Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.1–10.10

I believe you remember, you who were present yesterday, the point in the course of this Epistle at which our exposition arrived: that is, "For whoever does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And this commandment we have from him, that whoever loves God should love his brother too." So far it had been discussed. Let us see, then, what follows in order. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." Who is it that does not believe that Jesus is the Christ? He who does not live as Christ commanded. For many say, "I believe"; but faith without works does not save. And the work of faith is love itself, as the apostle Paul says, "And faith which works through love." Your past works, before you believed, were either none, or, if they seemed good, they were empty. For if they were none, you were like a man without feet, or unable to walk on injured feet; but if they seemed good, before you believed, you were running indeed, but by running off the road you were straying rather than arriving. So we must both run and run on the road. Whoever runs off the road runs in vain; rather, he runs to toil. The more he runs off the road, the more he strays. What is the road on which we run? Christ said, "I am the way." What is the homeland to which we run? Christ said, "I am the truth." You run through him, you run to him, you rest in him. But that we might run through him, he stretched himself out to us; for we were far away, and on a far pilgrimage. It is not enough that we were on a far pilgrimage: we were sick and could not move ourselves. The physician came to the sick; the road was stretched out to the pilgrims. Let us be saved by him, let us walk through him. This is believing that Jesus is the Christ, as Christians believe who are Christians not in name only but in deeds and life: not as the demons believe. "For the demons also believe and tremble", as Scripture says. What more could the demons believe than to say, "We know who you are, the Son of God"? What the demons said, Peter too said. When the Lord asked who he was, and whom men said he was, his disciples answered him, "Some say you are John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." And he said, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And he heard from the Lord, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven." See what praises follow this faith: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." What does "on this rock I will build my Church" mean? On this faith, on what was said: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." "On this rock," he says, "I will found my Church." Great praise! So Peter says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"; and the demons say too, "We know who you are, the Son of God, the Holy One of God." Peter said this, and the demons said it too: the same words, not the same mind. And how is it clear that Peter said this with love? Because the faith of a Christian is with love, but the demon's is without love. How without love? Peter said this in order to embrace Christ; the demons said it so that Christ might depart from them. For before they said, "We know who you are; you are the Son of God", they said, "What have we to do with you? Why have you come before the time to destroy us?" So it is one thing to confess Christ in order to hold Christ, another to confess Christ in order to drive Christ away from you. So you see that when he says here, "whoever believes", it is a particular kind of faith, not as with many. So, brothers, let none of the heretics say to you, "We too believe." That is why I have set before you the example of the demons, so that you may not rejoice at the words of those who believe, but examine the deeds of those who live.

Let us see, then, what it is to believe in Christ; what it is to believe that Jesus is the Christ. There follows: "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." But what is it to believe this? "And everyone who loves him who begot loves him who is begotten of him." At once he has joined love to faith, because without love faith is empty. With love, it is the faith of a Christian; without love, the faith of a demon. But those who do not believe are worse than the demons and slower than the demons. Someone will not believe in Christ: he does not yet imitate even the demons. Someone now believes in Christ, but hates Christ: he has the confession of faith in fear of punishment, not in love of the crown; for they too were afraid of being punished. Add love to this faith, so that it becomes such faith as the apostle Paul speaks of, "faith which works through love": you have found a Christian, you have found a citizen of Jerusalem, you have found a fellow citizen of the angels, you have found a pilgrim sighing on the way. Join yourself to him; he is your companion; run with him, if you too are this. "Everyone who loves him who begot loves him who is begotten of him." Who begot? The Father. Who is begotten? The Son. What, then, does he say? Everyone who loves the Father loves the Son.

