Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.1–124.8

It is no small question why, when he manifested himself to the disciples for the third time, the Lord said to the apostle Peter, "Follow me", but of the apostle John, "So I will him to remain until I come; what is that to you?" To this question, whether it is to be treated or solved, we devote the last sermon of this work, as far as the Lord himself grants. When, then, the Lord had foretold to Peter by what death he would glorify God, he said to him, "Follow me. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had reclined on his breast at the supper and said, Lord, who is it that will betray you? So when Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, and what about this man? Jesus said to him, So I will him to remain until I come; what is that to you? You follow me. So this saying went out among the brothers, that that disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him, He will not die, but, So I will him to remain until I come; what is that to you?" See how far the question extends in this Gospel, a question which by its depth exercises not a little the mind of one who searches into it. For why is it said to Peter, "Follow me", and not said to the others who were there with him? And certainly the disciples were following him as their master. But if it is to be understood of suffering, was Peter the only one who suffered for the Christian truth? Was not the other son of Zebedee, John's brother, there among those seven, he who after his ascension is shown to have been killed by Herod? But someone may say that, since James was not crucified, "Follow me" was rightly said to Peter, who underwent not only death but, like Christ, the death of the cross. Let it be so, if nothing else more fitting can be found. Why, then, was it said of John, "So I will him to remain until I come; what is that to you?", and repeated, "You follow me", as though he would not follow for the reason that he willed him to remain until he came? Who would easily believe that anything else was said than what the brothers who were then living believed, namely, that that disciple would not die, but would remain in this life until Jesus came? But John himself removed this opinion, declaring by plain contradiction that the Lord had not said this. For why should he add, "Jesus did not say, He will not die", unless so that what was false should not cling to men's hearts?

But let anyone who likes still resist, and say that what John says is true, that the Lord did not say that that disciple would not die, but that this was nevertheless signified by such words as he related that he said; and let him assert that the apostle John is alive, and contend that in that tomb of his which is at Ephesus he is sleeping rather than lying dead. Let him take as proof that the earth there is reported to well up little by little and, as it were, to bubble; and let him assert, whether steadfastly or stubbornly, that this is caused by his breathing. For there cannot fail to be some who believe this, if there are not lacking those who assert that Moses too is alive, because it is written that his tomb is not found, and he appeared with the Lord on the mountain, where Elijah also was, of whom we read that he did not die but was taken up. As though the body of Moses could not have been so hidden somewhere that where it was was entirely concealed from men, and raised from there by God for the hour when he and Elijah were seen with Christ; just as for the hour many bodies of the saints rose when Christ suffered, and after his resurrection appeared to many in the holy city, as it is written. But yet, as I had begun to say, if some deny that Moses died, whom Scripture itself, where we read that his tomb was nowhere found, nevertheless testifies without any ambiguity to have died, how much more is John, on the occasion of these words in which the Lord says, "So I will him to remain until I come", believed to be sleeping alive under the earth? They even relate (and this is found in certain writings, though apocryphal) that when he ordered a tomb to be made for himself, he was present in good health; and when it had been dug and very carefully prepared, he laid himself in it as on a bed, and at once died; but, as those think who understand these words of the Lord in this way, he did not die, but lay down like one dead; and when he was thought to be dead, he was buried sleeping; and he remains so until Christ comes, and shows that he is alive by the bubbling up of the dust; which dust is believed to be driven by the breath of the one resting there, so that it rises from the bottom to the surface of the grave. I think it superfluous to contend against this opinion. Let those who know the place see whether the earth there does or undergoes what is said; for indeed we have heard it from men who are not frivolous.

Meanwhile let us give way to an opinion which we cannot refute by sure evidence, lest another question again be raised and put to us: why the very soil over a buried dead man should seem in a way to live and breathe. But is so great a question solved by this, if by a great miracle, such as the Almighty can work, a living body lies in sleep under the earth for so long, until the end of the age comes? On the contrary, it becomes larger and more difficult: why Jesus should have endowed the disciple whom he loved beyond the rest, so much that he was worthy to recline on his breast, with a long sleep in the body as a great gift, when he released blessed Peter from the burden of that very body through the great glory of martyrdom, and granted him what the apostle Paul said and wrote that he desired: "to depart and be with Christ." But if, as is more widely believed, holy John said that the Lord did not say, "He will not die", so that he should not be thought to have meant this by the words he did say, and his body lies lifeless in his tomb like those of other dead men, it remains that, if what rumour has spread about the earth there is really true, that it grows again whenever it is taken away, either this happens so that his precious death may be commended in this way, since martyrdom does not commend it (for no persecutor killed him for the faith of Christ), or for some other reason hidden from us. Yet the question remains why the Lord said of a man who was going to die, "So I will him to remain until I come."

