Tractates on the Gospel of John 110.1–110.7

When the Lord Jesus had prayed for his disciples whom he then had with him, and had added his other people, saying, "Yet I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word," as if we might ask what he asked for them, or why, he at once went on, saying: "That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they too may be one in us." And above, when he was still praying only for the disciples whom he had with him, he said: "Holy Father, keep them in your name, those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we also are." So what he then asked for them he now asked for us too, that all of us, that is, both we and they, may be one. Here we must carefully note that the Lord did not say, "That we all may be one," but, "That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you" (understood: "are one," which is said more plainly afterward); because before he had also said of the disciples who were with him, "That they may be one as we also are." Therefore the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father in such a way that they are one, because they are of one substance; but we, though we can indeed be in them, cannot be one with them; because we and they are not of one substance, insofar as the Son with the Father is God. For insofar as he is man, he is of the same substance as we are. But here he wished rather to commend what he says in another place, "I and the Father are one," where he signified that the nature of the Father and his own is the same. And therefore, even when the Father and the Son, or the Holy Spirit too, are in us, we must not think them to be of one nature with us. So they are in us, or we in them, in such a way that they are one in their nature, and we one in ours. For they are in us as God in his temple; but we are in them as the creature in its Creator.

Then, when he had said, "that they too may be one in us," he added, "that the world may believe that you sent me." What is this? Will the world believe only then, when we shall all be one in the Father and the Son? Is not that the everlasting peace, and the reward of faith rather than faith? For we shall be one not in order to believe, but because we have believed. But even if in this life all of us who believe in the One are one because of our common faith, according to the Apostle's words, "For you are all one in Christ Jesus," even so we are one not in order to believe, but because we believe. What then is "that they may all be one, that the world may believe"? For they themselves, all of them, are the believing world. For it is not that some are those who will be one, and another is the world that will believe because they will be one; since beyond doubt he says "that they may all be one" of those of whom he had said, "Yet I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word," at once adding, "that they may all be one." But what are all these but the world; not the hostile world, certainly, but the faithful one? For see, he who had said, "I do not pray for the world," prays for the world that it may believe. For there is a world of which it is written, "that we may not be condemned with this world." For this world he does not pray; for he is not ignorant of what it is predestined to. And there is a world of which it is written, "For the Son of Man did not come to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him"; whence the Apostle too says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." For this world he prays, saying, "that the world may believe that you sent me." For by this faith the world is reconciled to God, when it believes in Christ, who was sent by God. How then are we to understand his saying, "that they too may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me," except that he did not make their being one the cause of the world's believing, as though it believes because it sees them to be one, since the world itself is all those who become one by believing; but in praying he said, "that the world may believe," just as in praying he said, "that they may all be one," and in praying he said, "that they too may be one in us"? For "that they may all be one" is the same as "that the world may believe": since by believing they become one; perfectly one, they who, though one by nature, were not one because they dissented from the One. Finally, if we supply the words "I ask" a third time, or rather, to make it fuller, put them everywhere, the explanation of this sentence will be plainer: I ask that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I ask that they too may be one in us; I ask that the world may believe that you sent me. For he added "in us" so that we might know that our being made one by most faithful love is to be attributed to the grace of God, not to ourselves; as the Apostle, when he had said, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light," lest they attribute this to themselves, added, "in the Lord."

