Tractates on the Gospel of John 119.1–121.5

The Lord being crucified, and the division of his garments, the lot too having been cast, being completed, let us see what John the evangelist narrates next. "And the soldiers indeed," he says, "did these things. But there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own." This, surely, is that hour of which Jesus, when about to turn water into wine, had said to his mother, "Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come." So he had foretold this hour, which then had not yet come, in which, as he was dying, he would acknowledge her of whom he had been born mortal. At that time, then, when he was about to do divine things, he repelled as though unknown the mother not of his divinity but of his weakness; but now, already suffering human things, he commended with human affection her of whom he had been made man. For then he who had created Mary was making himself known by power; but now what Mary had borne was hanging on the cross.

A moral lesson, then, is introduced. He does what he admonishes us to do; and as a good teacher he instructed his own by his example, that dutiful children should take care of their parents; as though that wood on which the limbs of the dying one were fixed were also the chair of the master teaching. From this sound teaching the apostle Paul had learned what he taught when he said: "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." And who are so much of one's household as parents to children or children to parents? So the very master of the saints set an example from himself of this most wholesome precept, when, not as God for a handmaid whom he had created and ruled, but as a man for the mother of whom he had been created and whom he was leaving, he provided another son, as it were, in his own place. For why he did this, what follows shows; for the evangelist says, "And from that hour the disciple took her to his own", speaking of himself. For so he is accustomed to mention himself, as the one whom Jesus loved; who surely loved all, but him beyond the rest and more intimately, so that at supper he made him recline on his breast; in order, I believe, to commend more highly in this way the divine excellence of this Gospel, which he was to proclaim through him.

But into what "his own" did John receive the mother of the Lord? For he too was one of those who said to him, "See, we have left everything and followed you." But there he had also heard, "Whoever leaves these things for my sake will receive in this age a hundred times as much." So that disciple had a hundredfold more than he had left, into which to receive the mother of him who had given him those things. But blessed John had received the hundredfold in that fellowship where no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles. For so the apostles were, "as having nothing and possessing all things." How, then, did the disciple and servant receive the mother of his master and Lord into his own, where no one called anything his own? Or, since we read a little later in the same book, "For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of them, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and it was distributed to each as anyone had need", is it to be understood that what was needed was so distributed to this disciple that the portion of blessed Mary too was put there, as of his mother; and should we rather take what is said, "From that hour the disciple received her into his own", to mean that whatever was necessary for her belonged to his care? So he received her into his own: not lands, for he possessed none of his own, but duties, which he took care to carry out by his own stewardship.

Then he adds: "After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now a vessel full of vinegar stood there; and they put a sponge full of vinegar around hyssop and held it to his mouth. When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit." Who can arrange what he does as this man arranged what he suffered? But this is the man who is mediator between God and men; the man of whom we read that it was foretold, "And he is a man, and who will know him?", since the men through whom these things were done did not know the man to be God. For he who appeared was man, he who lay hidden was God; he who appeared suffered all these things, and the very same, he who lay hidden, arranged all these things. So he saw that all things were finished that had to be done before he received the vinegar and gave up his spirit; and in order that this too might be fulfilled which the Scripture had foretold, "And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink", he says, "I thirst"; as though he were saying, "This much you have still left undone: give what you are." For the Jews themselves were vinegar, degenerate from the wine of the patriarchs and prophets; and, filled as from a full vessel with the iniquity of this world, they had a heart like a sponge, deceitful with hiding-places, so to speak, full of hollows and twists. But the hyssop round which they put the sponge full of vinegar, since it is a lowly herb and cleanses the chest, we fittingly take as the humility of Christ himself, which they surrounded and thought they had got round. Hence the saying in the psalm, "You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed." For we are cleansed by the humility of Christ; because had he not humbled himself, becoming obedient to the death of the cross, his blood would certainly not have been shed for the remission of sins, that is, for our cleansing.

Nor let anyone be troubled how the sponge could be brought to the mouth of one who had been lifted up from the earth on the cross. For, as we read in the other evangelists (which this one passed over), it was done with a reed, so that such a drink in the sponge might be raised to the height of the cross. And by the reed the Scripture was signified, which was being fulfilled by this deed. For just as we speak of the Greek or Latin or any other tongue, meaning the sound which is uttered by the tongue, so the letter, which is written with a reed, can be called a reed. But we very commonly call the significant sounds of the human voice tongues; whereas to call Scripture a reed is the more mystically figurative the less usual it is. An ungodly people was doing these things; the merciful Christ was suffering them. He who was doing them did not know what he was doing; but he who was suffering them not only knew what was being done and why it was being done, but also himself did good out of those who did evil.

