in Nature from His Offspring. He showed Himself, therefore, as in an Image and Type of His own form, in the glory of the Son. Such was indeed the language concerning Him among the men of old time, but now has He manifested Himself to our very sight, and that which we see with our eyes is more convincing than any words.

I think, indeed, that what we have here stated is not irrelevant. We must now, however, tread another path, |500 that is, enter on another line of speculation. For the Son manifested the Father's Name clearly by bringing us to the knowledge and perfect apprehension, not of the fact that He is God alone (for this message was conveyed to us before His coming by the inspired Scripture), but that, besides being God in truth, He is also Father in no spurious sense; having in Himself, and proceeding from Himself, His own Offspring, Coequal and Coeternal with His own Nature. For He did not beget in time the Creator of the ages. And God's Name of "Father" is in some sort greater than the Name God itself; for the one is symbolical only of His Majesty, while the other is explanatory of the essential attribute of His Person. For, when a man speaks of God, he indicates the Sovereign of the universe; but, when he utters the Name of Father, he touches on the definition of His individuality, for he manifests the fact that He begat. And Christ Himself gives to God the Name of Father, as in some sense a more appropriate and truer appellation; saying on one occasion, not "I and God" but I and the Father are One; and on another occasion, with reference to Himself, For Him the Father, even God, hath sealed. And also when He bade His disciples baptise all nations, He did not bid them do this in the Name of God, but He expressly enjoined them to do this into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And the inspired Moses, when he was explaining the origin of the world, did not attribute its creation to a single person, for he wrote, And God said, Let us make man in our Image, after our Likeness: and by the words Let us make, and in our Likeness, the Holy Trinity is signified; for the Father created and called into being the universe, through the Son, in the Spirit. But the men of old found such expressions hard to understand, and the language obscure; for the Father was not individually named, nor was the Person of the Son expressly introduced. Our Lord Jesus Christ, however, without any concealment, and with perfect freedom of speech, called |501 God His Father; and by naming Himself Son, and showing that He was Himself in very truth the Offspring of the Sovereign Nature of the universe, He manifested the Father's Name, and brought us to perfect knowledge of Him. For the perfect knowledge of God and the Creator of the universe standeth not in believing merely that He is God, but in believing also that He is the Father; and the Father also of a Son, not unaccompanied of course by the Holy Spirit. For the bare belief, that God is God, suits us no better than those under the Law; for it does not exceed the limit of the knowledge the Jews attained. And just as the Law, when it brought in this axiom of instruction, which was insufficient to sustain a life of piety in God's service, perfected nothing, so also the knowledge which it instilled about God was imperfect; only able to restrain men from love of false gods, and persuade them to worship the One true God: For thou shalt have, it says, no other gods beside Me. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. But our Lord Jesus Christ sets better things before those who are under the Law of Moses; and, giving them instruction clearer than the commandment of the Law, vouchsafed them better and clearer knowledge than that of old. For He has made it plain to us, not merely that the Originator and Sovereign of the world is God, but also that He is a Father; and facts prove this; for He has set Himself before us as His Likeness, saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. I and the Father are One.

And this, as we suppose, as being God and of God by Nature, He saith openly, in His Divine character, to His Father; but He adds at once, speaking more as Man: Whom Thou hast given Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou hast given them to Me. We must think that our Lord says this, not as though some separate and particular portion had been allotted and belonged to the dominion of the Father, in which the Son Himself had no part, for He is King before the ages began, as the Psalmist says, and eternally shares the Father's rule. Moreover, the wise Evangelist John, teaching us that all things belong to Him and are put under His sway, wrote: He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not; calling those His own who knew Him not, and were rejecting the yoke of His kingdom. He spake this on this occasion, from the wish to make clear to His hearers, that there were some in this world, who did not even so much as receive into their minds the One true God, but served the creature, and devils, and the inventions of devils. Still, though they knew not the Creator of the world, and were astray from the truth, they were God's; insomuch as He is Lord of all, as their Creator. For all things belong to God, and there is nothing that exists over which the One God is not ruler, though the creature may not know his Maker. For no man can maintain that the fact, that some have gone astray from Him, can avail to deprive the Creator of the world of His universal dominion; but he must rather admit that all things are subjected to His rule, through His having made them and brought them into being. Since, then, this is the truth, even they who were fast bound by the snares of the devil, and entangled in the vanities of the world, belonged in fact to the living God. And how were they given to the Son? For God the Father consented that Emmanuel should reign over them; not as though He then first began His reign----for He was ever Lord and King as being God by Nature----but because, having become Man and ventured His life for the salvation of the world, He purchased all men for Himself, and through Himself brought them to God the Father. He then, That of old reigneth from the beginning with His Father, was appointed King as a Man, to Whom like all else the sceptre comes by gift, according to the |503 limitations of human nature. For not in the same sense as that in which man is a rational being, capable of thought and knowledge (these things being included in his natural advantages), is he also a king; for while the former attributes are comprehended in the definition of his essence, the latter is extraneous and additional, and not among those which attach inseparably to his nature; for kingly power is given and taken away from a man, without affecting in any degree at all the definition of his essence. The dignity of kingship, therefore, is thrust upon a man by God as a gift, and from without: For by Me, He says, kings rule, and princes reign over the earth. He then, That ruleth over all with the Father, insomuch as He was, and is, and will be, by Nature God, receives power over the world, according to the form and limits proper to a man.

When the Savior declares that he has made known the name of God the Father, it is the same as saying that he has shown the whole world his glory. How did he do this? By making himself known through his wonderful works. The Father is glorified in the Son as in an image and type of his own form, for the beauty of the archetype is seen in its image. The only Son then has made himself known, and he is in his essence wisdom and life, the artificer and creator of the universe. He is immortal and incorruptible, pure, blameless, merciful, holy, good. His Father is known to be like him, since he could not be different in nature from his offspring. The Father's glory is seen, as in an image and type of his own form, in the glory of the Son.…The Son made known the name of God the Father to teach us and make us fully comprehend not that he is the only God—for inspired Scripture had proclaimed that even before the coming of the Son—but that besides being truly God he is also rightly called "Father." This is so because in himself and proceeding from himself he has a Son possessed of the same eternal nature as his own: it was not in time that he became the Father of the Creator of the ages! To call God "Father" is more exact than to call him "God." The word God signifies his dignity, but the word Father points to the distinctive attribute of his person. If we say "God," we declare him to be Lord of the universe. If we call him "Father," we show the way in which he is distinct as a person, for we make known the fact that he has a Son. The Son himself gave God the name of Father, as being in some sense the more appropriate and truer appellation, when he said not "I and God" but "I and the Father are one," and also, with reference to himself, "On him has God the Father set his seal." And when he commanded his disciples to baptize all nations, he did not tell them to do this in the name of God but expressly ordained that they were to do it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

"Messenger of great counsel" (Isa. ix. 6, LXX.), the Son of God is called, because of the other things which He taught, and principally because He announced the Father to men, as also now He saith, "I have manifested Thy Name unto the men." For after having said, "I have finished Thy work," He next explaineth it in detail, telling what sort of work. Now the Name indeed was well known. For Esaias said, "Ye shall swear by the true God." (Isa. lxv. 16.) But what I have often told you I tell you now, that though it was known, yet it was so only to Jews, and not to all of these: but now He speaketh concerning the Gentiles. Nor doth He declare this merely, but also that they knew Him as the Father. For it is not the same thing to learn that He is Creator, and that He hath a Son. But He "manifested His Name" both by words and actions.

"Whom Thou gavest Me out of the world." As He saith above, "No man cometh unto Me except it be given him" (c. vi. 65); and, "Except My Father draw him" (c. vi. 64); so here too, "Whom thou gavest Me." (c. xiv. 6.) Now He calleth Himself "the Way"; whence it is clear that He establisheth two things by what is said here, that He is not opposed to the Father, and that it is the Father's will to entrust them to the Son.

"Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me." Here He desireth to teach that He is greatly loved by the Father. For that He needed not to receive them, is clear from this, He made them, He careth for them continually. How then did He receive them? This, as I said before, showeth His unanimity with the Father. Now if a man choose to enquire into the matter in a human manner, and as the words are spoken, they will no longer belong to the Father. For if when the Father had them, the Son had them not, it is evident that when He gave them to the Son, He withdrew from His dominion over them. And again, there is a yet more unseemly conclusion; for they will be found to have been imperfect while they yet were with the Father, but to have become perfect when they came to the Son. But it is mockery even to speak thus. What then doth He declare by this? "That it hath seemed good to the Father also that they should believe on the Son."

The name "God the Father" had been published to no one. Even Moses, who had interrogated him on that very point, had heard a different name. To us it has been revealed in the Son, for the Son is now the Father's new name.… That name, therefore, we pray "may be hallowed."

They more readily supposed that the Father acted in the Son's name, than that the Son acted in the Father's; although the Lord says Himself, "I am come in my Father's name; " and even to the Father He declares, "I have manifested Thy name unto these men; " whilst the Scripture likewise says, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," that is to say, the Son in the Father's name.

"I am come," saith He, "in the Father's name; " and again, "Father, glorify Thy name; " and more openly, "I have manifested Thy name to men." That name, therefore, we pray may "be hallowed.

"I have manifested Your name to the men." He now explains what the words "I have glorified You on earth" mean, namely: I have made known Your name. How then did the Son make it known? For Isaiah had already said: "They shall swear... by the God of truth" (Isa. 65:16). But we have said many times that even if the name of God was known then, it was known only to the Jews, and not even to all of them, whereas now it is said concerning the Gentiles that the name of God will be known to them, since Christ already sowed the seeds of the knowledge of God, having cast down the devil who had introduced idol worship. And in another way. Even if they knew God, they knew Him not as Father, but only as Creator; but the Son proclaimed Him as Father, making known about Himself both by words and by deeds; and He who proved about Himself that He is the Son of God, obviously, together with Himself also made known the Father. The Lord wishes to establish two ideas: one, that He is not opposed to the Father, and the other, that the Father wants them to believe in the Son. Therefore He says: "They were Yours, and You gave them to Me." In the words "You gave them to Me," both points are shown. I did not seize them, but You consented that they should come to Me. Therefore it is not enmity, but unity of mind and love that You, Father, have toward Me. "They have kept Your word," because they believed in Me and did not listen to the Jews. For whoever believes in Christ keeps the word of God, that is, the Scripture, the Law. For the Scripture proclaims Christ. Furthermore, in another way. Everything that the Lord spoke to the disciples belonged to the Father. "For I," He says, "do not speak from Myself" (Jn. 14:10). And He said to them, among other things: "Abide in Me" (Jn. 15:4).

Above, our Lord prayed for himself; here he prays for the society of his apostles: first, he states his reasons for praying; secondly, what he is praying for (v 11). He does two things about the first: first, he mentions his reasons for praying founded on his disciples; secondly, the reasons founded on himself (v 9). From the point of view of his disciples, he mentions three reasons for praying for them: first, because they were taught by him; secondly because they had been given to him; thirdly, because of their obedience and devotion.

He mentions the first reason when he says, I have manifested your name. We could add here, according to Augustine, "that the Son may glorify you" (v 1). The Father has already received some of this glory because I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world.

Chrysostom reads it this way. I say that I have finished the work you gave me to do. What this work was he adds by saying, I have manifested your name to the men.... This is the characteristic work of the Son of God, who is the Word, and the characteristic of a word is to manifest the one speaking it: "No one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mt 11:27); "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known" (1:18).

There is a problem with this: Since God the Father was known to men before Christ came - "In Judah God is known" (Ps 76:1) - why does Christ say, I have manifested your name. I answer that the name of God the Father can be known in three ways. In one way, as the creator of all things; and this is the way the Gentiles knew him: "His invisible nature... has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" (Rom 1:20); "God has shown it to them" (Rom 1:19). In another way the Father can be known as the only one to whom the veneration of latria is to be given. He was not known to the Gentiles in this way, for they gave the veneration of latria to other gods. He was known in this way only to the Jews, for they alone had been commanded in their law to sacrifice only to the Lord: "Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed" (Ex 22:20). Thirdly, he can be known as the Father of an only Son, Jesus Christ. He was not known to anyone in this way, but did become so known through his Son when the apostles believed that Christ was the Son of God.