Then our Savior, who by asking the Father was showing himself to be man, now, showing that he himself too, since he is God with the Father, does what he asks, says, "And the glory which you have given me I have given them." What glory but immortality, which human nature was to receive in him? For he himself had not yet received it either; but in his manner, because of the unchangeableness of predestination, he signifies future things by words of past time: that he is now to be glorified, that is, raised up by the Father, and that he himself will raise us to that glory at the end. This is like what he says elsewhere: "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will." And to whom, but the same as the Father? For whatever the Father does, the Son does, not other things but these, nor otherwise but likewise. And therefore he also raised himself up. For hence it is: "Destroy this temple," he says, "and in three days I will raise it up." So the glory of immortality, which he says was given him by the Father, is to be understood as given to himself by himself too, even if he does not say so. For he often says that the Father alone does what he himself also does with the Father, in order to attribute whatever he is to him from whom he is. But sometimes too, saying nothing of the Father, he says that he does what he does with the Father; so that we may understand that the Son is not to be separated from the Father's work when, saying nothing of himself, he says that the Father works something; just as the Father is not separated from the Son's work when, nothing being said of the Father, the Son is said to work what they nevertheless work equally. So when the Son is silent about his own working in the Father's work, he commends humility, that it may be the more salutary for us; but when, conversely, he is silent about the Father's working in his own work, he commends his equality, lest he be believed inferior. In this way, then, in this place too, he does not make himself a stranger to the Father's work, though he said, "The glory which you have given me," because he too gave it to himself; nor does he make the Father a stranger to his own work, though he said, "I have given them," because the Father too gave it to them. For the works not only of the Father and the Son but also of the Holy Spirit are inseparable. And just as, by asking the Father for all his own, he willed that this be done, "that they may all be one," so also by this kindness of his, of which he says, "The glory which you have given me I have given them," he willed the same thing to be done; for he at once added, "that they may be one, as we also are one."

Then he added: "I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one." Here he briefly intimated that he is the mediator between God and men. For this is not said as though the Father were not in us or we were not in the Father; since he has also said in another place, "We will come to him and make our dwelling with him"; and here, a little before, he did not say what he has now said, "I in them and you in me," or "They in me and I in you," but "You in me and I in you, and they in us." So what he now says, "I in them and you in me," is said in the person of the mediator, just as the Apostle says, "You are Christ's, and Christ is God's." But what he added, "that they may be perfected into one," shows that the reconciliation made through the mediator is brought to this end, that we may enjoy a perfect blessedness to which nothing more can be added. Hence I think that what follows, "that the world may know that you sent me," is not to be taken as though he were saying again, "that the world may believe"; for sometimes "to know" is used for "to believe," as in what he said somewhat above, "And they have known truly that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me." What he had said first as "they have known," he said afterward as "they have believed." But here, since he is speaking of the perfecting, the knowledge must be understood as that which there will be by sight, not that which there now is by faith. For an order seems to have been kept, in that a little before he said, "that the world may believe," but here, "that the world may know." For there, though he said, "that they may all be one" and "may be one in us," he did not say, "may be perfected into one," and so he added, "that the world may believe that you sent me"; but here he says, "that they may be perfected into one," and then did not add, "that the world may believe," but, "that the world may know that you sent me." For as long as we believe what we do not see, we are not yet perfected as we shall be when we have merited to see what we believe. Most rightly, then, there it is "that the world may believe," and here "that the world may know"; yet both there and here, "that you sent me"; so that we may know that, as far as concerns the inseparable love of the Father and the Son, what we now believe is what by believing we strive to know. But if he had said, "That they may know that you sent me," it would mean just as much as what he says, "that the world may know." For they themselves are the world: not the world that remains an enemy, such as is the world predestined to condemnation, but the world made a friend from an enemy, for whose sake "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." Therefore he said, "I in them, and you in me," as if he said: I in those to whom you sent me; and you in me, reconciling the world to yourself through me.

