Tractates on the Gospel of John 111.1–112.6

The Lord Jesus raises his own to a great hope, than which there could be none greater at all. Listen, and be joyful in hope, because this life is not to be loved but endured, so that you may be patient in its tribulation. Listen, I say, and attend to the height to which our hope is raised. Christ Jesus says it, the only-begotten Son of God, who is coeternal and equal with the Father, says it; he who for our sake was made man, but was not made a liar as "every man is a liar", says it; the Way, the Life, the Truth says it; he who overcame the world says it, concerning those for whom he overcame. Listen, believe, hope, desire what he says: "Father," he says, "those whom you have given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me." Who are these whom he says were given him by the Father? Are they not those of whom he says in another place, "No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him"? How he himself, together with the Father, does the things he says are done by the Father, we already know, if we have made any progress in this Gospel. These, then, are those whom he received from the Father, whom he also chose out of the world, and chose so that they are no longer of the world, as he himself is not of the world; yet so that they too are a world, believing and knowing that Christ was sent by God the Father, so that the world might be set free from the world, lest the world that was to be reconciled to God should be condemned with the world that is most hostile. For so he says at the opening of this prayer: "You have given him power over all flesh," that is, over every human being, "that to all that you have given him he may give eternal life." There he shows that he has indeed received power over every human being, to set free whom he will and condemn whom he will, he who will judge the living and the dead; but that those were given to him, to all of whom he gives eternal life. For so he says: "that to all that you have given him he may give eternal life." Accordingly, those to whom he will not give eternal life have not been given to him, although power over them too has been given to him to whom power was given over all flesh, that is, over every human being. Thus the reconciled world will be set free from the hostile world, when he exercises his power on that one, to send it into eternal death, but makes this one his own, to give it eternal life. Therefore the good shepherd has promised to all his sheep without exception, the great head to all his members, this reward: that where he is, we too may be with him. Nor can that fail to be done which the almighty Son said to the almighty Father that he willed. For there too is the Holy Spirit, equally eternal, equally God, the one Spirit of both, and the substance of the will of both. For what we read that he said as his passion drew near, "Yet not what I will, but what you will, Father", as though the will of the Father were one and the will of the Son another, or had been, is the voice of our weakness, faithful though it is, which our head transfigured into himself when he also bore our sins. But that the will of the Father and of the Son is one, whose Spirit too is one, by whose addition we come to know the Trinity, let piety believe, even if weakness does not yet allow it to understand.

But since we have already said, as far as the brevity of a sermon allows, to whom he made the promise and how firm the promise itself is, let us see, as well as we can, what it is that he deigned to promise. "Those whom you have given me," he says, "I will that where I am, they also may be with me." As regards the created nature in which he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, he himself was not yet where he was going to be; but he could say "where I am" in such a way that we would understand that he was soon to ascend into heaven, so that he said he was already where he was shortly to be. He could also have spoken in the way in which he had already spoken to Nicodemus: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven." For there too he did not say "will be" but "is", because of the unity of the person, in which God is man and man is God. So he promised that we shall be in heaven; for there the form of a servant which he took from the Virgin has been raised up and placed at the Father's right hand. Because of the hope of this great good the apostle too says: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." So the Lord can be understood to have said this: "that where I am, they also may be with me." And of himself he said that he was already there; but of us he said that he willed that we should be there with him, not that we already were. The apostle, however, spoke of what the Lord said he willed to be done as though it had been done. For he does not say, "He will raise us up and make us sit in the heavenly places", but "he raised us up and made us sit in the heavenly places": because he counts as already done, not idly but faithfully, what he does not doubt will be. But as regards the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father, if we wish to understand according to it what was said, "I will that where I am, they also may be with me", let every thought of bodily images depart from the mind: whatever comes to mind as long, broad, thick, coloured by any bodily light, spread through any spaces of place, finite or infinite, from all these let the mind turn away the gaze of its contemplation or attention as far as it can. And let it not be asked where the Son, equal to the Father, is, since no one finds where he is not. But whoever wishes to seek, let him seek rather to be with him; not everywhere as he is, but wherever he can be. For he who said to the man hanging in punishment and confessing to his salvation, "Today you will be with me in paradise": according to what he was as man, his soul was that very day to be in hell, his flesh in the tomb; but according to what he was as God, he was certainly in paradise too. And so the soul of the thief, absolved of its former crimes and already made blessed by his gift, though it could not be everywhere as he is, could nevertheless be with him that very day in paradise, from which he who is always everywhere had not withdrawn. That, surely, is why it was not enough for him to say, "I will that where I am, they also may be", but he added, "with me". For to be with him is a great good. For even the wretched can be where he is, since wherever anyone is, he too is there; but only the blessed are with him, because they cannot be blessed except from him. Was it not truly said to God, "If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present"? Or is Christ not the Wisdom of God, which reaches everywhere because of its purity? But "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it." And so, to take an example of some kind from a visible thing, though far unlike: as a blind man, even if he is where the light is, is not himself with the light, but is absent from what is present, so the unbeliever and the ungodly, or even the believer and the godly who is not yet fit to behold the light of wisdom, though he can be nowhere where Christ is not, is nevertheless not himself with Christ, at least by sight. For the man who is godly and faithful is, beyond doubt, with Christ by faith; which is why he says, "Whoever is not with me is against me." But when he said to God the Father, "Those whom you have given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me", he was speaking wholly of that sight in which we shall see him as he is.