"When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished." What, but what prophecy had foretold so long before? Then, since nothing remained that still had to be done before he died, as one who had power to lay down his life and to take it up again, when all things had been accomplished which he was waiting to see accomplished, "bowing his head, he gave up his spirit." Who falls asleep when he wishes as Jesus died when he wished? Who lays aside a garment when he wishes as he put off the flesh when he wished? Who goes away when he wishes as he died when he wished? How great must be the power of the judge, to be hoped for or feared, if so great appeared the power of the dying man?

After the Lord Jesus, having accomplished all that he foreknew must be accomplished before his death, gave up his spirit when he willed, let us see, as the evangelist narrates, what followed. "The Jews therefore," he says, "since it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath day was a great day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and they might be taken away." Not that the legs might be taken away, but those whose legs were being broken in order that they might die and be taken down from the wood; lest by hanging on crosses they should defile the great feast day with the horror of their daylong torment.

"So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs; but one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water." The evangelist used a watchful word: he did not say, "pierced his side", or "wounded it", or anything else, but "opened", so that there, in a sense, the door of life might be thrown open, from which the sacraments of the Church flowed, without which there is no entering into the life which is true life. That blood was shed for the remission of sins; that water tempers the saving cup; it provides both washing and drink. This was foretold when Noah was commanded to make a door in the side of the ark, by which the animals were to enter that were not to perish in the flood, by which the Church was prefigured. Because of this the first woman was made from the side of the man as he slept, and was called life and the mother of the living. For she signified a great good before the great evil of the transgression. Here the second Adam, bowing his head, slept on the cross, so that a wife might be formed for him from what flowed from the side of the sleeper. O death, by which the dead come to life again! What is purer than this blood? What is more healing than this wound?

"And he who saw it," he says, "has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he tells the truth, that you too may believe." He did not say, "that you too may know", but "that you may believe"; for he who saw knows, so that he who did not see may believe his witness. And believing belongs to faith more than seeing does. For what else is believing but giving faith? "For these things were done," he says, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled, You shall not break a bone of him. And again another Scripture says, They shall look on him whom they pierced." He gave two testimonies from the Scriptures for the two things which he had narrated as done. For since he had said, "But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs", to this belongs the testimony, "You shall not break a bone of him"; which was commanded to those who were ordered to celebrate the Passover by sacrificing a sheep in the old law, which had gone before as the shadow of the Lord's passion. Hence "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed", of whom the prophet Isaiah too had foretold, "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter." Likewise, since he had added, "But one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear", to this belongs the other testimony, "They shall look on him whom they pierced", in which Christ is promised as coming in the flesh in which he was crucified.

"After these things Joseph of Arimathea, because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave permission. So he came and took away the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, who had first come to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds." The words are not to be divided so that we say "first bringing a mixture of myrrh", but so that "first" belongs to the preceding clause. For Nicodemus had first come to Jesus by night, as the same John narrated in the earlier parts of his Gospel. Here, then, it is to be understood that Nicodemus came to Jesus not only then, but then for the first time; and that afterwards he kept coming, so as to become a disciple by listening; which is now indeed being made known to almost all nations through the revelation of the body of most blessed Stephen. "So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the custom of the Jews in burying." It seems to me that the evangelist did not wish to say "as is the custom of the Jews in burying" to no purpose; for in this way, unless I am mistaken, he admonished that in such services as are paid to the dead, the custom of each nation should be kept.

"Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid." As in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one was conceived before him and no one after him, so in this tomb no one was buried before him and no one after him. "There, then, because of the Jews' day of preparation, since the tomb was near, they laid Jesus." He wishes the burial to be understood as hastened, so that evening might not come on, when, because of the day of preparation (which among us the Jews more commonly call in Latin cena pura), it was no longer lawful to do any such thing.

"Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw the stone taken away from the tomb." The first day of the week is the day which Christian custom now calls the Lord's day, because of the Lord's resurrection; Matthew alone among the evangelists named it "the first of the sabbath". "So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Some manuscripts, Greek ones too, have, "They have taken my Lord", which may seem to have been said from a more ardent affection of love or of service; but we have not found this in most of the manuscripts we had at hand.