"By this we know that we love the children of God." What is this, brothers? A little before, he was speaking of the Son of God, not of the children of God: see, one Christ was set before us to contemplate, and it was said to us, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and everyone who loves him who begot", that is, the Father, "loves him who is begotten of him", that is, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And there follows, "By this we know that we love the children of God"; as though he were about to say, "By this we know that we love the Son of God", he said "the children of God", who a little before was speaking of the Son of God; because the children of God are the body of the only Son of God; and since he is the head and we the members, there is one Son of God. So whoever loves the children of God loves the Son of God; and whoever loves the Son of God loves the Father; nor can anyone love the Father unless he loves the Son; and whoever loves the Son loves the children of God too. What children of God? The members of the Son of God. And by loving he himself becomes a member, and comes through love to be in the structure of the body of Christ; and there will be one Christ loving himself. For when the members love one another, the body loves itself. "And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it." And what does he go on to say? "Now you are the body of Christ and members." He was speaking a little before of brotherly love, and said, "Whoever does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?" But if you love your brother, do you perhaps love your brother and not love Christ? How, when you love the members of Christ? So when you love the members of Christ, you love Christ; when you love Christ, you love the Son of God; when you love the Son of God, you love the Father too. So love cannot be separated. Choose what you will love; the rest follows you. You say, "I love God alone, God the Father." You lie: if you love, you do not love him alone; but if you love the Father, you love the Son too. "See," you say, "I love the Father, and I love the Son; but only this: God the Father and God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, that Word through whom all things were made, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; this alone I love." You lie: for if you love the head, you love the members too; but if you do not love the members, neither do you love the head. Do you not tremble at the voice of the head crying from heaven on behalf of the members, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He called the persecutor of his members his own persecutor; he calls the lover of his members his own lover. Now you know, brothers, what his members are: the Church of God itself. "By this we know that we love the children of God, because we love God." And how? Are the children of God not one thing, and God another? But whoever loves God loves his commandments. And what are the commandments of God? "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another." Let no one excuse himself by one love for another love; this love holds altogether together: as it is itself joined into one, so it makes all who depend on it one, and, like fire, as it were, fuses them together. It is gold: the mass is fused and becomes one thing; but unless the heat of love kindles it, it cannot be fused from many into one. "Because we love God, by this we know that we love the children of God."

And how do we know that we love the children of God? "Because we love God and do his commandments." We sigh here because of the difficulty of doing God's commandment. Hear what follows. O man, why do you toil in loving? In loving avarice! What you love is loved with toil; God is loved without toil. Avarice will command labours, dangers, grindings, tribulations; and you will obey. To what end? So that you may have something to fill your chest with, and lose your security. Perhaps you were more secure before you had it than when you began to have it. See what avarice commanded you: you have filled your house, robbers are feared; you have acquired gold, you have lost sleep. See what avarice commanded you: "Do it", and you did it. What does God command you? "Love me." You love gold: you will seek gold, and perhaps not find it; whoever seeks me, I am with him. You will love honour, and perhaps not attain it: who has loved me and not come to me? God says to you: You want to make a patron for yourself, or a powerful friend; you canvass for it through someone of lower rank. "Love me," God says to you: no one canvasses through anyone to reach me; love itself makes me present to you. What is sweeter than this love, brothers? Not without reason did you just now hear in the Psalm, brothers, "The unjust have told me of delights, but not as your law, O Lord." What is God's law? God's commandment. What is God's commandment? That new commandment, which is called new because it makes new: "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another." Hear that it is God's law: the apostle says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ." Love itself is the consummation of all our works. There is the end: for this we run; to it we run; when we have come to it, we shall rest.