He gives the second reason why he prays for them when he says, whom you gave me. First, he mentions that they were given to him, from which we can see the reason or way they were given. He says, whom you gave me, that is, it is to these that I have manifested your name. But did Christ possess them as the Father possessed them? Yes he did, insofar as he was God. But he says, whom you gave me, that is, to me as man, to listen to me and obey me: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (6:44). Those who come to Christ do so through the gift and grace of God: "For by grace you have been saved... it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8). You gave them to me out of the world, that is, they were chosen from the world: "I chose you out of the world" (5:19). For even though the entire world was given to the Son insofar as he was God, the apostles were given to the Son to obey. He mentions the reason for this giving when he says, thine they were. This is like saying: the reason they were given is that thine they were, and mine, and predestined from eternity to attain by grace a future glory: "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). And you gave them to me, that is, by making them adhere to me you accomplished in fact what was previously predestined for them with me and in me.

The third reason for praying for the disciples, based on their devotion, is mentioned when he says, they have kept your word. First, he mentions their devotion to the Son; secondly, he shows that this devotion gives glory to the Father, they know that everything that you have given to me is from you; thirdly, we see the reason this gives glory to the Father: for I have given them the words which you gave me.

As to the first: he had said that you gave them to me because thine they were. And they were devoted because they have kept your word, in their hearts by faith, and in their actions by fulfilling your words: "Keep my commandments and live" (Prv 7:2); "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (15:10).

He proceeds to say, "And they have kept Thy word: now they have known that all things, whatsoever Thou hast given me, are of Thee;" that is, they have known that I am of Thee. For the Father gave all things at the very time when He begat Him who was to have all things. "For I have given unto them," He says, "the words which Thou gavest me; and they have received them;" that is, they have understood and kept hold of them. For the word is received when it is perceived by the mind. "And they have known truly," He adds, "that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me." In this last clause we must also supply "truly;" for when He said, "They have known truly," He intended its explanation by adding, "and they have believed." That, therefore, "they have believed truly" which "they have known truly;" just as "I came out from Thee" is the same as "Thou didst send me." When, therefore, He said, "They have known truly," lest any might suppose that such a knowledge was already acquired by sight, and not by faith, He subjoined the explanation, "And they have believed," so that we should supply "truly," and understand the saying, "They have known truly," as equivalent to "They have believed truly:" not in the way which He intimated shortly before, when He said, "Do ye now believe? The hour cometh, and is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone." But "they have believed truly," that is, in the way it ought to be believed, without constraint, with firmness, constancy, and fortitude: no longer now to go to their own, and leave Christ alone. As yet, indeed, the disciples were not of the character He here describes in words of the past tense, as if they were so already, but as thereby declaring beforehand what sort they were yet to be, namely, when they had received the Holy Spirit, who, according to the promise, should teach them all things. For how was it, before they received the Spirit, that they kept that word of His which He spake regarding them, as if they had done so, when the chief of them thrice denied Him, after hearing from His lips the future fate of the man who denied Him before men? He had given them, therefore, as He said, the words which the Father gave Him; but when at length they received them spiritually, not in an outward way with their ears, but inwardly in their hearts, then they truly received them, for then they truly knew them; and they truly knew them, because they truly believed.

And now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you, and therefore they have known you by knowing me: whence above in the fifth chapter: "The Son cannot do anything of himself"; above in the fourteenth chapter: "The Father abiding in me, he does the works," and therefore "he who sees me sees also my Father." And they had also heard the word of the Father.

And therefore He saith: All things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are from Thee. For in a special and peculiar sense all things are God's, and are given to us His creatures. Universal possession and power are most appropriate to God, but to us it is most fitting to receive. He bore witness, however, before His devout believers, to what was fitting to the servant, and prompted to obedience. For, He saith, the words which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them, and they received them and knew of a truth that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me. He expressly here calls His own words the sayings of God the Father, because of Their identity of Substance, and because He is God the Word declaratory of His Father's Will; just as the word, which proceeds out of our own mouths, and by its utterance assailing the hearing of one who stands by, interprets the hidden mysteries of the heart. Therefore also the saying of the Prophet declared concerning Him: His Name is called Messenger of Great Counsel. For the truly great, wonderful, and mysterious counsel of the Father is conveyed to us by the Word That is in Him, and of Him, through the words He uttered as a |504 Man, when He came among us, and also by the knowledge and light of the Spirit after His ascent into heaven; for He revealeth to His Saints His mysteries, as Paul bears witness, saying: If ye seek a proof of Christ That speaketh in Me.

"And they have kept Thy word." "Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee." How did they "keep Thy word"? "By believing in Me, and giving no heed to the Jews. For he that believeth in Him, it saith, 'hath set to his seal that God is true.'" (c. iii. 33.) Some read, "Now I know that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee." But this would have no reason; for how would the Son be ignorant of the things of the Father? No the words are spoken of the disciples. "From the time," He saith, "that I told them these things, they have learnt that all that Thou hast given Me is from Thee; nothing is alien, nothing peculiar to Me, with Thee." "They therefore have known that all things, whatsoever I teach, are Thy doctrines and teachings." "And whence have they learnt it?" From My words; for so have I taught them. And not only this have I taught them, but also that "I came out from Thee." For this He was anxious to prove through all the Gospel.

He takes our infirmities without himself being infirm and hungers without hungering. He sends up what is ours that is may be abolished. As he does this, in the same way, the gifts that come from God instead of our infirmities he also receives so that we, being united to him, may be able to partake of them. This is how the Lord says, "All things whatever you have given me, I have given them," and again, "I pray for them." For he prayed for us, taking on himself what is ours and giving what he received. Since then, the Word was united to man himself and the Father purposed for us to be exalted and have power, therefore all things that we receive through him [i.e., the Son] are referred to the Word himself. For as he for our sake became man, so we for his sake are exalted. It is no absurdity then, if, as for our sake he humbled himself, so also for our sake he is said to be highly exalted. So "he gave to him" means, in essence, "[he gave] to us for his sake." And "he highly exalted him" means essentially "[he exalted] us in him." And the Word himself—when we are exalted and receive and are helped as if he himself were exalted and received and were helped—gives thanks to the Father, referring what is ours to himself and saying, "All things, whatever you have given me, I have given unto them."

Here they have kept this: "Now they have come to know that all things which You have given Me are from You." Some read the Greek "have come to know" as "now I have known"; but such a reading is unfounded. "Now," He says, "My disciples have learned that I have nothing separate, and that I am not a stranger to You, but that all things which You have given Me (given not as a gift, as to some creature, for this was not acquired by Me) are from You, that is, belong to Me as a Son and a Person having authority over that which belongs to the Father." My disciples, from where did they learn this?

Father, the fact that they kept your word in this way gives you glory. For this is my word: everything I have I have from you. Now they know that everything that you have given me, that is, to your Son in his human nature, is from you: "We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (1:14), that is to say, we saw him as having everything from the Father. And because they know this, the Father receives glory in their minds.

But what human language will suffice to explain how the Father gave those words to the Son? The question, of course, will appear easier if we suppose Him to have received such words in His capacity as the Son of man. And yet, although thus born of the Virgin, who will undertake to relate when and how it was that He learned them, since even that very generation which He had of the Virgin who will venture to declare? But if our idea be that He received these words of the Father in His capacity as begotten of, and co-eternal with, the Father, let us then exclude all such thoughts of time as if He existed previous to His possessing them, and so received the possession of that which He had not before; for whatever God the Father gave to God the Son, He gave in the act of begetting. For the Father gave those things to the Son without which He could not be the Son, in the same manner as He gave Him being itself. For how otherwise would He give any words to the Word, wherein in an ineffable way He hath spoken all things?

Because the words which you gave me, I have given to them: above in the fifteenth chapter: "All things that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you." And they kept my words, which I gave to them, and therefore your word: on this account he says: And they have received them, by subjecting their understanding, and have known truly that I came forth from you, according to the divine nature; and they have believed that you sent me, namely, into the flesh. And thus they believed and knew the Divinity in Christ and the humanity. And it should be noted that he says: And they believed that you sent me: and afterward: And they knew that I came forth from you. They themselves said above in the sixteenth chapter: "In this we have known that you came forth from God"; because through faith in the assumed humanity one arrives at the understanding of the eternal generation. Whence Augustine says that those who despised the humble Christ did not merit to know the exalted Christ. This therefore is the first reason for hearing their petition, namely, the preservation of Christ's words: whence above in the fifteenth chapter: "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, whatever you will, you shall ask, and it shall be done for you."

He testified then to those who love Him, that they received and kept the words given Him by the Father, and were besides satisfied that He came, and was sent, from God; while those who were diseased with the contrary opinion were otherwise minded. For they who neither received His words nor kept their minds open to conviction, were not disposed to believe that He came from God, and was sent by Him. Moreover, the Jews said on one occasion: If this Man were from God, He would not have broken the Sabbath; and on another, We are disciples of Moses: we know that God hath spoken unto Moses, but as for this Man we know not whence He is. You see how they denied His mission; so that they even cried in their shamelessness, they knew not whence He was. And that they did not admit His unspeakably high birth from everlasting, I mean His proceeding from God the Father, diseased as they were by the great perversity of their thoughts, and ready to stone Him with stones merely because of His Incarnation, you may easily satisfy yourself, if you will listen to the words of the Evangelist: For this cause therefore the Jews sought to kill Him, because He not only brake the Sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. And what the impious Jews said unto Him is also recorded: For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God. You will understand then very clearly, that those who truly keep His words have believed and confessed that He manifested Himself from the Father (for this is, I think, what I came forth means), and that He was sent to us to tell us the commandment of the Lord, as is said in the Psalms; while they who laughed to scorn the Word, Who was thus Divine and from the Father, rejected the faith, and plainly denied that He was God and from the Father, and that He came to us for our salvation, and dwelt among us, yet without sin. Justly, then, does He commend to God the Father, those who are good men, and are His own, and have submitted their souls to the hearing of His words, and will ever hold them in remembrance; that what He said may be made clear, beginning from the time of His sojourn amongst us. And what are His words? Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father Which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father Which is in heaven. This also God the Father Himself long ago declared that He would do, speaking by the mouth of Isaiah: Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and the servant whom I have chosen. Our Saviour then speaks, at the same time, in His character as God, and in His character as Man. For He was at once God and Man, speaking in either character without reproach, suiting each occasion with appropriate words as it required.

"For the words which You gave Me, I have given to them," that is, from My words, from My teaching, for I always taught them that which is from the Father, and not only this did I teach, but I also taught that I came forth from You, and that You sent Me. For throughout the entire Gospel He wished to establish that truth, that He is not an adversary of God, but fulfills the will of the Father.

The reason this gives glory, that is, that this obedience of the disciples to the Son gives glory to the Father, is stated when he says, for I have given them the words which you gave me. First he states that knowledge comes from the Father to the disciples; secondly, that the minds of the disciples are led back to the Father.

It is stated that knowledge is given in two ways. In the first way the Father gives to the Son. Thus he says: the words which you gave me, in my eternal generation, in which the Father gave words to the Son, although the Son himself is the Word of the Father. These words are nothing else but the patterns or plans of everything which is to be done. And all these patterns the Father gave to the Son in generating him. Or, it could be said that the you gave me refers to the humanity of Christ, because from the very instant of his conception the most holy soul of Christ was full with all knowledge of the truth, "full of grace and truth" (1:14), that is, with the knowledge of every truth: "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3).

The other giving of knowledge is from Christ to his disciples, so he says, I have given them, by teaching them, both from without and from within: "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (15:15). By saying this he shows that he is the mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), because what he received from the Father he passed on to the disciples: "I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord" (Deut 5:5).

He mentions that the minds of the disciples were led back to the Father when he says, and they have received them. Two kinds of receiving are mentioned, corresponding to the two kinds of giving previously stated. One kind of receiving corresponds to the second kind of giving and as to this he says, and they have received them, from me, without resisting: "The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious" (Is 50:5); "Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me" (6:45). And receiving them, they know in truth that I came from you, that you have given me all things, and this corresponds to the first kind of giving.

According to Augustine the words that follow, and they have believed that you did send me, are added to explain the previous sentence, "I came from you." Knowledge of God is of two kinds: one is perfect, by the clear vision of glory; the other is imperfect, through faith: "For now we see in a mirror dimly," in the second way, "but then face to face," in the first way (1 Cor 13:12). He says, they know in truth that I came from you. But what kind of knowledge was this? The knowledge of our homeland, heaven? No, it was the knowledge of faith. And so he adds, and they have believed, indicating that to know this is to believe it. They have believed I say, in truth, that is, firmly and strongly: "Do you now believe?" that is, firmly. "The hour is coming" when you will believe completely (16:31). He uses the past tense, have believed, in place of the future tense because of his certainty about the future, and because of the infallibility of divine predestination.

