Tractates on the Gospel of John 8.1–8.13

The miracle of our Lord Jesus Christ by which he made wine from water is not marvelous to those who know that God did it. For he who made wine that day at the wedding in those six jars, which he commanded to be filled with water, is he who does this every year in the vines. For just as what the servants put into the jars was turned into wine by the work of the Lord, so too what the clouds pour out is turned into wine by the work of the same Lord. But that we do not marvel at, because it happens every year: by its regularity it has lost its wonder. And yet it deserves greater consideration than what was done in the jars of water. For who is there who considers the works of God by which this whole world is ruled and administered, and is not amazed and overwhelmed by miracles? If he considers the power of a single grain of any seed whatever, it is a great thing; it is awe-inspiring to one who considers it. But because men, intent on other things, have lost the consideration of God's works, in which they might daily give praise to the Creator, God has as it were reserved to himself certain unusual things to do, so as to rouse men, as if sleeping, by more wonderful things to worship him. A dead man rose again, and men marveled: so many are born every day, and no one marvels. If we consider more wisely, it is a greater miracle for one to exist who did not exist than for one who existed to come back to life. Yet the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, does all these things through his Word, and rules what he created. The earlier miracles he did through his Word, God with him; the later miracles he did through that same Word of his, incarnate and made man for our sake. As we marvel at what was done through Jesus the man, let us marvel at what was done through Jesus God. Through Jesus God were made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the adornment of the sky, the richness of the earth, the fruitfulness of the sea; all these things that lie before our eyes were made through Jesus God. And we see these things, and if his Spirit is in us, they so please us that the craftsman is praised: not so that, turned to the works, we turn away from the craftsman, and, as it were, setting our face toward the things he made, turn our back on him who made them.

And these things indeed we see, and they lie before our eyes. What of those we do not see, such as angels, virtues, powers, dominions, and every inhabitant of this supercelestial structure, which does not lie before our eyes? Although angels too have often shown themselves to men when it was fitting. Did not God make all these things too through his Word, that is, his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? What of the human soul itself, which is not seen, and through the works it performs in the flesh offers great cause for wonder to those who consider it well: by whom was it made, if not by God? And through whom was it made, if not through the Son of God? I am not yet speaking of the soul of man. How the soul of any beast rules its mass! It puts forth all the senses: the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nostrils for perceiving smell, the judgment of the mouth for distinguishing tastes, and finally the limbs themselves for performing their tasks. Is it the body that does these things, and not the soul, that is, the inhabitant of the body? Yet it is not seen with the eyes, and it moves wonder by what it does. Let your consideration now go on also to the human soul, to which God has given understanding to know its Creator, to discern and distinguish between good and evil, that is, between just and unjust: how much it does through the body! Consider the whole world ordered in the human commonwealth itself: with what administrations, what ranks of authorities, what constitutions of cities, laws, customs, arts! All this is carried on through the soul, and this power of the soul is not seen. When it is withdrawn from the body, the corpse lies there; but when it is present to the body, first of all it preserves it, as it were, from stench. For all flesh is corruptible; it flows away into rottenness unless it is held together by a certain seasoning of the soul. But this it has in common with the soul of a beast: the things I spoke of are more to be wondered at, which belong to mind and understanding, where it is also renewed to the image of its Creator, to whose image man was made. What will this power of the soul be, when this body too has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality? If it can do so much through corruptible flesh, what will it be able to do through a spiritual body after the resurrection of the dead? Yet this soul, as I have said, of a wonderful nature and substance, is an invisible and intelligible thing; and yet it too was made through Jesus God, because he is the Word of God. "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made."

Since, then, we see such great things made through Jesus God, why do we marvel at water turned into wine through Jesus the man? For he was not made man in such a way as to lose what he was as God: man was added to him; God was not lost. So he who did all those things did this. Let us not, then, marvel because God did it; but let us love him because he did it among us, and did it for our restoration. For he hints something to us even in these deeds. I think that it was not without reason that he came to the wedding. Apart from the miracle, something of mystery and sacrament lies hidden in the deed itself. Let us knock, so that he may open and make us drunk with the invisible wine: for we too were water, and he made us wine, he made us wise; for we taste of his faith, we who were before unwise. And perhaps it belongs to that very wisdom to understand, with honor to God and with praise of his majesty and with love of his most mighty mercy, what was done in this miracle.