Therefore there follows also what he says: "And you have loved them as you have also loved me." For in the Son the Father loves us, because in him he chose us before the foundation of the world. For he who loves the Only-begotten surely loves also his members, whom he has adopted into him through him. Nor are we therefore equal to the only-begotten Son, through whom we were created and re-created, because it was said, "You have loved them as you have also loved me." For he who says, "As this, so that," does not always signify equality; but sometimes only "Because this is, that also is," or "Because this is, therefore that is too." For who would say that the apostles were sent into the world by Christ in exactly the same way as he was sent by the Father? For, to say nothing of other differences which it would take long to list, they certainly were sent when they were already men; but he was sent in order to be man; and yet he said above, "As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world," as if he said, "Because you sent me, I have sent them." So in this place too: "You have loved them," he says, "as you have loved me"; which is nothing other than: You have loved them because you have also loved me. For he who loves the Son could not fail to love the Son's members; nor is there any other reason for loving his members but that he loves him. But he loves the Son according to his divinity, because he begot him equal to himself; he loves him also according to what he is as man, because the only-begotten Word himself became flesh, and for the sake of the Word the Word's flesh is dear to him; but us he loves because we are the members of him whom he loves; and that we might be so, he loved us before we existed.

Therefore the love with which God loves is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For he did not begin to love us from the time we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son; but he loved us before the foundation of the world, so that we too might be his sons together with his Only-begotten, before we were anything at all. So let it not be heard or taken, when we say we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, as though the Son reconciled us to him so that he might now begin to love those he had hated, as an enemy is reconciled to an enemy, so that they may then be friends and love each other who hated each other; but we were reconciled to him who already loved us, with whom we were at enmity because of sin. Let the Apostle bear witness whether I speak the truth: "God commends his love toward us," he says, "in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." So he had love toward us even when, practicing enmity against him, we were working iniquity; and yet it was most truly said to him, "You hate, O Lord, all who work iniquity." So in a wonderful and divine way he loved us even when he hated us: for he hated us as we were, such as he had not made us; and because our iniquity had not wholly consumed his work, he knew how, at the same time, in each one of us, to hate what we had made and to love what he had made. And this can indeed be understood in all things of him to whom it is truly said, "You hate nothing of the things you have made." For he would not have willed anything to exist that he hated, nor would anything at all exist which the Almighty had not willed to exist, unless in what he hates there were also something he loved. For rightly he hates vice and rejects it as foreign to the rule of his art; yet even in the vicious he loves what is his own, either his kindness in healing them or his judgment in condemning them. So God hates nothing of the things he made: for being the maker of natures, not of vices, he did not make the evils he hates; and out of those same evils, whether by healing them through mercy or by ordering them through judgment, the things he makes are good. Since, then, he hates nothing of the things he made, who could worthily say how much he loves the members of his Only-begotten; and how much more the Only-begotten himself, in whom all things visible and invisible were created, which, ordered in their kinds, he loves in most perfect order? For the members of the Only-begotten he brings, by the bounty of his grace, to equality with the holy angels; but the Only-begotten, since he is Lord of all, is beyond doubt Lord of the angels: by the nature by which he is God he is equal not to the angels but to the Father; and by the grace by which he is man, how does he not surpass the excellence of any angel, since flesh and Word are one person?

Yet there are some who even rank us above the angels, because, they say, Christ died for us, not for the angels. What is this but wishing to glory in ungodliness? For Christ, as the Apostle says, "at the appointed time died for the ungodly." Here, then, it is not our merit but God's mercy that is commended. For what is it to wish to be praised because one was so detestably sick through one's own fault that one could not be healed except by the death of the physician? This is not the glory of our merits but the medicine of our diseases. Or do we rank ourselves above the angels because, though angels too sinned, nothing of the kind was spent on them by which they might be healed? As if something, however small, had been spent on them and more on us! But even if this had been done, it could still be asked whether it had been done because we had stood more excellently, or because we lay more desperately. But since we know that the Creator of all good things bestowed no grace for restoring the evil angels, why do we not rather understand that their guilt was judged the more damnable the more sublime their nature was? For they ought to have sinned so much less than we as they were better than we. But in offending the Creator they showed themselves the more execrably ungrateful for his kindness the more kindly they had been created; nor was it enough for them to desert him unless they also became our deceivers. So he who loved us as he loved Christ will confer this great good on us: that, for the sake of him whose members he willed us to be, we may be equal to the holy angels, to whom we were created inferior by nature and became, by sin, too unworthy to be their companions of any kind.