Who, too, would not be moved to ask concerning these two apostles, Peter and John, why the Lord loved John more, when Peter loved the Lord himself more? For wherever John mentions himself, so that he may be understood without his name being given, he adds that Jesus loved him, as though he loved him alone, so that he might be distinguished by this mark from the others, all of whom he certainly loved. What, then, did he wish to be understood when he said this, but that he was loved more? Far be it that he should say it falsely. And what greater sign of his greater love toward him could Jesus give than that a man, a companion with his other fellow disciples in so great a salvation, should alone recline on the breast of the Saviour himself? Many proofs can indeed be brought forward that the apostle Peter loved Christ more than the others; but, not to wander far into other passages, it appears plainly enough from the lesson of the Lord's third manifestation a little earlier, which precedes this one, where, asking him, he said, "Do you love me more than these?" He certainly knew this, and yet he asked, so that we too who read the Gospel might know Peter's love toward the Lord, through the one asking and the other answering. And when Peter, in answering, said, "I love you", and did not add "more than these", he answered what he knew of himself. For he could not know how much the Lord was loved by anyone else, since he could not see another's heart. But by saying in the earlier words, "Yes, Lord, you know", he himself declared clearly enough that the Lord knew what he asked when he asked it. So the Lord knew not only that Peter loved him but also that he loved him more than they did. And yet, if we put the question which of two is better, the one who loves Christ more or the one who loves him less, who will hesitate to answer that the one who loves more is better? Likewise, if we put the question which of two is better, the one whom Christ loves less or the one whom he loves more, we shall answer without doubt that the one who is loved more by Christ is better. So in the first comparison that I set out, Peter is preferred to John, but in this second one John to Peter. Accordingly we put a third question thus: which of two disciples is better, the one who loves Christ less than his fellow disciple does and is loved by Christ more than his fellow disciple is, or the one whom Christ loves less than his fellow disciple, though he himself loves Christ more than his fellow disciple does? Here plainly the answer hesitates and the question grows. As far as I myself understand, I would readily answer that the one who loves Christ more is better, but the one whom Christ loves more is happier, if I could see how to defend the justice of our Liberator in loving less the one by whom he is loved more, and loving more the one by whom he is loved less.

