In the beginning was the word: [1] or rather, the word was in the beginning. The eternal word, the increated wisdom, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, the only begotten Son of the Father, as he is here called (ver. 14.) of the same nature and substance, and the same God, with the Father and Holy Ghost. This word was always; so that it was never true to say, he was not, as the Arians blasphemed. This word was in the beginning. Some, by the beginning, expound the Father himself, in whom he was always. Others give this plain and obvious sense, that the word, or the Son of God, was, when all other things began to have a being; he never began, but was from all eternity. --- And the word was with God; i.e. was with the Father; and as it is said, (ver. 18) in the bosom of the Father; which implies, that he is indeed a distinct person, but the same in nature and substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost. This is repeated again in the second verse, as repetitions are very frequent in St. John. --- And the word was God. This without question is the construction; where, according to the letter we read, and God was the word. (Witham) --- The Greek for the word is Greek: Logos, which signifies not only the exterior word, but also the interior word, or thought; and in this latter sense it is taken here. (Bible de Vence) --- Philo Jud\'e6us, in the apostolic age, uses the word Greek: Logos, p. 823, to personify the wisdom and the power of God. Greek: Logos estin eikon Theou di ou sumpas o Kosmos edemiourgeito. By a similar metonymy, Jesus Christ is called the way, the truth, the life, the resurrection. --- And the word was God. Here the eternity and the divinity of the second Person are incontrovertibly established; or, we must say that language has no longer a fixed meaning, and that it is impossible to establish any point whatever from the words of Scripture. (Haydock) =============================== [] Et Deus erat Verbum, Greek: kai theos en o logos. Greek: Logos was a word very proper to give all that should believe a right notion of the Messias, and of the true Son of God. Greek: Logos, according to St. Jerome, (Ep. ad Paulinum. tom. iv. part 2, p. 570. Ed. Ben.) signifies divers things; as, the wisdom of the Father, his internal word or conception; and, as it were, the express image of the invisible God. Here it is not taken for any absolute divine attribute or perfection; but for the divine Son, or the second Person, as really distinct from the other two divine Persons. And that by Greek: Logos, was to be understood him that was truly God, the Maker and Creator of all things; the Jews might easily understand, by what they read adn frequently heard in the Chaldaic Paraphrase, or Targum of Jonathan, which was read to them in the time of our Saviour, Christ, and at the time when St. John wrote his gospel. In this Paraphrase they were accustomed to hear that the Hebrew word Memreth, to which corresponded in Greek, Logos, was put for him that was God: as Isaias xlv. 12, I made the earth; in this Targum, I, by my word, made the earth: Isaias xlviii. 13, My hand also hath founded the earth; in this Paraphrase, in my word I founded the earth: Genesis iii. 8, They heard the voice of the Lord God; in the Paraphrase, the voice of the word of God. See Walton, prolog. xii, num. 18, p. 86.; Maldonatus on this place; Petavius, lib. vi. de Trin. chap. 1.; Dr. Pearson on the Creed, p. 11.; Dr. Hammond's note on St. Luke, chap. i, p. 203, &c. However, St. John shews us that he meant him who was the true God, by telling us that the world, and every thing that was made, was made by this word, or Greek: Logos; that in this word was life; that he was in the world, and was the light of the world; that he had glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, &c. The same was in the beginning with God. In the text is only, "this was in the beginning;" but the sense and construction certainly is, this word was in the beginning. (Witham) All things were made by him, [2] and without him was made nothing that was made. These words teach us, that all created being, visible or invisible on earth, every thing that ever was made, or began to be, were made, produced, and created by this eternal word, or by the Son of God. The same is truly said of the Holy Ghost; all creatures being equally produced, created, and preserved by the three divine Persons as, by their proper, principal, and efficient cause, in the same manner, and by the same action: not by the Son, in any manner inferior to the Father; nor as if the Son produced things only ministerially, and acted only as the minister, and instrument of the Father, as the Arians pretended. In this sublime mystery of one God and three distinct Persons, if we consider the eternal processions, and personal proprieties, the Father is the first Person, but not by any priority of time, or of dignity; all the three divine Persons being eternal, or co-eternal, equal in all perfections, being one in nature, in substance, in power, in majesty: in a word, one and the same God. The Father in no other sense is called the first Person, but because he proceeds from none, or from no other person: and the eternal Son is the second Person begotten, and proceeding from him, the Father, from all eternity, proceeds now, and shall proceed from him for all eternity; as we believe that the third divine Person, the Holy Ghost, always proceeded without any beginning, doth now proceed, and shall proceed for ever, both from the Father and the Son. But when we consider and speak of any creatures, of any thing that was made, or had a beginning, all things were equally created in time, and are equally preserved, no less by the Son, and by the Holy Ghost, than by the Father. For this reason St. John tells us again in this chapter, (ver. 10.) that the world was made by the word. And our Saviour himself (John v. 19.) tells us, that whatsoever the Father doth, these things also in like manner, or in the same manner, the Son doth. Again the apostle, (Hebrews i. ver. 2.) speaking of the Son, says, the world was made by him: and in the same chapter, (ver. 10.) he applies to the Son these words, (Psalm ci. 26.) And thou, O Lord, in the beginning didst found the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands, &c. To omit other places, St. Paul again, writing to the Colossians, (Chap. i. ver. 16, 17.) and speaking of God's beloved Son, as may be seen in that chapter, says, that in him all things were created, visible and invisible---all things were created in him, and by him, or, as it is in the Greek, unto him, and for him; to shew that the Son was not only the efficient cause, the Maker and Creator of all things, but also the last end of all. Which is also confirmed by the following words: And he is before all, and all things subsist in him, or consist in him; as in the Rheims and Protestant translations. I have, therefore, in this third verse, translated, all things were made by him, with all English translations and paraphrases, whether made by Catholics or Protestants; and not all things were made through him, lest through should seem to carry with it a different and a diminishing signification; or as if, in the creation of the world, the eternal word, or the Son of God, produced things only ministerially, and, in a manner, inferior to the Father, as the Arians and Eunomians pretended; against whom, on this account, wrote St. Basil, lib. de spiritu Sto. St. John Chrysostom, and St. Cyril, on this very verse; where they expressly undertake to shew that the Greek text in this verse no ways favours these heretics. The Arians, and now the Socinians, who deny the Son to be true God, or that the word God applies as properly to him as to the Father, but would have him called God, that is, a nominal god, in an inferior and improper sense; as when Moses called the goa of Pharao; (Exodus vii. 1.) or as men in authority are called gods; (Psalm lxxxi. 6.) pretend, after Origen, to find another difference in the Greek text; as if, when mention is made of the Father, he is styled the God; but that the Son is only called God, or a God. This objection St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril, and others, have shewn to be groundless: that pretended significant Greek article being several times omitted, when the word God is applied to God the Father; and being found in other places, when the Son of God is called God. See this objection fully and clearly answered by the author of a short book, published in the year 1729, against Dr. Clark and Mr. Whiston, p. 64, and seq. (Witham) --- Were made, &c. Mauduit here represents the word: ---"1. As a cause, or principle, acting extraneously from himself upon the void space, in order to give a being to all creatures:" whereas there was no void space before the creation. Ante omnia Deus erat solus, ipse sibe et mundus et locus, et omnia. (Tertullian, lib. cont. Prax. chap. v.) And St. Augustine in Psalm cxxii. says: antequam faceret Deus Sanctos, ubi habitabat? In se habitabat, apud se habitabat. --- The creation of all things, visible and invisible, was the work of the whole blessed Trinity; but the Scriptures generally attribute it to the word; because wisdom, reason, and intelligence, which are the attributes of the Son, are displayed most in it. (Calmet) --- What wonderful tergiversations the Arians used to avoid the evidence of this text, we see in St. Augustine, lib. iii. de doct. Christ. chap. 2; even such as modern dissenters do, to avoid the evidence of This is my Body, concerning the blessed Eucharist. (Bristow) =============================== [] Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: Greek: panta di autou egeneto: all things were made by him. Let not any one pretend that Greek: di autou, in this verse signifies no more than, that all creatures were made by the Word, or Son of God, ministerially as if he was only the instrument of the eternal Father, the chief and principal cause of all things; of whom the apostle says, Greek: ex ou ta panta, ex ipso omnia. --- Origen unless perhaps his writings were corrupted by the Arians, seems to have given occasion to this Greek: leptalogia, as St. Basil calls it, to groundless quibbling and squabbling about the sense of the prepositions; when he tells us, (tom. ii, in Joan. p. 55. Ed. Huetii.) the Greek: di ou never has the first place, but always the second place, meaning as to dignity: Greek: oudepote ten proten choran echei to di ou deuteran de aei. It is like many other false and unwarrantable assertions in Origen; as when we find in the same commentary on St. John, that he says only God the Father is called Greek: o Theos. Origen may perhaps be excused as to what he writes about Greek: di ou and Greek: ex ou, as if he spoke only with a regard to the divine processions in God, in which the Father is the first person, from whom proceeds even the eternal Son, the second person. But whatever Origen thought, or meant, whom St. Epiphanius calls the father of Arius, whose works, as then extant, were condemned in the fifth General Council; it appears that the Arians, in particular Aetius, of the Eunomian sect, pretended that Greek: ex ou had always a more eminent signification, and was only applied to the Father; the Father, said he, being the true God, the only principal efficient cause of all things; and Greek: di ou was applied to the word, or Son of God, who was not the same true God, to signify his interior and ministerial production, as he was the instrument of the Father. Aetius, without regard to other places in the Scripture, as we read in St. Basil, (lib. de Sp. S. chap. ii. p. 293. Ed Morelli. an. 1637) produced these words of the apostle: (1 Corinthians viii. 6.) Greek: eis Theos, pater, ex ou ta panta ... kai eis kurios, Iesous Christos; di ou panta: unus Deus, Pater, ex quo omnia, ... et unus Dominus Jesus Christus; per quem omnia. He concluded from hence, that as the prepositions were different, so were the natures and substance of the Father and of the Son. --- But that no settled and certain rule can be built on these prepositions, and that Greek: di ou, in this third verse of the first chapter of St. John, has no diminishing signification, so that the Son was equally the proper and principal efficient cause of all things that were made and created, we have the authority of the greatest doctors, and the most learned and exact writers of the Greek Church, who knew both the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and the rules and use of the Greek tongue. --- St. Basil (lib. de Spir. S. chap. iii. et seq.) ridicules this Greek: leptologian, which, he says, had its origin from the vain and profane philosophy of the heathen writers, about the difference of causes. He denies that there is any fixed rule; and brings examples, in which Greek: di ou is applied to the Father, and Greek: ex ou to the Son. --- St. Gregory of Nazianzus denies this difference, (Orat. xxxvii, p. 604. Ed. Morelli. Parisiis, ann. 1630) and affirms that Greek: ex ou, and Greek: di ou, in this verse, has no diminishing nor inferior signification: Greek: ei de to di ou nomizeis elattoseos einai, &c. --- St. Cyril of Alexandria, (lib. i. in Joan. p. 48.) makes the very same remark, and with the like examples. His words are: Quod si existiment (Ariani) per quem, Greek: di ou, substantiam ejus (Filii) de \'e6qualitate cum Patre dejicere, ita ut minister sit potius quam creator, ad se redeant insaui, &c. --- St. Ambrose, a doctor of the Latin Church, (lib. ii. de Sp. S. 10. p. 212. 213. Ed. Par. an. 1586.) confutes, with St. Basil, the groundless and pretended differences of ex quo and per quem. --- I shall only here produce that one passage in Romans, (Chap. xi. 36.) which St. Basil and St. Ambrose make use of, where we read: ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia, et in ipsum omnia. Now either we expound all the three parts of this sentence, as spoken of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, (as both St. Basil and St. Ambrose understand them) and then Greek: ex ou is applied to the Son; or we understand them of the Father, and Greek: di ou is applied to the first Person: or, in fine, as St. Augustine observes, (lib. i. de Trin. chap. 6.) we interpret them in such a manner, that the first part be understood of the Father, the second of the Son, the third of the Holy Ghost; and then the words that immediately follow in the singular number, to him be glory for ever, shew that all the three Persons are but one in nature, one God; and to all, and to each of the three Persons, the whole sentence belongs. --- Had I not already said more than may seem necessary on these words, I might add all the Greek bishops in the council of Florence, when they came to an union with the Latin bishops about the procession of the Holy Ghost. After may passages had been quoted out of the ancient Fathers, some of which had said that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, Greek: ek tou patros, kai ek tou uiou, many others had asserted that he proceeded Greek: ek tou Patros dia tou uiou; Bessarion, the learned Grecian bishop, in a long oration, (Sess. 25.) shewed that Greek: di uiou was the same as Greek: ek tou uiou. The Fathers, said he, shew, Greek: deiknusin isodunamousan te ek ten dia. See tom. xiii. Conc. Lab. p. 435. All the others allowed this to be true, as the emperor John Paleologus observed. (p. 487.) And the patriarch of Constantinople, when he was about to subscribe, declared the same: Greek: esti to dia tou uiou, tauton to ek tou uiou. Can any one imagine that none of these learned Grecians should know the force and use of these two prepositions, in their own language? In him: i.e. in this word, or Son of God, was life; because he give life to every creature. Or, as Maldonatus expounds it, because he is the author of grace, which is the spiritual life of our souls. --- And the life was the light of men, whether we expound it of a rational soul and understanding, which he gives to all men; or of the spiritual life, and those lights of graces, which he gives to Christians. (Witham) And the light shineth, or did shine, in darkness. Many understand this, that the light of reason, which God gave to every one, might have brought them to the knowledge of God by the visible effects of his Providence in this world: but the darkness did not comprehend it, because men, blinded by their passions, would not attend to the light of reason. Or we may again understand it, with Maldonatus, of the lights of grace, against which obstinate sinners wilfully shut their eyes. (Witham) That all men might believe through him; i.e. by John the Baptist's preaching, who was God's instrument to induce them to believe in Jesus the Christ, or the Messias, their only Redeemer. (Witham) He; that is John the Baptist, was not the true light: but the word was the true light. In the translation, it is necessary to express that the word was the true light, lest any one should think that John the Baptist was this light. (Witham) He was in the world, &c. Many of the ancient interpreters understand this verse of Christ as God, who was in the world from its first creation, producing and governing all things: but the blind sinful world did not know and worship him. Others apply these words to the Son of God made man; whom even God's own chosen people, the Jews, at his coming, refused to receive and believe in him. (Witham) His own. This regards principally the Jews. Jesus came to them as into his own family, but they did not receive him. It may likewise be extended to the Gentiles, who had groaned so long a time in darkness, and only seemed to wait for the rising sun of justice to run to its light. They likewise did not receive him. These words, though apparently general, must be understood with restriction; as there were some, though comparatively few, of both Jews and Gentiles, who embraced the faith. (Calmet) He gave to them power to be made the adoptive sons of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. They are made the children of God by believing and by a new spiritual birth in the sacrament of baptism, not of blood; (literally, no of bloods) not by the will, and desires of the flesh, not by the will of men, nor by human generation, as children are first born of their natural parents, but of God, by faith and divine grace. (Witham) And the word was made flesh. This word, or Son of God, who was in the beginning, from all eternity, at the time appointed by the divine decrees, was made flesh, i.e. became man, by a true and physical union of his divine person, (from which the divine nature was inseparable) to our human nature, to a human soul, and a human body, in the womb, and of the substance, of his virgin Mother. From the moment of Christ's incarnation, as all Christians are taught to believe, he that was God from eternity, became also true man. In Jesus Christ, our blessed Redeemer, we believe one divine Person with two natures, and two wills; the one divine, the other human: by which substantial union, one and the same Person became truly both God and man; not two persons, or two sons, as Nestorius, the heretic, pretended. By this union, and a mutual communication of the proprieties of each nature, it is true to say, that the Son of God, remaining unchangeably God, was made man; and therefore that God was truly conceived and born of the virgin Mary, who, on this account, was truly the Mother of God: that God was born, suffered, and died on the cross, to redeem and save us. The word, in this manner made man, dwelt in us, or among us, by this substantial union with our human nature, not morally only, nor after such a manner, as God is said to dwell in a temple; nor as he is in his faithful servants, by a spiritual union, that the same person is truly both God and man. --- And we saw his glory, manifested to the world by many signs and miracles; we in particular, who were present at his transfiguration. (Matthew xvii.) --- Full of grace and truth. These words, in the construction, are to be joined in this manner: the word dwelt in us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen his glory, &c. This fulness of grace in Christ Jesus, infinitely surpassed the limited fulness, which the Scripture attributes to St. Stephen, (Acts vi. 8.) or to the blessed virgin Mother: (Luke i. 28.) they are said to be full of grace, only because of an extraordinary communication and greater share of graces than was given to other saints. But Christ, even as man, his grace and sanctity were infinite, as was his person. --- As of the only begotten of the Father. [3] If we consider Christ in himself, and not only as he was made known to men by outward signs and miracles, St. John Chrysostom and others take notice that the word as, no ways diminisheth the signification; and that the sense is, we have seen the glory of him, who is truly from all eternity the only begotten Son of the Father: who, as the Scriptures assure us, is his true, his proper Son, his only begotten, who was sent into the world, who descended from heaven, and came from the Father, and leaving the world, returned where he was before, returned to his Father. We shall meet with many such Scripture texts, to shew him to be the eternal Son of his eternal Father; or to shew that the Father was always his Father, and the Son always his Son: as it was the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, and as such declared in the general council of Nice, that this, his only Son, was born or begotten of the Father before all ages ... God from God, the true God from the true God. It was by denying this truth, "that the Son was the Son always, and the Father always, and from all eternity, the Father;" that the blaspheming Arius began his heresy in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, against his bishop of Alexandria, St. Alexander. See the letter copied by St. Epiphanius, H\'e6r. 69. p. 731. Ed. Petavii. (Witham) --- Dwelt among us. In a material body, like ours, clothed with our nature. He is become mortal, and like us in every thing, but sin and concupiscence. The Greek literally translated, is, he has pitched his tent amongst us, like a stranger and passenger, who makes no long stay in one place. The body in Scripture, is sometimes called a tent or tabernacle, in which the soul dwells, as 2 Peter i. 14. (Calmet) =============================== [] Gloriam quasi Unigeniti, Greek: os monogenous. St. John Chrysostom says, the word quasi, Greek: os, does no ways here diminish, be even confirms and increases the signification; as when we say of a king, that he carries himself like a king. Greek: To de os entauthen ouch omoioseos estin, alla bebaioseos. Is preferred before me. [4] Literally, is made before me. The sense, says St. John Chrysostom is, that he is greater in dignity, deserves greater honour, &c. though born after me, he was from eternity. (Witham) =============================== [] and 27. Aute me factus est, Greek: emprosthen mou gegonen, is preferred before me: St. John Chrysostom says, he is Greek: lamproteros, entimoteros, illustrios, honorabilior. And of his fulness we all have received; not only Jews, but also all nations. --- And grace for grace. [5] It may perhaps be translated grace upon grace, as Mr. Blackwall observes, and brings a parallel example in Greek out of Theognis, p. 164. It implies abundance of graces, and greater graces under the new law of Christ than in the time of the law of Moses; which exposition is confirmed by the following verse. (Witham) --- Before the coming of the Messias all men had the light of reason. The Greeks had their philosophy, the Jews the law and prophets. All this was a grace and favour bestowed by God, the author of all good. But since the word was made flesh, and caused the gospel of salvation to be announced to all men; he has invited all nations to the faith and knowledge of the truth. Thus he has given us one grace for another; but the second is infinitely greater, more excellent, and more abundant than the first. The following verse seems to insinuate, that the evangelist means the law by the first grace, and the gospel by the second. Compare likewise Romans i. 17. The Jews were conducted by faith to faith; by faith in God and the law of Moses, to the faith of the gospel, announced by Christ. (Calmet) =============================== [] Gratiam pro gratia, Greek: charin anti charitos, gratiam; so Job, (ii. 4.) pellem pro pelle, i.e. omnem pellem. ==================== No man hath seen God. No mortal in this life by a perfect union and enjoyment of him. Nor can any creature perfectly comprehend his infinite greatness: none but his only begotten divine Son, who is in the bosom of his Father, not only by an union of grace, but by an union and unity of substance and nature; of which Christ said, (John xiv. 11.) I am in the Father, and the Father in me. (Witham) The Jews sent, &c. These men, who were priests and Levites, seem to have been sent and deputed by the sanhedrim, or great council at Jerusalem, to ask of John the Baptist, who was then in great esteem and veneration, whether he was not their Messias; who, as they knew by the predictions of the prophets, was to come about that time. John declared to them he was not. To their next question, if he was not Elias? He answered: he was not: because in person he was not; though our Saviour (Matthew xi. 14.) says he was Elias: to wit, in spirit and office only. Their third question was, if he was a prophet? He answered, no. Yet Christ (Matthew xi.) tells us, he was a prophet, and more than a prophet. In the ordinary acceptation only, they were called prophets who foretold things to come: John then, with truth, as well as humility, could say he was not a prophet; not being sent to foretell the coming of the Messias, but to point him out as already come, and present with the Jews. (Witham) The voice of one crying in the wilderness. See Matthew iii. 3.; Mark i. 3.; Luke iii. 4.; and Isaias xl. 3. by all which John was his immediate precursor. (Witham) Hath stood. St. John the Baptist, by these words, which he spoke to the priests and Levites, sent to him by the Pharisees, did not mean to tell them, that Jesus was either at the present time standing amongst them, or that he had ever been in the presence of the self same people; but they may be understood two different ways, either with regard to his divinity; an din that sense, Jesus was always by his divine presence amongst them; or in regard to his humanity; either that he lived in the same country, and among their countrymen, or, that he stood actually amongst them, because Jesus was accustomed yearly to go up to Jerusalem on the festival of the Pasch. (Denis the Carthusian) Behold the Lamb of God. John the Baptist let the Jews know who Jesus was, by divers testimonies. 