Or, according to Chrysostom, he uses the past tense to indicate that these things have already happened, because they had already begun. We can harmonize both of these interpretations because all these things had already begun, but they still remained to be completed. Thus, in reference to what has already begun, he speaks in the past tense, but in reference to their completion he speaks in the future, because they would be accomplished by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

But what did they believe? That you did send me: "God sent his Son" (Gal 4:4). According to Augustine this is the same as "I came from you" (v 8). This does not agree with Hilary for whom, as was said, "to come forth" (exire) refers to the eternal generation of the Son, and "to be sent" refers to the incarnation of the Son. But I say that we can speak of Christ in two ways. In one way, from the point of view of his divinity; and then, insofar as he is the Son of God "to come forth" and "to be sent" are not the same, as Hilary says. Or, we can speak of Christ from the point of view of his humanity; and then, insofar as he is the Son of man, "to come forth" and "to be sent" are the same, as Augustine says.

When the Lord was speaking to the Father of those whom He already had as disciples, He said this also among other things: "I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for those whom Thou hast given me." By the world, He now wishes to be understood those who live according to the lust of the word, and stand not in the gracious lot of such as were to be chosen by Him out of the world. Accordingly it is not for the world, but for those whom the Father hath given Him, that He expresses Himself as praying: for by the very fact of their having already been given Him by the Father, they have ceased to belong to that world for which He refrains from praying.

And then He adds, "For they are Thine." For the Father did not lose those whom He gave, in the act of giving them to the Son; since the Son still goes on to say, "And all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine." Where it is sufficiently apparent how it is that all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son; in this way, namely, that He Himself is also God, and, of the Father born, is the Father's equal: and not as was said to one of the two sons, to wit, the elder, "Thou art ever with me; and all that I have is thine." For that was said of all those creatures which are inferior to the holy rational creature, and are certainly subordinate to the Church; wherein its universal character is understood as including those two sons, the elder and the younger, along with all the holy angels, whose equals we shall be in the kingdom of Christ and of God: but here it was said, "And all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine," with this meaning, that even the rational creature is itself included, which is subject only to God, so that all beneath it are also subject to Him. As it then belongs to God the Father, it would not at the same time be the Son's likewise, were He not equal to the Father: for to it He was referring when He said, "I pray not for the world, but for those whom Thou hast given me: for they are Thine, and all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine." Nor is it morally admissible that the saints, of whom He so spake, should belong to any save to Him by whom they were created and sanctified: and for the same reason, everything also that is theirs must of necessity be His also to whom they themselves belong, Accordingly, since they belong both to the Father and to the Son, they demonstrate the equality of those to whom they equally belong.

(Tr. cvi) When He adds, I pray not for the world, by the world He means those who live according to the lust of the world, and have not the lot to be chosen by grace out of the world, as those had for whom He prayed: But for them which Thou hast given Me. It was because the Father had given Him them, that they did not belong to the world. Nor yet had the Father, in giving them to the Son, lost what He had given: For they are Thine.

And I pray for them. Here is touched upon the second reason for being heard on behalf of the Apostles, namely the divine election itself: because our Lord himself was praying for the elect, not for the reprobate. Therefore he says: I pray for them, because, namely, they are elect: therefore he says: I do not pray for the world, "that is, for those devoted to the world," whom you have blinded; but for those whom you have given me, that is, whom you have saved through me; in Acts twenty-seven it was pointedly said to Paul: "Behold, God has given you all the souls of those who sail with you." Nor, because you have given them to me, have you taken them from yourself: Because they are yours.

But here a question is raised about this, that the Lord here prays for the Apostles: Because above in the sixteenth chapter it is said: I do not say to you that I will ask the Father concerning you; for the Father himself loves you: therefore here he does the contrary of what he had said. Likewise, the Lord himself prayed for none except the predestined, about whom he knew that God willed to save them in the end; but they would be saved without his prayer; therefore he prayed in vain. Likewise, why did he pray with vocal prayer? What was the necessity? I respond: It must be said that the Lord prayed for the Apostles for a threefold reason, namely for the obtaining of salvation, consolation, and instruction: because he merited for them, because from hearing these words they were consoled, because they were instructed to pray from this, and we ourselves as well; therefore he prayed with vocal prayer. To the objection that the Lord said above: I do not say to you that I will ask the Father, etc.; the Lord did not wish to deny that he would pray for them, since it is said in Hebrews 9 that he appears before the face of God to intercede for us; but rather that he would not pray to the Father as though to one unwilling, but as to one benevolent toward the Apostles themselves. But one asks: to what end does he pray? Augustine says in On the Predestination of the Saints that we are not heard except on behalf of the predestined, and for them we do not pray in vain, because "perhaps they were predestined so that they might be granted through our prayers." So also in Christ.

There is a question about what he says: I pray for them, not for the world. On the contrary: Below in the same chapter: That the world may believe that you sent me; therefore he was praying that the world might believe. Likewise, he ought to have prayed for those for whom he was sent and for whom he ought to die; but he died for the world; above in chapter 3: God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son. Likewise, by world are understood sinners; but those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ailing; therefore it was especially necessary to pray for such people. I respond: It must be said that world is taken in three ways in this prayer, and on account of this it generates ambiguity, and a fourth mode is added besides. For world is said to be the visible globe itself; and so it is taken above in chapter 1: The world was made through him. Sometimes it is said to be the state of our sojourn, insofar as it has misery attached to it; and so there: These are in the world, and I come to you. Sometimes, insofar as it names the state of the present sojourn together with fault; and so below: The world has hated them. Sometimes, insofar as it implies eternal reprobation; and so it is taken there: I pray for them; I do not pray for the world. In the first mode it denotes nature; in the second mode, nature and misery; in the third, nature and misery and fault; in the fourth mode, nature and misery and fault and divine reprobation.

CHAPTER VIII. That nothing which is spoken of as belonging to the Father will be excluded from the kingdom of the Son, for Both alike rule over all.

He once more mediates as Man, the Reconciler and Mediator of God and men; and being our truly great and all-holy High Priest, by His own prayers He appeases the anger of His Father, sacrificing Himself for us. For He is the Sacrifice, and is Himself our Priest, Himself our Mediator, Himself a blameless Victim, the true Lamb Which taketh away the sin of the world. The Mosaic ceremonial was then, as it were, a type and transparent shadowing forth of the mediation of Christ, shown forth in the last times, and the high priest of the Law indicated in his own person that Priest Who is above the Law. For the things of the Law are shadows of the truth. For the inspired Moses, and with him the eminent Aaron, continually intervened between God and the assembly of the people; at one time deprecating God's anger for the transgressions of the people of Israel, and inviting mercy from above upon them when they were faint; at another, praying and blessing the people, and ordering sacrifices according to the Law and offerings of gifts besides in their appointed order, sometimes for sins, and sometimes thank-offerings for the benefits they felt that they had received from God. But Christ Who manifested Himself in the last times above the types and figures of the Law, at once our High Priest and Mediator, prays for us as Man; and at the same time is ever ready to cooperate with God the Father, Who distributes good gifts to those who are worthy. Paul showed us this most plainly in the words: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. He then prays for us as Man, and also unites in distributing good gifts to us as God. For He, being a holy High Priest, blameless and undefiled, offered Himself not for His own weakness, as was the custom of those to whom was allotted the duty of sacrificing according to the Law, but rather for the salvation of our souls, and that once for all, because of our sin, and is an Advocate for us: And He is the propitiation for our sins, as John saith; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

But perhaps someone, wishing to controvert what we have said, will exclaim, "Is not what the disciple says quite contrary to the Saviour's words?" For our Lord Jesus Christ expressly in these words repudiates the necessity of praying to God for the whole world, while the wise John affirmed quite the contrary. For he maintains that the Saviour will be the Advocate and propitiation, not merely for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world. It is not hard to find the solution to this difficulty, or to say how the disciple may be seen to be in accord with his Master's saying. For the blessed John, as he was a Jew and of the Jews, that some might not perhaps think that our Lord was merely an Advocate for the Israelites, and not in any sense for the rest of the nations scattered over the whole world, though destined to distinguish themselves by faith on Him and to be shortly called to knowledge of salvation through Christ, is perforce impelled to declare that our Lord will not only be the propitiation for the race of Israel, but also for the whole world; that is, those of every nation and kindred, who shall be called through faith to righteousness and sanctification. Our Lord Christ distinguishes from His own those who are otherwise minded, and who have chosen to insult Him by stubborn disobedience; and, referring to those who are prone to listen to His Divine commands, and who have already submitted, as it were, the necks of the hearts, and well-nigh bound round them the yoke of submission to God, said that for them only it was most fitting for Him to pray. For to those only, whose Mediator and High Priest He is, He thought it meet to bring the blessings of His mediation; to those, I mean, who, He says, were given to Himself, but were the Father's, as there is no other way of fellowship with God save by the Son. And He will Himself teach you this in the words: No one cometh unto the Father, but by Me. For observe how the Father, when He gave to His Son those of whom He speaks, won them over to Himself. And the Apostle, who was so conversant with the sacred writings, knowing this well, says: God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. For when Christ acted as Mediator, and received those who come to Him by faith, and brought them aright through Himself to the Father, the world was reconciled to God. Therefore also the Prophet Isaiah taught us, in anticipation, to choose peace with God, in Christ: Let us have peace with Him; let us who are in the way have peace. For if we banish from our hearts whatsoever estrangeth us from the love of Christ, I mean the base lasciviousness which hankers after sinful pleasure and is ever inclined to the delights of the world, and is besides the mother and nurse of all vice, and leads us widely astray, we shall become united in fellowship with Christ, and shall make peace with God, being joined to the Father Himself through the Son, inasmuch as we receive in ourselves the Word That was begotten of Him, and cry out in the Spirit, Abba, Father.

Christ, who manifested himself in the last times above the types and figures of the Law, at once our high priest and mediator, prays for us as man. And at the same time he is ever ready to cooperate with God the Father, who distributes good gifts to those who are worthy. Paul showed us this most plainly in the words "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Christ, then, prays for us as man and also unites in distributing good gifts to us as God. For he, being a holy high priest, blameless and undefiled, offered himself—not for his own weakness, as was the custom of those to whom was allotted the duty of sacrificing according to the Law, but rather for the salvation of our souls.

"I pray for them." "What sayest Thou?" "Dost Thou teach the Father, as though He were ignorant? Dost Thou speak to Him as to a man who knoweth not?" "What then meaneth this distinction?" Seest thou that the prayer is for nothing else than that they may understand the love which He hath towards them? For He who not only giveth what He hath of His own, but also calleth on Another to do the same, showeth greater love. What then is, "I pray for them"? "Not for all the world," He saith, but "for them whom Thou hast given Me." He continually putteth the "hast given," that they might learn that this seemeth good to the Father. Then, because He had said continually, "they are Thine," and, "Thou gavest them unto Me," to remove any evil suspicion, and lest any one should think that His authority was recent, and that He had but now received them, what saith He?

Showing that He says this to the Father for no other reason than only for their sake, so that they might know that He loves them and cares for them, He says: "I pray and ask for them, and not for the world." For by this I undoubtedly prove that I love them, when I not only give what is My own, but also ask You to keep them. Therefore, I pray to You not for wicked people who think in worldly terms, "but for those whom You have given Me, because they are Yours."

Now we see the reasons, founded on himself, why Christ prayed for his disciples. He mentions three reasons.

One is based on the authority he had received over them. In reference to this he says, I am praying for them, that is, the disciples. First we see the reason; secondly, its explanation, for they are yours.

The reason why a person's prayer should be heard and why he should pray for others is that they belong to him in a special way; for general prayers are less likely to be heard. Accordingly he says, I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world, that is, the lovers of the world, but for those whom you have given me, especially as obedient disciples, although all things are mine, under my authority: "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage" (Ps 2:8).

To the contrary, it seems that he prayed for all: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 Jn 2:1); "God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4). We should say to this that Christ did pray for all because his prayer is powerful enough to benefit the entire world. Yet it does not produce its effect in all, but only in the elect and saints of God. This is because of the obstacles present in the worldly.

But when He says, speaking of the Holy Ghost, "All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you," He referred to those things which concern the actual deity of the Father, and in which He is equal to Him, in having all that He has. And no more was it of the creature, which is subject to the Father and the Son, that the Holy Spirit was to receive that whereof He said, "He shall receive of mine;" but most certainly of the Father, from whom the Spirit proceedeth, and of whom also the Son is born.

He proceeds: "And I am glorified in them." He now speaks of His glorification as already accomplished, although it was still future; while a little before He was demanding of the Father its accomplishment. But whether this be the same glorification, whereof He had said, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," is certainly a point worthy of examination. For if "with Thee," how can it be "in them"? Is it when this very knowledge is imparted to them, and, through them, to all who believe them as His witnesses? In such a way we may clearly understand Christ as having said of the apostles, that He was glorified in them; for in saying that it was already accomplished, He showed that it was already foreordained, and only wished what was future to be regarded as certain.