I shall undertake, then, trusting in the open mercy of him whose justice is hidden, to discuss the solution of so great a question, with the strength that he himself grants; for so far it has been set out, not explained. Let this be the beginning of its explanation: that we remember that in this corruptible body, which weighs down the soul, we live a wretched life. But we who have already been redeemed through the Mediator, and have received the Holy Spirit as a pledge, have the blessed life in hope, though we do not yet hold it in reality. But "hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." And patience is needed in the evils that each one suffers, not in the good things that he enjoys. So this life, of which it is written, "Is not human life on earth a trial?", in which we cry every day to the Lord, "Deliver us from evil", a man is compelled to endure even when his sins have been forgiven, although the first cause of his coming into that wretchedness was sin. For the punishment lasts longer than the guilt, lest the guilt be thought small if the punishment ended with it. And for this reason, whether to show the misery that is deserved, or to amend this frail life, or to exercise the patience that is needed, the punishment holds a man in time even when the guilt no longer holds him liable to eternal damnation. This is the condition of these days which we spend as evil in this mortality, though in it we love to see good days: a condition to be lamented indeed, but not to be blamed. For it comes from the just wrath of God, of which Scripture says, "Man born of woman is of short life and full of wrath"; though the wrath of God is not like man's, that is, a disturbance of an agitated mind, but the calm appointment of just punishment. In this his wrath God, not withholding his mercies, as it is written, besides the other comforts for the wretched which he does not cease to give the human race, in the fullness of time, when he knew that this was to be done, sent his only-begotten Son, through whom he created all things, so that, remaining God, he might become man, and the man Christ Jesus might be the mediator between God and men; so that those who believe in him, the guilt of all their sins being loosed through the washing of regeneration (both of original sin, namely, which generation draws after it, and against which above all regeneration was instituted, and of the other sins which have been contracted by doing evil), might be set free from perpetual damnation, and might live in faith and hope and love, as pilgrims in this age, and amid its laborious and dangerous temptations, but with the consolations of God, both bodily and spiritual, might walk toward his sight, keeping to the way, which Christ has become for them. And since, even walking in him, they are not without sins, which creep in from the weakness of this life, he gave the saving remedies of almsgiving, by which their prayer might be helped, where he taught them to say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." This the Church does, blessed in hope, in this life of hardship; and of this Church the apostle Peter, because of the primacy of his apostleship, bore the person in a figure representing the whole. For as regards what belongs to him properly, by nature he was one man, by grace one Christian, by more abundant grace one and the same the first apostle; but when it was said to him, "To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven too, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven too", he signified the whole Church, which in this age is shaken by various temptations, as by rains, floods, and storms, and does not fall, because it is founded on the rock (petra), from which Peter received his name. For the rock is not named from Peter, but Peter from the rock; just as Christ is not named from Christian, but Christian from Christ. For the Lord said, "On this rock I will build my Church", because Peter had said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." "On this rock, then," he says, "which you have confessed, I will build my Church." For the rock was Christ; and on this foundation Peter himself too was built. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. So the Church, which is founded on Christ, received from him in Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is properly in Christ, Peter is by signification in the rock; and by this signification Christ is understood as the rock, Peter as the Church. This Church, then, which Peter signified, as long as it lives among evils, is set free from evils by loving and following Christ. But it follows him more in those who strive for the truth even to death. But it is to the whole that "Follow me" is said, the whole for which Christ suffered; of whom the same Peter says, "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps." See why it was said to him, "Follow me." But there is another life, an immortal one, which is not among evils: there we shall see face to face what here is seen through a mirror and in an enigma, even when much progress is made in beholding the truth. So the Church knows two lives, preached and commended to it by God: one in faith, the other in sight; one in the time of pilgrimage, the other in the eternity of abiding; one in labour, the other in rest; one on the way, the other in the homeland; one in the work of action, the other in the reward of contemplation; one turns aside from evil and does good, the other has no evil to turn aside from and has a great good to enjoy; one fights with the enemy, the other reigns without an enemy; one is brave in adversity, the other feels no adversity; one bridles carnal lusts, the other is free for spiritual delights; one is anxious with the care of conquering, the other secure in the peace of victory; one is helped in temptations, the other, without any temptation, rejoices in the helper himself; one aids the needy, the other is where it finds no one in need; one forgives the sins of others so that its own may be forgiven, the other neither suffers anything to forgive nor does anything for which it asks to be forgiven; one is scourged with evils lest it be lifted up by good things, the other, through so great a fullness of grace, is free of all evil, so that it cleaves to the highest good without any temptation of pride; one discerns good and evil, the other sees only what is good. So the one is good, but still wretched; the other is better, and blessed. The former was signified by the apostle Peter, the latter by John. The former is carried on wholly here until the end of this age, and there finds its end; the latter is deferred, to be completed after the end of this age, but in the age to come it has no end. That is why it is said to the one, "Follow me", but of the other, "So I will him to remain until I come; what is that to you? You follow me." For what is this? As far as I understand, as far as I grasp, what is it but: "You follow me by imitating me in enduring temporal evils; let him remain until I come to give back everlasting good things"? This can be said more plainly thus: "Let perfected action, formed by the example of my passion, follow me; but let contemplation, only begun, remain until I come, to be perfected when I come." For the godly fullness of patience, reaching even to death, follows Christ; but the fullness of knowledge remains until Christ comes, to be made manifest then. For here the evils of this world are endured in the land of the dying; there the good things of the Lord will be seen in the land of the living. For what he says, "I will him to remain until I come", is not to be understood as if he had said "to stay behind" or "to continue", but "to wait"; since what is signified by him will be fulfilled, of course, not now but when Christ comes. But what is signified by the one to whom it was said, "You follow me", unless it is done now, will not attain to what is awaited. And in this active life, the more we love Christ, the more easily are we set free from evil. But he loves us less such as we are now; and so he sets us free from this state, so that we may not always be such. But there he loves us more, since we shall have nothing that displeases him and that he must take away from us; nor does he love us here for any other reason than to heal us and carry us over from the things he does not love. So here he loves us less, where he does not want us to remain; there more, where he wants us to pass over to, and from where he does not want us to perish. Let Peter, then, love him, that we may be set free from this mortality; let John be loved by him, that we may be kept in that immortality.