Let no one disturb a most clear sense with cloudy contradiction; let what follows bear witness to the preceding words. For when he had said, "I will that where I am, they also may be with me", he at once went on to add, "that they may see my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world." "That they may see," he said; not "that they may believe". This is the reward of faith, not faith. For if faith is rightly defined in the Epistle to the Hebrews as "the conviction of things not seen", why should the reward of faith not be defined as the sight of things that were believed and hoped for? For when we see the glory which the Father gave the Son (even if we understand it to be meant in this place not as the glory which the Father gave to the equal Son in begetting him, but as that which he gave to him, made son of man, after the death of the cross): when, then, we see that glory of the Son, then indeed the judgment of the living and the dead will take place; then the ungodly will be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord. Which glory, if not that by which he is God? For "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"; and the ungodly are not pure in heart, therefore they will not see. Then "these will go away into eternal punishment" (for so the ungodly will be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord), "but the righteous into eternal life." And what is eternal life? "That they may know," he says, "you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent": not, of course, as he was known by those who, though not pure in heart, could nevertheless see him judging in the glorified form of a servant; but as the only true God is to be known by the pure in heart, the Son with the Father and the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity itself is the only true God. If, then, we take this saying, "I will that where I am, they also may be with me", according to that by which the Son of God is God, equal and coeternal with the Father, we shall be in the Father with Christ; but he as he is, we as we are, wherever we may be in body. For if places may be spoken of in which bodies are not contained, and a thing's place is where it is, then the eternal place of Christ, where he always is, is the Father himself, and the place of the Father is the Son; for "I", he says, "am in the Father, and the Father is in me"; and in this prayer, "As you, Father," he says, "are in me, and I in you"; and they are our place, for there follows, "that they also may be one in us"; and we are God's place, since we are his temple; as he prays for us who died for us and lives for us, that we may be one in them; because "his place has been made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion", which we are. But who is able to think of these places, or of what is in these places, without spatial capacities and bodily masses? Yet no small progress is made if at least whatever of that kind meets the eye of the heart is denied, rejected, disapproved; and if a certain light, in which these things are seen to be denied, rejected, and disapproved, is thought of as far as it can be, and it is recognised how certain it is, and it is loved, so that one may rise from there and press on to the things within; and when the mind, being weak and less pure than they are, cannot penetrate them, it is driven back not without the groaning of love and the tears of longing; and let it bear patiently as long as it is being cleansed by faith and prepared by holy conduct to be able to dwell there.