(Tr. cvi. 6) It is sufficiently apparent from hence, that all things which the Father hath, the Only-Begotten Son hath; hath in that He is God, born from the Father, and equal with the Father; not in the sense in which the elder son is told, All that I have is thine. (Luke 15:31) For all there means all creatures below the holy rational creature, but here it means the very rational creature itself, which is only subjected to God. Since this is God the Father's, it could not at the same time be God the Son's, unless the Son were equal to the Father. For it is impossible that saints, of whom this is said, should be the property of any one, except Him who created and sanctified them. When He says above in speaking of the Holy Spirit, All things that the Father hath are Mine, (c. 16:15) He means all things which pertain to the divinity of the Father; for He adds, He (the Holy Ghost) shall receive of Mine; and the Holy Ghost would not receive from a creature which was subject to the Father and the Son.

(Tr. cvii. 3) He speaks of this as already done, meaning that it was predestined, and sure to be. But is this the glorifying of which He speaks above, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self? If then with Thyself, what meaneth here, In them? Perhaps that this very thing, i. e. His glory with the Father, was made known to them, and through them to all that believe.

The Lord says "all mine are yours," as if he were submitting his lordship over creation to the Father, but he also adds "yours are mine," to show that the creating command came from the Father to him. The Son did not need help to accomplish his work, nor are we to believe that he received a separate commandment for each portion of his work. Such extreme inferiority would be entirely inadequate to his divine glory. Rather, the Word was full of his Father's grace. He shines forth from the Father and accomplishes everything according to his parent's plan. He is not different in essence, nor is he different in power from his Father, and if their power is equal, then their works are the same. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. All things were made through him, and all things were created through him and for him, not as if he were discharging the service of a slave, but instead he creatively fulfills the will of his Father.

And all my things are yours, and yours are mine: above in the sixteenth chapter: "All things that the Father has are mine," and conversely. Therefore he said above in the seventh chapter: "My doctrine is not mine"; therefore my servants and my elect are your elect. And this is the second reason for being heard on behalf of the Apostles, namely their election: therefore above in the fifteenth chapter: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain: that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you."

And I am glorified. Here is touched upon the third reason, namely the desolation of the disciples at the departure of Christ, which was approaching: on account of which approaching he says he has been glorified and has departed, because it was about to happen imminently: therefore he says: And I am glorified in them: because they had known him and were soon to know him more fully.

Those then who have been given to Christ are the Father's, but are not therefore removed from Christ. For God the Father reigneth with Him, and through Him ruleth over His own. For the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity share the same kingdom, and their universal dominion is one and the same; and whatever is the Son's will be subject to the glory of the Son and the Father; and also, whatever is said to be under the rule of the Father, over that the Son will surely hold sway. And therefore He saith: And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine. For as in Them perfect identity of Nature is visible and evident, the opinion held about Their majesty is not various, and does not attribute anything individually to One apart from the Other, but considers one and the same glory, identical in every respect, to attach to Both. For He That is by right of His Nature the Heir of His Father's Divine dignities will clearly have all that the Father hath, and will also show that His Father hath all that He Himself hath. For Either naturally reveals the Other in Himself; and the Son is seen in the Father, and the Father also in the Son. This kind of instruction the inspired writings gave us in the mystery. When, then, universal dominion is one of the dignities of the Father, it will belong also to the Son; for He is the express Image of His Person, and can endure no shadow of unlikeness or variance at all. He declares that He has been glorified in them, showing that His prayer for them is, as it were, a recompence well deserved.

Angels did not create the world, but the only-begotten Son, begotten, as I have said, before all ages, by whom all things were made, nothing having been excepted from his creation.… "For all mine are yours and yours are mine," the Lord says in the Gospels. And this we may certainly know from the Old and New Testaments. For he who said, "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness" was certainly speaking to someone present. But clearest of all are the psalmist's words, "He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created," as if the Father commanded and spoke and the Son made all things at the Father's bidding.

For if the Son were not of the same nature as the Father, how could he have had in himself that which was different? Or how could he have shown in himself what was dissimilar if the foreign and alien nature did not receive the stamp of what was of a different kind from itself? But [Eunomius] says, "Neither does he have a divider of his glory." Here he speaks truly even though he does not know what he is saying. For the Son does not divide the glory with the Father but has the glory of the Father in its entirety, even as the Father has all the glory of the Son. For this is what he said to the Father, "All mine are yours and yours are mine." Notice how Christ also says that he will appear on the judgment day "in the glory of the Father," when he will render to every one according to his works. And by this phrase he shows the unity of nature that subsists between them. For as "there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon," because of the difference between the natures of those luminaries (since if both had the same glory we would think there was any difference in their nature), so he who foretold of himself that he would appear in the glory of the Father indicated by the identity of glory their community of nature.

"All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them." Seest thou the equality of honor? For lest on hearing, "Thou hast given them Me," thou shouldest deem that they were alienated from the authority of the Father, or before this from that of the Son, He removed both difficulties by speaking as He did. It was as though He said, "Do not when thou hearest that 'Thou hast given them to Me,' deem that they are alienated from the Father, for what is Mine is His; nor when thou hearest, 'Thine they were,' think that they were aliens from Me, for what is His is Mine." So that the, "Thou hast given," is said only for condescension; for what the Father hath is the Son's, and what the Son hath is the Father's. But this cannot even be said of a son after the manner of man, but because They are upon a greater Equality of honor. For that what belongs to the less, belongs to the greater also, is clear to every one, but the reverse not so; but here He converteth these terms, and the conversion declares Equality. And in another place, declaring this, He said, "All things that the Father hath are Mine," speaking of knowledge. And the "hast given Me," and the like expressions, are to show that He did not come as an alien and draw them to Him, but received them as His own. Then He putteth the cause and the proof, saying, "And I am glorified in them," that is, either that "I have power over them," or, that "they shall glorify Me, believing in Thee and Me, and shall glorify Us alike." But if He is not glorified equally in them, what is the Father's is no longer His. For no one is glorified in those over whom he hath no authority. Yet how is He glorified equally? All die for Him equally as for the Father; they preach Him as they do the Father; and as they say that all things are done in His Name, so also in the Name of the Son.

Now, if all things that are the Father's are also Christ's, certainly among those things that exist is the Father's omnipotence. Of course, the only-begotten Son ought to be omnipotent, that the Son also may have all things that the Father possesses. "And I am glorified in them," he declares. For "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow." … Therefore he is the effluence of the glory of God in this respect, that he is Almighty—the pure and vivid Wisdom itself—glorified as the effluence of omnipotence or glory.So that it may be more clearly understood what the glory of omnipotence is, we shall add the following: God the Father is omnipotent because he has power over all things, namely, over heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars and all things in them. And he exercises his power by means of his Word.… Now if every knee is bent to Jesus, then, without doubt, it is Jesus to whom all things are subject, and he it is who exercises power over all things and through whom all things are subject to the Father. For through wisdom, that is, by word and reason, not by force and necessity, all things are subject.

Lest you, hearing constantly how He says "You have given Me," should think that this dominion and authority were given to Him recently, and that while the Father had them, He (the Son) did not have them, or again that now, when He has them, the Father has been deprived of authority over them—for this reason He says: "And all Mine is Yours, and Yours is Mine." I did not receive this authority just now, but when they were Yours, they were also Mine. For all that is Yours is Mine. And now, when I Myself have them, You also have them, and have not been deprived, for all that is Mine is Yours. "And I am glorified in them," that is, having authority over them, I am glorified in them as Master, just as the son of a king, having equal honor and kingdom with the father, is glorified by the fact that he has as much as the father. So, if the Son were less than the Father, He would not have dared to say "all Yours is Mine," for a master has everything that belongs to the slave, but the slave does not have everything that belongs to the master. Here, however, He mutually attributes: the Father's to the Son, and the Son's to the Father. So, the Son is glorified in those who belong to the Father; for He has as much authority over all as the Father.

He gives a reason for why he prays for them when he says, for they are yours, that is, by eternal predestination. But they were not yours in such a way that the Son could not have them; nor were they given to the Son in such a way that they were taken from the Father. Thus he says, all mine are yours, and yours are mine. This indicates the equality of the Son with the Father, for the Son, insofar as he is God, has from all eternity everything that the Father has.

Note that the Father has certain things that belong to his essence, like wisdom, goodness, and things of that kind; and these things are nothing else but his essence. And the Son asserts that he himself has this when, speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit, he says: "He will receive from me and declare it to you" (16:14). This is because "All that the Father has is mine" (16:15). He says all, because while all these things are one in reality, we apprehend them with many ideas.

Secondly, the Father has certain things that relate to those who possess holiness or sanctity, who are set apart for him through faith, such as all the saints and the elect, of whom it was said, "thine they were" (v 6). All these things, too, the Son asserts that he has when he says here, speaking of them, and yours are mine, because they have been predestined to enjoy the Son as well as the Father.

Thirdly, the Father has some things in a general way because of their origin, for example, all created things: "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" (Ps 24:1). All these too belong to the Son. Thus in the parable of the prodigal son, the father says to his older son: "Son... all that is mine is yours" (Lk 15:31).

The second reason why Christ prayed for his disciples is based on the glory he had in them: for they already knew something of his glory, and would know it more fully: "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet 1:16).

Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour, delivered to us the great mystery of godliness, and called both Jews and Gentiles to the acknowledgment of the one and only true God His Father, as Himself somewhere says, when He was giving thanks for the salvation of those that had believed, "I have manifested Thy name to men, I have finished the work Thou gavest me;" and said concerning us to His Father, "Holy Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet have I known Thee; and these have known Thee." With good reason did He say to all of us together, when we were perfected concerning those gifts which were given from Him by the Spirit: "Now these signs shall follow them that have believed in my name: they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall by no means hurt them: they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

"And now," He adds, "I am no more in the world, and these are in the world." If your thoughts turn to the very hour in which He was speaking, both were still in the world; to wit, He Himself, and those of whom He was so speaking: for it is not in respect of the tendency of heart and life that we can or ought to understand it, so that they should be described as still in the world, on the ground that they still savored of the earthly; and that He was no longer in the world, because divine in the disposition of His mind. For there is one word used here, which makes any such understanding altogether inadmissible; because He does not say, And I am not in the world; but, "I am no more in the world:" thereby showing that He Himself had been in the world, but was no more so. And are we then at liberty to believe that He at one time savored of the worldly, and, delivered at length from such a mistake, no longer retained the old disposition? Who would venture to shut himself up in so profane a meaning. It remains, therefore, that in the same sense in which He Himself also was previously in the world, He declared that He was no longer in the world, that is to say, in His bodily presence; in other words, showing thereby that His own absence from the world was now in the immediate future, and theirs later, when He said that He was no longer here, and that they were so, although both He and they were still present. For He thus spake, as a man in harmony with men, in accordance with the prevailing custom of human speech. Do we not say every day, he is no longer here, of one who is on the very point of departure? And such in particular is the way we are wont to speak of those who are at the point of death. And besides all else, the Lord Himself, as if foreseeing the thoughts that might possibly be excited in those who were afterwards to read these words, added, "And I come to Thee:" explaining thereby in some measure why He said, "I am no more in the world."

Accordingly He commends to the Father's care those whom He was about to leave by His bodily absence, saying: "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me." That is to say, as man He prays to God in behalf of His disciples, whom He has received from God. But attend to what follows: "That they may be one," He says, "even as we." He does not say, That they may be one with us, or, that they and we may be one, as we are one; but He says, "That they may be one, even as we:" meaning, of course, that in their nature they may be one, even as we are one in ours. Which certainly would not be spoken with truth, unless in this respect, that He, as God, is of the same nature as the Father also, in accordance with what He has said elsewhere, "I and the Father are one;" and not with what He also is as man, for in this respect He said, "The Father is greater than I." But since one and the same person is God and man, we are to understand the manhood in respect of His asking; but the Godhead, in as far as He Himself, and He whom He asks, are one.

(Tr. cvii. 4) At the time at which He was speaking, both were still in the world. Yet we must not understand, I am no more in the world, metaphorically of the heart and life; for could there ever have been a time when He loved the things of the world? It remains then that He means that He was not in the world, as He had been before; i. e. that He was soon going away. Do we not say every day, when any one is going to leave us, or going to die, such an one is gone? This is shewn to be the sense by what follows; for He adds, And now I come to Thee. And then He commends to His Father those whom He was about to leave: Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me. As man He prays God for His disciples, whom He received from God. But mark what follows: That they may be one, as We are: He does not say, That they may be one with Us, as We are one; but, that they may be one: that they may be one in their nature, as We are one in Ours. For, in that He was God and man in one person, as man He prayed, as God He was one with Him to Whom He prayed.

