Homilies on John 38.1–38.4

“After this Jesus finds him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have become well; sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.’” Sin is a terrible thing, terrible, and the ruin of the soul; and often the evil, overflowing, has reached even to bodies. For since for the most part we feel no pain when the soul is sick, but if the body receives even a small injury we make every effort to free it from the illness, because we feel the illness, for this reason God often punishes the body for the offenses of the soul, so that by the scourging of the lesser part the better part too may obtain some healing. So too Paul corrected the man who had committed sexual immorality among the Corinthians, checking the disease of the soul by the destruction of the flesh; applying the knife to the body, he thus restrained the evil, like an excellent physician who cauterizes from outside a dropsy or an enlarged spleen that will not yield to internal medicines. This Christ too did in the case of the paralytic. And see how he showed it himself when he said, “See, you have become well; sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” What then do we learn from this? First, that his disease had been born of his sins; second, that the word about Gehenna is trustworthy; and third, that the punishment is long and endless. Where, then, are those who say, “I murdered in one hour, I committed adultery in a brief moment of time, and am I punished for ever?” For see, this man too did not sin for as many years as he was punished, and yet he spent a whole human lifetime in the length of his punishment. For sins are judged not by time but by the very nature of the offenses. Along with this one can see that even if we pay a heavy penalty for former sins, if we then fall into the same ones again, we shall suffer much more grievous things; and very reasonably. For one who has not been made better even by punishment is brought, as insensible and contemptuous, to a greater penalty. The punishment by itself was enough to restrain and make more prudent one who had slipped once; but since he dares again, not brought to his senses by the penalty inflicted, such a man will reasonably undergo some penalty, calling it down on himself. And if even here, after being punished, we are punished more severely when we fall into the same sins again, then when we have paid no penalty at all for our sins, how ought we not to fear and tremble at this above all, since we are going to suffer things beyond remedy? “And why,” someone says, “are not all punished so? For we see many wicked people healthy and vigorous and enjoying great prosperity.” But let us not be confident; rather let us weep for them for this above all. For their suffering nothing here becomes a provision for greater punishment there. Paul showed this when he said, “But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.” For the things here are for admonition, those there for punishment. “What then? Do all diseases come from sins?” someone says. Not all, but most; some also come from carelessness. For gluttony, drunkenness and idleness produce such things. But everywhere one thing only must be kept: to bear every blow with thanksgiving. They come because of sins, as in Kings we see someone held by gout for this reason; they come also for proving, as God says to Job, “Do you think I dealt with you otherwise than that you might be shown righteous?” But why does Christ bring their sins forward in the case of these paralytics? For to the one in Matthew he says, “Take heart, child, your sins are forgiven,” and to this one, “See, you have become well; sin no more.” I know that some, slandering this paralytic, say that he became Christ's accuser and that this is why he heard these words. What then shall we say about the one in Matthew, who heard almost the same words? For to him too he said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Hence it is clear that this one did not hear these words for that reason either. And this can be learned more clearly from what follows. “After this,” it says, “Jesus finds him in the temple”; which is a sign of the greatest piety. For he did not go off to the marketplaces and promenades, nor give himself up to luxury and ease, but was spending his time in the temple, though he was going to face such an onslaught and be harassed by everyone there; yet none of this persuaded him to leave the temple. And when Christ found him, even after he had talked with the Jews, he hinted at nothing of the sort. If he had wished to charge him with this, he would have said to him, “Are you attempting the same things again, and have you not become better even by the healing?” But he said nothing of the kind; he only secures him for the future.