The Lord came to the wedding when invited. What wonder is it if he came to a wedding in that house, who came into this world for a wedding? For if he did not come to a wedding, he has no bride here. And what is it that the apostle says: "I have betrothed you to one husband, to present a chaste virgin to Christ"? Why does he fear that the virginity of Christ's bride may be corrupted by the cunning of the devil? "I fear," he says, "lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity and chastity that is in Christ." So he has here a bride whom he redeemed with his blood, and to whom he gave the Holy Spirit as a pledge. He rescued her from bondage to the devil; he died for her sins, he rose for her justification. Who will offer so much to his bride? Let men offer any ornaments of the earth: gold, silver, precious stones, horses, slaves, farms, estates: will anyone offer his own blood? For if he gives his blood to his bride, there will be no one to marry her. But the Lord, dying without fear, gave his blood for her whom he would have when he rose, whom he had already joined to himself in the Virgin's womb. For the Word is the bridegroom, and human flesh the bride; and both together are one Son of God, and the same Son of Man. Where he was made head of the Church, that womb of the Virgin Mary was his bridal chamber; from there he came forth like a bridegroom from his chamber, as Scripture foretold: "And he, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced like a giant to run his course." He came forth from the chamber like a bridegroom, and, invited, came to the wedding.

For the sake of a certain sacrament he seems not to acknowledge the mother from whom the bridegroom came forth, and to say to her, "What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come." What is this? Did he come to the wedding to teach that mothers are to be despised? Surely the man to whose wedding he had come was taking a wife in order to beget children, and surely he wished to be honored by those he wished to beget. Had Jesus, then, come to the wedding to dishonor his mother, when weddings are celebrated and wives are married for the sake of having children, whom God commands to honor their parents? Without doubt, brothers, something lies hidden there. For it is so great a matter that certain people, against whom the apostle warned us, as we mentioned above, saying, "I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity and chastity that is in Christ," disparaging the Gospel and saying that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary, tried to draw from this an argument for their error, saying, "How was she his mother, to whom he said, 'What have I to do with you, woman?'" So we must answer them and explain why the Lord said this, lest in their madness they seem to themselves to have found something against sound faith, by which the chastity of the virgin bride may be corrupted, that is, by which the faith of the Church may be violated. For truly, brothers, the faith of those is corrupted who prefer a lie to the truth. For those who seem to honor Christ so as to deny that he had flesh proclaim him nothing other than a liar. So those who build a lie in men, what do they drive out of them but the truth? They let in the devil, they shut out Christ; they let in the adulterer, they shut out the bridegroom: groomsmen, forsooth, or rather pimps of the serpent. For they speak to this end, that the serpent may possess and Christ be shut out. How does the serpent possess? When a lie possesses. When falsehood possesses, the serpent possesses; when truth possesses, Christ possesses. For he himself said, "I am the truth"; but of the other he said, "And he did not stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him." And Christ is the truth in such a way that you should accept that everything in Christ is true: true Word, God equal to the Father, true soul, true flesh, true man, true God, true birth, true passion, true death, true resurrection. If you say that any of these is false, rottenness enters; from the serpent's poison worms of lies are born, and nothing will remain whole.