You have heard in the Psalm, "I have seen the end of all consummation." He said, "I have seen the end of all consummation": what had he seen? Do we think that he had climbed to the summit of some very high and very sharp mountain and looked out and seen the circuit of the earth and the circles of the whole world, and therefore said, "I have seen the end of all consummation"? If this is praiseworthy, let us ask the Lord for eyes of the flesh so sharp, that we may look for some very lofty mountain on the earth, from whose summit we may see the end of all consummation. Do not go far: see, I tell you, climb the mountain and see the end. Christ is the mountain: come to Christ; from there you see the end of all consummation. What is this end? Ask Paul: "But the end of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned"; and in another place, "But love is the fulfilment of the law." What is so finished and complete as fulfilment? For indeed, brothers, he puts "end" in a praiseworthy sense. Do not think of consumption, but of consummation. For it is said in one sense, "I have finished the bread", in another, "I have finished the tunic." I have finished the bread by eating it; I have finished the tunic by weaving it. Both here and there "finish" sounds; but yet the bread is finished so as to be consumed, the tunic is finished so as to be completed; the bread is finished so as not to be, the tunic is finished so as to be perfect. So understand "end" in this way, also when the Psalm is read and you hear, "To the end, a Psalm of David." You hear this continually in the Psalms, and you ought to know what you hear. What is "to the end"? "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." And what does "Christ is the end" mean? Because Christ is God, and the end of the commandment is love, and God is love: because Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one. There is your end; elsewhere is the way. Do not stick on the way and fail to arrive at the end. Whatever else you come to, pass on until you arrive at the end. What is the end? "But for me it is good to cleave to God." You have cleaved to God, you have finished the way; you will abide in the homeland. Attend. Someone seeks money: let it not be your end; pass by as a pilgrim. Seek where to pass by, not where to remain. But if you love it, you are entangled by avarice; avarice will be a chain on your feet; you cannot go further. So pass by this too; seek the end. You seek the health of the body: do not remain there either. For what is this health of the body, which is destroyed by death, weakened by sickness, trivial, mortal, fleeting? Seek it lest sickly health should perhaps hinder your good works. So the end is not there, because it is sought for the sake of something else. Whatever is sought for the sake of something else, the end is not there; whatever is sought for its own sake and freely, there is the end. You seek honours: perhaps you seek them in order to do something, to accomplish something, to please God: do not love honour itself, lest you remain there. Do you seek praise? If you seek God's, you do well; if you seek your own, you do ill; you remain on the way. But see, you are loved, you are praised: do not rejoice when you are praised in yourself; be praised in the Lord, so that you may sing, "In the Lord my soul shall be praised." You speak some good discourse, and your discourse is praised? Let it not be praised as yours; the end is not there. If you put the end there, you are finished; but you are not finished as being perfected, but finished as being consumed. So let your discourse not be praised as from you, as yours. But how is it to be praised? As the Psalm says, "In God I will praise the discourse, in God I will praise the word." From this it comes about that what follows is done in you: "In God I have hoped; I will not fear what man may do to me." For when all that is yours is praised in God, there is no fear that your praise may perish, because God does not fail. So pass by this too.

See, brothers, how many things we pass by in which there is no end. We use these as on the way; we refresh ourselves, as it were, at the stopping-places of inns, and pass on. Where, then, is the end? "Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be": this was said here, in this Epistle. So we are still on the way; still, wherever we come, we must pass on until we arrive at some end. "We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." This is the end; there is everlasting praise, there Alleluia always without failing. So he spoke of this end in the Psalm: "I have seen the end of all consummation." And as if it were said to him, "What is the end that you have seen?": "Your commandment is exceedingly broad." This is the end: the breadth of the commandment. The breadth of the commandment is love, because where there is love there are no straits. The apostle was in this breadth when he said, "Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is enlarged; you are not restricted in us." So, "Your commandment is exceedingly broad." What is the broad commandment? "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another." So love is not in straits. Do you want not to be in straits on earth? Dwell in a broad place. For whatever a man does to you does not put you in straits, because you love what man does not harm: you love God, you love the brotherhood, you love the law of God, you love the Church of God; it will be everlasting. You labour on earth, but you will come to the promised fruit. Who takes from you what you love? If no one takes from you what you love, you sleep securely; rather, you keep watch securely, lest by sleeping you lose what you love. For not in vain was it said, "Enlighten my eyes, lest I ever sleep in death." Those who shut their eyes against love fall asleep in the desires of carnal delights. So wake up. For there are delights: eating, drinking, wantonness, gaming, hunting; all evils follow these vain pomps. Do we not know that they are delights? Who denies that they delight? But the law of God is loved more. Cry out against such persuaders: "The unjust have told me of delights, but not as your law, O Lord." This delight abides. Not only does it abide for you to come to, but it also calls back one who flees.