[2] Why then, though he healed lame and maimed people too, did he nowhere mention this to them? It seems to me that these men's diseases came from sins, while those of the others came from natural weakness. Or if not that, through these men and what was said to them he spoke to the others too. For since this disease is more grievous than all the others, by the greater he corrects the lesser too. For as, having healed someone else, he ordered him to give glory to God, exhorting not him alone but all through him, so too through these he exhorts and counsels all the rest in what he said to these. Besides this, one can also say that he saw great endurance in his soul and exhorts him as one able to receive the command, keeping him in health both by the benefit and by the fear of future evils. And see his freedom from boasting. He did not say, “See, I have made you well,” but “You have become well; sin no more.” And again he did not say, “so that I may not punish you,” but “so that nothing worse may happen to you,” putting both impersonally, and showing that the health was of grace rather than of desert. For he did not indicate that the man had been released from his penalty by paying what was due, but that he was saved by love for humankind. Otherwise he would have said, “See, you have paid an adequate penalty for your sins; be careful from now on.” But he did not speak so; how then? “See, you have become well; sin no more.” Let us too constantly say these words over ourselves; and if after being punished we are released, let each say this to himself: “See, you have become well; sin no more.” But if we pay no penalty while persisting in the same things, let us recite that apostolic saying: “The kindness of God leads us to repentance; but by your hardness [and impenitent heart you are storing up for yourself] wrath.” And not only by bracing his body, but in another way too, he gave him a great sign of his own divinity. For by saying “Sin no more,” he showed that he knew all the offenses he had committed before; hence he would be trustworthy concerning the future too. “The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.” And see him again persisting in the same right-mindedness. He did not say, “It is he who said, ‘Take up your bed.’” For since they always put forward this charge that stung, he always puts forward the defense, again making the physician known, and eager to draw the others to him and attach them. For he was not so insensible as, after such a benefit and exhortation, to betray his benefactor and say this with malicious intent. Even had he been a wild beast, even someone inhuman and of stone, the benefit and the fear were enough to restrain him. For with the threat ringing in his ears he would have feared suffering something worse, having received the greatest proofs of the physician's power. Besides, if he had wished to slander him, [he would have said nothing of the cure] and would have accused him. But it is not so, it is not; the words are those of great boldness and right-mindedness, and he proclaims his benefactor no less than the blind man. For what does that man say? “He made clay and anointed my eyes.” So too this one: “It is Jesus who made me well.” “And so the Jews persecuted him and sought to kill him, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.” What then does Christ say? “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” When he had to defend the disciples, he brought forward David, their fellow servant, saying, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?” But when it concerned himself, he took refuge in the Father, showing his equality of honor in both ways: by calling him Father in a special sense, and by doing the same things as he. And why did he not mention what happened at Jericho? He wished to lead them up from earth, so that they might no longer attend to him as to a man, but as to God, who has the right to make laws. If he were not a true Son and of the same substance, the defense would be worse than the charge. For if a governor who had broken a royal law were accused and defended himself by saying, “The king too broke it,” he would not be able to escape, but would make the charge greater. But here, since the dignity is equal, the defense is complete with all security. On the same grounds, he says, on which you acquit God of charges, acquit me too. That is why he said “my Father” first, so that he might persuade them even against their will to grant him the same things, out of respect for his true sonship. And if someone says, “And how does the Father work, who rested on the seventh day from all his works?” let him learn the manner in which he works. What then is the manner of his working? He provides for and holds together all things that come to be. When you see the sun rising and the moon running its course, and lakes and springs and rivers and rains, and the course of nature in seeds, in our bodies and in those of the irrational creatures, and all the other things by which this universe holds together, learn from them the Father's unceasing working. “For he makes his sun rise,” it says, “on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” And again: “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire”; and again, speaking about the birds: “Your heavenly Father feeds them.”

[3] There, then, where he did everything by words on the Sabbath and added nothing more, he dissolves the charges from what is done in the temple and from what they themselves do; but here, where he also ordered a work to be done, such as carrying the bed—something that contributed nothing to the cure, but did this one thing only, showing a plain breaking of the Sabbath—he leads the discourse up to something greater, wishing to strike them more by the Father's dignity and to lead them up to loftier thoughts. That is why, when the discussion is about the Sabbath, he defends himself neither only as man nor only as God, but sometimes in one way, sometimes in the other. For he wished both to be believed: the condescension of the dispensation and the dignity of the divinity. That is why he now defends himself as God. For if he were always going to speak to them only from human things, they would have remained in the same lowliness. So that this might not happen, he brings the Father forward. And yet creation itself works on the Sabbath: the sun runs, the rivers flow, the springs bubble up, women give birth. But so that you may learn that he is not of the creation, he did not say, “Yes, I work, for creation too works,” but what? “Yes, I work, for my Father too works.” “For this reason, then,” it says, “the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God.” And he did not show this in one way only; he showed it not in words alone but much more in deeds. Why? Because they could find fault with words and charge him with boasting; but seeing the truth of the deeds coming out, and his power proclaimed in the works, they had nothing to say against it.