"What, then," someone says, "is it that the Lord says, 'What have I to do with you, woman?'" Perhaps in what follows the Lord shows us why he said this: "My hour," he says, "has not yet come." For this is how he says it: "What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come." And why this was said must be inquired. But first let us resist the heretics on this point. What does the decrepit serpent say, the ancient hisser and breather of poisons? What does he say? "Jesus did not have a woman as his mother." How do you prove it? "Because he said," he says, "'What have I to do with you, woman?'" Who reported this, so that we should believe that he said it? Who reported it? Certainly John the evangelist. But the same John the evangelist said, "And the mother of Jesus was there." For so he reported: "The next day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And he had come there, invited to the wedding with his disciples." We hold two statements put forward by the evangelist. "The mother of Jesus was there," the evangelist said; what Jesus said to his mother, the evangelist himself said. And see, brothers, how he said that Jesus answered his mother, so that he first said, "His mother said to him," so that you may have virginity of heart fortified against the tongue of the serpent. There in the same Gospel, with the same evangelist reporting, it is said, "The mother of Jesus was there," and, "His mother said to him." Who reported this? John the evangelist. And what did Jesus answer his mother? "What have I to do with you, woman?" Who reports this? The very same John the evangelist. O most faithful and most truthful evangelist, you tell me that Jesus said, "What have I to do with you, woman?" Why did you add his mother, whom he does not acknowledge? For you said that the mother of Jesus was there, and that his mother said to him; why did you not rather say, "Mary was there," and, "Mary said to him"? You report both: "His mother said to him," and, "Jesus answered her, What have I to do with you, woman?" Why this, unless because both are true? But those people are willing to believe the evangelist when he reports that Jesus said to his mother, "What have I to do with you, woman?" and unwilling to believe the evangelist when he says, "The mother of Jesus was there," and, "His mother said to him." But who is it that resists the serpent and holds the truth, whose virginity of heart is not corrupted by the cunning of the devil? He who believes both to be true: both that the mother of Jesus was there, and that Jesus gave that answer to his mother. But if he does not yet understand how Jesus said, "What have I to do with you, woman?" let him meanwhile believe that he said it, and said it to his mother. Let there first be piety in the believer, and there will be fruit in the one who understands.

I ask you, O faithful Christians: was the mother of Jesus there? Answer, "She was." How do you know? Answer, "The Gospel says so." What did Jesus answer his mother? Answer, "What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come." And how do you know this? Answer, "The Gospel says so." Let no one corrupt this faith of yours, if you wish to keep a chaste virginity for the bridegroom. But if you are asked why he gave this answer to his mother, let him who understands say it; but let him who does not yet understand still most firmly believe that Jesus gave this answer, and gave it to his mother. By this piety he will merit to understand also why he answered so, if he knocks at the door of truth by praying and does not approach by quarreling. Only let him beware, while he thinks he knows, or is ashamed not to know, why he answered so, lest he be forced to believe either that the evangelist lied who said, "The mother of Jesus was there," or that Christ himself suffered a false death for our sins and showed false scars for our justification, and spoke falsely when he said, "If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." For if the mother was false, the flesh false, the death false, the wounds of the passion false, the scars of the resurrection false, then not truth but rather falsehood will set free those who believe in him. Rather, let falsehood yield to truth, and let all be confounded who want to seem truthful precisely because they try to show Christ a deceiver, and do not want it said to them, "We do not believe you, because you lie," while they say that the Truth himself has lied. Yet if we say to them, "How do you know that Christ said, 'What have I to do with you, woman?'" they answer that they believed the Gospel. Why do they not believe the Gospel when it says, "The mother of Jesus was there," and, "His mother said to him"? Or if the Gospel lies here, how is it believed when it says that Jesus said, "What have I to do with you, woman?" Why do these wretched people not rather believe faithfully that the Lord answered so not to a stranger but to his mother, and inquire devoutly why he answered so? For there is a great difference between one who says, "I want to know why Christ gave this answer to his mother," and one who says, "I know that Christ did not give this answer to his mother." It is one thing to want to understand what is closed, another to refuse to believe what is open. He who says, "I want to know why Christ answered his mother so," wants the Gospel in which he believes to be opened to him; but he who says, "I know that Christ did not give this answer to his mother," accuses of falsehood the very Gospel in which he believed that Christ answered so.