1st, By telling them he was the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin, or sins of the world, who was come to be their Redeemer, and to free mankind from the slavery of sin; 2ndly, that he was greater than he, and before him, though born after him; 3rdly, that God had revealed to him that Jesus was to baptize in the Holy Ghost; 4thly, that he saw the Spirit descending upon him from heaven, and remaining upon him; 5thly, that he was the Son of God, ver. 34. (Witham) --- Who taketh away. It was only a being like Christ, in whose person the divine and human natures were united, that could effectually take away the sins of the world. As man, hew was enabled to suffer; and as God, his sufferings obtained a value equal to the infinite atonement required. (Haydock) Staid with him that day. Yet they did not continually remain with him, as his disciples, till he called them, as they were fishing. See the annotations, Matthew iv. 18. (Witham) Thou art Simon, the son of Jona, or of John. Jesus, who knew all things, knew his name, and at the first meeting told him he should hereafter be called Cephas, or Petrus, a rock, designing to make him the chief or head of his whole Church. See Matthew xvi. 18. (Witham) --- Cephas is a Syriac word, its import is the same as rock or stone. And St. Paul commonly calleth him by this name: whereas others, both Greeks and Latins, call him by the Greek appellation, Peter; which signifies exactly the same thing. Hence St. Cyril saith, that our Saviour, by foretelling that his name should be now no more Simon, but Peter, did by the word itself aptly signify, that on him, as on a rock most firm, he would build his Church. (Lib. ii. chap. 12. in Joan.) Can any thing of good come from Nazareth? Nathanael did not think it consistent with the predictions of the prophets, that the Messias, who was to be the Son of David, and to be born at Bethlehem, should be of the town of Nazareth; which he did not imagine could be the place of Jesus's birth. But when he came to Jesus, and found that he knew the truth of things done in private, and in his absence, he professed his belief in Jesus in these words: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel. We may here take notice, with Dr. Pearson, on the second article of the Creed, that the Jews, before the coming of Christ, were convinced that he was to be the Son of God; (though they have denied it since that time) for they interpreted, as foretold of their Messias, these words: (Psalm ii. 7.) The Lord said to me, thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee: and this is what Nathanael here confessed. The same is confirmed by the famous confession of St. Peter, (Matthew xvi. 16.) Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; by the words of Martha, (John xi. 27.) I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into the world: In fine, by the question which the Jewish priest put to our Saviour, (Matthew xxvi. 63.) I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God. See also John vi. 17. and John xx. 31. (Witham) Greater things than these. Greater miracles and proofs that I am the Messias, and the true Son of God. (Witham) You shall see the heaven open, &c. It is not certain when this was to be fulfilled: St. John Chrysostom thinks at Christ's ascension; others refer it to the day of judgment. (Witham) The Mother of Jesus was present. It is supposed she was then a widow, since in all the rest of the history of Jesus, not a single word occurs respecting St. Joseph. (Calmet) They have no wine. The blessed virgin Mother was not ignorant of the divine power of her Son, and that the time was come when he designed to make himself known to the world. She could not make her request in more modest terms. (Witham) Some of the Fathers have spoken without sufficient precaution on this action of the blessed Virgin; supposing she was actuated by some inclination to vanity, in begging her Son perform a miracle on this occasion; that some of the glory of it might accrue to her, and that on this account our Saviour answers her with severity, saying, Woman, what is it to thee or me. Other Fathers, with more reason, attribute the interference of the blessed Virgin to her charity and compassion for the new married couple. Whatever turn be given to our Saviour's answer, it must be acknowledged it has in it the appearance of something severe. But the Fathers have explained it with mildness, observing that our Saviour only meant to say, Mother, what affair is it of ours if they want wine? Ought we to concern ourselves about that? Others think that he wished, by these words, to let his Mother know that she must not forestall the time appointed by the heavenly Father, as if her demand were unseasonable and out of time. But most of the Fathers and best commentators understand, that he speaks here not as man and Son of Mary, but as God; and in that quality, he observes to his Mother, I have nothing in common with you. It is not for you to prescribe when miracles are to be performed, which are not to be expected in compliance with any human respect. I know when my power is to be manifested for the greater glory of God. (Calmet) ---See the like forms of speech, Mark i. 24; Luke iv. 34; &c. --- My hour is not yet come. It is not yet time. He waited till the wine was quite done, lest any should believe that he had only increased the quantity, or had only mixed water with the wine. He would have his first miracle to be incontestable, and that all the company should be witnesses of it. (St. Augustine, et alii patres passim. --- Christ's first miracle in the New Testament, was a kind of transubstantiation in changing water into wine; the first miracle Moses performed when sent to the Jews, was transubstantiation. (Exodus iv.) The first Moses and Aaron performed, when sent to the Egyptians, was transubstantiation. (Exodus vii.) Two or three measures, [1] called metreta. Both the Latin and Greek text, by the derivation, may signify a measure in general, according to the Rhemish translation: but metreta was a particular measure of liquids: yet, not corresponding to our firkins, I could not think it proper with the Protestant and M. N. to put two or three firkins. (Witham) =============================== [] Metretas binas vel ternas, Greek: ana metretas duo e treis. See Walton's preface to his first volume, p. 42, and others, de ponderibus et mensuris. When men have well drank, [2] or plentifully; this is the literal sense: nor need we translate, when they are drunk, being spoken of such company, where our Saviour, Christ, his blessed Mother, and his disciples, were present. See Genesis xliii. 34; 1 Machabees xvi. ver. 16, where the same word may be taken in the same sense. (Witham) =============================== [] When they have drank well: cum inebriati fuerint, Greek: otan methusthosi. See Legh. Crit. Sac. on the word Greek: methuo.==================== This was the first miracle which Jesus had performed in public, and to manifest his glory; but Maldonatus is of opinion that he had before wrought many miracles, known to the blessed Virgin and St. Joseph; which gave her the confidence to ask one now. This opinion is no way contrary to the evangelist. His disciples believed in him. They had believed in him before or they would not have followed him. This confirmed their faith. (Calmet) He drove them all out of the temple. According to St. John Chrysostom (hom. lxvii. in Matt.) this casting out was different from that which is there related, chap. xxi. ver. 12. (Witham) --- How could the Son of the carpenter, Joseph, whose divinity was yet unknown to the people, succeed in expelling so great a multitude from the temple! There was undoubtedly something divine in his whole conduct and appearance, which deterred all from making resistance. The evangelist seems to insinuate this by putting these words: "The house of my Father," into our Saviour's mouth, which was making himself immediately the Son of God. This made Origen consider this miracle, in overcoming the unruly dispositions of so many, as a superior manifestation of power to what he had shewn in changing the nature of water at Cana. (Haydock) --- Jesus Christ here shews the respect he requires should be shewn to the temple of God; and St. Paul, speaking of the profaners of God's Church, saith: If any man defile the temple of God, he will God destroy. (1 Corinthians iii. 17.) Which in a spiritual sense may be understood of the soul of man, which is the living temple of the living God. (Haydock) Six and forty years, &c. This many understand of the time the second temple was building, from the edict of Cyrus to the sixth year of Darius Hystaspes. Others, of the enlarging and beautifying the temple, which was begun by Herod the great, forty-six years before the Jews spoke this to our Saviour. (Witham) --- Interpreters are much embarrassed by these words; as the building of the temple, which then existed, had been finished in much less than 46 years. Herod renewed the temple from the foundations, and spent in that work only nine years and a half. It was begun 46 years before the first Pasch at which our Saviour appeared. (Usher, ad an. Mundi 3987.) --- But this prince, according to Josephus, continued to make new building and embellishments to the very time in which the Jews uttered these words: it is now 46 years, &c. Trust himself to them. The Fathers generally understand these words, to them, to refer to those who believed in him, mentioned in the preceding verse. Though they believed in him, he did not trust himself to them, because he knew them. He knew their weaknesses, their inconstancy, their unsteadiness. He knew they would abandon him on the first occasion; and that his passion, his cross, his doctrines, would be a subject of scandal. St. Augustine compares these first believers to catechumens. They believe in Christ, confess his name, and sign their foreheads with his cross: but Jesus Christ does not trust himself to them; he does not trust to them the knowledge of his mysteries; he does not reveal to them the secrets of his religion. (Calmet) --- The catechumens were not allowed to be present at the holy mysteries of the sacrifice of the mass, but went out after the instruction of the gospel; whence the first part of the mass was frequently called the mass of the catechumens. By night. Nicodemus was at this time weak in faith, and therefore did not wish to endanger himself by coming to our Saviour in open day, when the enemies of Christ could see him. For many (as this evangelist informs us in chap. xii. ver. 42,) of the chief men also believed in him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess, that they might not be cast out of the Synagogue. (St. John Chrysostom) --- It appears from this verse that Jesus Christ wrought many miracles, even in the first year of his preaching: though not very publicly, and amidst the crowd. However, few of those which he performed in Judea are noticed by the evangelist. Unless a man be born again of water, and the Holy Ghost. Though the word Holy be now wanting in all Greek copies, it is certainly the sense. The ancient Fathers, and particularly St. Augustine in divers places, from these words, prove the necessity of giving baptism to infants: and by Christ's adding water, is excluded a metaphorical baptism. See also Acts viii. 36. and x. 47. and Titus iii. 5. (Witham) --- Except a man be born again. That is, unless you are born again by a spiritual regeneration in God, all the knowledge which you learn from me, will not be spiritual but carnal. But I say to you, that neither you nor any other person, unless you be born again in God, can undestand or conceive the glory which is in me. (St. John Chrysostom) The Spirit breatheth where he will. The Protestant translation has the wind: and so it is expounded by St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril on this verse; as if Christ compared the motions of the Holy Ghost to the wind, of which men can give so little account, whence it comes, or whither it goes. Yet many others, as St. Augustine, St. Ambrose and St. Gregory, understand this expression of the Holy Ghost, of whom it can only be properly said, that he breatheth where he will. (Witham) And knoweth not these things. That is, of baptism given by in a visible manner, and you understand not, how will you comprehend greater and heavenly things, if I speak of them? (Witham) --- Many passages, both in the law and the prophets, implied this doctrine of regeneration; for what else can be the meaning of the circumcision of the heart, commanded by Moses; (Deuteronomy x. 16.) of the renewal of a clean and right spirit, prayed for by David; (Psalms 1.) of God's giving his people a new heart and a new spirit. (Ezechiel xxxvi. 26, &c.) But the Pharisees, taken up with their rites and traditions, paid little attention to spiritual things of greater moment. We speak what we know. It may perhaps be asked here, why Christ speaks in the plural number? To this we must answer, that it is the only Son of God, who is here speaking, showing us how the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeding from both. (St. Thomas Aquinas) No man hath ascended --- but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven. These words, divers times repeated by our Saviour, in their literal and obvious sense, shew that Christ was in heaven, and had a being before he was born of the Virgin Mary, against the Cerinthians, &c. That he descended from heaven: that when he was made man, and conversed with men on earth, hew was at the same time in heaven. Some Socinians give us here their groundless fancy, that Jesus after his baptism took a journey to heaven, and returned again before his death. Nor yet would this make him in heaven, when he spoke this to his disciples. (Witham) This comparison of the serpent lifted up in the desert, upon which whoever looked was immediately cured from the bite of the fiery serpents, is a figure of the crucifixion of Christ on Calvary. And we remark, that our divine Saviour makes use of these words, the Son of man must be lifted up or exalted; by which form of expression he would teach us, that he does not consider the cross as a disgrace, but as a glory; (Theophylactus and St. John Chrysostom) and moreover, that as the Israelites, bitten by the fiery serpents, were cured by looking upon the brazen serpent, so are Christians cured by looking up with an active faith, replete with love and confidence, on Jesus Christ crucified. Give his only begotten Son --- God sent not his Son into the world. He was then his Son, his only begotten Son, before he sent him into the world. He was not, therefore, his Son, only by the incarnation, but was his Son from the beginning, as he was also his word from all eternity. This was the constant doctrine of the Church, and of the Fathers, against the heresy of the Arians, that God was always Father, [1] and the Son always the eternal Son of the eternal Father. See note on chap. i. ver. 14. (Witham) --- The world may be saved. Why, says St. Augustine, is Christ called the Saviour of the world, unless from the obligation he took upon himself at his birth? He has come like a good physician, effectually to save mankind. The man, therefore, destroys himself, who refuses to follow the prescriptions of his physician. (St. Augustine) =============================== [] Greek: Aei Theos, aei uios; ama pater, ama uios. Arius began his heresy by denying this, as it appears in his letter to Eusebius, of Nicomedia, in St. Epiphanius, h\'e6r. 69, p. 731. Is not judged. He that believeth, viz. by a faith working through charity, is not judged; that is, is not condemned; but the obstinate unbeliever is judged; that is, condemned already, by retrenching himself from the society of Christ and his Church. (Challoner) The judgment. That is, the cause of his condemnation. (Challoner) And baptized. Not Christ himself, but his disciples. See chap. iv. 2. (Witham) Salem. A town situated upon the river Jordan, where formerly Melchisedech reigned. (Ven. Bede) He of whom you complain is the bridegroom, and I am the friend of the bridegroom, sent before to prepare his bride; that is, to collect for him a Church from all nations. (Alcuin.) --- The servants of the bridegroom do not rejoice in the same manner as his friends: I am his friend, and I rejoice with very great joy, because of the bridegroom's voice. He must increase, and I must decrease; by which words the great precursor demonstrates to the world, that not the least envy with regard to his divine Master rankles in his heart; by on the contrary, that he should be happy to see all his followers desert him, to run to Jesus Christ. (St. John Chrysostom) He (Christ) must increase, not in virtue and perfection, with which he is replenished, but in the opinion of the world, when they begin to know him, and believe in him: and in like manner, I must be diminished, when they know how much he is above me. (Witham) He that cometh from above, meaning Christ. He that is of the earth, meaning himself, is from the earth, [2] is earthly, is but a frail and infirm man; and so speaketh as from the earth: this seems rather the sense, than that he speaketh of, or concerning the earth. See the Greek text. (Witham) =============================== [] Qui est de terra, de terra est, Greek: o on ek tes ges, ek tes ges esti, kai ek tes ges lalei. et de terra loquitur. ==================== Waht he hath seen and heard. The meaning is not by his senses, but what he knows for certain, having the same knowledge as his eternal Father. See chap. v., ver. 19. And no one; i.e. but few now receive his testimony. (Witham) He that hath received his testimony. These following words to the end of the chapter, seem to be the words of St. John the Baptist, rather than of the evangelist. The sense is, whosoever hath believed, and received the doctrine of Christ, hath attested as it were under his hand and seal, that God is true, and hath executed his promise concerning the Messias. (Witham) Doth not give the Spirit by measure. Christ, even as man, has a plenitude of graces. See chapt. i. ver. 14. And all things, all creatures, both in heaven and earth, are given into his hands, and made subject to him, as man. See 1 Corinthians xv. 26. (Witham) The Father loveth the Son. The Father loveth John, loveth Paul, yet he hat not given all things into their hands. The Father loveth the Son, not as a lord does his servants, not as an adopted Son, but as his only begotten Son; therefore hath he given all things into his hands, that as the Father is, so may the Son be. (St. Augustine) The divinity of the Son is in this chapter proved as clearly as in 1 John v. 7. "There are three who give testimony in heaven; the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." Which verse is entirely omitted by Luther in his version; for which omission he is severly reproved by keckerman. But while Catholics and Protestants deduce from this and many other places in Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, as an indubitable and irrefragable consequence, how may learned Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians read the saem texts, and deduce quite contrary consequences? How clearly does this preove that the Bible only cannot prove the exclusive rule of faith. With reason does the Cambridge divinity professor, Dr. Herbert Marsh, ask in his late publication on this subject, p. 18, "Are all Protestants alike in their religion? Have we not got Protestants of the Church of England, Protestants of the Church of Scotland, Protestants who hold the profession of Augsburgh? Have we not both Arminian and Calvinistic Protestants? Are not the Moravians, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Quakers, and even the Jumpers, the Dunkers, the Swedenborgians, all Protestants? Since, then Protestantism assumes so many different forms, men speak quite indefinitely, if they speak of it without explaining the particular kind wich they mean. When I hear of a Swedish or a Danish Protestant, I know that it means a person whose religion is the Bible only, as expounded by the Synod of Dort. In like manner a Protestant of the Church of England, is a person whose religion is the Bible only; but the Bible as expounded by its Liturgy and Articles. How, therefore, can we know, if we give the Bible only , what sort of Protestantism well be deduced from it?" --- In the same publication, Dr. Herbert Marsh, p. 21, adds, "Protestants of every description, however various adn even opposite in their opinions, claim severally for themselves the honour of deducing from the Bible irrefragable and indubitable consequences. The doctrine of conditional salvation is an indubitable consequence to the Arminian. The doctrine of absolute decree, an indubitable consequence to the Calvinist. The doctrines of the trinity, the atonement and the sacraments, which the Church of England considers as indubitable consequences of the Bible, would not be so, if the Unitarians and Quakers were right in the consequences which they draw from the Bible. But the consequences which they deduce appear indubitable to them." This the professor properly styles protestantism in the abstract, or generalized, and nearly allied to apostacy from Christianity: a system, p. 16, "by which many a pilgrim has lost his way between the portal of the temple and the altar --- disdaining the gate belonging only to the priests, adn approaching at once the portals of the the temple, they have ventured without a clue, to explore the inmost recesses; and have been bewildered in their way, till at length they have wandered to the devious passage, where Christianity itself becomes lost from the view." See his Inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible. St. John Chrysostom thinks that this baptism, given by the disciples of Christ, did not at all differ from the baptism of St. John the Baptist; both, in his opinion, being used to prepare the people for Christ; but Alcuin interprets it otherwise. Some will ask, says he, whether the Holy Ghost was given by this baptism, since it is said the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified? To this we answer: that the Holy Ghost was given, though not in that manifest manner as after the ascension; for as Christ, as man, had always the Holy Ghost residing within him, and yet after his baptism received the Holy Ghost, coming upon him in a visible manner, in the shape of a dove; so before the manifest and public descent of the Holy Ghost, all the saints were his hidden temples. (St. Thomas Aquinas) This is what Jacob gave to his son Joseph, when calling him to him just before he died, he said: (Genesis xlviii. ver. 22.) I give thee a portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorrhite, with my sword and bow. (Theophylactus) --- It was thirty-six miles from Jerusalem, and the same place as Sichem, (Genesis xxxiv.) the capital of Samaria, now called Neplosa. Thou didst know the gift of God; i.e. the favour now offered thee by my presence, of believing in me. --- And he would have given thee living water, meaning divine graces; but the woman understood him literally of such water as was there in the well. (Witham) The Samaritan woman says, our father Jacob; because the Samaritans claimed lineage from Abraham, who was himself a Chaldean; and they; therefore, called Jacob their father, because he was Abraham's grandson. (St. John Chrysostom) --- Or she calls him their father because they lived under the law of Moses, and were in possession of that spot of ground which Jacob had bequeathed to his son Joseph. (Ven. Bede) Shall thirst again. After any water, or any drink, a man naturally thirsts again; but Christ speaks of the spiritual water of grace in this life, and of