Homilies on John 50.1–50.4

“So some of the people of Jerusalem said, ‘Is this not the man whom they seek to kill? And look, he speaks openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers really know that this is truly the Christ? But we know where this man comes from.’” Nothing is set down at random in the divine Scriptures, for they were spoken by the Holy Spirit. So let us examine everything with exactness; for from a single expression one can find a whole meaning, as is the case with the passage now before us. For many “of the people of Jerusalem said, ‘Is this not the man whom they seek to kill?’” Why is “of the people of Jerusalem” added? The evangelist shows that those who had enjoyed the greatest signs were the most pitiable of all: they had seen the greatest sign of his Godhead, and yet they left the whole matter to the judgment of their corrupt rulers. For was it not a great sign that men who were raging, thirsting for blood, going about and seeking to kill him, and having him in their hands, suddenly kept still? Who could have done this? Who could so have quenched an entire madness? Yet after such great signs, see their folly and their madness. “Is this not the man whom they seek to kill?” See how they accuse themselves. “Whom they seek to kill,” it says, “and they say nothing to him.” And not merely do they say nothing to him, but nothing to him even when he speaks openly; for one who speaks openly and with complete freedom would have provoked them all the more, and yet they did nothing. “Can it be that they really know that this is the Christ?” And what do you think? What verdict do you give about him? The opposite, he says. That is why they said, “We know where this man comes from.” O wickedness! O self-contradiction! They do not even follow the verdict of their rulers, but bring out another, corrupt one, worthy of their own folly. “We know,” they say, “where he comes from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where he comes from.” And yet your rulers, when asked, said that he is born in Bethlehem. And again others said, “We know that God spoke to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” See the words of drunken men. And again, “Does the Christ come from Galilee? Does he not come from Bethlehem, the village?” Do you see the verdict of madmen? “We know,” and “we do not know”; “the Christ comes from Bethlehem,” and “when the Christ comes, no one knows where he comes from.” What could be plainer than this contradiction? For they looked to one thing only: not to be persuaded. What then does Christ say to this? “You both know me and know where I come from; and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.” And again, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” How then does he say both that they know him and where he comes from, and again that they know neither him nor the Father? He does not contradict himself; far from it, he is entirely consistent with himself. He means a different kind of knowledge when he says, “You do not know,” as when it is said, “Sons, pestilent sons, and not knowing the Lord,” and again, “But Israel has not known me.” As Paul too says, “They profess to know God, but deny him by their works.” So it is possible to know and yet not to know. This then is what he says: “If you knew me, you would know that I am the Son of God.” For by “where I come from” he does not mean the place here; and this is clear from what follows: “And I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.” He speaks here of the ignorance shown by works, as Paul says, “They profess to know God, but deny him by their works.” For their sin was not one of ignorance but of wickedness and an evil will; knowing this, they wished to be ignorant of it. But what sort of sequence is this? How is it that in refuting them he says the same things they said? For when they had said, “But we know where this man comes from,” he added, “You both know me.” For what had they said? That “we do not know”? On the contrary, they said, “We know.” But when they said, “We know where he comes from,” they meant nothing other than that he was from the earth and was the carpenter’s son; whereas he led them up to heaven, saying, “You know where I come from,” that is, not from where you suspect, but from where he who sent me is. For by saying, “I have not come of myself,” he hints that they knew he had been sent from the Father, even though they did not disclose it. So he refutes them doubly. First, the things they were saying privately he brought out into the open, crying aloud, so as to put them to shame; then he also disclosed what was in their minds, as if he were saying, “I am not one of the outcasts, nor one of those who have come at random, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.” What is “he who sent me is true”? If he is true, he sent me in truth; if he is true, it is natural that the one he sent is also true.