(iv. de Trin. c. ix) He does not say, That I and they maybe one, though He might have said so in the sense, that He was the head of the Church, and the Church His body; not one thing, but one person: the head and the body being one Christ. But shewing something else, viz. that His divinity is consubstantial with the Father, He prays that His people may in like manner be one; but one in Christ, not only by the same nature, in which mortal man is made equal to the Angels, but also by the same will, agreeing most entirely in the same mind, and melted into one Spirit by the fire of love. This is the meaning of, That they may be one as We are: viz. that as the Father and the Son are one not only by equality of substance, but also in will, so they, between whom and God the Son is Mediator, may be one not only by the union of nature, but by the union of love.

And I am no longer in the world: because, above in the fourteenth chapter, "I will no longer speak much with you"; and these are in the world, and I come to you, and therefore I leave them desolate: above in the sixteenth chapter: "I go to him who sent me: but because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart." And this was the third reason for being heard; whence above in the fourteenth chapter: "I go to the Father: and whatever you ask the Father in my name, this I will do."

Holy Father. After the manifold reason for asking has been set forth, here in the fourth place is added the petition itself, by which he asks for their preservation in good: on account of which he says: Holy Father, keep them in your name, whom you have given me, that is, in the power of your name: above in the tenth chapter: "No one can snatch them from my Father's hand." Keep them, I say, in good: whence he says: That they may be one, even as we are, namely in the unity of concord and peace, which unity God preserves in the elect, but nevertheless with their own solicitude: therefore Ephesians four: "Being solicitous to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.

CHAPTER IX. That the dignity of Godhead is inherent in the Son; even though He is said to have received this from the Father, because of His humanity and the form of His humiliation.

He still preserves the blending of two things into one: the human element, I mean, which, so far as we are concerned, imparts humiliation, and the Divine element, which is pregnant with the most exalted majesty. For His speech is combined of both; and, just as we stated in our interpretation of the foregoing passage, the Divine element is not perfectly exalted to the height, nor yet is it wholly sundered from the limitations of humanity, holding as it were a middle place by an unspeakable and ineffable fusion of the two, so as not to pass outside the limits of true Godhead, nor yet altogether to leave behind those of humanity. For His ineffable descent from God the Father exalts Him, inasmuch as He is the Word and Only-begotten, into a Divine Nature and the majesty which naturally accompanies it, while His humiliation brings Him down in some sort to our level, not as though it availed perforce to overpower the kingship over the universe which He shares with the Father, for the Only-begotten could never submit to violence against His Will. Rather was His humiliation self-chosen, accepted and maintained from love towards us. For He humbled Himself, that is, of His own Will and not by any compulsion. For He would be proved to have undergone the Incarnation against His Will, if there were any one at all able to prevail over Him, and who bade Him unwillingly take this upon Him. He humbled Himself therefore willingly for our sakes, for we should never have been called His sons and God's, if the Only-begotten had not undergone humiliation for us and on our account; to Whose Likeness we are conformed by participation in the Spirit, and so become children of God, and God's. Whenever, therefore, in His sayings, He blends together in some way the human with the Divine, do not be therefore offended, nor lightly relinquish the admiration you ought to feel at the incomparable art displayed in His sayings, skilfully preserving for us in divers ways their twofold character, so that we can see at the same time the God and the Man speaking truly in His Nature, marvellously combining the humiliation of His Humanity with the glory of His ineffable Divinity; preserving wholly blameless and irreproachable the harmonious fusion of the two.

And how is it that, when we say this, we do not affirm that the Nature of the Word is degraded from its original majesty? To think this would indeed display the greatest ignorance; for that which is Divine is altogether and wholly changeless, and endureth no shadow of turning but rather ever remaineth on one stay. We rather make such a statement because the manner of His voluntary degradation, as by necessary inference investing Him with the form of humiliation, causes the Only-begotten, Who is coequal with, and in the Likeness of, the Father, and in Him and proceeding from Him, to be apparently in an inferior position to Him. Be not astonished at hearing this, if the Son appear to fall short of the Father's majesty because of His Humanity, when for this very reason Paul declared that He was thus inferior even to the angels, in the following words: Him Who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, though the holy angels were bidden to worship Him, for when, He says, He bringeth in the Firstborn into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him, as well as also the Holy Seraphim, who stood around and fulfilled the office of servants when He appeared unto the prophet sitting on a high and lofty throne. Then, so far as His being begotten and proceeding from God the Father is concerned, His Humanity is not proper to the Son; but it is proper to Him in so far as He is Incarnate Man, and remaineth ever what He was and is, and will be such for evermore, and debaseth Himself to what He was not of old for our sakes.

He saith, then: Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, even as We are. He desires His disciples to be kept by the power and might of the Ineffable Divine Nature, well and suitably attributing the power of saving whomsoever He will, yea, and with ease, to the true and living God; and thereby, again, He glorifies no other nature than His own, as in the Person of the Father, from Whom He proceeded as God. Therefore He saith, Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; that is, the Name of God. He says again, that the Name of God was not given unto Him as though He had not been God by Nature, and were now called from without to the dignity of Godhead. For then would He be created, and possess a spurious and elective glory and an adulterate nature, which it were impious for us to imagine. For thereby He would be mulcted of His inherent character of Sonship. But since, as the inspired writings prophesy, the Word became flesh, that is, man, He says that He received Divine attributes by gift; for clearly the title and actuality of Divine glory could not naturally attach to man. But consider, and attentively reflect, how He showed Himself the living and inherent Power of God the Father, whereby He doeth all things. For when, addressing His Father, He says, Keep them, He did not indeed suffice for them alone, but suitably brought in Himself as working for their preservation and being for that purpose also the power and instrument of His Father; for He says: Keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me. Note how guarded the saying is. For allotting and attributing as suitable only to the Nature of God providential care over us, He declares at once that to Himself has been given the glory of Godhead, because of the form of manhood, saying that what was His by natural right was given to Him; that is, the Name which is above every name. Therefore also we say that this Name belongs to the Son by nature, as proceeding from the Father; but, so far as He is Man, those things are His by gift which He receives as Man, using herein the form of speech applicable to ourselves; for man is not God by nature, but Christ is God by nature, even though He be conceived of as Human because He was amongst us.

He wishes indeed the disciples to be kept in unity of mind and purpose, being blended, as it were, with one another in soul and spirit and the bond of brotherly love; and to be linked together in an unbroken chain of affection, so that their unity may be so far perfected as that their elective affinity may resemble the natural unity which exists between the Father and the Son; and, remaining undebased and invincible, may not be distorted by anything whatever that exists in the world, or by the lusts of the flesh, into dissimilarity of purpose; but rather preserving in the unity of true piety and holiness the power of love intact, which also came to pass. For, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul, in the unity that is of the Spirit. And this is what Paul himself also meant, when he said: One body and one Spirit; for we who are many are one body in Christ, for we all partake of the one bread, and we have all received the unction of one Spirit, that is, the Spirit of Christ. As, then, they were to be one body, and to partake of one and the selfsame Spirit, He desires His disciples to be preserved in a unity of spirit which nothing could disturb, and in unbroken singleness of mind. And if any man suppose that after this manner the disciples are united even as the Father and the Son are One, not merely in Substance, but also in purpose (for the holy Nature of God has one Will, and one and the selfsame purpose altogether), let him so think. For He will not stray wide of the mark, since we can see identity of purpose among true Christians, though we have not consubstantiality as the Father and the Word That proceeded from Him, and is in Him.

And I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to Thee.

What then is His request, and why does He endeavour to obtain God's favour for His followers? I am no more in the world, He says, and these are in the world, and, I come to Thee. For while He yet lived in converse with His holy Apostles in the flesh upon earth, the consolation of His visible Presence was ever with them in their daily path, as it were to give instant succour to those in peril; and they were therefore sustained in courage. For the mind of man is readier to rely upon the things that are seen than the things that are unseen, for encouragement or pleasure. When we say this, we are far from asserting that the Lord is powerless to save, if He be not visibly present; for any one who thought this would rightly be convicted of folly. For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, yea, and for ever. But He knew that His disciples were very faint at heart, left desolate as it were on the earth, with the world raging round them like fierce billows, and ever ready to beleaguer with intolerable terrors and imminent and great dangers those who persist in bearing God's tidings to the uninitiated.

Since then, He says, I come to Thee, for I shall soon ascend to sit on the throne of God the Father, and reign with Him, and these will remain the while in the world, I pray for them, for Thou gavest them Me; and as Thine and Mine now I rightly care for them, and I am glorified in them, for all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are Thine, and Thine are Mine. And the saying is true. For those in the world who have been given to Christ, and are on that account the Father's, have not therefore disavowed the duty of praising Him through Whom they were united to God the Father, and having been brought to Him, will remain none the less His. For He hath all things in common with the Father, together with His inherent Godhead and power. For there is one God in us, Who is worshipped in the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity; and we all of us belong to the one true God, being subject as servants to the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity.

Christ wishes the disciples to be kept in a state of unity by maintaining a like-mindedness and an identity of will, being mingled together as it were in soul and spirit and in the law of peace and love for one another. He wishes them to be bound together tightly with an unbreakable bond of love, that they may advance to such a degree of unity that their freely chosen association might even become an image of the natural unity that is conceived to exist between the Father and the Son. That is to say, he wishes them to enjoy a unity that is inseparable and indestructible, which may not be enticed away into a dissimilarity of wills by anything at all that exists in the world or any pursuit of pleasure, but rather reserves the power of love in the unity of devotion and holiness. And this is what happened. For as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, "the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul," that is, in the unity of the Spirit. This is also what Paul himself meant when he said "one body and one Spirit." "We who are many are one body in Christ for we all partake of the one bread," and we have all been anointed in the one Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.

Showing himself to them simultaneously as God and man, Christ induces his disciples to reflect that he would work to accomplish their salvation in God whether present or absent. And that as he had them in his keeping while he was with them on the earth in the form of man, so also would he keep them while absent from them as God.… For that which is divine is not bounded by space and is not far from anything that exists but fills and pervades the universe. And though it is present in all things, it is contained by none. When addressing his own Father, Christ says, "Holy Father, keep them," referring … to the universal working of the power of the Father. And at the same time showing that he does not stand apart from the nature of the Father but being in it and proceeding from it, Christ is indivisibly united with it, though he is conceived of as independently existing.

We thank Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy name which Thou didst cause to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which Thou modest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Thou, Master almighty, didst create all things for Thy name's sake; Thou gavest food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to Thee; but to us Thou didst freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Thy Servant. Before all things we thank Thee that Thou art mighty; to Thee be the glory for ever. Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in Thy love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for Thy kingdom which Thou hast prepared for it; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever.

In a word, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians throughout the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body but is not of the body. Likewise, Christians dwell in the world but are not of the world. The soul, which is invisible, is confined in the body, which is visible. In the same way, Christians are recognized as being in the world, and yet their religion remains invisible. The flesh hates the soul and wages war against it, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is hindered from indulging in its pleasures. Similarly, the world also hates the Christians, even though it has suffered no wrong, because they set themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it and its members, and Christians love those who hate them. The soul is enclosed in the body, but it holds the body together. And though Christians are detained in the world as if in a prison, they in fact hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal, lives in a mortal dwelling. In a similar way, Christians live as strangers amid perishable things, while waiting for the imperishable in heaven. The soul, when poorly treated with respect to food and drink, becomes all the better. And so Christians when punished daily increase more and more. Such is the important position to which God has appointed them, and it is not right for them to decline it.

John, who especially brings out the working of spiritual causes in the Gospel, preserves this prayer of the Lord for the apostles that all the others passed over. Notice how he prayed, namely, "Holy Father, keep them in your name.… While I was with them, I kept them in your name: those whom you gave me I have kept." That prayer was not for himself but for his apostles. He was not in sorrow for himself since he asks them to pray that they won't be tempted.… And when he prays, he prays for those whom he preserved, so long as he was with them, whom he now hands over to the Father to preserve. Now that he is about to accomplish the mystery of death, he begs the Father to guard them. The presence of the angel who was sent to him (if this explanation is true) is no doubt significant. Jesus showed his certainty that the prayer was answered when, at its close, he commands the disciples to sleep. The effect of this prayer and the security that prompted the command, "sleep," is noticed by the Evangelist in the course of the passion, when he says of the apostles just before they escaped from the hands of the pursuers, "That the word might be fulfilled which he had spoken, 'Of those whom you have given me, I lost not one of them.' " He himself fulfills the petition of his prayer, and they are all safe. But he asks that those whom he has preserved the Father will now preserve in his own name. And they are preserved; the faith of Peter does not fail: it cowered, but repentance followed immediately.