glory in the next, which will perfectly satisfy the desires of man's immortal soul for ever. Sir, give me this water. The woman, says St. Augustine, does not yet understand his meaning, but longs for water, after which she should never thirst. (Witham) Call thy husband. Christ begins to shew her that he knows her life, to make her know him and herself. (Witham) Our fathers adored on this mountain, &c. She means Jacob and the ancient patriarchs, whom the Samaritans called their fathers; and by the mountain, that of Garizim, where the Samaritans had built a temple, and where they would have all persons adore, and not at Jerusalem; now she had a curiosity to hear what Christ would say of these two temples, and of the different worship of the Jews and of the Samaritans. (Witham) --- Sichem was at the foot of Mount Garizim. The Samaritans supposed the patriarchs had exercised their religious acts on this mountain. (Bible de Vence) --- Josephus (Antiquities, lib. xiii. chap. 6.) gives the dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. Both parties referred themselves to the arbitration of king Ptolemy Philometer, who gave judgment in favour of the Jews, upon their stating the antiquity of their temple, and the uninterrupted succession of the priesthood, officiating there throughout all ages. In this controversy, the intelligent reader will see some resemblance to that which subsists between Catholics and Protestants. See Dr. Kellison's Survey of the New Religion, p. 129. --- The woman in this place must mean offering sacrifice, for adoration was never limited to any particular place. It is clear from 3 Kings ix. 3. from 2 Paralipomenon vii. 12. that God had chosen the temple of Jerusalem; but the Samaritans rejected all the books of Scripture, except the Pentateuch of Moses. The schism was begun by Manasses, a fugitive priest, that he might hold his unlawful wife thereby, and obtain superiority in schism; which he could not do whilst he remained in the unity of his brethren. How forcibly do these circumstances remind us of a much later promoter of schism, king Henry VIII. It is true the Protestants appeal to the primitive Christians, as the Samaritans appealed to the patriarchs, but in the argument both must stand or fall by the incontrovertible proof of continual succession. The Israelites, on account of their innumerable sins, had been delivered by the Almighty into the hands of the king of Assyria, who lead them all away captives into Babylon and Medea, and sent other nations whom he had collected from different parts, to inhabit Samaria. But the Almighty, to shew to all nations that he had not delivered up these his people for want of power to defend, but solely on account of their transgressions, sent lions into the land to persecute these strangers. The Assyrian king upon hearing this, sent them a priest to teach them the law of God; but neither after this did they depart wholly from their impiety, but in part only: for many of them returned again to their idols, worshipping at the same time the true God. It was on this account that Christ preferred the Jews before them, saying, that salvation is of the Jews, with whom it was the chief principle to acknowledge the true God, and hold every denomination of idols in detestation; whereas, the Samaritans by mixing the worship of the one with the other, plainly shewed that they held the God of the universe in no greater esteem than their dumb idols. (St. John Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas) Now is the time approaching, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth, without being confined to any one temple or place; and chiefly in spirit, without such a multitude of sacrifices and ceremonies as even the Jews now practise. Such adorers God himself (who is a pure spirit) desires, which they shall be taught by the Messias. (Witham) --- Our Lord foretells her that sacrifices in both these temples should shortly cease, giving her these three instructions: 1. That the true sacrifice should be limited no longer to one spot or nation, but should be offered throughout all nations, according to that of Malachias; (i. 11.) 2. That the gross and carnal adoration by the flesh and blood of beasts, not having in them grace, spirit, and life, should be taken away, and another sacrifice succeed, which should be in itself invisible, divine, and full of life, spirit, and grace; 3. That this sacrifice should be truth itself, whereof all former sacrifices were but shadows and figures. He calleth here spirit and truth that which, in the first chapter, (ver. 17) is called grace and truth. Now this is not more than a prophecy and description of the sacrifice of the faithful Gentiles in the body and blood of Christ; for all the adoration of the Catholic Church is properly spiritual, though certain external objects be joined thereto, on account of the state of our nature, which requireth it. Be careful then not to gather from Christ's words that Christian men should have no use of external signs and offices towards God; for that would take away all sacrifice, sacraments, prayers, churches and societies. &c. &c. (Bristow) I know that the Messias cometh. So that even the Samaritans, at that time, expected the coming of the great Messias. (Witham) Ver 26. Jesus saith to her: I am he. Christ was pleased to own this truth in the plainest terms to this Samaritan woman, having first by his words, and more by his grace, disposed her heart to believe it. (Witham) His disciples ... wondered, &c. They admired his humility, finding him discoursing with a poor woman, especially she being a Samaritan. (Witham) The Samaritans looked for the Messias, because they had the books of Moses, in which Jacob foretold the world's Redeemer: The sceptre shall not depart from Juda, nor a leader from his thigh, until he come that is to be sent. (Genesis xlix. 10.) And Moses himself foretold the same: God will raise to thee a prophet of the nations, and of thy brethren. (Deuteronomy xviii. 15.) (St. John Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas) Ver 1. This knowledge which the Pharisees had of our Saviour's making so many disciples, and baptizing such members, could not prevail upon them to follow him for their salvation; otherwise Christ would not have departed out of Judea. Jesus knew full well that this, their knowledge, would not work their conversion, but only stir up their envy, and excite them to persecute him; and therefore he retired. He could indeed have remained amongst them in security, had he chosen to exercise his power; but he would not: that so he might leave an example to his faithful servants, teaching them to flee from the rage of their cruel persecutors. (St. Augustine) My meat is to do the will of him that sent me. Such ought to be the disposition of every one who, as a minister of Christ and his Church, is to take care of souls. (Witham) For they are white already to harvest. The great harvest of souls was approaching, when Christ was come to teach men the way of salvation, and was to send his apostles to convert all nations. They succeeded to the labours of the prophets, but with much greater advantages and success. And to this is applied that common saying, that one soweth and another reapeth. (Witham) By these words our Saviour testifies to his disciples, that the prophets had sown the seed in order to bring men to believe in Christ. This was the end of the law, this the fruit which the prophets looked for to crown their labours. He likewise shews that he himself that sent them, likewise sent the prophets before them; and that the Old and New Testament are of the same origin, and have the same design. (St. John Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas) This is indeed the Saviour of the world. These Samaritans then believed that Jesus was the true Messias, sent to redeem the world. (Witham) For Jesus himself gave testimony, &c. The connexion and reason given here by the word for , is obscure, when it is said, Jesus went into Galilee and gave testimony that a prophet hath no honour in his own country. One would think this should not be a reason for his going into Galilee, but rather why he should not go thither. St. Cyril,[1] and also St. John Chrysostom distinguish different parts of Galilee; and say that when Jesus went into Galilee, the meaning is, that he would not at that time go to Nazareth, where he was bred, nor to Capharnaum, where he had lived for a time, but went to Cana, and those other parts of Galilee; and that the word for only gives the reason of this, that he would not go to Nazareth or Capharnaum, because no prophet is honoured in his own country. And for the same reason he again said to the ruler: (ver. 48) Unless you see sign and wonders you believe not: whereas the Samaritans, from whom he was now coming readily believed without such miracles. (Witham) =============================== [] St. Cyril, in Joan. p. 202. Interjacentem Nazareth pr\'e6terit, Greek: paratrechei ten Nazareth dia tou mesou keimenen. St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxiv. in Joan. tom. 8, p. 203. quare addidit, quia, Greek: gar, quod non in Capharnaum, sed in Galileam, et in Cana abiit.==================== Thy son liveth; i.e. thy son is recovered, at this very moment. (Witham) Observe here the malice of the Pharisees; they were more hurt at the cure of the sick man, than at the violation of the sabbath. Therefore, they ask not, Who healed you; but, as if they wished to keep that out of sight, Who told you to take up you bed? (St. John Chrysostom) --- But he answers: The same who healed me: Why should I not receive orders from him from whom I have received my health? (St. Augustine) --- By the festival, mentioned in ver. 1, is generally understood the Passover; and this was the second from the commencement of Christ's ministry. St. Matthew calls it by this name, chap. xxvi. 5; St. Mark, Chap. xiv. 2. and xv. 6; and St. Luke, Chap. xxiii. 17. For the first Passover, see above, John ii. 13; for the third, John vi. 4; for the fourth and last, Matthew xxvi. 17. The first three are only mentioned by St. John, the fourth by all the evangelists. Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica. [1] Some translate, the sheep-pond. It is true the Greek word signifies something belonging to sheep. But because the ancient Latin interpreter thought fit to retain the Greek, probatica, and also because of the different expositions, I have not changed the word. Some think it was so called, as being near the gate called the sheep-gate: others, as being near the sheep-market: others, because the sheep that were brought to be sacrificed, were washed in it; or, at least, that the blood and entrails of sheep and beast sacrificed, were thrown into it, or washed there. In the ordinary Greek copies we read thus: there is at, or near, the Probatica, a pond or fish-pond. In Hebrew it was called Bethsaida, a house for fishing: and in most Greek copies, Bethchesda, a house of mercy, (perhaps because of the cures done there) having five porches, covered and arched, for the convenience of the infirm that lay there, waiting for the motion of the water. (Witham) --- The word Greek: probaton, signifies a sheep. This pond is therefore called Probatica, because there the priests washed the sacrifices. (St. Augustine) --- In imitation of this sick man, if we wish to return God thanks for his favours, or to enjoy the pleasure of his company, we must fly the crowd of vain and wicked thoughts that continually tempt us; we must avoid the company of the wicked, and fly to the sanctuary, that we may render our hearts worthy temples of that God who vouchsafes to visit us. (Alcuin) =============================== [] Probatica piscina: some Greek copies, Greek: probatike kolumbetra. But in the common copies, Greek: epi te probatike kolumbetra, i.e. prope piscinam, &c. Greek: Kolumbetra signifies lavacrum. See Legh's Crit. Sacra. And an angel of the Lord. [2] In many Greek copies is now wanting, of the Lord; but at least the ancient Fathers, and interpreters, expound it of a true angel, and of a miraculous cure: so that I cannot but wonder that so learned a man as Dr. Hammond, should rather judge these cures to have been natural. By the angel, he would have us to understand a messenger sent from the temple, who was to stir up the blood, and the grosser and thicker parts from the bottom of the pond, and that these cures were made much after the same manner, as, in some cases, persons find a cure by being put into the belly of a beast newly opened. Into what extravagant interpretations are men of learning sometimes led by their private judgment! What scholar of Galen or Hippocrates, ever pretended that this was a certain and infallible cure for all manner of diseases? Yet here we read: that he who got first into this pond, after the motion of the water, was healed, whatsoever distemper he was seized with. The blind are particularly named: Is this a certain remedy that restores sight to the blind? (Witham) --- The effect produced could not be natural, as only one was cured at each motion of the waters. The longing expectation of the suffering patients, is a mark of the persevering prayer with which poor sinners should solicit the cure of their spiritual infirmities. (Haydock) =============================== [] Angelus Domini. The word Greek: kuriou, Domini is found in several of the best Greek manuscripts though wanting in others. But that the cure was miraculous, see St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. ls. p. 207, tom. viii. Greek: Aggelos iatiken enetikei dunamin. St. Ambrose, lib. de initandis, chap. iv. St. Augustine (trac. xvii. in Joan.) credas hoc Angelica virtute ficri solere. St. Cyril on this place, Angeli descendentes de c\'9clo piscin\'e6 aquam turbabant. Infirmity. The Greek, astheneia, signifies in its radical interpretation, a loss of strength: in this place it seems to denote a confirmed palsy. Wilt thou be made whole? No doubt but the poor man desired nothing more. Christ put this question, to raise him to a lively faith and hope. (Witham) Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. The man found himself healed at that very moment, and did as he was ordered, though it was the sabbath-day. The Jews blamed him for it: he told them, that he who had healed him, bade him do so. And who it was he knew not, till Jesus finding him in the temple, said to him: (ver. 14.) Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee. Upon this he went, not out of malice, but out of gratitude, and told the Jews that Jesus had cured him. (Witham) Sin no more, &c. By these words our Saviour shews, that his infirmity was sent in punishment of his sins. When our souls are covered with the leprosy of sin, we are frequently insensible of our misfortune; whereas, as soon as the body is attacked with sickness, though ever so inconsiderable, we are not to be pacified till the physician has been consulted, and some remedy applied to remove, if possible, the complaint. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- Men are astonished that God, for so short a pleasure as is found in the perpetration of sin, should have decreed an everlasting punishment in the fire of hell; for they say, Shall I be punished for ever, for having indulged a sinful thought for a single moment? But their astonishment will cease, when they consider that punishments are not inflicted on sins in proportion to the length of time that was spent in their perpetration, but that they are proportioned to their malice. Now the malice of sin being infinite, aimed against the infinite majesty and infinity sanctity of God, the punishment, to be any ways commensurate, must be infinite. If, therefore, the sinner dies charged with the infinite debt of mortal sin unrepented of, as the time of mercy and repentance finishes with the present life, the sin must necessarily remain, God's hatred for sin must necessarily remain, and the punishment justly inflicted must necessarily continue. (Haydock) --- These words are applicable to every penitent sinner, when he returns from the tribunal of confession, and shew how careful he ought to be not to relapse into his former sins. "For he who after pardon sins again, is unworthy of mercy; who being cured, makes himself sick again, and who being cleansed, defiles himself again." (Tom. ii. St. John Chrysostom, de lapsu prim. hom.) My father worketh until now: [3] and I work. The Jews looked upon it of obligation to do nothing on the sabbath, because God is said to have rested the seventh day; on which account the rest on the seventh day was commanded. Christ puts them in mind, that though it be said he rested the seventh day, (that is, produced no more new kinds of creatures) yet that God may be said to work always, by preserving and continually governing the world: and I, saith he, do all things that he doth, I work with him, being one and the same in nature and substance with him: nay, even as man, I do nothing but what is conformable to his will; and so you need not fear that I break the sabbath. --- The Christian faith teacheth us, that Jesus Christ was both God and Man. The objections of the ancient and modern Arians, only shew that Christ was also truly a man, and that divers things which he speaks of himself, or which are said of him in the holy Scriptures, apply to him as man. Nothing is more certain, and agreed on by all. But at the same time we ought to take notice, that Christ has affirmed many things of himself, and many things are asserted of him in the Scriptures, which by no means could be applied to him unless he were also truly and properly one and the same God with his eternal Father. And these are the passages by which the Arians and Socinians might be convinced of their errors and blasphemies. (Witham) --- If Christ had not been the natural Son of God, these words, which he says in excuse of his seeming breach of the sabbath, would rather have increased the strength of their accusation. For no governor, when accused of any crime, excuses himself by saying the king does the same. But as the Son is equal to the Father, his excuse is a true one. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- The rest God entered into after the creation, and which he was pleased to honour by that of the sabbath, is no hinderance to the operations of his power in the preservation of his works, nor to the operations of his grace in the sanctification of souls. =============================== [] Pater meus usque modo operatur, Greek: ergazetai. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. le. on these words. St. Cyril, lib. ii. in Joan. chap. vi. St. Augustine, trac. xvii. in Joan. &c. That God was his Father, [4] making himself equal to God. In divers places of the Old Testament, God is called the Father of the Israelites, and they his children: but here, and on several other occasions, the Jews very well saw, that he called God his Father in a quite different sense from that in which he could be said to be their Father; that his words make him equal to God, and that he made himself God. See John x. 33; John xix. 7; Luke xxii. 70; &c. And therefore St. Augustine says on this verse: (Trac. xvii. in Joan.) Behold the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (Witham) =============================== [] Patrem suum, or proprium suum patrem, Greek: ton patira idio. The Son cannot do any thing of himself, [5] but what he seeth the Father do. In like manner, (ver. 30.) Christ says, I can do nothing of myself. As I hear, so I judge. Again (Chap. viii. 28.) I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things. All these, and the like expressions, may be expounded, with Maldonatus and Petavius, (lib. ii. de Trin. chap. 4.) of Christ, as man. But the ancient Fathers commonly allowed them to be understood of Christ as God, and as the true Son of God proceeding from him from all eternity; as when it is said, the Son cannot do any thing of himself, it is true, because the eternal Son i not of himself, but always proceeds from the Father. 2. Because the works of all the three Persons, by which all things are produced and preserved, are inseparable. 3. When it is said, that the Son doth nothing, but what he seeth the Father doing: that he worketh, as the Father hath taught him, or shewed to him: these expressions bear not the same sense as when they are applied to men, or to an inferior or a scholar, who learns of his master, and follows him; but here, says St. Augustine, to see, to hear, to be taught by the Father, is no more than to proceed from him, to do and produce by the same action, all that the Father doth and produceth. This is the general interpretation of the ancient Fathers: St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine. The words immediately following, confirm this exposition, when it is said: For what things soever he (the Father) doth, these also in like manner the Son doth, i.e. the very same things by an unity of nature, of will, and of action: nor could these words be true, unless the Son was the same true God with the Father. (Witham) --- This must be understood, that he cannot do any thing contrary to the will of the Father. He does not say, "The Son does nothing of himself, but he Son can do nothing of himself, in order to shew their likeness and perfect equality." For by saying this, he does not betray any want of power in the Son; but, on the contrary, shews his great power. For when we say that God cannot sin, we do not esteem it a want of power; so when the Son says he cannot do any thing of himself, his meaning is, that he cannot do any thing contrary to the will of the Father; which certainly is a great perfection. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) =============================== [] Non potest filius a se, &c. St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. le. (t. viii. p. 222.) a seipso nihil facit, neque pater a seipso facit, Greek: oude o pater aph eautou ti poion. See St. Cyril, lib. ii. in Joan. St. Augustine, trac. xvii. in Joan. on the same texts. St. Athanasius, orat. 2. cont. Arianos, tom. ii. p. 488. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. xxxvi. 584. tom. i. Ed. Par. an. 1630. St. Ambrose (tom. ii. in Ps. cxviii.) Nihil a se facit filius: quia per unitatem operationis, nec filius sine patre facit, nec sine filio pater. St. Hilary, lib. vii. De Trin. P. 927. Ed. Ben. But St. Jerome (tom. iv. part 2, p. 521. Ed. Ben.) Non possum facere a meipso, objiciebant Ariani; sed respondet Ecclesia, ex persona hominis h\'e6c dici, &c. St. Jerome does not mean that he had a human or created person, as the Nestorians pretend; but that these words were spoken, or might be understood of Christ, inasmuch as his human nature was united to his divine person. Greater works than these will he (the Father) shew him, &c. These words may also, with Maldonatus be expounded of Christ, as man; but the ancient interpreters understand them of Christ, as God, in this sense, that the Father, and the Son, or the Father by the Son, will shew greater miracles hereafter done by Christ, that more persons may admire and believe. (Witham) For as the Father ... giveth life, so also the Son giveth life to whom he will; where these words, to give life to whom he will, shew the power of the Son and of the Father to be equal. (Witham) --- Our Saviour here mentions the greater works he spoke of in the preceding verse; for it is much more wonderful that the dead should rise, than that the sick should recover their health. We are not to understand these words, as if they meant some were raised to life by the Father, and others by the Son; but that the Father raises those whom the Son raises. And lest any one should understand this, that the Father makes use of the Son as his minister, through whose means he raises the dead, he immediately adds, &c. (St. Augustine, Tract. xxi. in Joan.) --- We see the lovers of this temporal and perishable life, labour to the utmost of their power, I will not say to avoid death, but merely to prolong their frail existence. If, therefore, men labour with so much solicitude, if they strain every nerve to prolong their lives but for a few years; how foolish and blind to their interest must those be, who live in such a manner as to be deprived of the light of eternal day! (St. Augustine, De verb. Dei. Serm. 64.) Neither doth the Father judge any man. It is certain that God is the Judge of all, by divers places of the holy Scriptures; and to judge, belongs both to the Father and to the Son, as they are the same God: so that when it is added, that the Father hath given all judgment to the Son, [6] this is meant of the exterior exercise of his judgment upon all mankind at the end of the world, in as much as Christ then will return, in his human body, to judge all men, even as man, in their bodies. (Witham) =============================== [] Omne judicium dedit filio. St. Augustine expounds it (trac. xxi.) sed judicium manifestum. Pater occultus erit judex, filius manifestus, quia mani feste ad judicium veniet.