Tractates on the Gospel of John 93.1–94.6

In what precedes this chapter of the Gospel, the Lord, strengthening his disciples to endure the hatred of their enemies, also prepared them by his own example, so that by imitating him they might become stronger; adding and promising them that the Holy Spirit would come, who would bear witness about him, and adding that they too would become his witnesses, the Holy Spirit, certainly, working this in them. For so he says: "He will bear witness about me, and you will bear witness." Certainly, because he will bear witness, you too will bear witness: he in your hearts, you in your voices; he by inspiring, you by sounding; so that it may be fulfilled, "Their sound has gone out into all the earth." For it would have been too little to exhort them by his example, unless he filled them with his Spirit. Finally, the apostle Peter, though he had already heard his words, where he had said, "A servant is not greater than his master; if they persecuted me, they will persecute you too," and already saw this being fulfilled in Christ, in whom he ought to have imitated the patience of his Lord, if example had been enough, gave way and denied, not bearing what he saw him bearing. But when he received the gift of the Holy Spirit, he preached him whom he had denied, and did not fear to profess him whom he had feared to confess. For before, he had indeed been taught by example, so as to know what he ought to do; but he had not yet been supported by strength, so as to do what he knew: he was instructed to stand, but he was not made firm so as not to fall. After this was done through the Holy Spirit, he proclaimed, even unto death, the one he had denied out of fear of death. Therefore the Lord, in this following chapter, of which we must now speak to you, says, "These things I have spoken to you, so that you may not be made to stumble." For it is sung in the Psalm, "Great peace have those who love your law, and they have no stumbling block." Rightly, then, having promised the Holy Spirit, by whose working in them they would become his witnesses, he added, "These things I have spoken to you, so that you may not be made to stumble." For when the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, there is great peace for those who love the law of God, so that they have no stumbling block.

Then, now stating what they would suffer, he says: "They will put you out of the synagogues." But what harm was it to the apostles to be expelled from the synagogues of the Jews, as if they were not going to separate themselves from there even if no one expelled them? But surely he wished to announce this: that the Jews would not receive Christ, from whom these men would not depart; and therefore it was going to happen that these, who could not be without him, would be put out together with him by those who did not wish to be in him. For surely, since there was no other people of God than that seed of Abraham, if they had acknowledged and received Christ, they would have remained like natural branches in the olive tree; nor would the churches of Christ have been one thing and the synagogues of the Jews another: they would be the same, if they had been willing to be in the same. Since they were not willing, what remained but that, remaining outside Christ, they should put outside the synagogues those who would not abandon Christ? For having received the Holy Spirit and been made his witnesses, they certainly would not be such as those of whom it is said: "Many of the rulers of the Jews believed in him; but for fear of the Jews, lest they be put out of the synagogues, they did not dare to confess him; for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God." So they believed in him, but not in the way he wanted them to believe who said: "How can you believe, who expect glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone?" To the disciples, then, believing in him in such a way that, filled with the Holy Spirit, that is, with the gift of God's grace, they were not of the number of those who, "ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted to the righteousness of God," nor of those of whom it was said, "They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God," that prophecy fits which is found fulfilled in them: "O Lord, they will walk in the light of your countenance, and in your name they will rejoice all the day, and in your righteousness they will be exalted; for you are the glory of their strength." Rightly is it said to them, "They will put you out of the synagogues": by those, namely, who "have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge"; who, because "ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own," expel those who are exalted not in their own righteousness but in God's, and who, expelled by men, are not ashamed, since he is the glory of their strength.