He also establishes this in another way, overcoming them from their own words. Since they said, “When the Christ comes, no one knows where he comes from,” he shows from this too that he himself is the Christ. [“We know where he comes from” and “we do not know where he comes from.”] For they had said, “No one knows,” [with reference to a place;] but from the same words he shows himself to be the Christ because he came from the Father; and everywhere he testifies that the knowledge of the Father belongs to himself alone, saying, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except him who is from the Father.” And what he said provoked them. For to say, “You do not know him,” and to prove that they knew but pretended not to know, was enough to sting and exasperate them. “So they sought to seize him, and no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” Do you see them invisibly restrained, and their anger bridled? But why did the evangelist not say that he restrained them invisibly, but “because his hour had not yet come”? The evangelist wished to speak in a more human and humbler way, so that he might be thought to be also a man. For since he everywhere says lofty things, for this reason he scatters these among them. And when he says, “I am from him,” he does not speak as a prophet who has learned, but as one who sees him and is with him. “For I know him,” he says, “because I am from him.” Do you see how again and again he establishes the points “I have not come of myself” and “he who sent me is true,” fighting against the notion that he was a stranger to God? And consider how great is the gain from the lowliness of his words. For after this, it says, “many said, ‘When the Christ comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?’” How many signs? Yet there had been three signs: that of the wine, that of the paralytic, and that of the royal official’s son; and the evangelist narrated nothing more. From this it is clear, as I have often said, that they pass over most things and discuss with us those over which the rulers were acting maliciously. “So they sought to seize him” and to kill him. Who? Not the multitude, which did not covet rule and could not be caught by envy, but the priests. For those of the multitude said, “When the Christ comes, will he do more signs?” Yet not even this faith was sound, but like that of a vulgar crowd; for to say “when he comes” did not belong to people fully persuaded that this was the Christ. So one may say this, or else that it was said by the crowds in agreement with one another; as if, since the rulers were striving every way to show that he was not the Christ, they said, “Let us suppose that he is not the Christ; will the Christ be better than this man?” As I always say, the duller sort are led on not by teaching or public discourse, but by signs. “The Pharisees heard [the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent] officers to seize him.” Do you see that the breaking of the Sabbath was a pretext? What stung them most was this. For here, having nothing to charge against either his words or his deeds, they wished to seize him because of the crowd. And they themselves did not dare, suspecting the danger, but sent the servants, who were safe from it. O tyranny and madness! Or rather, O folly! They themselves had often attempted it and had not prevailed, and now they entrusted the matter to the officers, merely to give rest to their anger. And yet he had spoken at length at the pool too, and they did nothing of this kind; they sought him, but made no attempt. But here they no longer bear it, since the crowd was about to run to him. What then does Christ do? “I am with you a little while longer.” Though he could have bent and frightened those who heard, he utters words full of humility, as if he were saying, “Why are you eager to kill and persecute me? Wait a little while, and even if you are eager to hold me, I will not consent.” Then, so that no one might think that “I am with you a little while longer” meant a common death (for they did think so), so that no one might think this and that he would effect nothing after his death, he added, “And where I am, you cannot come.” If he had been going to remain in death, they could have gone there; for we all go there. The simpler part of the multitude was bent by what was said, while the bolder part [was frightened, and the more thoughtful were made eager] for listening, since only a little time was left and it would not be possible always to enjoy this teaching. And he did not simply say, “I am here,” but “I am with you,” that is, “Even if you persecute me, even if you drive me away, for a little while I will not cease to manage what is for your good and to speak and exhort you to salvation.” “And I go to him who sent me.” This was enough to frighten them and throw them into anguish, for he shows that they will come to be in need of him. “You will seek me,” he says: not only will you not forget me, but “you will seek me, and you will not find me.” And when did the Jews seek him? Luke says that women were lamenting for him. And it is likely that many others too, both at once and when the city was being captured, remembered Christ and his miracles and sought his presence. He added all this, wishing to draw them to himself. For that the time left was short, that after his departure he would be longed for, and that it would then be impossible to find him, were all enough to persuade them to come to him. For if his presence were not going to be longed for, he would not have seemed to them to be saying anything great. Again, if it were going to be longed for, but it were possible to find him, not even so [would they have been greatly troubled].

