Homilies on John 24.1–24.3

[Homily 24.] “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, at the feast, many believed in him.” Of the people of that time some gave themselves to error, while others held to the truth; but even of these some, having laid hold of it for a little while, fell away from it again. Christ too hinted at them when he compared them to seeds that do not lie deep but have their roots on the surface of the earth, and said that they would quickly perish. The evangelist too has shown them to us here, saying, “When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, at the feast, many believed in him, seeing the signs that he did. But Jesus himself did not entrust himself to them.” For those disciples were more exact who came not only because of the signs but also because of the teaching. For the signs drew the duller sort, but the prophecies and the teaching drew the more reasoning. Those, at any rate, who were held by the teaching were firmer than those drawn by the signs; and Christ called them blessed, saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” That these were not among the genuine ones the sequel too shows: “But Jesus himself,” it says, “did not entrust himself to them.” Why? “Because he knew all people, and because he had no need that anyone should testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.” What he says is this: He paid no attention to outward words, since he entered into their very hearts; and going into their mind and knowing clearly their passing warmth, he did not trust them as perfected disciples, nor did he hand over all his teachings to them as men who had already become firm believers. To know what is in human hearts belongs to God, who fashioned the hearts one by one: “For you,” it says, “alone know the hearts.” So he did not need witnesses to learn the mind of his own creatures; that is why he did not trust them on the strength of a passing faith. For men, who know neither the present nor the future, often say and entrust everything without any reserve even to those who approach them deceitfully and who will fall away a little later; but Christ did not do so. For he knew all their secrets clearly. There are many such people now too, who have the name of faith but are unstable and easily led. That is why now too Christ does not entrust himself to them, but keeps most things hidden. For as we do not confide in mere friends but in true ones, so does God. Hear, at any rate, what Christ says to the disciples: “I no longer call you servants; for you are my friends.” How, and why? “Because I have made known to you everything that I heard from the Father.” That is why he did not give signs to the Jews when they asked, because they asked to test him. So asking for signs belongs to those who test, both then and now. For now too there are some who seek and say, “Why do signs not happen now as well?” If you are a believer, as you should be, and love Christ, as one must love him, you have no need of signs; for these are given to unbelievers. How then, someone says, were they not given to the Jews? They certainly were given; and if there were times when they asked and did not receive, it was because they asked for them not in order to be freed from unbelief, but to confirm their wickedness further. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him by night.” This man appears in the middle of the Gospel too, speaking on Christ’s behalf. For he says, “Our law does not judge anyone unless it first hears him.” And the Jews are annoyed with him, saying, “Search and see that no prophet has arisen from Galilee.” And after the cross he took great care for the burial of the Lord’s body: “For Nicodemus also came,” it says, “who had come to the Lord by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.” Now too he was well disposed toward Christ, but not as he should have been, nor with the fitting understanding, but he was still held by Jewish weakness. That is why he came by night, being afraid to do it by day. But God, who loves humankind, did not even so push him away, nor reprove him, nor deprive him of his teaching, but talks with him with great gentleness and opens to him very lofty teachings, in riddles, it is true, but he opens them all the same. For he was much more deserving of pardon than those who did this out of wickedness. They are beyond every defense; he too was liable to blame, but not to so great a blame. How then did the evangelist say nothing of the kind about him? He did say elsewhere that “many even of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Jews they did not confess it, so as not to be put out of the synagogue”; and here he hinted at the whole by his coming by night. What then does this man say? “Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

Nicodemus still turns downward; he still has a human idea of him, and talks as if about a prophet, imagining nothing great from the signs. “We know,” he says, “that you have come from God as a teacher.” Why then do you come by night and secretly to the one who speaks the things of God, to the one who has come from there? Why do you not talk with him openly? But Jesus did not say this either, nor did he reprove him. “For a bruised reed he will not break,” it says, “and a smoldering wick he will not quench.” And again, “He will not quarrel,” it says, “nor cry out.” And again he himself says, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.” “No one can do these signs unless God is with him.” He still speaks like the heretics, saying that he was moved by another and needed the help of others to do what he did. What then does Christ say? See the height of his condescension. He did not say, “I need no one else’s help, but I do everything with authority; for I am the true Son of God, and of the same power as the one who begot me”; he declined this for the time, because it was hard for the hearer to take. For what I always say I will say now too: what Christ was eager for at the time was not so much to reveal his own dignity as to persuade them that he did nothing in opposition to the Father. That is why in his words he is often seen to be moderate, but in his deeds he does not act so. For when he works miracles, he does everything with authority: [“I will; be clean.” “Talitha, arise.”] “Stretch out your hand.” “Your sins are forgiven.” “Be silent, be muzzled.” “Take up your bed and go to your house.” “I say to you, evil demon, come out of him.” “Let it be to you as you wish.” “If anyone says anything to you, you will say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” “Today you will be with me in paradise.” “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder’; but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause will be liable to judgment.” “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And everywhere we see that his authority was great. For in the deeds no one could find fault with what was done. How could they? For if what was said had not come about and taken effect as he commanded, one of them might have said that the commands were madness; but since it did come about, the truth of the outcome muzzled them even against their will. But in the case of words they could often, in their shamelessness, charge him with madness. So now with Nicodemus too, he says nothing lofty openly, but by riddles leads him up from his lowly idea, teaching that he is sufficient in himself for the display of miracles. For the Father begot him perfect and sufficient for himself, and having nothing imperfect. But let us see how he establishes this very thing. Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, and that no one can do what you do unless God is with him.” He thought he had said something great in saying this about Christ. What then does Christ do? He shows that Nicodemus had not set foot on the threshold of the proper knowledge, nor stood in the porch, but was still wandering somewhere outside the kingdom, both he and anyone else who says these things, and that whoever holds this opinion about the Only-begotten has not yet even peeped toward the true knowledge. What does he say? “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That is, “Unless you are born from above and receive the [right] teachings, you are wandering somewhere outside and are far from the kingdom of heaven.” But he does not say it so plainly; to make the saying less offensive, he does not aim it at him openly, but speaks indefinitely: “Unless one is born,” all but saying, “Whether you or anyone else who holds such opinions about me, he is somewhere outside the kingdom.” For if he had not said this wishing to establish this, the answer would not have fitted what was said. If the Jews had heard these things, they would have laughed and gone away; but this man shows his love of learning in this too. That is why Christ often speaks obscurely, wishing to rouse his hearers to ask and make them more attentive. For what is said plainly often slips past the hearer, but what is obscure makes him more inquisitive and earnest. What he says is this: “Unless you are born from above, unless you share in the Spirit given through the washing of regeneration, you cannot have the proper opinion about me. For this opinion is not spiritual but natural.” But he did not say so, declining to strike one who had brought what he had and had spoken as far as he could; but he leads him up without his noticing to the greater knowledge, saying, “Unless one is born from above.” “From above” here some say means “from heaven,” others “anew.” For he says that one not born in this way cannot see the kingdom of God, pointing here to himself, and showing that what is seen is not all, but that we need other eyes to see Christ. Hearing this, Nicodemus says, “How can a man be born when he is old?” You call him Rabbi and say he has come from God, and you do not accept what is said, but [use toward your teacher the word that brings in] much [perplexity]? For this “how” is the doubting of those who do not believe firmly, of those who are still of the earth. For Sarah too laughed because she said “how”; and many others, seeking this, fell from the faith.