Wherefore it is fitting that ye also should run together in accordance with the will of the bishop who by God's appointment rules over you. Which thing ye indeed of yourselves do, being instructed by the Spirit. For your justly-renowned presbytery, being worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Thus, being joined together in concord and harmonious love, of which Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian, do ye, man by man, become but one choir; so that, agreeing together in concord, and obtaining a perfect unity with God, ye may indeed be one in harmonious feeling with God the Father, and His beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord. For, says He, "Grant unto them, Holy Father, that as I and Thou are one, they also may be one in us." It is therefore profitable that you, being joined together with God in an unblameable unity, should be the followers of the example of Christ, of whom also ye are members.

"And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world." That is, "Although I appear no longer in the flesh, yet by these am I glorified." But why doth He say continuously, that, "I am not in the world"; and that, "because I leave them I commit them to Thee"; and that, "when I was in the world I kept them"? for if one should take these words in their simple sense, many absurdities will follow. For how could it be reasonable to say, that He is no longer in the world, and that when He departeth He committeth them to another? since these are the words of a mere man parting from them forever. Seest thou how He speaketh for the most part like a man, and in a way adapted to their state of mind, because they thought that they had a greater degree of safety from His presence? Wherefore He saith, "While I was with them, I kept them." (c. xiv.28.) Yet He telleth them, "I come to you"; and, "I am with you till the end." (Matt. xxviii. 20.) How then saith He these words, as if about to be parted from them? He addresseth Himself, as I said before, to their thoughts, that they may take breath a little when they hear Him speaking thus, and delivering them over to the care of the Father. For since, after hearing many exhortations from Him, they were not persuaded, He then holdeth converse with the Father, manifesting His affection for them. As though He had said, "Since Thou callest Me to Thyself, place these in safety; for I come to Thee." "What sayest Thou? Art Thou not able to keep them?" "Yea, I am able." "Wherefore then speakest Thou thus?" "That they may have My joy fulfilled" (ver. 13); that is, "may not be confounded, as being imperfect." And by these words He showed that He had spoken all these things so, to give them rest and joy. For the saying appears to be contradictory. "Now I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world." This was what they were suspecting. For a while therefore He condescendeth to them, because had He said, "I keep them," they would not have so well believed; wherefore He saith, "Holy Father, keep them through Thine own Name"; that is, "by thy help."

Run through the whole Gospel, and you will find that He whom you believe to be the Father (described as acting for the Father, although you, for your part, forsooth, suppose that "the Father, being the husbandman," must surely have been on earth) is once more recognised by the Son as in heaven, when, "lifting up His eyes thereto," He commended His disciples to the safe-keeping of the Father. We have, moreover, in that other Gospel a clear revelation, i.e. of the Son's distinction from the Father, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me? " and again, (in the third Gospel, ) "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.

Why does He constantly say this: "I am no longer in the world" and "while I was with them in the world"? To one who understands these words simply, they will appear contradictory. For in another place He promised them: "I will be in you" (John 15:4) and "you will see Me" (John 16:17), yet now He appears to be saying something different. So it can truly be said that He says this, accommodating Himself to their understanding. It was natural for them to be grieved, since they were being left without a helper. He declares to them that He is entrusting them to the Father and giving Him to them as their guardian, and then says to the Father: "Since You are calling Me to Yourself, keep them Yourself 'in Your name,' that is, by Your help and power, which You gave to Me." In what then to keep them? "That they may be one." For if they have love for one another, and there are no divisions among them, then they will be invincible, and nothing will overcome them. And not simply that they may be one, but just as I and You had one mind and one will. For unanimity — that is their safeguard. So, to comfort them, He implores the Father to keep them. For if He had said "I will keep you," they would not have believed so deeply. But now, when He implores the Father on their behalf, He gives them a firm hope.

The third reason why he prays for them is his coming physical absence; so he says, and now I am no more in the world. Note that one is said to be "in the world" in two senses. First, by clinging to the world by one's affections: "For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" (1 Jn 2:16). This is not the sense in which Christ was no longer in the world, since he never clung to it with his affections. He is no longer in the world in another way, that is, by his physical presence, for while he had been in the world physically, he would soon physically leave it. But they, the disciples, are in the world, physically present. And I am coming to you, as regards my humanity, to share your glory and to be seated at your right hand. So it is fitting that I pray for those whom I will soon physically leave.

After Christ stated his reasons for praying for the apostles, he here makes his petitions: first, he asks for their protection; secondly, for their sanctification, sanctify them (v 17). They are to be protected from evil, and sanctified by good. In regard to the first he does two things: first, he asks for their protection; secondly, he mentions why they need protection (v 12).

In regard to the first, four things must be considered: whom he asks; what he asks for; for whom he asks; and why he asks. The one he asks is the Father; so he says, Father: and with good reason, for the Father is the source of every good: "Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (Jas 1:17). He adds, Holy, because the Father is also the source and origin of all holiness and because, in the last analysis, he was asking for the sanctification of the apostles: "You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev 19:2); "There is none holy like the Lord" (1 Sam 2:2).

He asks for their protection, saying, keep them, for as we read: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (Ps 127:1). For our good consists not only in receiving existence from God, but also in being kept in existence by God, because as Gregory says: "All things would return to nothingness, if the hand of the Almighty did not uphold them"; "upholding the universe by his word of power" (Heb 1:3). Accordingly, the Psalmist prays: "Keep me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in you" (Ps 16:1). Now we are kept from evil and from sin in the name of God; thus he says, keep them in your name, that means, by the power of your name and of your knowledge, for in these lay our glory and our well-being: "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses. But we will call upon the name of the Lord our God" (Ps 20:7).

He is praying for those who were given to him; he says, which you have given me: "Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked?" (Eccl 7:13). For one can be kept from evil only by God's choice, which is indicated when he says, which you have given me, that is, by a gift of grace, so that they remain with me: "Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given" (Mt 19:11). Those who are given to Christ in this way are kept from evil.

Then he states why he is asking for their protection, saying, that they may be one, even as we are one. This can be connected with what has gone before in two ways. In the first way, it shows the way they will be kept or protected. Then the meaning is: They will be kept and protected by being kept as one. For a thing is preserved in existence as long as it remains one, and it ceases to be when it becomes divided: "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste" (Mt 12:23). Accordingly, the Church and people can be preserved if they remain one. In another way this phrase can state the purpose of their being kept. Then the meaning is this: Let them be kept or protected so that they may be one: for our entire perfection lies in a unity of spirit: "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:3); "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity" (Ps 133:1).

He adds, even as we are one. This causes a problem. The Father and Son are one in essence. And so we also will be one in essence? This is not true. The solution is that the perfection of each thing is nothing but sharing a likeness to God; for we are good to the extent that we resemble God. Accordingly, our unity contributes to our perfection to the extent that it shares in the unity of God. Now there is a twofold unity in God. There is a unity of nature: "I and the Father are one" (10:30); and a unity of love in the Father and Son, which is a unity of spirit. Both of these unities are found in us, not in an equal way, but with a certain likeness. The Father and the Son have the same individual nature, while we have the same specific nature. Again, they are one by a love which is not a participated love and a gift from another; rather, this love proceeds from them, for the Father and Son love themselves by the Holy Spirit. We are one by participating in a higher love.

Here, if I am asked why God should not have given them perseverance to whom he gave that love by which they might live in a Christian way, I answer that I do not know. I am not speaking arrogantly but rather with an acknowledgment of my own small capabilities when I hear the apostle saying, "O man, who are you that makes a reply against God?" … Insofar as he condescends to make his judgments known to us, let us give thanks. However, insofar as he thinks it is fitting to conceal them, let us not murmur against his counsel. Rather, let us believe that this also is the most wholesome for us. But whoever of you are in opposition to his grace and ask [concerning this question of perseverance], what do you yourself say? It is well that you do not deny yourself to be a Christian and boast of being a catholic. If, therefore, you confess that to persevere to the end in good is God's gift, I think that equally with me you are ignorant why one person should receive this gift and another should not receive it. And in this case we are both unable to penetrate the unsearchable judgments of God.

When, therefore, God's children say of those who did not have perseverance, "They went out from us, but they were not of us," and add, "Because if they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us," what else are they saying than that they were not children, even when they were called and professed to be children? It is not because they simulated righteousness but because they did not continue in it. For he does not say, "If they had been of us, they would assuredly have maintained a real and not a feigned righteousness with us." Rather, he says, "If they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us." Beyond a doubt, he wanted them to continue in goodness. Therefore they were in goodness. However, because they did not remain in it—that is, they did not persevere to the end—he says, "They were not of us, even when they were with us." In other words, they were not of the number of children even when they were in the faith as children because those who are truly children are foreknown and predestined as conformed to the image of his Son. They are called according to his purpose so as to be elected, as is evident in the fact that the son of promise does not perish, but the son of perdition does.

But here He proceeds: "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name." Since I am coming, He says, to Thee, keep them in Thy name, in which I myself have kept them while I was with them. In the Father's name, the Son as man kept His disciples, when placed side by side with them in human presence; but the Father also, in the name of the Son, kept those whom He heard and answered when praying in the name of the Son. For to them had it also been said by the Son Himself: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you." But we are not to take this in any such carnal way, as that the Father and Son keep us in turn, with an alternation in the guardianship of both in guarding us, as if one succeeded when the other departed; for we are guarded all at once by the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, who is the one true and blessed God. But Scripture does not exalt us save by descending to us: as the Word, by becoming flesh, came down to lift us up, and fell not so as to remain Himself in the depths. If we have known Him who thus descendeth, let us rise with Him who lifteth us up; and let us understand, when He speaks thus, that He is marking a distinction in the persons, without making any separation of the natures. While, therefore, the Son in bodily presence was keeping His disciples, the Father was not waiting the Son's departure in order to succeed to the guardianship, but both were keeping them by Their spiritual power; and when the Son withdrew from them His bodily presence, He retained along with the Father the spiritual guardianship. For when the Son also as man assumed the office of their guardian, He did not withdraw them from the Father's guardianship; and when the Father gave them to the guardianship of the Son, in the very giving He acted not apart from Him to whom He gave them, but gave them to the Son as man, yet not apart from that same Son Himself as God.

The Son therefore goes on to say: "Those that Thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled." The betrayer of Christ was called the son of perdition, as foreordained to perdition, according to the Scripture, where it is specially prophesied of him in the 109th Psalm.

(Tr. cvii. 6) The Son as man kept His disciples in the Father's name, being placed among them in human form: the Father again kept them in the Son's name, in that He heard those who asked in the Son's name. But we must not take this carnally, as if the Father and Son kept us in turns, for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost guard us at the same time: but Scripture does not raise us, except it stoop to us. Let us understand then that when our Lord says this, He is distinguishing the persons, not dividing the nature, so that when the Son was keeping His disciples by His bodily presence, the Father was waiting to succeed Him on His departure; but both kept them by spiritual power, and when the Son withdrew His bodily presence, He still held with the Father the spiritual keeping. For when the Son as man received them into His keeping, He did not take them from the Father's keeping, and when the Father gave them into the Son's keeping, it was to the Son as man, who at the same time was God. Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; i. e. the betrayer of Christ, predestined to perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, especially the prophecy in Psalm 108.

When I was with them, etc. After he sought preservation in the good, here he seeks deliverance or rescue from evil; and here the petition or prayer itself is set forth in this manner. For first, the necessity of petitioning is noted; second, the form of the petition; third, the reason for granting it. The necessity therefore of seeking preservation comes from a twofold cause: both from the absence of the preserver, and from the immersion in tribulation.