But those who do not wish to receive these things with fair-mindedness say that it was not Christ who made himself equal to God, but that the Jews suspected this. Come then, let us go over what was said from the beginning. Tell me, did the Jews persecute him or not? It is plain to everyone that they did. And did they persecute him for this, or for something else? This too is agreed: for this. Did he break the Sabbath or not? No one could contradict this either. Did he call God his own Father or not? This too is true. So what follows holds by the same sequence. For as calling God his own Father, breaking the Sabbath, and being persecuted by the Jews for the one and all the more for the other, belonged not to a false suspicion but to a true fact, so too making himself equal to God was a declaration of the same mind. And this can be seen more clearly from what was said before. For “My Father is working, and I am working” is the language of one showing himself equal to God. He shows no difference in these words. He did not say, “He works, and I assist,” but “As he works, so do I.” And he displayed great equality. If he had not wished to establish this, but the Jews suspected it idly, he would not have let their mind remain mistaken, but would have corrected it. And the evangelist would not have passed it over in silence, but would have said plainly that the Jews suspected so, but that he did not make himself equal to God; as he does in another place, when he sees a saying meant in one sense and suspected in another. For example, Christ said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it,” speaking of his flesh. But the Jews, not understanding this, and thinking he spoke of the Jewish temple, said, “This temple was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it in three days?” Since, then, he said one thing and they suspected another (he spoke of his flesh, but they thought of their own temple), [the evange]list, interpreting—or rather correcting their suspicion—added, “But he spoke of the temple of his body.” So if here too Christ was not making himself equal, nor wished to establish this, and the Jews suspected it, he would have corrected their suspicion here too, and said, “The Jews thought he was making himself equal to God, but he was not speaking of equality.” And not here only, nor this evangelist only: elsewhere too another evangelist is seen doing this very thing. For when he charged the disciples, saying, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” and they reasoned, saying, “We did not take bread,” he said one thing, calling the teaching leaven, and the disciples suspected another, thinking it was said about bread; and it is corrected again, not by the evangelist this time but by Christ himself, who says, “How do you not understand that I did not speak to you about bread?” But here there is nothing of the kind. “But,” someone says, “Christ added this very thing to refute it: ‘The Son can do nothing of himself.’” On the contrary, O man, he did the opposite; for he says this not to refute but to tighten the equality. But attend carefully, for what is being sought is no ordinary matter. This phrase “of himself” occurs in many places of Scripture, both of him and of the Holy Spirit. And we must learn the force of the expression, so as not to err in the greatest matters. For if one takes it by itself, in the sense that lies nearest to hand, consider what absurdity will follow. For he did not say that he can do some things of himself and cannot do others, but said generally, “The Son can do nothing of himself.”