But by this reasoning it is shown why Christ loved John more than Peter, not why Peter loved Christ more than John did. For if Christ loves us more in the age to come, where we shall live with him without end, than in this one, from which we are rescued so that we may be there for ever, it does not follow that we shall love him less then, when we shall be better; since we can by no means be better except by loving him more. Why, then, did John love him less than Peter did, if he signified that life in which he is to be loved much more, unless because "I will him to remain", that is, to wait, "until I come" was said for this reason: that we do not yet have that very love which will then be much greater, but await it as future, so that we may have it when he comes? For as the same apostle says in his epistle, "It has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Then, therefore, we shall love more what we shall see. But the Lord himself, knowing what our future life will be in us, loves it more by predestination, so as to lead us to it by loving us. Therefore, since "all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth", we know our present misery, because we feel it; and so we love more the mercy of the Lord, which we wish to be shown to us to set us free from misery, and every day we ask for it and have it, above all for the forgiveness of sins: this was signified by Peter, loving more but loved less, because Christ loves us less when wretched than when blessed. But the contemplation of the truth, such as it will then be, we love less, because we do not yet know or have it: this was signified by John, loving less, and therefore waiting until the Lord comes, both for that contemplation and for the fulfilment in us of love for it, such as is due to it; but loved more, because what was figured by him is what makes one blessed.

Yet let no one separate these distinguished apostles. Both were in what Peter signified, and both were to be in what John signified. In signifying, the one followed, the other remained; but by believing, both endured the present evils of this misery, and both awaited the future good things of that blessedness. And not they alone, but the whole holy Church, the bride of Christ, does this, to be rescued from these temptations and to be kept in that happiness. These two lives Peter and John figured, each of them one; but in this one both walked in time by faith, and that one both will enjoy for ever by sight. So for all the saints, who belong inseparably to the body of Christ, Peter, the first of the apostles, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven for binding and loosing sins, for the steering of this most stormy life; and for the same saints, for the most quiet bosom of that most hidden life, John the evangelist reclined on the breast of Christ. For neither does the one alone, but the whole Church, bind and loose sins; nor did the other alone drink from the fountain of the Lord's breast what he poured forth in preaching (that in the beginning the Word was God with God, and the other sublime things concerning the divinity of Christ, and concerning the Trinity and unity of the whole Godhead, which in that kingdom are to be contemplated face to face, but now, until the Lord comes, are to be beheld in a mirror and in an enigma); but the Lord himself spread that very Gospel through the whole world, for all his own to drink, each according to his capacity. There are some, and they not contemptible expounders of the sacred word, who have held that the apostle John was loved more by Christ because he did not marry and lived most chastely from early boyhood. This indeed does not plainly appear in the canonical Scriptures; yet this too greatly helps the fitness of this view, that that life was signified by him in which there will be no marriage.

"This is the disciple who bears witness to these things and has written these things; and we know that his witness is true. But there are also," he says, "many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one, I think the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." It is not to be believed that the world could not contain them by the extent of its space (for how could they be written in it if, once written, it could not hold them?); but perhaps they could not be grasped by the capacity of the readers. Although, with the truth of the matters kept intact, words often seem to exceed belief. This does not happen when something that was obscure or doubtful is explained by giving its cause and reason, but when what is plain is either enlarged or diminished, and yet there is no straying from the path of signifying the truth; since the words so exceed the thing indicated that the intention of the speaker, who is not deceiving, is evident, he knowing how far he will be believed, when something is diminished or enlarged in speaking beyond what is to be believed. This manner of speaking the teachers not only of Greek but also of Latin letters call by the Greek name hyperbole. This manner is found, as in this place, so also in some other divine writings: as, "They have set their mouth against heaven", and, "the hairy crown of those who go on in their sins", and many things of this kind, which are not lacking in the Holy Scriptures, as also other tropes, that is, figures of speech. I would discuss these at greater length, were it not that, as the evangelist ends his Gospel, I too am compelled to end my sermon.