Then, when he had said this to them, he added: "But the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God; and these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me." That is, they have not known God nor his Son, to whom they think they are offering service in killing you. The Lord added these words as if consoling his own by them, who were to be driven out of the Jewish synagogues. For in foretelling the evils they would suffer for their witness to him, he says, "They will put you out of the synagogues." Nor does he say, "And the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God." What then does he say? "But the hour is coming": as he would speak if he were foretelling something good after these evils. What then does "They will put you out of the synagogues; but the hour is coming" mean? As if he were going to say: They will indeed separate you, but I will gather you; or, They will indeed separate you, but the hour of your gladness is coming. What then is this word doing there, "But the hour is coming," as if he were promising them consolation after tribulation, when it seems he should rather have said, by way of statement, "And the hour is coming"? But he does not say "And it is coming," as he would if he were foretelling that tribulation upon tribulation, not consolation after tribulation, would come to them. Or perhaps that separation from the synagogues was going to trouble them so much that they would prefer to die rather than linger in this life without the congregations of the Jews? Far be it that they should be so troubled, who sought the glory of God, not of men. What then is "They will put you out of the synagogues; but the hour is coming," when it seems he should rather have said, "And the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God"? For it is not even said, "But the hour is coming when they will kill you," as if death would come to them as a consolation for that separation; but "The hour is coming," he says, "when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God." It seems to me he wished to signify nothing else than that they should understand and rejoice that, when they were driven from the congregations of the Jews, they would gain so many for Christ that it would not be enough for their opponents to drive them out; they would not let them live, lest by their preaching they convert all to the name of Christ and turn them away from the observance of Judaism as though from divine truth. For we must take this as said of the Jews, of whom he had said, "They will put you out of the synagogues." For the witnesses, that is, the martyrs of Christ, even if they were killed by the Gentiles, yet the Gentiles did not think, when they did this, that they were offering service to God, but to their false gods. But every one of the Jews who killed the preachers of Christ thought he was offering service to God, believing that whoever was converted to Christ deserted the God of Israel. For it was by this reasoning that they were moved to kill Christ himself too; for their words on this matter have also been written down: "You see that the whole world has gone after him; if we let him live, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." And what Caiaphas said: "It is expedient that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." So in this discourse too he raised up his disciples by his own example, to whom he had said, "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too"; that just as they thought that in killing him they had offered service to God, so too with them.

So this is the sense of these words: "They will put you out of the synagogues"; but do not fear solitude; for, separated from their congregation, you will gather so many in my name that they, fearing lest the temple which was among them and all the sacraments of the old Law be deserted, will kill you, shedding your blood in such a way that they think they are offering service to God. See, this is what the Apostle said of them: "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge"; they think they offer service to God by killing the servants of God. O horrible error! So, to please God, you strike one who pleases God; and the living temple of God is laid low by your blow, lest the stone temple of God be deserted? O execrable blindness! But it came upon Israel in part, so that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in: in part, I say, not wholly. For not all, but some, of the branches were broken off, so that the wild olive might be grafted in. For when the Holy Spirit filled the disciples of Christ, when they spoke in the tongues of all nations, when divine miracles abounded through them and divine words were scattered abroad, Christ, even though killed, was so loved that his disciples, expelled from the congregations of the Jews, gathered a huge multitude from the Jews themselves, and feared no solitude. Hence the rest, reprobate and blind, were inflamed, having a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, and, believing that they offered service to God, they killed them. But he who had been killed for them gathered them; he who, before he was killed, had instructed them about these things to come, so that evils unexpected and unforeseen, though soon to pass, might not trouble their unknowing and unprepared minds, but, known beforehand and patiently accepted, might lead them to everlasting goods. That this was the reason he foretold these things to them, he himself also showed by adding: "But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you." Their hour: a dark hour, a nocturnal hour. "But by day the Lord commanded his mercy, and by night he declared it": when the night of the Jews did not darken with any confusion the day of the Christians separated from it; and when it could kill the flesh, it could not darken faith.

When the Lord Jesus had foretold to his disciples the persecutions they were to suffer after his departure, he added and said: "But these things I did not say to you from the beginning, because I was with you; but now I am going to him who sent me." Here we must first see whether he had not foretold their future sufferings to them before. But the other three evangelists show clearly enough that he foretold them before the supper was reached; and it was after the supper, according to John, that he spoke these words, where he says, "But these things I did not say to you from the beginning, because I was with you." Or is this question perhaps solved by the fact that they too relate that he was close to his passion when he said these things? So it was not "from the beginning," when he was with them, since he said these things when he was already about to depart and go to the Father; and therefore, even according to those evangelists, what is said here is true: "But these things I did not say to you from the beginning." But what are we to do about the trustworthiness of the Gospel according to Matthew, which records that these things were announced to them by the Lord not only when he was about to eat the Passover with his disciples, with the passion at hand, but also from the beginning, where the twelve apostles are first named one by one and sent out to divine works? What then does he mean by saying here, "But these things I did not say to you from the beginning, because I was with you," except that what he says here about the Holy Spirit, that he would come to them and bear witness when they suffered those evils, he did not say to them from the beginning, because he was with them?