"So Peter went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the tomb. And the two were running together, and that other disciple outran Peter and came first to the tomb." Here the recapitulation is to be noticed and commended: how he goes back to what had been passed over, and yet it is added as though it came next. For when he had already said, "they came to the tomb", he went back to tell how they came, and says, "And the two were running together", and so on. There he shows that that other disciple, outrunning Peter, came first to the tomb; by him he means himself, but he narrates everything as though about another.

"And stooping down," he says, "he saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying, and the cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself." Do we suppose that these things signify nothing? I would by no means suppose so. But we are hurrying on to other matters, on which we are compelled to linger by the need of some question or obscurity. For to inquire what even the single details signify in things that are plain in themselves is indeed a holy delight, but for those with leisure, which we are not.

"Then that disciple too went in, who had come first to the tomb." He came first and went in last. This too is surely not without meaning, but I have no leisure for such things. "And he saw," he says, "and believed." Here some, not paying enough attention, think that John believed that Jesus had risen; but what follows does not indicate this. For what does he mean by adding at once, "For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead"? So he did not believe that he had risen, when he did not know that he must rise. What, then, did he see? What did he believe? He saw, of course, that the tomb was empty, and he believed what the woman had said, that he had been taken from the tomb. "For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead." And so, when they heard it from the Lord himself, though it was said most plainly, they did not understand, from their habit of hearing parables from him, and believed that he meant something else. But let us put off what follows to another sermon.

Mary Magdalene had announced to his disciples Peter and John that the Lord had been taken from the tomb; and when they came there they found only the linen cloths in which the body had been wrapped; and what else could they believe but what she had said, and what she herself had believed? "So the disciples went away again to their own homes", that is, where they were staying, and from where they had run to the tomb. "But Mary stood outside at the tomb, weeping." For while the men went back, a stronger affection held the weaker sex fast in the same place. And her eyes, which had sought the Lord and had not found him, were now given up to tears, grieving more that he had been taken from the tomb than that he had been killed on the wood; since of so great a master, whose life had been taken from them, not even a memorial remained. So this grief now kept the woman at the tomb. "So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb." Why she did this I do not know. For she was not unaware that the one she was seeking was no longer there, since she herself had announced to the disciples that he had been taken from there; and they had come to the tomb and had sought the Lord's body, not only by looking but also by going in, and had not found it. What, then, does it mean that she, weeping, stooped again and looked into the tomb? Was it that she grieved too much, and thought that neither her own eyes nor theirs could easily be believed? Or was it rather by divine prompting that it came about in her mind that she should look in? For she looked in, "and saw two angels in white, sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid." What does it mean that one was sitting at the head and the other at the feet? Since those who in Greek are called angels are in Latin messengers, were they signifying in this way that the Gospel of Christ was to be announced, as it were, from head to feet, from the beginning to the end? "They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." The angels were forbidding tears: in this, what else were they announcing but, in a way, the joy to come? For they said, "Why are you weeping?", as if they said, "Do not weep." But she, thinking they had asked in ignorance, tells the cause of her tears. "Because they have taken away my Lord," she says, calling the lifeless body of her Lord her Lord, signifying the part by the whole; just as we all confess that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, who is of course at once Word and soul and flesh, was nevertheless crucified and buried, though only his flesh was buried. "And I do not know," she says, "where they have laid him." This was the greater cause of grief, that she did not know where to go to console her grief. But the hour had now come when, as had in a way been announced by the angels who forbade her to weep, joy would follow tears.

Then, "when she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? She, thinking that he was the gardener, said to him, Sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him, Rabboni, which means Teacher." Let no one find fault with the woman for calling the gardener "lord" and Jesus "Teacher". For there she was asking, here she was recognising; there she was honouring a man from whom she was asking a favour, here she was recalling the teacher from whom she was learning to distinguish human things from divine. She was calling "lord" one whose handmaid she was not, in order to come through him to the Lord whose handmaid she was. So she said "Lord" in one sense, "They have taken away my Lord", and in another, "Sir, if you have carried him off." For the prophets too called men "lords"; but in another sense him of whom it is written, "The Lord is his name." But how is this woman, who had already turned round to see Jesus, when she thought he was the gardener, and was certainly talking with him, said to have turned again in order to say to him "Rabboni", unless because then, having turned in body, she thought him what he was not, and now, having turned in heart, she recognised what he was?