Christ was being made absent from them, he who had preserved them: therefore he says: While I was with them, I kept them in your name. He preserved the disciples in the name of the Father, because by the power of the Father and because for the glory of the Father: and afterward the Father kept them in the name of the Son: whence above in the sixteenth chapter: "If you shall ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you." And indeed he kept them well: therefore he says: Those whom you gave me, I have guarded, as a good prelate, to whom it is said in 3 Kings 20: "Guard this man, for if he shall have escaped, your life shall be for his life." Concerning this guardianship, in the Psalm: "Behold, he shall neither slumber nor sleep who guards Israel"; and again: "Unless the Lord shall have guarded the city, he watches in vain who guards it"; whence the Psalm: "Guard us, O Lord, as the pupil of the eye"; Deuteronomy 32: "He led him about and taught him and guarded him as the pupil of his eye." And well indeed: whence he says: And none of them perished except the son of perdition, that is, Judas, who is called of perdition because he was foreknown unto death. For he destroyed himself temporally; Matthew 27: "He went and hanged himself with a noose"; he destroyed himself eternally; Matthew 26: "Woe to that man! by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him if that man had not been born." For the same reason, it is said of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2: "Then shall be revealed the man of sin, the son of perdition." He did not perish by chance nor by Christ's negligence, but by his own malice, which was foreknown from eternity and foretold through Scripture; therefore he says: That the Scripture might be fulfilled, namely of that Psalm: "O God of my praise." Thus therefore I was keeping them well, and then they did not need me to pray for them.

There is a question concerning what he says: When I was with them, I kept them. From this he seems to suggest powerlessness in himself, because in his very absence he could not keep them. It also seems from this that the works of the Trinity are divided and performed alternately, because first the Son kept them, and now he asks the Father to keep them. I respond: It must be said that there are two ways of keeping, namely effectively and dispositively. In the first way, it belongs to him to keep whose it is to give being; in the second way, it can belong to another. In the first way, God preserves man in the good: in the second, one man preserves another by good instruction and example, as a prelate his subjects. I say therefore that Christ speaks here of preservation that was dispositive, by a dispositive mode, namely by example and exhortation and instruction: and this was to be withdrawn along with his bodily presence. In the other way he kept them interiorly with the Father insofar as he is God: but he does not speak of this, and this he did not withdraw, but exercised it together with the Father.

There is a question concerning what he says: Those whom you gave me I have kept: and none of them perished except the son of perdition. Against this: Above in chapter six: All that the Father gives me shall come to me: and above in chapter ten: No one snatches the sheep from my hands: therefore none of the sheep ought to have perished. I respond: It must be said that the Father gives some to the Son in two ways, namely by eternal foreknowledge those whom he predestined and foreknew to be conformed to the image of his Son; and he gives some according to present justice. When therefore it is said that he lost none of those given to him, he speaks according to predestination; when he excepts Judas, he speaks according to present justice.

Our Saviour's speech soon proceeds to illustrate His meaning more plainly; and while at the first dark hints were given, it is now proclaimed and revealed like a storm breaking into sunshine. For the disciples thought that our Saviour's abandonment of them,----I mean in the flesh,----would inflict on them great loss; for nothing could prevent His being with them as God. But they expected that no one could then save them after Christ's Ascension into heaven, but that they would fall a prey to those who wished to injure them, and that there would be nothing to restrain the hand of their powerful adversaries, but rather that any one so disposed might work his will on them without hindrance, and involve them in any peril. But wise as they were and fathers in the faith, and bearers of light to the world, we need not shrink from saying that they ought not merely to have regarded the Incarnate Presence of our Saviour Christ, but to have known that even though He were to deprive them of converse with Him in the flesh, and they saw Him not with the eye of the body, yet that it was their duty at any rate to think of Him as present with them for evermore in the power of His Godhead. For will God ever lose the attributes of His Person? Or what power can resist an Omnipotent Nature, or is able perforce to hinder it in the performance of its functions? And it is the power and actuality of God's Being to be present everywhere, and unspeakably to fill the heavens and also the earth, and to contain all things, but to be contained of none. For God is not bounded by place, nor separated by distance within any sphere, however great; for such like things cannot avail to affect that Nature which has nothing to do with the dimensions of space. Then, since Christ was at the same time God and Man, the disciples ought to have been aware that, though He were absent in the body, yet He would not wholly forsake them, but would be ever with them by reason of God's unspeakable might. And for this reason also our Saviour Himself said, in the foregoing passage: Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; and here again: While I was with them, I kept them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; almost pointing out this fact to His disciples, that the ability to save them suited rather the working of His power as God than His Presence in the flesh: for this very flesh was not sanctified of itself; but when, by His Incarnation, the Word was made one with it, it was in some sort transformed into His inherent power, and is now become the channel of salvation and sanctification to those who partake thereof. We must not then attribute the whole of the Divine activities of Christ to the flesh by itself, but we shall be rather right if we ascribe them to the Divine power of the Word. For does not "keeping the disciples in the Name of the Father" mean this, and nothing else? For they are kept by the glory of God. He removes, then, from His disciples' minds, the fear which they felt because they thought themselves forsaken; often following the same course of thought, He assures them that they will be in perfect safety, not through living with their Master in the body, but rather because He is by Nature God. Evidently the universal dominion and might which are His have no end; for He can suffer no change or alteration from that state in which He dwells eternally, but will keep them safe with ease for evermore, and rescue them from every peril that may assail them. Consider also the forethought wrapped up in the saying, to our profit and edification. For when He asks that they----I mean His holy disciples ----should be kept by God the Father, He declares that He Himself had done this, showing Himself like in power and works to His Father, or rather, His inherent might. For surely He Who is seen to have the same power as God, He Who is acknowledged the true God, must be thought to be wholly inherent in Him, and to possess equality of power and identity of Nature with Him. And how can He Who kept them as God in the Name of God, and as a God crowned them with the glory that proceeded from righteous actions befitting the title, be foreign to God, or of different nature? Is He not in very deed shown to be that which He is, namely, God? For nothing that exists can do those works which are peculiar to God, without being in its own nature that which we imagine God to be. He still preserves in the passage the twofold conception of His character owing to His Incarnation. For He takes away, as it were, from His Nature, as a created Being, the power of saving and preserving all to whom this is due for their piety towards God. and ascribes it to the Name of the Father, attributing to the Divine Nature alone the things which are of God. And for this reason, again, though He says that He kept the disciples, He did not give the honour of taking up the work to His Humanity, but rather says that it was fulfilled in the Name of God; excluding Himself, in a manner, from its accomplishment, so far as He is flesh and is so conceived of, but not excluding Himself from the power of keeping them, and of accomplishing the works of a God, insomuch as He is God, and from God, the all-working power of the Father----a Divine force which even when at rest displays by its very attributes the Nature from which it ineffably proceeded. And if here too, again, He says that the Name of God has been given unto Him, although He is in fact God by Nature, as the Only-begotten Who proceeded from Him, He is not thereby in truth degraded, nor would He thereby exclude Himself from the honour and glory which is His due. Far from it. For to receive is appropriate to His Humanity, and can be fittingly ascribed thereto; for, of itself, humanity possesses nothing.

He says that He so kept His disciples, and had such care for them, that none of them was lost save one, whom He called the son of perdition; as though he were doomed to destruction of his own choice, or rather his own wickedness and impiety. For it is inconceivable that the traitor disciple was by a Divine and irresistible decree entangled, as it were, in the snare of the fowler, and brought within the devil's noose; for then would he surely have been guiltless when he succumbed to the verdict of heaven. For who shall oppose the decree of God? And now he is condemned and accursed, and it would have been better for him if he had never been born. And why? Surely the wretched man met his doom as a consequence of his own volitions, and is not convicted by destiny. He that was so enamoured of destruction may well be called a son of perdition, inasmuch as he merited ruin and corruption, and ever awaits the day of perdition as fraught with anguish and lamentation.

And as Christ added to the words He used concerning him, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, we have given an explanation which may be useful to readers of this passage. For it was not because of any prophecy in Scripture that the traitor was lost, and became so vile as to barter for a few coins the precious Blood of Christ, but rather, as through his own innate wickedness he betrayed his Lord, and was infallibly destined to destruction on that account, the Scripture, which cannot lie, foretold that so it would be. For the Scripture is the Word of God, Who knows all things, and carries in His own consciousness the character and life of each one of us, and his conversation from the beginning to the end. Moreover, the Psalmist, attributing to Him knowledge of all things, of the past as well as of the future, thus addresses Him: Thou understandest all my thoughts afar off; Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. The Divine Word, then, Which had complete foreknowledge, and saw the future as though it were already present, besides all the rest which It told us about Christ, revealed unto us that he that was ranked a disciple would also die the death of a traitor. Still, the foreknowledge and foretelling of the future indicated not the pleasure and commandment of God; nor yet was the prophecy directed to compel the actual fulfilment of the evil that was foreshadowed and the conspiracy against the Saviour, but rather to avert it. For when Judas had this knowledge he might, at any rate, if he had so chosen, have shunned and avoided the result, as he was free to determine his inclinations in any direction.

Put perhaps you will say, "How, then, can Christ be said to have kept His disciples, if merely in pursuance of the inclinations and volitions of their own wills the rest escaped the devil's net while Judas alone was taken, ill-fated beyond the others? How, then, can the safekeeping here spoken of be said to have been of profit?

Nay, my good friend, we answer, soberness is indeed a good thing, and the keeping guard over our minds profiteth much, together with an earnest endeavour towards the doing of good works and stablishing ourselves in virtue, for so shall we work out our own salvation; but this alone will not avail to save the soul of man. For it stands in urgent need of assistance and grace from above, to make what is difficult of achievement easy to it, and to render the steep and thorny path of righteousness smooth. And to prove to you that we are not able to do anything at all of ourselves without the aid of Divine grace, hearken to the voice of the Psalmist: If the Lord build not the house, their labour is in vain that build it: and if the Lord keep not the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

I say, then, that it is our bounden duty to foster and practise a home-bred self-denial and a religious frame of mind; but in so doing also to ask help of God, and, receiving the aid that comes from above as a panoply proof against every assault, to acquit ourselves like men. When God has once for all vouchsafed to grant our prayer, and it is therefore in our power to subdue the might of our adversaries, and conquer the power of the devil, if we do not choose to follow him when he allures us to pleasure or any other kind of sin; then, I say, if we let our wills comply with him, and, yielding to our wicked inclinations, are entangled in his noose, how can we any more with justice accuse any one else, or fail to attribute our doom to our own folly? For is not this what Solomon said long ago: The foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord? And this is unquestionably the case. If, however, the traitor was unable to enjoy the succour of the Saviour as much as the other disciples, let any man only prove this, and we submit; but if, while he was, in common with the rest, encompassed by the Divine grace, of his own will he relapsed into the abyss of perdition, how can Christ be said not to have kept him, when He vouchsafed him the riches of His mercy, and increased, so far as it was possible in any man's case, his chance of safety, if he had not chosen his doom of his own will? His grace, moreover, was conspicuous in the rest, continually keeping in safety those who made their own free-will, as it were, co-operate therewith. For this is the manner in which the salvation of each one of us is achieved.

For he (Antichrist) being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, [i.e., one] in subjection to God, but an impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself [all] satanic apostasy, and setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of the other idols. This he does, in order that they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians: "Unless there shall come a failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God." The apostle therefore clearly points out his apostasy, and that he is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped-that is, above every idol-for these are indeed so called by men, but are not [really] gods; and that he will endeavour in a tyrannical manner to set himself forth as God.

"While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy Name." Again He speaketh as a man and as a Prophet, since nowhere doth He appear to have done anything by the Name of God.

"Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." And in another place He saith, "Of all that Thou gavest Me, I will surely lose nothing." (c. vi. 39.) Yet not only was he lost, but also many afterwards; how then saith He, "I will in nowise lose"? "For My part, I will not lose." So in another place, declaring the matter was more clearly, He said, "I will in nowise cast out." (c. vi. 37.) "Not through fault of Mine, not because I either instigate or abandon them; but if they start away of themselves, I draw them not by necessity."

But after having said that "none of them was lost but the son of perdition," He added, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Of what Scripture doth He speak? That which foretelleth many things concerning Him. Not that He perished on that account, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But we have before spoken at length on this point, that this is the peculiar manner of Scripture, which puts things which fall out in accordance with it, as though they were caused by it. And it is needful to enquire exactly into all, both the manner of the speaker, his argument, and the laws of Scripture, if at least we are minded not to draw wrong conclusions. For, "Brethren, be not children in your minds." (1 Cor. xiv. 20.)

But O ungodliest of people, "seed of Canaan and not of Judah," and no longer "a vessel of election" but "a son of perdition" and death! You thought the devil's instigations would profit you better so that, inflamed with the torch of greed, you were ablaze to gain thirty pieces of silver without seeing the riches you would lose. For even if you did not think the Lord's promises were to be believed, what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what you had already received? You were allowed to command the evil spirits, to heal the sick, to receive honor with the rest of the apostles. And that you might satisfy your thirst for gain, you had the opportunity to steal from the box that was in your charge. But your mind, which lusted after forbidden things, was more strongly stimulated by what was less allowed. It was not the amount of the price that pleased you so much as the enormity of the sin. And so your wicked bargain is not so detestable merely because you valued the Lord so cheaply but because you sold him who was the redeemer, yes, even yours, and yet you asked for no pity for yourself. And justly was your punishment put into your own hands because none could be found more cruelly bent on your destruction than yourself.