==================== Hath everlasting life. That is, a title to an eternal inheritance of glory, by believing in the Father, and in the Son, and also in the Holy Ghost, as we are taught to believe at our baptism. (Witham) The hour cometh ... when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. Though some understand this of the rising of Lazarus; others of those that rose with Christ at his resurrection: yet by these words, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, seems rather to be signified the general resurrection at the end of the world; and though it be said, that now is the hour, this may be spoken of the last age of the world; and, as St. John says, (1 John ii. 18.) children, it is the last hour. In fine, some interpreters understand these words of a spiritual resurrection from sin, which Christ came to bring to the world. (Witham) To execute judgment, because he is the Son of man; or, because, he is God made man, and is to come to judgment in a visible manner, to judge all men. (Witham) Unto the resurrection of judgment. That is, condemnation. (Challoner) I can do nothing of myself, &c. See ver. 19. St. John Chrysostom also take notice, that it may be no less with truth said of the Father, that he can do nothing of himself, nor without his Son, nor both of them without the Holy Ghost; because both they, and their actions, are inseparable. (Witham) If I bear witness of myself, &c. Christ tells the Jews elsewhere, (chap. viii. 14.) that though he should bear witness of himself, it would be true. But the sense of the words in this place is: I could allow you, that if I only gave testimony of myself you might seem to have some reason to except against my testimony: but now besides my own words, you have had also the testimony of John the Baptist, who divers times witnessed that I am the Messias, and the Son of God, come to take away the sins of the world. 2. You have had the testimony of my eternal Father, particularly at my baptism. 3. You have yet a greater testimony, by the works and miracles wrought before your eyes, and at the same time foretold by the prophets. 4. The prophets, and the Scriptures, which you search, or which I remit you to, to search them diligently, these also bear witness concerning me. (Witham) You do not observe the commandment he gave you. (Deuteronomy xviii. 15. 19.) of listening to the prophet He would send you. Or, You search the Scriptures: . It is not a command for all to read the Scriptures; but a reproach to the Pharisees, that reading the Scriptures as they did, and thinking to find everlasting life in them, they would not receive him to whom all those Scriptures gave testimony, and through whom alone they could have that true life. (Challoner) --- This hope is the cause and motive which leads to this study; and eternal life is the end they propose to themselves in it. Hence, from the context and mode of argumentation made use of, the indicative, you search, instead of the imperative mood, search ye, is best supported. Catholics are most unjustly accused of depriving the faithful of the use of the holy Scriptures. The council of Trent, (Session v. canon i. de reform.) makes this proviso; that in churches where there exists a prebendary, or benefice, set apart for lectures on sacred Scripture, the bishops, &c. shall compel those holding such benefice to expound the sacred Scriptures themselves, should they be equal to the duty; or, by a proper substitute, chosen by the bishop or local ordinary. Also in monasteries of monks, it is prescribed that if abbots neglect, let the bishops of the places compel their compliance; and in convents where studies can be conveniently prosecuted, let there be also a lecturer on Scripture appointed, to be chosen from the most able professors. Moreover, in public universities, where this most honorable and most necessary of all lectures has not been instituted, let the piety and charity of religious princes and governments provide for it; so that the Catholic faith may be defended and strengthened, and sound doctrine protected and propagated. And where the lecture has been instituted, but discontinued, let it be re-established. Moreover, no one was to be appointed to this office, whose life, morals, and learning had not been examined and approved by the bishop of the place, &c. And you will not come to me. Christ now gives them reason why they do not receive him, and his doctrine, nor believe in him; because they are void of the love of God, full of self-love, envy, pride, seeking for praise and glory one from another. Hence you will not receive me, who come in the name of my Father, sent to redeem the world. But if another, such as false prophets, or even Antichrist himself, who will pretend to be the Messias, come in his own name, him you will receive. (Witham) --- It is proper to remark, that the testimonies here adduced all rise gradually one above another, and make a body of evidence that must leave the incredulous Jews without excuse: for they pay no regard to Jesus Christ himself, nor to John the Baptist, nor to the evidence of miracles, nor to the voice of God, nor to the Scriptures, nor even to Moses himself. Galilee. St. John does not usually relate what is mentioned by the other evangelists, especially what happened in Galilee. If he does it on this occasion, it is purposely to introduce the subject of the heavenly bread, which begins ver. 37. He seems, moreover, to have had in view the description of the different passovers during Christ's public ministry. As he, therefore, remained in Galilee during the third passover, he relates pretty fully what passed during that time. We must also remark, that as the other three evangelists give, in the same terms, the institution of the blessed sacrament, St. John omits the institution, but gives in detail the repeated promises of Jesus Christ, relative to this great mystery. From the circumstances of the passover, the number that followed Jesus was greatly increased. (Bible de Vence) Our Lord first said, (Matthew xiv. 16.) Give them to eat; but afterwards, accommodating himself to the weakness of his disciples, he says: Whence shall we buy bread? So there is no contradiction. The text in St. Matthew adds: without counting the women and the children, who might possibly amount to an equal number. In the Greek, there is this addition: He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were sitting. The Syriac, and some Greek copies agree with the Vulgate. To make the miracle still more conspicuous to the multitude, Jesus Christ shewed, that not only their present wants were supplied, but that there remained as much, or more, after they had all been filled, than there had been at first presented to Him. The Prophet indeed. That is, the Messias. (Witham) St. John here corrects what relates to Jesus, and then what relates to the disciples. For if we attend to the order of time, the apostles got into the boat before Jesus went to the mountain. But, in matters of this nature, it is usual for the historians to follow their own choice. (Polus, Synop. critic.) Five and twenty or thirty furlongs. About three or four miles. In St. Matthew xiv. 26. and St. Mark vi. 51. we find that Jesus entered into the boat. St. John does not deny it; but he remarks a circumstance not notice by the others: The vessel was presently at the land. (Bible de Vence) Christ did not return an express answer to their words, but he replied to their thoughts. For they seem to have put this question to him, that by flattering him, they might induce him to work another miracle, similar to the former; but Christ answers them not to seek for their temporal prosperity, but for their eternal welfare. The Church is daily filled, says St. Augustine, with those who come to petition for temporal advantages, that they may escape this calamity, obtain that advantage in their temporal concerns: but there is scarce one to be found who seeks for Christ, and pays him his adoration, through the pure love he bears him. (Maldonatus) For him hath God the Father sealed. The sense seems to be, that Christ having wrought so many miracles in his Father's name, the Father himself hath thereby given testimony in his favour, and witnessed, as it were, under his seal, that Jesus is his true Son, whom he sent into the world. (Witham) What sign then dost thou shew? And foreseeing that he might, with great propriety, allege the recent miracle, they contrast it with what Moses performed in the desert. It is true, they say, you once fed 5,000 persons with five loaves; but our fathers, to the number of 600,000 did eat, not for once, but during forty years, manna in the desert; a species of food infinitely superior to barley bread. (Bible de Vence) See Numbers i. 46. Christ having declared that he was greater than Moses, (since Moses could not promise them bread which should never perish) the Jews wished for some sign by which they might believe in him; therefore they say, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, but you have only given us bread; where then is the food that perishes not? Christ therefore answers them, that the food which Moses gave them, was not the true manna from heaven, but that it was only a figure of himself, who came down from heaven to give life to the world. (St. Augustine) --- St. John Chrysostom observes, that the Jews here acknowledge Christ to be God, since they entreat Christ not merely to ask his Father to give it them; but, do thou thyself give it us. Moses gave you not bread from heaven; i.e. the manna was not given to your forefathers by Moses, but by God's goodness. 2ndly, neither came it from heaven, but from the clouds, or from the region of the air only. 3rdly, It did not make them that eat it live for ever; but they that spiritually eat me, the living bread; that is, believe in me, and keep my commandments, shall live for ever. --- Ver. 37, 44, and 66. No one can come to me, unless the Father draw him. [1] These verses are commonly expounded of God's elect; who are not only called, but saved, by a particular mercy and providence of God. God is said to draw them to himself by special and effectual graces, yet without any force or necessity, without prejudice to the liberty of their free-will. A man, says St. Augustine, is said to be drawn by his pleasures, and by what he loves. (Witham) A life of immortality and eternal happiness to all who worthily receive it. St. Augustine with all the Fathers, believed that the Jews did not understand this in its proper sense; but only understood a material bread, of superior excellence to the manna, which would preserve their health and life for ever (St. Augustine); or at least, a far more delicious bread, which they were to enjoy during the whole course of their lives. You demand this bread; behold it is before you, and yet you eat it not. I am the bread; to believe in me is to eat me. You see me, but you believe not in me. (St. Augustine) --- It is to this place that those words of St. Augustine are to be referred: "Why do you prepare your teeth and belly? believe in me, and you have eaten me." Words which do not destroy the real presence, of which he is not speaking in this verse. (Maldonatus, 35.) --- Jesus Christ leads them gradually to this great mystery, which he knows will prove a stumbling block to many. The chapter begins with the miraculous multiplication of the loaves; then Christ walking on the sea; next he blames the Jews for following him not through faith in his miracles, but for the loaves and fishes, and tells them to labour for that nourishment which perishes not, by believing in Him, whom the Father had sent; and then promises, that what their fathers had received in figure only, the manna, the faithful shall receive in reality; his own body and blood. =============================== [] Nisi pater traxerit eum. St. Augustine, trac. 26, p. 495. noli te cogitare invitum trahi; trahitur animus et amore.----------trahit sua quemque voluptas. Virg. Ecl. ii. Christ does not say this as if he did not whatever he wished; but he recommends to us his humility. He who comes to me shall not be cast forth, but shall be incorporated with me, because he shall not do his own will, but that of my Father. And therefore he shall not be cast forth; because when he was proud, he did his own will, and was rejected. None but the humble can come to me. (St. Hilary and St. Augustine) --- An humble and sincere faith is essentially necessary to believe the great mysteries of the Catholic faith, by means of which we come to God and believe in God. (Haydock) I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. These Jews did not believe that Christ was the true and eternal Son of God, who came down from heaven, and was made flesh, was made man. He speaks of this faith in him, when he calls himself the living bread, the mystical bread of life, that came to give life everlasting to all true and faithful believers. In this sense St. Augustine said, (trac. xxv. p. 489) why dost thou prepare thy teeth and belly? only believe, and thou hast eaten; but afterwards he passeth to his sacramental and real presence in the holy sacrament. (Witham) Draw him. Not by compulsion, nor by laying the free-will under any necessity, but by the strong and sweet motions of his heavenly grace. (Challoner) --- We are drawn to the Father by some secret pleasure, delight, or love, which brings us to the Father. "Believe and you come to the Father," says St. Augustine, "Love, and you are drawn. The Jews could not believe, because they would not." God, by his power, could have overcome their hardness of heart; but he was not bound to do it; neither had they any right to expect this favour, after the many miracles which they had seen. (Calmet) Every one, therefore, that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned of him who I am, cometh to me by faith and obedience. As to others, when the Scripture says they are taught by God, this is to be understood of an interior spiritual instruction, which takes place in the soul, and does not fall under the senses; but not less real on that account, because it is the heart, which hears the voice of this invisible teacher. Thus Jesus Christ concludes the first part of his discourse: "Amen, amen, he that believeth in me, hath everlasting life;" which shews that faith is a necessary predisposition to the heavenly bread. Because the multitude still insisted in begging for their corporal nourishment and remembering the food that was given to their fathers, Christ, to shew that all were figures of the present spiritual food, answered, that he was the bread of life. (Theophylactus) --- Here Jesus Christ proceeds to the second part of his discourse, in which he fully explains what that bread of life is, which he is about to bestow upon mankind in the mystery of the holy Eucharist. He declares then, in the first place, that he is the bread of eternal life, and mentions its several properties; and secondly, he applies to his own person, and to his own flesh, the idea of this bread, such as he has defined it. Christ now no longer calls the belief in him, or the preaching of the gospel, the bread that he will give them; but he declares that it is his own flesh, and that flesh which shall be given for the life of the world. (Calmet) --- This bread Christ then gave, when he gave the mystery of his body and blood to his disciples. (Ven. Bede) The bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world. [2] In most Greek copies we read, is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world. Christ here promised what he afterwards instituted, and gave at his last supper. He promiseth to give his body and blood to be eaten; the same body (though the manner be different) which he would give on the cross for the redemption of the world. The Jews of Capharnaum were presently scandalized. How (said they) can this man give us his flesh to eat? But notwithstanding their murmuring, and the offence which his words had given, even to many of his disciples, he was so far from revoking, or expounding what he had said of any figurative or metaphorical sense, that he confirmed the same truth in the clearest and strongest terms. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat, &c. And again, (ver. 56.) For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. I cannot omit taking notice of what St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril, in their commentaries on this place, have left us on these words, How can this man do this? These words which call in question the almighty and incomprehensible power of God, which hinder them, says St. John Chrysostom, from believing all other mysteries and miracles: they might as well have said: How could he with five loaves feed five thousand men? This question, How can he do this? Is a question of infidels and unbelievers. St. Cyril says that How, or, How can he do this? cannot, without folly, be applied to God. 2ndly, he calls it a question of blasphemy. 3rdly, a Jewish word, for which these Capharnaites deserved the severest punishments. 4thly, He confutes them by the saying of the prophet Isaias, (lv. 9.) that God's thoughts and ways are as much above those of men, as the heavens are above the earth. But if these Capharnaites, who knew not who Jesus was, were justly blamed for their incredulous, foolish, blasphemous, Jewish saying, how can he give us his flesh to eat? much more blameable are those Christians, who, against the words of the Scripture, against the unanimous consent and authority of all Christian Churches in all parts of the world, refuse to believe his real presence, and have nothing to say, but with the obstinate Capharnaites, how can this be done? Their answers are the same, or no better, when they tell us that the real presence contradicts their senses, their reason, that they know it to be false. We may also observe, with divers interpreters, that if Christians are not to believe that Jesus Christ is one and the same God with the eternal Father, and that he is truly and really present in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, it will be hard to deny but that Christ himself led men into these errors, which is blasphemy. For it is evident, and past all dispute, that the Jews murmured, complained, and understood that Christ several times made himself God, and equal to the Father of all. 2ndly, When in this chapter, he told them he would give them his flesh to eat, &c. they were shocked to the highest degree: they cried out, this could not be, that these words and this speech was hard and harsh, and on this very account many that had been his disciples till that time, withdrew themselves from him, and left him and his doctrine. Was it not then at least high time to set his complaining hearers right, to prevent the blasphemous and idolatrous opinions of the following ages, nay even of all Christian Churches, by telling his disciples at least, that he was only a nominal God, in a metaphorical and improper sense; that he spoke only of his body being present in a figurative and metaphorical sense in the holy Eucharist? If we are deceived, who was it that deceived us but Christ himself, who so often repeated the same points of our belief? His apostles must be esteemed no less guilty in affirming the very same, both as to Christ's divinity, and his real presence in the holy sacrament, as hereafter will appear. (Witham) --- Compare the words here spoken with those he delivered at his last supper, and you will see that what he promises here was then fulfilled: "this is my body given for you." Hence, the holy Fathers have always explained this chapter of St. John, as spoken of the blessed sacrament. See the concluding reflections, below. =============================== [] Quomodo potest hic, &c. Greek: pos dunatai outos; St. John Chrysostom, hom. xlv. in Joan. in the Greek, hom. xlvi. tom. 8, p. 272. Greek: otan gar e zetesis tou pos eiselthe, sunerchetai kai apistia. St. Cyril, lib. iv. in Joan. p. 359. Illud quomodo stulte de Deo proferunt, Greek: to pos anoetos epi theou legousin. --- Hoc loquendi genus omni scatere blasphemia, Greek: dusphemias apases. --- Judaicum verbum. Greek: to pos Ioudaikon rema. He takes notice how much the nature and power of God is above human capacity; he shews it by examples, and then concludes, (p. 360) De quibus miraculis si tuum illud quomodo subinde inferas, omni plane Scriptur\'e6 Divin\'e6 fidem derogabis, Greek: ole pantelos apeitheseis theia graphe. Because the Jews said it was impossible to give them his flesh to eat, Christ answers them by telling them, that so far from being impossible, it is very necessary that they should eat it. "Unless you eat," &c. (St. John Chrysostom) --- It is not the flesh of merely a man, but it is the flesh of a God, able to make man divine, inebriating him, as it were, with the divinity. (Theophylactus) See Maldonatus. Unless you eat ... and drink, &c. To receive both the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both the body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind: (ver. 52.) If any man eat of this bread he shall life for ever: and the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world: (ver. 58.) He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me: (ver. 59.) He that eateth this bread shall live for ever. (Challoner) Jesus Christ, to confirm the notion his disciples had formed of a real eating of his body, and to remove all metaphorical interpretation of his words, immediately adds, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. ... For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed;" which could not be so, if, as sectarists pretend, what he gives us in the blessed sacrament is noting but a bit of bread; and if a figure, certainly not so striking as the manna. As the living Father hath sent me, his only, his true Son, to become man; and I live by the Father, proceeding always from him; so he that eateth me, first by faith only, by believing in me; and secondly, he that eateth my body and blood, truly made meat and drink, though after a spiritual manner, (not in that visible, bloody manner as the Capharnaites fancied to themselves) shall live by me, and live for ever, happy in the kingdom of my glory. (Witham) If Christ had wished to say nothing else than that his disciples should be filled with his doctrine, that being his flesh and blood, it would not have been a hard saying; neither would it have shocked the Jews. He had already said as much in the former part of his discourse: but he goes on in still stronger terms, notwithstanding their complaints; and, as they were ignorant how he would fulfil his promise, they left him, (Calmet) and followed the example of the other unbelieving Jews, as all future sectarists have, saying: how can this be done? If you cannot believe that I can give you my flesh to eat, now that I am living amongst you, how will you believe, that, after my ascension, I can give you to eat my glorified and immortal flesh, seated on the right hand of the majesty of God? (Bible de Vence) If then you shall see, &c. Christ, by mentioning his ascension, by this instance of his power and divinity, would confirm the truth of what he had before asserted; at the same time, correct their gross apprehension of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, in a vulgar and carnal manner, by letting them know he should take his whole body living with him to heaven; and consequently not suffer it to be, as they supposed, divided, mangled, and consumed upon earth. (Challoner) --- The sense of these words, according to the common exposition, is this: you murmur at my words, as hard and harsh, and you refuse now to believe them: when I shall ascend into heaven, from whence I came into the world, and when my ascension, and the doctrine that I have taught you, shall be confirmed by a multitude of miracles, then shall you and many others believe. (Witham) The flesh profiteth nothing. Dead flesh, separated from the spirit, in the gross manner they supposed they were to eat his flesh, would profit nothing. Neither doth man's flesh, that is to say, man's natural and carnal apprehension, (which refuses to be subject to the spirit, and words of Christ) profit any thing. But it would be the height of blasphemy, to say the living flesh of Christ (which we receive in the blessed sacrament, with his spirit, that is, with his soul and divinity) profiteth nothing. For if Christ's flesh had profited us nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in the flesh for us. --- Are spirit and life. By proposing to you a heavenly sacrament, in which you shall receive, in a wonderful manner, spirit, grace and life. These words sufficiently correct the gross and carnal imagination of these Capharnaites, that he meant to them his body and blood to eat in a visible and bloody manner, as flesh, says St. Augustine, is sold in the market, and in the shambles; [3] but they do not imply a figurative or metaphorical presence only. The manner of Christ's presence is spiritual and under the outward appearances of bread and wine; but yet he is there truly and really present, by a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of his body and blood, which truly and really become our spiritual food, and are truly and really received in the holy sacrament. --- The flesh [4] of itself profiteth nothing, not even the flesh of our Saviour Christ, were it not united to the divine person of Christ. But we must take care how we understand these words spoken by our Saviour: for it is certain, says St. Augustine, that the word made flesh, is the cause of all our happiness. (Witham) --- When I promise you life if you eat my flesh, I do not wish you to understand this of that gross and carnal manner, of cutting my members in pieces: such ideas are far from my mind: the flesh profiteth nothing. In the Scriptures, the word flesh is often put for the carnal manner of understanding any thing. If you with to enter into the spirit of my words, raise your hearts to a more elevated and spiritual way of understanding them. (Calmet) --- The reader may consult Des Mahis, p. 165, a convert from Protestantism, and who has proved the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist in the most satisfactory manner, from the written word. Where he shows that Jesus Christ, speaking of his own body, never says the flesh, but my flesh: the former mode of expression is used to signify, as we have observed above, a carnal manner of understanding any thing. =============================== [] St. Augustine, 27. p. 503, carnem quippe intellexerunt, quomodo in cadavere dilaniatur, aut in macello venditur. St. Augustine, 27. p. 503, caro non prodest quicquam, sed caro sola ... nam si caro nihil prodesset, verbum caro non fieret.