"Jesus said to her, Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." There is something in these words which we must treat briefly, yet more attentively. For Jesus was teaching faith to the woman who had recognised him and called him Teacher, when he answered her thus; and that gardener was sowing a grain of mustard seed in her heart as in his garden. What, then, does "Do not touch me" mean? And as though the reason for this prohibition were being sought, he added, "for I have not yet ascended to my Father." What is this? If he is not touched while standing on earth, how could he be touched by men while sitting in heaven? He who certainly, before he ascended, offered himself to his disciples to be touched, saying, as Luke the evangelist testifies, "Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have"; or when he said to the disciple Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and bring your hand and put it into my side." Who would be so absurd as to say that he willed to be touched by the disciples before he ascended to the Father, but not by women until he had ascended to the Father? But not even one who wished it would be allowed to talk such nonsense. For we also read that women touched Jesus after the resurrection, before he ascended to the Father, among them Mary Magdalene herself, since Matthew narrates that Jesus met them, saying, "Hail." "And they came," he says, "and took hold of his feet, and worshipped him." John passed over this, but Matthew told it truly. It remains, then, that some mystery lies hidden in these words; and whether we find it or are quite unable to find it, we ought by no means to doubt that it is there. So either "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father" was said so that in that woman the Church of the Gentiles might be figured, which did not believe in Christ until he had ascended to the Father; or Jesus wished to be believed in, that is, to be touched spiritually, in this way: that he and the Father are one. For in a sense he has ascended to the Father in the inmost understanding of one who has so progressed in him as to recognise him as equal to the Father; otherwise he is not rightly touched, that is, otherwise he is not rightly believed in. But Mary could have believed in such a way as to think him unequal to the Father; and this is certainly forbidden when it is said to her, "Do not touch me"; that is, "Do not believe in me in the way you still think; do not stretch your understanding only as far as what I was made for you, without passing on to that through which you were made." For how was she not still believing in him carnally, when she was weeping for him as a man? "For I have not yet ascended," he says, "to my Father": there you will touch me, when you believe me to be God, not unequal to the Father. "But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father." He does not say "our Father": so "mine" in one sense, "yours" in another; mine by nature, yours by grace. "To my God and your God." Nor here did he say "our God": so here too "mine" in one sense, "yours" in another: my God, under whom I too am man; your God, between whom and you I am mediator.

"Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and he said these things to me. So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, Peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side." For nails had pierced his hands, a spear had opened his side; there the marks of the wounds were kept to heal the hearts of the doubting. But closed doors did not stand in the way of the bulk of a body in which divinity was. For he could enter without their being opened, at whose birth his mother's virginity remained inviolate. "So the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. He said to them again, Peace be with you." The repetition is a confirmation; for he himself, through the prophet, gives promised peace upon peace. "As the Father has sent me," he says, "so I send you." We know the Son to be equal to the Father, but here we recognise the words of the Mediator. For he shows himself to be in the middle by saying, "He sent me, and I send you." "When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit." By breathing on them he signified that the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of the Father alone, but his own too. "Whose sins you forgive," he says, "they are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain, they are retained." The love of the Church, which is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, forgives the sins of those who share in it, but retains the sins of those who do not share in it. That is why, after he said, "Receive the Holy Spirit", he at once added this about the forgiveness and retaining of sins.

"But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands; and bring your hand and put it into my side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God." He saw and touched the man, and confessed the God whom he neither saw nor touched; but through what he saw and touched he now believed that, all doubt removed. "Jesus said to him, Because you have seen me, you have believed." He does not say "you have touched me" but "you have seen me", since sight is in a way a general sense. For it is commonly named for the other four senses too: as when we say, "Listen and see how well it sounds; smell and see how well it smells; taste and see how good it tastes; touch and see how warm it is." Everywhere "see" is said, though sight is not denied to belong properly to the eyes. Hence here too the Lord himself says, "Put your finger here, and see my hands"; what else does he say but "Touch and see"? And yet he did not have eyes in his finger. So, whether by looking or by touching too, "Because you have seen me," he says, "you have believed." Although it could be said that the disciple did not dare to touch when he offered himself to be touched; for it is not written, "And Thomas touched him." But whether he saw and believed by looking only or by touching too, what follows proclaims and commends rather the faith of the Gentiles: "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." He used verbs of past time, as one who knew that what was to come was already done in his predestination. But this sermon must now be kept from running too long; the Lord will grant that we discuss what remains another time.