Let us ask the one who contradicts this, then: Can the Son do nothing of himself, tell me? If he says, “Nothing,” we will say: And yet he has done the greatest of good things of himself; and Paul cries out, saying, “Who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” And again Christ himself elsewhere: “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it again; and no one takes it from me; I lay it down of myself.” Do you see him having authority over death and life, and having carried out so great a dispensation of himself? And why do I speak of Christ? We, than whom nothing could be cheaper, do many things of ourselves, choosing vice of ourselves and pursuing virtue of ourselves. And if it were not of ourselves, and if we had no authority, we would neither [fall] into Gehenna when we sin [nor] obtain [the kingdom when we do right]. “He can do nothing of himself,” then, means nothing other than that he does nothing contrary to the Father, nothing alien, nothing strange—which is above all the language of one showing equality and great agreement. And why did he not say that he does nothing contrary, but that he “cannot”? So that from this too he might show again the exact likeness and the precision of the equality. For the expression does not charge him with weakness, but bears witness to his great power. For elsewhere too Paul says of the Father, “so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie”; and again, “If we deny him, he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself.” And surely this “impossible” does not indicate weakness, but power, and unspeakable power. What he means is this: that substance does not admit any such things. For as when we too say, “It is impossible for God to sin,” we do not charge him with weakness but bear witness to an unspeakable power of his, so too when he himself says, “I can do nothing of myself,” he means this: It is impossible and inadmissible that I should do anything contrary to the Father. And so that you may learn that this is what is meant, let us go through what follows and see for which side Christ votes, what we say or what you say. You say that the expression takes away his authority and proper sovereignty and shows his power weak; I say that it shows equality, exact likeness, and things done as from one will, authority and power. Let us then ask Christ himself, and see from what he says next whether he interprets what was said according to your supposition or ours. What then does he say? “For whatever the Father does, these the Son also does likewise.” Do you see how he tore your view up by the roots and confirmed what we said? For if he does nothing of himself, neither will the Father do anything of himself, since he does all things likewise with him. Otherwise another absurdity will follow too. For he did not say, “What he saw the Father doing, he did,” but “unless he sees the Father doing something, he does not do it,” extending the saying over all time; and on your view he will be always learning the same things. Do you see how lofty the meaning is, while the very lowliness of the expression forces even the most shameless and unwilling to avoid what is grovelling and quite out of keeping with that dignity? For who is so wretched and miserable as to say that the Son learns every day what he must do? And how will that be true, “But you are the same, and your years will not fail”? And how, “All things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being,” if the Father does some things and he sees and imitates them? Do you see that the proof of his sovereignty is shown both from what was said above and from what was said afterwards? And if he puts forward some of the expressions rather humbly, do not marvel. For since they were persecuting him when they heard the lofty things, and thought him an enemy of God, he lowered himself a little in the words alone, then leads the discourse up again to loftier things; then down again to humble things, varying his teaching so that it might be acceptable even to the unfair. Consider: having said, “My Father is working, and I am working,” and having declared himself equal to God, he says again, “The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing something.” Then up again to the loftier: “For whatever he does, these the Son also does likewise”; then again down to the humbler: “The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these.” Do you see how great the humility is again? Reasonably so. For what I said before, and will not cease saying, I will say now too: whenever he says something grovelling and humble, he puts it in an exaggerated form, so that the very meanness of the expressions may persuade even the unfair to receive the meanings with a pious mind. Otherwise, consider how absurd the saying is, examining it from the words themselves. For when he says, “And he will show him greater works than these,” he will be found not yet to have learned many things—which cannot be said even of the apostles. For once they received the grace of the Spirit, they at once both knew and were able to do all that they had to know and be able to do; but he will be found not yet to have learned many things that he ought to know. And what could be more absurd than that? What then is the meaning? Since he [had braced] the paralytic and was going to raise a dead man too, he spoke so, all but saying: Do you marvel that I braced a paralytic? You will see greater things than these. But he did not say it so; he goes through it somewhat more humbly, to soothe their madness. And so that you may learn that “will show” is not said in the strict sense, hear what he adds next: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,” he says, “so also the Son gives life to whom he wills.” And yet “He can do nothing of himself” is contrary to “to whom he wills.” For if “to whom he wills,” he can act of himself (for to will belongs to authority); but if he cannot act of himself, then no longer “to whom he wills.” For “as the Father raises” shows the exact likeness of power, and “to whom he wills” the equality of authority. Do you see that “He cannot do anything of himself” is the language not of one taking away authority, but of one showing the exact likeness of power and will? Understand “will show him” in the same way. For elsewhere too he says, “I will raise him up on the last day.” And again, showing that he does not act by receiving a power from another: “I am the resurrection,” he says, “and the life.” Then, so that you may not say that he raises and gives life to the dead whom he wills, but does not do the other things so, he anticipated and shut off such an objection by saying, “For whatever he does, these the Son also does likewise,” showing that he does all that the Father does, and as the Father does it—whether you speak of the resurrection of the dead, or the forming of bodies, or the forgiveness of sins, or anything else whatever, he works likewise with the one who begot him.