Now, then, if you please, brothers, leaving them repulsed and wandering for ever in their blindness unless they are humbly healed, let us inquire why our Lord answered his mother so. He was uniquely born of the Father without a mother, of a mother without a father: without a mother God, without a father man; without a mother before all times, without a father at the end of times. What he answered, he answered his mother: because "the mother of Jesus was there," and "his mother said to him." The whole Gospel says this. There we know that the mother of Jesus was there, where we know that he said to her, "What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come." Let us believe the whole, and inquire into what we do not yet understand. And first see to this: lest perhaps, just as the Manichees found an occasion for their faithlessness because the Lord said, "What have I to do with you, woman?" so the astrologers may find an occasion for their deception because he said, "My hour has not yet come." And if he said this in the astrologers' sense, we committed sacrilege in burning their books. But if we acted rightly, as was done in the times of the apostles, the Lord did not say "My hour has not yet come" in their sense. For these vain talkers, seduced seducers, say, "You see that Christ was under fate, since he says, 'My hour has not yet come.'" To whom, then, should we answer first, the heretics or the astrologers? For both come from that serpent, wishing to corrupt the virginity of heart of the Church, which she has in her undefiled faith. First, if you please, those whom we had proposed, to whom indeed we have already answered for the most part. But lest they think that we have nothing to say about these words which the Lord answered his mother, we equip you further against them; for to refute them I think what has already been said suffices.

Why, then, did the son say to his mother, "What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come"? Our Lord Jesus Christ was both God and man: as God he had no mother; as man he had. So she was the mother of the flesh, the mother of the humanity, the mother of the weakness that he took on for our sake. But the miracle he was about to do he was about to do according to his divinity, not according to his weakness; according to what he was as God, not according to what he was as born weak. "But the weakness of God is stronger than men." So his mother was asking for a miracle; but he, about to perform divine deeds, as it were did not acknowledge the human womb, as if saying, "What in me does the miracle, you did not bear; my divinity you did not bear; but because you bore my weakness, I will acknowledge you then, when that very weakness hangs on the cross." For this is what "My hour has not yet come" means. For then he acknowledged her, he who of course always knew her. Even before he was born of her, he knew his mother in predestination; and before he himself as God created her of whom he himself as man would be created, he knew his mother. But at a certain hour, in a mystery, he does not acknowledge her; and at a certain hour, which had not yet come, in a mystery he acknowledges her again. For he acknowledged her then, when what she had borne was dying. For that through which Mary was made was not dying, but what was made from Mary was dying: not the eternity of the divinity, but the weakness of the flesh was dying. So he gave that answer, distinguishing in the faith of believers who he was and by what way he had come. For he came through a woman as mother, he who is God and Lord of heaven and earth. As Lord of the world, as Lord of heaven and earth, he is certainly Lord of Mary too; as creator of heaven and earth, creator of Mary too. But according to what was said, "Made of a woman, made under the law," he is the son of Mary. He himself is Lord of Mary, he himself is son of Mary; he himself is creator of Mary, he himself was created from Mary. Do not wonder that he is both son and Lord: for as he was called son of Mary, so he was called son of David; and son of David because son of Mary. Hear the apostle saying plainly, "Who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh." Hear that he is also David's Lord; let David himself say it: "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand." And Jesus himself put this to the Jews and refuted them by it. Just as, then, he is both son and lord of David, son of David according to the flesh, lord of David according to the divinity, so he is son of Mary according to the flesh and Lord of Mary according to the majesty. Since, then, she was not the mother of the divinity, and the miracle she was asking for was to be done through the divinity, he answered her, "What have I to do with you, woman?" But lest you think that I deny you are my mother, "My hour has not yet come": for there I will acknowledge you, when the weakness whose mother you are begins to hang on the cross. Let us prove whether this is true. When the Lord suffered, as the same evangelist says, who knew the Lord's mother and who made known to us the Lord's mother at this wedding too, he himself reports: "There was," he says, "by the cross the mother of Jesus; and Jesus said to his mother, Woman, behold your son; and to the disciple, Behold your mother." He commends his mother to the disciple; about to die before his mother, and to rise again before his mother's death, he commends his mother; a man commends a human being to a human being. This is what Mary had borne. That hour had now come of which he had then said, "My hour has not yet come."