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." You have already heard, "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." How he did not want to scatter you through many pages! "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." On which two commandments? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind"; and, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." See, these are the commandments of which this whole Epistle speaks. Hold fast to love, then, and be secure. Why do you fear that you may do harm to someone? Who does harm to one whom he loves? Love: it cannot be done without your doing good. But perhaps you rebuke? Love does this, not cruelty. But perhaps you beat? You do it for discipline; because the love that belongs to love itself does not let you neglect one who is undisciplined. And sometimes there is, as it were, a different and contrary fruit, so that sometimes hatred flatters and love is fierce. Someone hates his enemy and feigns friendship toward him: he sees him do something evil, and he praises him; he wants him to be headlong, wants him to go blind over the precipices of his desires, from which perhaps he may not return; he praises him, "For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul"; he applies to him the ointment of his flattery: see, he hates, and he praises. Another sees his friend doing some such thing; he calls him back; if he does not listen to him, he even uses words of reproof, scolds him, quarrels with him: sometimes it comes to this necessity, that he quarrels. See, hatred flatters, and love quarrels. Do not attend to the words of the flatterer and the seeming harshness of the one who scolds; look at the vein, seek the root from which they come. The one flatters in order to deceive, the other quarrels in order to correct. So there is no need, brothers, for your heart to be stretched out by us: ask of God that you may love one another. Love all men, even your enemies; not because they are brothers, but that they may be brothers; so that you may always burn with brotherly love, whether toward one who has become a brother or toward an enemy, so that by being loved he may become a brother. Wherever you love a brother, you love a friend. He is already with you; he is already joined to you even in catholic unity. If you live well, you love a brother made from an enemy. But you love someone who has not yet believed in Christ, or, if he has believed in Christ, believes as the demons do: you rebuke his vanity. Do you love, and love with brotherly love: he is not yet a brother, but you love him so that he may be a brother. So all our love is brotherly toward Christians, toward all his members. The discipline of love, my brothers, its strength, its flowers, its fruit, its beauty, its pleasantness, its pasture, its drink, its food, its embrace, is without surfeit. If it so delights us as pilgrims, how shall we rejoice in the homeland?

Let us run, then, my brothers, let us run, and love Christ. What Christ? Jesus Christ. Who is he? The Word of God. And how did he come to the sick? "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." So what Scripture foretold has been fulfilled: "The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day." Where does his body lie? Where are his members labouring? Where ought you to be, so as to be under the head? "And that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." There let your love be spread out. Christ says, and the Psalm says (that is, the Spirit of God), "Your commandment is exceedingly broad"; and someone or other sets the boundaries of love in Africa! Extend your love through the whole world, if you want to love Christ; for the members of Christ lie throughout the world. If you love a part, you are divided; if you are divided, you are not in the body; if you are not in the body, you are not under the head. What does it profit you that you believe and blaspheme? You worship him in the head, you blaspheme him in the body. He loves his body. If you have cut yourself off from his body, the head has not cut itself off from its body. "In vain do you honour me," the head cries to you from above; "in vain do you honour me." It is as if someone wanted to kiss your head and trample on your feet: perhaps with hobnailed boots he would crush your feet while wanting to hold your head and kiss it; would you not, amid the words of the one honouring you, cry out and say, "What are you doing, man? You are trampling on me." You would not say, "You are trampling on my head", because he was honouring the head; but the head would cry out more for the members trampled on than for itself because it was honoured. Does not the head itself cry out, "I do not want your honour; do not trample on me"? Now say, if you can, "How have I trampled on you?" Say it to the head: "I wanted to kiss you, I wanted to embrace you." But do you not see, you fool, that what you want to embrace reaches, by a certain structure of unity, to what you trample on? You honour me above, you trample on me below. What you trample on hurts more than what you honour rejoices; because what you honour grieves for those whom you trample on. How does the tongue cry out? "It hurts me." It does not say, "It hurts my foot", but, "It hurts me." O tongue, who has touched you? Who has struck you? Who has pricked you? Who has stung you? "No one; but I am joined to those that are being trampled on. How do you want me not to hurt, when I am not separated?"