==================== Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? He shews them, says St. John Chrysostom, that he stood not in need of them, and so leaves them to their free choice. (Witham) --- Jesus Christ remarking in the previous verse that the apostate disciples had left him, to walk no more with him, turning to the twelve, asks them, Will you also go away? The twelve had heard all that passed; they had seen the Jews strive amongst themselves, and the disciples murmur and leave their Master; they understood what he said in the same literal sense; it could, indeed, bear no other meaning; but when Jesus put the above question to them, leaving them to their free choice, whether to follow him, or to withdraw themselves, Simon Peter answered him: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life;" and therefore art able to make good thy words, however hard and difficult they may appear to others. --- We may here admire not only the excellency of their faith, but the plain, yet noble motive of their faith: they believe, because he is Christ, the Son of God, who is absolutely incapable of deceiving his creatures, and whose power is perfectly equal to perform the promises he here makes them. Simon Peter, the chief or head of them, said in the name of the rest: Lord, to whom shall we go? It is only from thee that we hope for salvation. Thou hast the words of eternal life: we have believed, and known, and remain in this belief, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. (Witham) Concluding reflections on this chapter. If we take into consideration all the circumstances of this chapter, it will be difficult to conceive how any person can bring their mind to think that there is no connexion between this chapter and the institution of the blessed sacrament. It must proceed, as Dr. Clever, the Protestant Bishop of Bangor, affirms, "from the fear of giving advantage to the doctrine of transubstantiation." He moreover adds: "whilst the institution is considered as a memorial only, nothing can well be further from being plain." See his Sermon on the Lord's Supper. The holy Fathers have unanimously understood these repeated promises of Christ with a reference to the institution. St. Cyprian, of the third age [century] quoting the promises of Christ, the bread which I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world, deduces this conclusion: "Hence it is manifest, that they have this life, who touch his body, and receive the Eucharist." Qui corpus ejus attingunt. (De Orat. Dom. p. 147.) St. Hilary, of the fourth age [century] quoting Christ's words, says: "there is no place left to doubt of the truth of Christ's flesh and blood, de veritate carnis et sanguinis non relictus est ambigendi locus; for now, by the profession of the Lord himself, and according to our belief, it is truly flesh and truly blood." (De Trin. lib. viii. p. 954-6.) St. Basil, of the fourth century also, citing ver. 53 and 54 of this chapter, says: "about the things that God has spoken there should be no hesitation, nor doubt, but a firm persuasion that all is true and possible, though nature be against it: Greek: Kan e phusis machetai. Herein lies the struggle of faith." (Reg. viii. Moral. t. 2, p. 240.) Again the same saint says: "it is very profitable every day, to partake of the body and blood of Christ, Greek: phagein to soma kai piein to aima tou kuriou emon, for he that eateth my flesh. &c. (John vi. 55.) --- "We communicate four times in the week; on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and on the other days, if there be a commemoration of any saint." (Ep. xcii. t. 3, p. 186.) --- St. Ambrose, of the same age, says: "the manna in the desert was given in figure. You have known things more excellent. For light is preferable to the shadow; truth to the figure; the body of Christ to the manna of heaven. But you may say: I see somewhat else: how do you assert that I shall receive the body of Christ?" He gives this answer: "How much more powerful is the virtue of the divine blessing, than that of nature; because by the former, nature itself is changed? ... If the blessing of men (he here instances Moses changing a rod into a serpent, and many other miraculous changes) was powerful enough to change nature, what must we not say of the divine consecration, when the very words of the Lord operate? For that sacrament which we receive, is accomplished by the word of Christ. If the word of Elias could call down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ be able to change the outward elements? ... The word of Christ could draw out of nothing what was not, shall it not be able to change the things that are into that which they were not? ... Was the order of nature followed when Jesus was born of a Virgin? Certainly not. Then why is that order to be looked for here? It was the true flesh of Christ, which was crucified, which was buried; and this is truly the sacrament of his flesh ... Our Lord himself proclaims, This is my body." --- If Jesus Christ, during his public ministry, performed so many visible and palpable miracles as we read of in the gospels, was it not to induce us to believe without doubting the truths that escape our senses, and surpass our reason? If we believe the water was changed into wine at the marriage feast of Cana; if we believe that the bread in the hands of Christ and his apostles was not diminished, by being broken and divided among five thousand, why cannot we believe the miracle of the Eucharist on the authority of Christ's word, "the bread that I will give you, is my flesh? This is my body," &c. Not one of all the ancient Fathers has ever denied the real presence; not one of them all has ever said, that the body of Jesus Christ is received in figure only. This was the festival of Tabernacles, on which the Jews made tents, in imitation of those which were their habitations during their sojournment in the wilderness, for forty years. See Leviticus xxiii. 34. The Jews called it a festival day; though it consisted not of one, but of many days successively. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.) These brethren of Christ were the relatives of the blessed Virgin, not her children. For, as in the sepuchre, were the body of our Saviour was deposited, no other mortal lay either before or since; so neither did the womb of Mary ever either before or after bear any other body but that of her divine Son. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.) Neither did his brethren believe in him; by his brethren here, we are to understand his kindred, this townsmen or countrymen, at or about Nazareth. (Witham) Go you up to this festival day, which lasted eight days. --- I go not with you, nor to be there at the first day, nor in that public manner as you desire. But when the feast was half over, about the fourth day, Jesus went thither in a private manner, yet so that when he arrived, he spoke publicly in the temple. (Witham) But why does he ascend to the festival day, when he said he would not? He did not say, I will not ascend, but only, I do not ascend; that is, in your company. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xlvii. in Joan.) --- Or, I do not go up to this festival, viz. the first or second day of the feast, which lasted eight days, and to which you wish me to ascend: but he went afterwards, when the first part of the festival was over. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.) It was the people that held the favourable opinion of Christ, whilst on the contrary, the Scribes and Pharisees speak ill of him, saying, he seduceth not us, but he seduceth the multitude. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xlviii. in Joan.) No one publicly took the part of Jesus, however favourable were their private sentiments; for the Jews hated and persecuted such as sided with him. (Bible de Vence) Whilst the Jews proceeded no further than to admire the wisdom of our Saviour, when they could easily have seen that what he taught he knew by the power of God, Christ himself reveals to them the source of his wisdom, saying: My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xlviii. in Joan.) --- St. Thomas Aquinas, the great doctor of the schools, and styled the angelic doctor, informs us that in all the scriptural difficulties he met with, he uniformly had recourse to prayer, and that he acquired greater light and knowledge at the foot of his crucifix than from any books or masters. (Haydock) My doctrine is not mine; i.e. not mine only, but also the Father's; from whom I proceed, and with whom I am always. (Witham) He is true: seeketh truth, and not his own glory. (Witham) The law of Moses prescribes that you shall not kill, but this law you transgress; for, why do you seek to kill me? You do not observe the law; otherwise you would learn from that law, that I am the Christ, and not seek to put me to death, when I appear amongst you. (St. Augustine, tract. 30, in Joan.) --- If I cure on the sabbath-day, do not you also give circumcision, and also cure the wound on the sabbath? (Bible de Vence) --- See ver. 23, of this chapter. Thou hast a devil: art possessed with a devil, mad, &c. (Witham) One work I have done. He means by healing the man at the pond, who had been ill thirty-eight years. (Witham) --- Jesus here speaks of the cure that he had performed on the paralytic, eighteen months before, and which had scandalized the Jews. See Chap. v, ver. 9. et dein. of this gospel. (Bible de Vence) Have the rulers, &c. the chief priests, elders, and all the members of the great sanhedrim. (Witham) We know this man whence he is. They looked upon him as no more than a man, and they thought they knew his father to be St. Joseph; they knew his Mother and kindred. --- But when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. Thus said some of the people; but, doubtless, the more learned knew Christ was to be born at Bethlehem. (Witham) --- The Jews had imbibed this opinion of the secrecy of the origin of Christ from the prophet Isaias, Chap. liii. Who shall relate his generation? But they likewise were acquainted with many other texts of Scripture relative to the Messias, which plainly point out the place of his birth, viz. Bethlehem, and also the place of his residence, when it is said, He shall be called a Nazarite. His generation is indeed unknown with regard to his divinity, as Christ himself told the Jews in his answer: He is true that sent me, but you know him not. But as to his humanity, his origin is well known: You know me, and whence I am you know. (St. Augustine, tract. 31. in Joan.) You both know me; i.e. you know me as man, and where I have been educated. --- But him that sent me, from whom I proceeded, and who sent me into this world to be its Redeemer, you know not; because you know not, that he was always, and from all eternity, my eternal Father, and I his eternal Son. (Witham) The faith of these was not at all sound, as appears from the following words, which they spoke. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xlix. in Joan.) The Pharisees understood well enough that his words signified he was their Messias, and the true Son of God. And they sent some servants to seize him, and bring him to them. (Witham) Yet a little while and I am with you: and then I go, and return to him that sent me, with whom I am always; but as man, I shall leave the world. (Witham) And shall not find me. Some understand it, you shall wish me conversing with you, as at present, healing diseases, &c. but as I shall suffer death shortly, you shall not find me. Others expound it, you shall seek for your Messias, but not owning me, who am truly he, you shall not find your Messias; and you cannot come to me in my kingdom of glory, because you will not believe in me. (Witham) --- Or where I shall be. The present tense is not unfrequently used for the future, by the hagiographers. See Chap. xiii. 33. Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, or to the dispersed Gentiles, and Jews among them to preach to them? (Witham) Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. By this living water, are signified the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which were promised to the faithful. (Witham) As yet the spirit was not given, in that particular and extraordinary manner, because Jesus was not yet glorified by his ascension and the coming of the Holy Ghost. (Witham) --- It is said that the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb of his mother; that Zacharias, when he prophesied concerning his son, and the blessed Virgin, when she prophesied concerning our Lord, were both filled with the Holy Ghost; that Simeon and Anna were inspired by the Holy Ghost, to declare the greatness of Christ. How can this be otherwise reconciled with this text of St. John, that by saying that this gift of the Holy Ghost, after the ascension of Christ, was much more abundant that it had ever been before? For we never read that men inspired by the Holy Ghost before the coming of Christ, spoke languages which they had never learned. (St. Augustine, 4 de Trin. chap. xx.) --- The Holy Ghost is still received, but none speak with tongues: because the Church herself, being spread over the whole earth, speaks the languages of all. (St. Augustine, tract. 32. in S. Joan.) --- The primitive Christians of Corinth consulted St. Paul on the subject of these spiritual gifts or graces, frequently communicated in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. In his Epistle, addressed to them, (1 Corinthians chap. xii.) he explains those gifts, and complains that some among the Corinthians made not a right use of these gifts; especially those who had the gift of tongues, and made use of it rather through vanity, than for the profit of others. In the last verse of 1 Corinthians chap. xii. he adds: But be zealous for the better gifts. And I shew to you a yet more excellent way. And in the 13th chapter, he describes the excellence, the characters of charity which he extols far above all other gifts. (Haydock) A prophet does not come from Galilee, but the Lord of the prophets does. (St. Augustine, tract. 38. in Joan.) --- Without faith, without advantage, they again return to their habitations of infidelity and impiety. (Alcuin) But this multitude ... are accursed; i.e. falls under the curses of the law, by being seduced and led away by false preachers. (Witham) They say to Nicodemus: Art thou also a Galilean, who defendest this Galilean, whereas no prophet, nor especially the Messias, comes from Galilee? (Witham) --- A prophet, properly the prophet: for they could not be ignorant that the prophet Jonas was from Galilee. We have not indeed the article the in this verse, but we find it in ver. 40, with which this appears to correspond. (Haydock)==================== The last verse of the foregoing chapter, and the eleven verses that follow in this, are not found in the greater part of our present Greek copies, yet they are in some manuscripts and so are retained in the Protestant translation. We read nothing of them in the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom or St. Cyril; but St. Jerome (lib. ii. con. Pelag. tom. 4, part 2, p. 521. Ed. Ben.) says, they were found in many both Latin and Greek copies. St. Ambrose (Ep. 52.) says this passage, of the woman taken in adultery, was always famous in the Church. St. Augustine expounds them, tract. in Joan, &c. (Witham) =============================== [] In multis Latinis et Gr\'e6cis codicibus invenitur. S. Hierom. [i.e. St. Jerome] See the Greek edition of the New Testament, at Amsterdam, ex officina Westenians, an. 1711, in notis Criticis in fin, p. 17. Wrote with his finger, as one that was musing about something else. (Witham) We cannot with any propriety reprehend or condemn faults in others, if we ourselves be guilty of the same, or other great faults, St. Cyril, in Joan. --- See annotations on Matt. vii, ver. 1. Went out one by one, [2] confounded, and as it is in the ordinary Greek copies, convicted by their own conscience. (Witham) =============================== [] Greek: apo tes suneideseos, elegchomenoi. Hence we may see how impious is the doctrine of those who say that God is the author of sin. Christ did not say to the woman: I do not condemn thy sin; or, go and live now as thou pleasest, I will free thee from all punishment due to any sin thou shalt commit: but he only said, Go, and from henceforth sin no more: thus preserving his amiable virtue of clemency, and still not encouraging vice. (St. Augustine) Although I give testimony (or witness) of myself, my testimony is true. He gives them the reason, ver. 16; because he is not alone, but the Father (who also beareth witness) is also with him. (Witham) You judge, and also bear testimony concerning other men, according to the flesh, and according to outward shew and appearances only. I judge no one in this manner. And whatever judgment I pass, or if I give testimony, my testimony is true, as coming also from the Father, with whom I am one in nature, though a distinct person: and two, according to the law, are enough to give evidence. (Witham) --- You judge according to the flesh, &c. Because you do not understand the ways of God, and think you only see in me the person of man; therefore I seem to you to be arrogant, bearing witness of myself. Man indeed, who wishes alone to bear testimony of himself, is arrogant, and not to be believed, because all men are frail and liable to be deceived; but light and truth itself can neither deceive nor be deceived. (St. Augustine) Where is thy Father? They knew well enough by other discourses, that he had called and declared God to be his Father; but they had a mind to make him own it again, that they might accuse him as guilty of blasphemy. --- Neither me do you know, nor my Father: you will not own me to have been always his Son, nor him to have been always my Father, but did you know me to be his Son, always proceeding from him, you would know my Father also, and know him as my Father from all eternity. (Witham) --- As in common conversation we often say, "when you have seen one, you have seen the other;" when two persons or things seem perfectly alike as to outward appearances, so here Christ says, If you did know me, you would know my Father also: not that the Father is the Son, or the Son the Father, but because the Father is like the Son. (St. Augustine) --- Here might the Arians, and all who maintain that Christ is a mere creature, blush; for if he were a creature, how can any one who knows him likewise know God? Therefore is Christ consubstantial with the Father, for he who know the Son, knows the Father also. (Theophylactus) I go my way, and you shall seek me, &c. See the foregoing chapter, ver. 34. (Witham) I am not of this world: he speaks of his divine person, as the words evidently shew. (Witham) Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, [3] who also speak to you. This text and the construction of it is obscure, both in the Latin and in the Greek. St. Augustine and some of the Latin Fathers, expound it in this manner: I am the beginning of all things, who now being made man, speak to you. But this does not seem the construction, if we consult the Greek text; (where the beginning is not in the nominative, but in the accusative case) and therefore St. Augustine having considered more attentively the Greek, thinks that something must be understood, as believe me to be the beginning: he looks upon this to be the sense and the construction, as being connected with what was said two verses before; to wit, if you believe not that I am he, the true Messias, you shall die in you sins. "That they might," says St. Augustine (tract. 38, num. 11, p. 560) "know what they were to believe," he made them this answer, as if he had said: believe me to be the beginning, the cause, the author of all things, who am now become man, and speak to you. Other later interpreters are of opinion that the beginning is here a Grecism, and signifies that same as at first, or from the beginning. The sense therefore and construction may be, I am, what I said and told you at first, and from the beginning; that is, I am your Messias, the true Son of God, sent into the world, &c. (Witham) --- The Pharisees, indignant at the liberty with which Jesus spoke to them, demand of him in a rage, Who art thou, to speak to us in this imperious manner, to say that we shall die in our sins? Jesus answered them, that he was the Beginning, Author, Creator, and Ruler of all things. This is the more orthodox and more becoming interpretation. Or, I am, in the first place, what I have already told you; viz. (ver. 12.) I am the light of the world; he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Or, it may mean, I am what I have always from the beginning told you. I am the Son of God, the Messias, &c. (Calmet) =============================== [] Principium qui et loquor vobis. St. Augustine reads, quia loquor vobis, as we find in some Greek manuscripts and in St. Cyril, p. 511. In the common copies wer read, Greek: ten archen, oti kai lalo umin. And as Greek: ten archen is in the accusative case, so we may take principium; and to be taken adverbially, to signify the same as primum, a principio, imprimis. Maldonatus is of the same opinion, as well as many others, and brings examples to shew that Greek: ten archen is often taken for primum: and so the sense will be, I am what I told you from the beginning, i.e. the Messias, and this I now tell you again. We may also take notice, that the Greek construction is hard to be accounted for, Greek: ten archen oti, not Greek: os, qui, nor Greek: e, to agree with Greek: arche. And the things I have heard from him, &c. For Christ, to hear from his Father, to see, &c. is the same as to proceed from him, to be of the same nature and substance. See chap. v, ver. 19. (Witham) Now they, &c. Some of the more ignorant among the Jews understood not Christ when he clearly enough signified that he was equal to God, and of one and the same nature; but at other times they that heard him, perceived it very well; and so, in this place, they were for stoning him to death. (Witham) When you shall have lifted up, &c. That is, have put me to the death of the cross; (see John iii. 14. and xii. 32.) you, that is, many of you, shall know, and believe in me, as your Messias. (Witham) If you persevere in the true faith, and in the observance of my words, you shall be my disciples indeed. It is not sufficient to believe; you must likewise do what my words command you to do: nor will it be sufficient to have the true faith for a time; you must persevere in that faith to the end. (St. Augustine, Ven. Bede, St. John Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Euthymius, &c.) --- Faith alone without perseverance, or abiding in God's commandments, will not suffice. (Bristow) And the truth shall make you free. They were affronted at these words, as if he hinted they were slaves, and not a free people. They tell him, therefore, that they were never slaves to any one. They can only pretend this of themselves: for, their forefathers were slaves to the Egyptians, to the Babylonians, &c. and besides they were now the subjects, if not slaves, to the Romans. But Christ speaks of the worst of slaveries, and tells them the such as live in sin, are slaves to sin. (Witham) Now the servant abideth not in the house for ever, nor has a right to live in that manner as a son and a child of the family has to live in his father's house. A slave or servant, though he live ever so long in his master's house, his condition is quite different from that of a son of the family: and thus Christ puts them in mind that though they be of the race of Abraham, and in that sense can pretend to be his children, yet having made themselves slaves to sin, and remaining in that sin, by which they refuse to believe in him, their Messias, they are not the spiritual children of Abraham, nor can they inherit the promises made to Abraham, till, by the grace of Christ, they believe in him, and become his adoptive children. (Witham) Many never was without free-will; but, having the grace of Christ, his will is truly made free from the servitude of sin. (St. Augustine, tract. 