As far as I judge, brothers, the heretics have been answered; let us answer the astrologers. And how do they try to prove that Jesus was under fate? "Because he himself said," they say, "'My hour has not yet come.' So we believe him; and if he had said, 'I have no hour,' he would have excluded the astrologers; but see," they say, "he himself said, 'My hour has not yet come.'" If, then, he had said, "I have no hour," he would have excluded the astrologers; there would be nothing for them to slander: but now, because he said, "My hour has not yet come," what can we say against his own words? It is strange that the astrologers, by believing Christ's words, try to convince Christians that Christ lived under a fated hour. Then let them believe Christ when he says, "I have power to lay down my life and to take it up again: no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself, and I take it up again." Is this power, then, under fate? Let them show a man who has power over when he will die, how long he will live: they will certainly not show one. Let them believe God, then, when he says, "I have power to lay down my life and to take it up again"; and let them inquire why it was said, "My hour has not yet come"; and let them not on that account place under fate the founder of heaven, the creator and orderer of the stars. For even if fate came from the stars, the founder of the stars could not be under the necessity of the stars. Add that not only did Christ not have what you call fate; neither do you, nor I, nor he, nor any human being.

Nevertheless, seduced, they seduce, and set traps for men: they spread nets to catch men, and that in the streets. For those who spread nets to catch wild beasts do so at least in forests and wilderness: how wretchedly vain are men, for whose catching nets are spread in the forum! When men sell themselves to men, they receive money; these give money in order to sell themselves to vanities. For they go in to the astrologer to buy themselves masters, such as the astrologer is pleased to give: Saturn, or Jupiter, or Mercury, or whatever else of sacrilegious name. He went in free, so as to come out a slave, having paid his money. Or rather, he would not have gone in if he were free; but he went in where his master Error and his mistress Greed dragged him. Hence the Truth also says, "Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."

Why, then, did he say, "My hour has not yet come"? Rather because, having in his power when he would die, he did not yet see it to be opportune to use that power. Just as we, brothers, for example, speak thus: "Now is the fixed hour for us to go out to celebrate the sacraments." If we go out before it is needed, are we not perverse and preposterous? Because, then, we do nothing except when it is opportune, do we therefore consider fate in these actions when we speak so? What, then, does "My hour has not yet come" mean? "When I know it is opportune for me to suffer, when my passion will be useful, then I will suffer willingly; that hour has not yet come": so that you may keep both, "My hour has not yet come," and, "I have power to lay down my life and to take it up again." So he had come having in his power when he would die. And if he had died before choosing disciples, it would surely have been preposterous. If he were a man who did not have his hour in his power, he could have died before choosing disciples; and if perhaps he had died when the disciples were already chosen and taught, it would have been granted to him, not done by himself. But he who had come having in his hand when he would go, when he would return, how far he would go out, to whom the underworld lay open not only in dying but also in rising again, in order to show us the hope of immortality of his Church, showed in the head what the members ought to expect. He who rose again in the head will rise again also in the other members. So the hour had not yet come, the opportune time was not yet. Disciples had to be called, the kingdom of heaven had to be proclaimed, mighty works had to be done, the Lord's divinity had to be commended in miracles, the Lord's humanity had to be commended in his very sharing of mortality. For he who was hungry because he was man fed so many thousands with five loaves because he was God; he who slept because he was man commanded the winds and the waves because he was God. All these things had to be commended first, so that there might be something for the evangelists to write, something to be preached to the Church. But when he had done as much as he judged sufficient, the hour came, an hour not of necessity but of will, not of condition but of power.

What then, brothers? Because we have answered these and those, shall we say nothing about what the jars mean, what the water turned into wine, what the master of the feast, what the bridegroom, what the mother of Jesus in the mystery, what the wedding itself? All must be spoken of, but you must not be burdened. I wished indeed, in the name of Christ, to do this with you yesterday too, when a sermon is customarily owed to your Charity, but I was not permitted, being hindered by certain necessities. If, then, it please your Holiness, let us put off until tomorrow what belongs to the mystery of this deed, and not burden both your weakness and ours. There are perhaps many today who have come together because of the solemnity of the day, not to hear the sermon. Let those who come tomorrow come to listen, so that we neither cheat the eager nor weigh down the fastidious.