So our Lord Jesus Christ, when he ascended into heaven on the fortieth day, commended his body, where it was to lie, because he saw that many would honour him because he ascended into heaven; he saw that their honour is useless if they trample on his members on earth. And lest anyone should go astray, and while adoring the head in heaven trample on the feet on earth, he told where his members would be. For as he was about to ascend he said his last words; after those words he did not speak on earth. As he was about to ascend into heaven he commended his members on earth, and departed. Now you do not find Christ speaking on earth: you find him speaking, but from heaven. And why from heaven itself? Because his members were being trampled on earth. For to the persecutor Saul he said from above, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" "I have ascended into heaven, but I still lie on earth: here I sit at the right hand of the Father; there I am still hungry, thirsty, and a stranger." How, then, did he commend his body on earth when about to ascend? When the disciples asked him, "Lord, will you show yourself at this time, and when will the kingdom of Israel be?", he answered as he was going, "It is not for you to know the time which the Father has fixed by his own authority; but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses." See where he spreads out his body; see where he does not want to be trampled on: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the whole earth." "See where I lie, I who ascend. For I ascend because I am the head; my body still lies. Where does it lie? Throughout the whole earth." Beware of striking it, beware of violating it, beware of trampling on it: these are the last words of Christ as he was going into heaven. Think of a man lying sick in bed, lying in his house and wasted by illness, near death, gasping, already holding his soul, as it were, between his teeth; who, anxious perhaps about some thing dear to him, which he loves much, has it come to mind, and calls his heirs and says, "I beg you, do this." He holds on to his soul, as it were, by force, lest it go out before those words are made firm. When he has dictated those last words, he breathes out his soul; the corpse is carried to the tomb. How do his heirs remember the last words of the dying man? How, if someone stood up to say to them, "Do not do it"? What would they say? "Am I then not to do what my father last enjoined on me as he breathed out his soul, what last sounded in my ears as my father was departing from here? His other words I may hold otherwise; his last words hold me more: I did not see him again, I did not hear him speaking." Brothers, think with Christian hearts: if the words of one going to the tomb are so sweet, so pleasing, of such great weight to his heirs, what ought the last words of Christ to be to the heirs of Christ, not of one returning to the tomb but of one ascending into heaven! For the man who lived and died: his soul is carried off to other places, his body is laid in the earth; whether those words are carried out or not does not concern him; he is now doing something else or suffering something else: either he rejoices in Abraham's bosom, or in the eternal fire he longs for a little water; his corpse lies senseless in the tomb, and yet the last words of the dying man are kept. What do those hope for who do not keep the last words of him who sits in heaven, who sees from above whether they are despised or not despised? Of him who said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?", who reserves for judgment whatever he sees his members suffer?

"And what have we done?" they say. "We have suffered persecution, we have not done it." You have done it, wretched men: first, because you have divided the Church. The sword of the tongue is greater than that of iron. Hagar, Sarah's slave, was proud, and she was afflicted by her mistress because of her pride. That was discipline, not punishment. So when she had gone away from her mistress, what did the angel say to her? "Return to your mistress." So, carnal soul, like a proud slave-woman, if perhaps you have suffered some troubles for discipline, why do you rage? Return to your mistress; hold to the Lord's peace. See, the Gospels are brought out; we read where the Church is spread: we are argued against, and it is said to us, "Traitors." Traitors of what? Christ commends his Church, and you do not believe; am I to believe you when you curse my fathers? Do you want me to believe you about traitors? You believe Christ first. What is fitting? Christ is God, you are a man: who ought to be believed first? Christ has spread his Church through the whole world: I say, despise me; the Gospel speaks, beware. What does the Gospel say? "The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name." Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is the Church. How the Church? For to it was said, "To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven too, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven too." Where is this forgiveness of sins spread? "Throughout all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." See, believe Christ. But because you understand that, if you believe Christ, you have nothing to say about traitors, you want me to believe you when you curse my fathers, rather than that you should believe Christ when he foretells.