41. in Joan.) You. That is, many of you, seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you; that is, is not rightly understood, nor received by you: you reject my doctrine, and are displeased with it. (Witham) The things that you have seen with your father. That is, you follow the suggestions of the devil, whom, (ver. 44.) in plain terms, he calls their father. (Witham) Not only faith but good works make men children of Abraham. See James, chap. ii. We are not born of fornication; we have one Father, God. These Jews perceived that Christ had hinted that they were not the true and faithful sons of Abraham; and therefore they replied in this manner. But Christ answered, if God was your Father, if you were his dutiful children, you would also believe in me, and love me; for I have proceeded from him, and am come from him, his true Son: and not sent into the world by him. But you cannot hear my word, because you will not, by your own wilful obstinate blindness. (Witham) You are of your father, the devil, and have made yourselves his slaves. --- He was a murderer from the beginning of the world, having brought both a corporal and a spiritual death by sin, upon all mankind. --- He abode not in the truth, in the ways of truth and obedience to God. --- He is a liar, and the father thereof: that is, the father of lies. I speak truth, being truth itself. (Witham) -- St. Augustine compares heretics, who drive Christians out of the Church, to the devil, who was the cause of our first parents' banishment from paradise. (Cont. lit. Petil. lib. ii. chap. 13.) He shall not see death, he shall not die, for ever. That is, he shall not incur an eternal death, as they who die in sin: but they understood his words of the death of the body. (Witham) --- You accuse me of being possessed with a devil, because I preach to you a doctrine far different from what you are accustomed to hear; but I speak nothing but the truth; I give honour to my Father, I execute his orders; and the words I now speak to you, are the words of eternal life. Whoever observes them shall not die. Moses promised a long life to those who observed what was commanded in the old law, and offered them as their reward goods and temporal prosperity. But I now offer you an eternal life. Believe my words, keep them, and observe my ordinances, and you shall not feel the death of the soul, the second, eternal, and most miserable of deaths. (Calmet) Abraham, your father, rejoiced that he might see my day, my entrance into this world, my incarnation, my birth, my manifestation in Israel, my death and passion. (St. Iren\'e6us, Origen, St. Cyril, &c.) --- He waited with impatience for the deliverance of the whole world. He saw it, and was glad. He saw it in spirit, for God revealed it to him. He saw it approaching in the birth of his son Isaac, and in the miraculous deliverance of his dear son, when he was commanded to offer him in sacrifice to the Lord. The vivacity of his faith made him, as it were, present at the time of my birth, though then so far off. (St. John Chrysostom, Leont., Theophylactus, Euthymius) --- It is not unlikely that this patriarch, and the others who were with him, detained in limbo, were apprised of the incarnation and coming of the Messias, which would fill them with an effusion of inexpressible joy. (St. John Chrysostom) --- Christ here teaches us two things. 1. That he was before Abraham. 2. That the Jews were not true sons of Abraham, now treating so rudely him, who, even before his coming, had given the patriarch so much joy. (Calmet) Before Abraham was made, I am. [4] Christ here speaks of his eternal existence as God. St. Augustine shews this by these very words, I am. He does not say, before Abraham was made, I was made: because, as the Son of God, he never was made: but I am, which shews his eternal divine nature. (Witham) =============================== [] Abraham fieret, ego sum; Greek: prin Abraam genesthai, ego eimi. St. Augustine, (tract. xliii. in Joan. num. 17. p. 588.) intellige, fieret ad creaturam, sum vero pertinere ad divinam substantiam: non dixit, antequam Abraham esset, ego eram, ... neque dixit, ego factus sum ... agnoscite creatorem, discernite creaturam.==================== When Christ healed the paralytic, he dismissed him with this injunction: Behold thou art made whole; now sin no more. From this the disciples concluded, that his infirmity was sent him in punishment of former sins. When, therefore, they saw this man afflicted with blindness, they inquired of their divine Master, whether it was on account of his or his parents' sin. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lv. in Joan.) When Christ says that neither he nor his parents had sinned, we must not understand that he was born without original sin, nor even that he had not committed other sins. For both he and his parents had sinned; but the meaning is, that this blindness was not a penal blindness inflicted in punishment of any sin either himself or his parents had committed; but, as is afterwards subjoined, it was sent him for the manifestation of the glory of God. (St. Augustine, tract. xliv. in Joan.) Whilst it is day. That is, during all the time of this mortal life; the night comes, that is, death. (Witham) --- He speaks of that night of which mention is made is St. Matthew chap. xxii. Cast him into exterior darkness. This is a night in which none can work, but only receive the reward of their labours. If you wish to work, work now whilst you live; for beyond the grave there is neither faith, nor labour, nor repentance. (St. John Chrysostom, as above.) Thus the day of which I am to avail myself is the time of my mortal life; and the night which is to follow this, is that of my death. (Bible de Vence) He spat on the ground. With clay and spittle he cured the blind man, to make the miracle more visible. (Witham) --- From the example of Jesus Christ, religious ceremonies are introduced in the administration of the sacraments; and can the Church be blamed for copying her divine Founder? (Haydock) The fountain of Siloe was at the foot of the walls of Jerusalem, to the east, where its waters were collected in a reservoir for the benefit of the city. Thither our Saviour sent the blind man. The word Siloe signifies sent, and was a figure of Christ, who was sent by his eternal Father into the world to enlighten all men, of whom this blind man was the emblem. The pool of Siloe represents the sacrament of baptism, by which we are sanctified and made Christians. It is still to this day held in great veneration by the Turks, who think its waters very beneficial in diseases of the eyes. (Calmet) --- Its waters signify those of divine grace and light, communicated to the faithful soul through Jesus Christ, who was sent of God. (Bible de Vence) --- Thus Sedulius:----------------------------------------Cognoscite cuncti, Mystica quid doceant animos miracula nostros. C\'9cca sumus proles miser\'e6 de f\'9ctibus Hev\'e6, Portantes longo natas errore tenebras. Sed dignante Deo mortalem sumere formam Tegminis humani, facta est de Virgine nobis Terra salutaris, qu\'e6 fontibus oblita sacris Clara renascentis referat spiracula lucis. The Hebrews gave the name of prophet to all those who were honoured by the Almighty in a particular manner. And it was a maxim amongst them, that a prophet could dispense with the law of the sabbath. (Calmet) --- Do you wish to know what he believed Jesus to be? asks St. Augustine. And falling down, he adored him. Before, he regarded him as a holy man, as a prophet; but he did not adore him until he understood him to be the Son of God; whereas no sooner did he know this, than, falling down, he paid him that sovereign worship which is due to God alone. (Calmet) The Jews had already agreed, or combined together, that if any one owned him for the Messias, he should be turned out of their synagogues, as a person excommunicated. (Witham) Give glory to God, before whom thou art speaking, and tell us the truth. It could not be this man who cured thee; for we know he is a sinner, who seduceth the people. (Bible de Vence) --- So say our separated brethren, when they derogate from miracles done by saints, pharisaically pretending the glory of God, as if it were not God's glory when his servants act by his power and virtue. Witness Peter's shadow, (Acts v.) and Paul's handkerchiefs that cured diseases, and expelled wicked spirits. (Acts xix. 11, 12.) I have told you already, and you have heard. In almost all Greek manuscripts we now read, and you have not heard. Beza, with good reason, here prefers the Latin Vulgate, as more correct than the Greek. (Witham) They reviled him with scornful[1] and disdainful language. (Witham) =============================== [] Maledixerunt, Greek: eloidoresan, reviled, rather than cursed.==================== God doth not hear sinners. That is, in so particular a manner, as to work miracles in favour of them and their doctrine. (Witham) From the beginning of the world it hath not been heard. Though we read of many miracles done by Moses and the prophets, this, saith he, is the first example of any man receiving his sight who had been born blind. (Witham) For judgment I am come into this world. Christ said (chap. iii. 17.) that God did not send his Son to judge the world: the same he repeats; (John xii. 47.) nor is this contradictory to those words: the meaning here is not that he is come to exercise the office of a judge, but he tells them what will be the consequences of his coming, and their refusing to believe in him, that they shall be justly punished with the greatest severity for their wilful blindness. (Witham) --- Jesus Christ came into the world that the pagans, who were yet in darkness, might receive light, and that the Jews, who enjoyed the light, might fall into darkness. The Jews were thus condemned, on account of their presumption and hardness of heart, and grace was granted to the Gentiles to enter into the true Church. These are the designs of the Almighty upon mankind, some of whom remain in infidelity, whilst others receive the light of faith; but all is done by the secret and impenetrable decrees of the justice and wisdom of God. The Holy Ghost, by these words, tells us only what was to be the event, not what was the cause of these things. We must seek for the cause of them in the malice of the heart of man, and in the depth of the judgments of God. (Calmet) --- I am come, &c. Not that Christ came for that end, that any one should be made blind; but that the Jews, by the abuse of his coming, and by their not receiving him, brought upon themselves this judgment of blindness. (Challoner) The Pharisees them replied: and are we also blind? Jesus said to them: if you were blind, by ignorance in not having heard of me, and my doctrine, you might be excused for not believing; but now saying, we see: and having been yourselves in the occasions and opportunities of seeing, your sin remaineth, and you in your sins. (Witham) --- If you were blind, &c. If you were invincibly ignorant, and had neither read the Scriptures, nor seen my miracles, you would not be guilty of the sin of infidelity: but now, as you boast of your knowledge of the Scriptures, you are inexcusable. (Challoner) --- If you had humility enough to acknowledge your blindness and ignorance, and seriously to seek for a remedy, you would soon be delivered from sin, and freed from the evil of blindness. But filled as you are with presumption, you remain still in blindness, which, as it is voluntary, is at the same time criminal and inexcusable. This is your evil; this you sin. (Calmet) --- We here see that it is judged by truth itself far better not to read the Scriptures at all, than to read them with bad dispositions; not to see the miracles of Jesus Christ, than to refuse our assent to their author. At the present day all read the Scriptures, but do we see any marked improvement in the moral world? The text, without any comment, is given to Churchmen and to Dissenters: the latter gladly accept the offering, because, as the Rev. Frederick Noland observes, (in his objections of a Churchman to uniting with the Bible society, p. 34) "the authorized version is in many places accommodated to their peculiar opinions, through the conciliatory spirit of the Church, which revised the text for the purpose of doing their objections away." And in his note on this part, he adds: "The last revisal of the translation of the Bible was undertaken, as is notorious, for the purpose of removing certain objections made to the old version by the non-conformists. That the execution has been answerable to the intent, is evident from the fact of the Dissenters having withdrawn their exceptions, and adopted the version. Comp. Nichols. Defens. Eccles. Anglic. p. 33. Pierre. Vindic. Fratr. Dissent. p. 60-67." Thus (Acts xiv. 23.) " Greek: cheirotonesantes de autois presbuterous kat ekklesian. When they had ordained them elders by election, in every church. (Bp's Bible.) When they had ordained them elders in every church. (Authors. vers.) These words, as applied to St. Paul and St. Barnabas, who had merely received first orders, (Acts xiii. 2.) form in the former version an argument against presbyters' right to ordain, and in the latter one in favour of that practice." As a further accommodation, he says the word elders was substituted for presbyters, &c. "Independency in the very nature of it is schism; for every congregation is a different church. " (Sherl. Def. of Stillingfl.) In this parable the fold is the Church: the good shepherd, and also the door is Christ: the thieves and robbers are false guides; the hirelings, such ministers as seek their own profit and gain, and a good living, as they call it; the wolves, heretics; the sheep not yet brought into the fold, the Gentiles not then converted. (Witham) His own sheep by name. By this is signified the particular care. (Witham) He goeth before them, leads them by his instructions and example. (Witham) All they who come are thieves, meaning those who came of their own accord, without being sent: not so the prophets, who had their mission from God. (Witham) How happy are we in having such a shepherd, so great, so good, so loving, so careful of our true welfare! O he is the true shepherd indeed, that came down from heaven to seek the poor sheep that was lost; and when he found it, took it upon his own shoulders to carry it home with joy to his heavenly fold. How dearly have his sheep cost him, for truly has he made good in himself sentence, that the good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. Let us then ever follow and obey, love and embrace this true shepherd of our souls. (Meditations for every Day, vol. ii. p. 417.) The good pastor gives his life for his sheep; he exposes himself to every danger to save them, no inclemency of the weather, no frost or cold, no rains or tempests, can drive him from looking over his sheep, to defend them from the attacks of wolves, &c. and like Jacob he might say, day and night was I parched with heat, and with cold, and sleep departed from my eyes. (Genesis xl.) Or, like David speaking to Saul: "Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion or a bear, and took a ram out of the midst of the flock; and I pursued after them, and struck them, and delivered it out of their mouths; and they arose up against me, and I caught them by the throat, and I strangled them, and killed them." (1 Kings xvii.) This is a model of a true pastor. But Jesus Christ has done more than this for us. He has exposed his life and his repose, he has spilled his blood, he delivered himself to the fury of his enemies, and has offered himself as a victim on the cross to his eternal Father, to free us, his lost sheep, from the most cruel wolf, the devil. And ever since his death he has always protected his Church, assisted and consoled his distressed flock under all their sufferings, pouring into their hearts the consolations of the holy Spirit, and sending to them holy teachers, to govern and lead them in the holy path of salvation. Such were the apostles and their successors, the bishops and priests of the holy Catholic Church, whom he has sent, and will continue to send, to govern his flock to the end of time. (Calmet.) Every bishop and pastor is bound to abide with his flock in the time of danger, and persecution, except himself be personally sought for, rather than his flock, or the flock itself forsake him. In such cases the pastor may fly, as the apostles did, and St. Athanasius and others. (St. Athanasius, Apol. de sua fuga.; St. Augustine, ep. 180.) I know mine, and mine know me. To know, in the style of the holy Scriptures, is to love and approve. (Witham) I lay down. That is, in a short time shall lay down my life for my sheep: for all, and in a special manner for my elect. See ver. 28. (Witham) One fold. In the Greek one flock. The signification is the same that is, there shall be one church of Jews and Gentiles converted. (Witham) Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, &c. Christ here speaketh of himself, as made man for the redemption of mankind: or rather, as he was our Redeemer, both God and man: for he laid down his life, and died as man, and had power to take it up again, as God. Yet the command of laying it down, he as man received from the Father: thus as man, he was obedient to him even to the death on the cross. See Philippians ii. 8. (Witham) In the gallery of Solomon, which was near the temple, supposed to be attached to the eastern gate of the court, and called beautiful. See Acts iii. 2. If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. St. John the Baptist had told them several times who Jesus was. See John chap. i. He himself had not only owned it in plain terms to the Samaritan woman, (John iv. 26.) but he had frequently delivered this truth so openly to them, that he came from heaven, that he was sent into the world that all men should be saved by believing in him, that he was the Son of God, and one with the Father, that they easily perceived he made himself God: but these men would have him to declare it again, that they might accuse him. (Witham) The works and miracles, that I do in the name of my Father, they give testimony of me, and shew who I am, being foretold by the prophets. See John v. 31, &c. (Witham) Because you are not of my sheep, refusing to believe in me, and to follow my doctrine, by your own wilful blindness. (Witham) Christ here says that his sheep hear his voice, and follow him: but let us ask ourselves, Do we cling close to this heavenly shepherd? Do we follow him, both by our faith and by our lives? Do we know him, and hear his voice? Do we fly from strangers, the world, the flesh, and the devil? If so, we are his sheep indeed; and if we persevere, he will bring us, in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil, to the pastures of eternal life. But if we run away from our shepherd, to follow these strangers, we must expect to fall a prey to wolves. (Med. vol. ii. p. 417) They shall not perish for ever: and no man shall snatch them out of my hand. He speaks of his elect, of those whom he called by a special Providence and mercy, whom he blessed with more than ordinary graces, and with the gift of final perseverance to the end in his grace. (Witham) That which my Father hath given [1] me, is greater than all. We may look upon this as the true reading by Tertullian, St. Hillary, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, &c. The ancient Fathers make use of these words, to shew the eternal procession of the Son from the Father; and that they are one in nature, substance, power, &c. The reading in the ordinary Greek copies is now different. My Father, who gave me them, (the sheep) is greater than all. No one can snatch, or pull them by force, out of the hand of the Father. He had said just before, no one shall, or can snatch them, out of my hand. And this shews that the hand, that is, the power of the Father and the Son, is equal, is one and the same. See St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, &c. (Witham) =============================== [] Pater meus quod dedit mihi, majus est omnibus. See Tertullian, lib. contr. Praxeam. chap xxii, p. 513. C. Ed. R.; St. Hilary, lib. vii. ed Trin. p. 930. Ed. Ben.; St. Ambrose, lib. iii. de Sp. S. chap. 18. Ed. Par. 1586.; St. Augustine, trac. 49. in Joan. p. 616, Quid dedit filio Pater majus omnibus? ut ipse illi esset Unigenitus Filius. St. John Chrysostom takes notice, that by the hand of the Father, is here understood his power. And that it follows from hence, that the power or hand of the Father and the Son is equal, is one and the same: and if their power, says he, is the same so is their substance, Greek: ei de e dunamis e aute, endelon oti kai e ousia. om. xa. (in Joan. 363. tom. viii. nov. Ed. Ben.) I and the Father are one, [2] or one being, not one person, nor one by an union of affection only, but in nature, substance, power, and other perfections, as appears by the whole text: for Christ here tells them that none of his elect shall perish, because no one can snatch them out of his hands, no more than out of the hand of his Father: and then adds, that he and his Father are one, or have one equal power: and if their power, says St. John Chrysostom, is the same, so is their substance. Christ adds, (ver. 38.) that the Father is in him, and he in the Father; which also shews an union of nature and substance, and not only of love and affection, especially when taken with other words of our Saviour Christ. (Witham) =============================== [] Unum sumus, Greek: en esmen, i.e. says St. John Chrysostom, secundum potentiam. Greek: kata ten dunamin entautha legon. See St. Cyril, p. 667.; St. Augustine, tract. 49. p. 617, Huc usque Jud\'e6i tolerare potuerunt ... tune vero more suo duri ad lapides concurrunt ... ideo irati sunt, quia senserunt non posse dici, Ego et pater unum sumus, nisi ubi \'e6qualitas est Patris et Filii. ... Ecce intelligunt Jud\'e6i, quod not intellligunt Ariani.==================== Then took up stones, &c. because, they said, being a man, thou makest thyself God. The Jews, says St. Augustine, understood well enough what the Arians will not understand, that from Christ's words it follows that he was one and the same God with the eternal Father. (Witham) --- The Jews, in opposition to our Saviour's doctrine, took up stones to destroy him, in order that he might preach no more to them. So heretics at the present time exercise the odium of their impiety against the same Lord, by perverting his holy doctrines, and, as much as in them lies, pulling him and his servants down from the glorious seats of heavenly bliss. (St. Augustine) This is addressed to princes established to govern the people of God. They are the image of God on earth by the authority they exercise, and which they have received from Him. --- Is it not written in you law, (under which were also comprehended the Psalms) I have said: you are Gods? &c. Christ here stops the mouths of the Jews, by an argument which they could not answer, that sometimes they were called Gods, who acted by God's authority. I have said: you are Gods. (Psalm lxxxi. 6.) But then he immediately declares, that it is not in this sense only that he is God. 1st, Because he has been sanctified by the Father, which St. Augustine and others understand of that infinite sanctification, which he has necessarily by always proceeding from the Father. Others expound it of a greater sanctity and fulness of grace above all other saints, given to him, even as he was man. But 2ndly, he adds at the same time, and confirms what he had often told them, that he was the Son of God, sent into the world: that his works shew that he was in the Father, and the Father in him. by this they saw that he was far from recalling or contradicting what he had said before. And therefore (ver. 30.) they sought to apprehend him, and put him to death for blasphemy. (Witham) --- Eloim, which name of God was so called from judging, and may be interpreted judges. (Menochius) And he escaped out of their hands; perhaps making himself invisible, or hindering them by his divine power. (Witham) At the end of the preceding chapter, we are told that Jesus went into the place where John the Baptist was first baptizing. This place, as may be gather from St. John, (chap. i. ver. 28. and 44.) was Bethania; but not the Bethania where the sister of Lazarus resided. The Bethania where Christ was at this time was beyond the Jordan, and was likewise called Bethabara; whereas the Bethania where Lazarus lay sick, was two miles to the south of Jerusalem, and formed a part of the suburbs of that city. It is called the town of Martha and Mary, because they lived there; in the same manner as Bethsaida is called the city of Peter and Andrew. (Calmet) This sickness is not unto death. This is, though he truly die, it is not designed that he remain dead. (Witham) --- This sickness is not unto death; because his death itself was not unto death, but rather to the working of a great miracle, by which men were brought to the true faith, and thus avoided an eternal death. (St. Augustine, tract. 