Again, if he were going to be present for a long time, even so they would have been careless. But as it is, he hems them in and frightens them on every side. And “I go to him who sent me” belongs to one who shows that no harm will come to him from their plot, and that his suffering is voluntary. So he foretold two things: that after a little while he would depart, and that they would not be able to come to him; and to foretell one’s own death was not within the reach of a human mind. See, for instance, David saying, “Make known to me, O Lord, my end, and the number of my days, what it is, that I may know what I lack.” And no one at all has learned this. And from the one prediction the other is also confirmed. I think too that he is hinting at this to the officers and directing his words to them, by which he especially drew them to himself, showing that he knew the reason for their coming, as if he were saying, “Wait a little, and [I will go to him who sent me].” [Then the Jews said among themselves], “Where is this man about to go?” Yet people who longed to be rid of him, who did everything so as not to see him, ought not to have asked this, but to have said, “We are glad of it; when will this happen?” But they were affected by what was said, and they ask among themselves, foolishly suspecting, where he was about to go: “Will he go to the Dispersion among the Greeks?” What is “the Dispersion of the Greeks”? So the Jews called the Gentiles, because they were scattered everywhere and mingled freely with one another. But later they themselves underwent this reproach, for they too became a dispersion. For in ancient times the whole nation had been gathered together in one place, and one could not find a Jew anywhere except in Palestine alone. And so they called the Greeks a dispersion, reproaching them and boasting of themselves. What then is “Where I go, you cannot come”? [Not the Greeks;] for all were then mixed together, and there were Jews everywhere in the world. So if he had meant the Greeks, he would not have said, “Where you cannot come.” And when they said, “Will he go to the Dispersion among the Greeks?” they did not say, “and harm them,” but “and teach them.” So already they had relaxed their anger and believed what was said; for if they had not believed, they would not have asked among themselves what the saying was. But these words were spoken to them; and I fear lest they should be timely for us too: “Where he is, we cannot go,” because of our life full of sins. For of the disciples he says, “I desire that where I am, they also may be with me”; but about us I fear lest the opposite be said: “Where I am, you cannot come.” For when we do things contrary to his commands, how shall we be able to go there? For in this present life too, if any soldier does things unworthy of the king, he will not be able to see the king, but will be stripped of his rank and undergo the extreme punishment. [So we too, if we …], not only shall we be unable to go there, but we shall also suffer what happened to the virgins. For they could not enter where he was, but went away, because their lamps had gone out, that is, because the gift had left them. For the flame that we received at once by the grace of the Spirit we shall make stronger, if we wish; but if we do not wish, we shall quickly lose it. [And when it is quenched,] there will be nothing else in our souls but darkness. For as there is much light while the lamp burns, so when it is put out there will be nothing but gloom. That is why he says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” It is quenched when it has no oil, when some stronger blast of wind falls on it, when it is cramped; and it is cramped by the cares of this life and quenched by evil desire. But besides what has been said, nothing quenches it so much as inhumanity, cruelty, and robbery. For when, [besides] having no oil, we also pour cold water on it (for this is what greed is, which chills the souls of the wronged through their despondency), how can it be kindled again afterward? We shall depart, then, carrying ash and dust, with much smoke that accuses us of having had lamps and put them out. For where there is smoke, there must have been a fire that was put out. But may no one hear this voice: “I do not know you.” And how may one come to hear this voice, except when, seeing a poor man, we pass him by as though we had not seen him? When we do not acknowledge Christ hungry, he too will not acknowledge us when we need mercy; and justly. For one who has overlooked the afflicted and has given nothing of his own, how will he seek to receive what is not his own? So, I beg you, let us do and trade everything so that our oil may not fail, but that we may trim our lamps and enter the bridal chamber with the bridegroom. May we all attain this, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.