"I kept them in Your name" – He says this not because He could not keep them otherwise than by the name of the Father, but, as we have said many times, because His listeners were weak and did not yet conceive anything great about Him. For this reason He says: "By Your help I kept them." Together with this He also strengthens them in hope, that just as during My time with you, you were kept by the name and help of My Father, so too, believe, you will again be preserved by Him; for keeping you is a customary matter for Him. There is much abasement in these words, if one does not receive them as one should. For see what is presented here. "Those whom You gave Me, I kept." It appears that He is commending them to the Father, so that the Father also would keep them, just as someone handing over property to another for safekeeping might say: "Look, I lost nothing; do not lose anything either." But all this He says for the consolation of the disciples. I sought to keep them, Lord, yet how is it that none were lost when Judas perished and many others turned back (John 6:66)? "For My part," He says, "I destroyed no one. Whatever depended on Me, I left nothing unfulfilled, but I kept them, that is, I endeavored in every way to preserve them. But if they fell away of their own accord, this is in no way attributable to My fault." "That the Scripture might be fulfilled," that is, every scripture foretelling about the son of perdition. For it is said concerning him in various psalms (Ps. 109:8, 17; Ps. 69:26) and in the rest of the prophetic books. Concerning the particle "that" we have spoken many times, that Scripture has the custom of calling the cause that which comes to pass afterwards.

Then he mentions why they need this protection (v 12). They need it for two reasons: because he is leaving them; and because the world hates them (v 14). He does three things about the first: he recalls the eagerness with which he protected them while he was with them; secondly, he states he is leaving (v 13a); thirdly, he mentions why he is saying these things (v 13b). Three things are done with the first: first, he mentions the way he protected them; secondly, his obligation to protect them; and thirdly, the effectiveness of his protection.

The way they were protected was appropriate, because it was by the power of the Father. Accordingly, he says, While I was with them, that is, physically present - "Afterward he appeared on earth and lived among men" (Bar 3:37) - I, the Son of man, kept, that is, protected them from evil and sin, not by human power, but rather by divine power, because it was in your name. This name is also common to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19) - because the Father and the Son are one God, and because the name of "Son" is implied in the name "Father," for one who has a son is called a Father.

Note that before, when Christ denied that he had a devil, he did not deny that he was a Samaritan, that is, a guardian, because Christ is a guardian: "Watchman, what of the night?" (Is 21:11), that is, the night of this world, for like a shepherd, Christ guards his flock.

His obligation to protect them is stated when he says, which you have given me, for a guardian is bound to protect those placed in his care: "Keep this man" (1 Kgs 20:39); "I will take my stand to watch" (Hab 2:1). This is the way a superior acts when he carefully watches over those entrusted to his care: "And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Lk 2:8).

The effectiveness of Christ's protection is complete, because none of them is lost: "My sheep hear my voice... and no one shall snatch them out of my hand" (10:27); "Every one who... believes in him should have eternal life" (6:40). One person is excluded, that is, the son of perdition, Judas. He is called the son of perdition as though foreknown and foreordained to eternal perdition. In this way those destined to die are called the sons of death: "You are the sons of death" (1 Sam 26:16); "You traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte... and you make him a son of death twice as much as yourself" (Mt 23:15).

A Gloss says that a "son of death is one who is predestined to perdition." It is not customary to say that one is predestined to evil, and so here we should understand predestination in its general meaning of knowledge or orientation. Actually, predestination is always directed to what is good, because it has the double effect of grace and glory; and it is God who directs us to each of these. Two things are involved in reprobation: guilt, and punishment in time. And God ordains a person to only one of these, that is, punishment, and even this is not for its own sake. That the scripture, in which you predicted that he would betray me - "Wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me" (Ps 109:2) - might be fulfilled.

"And now," He says, "come I to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." See! He says that He speaketh in the world, when He had said only a little before, "I am no more in the world:" the reason of which we have there explained, or rather have shown that He Himself explained it. Accordingly, on the one hand, as He had not yet departed, He was still here; and because He was on the very point of departure, in a kind of way He was no more here. But what this joy is whereof He says, "That they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves," has already been elucidated above, where He says, "That they may be one, even as we are." This joy of His that is bestowed on them by Him, was to be fulfilled, He says, in them; and for that very end declared that He had spoken in the world. This is that peace and blessedness in the world to come, for the attaining of which we must live temperately, and righteously, and godly in the present.

(Tr. cvii) Or thus: That they might have the joy spoken of above: That they may be one, as We are one. This His joy, i. e. bestowed by Him, He says, is to be fulfilled in them: on which account He spoke thus in the world. This joy is the peace and happiness of the life to come. He says He spoke in the world, though He had just now said, I am no more in the world. For, inasmuch as He had not yet departed, He was still here; and inasmuch as He was going to depart, He was in a certain sense not here.

But now I come to you, and I leave them, and therefore I pray, that they themselves may conceive confidence from my prayer; therefore he says: These things I speak in the world, that is, I make this prayer while they themselves are listening, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves, so that they may not be troubled by distrust, but may rejoice in themselves through the hope of being heard, according to that passage above in the sixteenth chapter: "Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." Therefore he himself was asking, so that they might conceive full joy. This therefore is the first necessity, namely the absence of the preserver; but the other is the immersion in tribulation, which on this account was about to rush upon them because of their observance of the divine word, on account of which the world held them in hatred.

Keep in mind once more what we were just now saying, and you will easily understand the drift of the passage. For He on all occasions preserved the juxtaposition of the two aspects of His character, at the same time displaying the Divine majesty for which He was pre-eminent, and not discarding the proper limitations of the Human Nature which He assumed at His Incarnation. For there would be something absurd in the supposition that He wished to disown what He had willingly taken upon Himself. For being Himself in lack of nothing, but the all-perfect Son of a perfect Father, He emptied Himself of His glory, not to do Himself any service, but rather to convey to us the blessing which would result from His humiliation. Showing Himself, then, to them as at the same time both God and Man, He, as it were, induces His disciples to reflect that absent, as well as present, He would work the things which made for their salvation in God; and that, as He had them in His keeping while He was yet with them on the earth in the form of Man, so also would He keep them while absent from them as God, through the excellency of His Substance. For that which is Divine is not bounded by space, and is not far from anything that exists, but fills and pervades the universe, and though present in all things is contained of none. When, addressing His own Father, He says: Holy Father, keep them, He at once refers, by right of its existence, to the universal working of the power of the Father; and at the same time shows that He standeth not apart from His Nature, but, being in it and proceeding from it, is indivisibly united with it, though He be conceived of as independently existing. Keep them, He says, in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me; and again: While I was with them, I kept them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me. We are bound, therefore, to think that, if He had kept them hitherto in the Name given Him by the Father, that is, in the glory of Godhead, for He gave unto Him the Name which is above every name; and if He wishes the Father Himself also to keep them in the Name given unto Him, He will not be excluded from acting in the work; for the Father will keep those who are knit to Him by faith through the agency of the Only-begotten, Who is His power and might. For He will not exercise His power in any way save through Him. Then, if even in the flesh He kept them, by the power and glory of His Godhead, how can we think that He will fail to think His disciples worthy of the mercy which they need; and how can they ever lose His sure support while the Divine power of the Only-begotten abideth evermore, and the power which is His by Nature is for ever firmly established? For that which is Divine admits of no variance at all, or of any change into any evil agency, but shines forth for ever in those attributes which belong to it eternally.

I have spoken then, He says, these things in the world, that My disciples might have My joy fulfilled in them. What kind of joy is meant we will proceed to show, putting away from us fear of dispute, because of the obscurity of the expression. The blessed disciples, then, thought indeed that while Christ was present with them in their daily lives, I mean, of course, in the flesh, they could easily rid themselves of every calamity and readily escape danger from the Jews, and that they would remain proof against every assault of their foes; but that when He was separated from them, and had gone up to heaven, they would fall an easy prey to perils of every sort, and would have to bear the attack of the king of terrors himself, as there was no one any more with them who was strong to save, and who could scare away the temptations that assailed them. For this cause, then, our Lord Jesus Christ neither disavowed the Manhood He had once for all taken upon Himself, nor yet showed Himself deficient in Divine power; speaking plainly to this intent, and saying that the Name of God had been given to Him as Man, but that through Him, and in Him, the Father c showed mercy to those who worshipped Him, and had them in safe keeping. What, then, was the wise object that He here had in view"? It was that the blessed disciples might understand and know well, if they only slightly considered this saying, that even when He was in the flesh, it was not through the flesh that He was working for their salvation, but in the omnipotent glory and might of His Godhead. My absence in the flesh then, He says, will do My disciples no harm, while the Divine power of the Only-begotten can easily keep them safe, even though He be not visibly present in the body.

We give this explanation, not as making of no account the holy Body of Christ----God forbid; but because it were more fitting that the accomplishment of His Word should be ascribed to the glory of the Godhead. For even the Body Itself of Christ was sanctified by the power of the Word made one with it. and it is thus endowed with living force in the blessed Eucharist, so that it is able to implant in us its sanctifying grace. Therefore also our Saviour Christ Himself, once conversing with the Jews, and speaking many things concerning His own Body, calling it the true Bread of Life, said: The bread which I will give you is My Flesh,; which I will give for the life of the world. And when they were sore amazed and perplexed to know how the nature of earthly flesh could be to them the channel of eternal life, He answered and said: It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I spake unto you are spirit, and are life. For here, too, He says that the flesh can profit nothing, that is, to sanctify and quicken those who receive it, so far, that is, as it is mere human flesh; but when it is understood and believed to be the temple of the Word, then surely it will be a channel of sanctification and life, but not altogether of itself, but through God, Who has been made one with it, Who is holy and Life. Ascribing everything, then, to the power of His Godhead, He says that His disciples will suffer no loss from His departure in the body, with reference, at any rate, to their seeking to be in His keeping. For the Saviour, though He be vanished into heaven, will yet not be far from those who love Him, but will be with them by the power of His Godhead.

In order, then, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves, He says, I have spoken these things in the world. What, then, is this joy which is fulfilled and perfect? It is the knowledge and belief that Christ was not a mere Man as we are, but that, besides being as we are, yet without sin, He is also the true God. It is clear, then, and beyond dispute, that He will always have the power to save those who worship Him at any time He will, even though He be not present in the body. For this knowledge will involve the perfect fulfilment of our own joy, inasmuch as we have an ally ever near us, Who is strong enough to rescue us from every evil.

"But now I come to thee." Seest thou that the discourse is composed rather in a human manner? So that should any wish from these words to lower the Son, he will lower the Father also. Observe, in proof of this, how from the beginning He speaketh partly as though informing and explaining to Him, partly as enjoining. Informing, as when He saith, "I pray not for the world"; enjoining, as, "I have kept them until now," "and none of them is lost"; and, "do Thou therefore now keep them," He saith. And again, "Thine they were, and Thou hast given them unto Me" and "While I was in the world I kept them." But the solution of all is, that the words were addressed to their infirmity.

"This," He says, "I speak in the world for the peace, consolation, and joy of the disciples, so that they may be encouraged and not troubled, since You receive them whole and will keep them, just as I also kept them, and lost none of them."

But now I am coming to you, physically leaving them: "I am leaving the world and going to the Father" (16:28). He had said before, "I kept them in your name," so that some would not fall into unbelief by misunderstanding this present statement (v 13) to mean that he could not protect them after he had left, or that the Father was not protecting them before. The Father was protecting them before. And the Son could also protect them after he left.

He gives the reason why he said these things when he says, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. It is like saying: I am like a man who is praying, and I am speaking these things to console my disciples, who think that I am merely human, so that at least they can be consoled because I am entrusting them to you, Father, whom they believe to be greater than I, and so they can rejoice in your protection. This is the interpretation of Chrysostom.

In the interpretation of Augustine, this present statement is related to "that they may be one, even as we are one" (v 11). In this case, these words (v 13) indicate the fruit of being one. It is like saying: that they may have my joy, by which they can rejoice in me, or, which they have received from me, fulfilled in themselves. They will obtain this joy by a unity of spirit, which will give them the joy of eternal life, which is full joy. And so this joy follows upon being one, because unity and peace produce perfect joy: "Those who follow plans for peace have joy" (Prv 12:20); "The fruit of the Spirit is joy" (Gal 5:22).