That Comforter, then, or Advocate (for both translate the Greek paracletus), was needed when Christ departed; and therefore he had not spoken of him from the beginning, when he was with them, because they were comforted by his presence. But as he was about to depart, he had to tell them that the Spirit would come, through whom it would come about that, with love poured out in their hearts, they would preach the word of God with confidence; and, as he bore witness about Christ inwardly with them, they too would bear witness; and they would not be made to stumble when their Jewish enemies put them out of the synagogues and killed them, thinking they were offering service to God; since "love bears all things," the love which was to be poured out in their hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit. From this, then, the whole sense is drawn: that he was going to make them his martyrs, that is, his witnesses, through the Holy Spirit; so that, with the Spirit working in them, they would endure whatever hardships of persecution, and, set on fire by that divine fire, would not grow cold in the love of preaching. "These things, then," he says, "I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you." I have spoken these things to you, namely, not only because you are going to suffer them, but because, when that Paraclete has come, he will bear witness about me, so that you do not keep silent out of fear of these things; and from this it will come about that you too bear witness. "But these things I did not say to you from the beginning, because I was with you," and I was comforting you by my bodily presence, shown to your human senses, which as little ones you could grasp.

"But now I am going to him who sent me; and none of you," he says, "asks me, Where are you going?" He signifies that he will go in such a way that no one would ask, because they would see it happen openly with bodily sight; for earlier they had asked him where he was going, and he had answered them that he was going where they could not then come. But now he promises that he will go in such a way that none of them asks where he is going. For "a cloud took him up" when he ascended from them; and as he went into heaven they followed him not with questioning words but with their eyes.

"But because I have said these things to you," he says, "sorrow has filled your heart." He saw, certainly, what those words of his were doing in their hearts: for not yet having inwardly the spiritual consolation which they were to have through the Holy Spirit, they feared to lose what they saw outwardly in Christ; and since they could not doubt that they would lose him, as he was announcing the truth, their human affection was saddened because their fleshly sight was being bereaved. But he knew what was rather to their advantage, because the inner sight, with which the Holy Spirit was going to console them, is certainly better; for the Spirit would not present a human body to the bodies of those who see, but pour himself into the hearts of those who believe. Finally he adds: "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go. For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." As if he said: It is to your advantage that this form of a servant be taken away from you: as the Word made flesh I dwell among you; but I do not want you to go on loving me in a fleshly way, and, content with this milk, to wish always to be infants. It is to your advantage that I go; for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you. If I do not withdraw the tender nourishment with which I have fed you, you will not hunger for solid food; if you cling to the flesh in a fleshly way, you will not be capable of the Spirit. For what is "If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you"? Could he not send him while placed here? Who would say this? For neither had the Spirit withdrawn from where Christ was, and Christ had come from the Father in such a way as not to cease remaining in the Father. Finally, how could he not send him even while set here, when we know that the Spirit came upon him when he was baptized and remained on him; indeed, when we know that he was never separable from him? What then is "If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you," except: you cannot receive the Spirit as long as you persist in knowing Christ according to the flesh? Hence he who had already received the Spirit says: "Even if we knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." For he does not know even Christ's very flesh according to the flesh who knows spiritually the Word made flesh. This surely is what the good master wished to signify by saying, "For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."

But when Christ departed bodily, not only the Holy Spirit but also the Father and the Son were present to them spiritually. For if Christ withdrew from them in such a way that the Holy Spirit was in them in place of him, not together with him, where is his promise when he says, "Behold, I am with you always, even to the consummation of the age," and, "We will come to him, I and the Father, and make our dwelling with him," since he promised that he would send the Holy Spirit too in such a way that he would be with them for ever? And therefore, since from being fleshly or natural they were to become spiritual, they were surely going to have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit more fully. But in no one is the Father to be believed to be without the Son and the Holy Spirit, or the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit, or the Son without the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, or the Father and the Holy Spirit without the Son; but where any one of them is, there is the Trinity, one God. But the Trinity had to be made known in such a way that, though there is no diversity of substances, the distinction of persons is nevertheless commended one by one; and in this those who understand rightly can never see a separation of natures.

But what follows, "And when he comes, he will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will no longer see me; of judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged," as though the only sin were not believing in Christ, as though righteousness itself were not seeing Christ, and as though judgment itself were that the ruler of this world, that is, the devil, has been judged: this is very obscure, and must not be squeezed into this sermon, lest it become more obscure by brevity; it must rather be explained in another, as far as the Lord helps.