49. in Joan.) --- Lazarus indeed died of this sickness, but he did not die as other men, to continue dead; for Jesus raised him again to the glory of God. (Sts. Cyril, Chrysostom, &c.) Some, by the day in this place, understand the time preceding the Passion of our Saviour; and, by the night, the time of his Passion. (Theophylactus) --- By this he encouraged his disciples, assuring them that the day of his sojournment on earth was not yet over; and therefore that the Jews, with all their malice and hatred, could not hurt him. But when the night (the time of his Passion) comes, then their power over him commenced. This is your hour, says he to them, and the power of darkness. (Calmet) --- The Hebrews then divided the day into twelve parts of equal duration, from the rising to the setting sun. (Bible de Vence) Lazarus ... sleepeth. It is strange that the disciples could imagine that Christ spoke of an ordinary sleep, and that he would go two or three days' journey to awake him. Nothing but the fear and concern they were under, would make them think so. (Witham) To men indeed he was dead, but to God he slept. For the Almighty as easily raised him from his grave, as man can raise the slumberer from his bead. (St. Augustine, tract. 49. in Joan.) When Christ says, that you may believe, we must not suppose he means, that they might begin than for the first time to believe, but that their faith, already begun, might be increased; for the faith of the disciples still stood in need of miracles, to make it grow more strong and rooted. (St. Augustine, as above.) Thomas ... said, let us also go, that we may die with him. That is, with Jesus: this he said, exhorting the other disciples not to fear. (Witham) --- The words, Thomas and Didymus, have the same radical signification; both meaning twins. About fifteen furlongs. About two Italian miles. (Witham) If thou hast been here. These words shew that the faith of the two sisters was but weak; as if the Son of God was not everywhere: or as if he could not restore him to life when dead and buried. (Witham) --- Martha believed in Christ, but not as she ought to have done. She did not yet believe him to be God, but addressed him as one who is remarkable for virtue, and approved of by heaven. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. 61. in Joan.) Thy brother shall rise again. Martha took notice that Christ did not express, whether immediately, or at the general resurrection, which she and the Jews generally believed. (Witham) I am the resurrection, and the life. That is, the author of both. (Witham) --- I am the resurrection, I am he who will at the last day raise him up; I can, therefore, if I will, raise him up now also. (St. Augustine) Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. Martha breaks out into an act of perfect faith. See Chap. i. ver. 49. (Witham) It was customary to visit, occasionally, the sepulchres, there to weep over the deceased. (Bible de Vence) He groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself. The Latin and Greek, both in this and the 38th verse, express a more than ordinary inward trouble. Christ, as he was truly man, had the affections and passions of human nature; yet so that he was master, even of the first motions, which could not raise in him any disturbance or disorderly inclinations. He permitted, therefore, and, as it is said, raised in himself these affections of compassion and grief at this time. (Witham) Where have you laid him? He asks what he knows, says St. Augustine, to raise their attention, their faith, hope, &c. (Witham) Jesus wept. A mark of his human nature, when he was going to give them a proof of his divinity, in raising the dead to life. (Witham) --- The tears of the disconsolate sisters called forth tears from the tender commiseration of Jesus. Nor was it unworthy the Son of God to shed tears. See Luke xix. 41. About to give proofs of his divinity in raising the dead, he is pleased to give, first, undoubted proofs of his humanity, that he might shew himself both God and man. Take away the stone. He could have done this by his word and command; or he could have made Lazarus come out without taking off the stone; he need not to pray, who could do and command every thing. (Witham) Father, I give thee thanks, that thou hast heard me. He knew that what he asked, even as man, must needs be granted; but he prayed for our instruction. (Witham) --- Christ was about to pray for the resurrection of Lazarus; but his eternal Father, who alone is good, prevented his petition, and heard it before he presented it. Therefore does Christ begin his prayer, by returning his almighty Father thanks for having granted his request. (Origen, tract. 18. in Joan.) He cried with a loud voice: Lazarus come forth. His will had been sufficient. He calls upon the dead man, says St. John Chrysostom, as if he had been living; and it is no sooner said than done. (Witham) Loose him, and let him go. Christ, says St. Gregory, by giving these orders to his apostles, shews that it belongs to his ministers to loose and absolve sinners, when they are moved to repentance, though it is God himself that forgiveth their sins; and they by his authority only. (Witham) --- Lazarus comes forth bound from the sepulchre, that he might not be thought to be a phantom; and that the bystanders might themselves loose him, and touching and approaching him, might know for certain that it was he. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxiii. in Joan.) --- St. Cyril and St. Augustine both adduce this verse to shew the power of priests in absolving sinners. See St. Cyril, lib. vii. last chap. in Joan. and St. Augustine, tract. 49. in Joan. The chief priests ... said: what do we? &c. as if they had said: why are we so slow, so remiss, and indolent in our proceedings against this man, when we daily see what numbers he draws after him by his miracles? (Witham) The Romans will come upon us, in case he be admitted as our great Messias, and our King. (Witham) But one of them, named Caiphas, being the high priest, &c. He said not this, says the evangelist, of himself, but as the high priest of that year. The spirit of prophecy was given him, and he foretells that Jesus was to lay down his life both for the nation of the Jews, and for all mankind. The gift of prophecy itself does not make a man holy. It was also given to the wicked Balaam. (Numbers chap. xxiv.) (Witham) --- It is supposed that he exercised the sacrificial office alternately with his father-in-law, Annas, who, as we have seen in Luke iii. 2. was also high priest. (Bible de Vence) How great is the power of the Holy Ghost? From a wicked mind he brings forth the words of prophecy. And how great is the power attached to the pontifical dignity! For Caiphas having becoming high priest, though unworthy of that dignity, prophesies, not knowing indeed what he says. The Holy Ghost makes use of his tongue only, but touches not his sinful heart. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxiv. in Joan.) The same words have an impious and sacrilegious sense in the intention of the high priest, the enemy of Jesus Christ: and a divine and prophetic sense, in the intention of the Holy Ghost. (Bible de Vence) --- We here behold the privilege of the office and order, though in a wicked person: and as we have the assistance of God for the utterance of truth, which Caiphas neither meant nor knew, we may rest satisfied that Christ will not leave Peter's chair; (Luke xxii. 32.) whose faith he promises should never fail, though the occupants be as bad as their enemies describe them. Ephrem was a small city or town in the neighbourhood of Bethel. Some suppose it to be the same as Ephron, mentioned in 2 Paralipomenon xiii 19., and 1 Machabees v., 2 Machabees xii. 17. Eusebius and St. Jerome say it was situated about 20 miles to the north of Jerusalem. (Calmet) --- Here he remained with his disciples till the time in which he had resolved to deliver himself up into the hands of his enemies. (Bible de Vence) This was the last Pasch that our Saviour kept upon earth, and the one on which he suffered death for our salvation. (Calmet) --- It is well called the Pasch of the Jews, and not of the Lord, since on it they were laying snares to apprehend their Saviour. (Origen) --- Thus making this day of festivity a day of murder. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxv. in Joan.) --- They went up so early to purify themselves by the sacrifices ordered by the law. (Bible de Vence) He had not then arrived, because He would not expose himself to the fury of his enemies before his own time. (Bible de Vence)==================== On the tenth day of the month the Jews were accustomed to collect the lambs, and other things in preparation for the ensuing great feast. On this day, likewise, they generally had a small feast, or treat for their friends, at which time Jesus coming to Bethania, joined his friends in their entertainment. This was most likely in the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Martha served at the table herself, thinking herself happy in waiting on Jesus, whom she considered as her Lord and God. Lazarus was one of them that were at table, to shew himself alive, by speaking and eating with them, and thus confounding the inexcusable incredulity of the Jews. And Mary too shewed her loving attachment to Jesus, by anointing his feet with her precious ointment. (Theophylactus, St. Augustine, and St. John Chrysostom) Judas did not then begin to be wicked: he followed Christ, not in heart, but in body only. This our Master tolerated, to give us a lesson to tolerate the bad, rather than divide the body. (St. Augustine, in Joan. tract. 50.) Me you have not always with you. He speaks of his corporal presence; for by his majesty, by his providence, by his ineffable and invincible grace, he ever fulfils what he said, (Matthew xxviii.) Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (St. Augustine, tract. 50 in Joan.) To kill Lazarus. A foolish thought, says St. Augustine, as if Christ who had raised him to life from a natural death, could not also restore him to life, when murdered by them. (Witham) --- O foolish thought, and blinded rage! As if you could, by putting Lazarus to death, take away power from the Lord; as if Christ, who had already raised one that had died, could not as easily have raised one that was slain. But, lo! he has done both. Lazarus dead, he hath restored to life, and himself slain, he hath raised to life. (St. Augustine, tract 50. in Joan.) Do you see that we prevail nothing? [1] Thus said the Pharisees, being vexed that so many followed Christ, even after they had ordered, that whosoever owned him, should be turned out of their synagogues; and after they had employed men to apprehend him, but to no purpose. (Witham) =============================== [] Quia nihil proficimus. In most Greek copies, and also in St. John Chrysostom, we read: you see that you prevail nothing; as if these words had been spoken by some of Christ's friends, to make his adversaries desist. Greek: Theoreite oti ouk opheleite ouden. Gentiles ... come up to adore. These either were proselytes who had been Gentiles, and now had embraced the Jewish law: or they were such among the Gentiles, who owned and served the one true God, as Cornelius did, (Acts, chap. x.) but did not submit themselves to circumcision, and all the other Jewish rites and ceremonies. These could only enter into that part of the temple, called the court of the Gentiles. (Witham) Unless the grain of wheat. The comparison is this, that as the seed must be changed, and corrupted in the ground, before it fructify, so the world would not be converted but by Christ's death. (Witham) --- By this grain of corn our Saviour means himself, who was to die by the infidelity of the Jews, and be multiplied by the faith of the Gentiles. (St. Augustine, tract. 51. in Joan.) We must minister to Jesus by seeking not our own things, but the things of Christ; that is; we must follow him, we must walk in his footsteps, we must perform the corporal works of mercy, and every other good work, for his sake, till we come to put in practice the most perfect act of charity, the laying down our lives for our brethren. Then will he crown us with the greatest of rewards, the happiness of reigning with him. And where I am, there shall my minister be. (St. Augustine, tract. 51. in Joan.) Now is my soul troubled. Christ permitted this fear and horror to come upon his human nature, as he did afterwards in the garden of Gethsemani. Father, save me from this hour; yet he presently adds, but for this cause I came unto this hour; that is, I came into this world for this end, that I might die on a cross for all mankind. In like manner, when he had said in the garden, let this cup pass from me, he presently joined these words: but not my will, but thine be done. (Witham) --- Lest the disciples, upon hearing our Saviour exhorting them willingly and courageously to suffer death, should think within themselves, that he could well exhort them to these things, being himself beyond the reach of human misery, he assures them in this place, that he himself is in agony, and yet does not refuse to die for them. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxvi. in Joan.) Father, glorify thy name, by my sufferings and death, as well as by many miracles that shall follow. A voice came from heaven, and so loud, that some there present compared it to thunder: and at the same time these words were heard: I have glorified it, thy name, and I will glorify it again, by a number of ensuing miracles at Christ's death, at his resurrection and ascension, as well as by all those miracles, which the apostles and disciples wrought afterwards. (Witham) As the soul of Christ was troubled, not on his own account, but for the sake of the people; so this voice came from heaven, not for his sake, but for that of the people. What it announced was already known to him; the advantage and instruction of the Jews was its end, object, and motive. (St. Augustine, 52. tract. in Joan.) Now is the judgment of the world: their condemnation, says St. John Chrysostom, for not believing. --- The prince of this world, that is, the devil, shall be cast out from that great tyranny, which he had over mankind, before Christ's incarnation. (Witham) --- By these words Christ informs the Gentiles that wished to see him, that soon he would punish the incredulous Jews, and cast off their synagogue, for their malice and insatiable hatred against him; and that the prince of this world, that is, the worship of idols, should be destroyed, and all called to the true faith. (Calmet) And I, if I be lifted up from the earth: that is, on the cross. See the same expression, John iii. 14. and viii. 28. --- I will draw all things, all nations, to myself by faith. (Witham) How sayest thou the Son of man must be lifted up? By these words of the people, Christ, in this discourse must have called himself the Son of man, though it is not here mentioned by the evangelist. The people also tell him, they had heard that their Messias was to abide for ever: which was true as to his spiritual kingdom of grace, not as to such a glorious temporal kingdom, as they imagined. (Witham) Yet a little while, [2] that is, for a very few days, I, who am the light of the world, am with you. (Witham) --- How much do the Jews now do, and yet they know not what they do: but like men that are walking in the dark, they think they are in the right way, when alas! they are quite the contrary. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxvi. in Joan.) =============================== [] Adhuc modicum lumen in vobis est, Greek: eti mikron chronon, to phos meth umon esti. They mistake, who take modicum for an adjective, that agrees with lumen. They could not believe, [3] that is, they would not, says St. Augustine, or it could not be, considering their wilful obstinate blindness. (Witham) --- But where then is the sin, if they could not believe? They could not believe, because they would not. For as it is the glory of the will of God, that it cannot be averse to its own glory, so it is the fault of the will of man, that it cannot believe. (St. Augustine, tract. 53. in Joan.) They could not believe. Since the prophet has foretold it, and he cannot but say the truth, it is impossible that they should now believe. Not but they had it in their power to believe; and had they believed, the prophet would never have foretold the contrary. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxvii. in Joan.) =============================== [] Non poterant credere. St. Augustine (tract. 53.) Quare autem non potuerunt, si a me qu\'e6ratur, cito respondeo, quia nolebant.==================== He hath blinded their eyes, &c. See Matthew xiii. 14. (Witham) --- God blinded the Jews, not by filling them with malice, but by refusing them his graces, of which they had made themselves unworthy, and which they before abused and despised. It was their perverse will, their pride, presumption, and obstinacy, that brought on them this judgment. (St. Augustine) For they loved the glory of men. This was one of the chief obstacles of their belief: yet many even of the chief of them believed in him; but durst not own it for fear of being disgraced, and turned out of their synagogues. Do not human considerations, and temporal advantages, hinder men from seeking out, and embracing the truth? He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. In what sense these words are true, see John xiv. ver. 9. where they are repeated again, and with other expressions to the same sense. (Witham) I do not judge him. To judge here, may signify to condemn. St. Augustine expounds it in this manner: I do not judge him at this my first coming. St. John Chrysostom says, it is not I only that judgeth him, but the works also that I do. Before the festival day, or feast of the Pasch. see the note on this word Pasch, Matthew xxvi. ver. 2. Here when St. John says, before the festival day, he means in the evening, or latter evening after sunset, on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, when the great feast of Azyms or unleavened bread was begun, (for the Jews began their feasts from sunset on the foregoing day) so that the hours from sunset, at least, on the 14th day of the month of Nisan (at which time the paschal lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread belonged to the first, and great day of Azyms, which lasted till sunset on the 15th day of the month of Nisan. St. John therefore says, the day before, meaning after sunset on the 14th day of the month; but yet it was part of the same great feast, which was kept on the 15th day. See also the note Matthew xxvi. ver. 17. (Witham) And when supper was done. By this we must not understand, that the supper was over; for we afterwards find the Jesus again sat down, and gave bread to the traitor. But these words only mean, that all had partook of refreshment, and might be therefore said to have supped. (St. Augustine, tract. 55. in Joan.) --- He knew that he went out from God, and would return to God; but at the same time, he did not leave God, when he went out from him, nor us, when he returns to him. (St. Augustine, as above.) --- And though he went out from God, and returns to him, yet here he condescends to perform the office, not of the Lord God of the universe, but of a man and a slave; (St. Augustine) and this, says St. John Chrysostom, (hom. lxix. in Joan.) that he might tread all pride under foot: doing every thing himself on this occasion, to teach us with what eagerness we ought to perform the duties of humility. He riseth from supper; that is, after supper was done, or ended, as it is here said, (ver. 2. and 1 Corinthians xi. 25.) girded himself like a servant, to wash and wipe the feet of his apostles. (Witham) --- If we compare the text of the four evangelists, it will appear that the washing of the feet preceded the institution of the blessed Eucharist, of which St. John is silent. (Bible de Vence) St. Ambrose and St. Bernard shew that this washing was mysterious, and significative of the very great purity expected of those that receive the blessed Eucharist. Lord, dost thou wash my feet? My master, my Lord, the true Son of the living God, wilt thou wash the feet of me, thy servant, thy disciple, a poor vile sinner? this must not be. (Witham) If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me. At this, Peter, as one thunderstruck, replied: Lord, not my feet only, but my head; whatever my Lord pleaseth. (Witham) He that is washed, &c. The feet are always apt to contract some dust or dirt; and in the mystical sense, he that is washed by the sacraments of baptism, or penance, from greater sins, must still endeavour to cleanse, and purify his affections from lesser failings of human frailty. And you, my apostles, are clean from greater offences, but not all of you, meaning the traitor Judas. (Witham) --- It is impossible that the extremities of the soul (if we may be allowed the expression) should not, as long as we tread upon this earth, receive some stain or other; although in the opinion of men, the soul appear just. Many indeed after baptism, are covered with the dust of sin, even to the head, but those who are disciples indeed, need only to wash their feet. (Origen, tract. 32. in Joan.) --- The foulness of the feet, when the rest is clean, signifies the earthly affections, and remains of former sins remitted, which are to be cleansed by devout acts of charity and humility. (St. Ambrose, lib. iii. de Sacram. chap. 1; St. Bernard, de c\'e6n. Dom. ser. 1.) --- Though his disciples were clean, still he washed their feet, comformably to that of the Apocalypse, chap. xxii. "He that is clean, let him be cleansed still." (Origen, tract. 32. in Joan.) You also ought to wash one another's feet. Not that he made this a standing precept according to the letter; but designed it as a lesson in humility. We find this custom literally observed in several churches, as it is now down every year by diverse prelates, and by Christian kings and princes. (Witham) --- He gives us an example of a more elevated act of virtue, that we may at least learn to practise the lower degrees of it. For he indeed was their Lord, but when we perform this office, we can but do it to our fellow-servants. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxx. in Joan.) --- That it is, blessed Peter, which you were ignorant of, but which he promises to explain afterwards. (St. Augustine, tract. 58. in Joan.) Shall lift up his heel against me. It is the sense of those words, (Psalm xl. 10.) hath supplanted me; and they were spoken of Judas's sin in betraying Christ. (Witham) --- Jesus Christ applies in this place to the perfidy of Judas, that which David appears to have said on occasion of the perfidy of Achitophel, who was thus a figure of the perfidious Judas. (Bible de Vence) One of his disciples. St. John himself was lying at table in (or towards) the bosom of Jesus. [1] These words seem to express the manner that the Jews were place at table. They had couches about a table, to lean or lie upon; and three for example upon each couch. The master, or head of the company, was placed in the midst; so that we may suppose, that Christ was placed on one of these couches in the midst, St. Peter on one side of him, and St. John on the other; and that St. John, in that resting and leaning posture, had his head all the time turned, and inclined towards Christ's bosom: yet it can scarce be imagined, that his head laid continually upon our Saviour's breast or bosom; for this posture would have been very uneasy to Jesus, or to any one. St. John then leaned all supper time towards Jesus's bosom or breast, but not upon it. (Witham) --- Whilst all were fearing for themselves, and Peter, the very head of the apostles, was trembling, St. John rests; reposing on the bosom of Jesus. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxi. in Joan.) =============================== [] Erat recumbens in sinu Jesu, ver. 23. And cum recubuisset super pectus Jesu, ver. 25. In the Greek, ver. 23, Greek: anakeimenos epi to kolpo tou Iesou; and ver. 25, Greek: epipeson epi to stethos tou Iesou. The word Greek: anakeimenos from Greek: anakeisthai, seems to express no more than the manner in those days of leaning, or lying at table: as in the Latin, accumbere, or discumbere; but Greek: epipeson, from Greek: epipiptein epi to stethos, signifies a bowing or falling down on Christ's breast, as it were in a fit of trouble or grief. See the author of the Analysis, diss. xxxvi. St. John Chrysostom, (hom. xllii. p. 423, tom. 8, Nov. Ed. Ben.) seems to make a difference betwixt these two expressions, when he says: Joannes ... in sinu Jesu recubat, nec recubat solum, sed in pectus incidit: neque hoc solum qu\'e6situ dignum est, &c. Greek: o Ioannes anakeitai eis ton kolpon tou Iesou, kai ouk anakeitai monon, alla kai to stethei epipiptei, kai ou touto monon axion zeteseos, &c.