How, then, shall we not be with Christ where he is, when we shall be with him in the Father, in whom he is? Nor has the apostle been silent to us on this point, though we do not yet hold the reality but carry the hope. For he says: "If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on the things that are above, not on those upon the earth. For you have died," he says, "and your life is hidden with Christ in God." See: meanwhile our life, by faith and hope, is with Christ where Christ is, because it is with Christ in God. See: it is as though what he prayed for were already done, when he said, "I will that where I am, they also may be with me"; but now by faith. When will it be by sight? "When Christ your life appears," he says, "then you too will appear with him in glory." Then we shall appear as what we shall then be; because then it will appear that we did not believe and hope for it in vain before we were it. He will do this to whom the Son, when he had said, "that they may see my glory which you have given me", at once added, "because you loved me before the foundation of the world." For in him he loved us too before the foundation of the world, and then predestined what he will do at the end of the world.

"Righteous Father," he says, "the world has not known you." Because you are righteous, therefore it has not known you. That world, indeed, which was predestined to condemnation, deservedly has not known you; but the world which he reconciled to himself through Christ has known you, not by merit but by grace. For what is it to know him, if not eternal life? which he certainly did not give to the condemned world, but gave to the reconciled one. So the world has not known you because you are righteous, and you repaid its merits so that it should not know; and the reconciled world has known you because you are merciful, and you came to its help so that it might know, not by its merit but by grace. Then there follows: "But I have known you." He is the fountain of grace: God by nature, but man of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin by ineffable grace. Then, because of him, since the grace of God is through Jesus Christ our Lord: "And these have known," he says, "that you sent me." This is the reconciled world. But because you sent me, therefore they have known: so they have known by grace.

"And I have made your name known to them," he says, "and I will make it known." I have made it known through faith, I will make it known through sight; I have made it known to those on pilgrimage, whose journey has an end; I will make it known to those reigning without end. "That the love," he says, "with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." "The love which you have loved me, may be in them, and I in them" is not the usual way of speaking; usually one would say, "the love with which you have loved me". This, to be sure, is translated from the Greek; but there are similar expressions in Latin too, as when we say, "He served a faithful service, he soldiered a vigorous soldiering", when it seems one ought to have said, "He served with faithful service, he soldiered with vigorous soldiering." Of the same kind as the expression "the love which you have loved me" is the one the apostle too used: "I have fought the good fight"; he did not say "with the good fight", which would have been more usual and, as it were, more correct. But how is the love with which the Father loved the Son also in us, unless because we are his members and are loved in him, when he is loved whole, that is, head and body? That is why he added, "and I in them", as though to say, "since I too am in them." For he is in us in one way as in his temple; in another way because we too are he, since, inasmuch as he was made man in order to be our head, we are his body. The Saviour's prayer is finished; his passion begins. So let this sermon too be finished, so that what he grants concerning the passion may be discussed in other sermons.

When the great and long discourse was finished which the Lord, near to shedding his blood for us, held after supper with the disciples who were then with him, together with the prayer which he directed to the Father, John the evangelist began his account of the passion thus: "When Jesus had said these things, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who was betraying him, also knew the place, because Jesus had often gathered there with his disciples." What he narrates, that the Lord entered the garden with his disciples, did not take place immediately when that prayer of his was finished, of whose words he says, "When Jesus had said these things"; but certain other things came in between, which he passed over and which are read in the other evangelists, just as in him many things are found which they likewise passed over in silence in their narrative. But how they all agree with one another, and how the truth set forth by one is not contradicted by another, whoever wishes to know should look for it not in these sermons but in other laborious writings, and learn it not by standing and listening but rather by sitting and reading, or by giving a most attentive ear and mind to someone reading. Let him believe, however, before he knows (whether he can also know it in this life or cannot because of some hindrances), that nothing has been written by any evangelist, at least among those whom the Church has received into canonical authority, that could be contrary to his own or to another's no less truthful narrative. Now, then, let us look at the narrative of this blessed John, as we undertook to expound it, without comparing the others, not lingering on what is plain; so that we may do this where there is need, when the matter requires it. So let us not take what he says, "When Jesus had said these things, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered", as if he went into that garden immediately after those words; but let what is said, "When Jesus had said these things", serve only to keep us from supposing that he entered before he had finished those words.