So too heretics remain in their heresy, constantly asking this word: some saying, “How was he made flesh?” others, “How was he begotten?”, and subjecting that infinite essence to the weakness of their own reasonings. Knowing this, we must flee this untimely meddling. For those who search into these things will neither learn the “how” and will also fall from the right faith. That is why this man too, being perplexed, asks about the manner (for he understood that what was said was said to him as well), and is troubled and dizzy and at a loss, having come as to a man but hearing things greater than a man’s, things no one had ever heard. And for the time he rouses himself toward the height of what is said, but is darkened, and does not stand firm, carried about everywhere and constantly falling from faith. That is why he persists in maintaining the impossibility, so as to call him to a clearer teaching. “Can a man,” he says, “enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Do you see how, when someone entrusts spiritual things to his own reasonings, he says laughable things and seems to be babbling and drunk, when he meddles with what was said beyond what God decided, and does not accept the assent of faith? He heard of a spiritual birth and did not understand it as spiritual, but dragged what was said down to the lowliness of the flesh, and made so great and lofty a teaching hang on the sequence of nature. That is why he then invents nonsense and laughable difficulties. That is why Paul too said, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit.” Yet even in this he keeps his respect for Christ. For he did not mock what was said, but, thinking it impossible, fell silent. For there were two difficulties: such a birth, and the kingdom. For neither the name of the kingdom had ever been heard among the Jews, nor of such a birth. But for the time he stops at the first, which shook his mind most. Knowing this, then, let us not search into the things of God by reasoning, nor bring the things of that place under the sequence that holds among us, nor subject them to the necessity of nature; but let us understand everything reverently, believing as the Scriptures said. For the meddlesome and curious man gains nothing, and besides not finding what he seeks he will also pay the utmost penalty. You have heard that he begot: believe what you heard; do not ask how, and do not for this reason abolish the begetting. For this is the height of senselessness. For if this man, hearing of a birth, not that ineffable one but this one by grace, was darkened and perplexed because he suspected nothing great about it, but human and earthly things, those who meddle with and pry into that most awesome birth, which surpasses all reason and mind, what punishment would they deserve? For nothing makes one so dizzy as human reasoning that speaks everything from the earth and will not bear to be enlightened from above. For the earthiness of our reasonings has much mud. That is why we need the streams from above, so that, the mud settling, whatever of it is pure may be carried up and mingle with the teachings from there. And this happens when we show both a fair-minded soul and an upright life. For it is possible, it is possible for the mind to be darkened by corrupt ways too, not only by untimely meddling. That is why Paul too said to the Corinthians, “I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you are still fleshly. For while there is jealousy and strife and divisions among you, are you not fleshly?” And in the letter to the Hebrews, and in many places, one may see Paul saying that this is the cause of wicked teachings: that the soul ruled by passions cannot see anything great and noble, but, as if [darkened] by some film, [it is weak of sight]. Let us cleanse ourselves, then; let us kindle the light of knowledge; let us not sow among thorns. What the mass of thorns is you know, even if we do not say it. For you have often heard Christ call the care of the present life and the deceitfulness of wealth by the name of thorns; and rightly. For as those are fruitless, so are these; as they tear those who touch them, so do these passions; and as thorns are easily caught by fire and hateful to the farmer, so are the things of the world; and as wild beasts and vipers and scorpions hide in thorns, so do they in the deceitfulness of wealth. But let us set the fire of the Spirit to them, so as to consume the thorns and drive away the wild beasts, so as to provide the farmer with a clean field; and after cleansing it, [let us water it with the streams of the Spirit, and plant] the fruitful olive, the gentlest plant, the evergreen, the light-giving, the nourishing, the health-giving. All these almsgiving has, being like a seal on those who possess it. Not even death, when it comes, withers this plant, but it stands always, enlightening the mind, nourishing the sinews of the soul, making its strength mightier. If we have it continually, we shall be able with confidence both to see the bridegroom and to enter the bridal chamber; which may we all obtain, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.