==================== When Christ had said, one of you is to betray me, St. Peter whispered with St. John, by turning to him behind Jesus's back, and desired him to ask, who this was: now when John had leaned down upon the breast of Jesus, or as the Greek hath it, falling down on the breast of Jesus, as a person may do in a great concern, or fit of grief, he said, Lord, who is it? This posture seems to have been only for that moment of whispering, and to have been different from the posture of eating at table. (Witham) Satan entered into him, who presently went out with great anger and indignation. It was then night, likely about nine o'clock. (Witham) --- That which thou dost, do quickly. It is not a license, much less a command, to go about his treason: but a signification to him, that Christ would not hinder or resist what he was about, do it as soon as he pleased: but was both ready, and desirous to suffer for our redemption. (Challoner) --- Christ does not by these words exhort the traitor, much less command him, to perform his wicked deed; but he means to reprobate it, and at the same time testify that he would not hinder his being betrayed. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxi. in Joan.) --- It is the voice not of command, but of permission, not of a person in fear, but of one prepared for death. (St. Leo) Jesus said: now is the Son of man glorified: the time is at hand, when he shall be glorified by miracles at his death, resurrection, &c. (Witham) The commandment of mutual love had been previously given, but evidently misconstrued and abridged by the Jews to friends only, to this life only, and for earthly respects: but Jesus Christ reneweth it and enlargeth it after the form of his own love towards us, and giveth grace to observe it. (Bristow) You cannot follow me yet to the dying for justice sake, for you are not yet prepared for martyrdom; you cannot yet follow me to the glory of my body, when risen from the dead, but must wait till the general resurrection; you cannot follow me to the bosom of my Father, being not yet sufficiently perfected in charity. (St. Augustine, tract. 64. in Joan.) This commandment was already in the old law, where it is written, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; how then does our Saviour call it a new command? It is new, not because we simply love one another; but because we love one another, as he has loved us: not as men love one another, as being fellow creatures, but united in love, as being all the children of the Most High; that so we may be brethren to his only begotten Son, bearing to all the same love that he has borne to us. (St. Augustine, tract. 64. in Joan.) --- By this shall I moreover know that you truly love me. (Bible de Vence) The love which St. Peter bore our Saviour was exceedingly tender, but it was not yet sufficiently strong. (St. Bernard, Serm. iv. in Cant.) --- Jesus therefore asks him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for me? Do you think yourselves sufficiently strong to perform this heroic act for love of me? so far are you from exposing your life for me, that you will shortly deny me. (Menochius) After having answered the questions of St. Peter, Jesus again addresses himself to his disciples, and bids them not to be afflicted or troubled, at what he says to them. Many Greek and Latins begin this chapter thus: Jesus said to his disciples, let not your hearts be troubled. (St. John Chrysostom) --- Euthymius; Leont.; Theophylactus; Theodor.; &c. agree, that our Saviour wished to encourage his apostles, who were so much troubled, because he had said, that Peter should deny him. They thought within themselves, if Peter, who is the strongest, and most resolute amongst us, shall so far forget himself, as to deny his master, what will become of us? Jesus seeing their anxiety, tells them not to be troubled; but to believe in him, and in his words, for he had said, that he would not lose any, whom his Father had given him; (John chap. vi, ver. 39.) and that whosoever should believe in him, should have life everlasting. (chap. iii, ver. 15.) --- Let not you heart be troubled. Christ here begins those incomparable discourses to his apostles, which are set down in the four next chapters. His sufferings and death now approaching, he forewarns them not to be troubled. You believe in God, and put your trust in him; believe also, and trust in me, no less than in him. (Witham) In my Father's house. He does not say of your Father: for though God be the Father of all by creation, and of the just, by the grace of adoption; yet Christ in several places, calls him his Father, in a quite different sense, that is, as he was his eternal Father, as the ancient interpreters observe. (Witham) --- These many mansions signify different degrees of glory in heaven. (St. Jerome, lib. ii. adv. Jovin.) I will come again: not only by rising the third day, but at your death, and at the day of judgment: that where I am, you also may be, and may receive the reward of eternal happiness in my kingdom. And whither I go, you know, and the way you know. Thomas replied, we know neither. Jesus saith to him, I am the way. They knew it, says St. Augustine, (tract. 69.) but they did not know, that they knew it: they knew their Master, Jesus Christ, and he was the way: they also knew, that is, believed, the kingdom of heaven, but they knew not, that he was returning thither: for as yet their imaginations were upon a temporal kingdom. --- I am the way, by my doctrine and example: I am the Truth, by my promises; and I am Life, by the graces I offer and give. (Witham) If you know me, you would surely [1] have known my Father also. That is, (says St. John Chrysostom; St. Cyril; &c.) did you know me to be his true, and eternal Son, you would always know him to be the Father from all eternity. And from henceforth, especially from the coming of the Holy Ghost, you shall know him with a more perfect knowledge. And you have seen him, not as to the divine nature: in this manner, you have neither seen him, nor me. But, =============================== [] Cognoscetis eum, in the present Greek copies (one excepted) we read, cognoscitis, Greek: ginoskete; Maldonatus judges it the true reading. But not only St. Augustine and the Latin Fathers, but even St. John Chrysostom reads it in the future tense, Greek: gnosesthe: and takes particular notice of this reading. Greek: to men mellontos, hom. lxxiii. tom. 8. p. 432. Ed. Montfaucon. He that seeth me, seeth the Father also: [2] that is, he seeth him, who is not a man only, but who also, by my divine nature, am one and the same with the Father: so that he who believes, and as it were sees, or knows by faith, who I am, cannot but know, that I am one with my eternal Father; not one person, as the Sabellians fancied, but one in nature and substance. The ancient Fathers take notice against the Arians, that these words, and others that follow in this chapter, could not be true, if Christ was no more than a creature, though ever so perfect, there being an infinite distance betwixt God and the highest of his creatures. (Witham) =============================== [] Qui videt me, videt &Patrem. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om od. p. 435. Nov. Ed. si alterius esset substanti\'e6, non hoc dixisset, Greek: ei de eteras ousias en, ouk an touto eipen. See St. Cyril, p. 777. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? These words confirm the equality of the Father and the Son: nor can they be expounded of an union of affection only, by what Christ told them before. (John v. 17. and 19.) As the Father worketh till now, so I work: and whatsoever things the Father worketh, these also in like manner the Son doth. (Witham) --- In the Son and in the Father, there is one and the same essence, the same wisdom, the same power; so that what the Son says, he does not say it of himself, and what the Son does, he does not do it of himself; but it is the Father, who abideth in the Son, who both acts and speaks. And greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. Christ speaks of the greatness of visible miracles, and tells them, that after his ascension, they shall be enabled, even to do greater miracles than he has yet shewn to the world. He would give this power to his disciples, who were to convert the world; and perhaps the greatest miracle of all, was the conversion of the whole world. (Witham) --- Behold another proof of my divinity, viz. the wonderful miracles those perform, who believe in me. An impostor may seduce the vulgar with false miracles, or, perhaps, with real wonderful prodigies; but he cannot confer that power on others. Behold, I have performed miracles by my own power, without any deceit, and always with a sovereign authority. I have given those, who believe in me, power to work in my name, as great, and even greater miracles, than I have done myself. All this I have done, to shew you, that I am equally God with the Father. I truly am so, then, for it would be impossible for God to assist an impostor, a liar, and an enemy to his honour and glory. (Calmet) That will I do. He does not now say, this the Father will do: to shew that the power of both is equal, and the same. (Witham) Instead of afflicting yourselves at our separation, and my going to the Father, you ought, if you truly love me, to testify your affection, by a faithful observance of my commandments. Behold, this is the best proof you can give me of your attachment: better far than any exterior sign of grief and tenderness. (St. John Chrysostom) Paraclete. This is a comforter: or also an advocate: inasmuch as by inspiring prayer, he prays, as it were, in us, and pleads for us. --- For ever. Hence it is evident, that this spirit of truth was not only promised to the persons of the apostles, but also to their successors, through all generations. (Challoner) --- I have not changed the word Paraclete, which signifies, both and advocate and a comforter. He shall remain with you, and in you, for ever. What greater happiness, what greater security for the faithful, than to have this divine promise, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, remaining with the Church for ever, to protect her, and preserve her from all errors and heresies? (Witham) --- If the Holy Ghost had been promised only to the apostles, their successors could not have challenged the promise. But the promises and privileges were not merely personal, but attached to their office perpetually. Hence, the Holy Ghost, in every age and clime, perpetually watches over the Catholic Church, and preserves her from both open and secret attacks of her enemies. The world seeth me no more, after my death; but you shall see me, conversing with you for forty days, after my resurrection. (Witham) In that day, when I am risen again, or when the Holy Ghost is come, you shall know that I am in the Father, and how, and in what manner: as also, how I am in you, and you in me. Our Saviour Christ, on several occasions, speaks of different ways of being united, or of being one; as first, of being one in nature and substance, and by such an union, as agrees only with the divine persons, who are one in all things. 2ndly, Persons may be one, or united in affection and love, which also, as to its most perfect manner, agrees only with the three divine persons; but a similitude, and an imitation of this union of love, is found among creatures, both when they love God, and when for God's sake, they love one another: yet these unions are as different as God, and his creatures. The Arians and Socinians lay hold on these expressions, and of the words, (chap. xvii. ver. 21.) when Christ prays, that his disciples may be one, as he and his Father are one, which words imply no more than a similitude, and an imitation of that union of love (with which the three divine persons love one another) though at an infinite distance. If the old or new Arians examined, with a sincere desire of finding the truth (which they ought to seek from many passages in the New Testament, as well as from the sense and tradition of the Church, guided by the promised Spirit of Truth) they might certainly find how different is the union of nature and substance of the eternal Son with his eternal Father, and of that union of the three divine persons, when they are said to be one, from that inferior and lesser union of love and affection, by which either God loves his adoptive children, his faithful servants, or they love one another: they would easily discover, that many things are said of the unity and union of the divine persons, which could not be true, unless they were one and the same God, coeternal and consubstantial, which by no means can be said of God and his creatures, nor of the union of affection only, by which the creatures love one another. (Witham) Now that Christ in this place speaks only of this imperfect union of affection, appears by the following words: he that keepeth my commandments, loveth me: and he that loveth me, shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, by a recompense of glory in the next life. (Witham) Lord, how is it? Literally, what is done, or, what will be done, that thou art about to manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? This apostle imagined, that the Messias would make manifest his glory of a temporal kingdom, not to them only, but to all the world. But Christ, by his answer, lets him know, that he spoke only of a manifestation of his love to those that loved him. If any man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come to him, that is, the three divine persons, will come to his soul, in a special manner, so as to bless him with an infusion of graces, and make our abode in his soul. (Witham) The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, as proceeding also from me: and therefore Christ saith, in the next chapter, (ver. 26) that he himself will send him from the Father. He will teach you all things, &c. He will give you a more perfect knowledge of all those truths, which I have taught you. (Witham) --- Teach you all things. Here the Holy Ghost is promised to the apostles, and their successors, particularly, in order to teach them all truth, and to preserve them from error. (Challoner) --- The Scripture, in different places, remarks, that the apostles did not understand the accomplishment of prophecies, as soon as they were fulfilled. (Luke xxiv. 27.) They could not draw the comparison between the actions of our Saviour, and the figures of the old law: but no sooner had the Holy Ghost descended upon them, than they explained the Scriptures, their hearts and eyes being opened and enlightened by the light of the Holy Spirit. (Calmet) --- See chap. xvi. ver. 12. and 13. The Father is greater than I. [3] According to the common exposition, Christ here speaks of himself, as made man, which interpretation is drawn from the circumstances of the text, Christ being at that time, going to suffer, and die, and shortly after to rise again, and ascend into heaven, all which agree with him, as man, and according to his human nature. But the Arians can take no advantage from these words, (though with divers of the ancient Fathers, we should allow them to be spoken of Christ, as the Son of God:) the Father may be said in some manner to be greater than the Son, if we consider the order of the divine processions, that is, that the Father is the first person, and proceeds from no other; whereas the Son proceeds from the Father. If any one, says St. John Chrysostom, will contend, that the Father is greater, inasmuch as he is the cause, from which the Son proceedeth, we will bear with him, and this way of speaking: provided he grant that the Son is not of a different substance, or nature. St. Athanasius allows the same, and takes notice, that though the Father is said to be greater, yet he is not said to be better, nor more excellent, than the Son; because they are one and the same in substance, nature, and other perfections. (Witham) --- The enemies of the divinity of Christ here triumph, and think they have the confession of Christ himself, that he is less than the Father. But if they would distinguish the two natures of Christ, their arguments would all fall to the ground. Jesus Christ, as man, and a creature, is inferior to his Father, the Creator; but, as God, he is, in every respect, equal to him. (St. Basil, St. Augustine, &c.) --- Others, likewise, answer it thus: Following the confused opinion of the world, and even of the apostles themselves, who as yet only considered Christ as a prophet, and as a man, eminent in virtue and sanctity, he was less than the Father. (St. John Chrysostom; Leont.; Theophylactus; Euthymius) --- And likewise the title of Father, (as we generally use the word) is greater, and much more honourable, that that of Son; and in this respect, Christ is inferior to his Father. (St. Athanasius; St. Hilary; St. Epiphanius; St. Gregory of Nazianzus; and St. Cyril) ---But this appellation, though really true, does not destroy the equality of the persons, because Christ has declared, in numerous other places, that he is equal to the Father; that he is in the Father; and that he and the Father are one. The apostles ought to have rejoiced that Christ was going to the Father, who was superior to him, considering him in his human nature; because, then, would the Son shew forth his honour and glory to be equal to the Father's, in heaven. This would have been a mark of a pure, solid, and disinterested love, which ought to have inspired the apostles, if they truly loved their divine Master. (Calmet) --- Protestants assume to themselves the liberty of making the Bible only, the exclusive rule of faith, yet refuse this privilege to others. Thus Luther insisted, that his catechism should be taught, and followed. Calvin burnt Servetus for explaining his faith, by his own interpretation of the Bible, particularly of these words, the Father is greater than I. The Church of England compels every clergyman to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles, and has inflicted the severest penalties on such as interpreted the Bible according to the principles of Socinus; and on Catholics, who understand the words of Jesus Christ, This is my body: this is my blood, in the literal and obvious sense of the words. As long as each individual is at liberty to expound Scripture by the private spirit, it is a great injustice to compel any one, by penal laws, to yield his judgment to any authority, that is not less fallible than his own. =============================== [] Pater major me est, Greek: o pater meizon mou estin. St. John Chrysostom, hom. Greek: oe . p. 443. Nov. Ed. Si quis vero dixerit majorem esse Patrem, ut filii principium, non huic contradicemus, Greek: kath o aitios tou uiou, oude touto anteroumen. See St. Athanasius, Orat. 1. Cont. Arianos, p. 362. Ed. Ben. non dixit, Pater pr\'e6stantior est me, Greek: kreiton mon esti, ne quis eum alium a Patris natura, esse suspicaretur, sed major dixit, non quidem magnitudine quadam, aut tempore, sed quia ex ipso Patre gignitur, &c. See St. Augustine, tract. 78. p. 699. propter forman servi, dicit, Pater major me est, &c.==================== As the Father hath given me commandment, so I do. --- He again speaks of himself, as man. Arise, let us go hence. Yet by chap. xviii. ver. 1. Christ still continued the like instructions, either in the same place, or in the way to Gethsemani. (Witham) He here shews, that the virtuous themselves stand in need of the help of the husbandman; therefore the Almighty sends them tribulations, and temptations, that they may be cleansed, and rendered firm, like the vine, which, the more it is pruned, the more vigorous are its shoots. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxv. in Joan.) See John xiii. 10. On account of our being in this world, we sometimes ask for that, which is not expedient for us. But these things will not be granted us, if we remain in Christ, who never grants us any thing, unless it be profitable to us. (St. Augustine, tract. 81. in Joan.) --- If we abide in Christ, by a lively faith, and his words abide in us by a lively, ardent charity, which can make us produce the fruits of good works, all that we ask, will be granted us. (Bible de Vence) --- These conditional expressions, if you remain in the vine, if you keep my commandments, &c. give us to understand, that our perseverance and salvation are upon conditions, to be fulfilled by us. --- (St. Augustine, de cor. &gra. chap. 13.) It is the glory of the husbandman, to see his vine well cultivated, and laden with fruit. And it is the glory of God, my Father, to see you filled with faith, charity, and good works, and to behold you usefully employed, in the conversion of others. Then will men, seeing your heavenly Father, as the author of all these blessings. (St. Matthew v. 16.) (Calmet) As I also have kept my Father's commandments. He still speaks of himself, as man. (Witham) --- This frequent admonition, of keeping the commandments, proveth, that a Christian's life consists not in faith only, but in good works. (Bristow) You are my friends. A wonderful condescension, says St. Augustine, in our blessed Redeemer, who was God as well as man, to call such poor and sinful creatures, his friends; who, when we have done all we can, and ought, are still but unprofitable servants. I have called you my friends, because I have made known to you, &c. We can only understand these words, as St. John Chrysostom takes notice, of all things which they were capable of understanding, or which it was proper to communicate to them; for, as Christ tells them in the next chapter (ver. 12.) I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. (Witham) O ineffable grace! For what were we, before Christ chose us, but wretched and abandoned creatures? Such we were; but now we are chosen, in order that we may become good by the grace of Him that hath chosen us. (St. Augustine, tract. 86. in Joan.) If the world hate you. The wicked, unbelieving world, hate and persecute you, as they have done me; remember, that the servant must not desire to be treated better than his master. (Witham) Here Christ predicts, that many will be deaf to the words of his Church, as they have neglected to attend to his precepts. They would not have sin, or would not be guilty of sin: that is, they might be excused, as to their not believing me to be their Messias: but after so many instructions, which I have given them, and so many, and such miracles done in their sight, which also were foretold of their Messias, they can have no excuse for their obstinate sin of unbelief. They have hated both me, and my Father: that is, by hating me, the true Son, who have one and the same nature with my Father, they have also hated him, though they pretend to honour him as God. See on this chapter St. Augustine (tract. 81.) and St. John Chrysostom (hom. lxxvi.) in the Latin edition, hom. lxxvii. in Joan. in the Greek. How can this be true, that Christ wrought greater wonders than any one else had ever done? We find recounted in the Old Testament, the miracles of Elias and Eliseus, who raised the dead to life, healed the sick, and brought down fire from heaven; of Moses, who afflicted Egypt with plagues, divided the Red Sea, for the passage of the Israelites, and brought water from the rock; of Josue, who stopped the waters of the Jordan, for the passage of the children of Israel, and in the battle of Gabaon, made the sun and moon stand still; in all which miracles, there appeared a greater manifestation of power, than in any of the miracles wrought by our Saviour, during his ministry. But to this may be answered, that the miracles of our Saviour were much more numerous than those of any of the saints of the Old Testament, even of Moses himself; particularly when we compare the few years which he preached, and manifested the glory of his Father by his miracles, with the long life of Moses: Christ did not preach full four years, whereas Moses governed the people forty years. Again, if the miracles of Jesus were not of so astonishing a nature, at least they always had for their object, the healing of the sick, and the good of the people; which the prophets have given us, as the distinguishing characteristics of the miracles of the Messias. Add to this, the ease and authority with which he performs them, which are most sensible proofs of their superiority. But what chiefly distinguishes his miracles, from those of the other saints, is, that he performed them in proof of his divinity, and of his mission, as the deliverer of Israel: whereas the prophets only perform miracles, as the ministers of the Lord, and as so many voices, which foretold the Messias. Besides, if the ancient saints could work miracles, they never could confer that power upon others, as Christ did upon his disciples, of which the Jews themselves were witnesses, in al the places whither Christ sent his disciples. We omit mentioning his resurrection, which at this time he had not performed, but had already foretold, and which was the greatest miracle that has ever been performed. (Calmet) Whom I will send. The Holy Ghost is sent by the Son: therefore he proceedeth from him also, as from the Father; though the schismatical Greeks think differently; (Bristow) otherwise, as Dr. Challoner says, he could not be sent by the Son. You shall give. He vouchsafes to join together the testimony of the Holy Ghost, and of the apostles; that we many see the testimony of truth, jointly to consist in the Holy Ghost, and in the prelates of the Catholic Church. See Acts xv. 28.====================