"Judas too," he says, "who was betraying him, knew the place." The order of the words is: "He who was betraying him knew the place." "Because Jesus had often gathered there with his disciples." There, then, the wolf covered with a sheep's skin, and tolerated among the sheep by the deep counsel of the householder, learned where he might scatter the flock for a short time, by laying an ambush for the shepherd. "Judas, then," he says, "having received the cohort, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons." The cohort was not of Jews but of soldiers. So let it be understood to have been received from the governor, as if to arrest a guilty man, the order of lawful authority being kept, so that no one would dare to resist those making the arrest; although so great a band had been gathered, and came so armed, as either to frighten or even to fight back, if anyone dared to defend Christ. For in this way his power was hidden and his weakness put forward, so that these things might seem necessary to his enemies against him, against whom nothing would have availed except what he himself had willed; the good one using the evil well, and making good things out of evil things, to make good people out of evil ones and to separate the good from the evil.

"Jesus then," as the evangelist goes on to add, "knowing all that was to come upon him, went forth and said to them, Whom do you seek? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am he. And Judas, who was betraying him, was also standing with them. When, then, he said to them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground." Where now is the cohort of soldiers, and the officers of the chief priests and Pharisees? Where is the terror and protection of arms? Surely one voice saying, "I am he", without any weapon struck, drove back, and laid low so great a crowd, fierce with hatred and terrible with arms. For God lay hidden in the flesh; and the everlasting day was so concealed in human limbs that he was sought with lanterns and torches by the darkness, to be killed. "I am he," he says, and he throws down the ungodly. What will he do when he comes to judge, who did this when he was to be judged? What will he be able to do when he comes to reign, who could do this when he was about to die? And now, everywhere through the Gospel, Christ says, "I am he"; and the Antichrist is awaited by the Jews, so that they go backward and fall to the ground, since, forsaking heavenly things, they desire earthly ones. Certainly the persecutors came with the traitor to arrest Jesus; they found him whom they sought; they heard, "I am he": why did they not arrest him, but went backward and fell, unless because he willed it, who could do whatever he willed? But if he had never allowed himself to be arrested by them, they would not indeed have done what they came for, but neither would he have done what he came for. For they sought him in their rage, to kill him; but he too was seeking us, by dying. Therefore, since he showed his power to those who wanted to hold him and could not, let them now hold him, so that through them, who do not know it, he may do his will.

"Again, then, he asked them, Whom do you seek? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I told you that I am he. So if you seek me, let these go away; that the word might be fulfilled which he had spoken: Of those whom you have given me I have not lost one." "If you seek me," he says, "let these go away." He sees enemies, and they do what he commands: they let those go away whom he does not want to perish. But were they not going to die afterwards? Why, then, if they had died at that time, would he have lost them, unless because they did not yet believe in him in the way that all believe who do not perish?

"Simon Peter, then, having a sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." This evangelist alone gave also the name of this servant, just as Luke alone tells that the Lord touched his ear and healed him. Now Malchus is interpreted "one who will reign". What, then, does the ear cut off for the Lord and healed by the Lord signify, but hearing renewed when its oldness is cut away, so that it may be in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter? Who would doubt that the one to whom Christ grants this will reign with Christ? And that he was found to be a servant also belongs to that oldness which bears children for slavery, which is Hagar. But when healing came, freedom too was prefigured. Yet the Lord disapproved of Peter's deed and forbade him to go further, saying, "Put the sword into its sheath. The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" For in his deed that disciple wished to defend his master, not considering what was to be signified. So he had to be admonished to patience, and this had to be written down for our understanding. As for his saying that the cup of the passion was given him by the Father, that is surely what the apostle says: "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." But the author of this cup is also he himself who drinks it. That is why the same apostle also says: "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma."

"Then the cohort and the tribune and the officers of the Jews seized Jesus and bound him." They seized him whom they did not approach: for he was the day, but they remained darkness; nor did they hear, "Approach him and be enlightened." For if they had approached in that way, they would have seized him not with their hands to kill him, but with the heart to receive him. But now, when they seized him in that way, they withdrew further from him; and they bound him by whom they ought rather to have wished to be loosed. And perhaps there were among them some who then put their bonds on Christ, and afterwards, set free by him, said, "You have broken my bonds." Let this suffice for today; what follows will be treated, God willing, in another sermon.